Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Yo, Elizabeth Dutton,
Speaker 1: Dave Kusten.
Speaker 2: You know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 1: I do, I do? Okay? Do you like whiskey?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: In the jar or not in the jar? Sure?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: Do you like peanut butter? Of course I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: to you what I do Tom. On one side, you
Speaker 1: have good old Whiskey, a bold, loud and strong partnering
Speaker 1: crime who exudes confidence. I don't know who wrote this,
Speaker 1: but godspeed. On the other we have peanut butter is. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's part of the Perry Mason series, a rich, smooth
Speaker 1: and irresistible spread that's as dependable as they come for
Speaker 1: all your late night cravings. And you know kindergarten lunches.
Speaker 1: Little did you know these two blend together quite phenomenally.
Speaker 1: In fact, they go together so well they make peebe
Speaker 1: and Jay jellis. It's nearly impossible to just have one
Speaker 1: of this delicious treat so encouraging alcoholism. But we have
Speaker 1: to warn you a night with screwball s k R
Speaker 1: E W B l L is bound to get a
Speaker 1: little nutty cringing. Screwball is the original peanut butter whiskey.
Speaker 1: I think it has to be the original that embraces
Speaker 1: everybody's nutty side. Screwball's iconic mix of both sweet and
Speaker 1: savory flavors definitely pushes boundaries, but that's exactly what makes
Speaker 1: it uniquely appropriate for any occasion.
Speaker 2: What wrote this?
Speaker 1: Like, I don't know, but like first communion, poor me
Speaker 1: out's up. So yeah, Screwball peanut butter whiskey. How does
Speaker 1: it push bound Well, the boundaries of decency. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Is like, is jelly like the steady and the whiskey
Speaker 2: like the peanut butter stepping out?
Speaker 1: Like oh yeah, yeah, it's the side, it's the A
Speaker 1: little strange. This came from Emmy. Emily. I think she
Speaker 1: goes by Emmy. Someone read the emails that we get
Speaker 1: and passed it along. That never happens. They're kept in
Speaker 1: a dark, dank vault and no one but this one
Speaker 1: made its way to the top bubbled up. So yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks Emmy.
Speaker 2: Well, no, thank you, Emmy. That definitely is ridiculous. Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh I got one for you and for Emmy.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: How about a guy who robs five banks in the
Speaker 2: same region in a span of less than a year.
Speaker 2: That is some that's some criminal density. That's ambitious, but
Speaker 2: that's not all. He then makes one of the more
Speaker 2: remarkable career shifts you'll see from a member of the
Speaker 2: Five Timers Club. After twelve years of hard time, he
Speaker 2: comes out of the joint with a running start on
Speaker 2: his best life. This is not normal, No, This is
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis
Speaker 2: and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 2: one hundred percent ridiculous. Elizabeth Dave, have you ever been
Speaker 2: so bored that you decided to do criminal or criminal
Speaker 2: adjacent things just to chase the dread away?
Speaker 1: I've dreamt of criminal adjacent or criminal things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, how about like mildly mischievous things?
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, totally. We I used to work in
Speaker 1: a copy mat on campus, the copy play the printing shop,
Speaker 1: and we would be really slow during the summer. We'd
Speaker 1: like print up a bunch of stuff and they just
Speaker 1: kind of sit around, and we used to come up
Speaker 1: with how could we builk this operation out of money?
Speaker 1: We didn't do it, but you know, we would contemplate
Speaker 1: it and make lists of all the ways you could
Speaker 1: steal money. From the copy mat from.
Speaker 2: The I guess, I guess that's technically conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, and we could if we had carried
Speaker 1: it out. I'm sure that you know. First of all,
Speaker 1: it would have gone on our permanent records.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have been busted.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So well, this guy, so the story I'm about to
Speaker 2: tell you. This guy got a case of the little
Speaker 2: town blues, right, you know how he decided to melt
Speaker 2: them away with a number of bank jobs.
Speaker 1: Hey, that's spicy. That'll do it, pretty.
