Woman tried to rob store armed with toy penguin

A woman attempting to rob a petrol station had threatened the clerk with a concealed bomb later determined to be a toy penguin, authorities say.

A Yavapai County Sheriff's Office statement said the woman entered a Chevron on Wednesday evening and claimed she had a bomb in a hand concealed under her sweater. She demanded cash from the clerk and threatened to blow up the store.

The clerk explained that because the petrol station was closing, the register was empty. The woman pressed on, but the clerk continued to refuse until she left the store, Sheriff's Office spokesman Dwight D'Evelyn said.

The clerk spotted the license plate of the getaway car, and the car's registered owner, Andri Lynn Jeffers, 26, matched the clerk's description and appeared to be the woman captured on surveillance footage, D'Evelyn said. Jeffers confessed to the attempt and said she used a toy penguin, not a bomb, D'Evelyn said. She was jailed on suspicion of attempted robbery.