Speaker 2: Big league stuff. His name is Sean Hopwood, but it's
Speaker 2: spelled s h O n oh, so like the same
Speaker 2: Sean Sean. It's like, I think of it as like
Speaker 2: the sound of a sword coming out of the sheath Sean,
Speaker 2: or like cutting a slice of chocolate cake Sean.
Speaker 1: If he went to a first grader and he said,
Speaker 1: his friend's name is Sean, how do you spell it
Speaker 1: as h O N?
Speaker 2: Take out a big crayon exactly h if Zaron, we're here,
Speaker 2: God bless Yeah. Point, I'm pointing to the ceiling for
Speaker 2: no reason.
Speaker 1: I'm pouring my water out down on the or of
Speaker 1: the studio here. But if he was fine, by the way,
Speaker 1: everyone he's fine, we hope. Yeah. No, he's just out.
Speaker 1: He's off traveling the world and giving speeches because he's,
Speaker 1: you know, important.
Speaker 2: If Zaren were here, he this guy would qualify for
Speaker 2: my man status. I'm pretty okay, okay, So let me
Speaker 2: tell you a little more about where he come from.
Speaker 2: Sean hails from the small town of David City, Nebraska.
Speaker 2: I wish I came from there. It would be like
Speaker 2: the right place.
Speaker 1: I know, right, this is like the origin story. He
Speaker 1: just rose up out of the ground.
Speaker 2: David City is about an hour and a half west
Speaker 2: of Omaha, or forty five minutes northwest of Lincoln. Lincoln's
Speaker 2: kind of like the biggish small town, you know, biggish
Speaker 2: small city college town, because that's where the Huskers are,
Speaker 2: right exactly. But David City is pretty flat, nothing but
Speaker 2: corn and cattle, lots of grain, silos, old brick, and
Speaker 2: everyone's all up in each other's business. Of course, Sean
Speaker 2: quickly outgrew that town. He craved a life that felt
Speaker 2: bigger and more meaningful. He thought he deserved better. He
Speaker 2: wanted to dance Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: He just wanted He just wanted to let his body
Speaker 1: express itself.
Speaker 2: The freak flag needed to fly. So let me tell
Speaker 2: you a little more about his upbringing. He had loving parents,
Speaker 2: Robert and Rebecca. His dad was a member of the
Speaker 2: Nebraska Cattlemen Association. Robert he worked labor intensive jobs in
Speaker 2: the cattle industry, and he ran a local youth basketball league,
Speaker 2: which Sean eventually would participate in.
Speaker 1: Do you think his dad loved the cattle more than
Speaker 1: he loved his son.
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I mean, he being a part
Speaker 2: of the Nebraska Cattlemen Association is as I think, a
Speaker 2: big efforts.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, that's high steaks stuff.
Speaker 2: But you know, Sean, unlike the cattle, had his share
Speaker 2: of successes. I think the cattle just hang out.
Speaker 1: So m m.
Speaker 2: Sean made the local paper. In elementary school along with
Speaker 2: his buddy Tom, who will hear more about later. They
Speaker 2: won some kind of financial literacy competition, like they had
Speaker 2: to budget out meals for a week and YadA, YadA, YadA. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. But then in high school he was
Speaker 2: a bona fide basketball star. He took his team to
Speaker 2: the state champs. They took home the trophy and Tom too.
Speaker 2: Tom was a part of that crew. Go Pride, Go
Speaker 2: aquinas Pride. Oh wow, Okay, So from what I could tell,
Speaker 2: he and his friend Tom, they're living that Larry Bird
Speaker 2: life right Like, they're practicing basketball endlessly, They're.
Speaker 1: Using shorts short short shorts.
Speaker 2: Using glu stick to keep their cow licks down. They're
Speaker 2: working on their trash time.
Speaker 1: Wait what year is this?
Speaker 2: This is actually so he's he's my age, so I
Speaker 2: think it was like he so he would have gone
Speaker 2: to high school in like the early early nineties. Like yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, watching the basket College like.
Speaker 1: When you're talking about gluing down Cawlyx, I like, was
Speaker 1: this in the fifties? Is no?
Speaker 2: I mean I just imagine, like, how else is Larry
Speaker 2: Bird going to keep that cow lick down?
Speaker 1: Yeah? These kids are probably using that gel that La Palmer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: looks there you go.
Speaker 2: And you know, so they're doing all that and they're
Speaker 2: dreaming about doing something vaguely impressive with their lives.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, things started to go south for Sean around college time.
Speaker 2: So in the fall of ninety three, he enrolls at
Speaker 2: Midland Lutheran University with a basketball scholarship.
Speaker 1: Good job, Sean, Yeah, hooray.
Speaker 2: He flunks out after five months. Oh boo, did you
Speaker 2: ever go from being really good at something to realizing
Speaker 2: you're just okay at it? People way better than God.
Speaker 1: Yes. I junior high I tried to play basketball, couldn't
Speaker 1: do it. To save my life. Coach pulled me aside.
Speaker 1: This is like seventh grade, pulls me aside, is like,
Speaker 1: this is not for you. Oh man, I mean come,
Speaker 1: I'm like, must give me a break, dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: Oh, I was horrible. And then also then so I
Speaker 1: go from high school where I'm like overachiever, top of
Speaker 1: my class, blah blah blah, go to college, can't pass calculus,
Speaker 1: can't pass chemistry, wind up on probate, academic probation, and
Speaker 1: I got taken down a notch. Like girls, I'm a
Speaker 1: class of sixty. Wasn't hard to be super good. And
Speaker 1: then you go to a college with like thirty thousand
Speaker 1: people in it. It was reckoning, David, You.
Speaker 2: Never forget that first d or fduh.
Speaker 1: God it brought me lou and then I got Then
Speaker 1: I went and did it again. I got another F
Speaker 1: in calculus when I tried to retake it.
Speaker 2: Lesson learned, let's learned, don't take calculus.
Speaker 1: I was humble. Yeah, oh yeah, me and math don't mix.
Speaker 2: So this is what happened to Sean. He's got like
Speaker 2: the ghost of Ricky Bobby Future on one shoulder, saying,
Speaker 2: if you ain't first, you last, right, And he's got
Speaker 2: the dad from searching for Bobby Fisher on the other shoulder,
Speaker 2: who's like, Joshua, there are no losers in this family.
Speaker 2: You must always win. I mean, you give yourself a break, brother, right.
Speaker 2: You know that anxiety dream where you dream you've never
Speaker 2: been to class.
Speaker 1: I have those all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too, Oh yeah, me too, Like where like
Speaker 2: the last day you're coming in to take the exam
Speaker 2: and you've never been there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you find out that you've been registered for a
Speaker 1: class this whole time, and it's for me, it's always
Speaker 1: a math class exactly.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, that's what he did, basically. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: just never showed up for class. So he flunks out
Speaker 2: of school, packs up his CD disc man, his Tivas,
Speaker 2: his tapestry, remaining cases of clearly Canadian, his reservoir dogs poster.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about this. He deflates his basketball, puts it
Speaker 2: in the briefcase, and his buddy Tom drives him back
Speaker 2: home to David City. There he gets a tiny apartment
Speaker 2: and jobs a riveter in a trailer factory, which sounds
Speaker 2: kind of dismal, kind of cool, but.
Speaker 1: Kind of does kind of yeah, like it could go
Speaker 1: either way.
Speaker 2: He quickly burns through his money. His dad is going
Speaker 2: to bail him out, but only if he joins the Navy.
Speaker 2: Tough love. Yeah, Sean figures it at least get him
Speaker 2: out of David City for a while. And that's like
Speaker 2: his whole m right now is like I hate this city.
Speaker 2: I heard this town. I hate this town. So he's like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll go in the Navy. So now we're in June
Speaker 2: ninety four. He goes through boot camp, he gets an
Speaker 2: advanced Stinger missile certification shipped out to Bahrain. Oh and
Speaker 2: he's quickly promoted. Now he's supporting a bunch of Stinger
Speaker 2: missile operators in the Persian Gulf, which is a big
Speaker 2: deal in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And way better than shoveling manure in David City.
Speaker 1: Right yeah, or riveting trailers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, riveting trailer parts.
Speaker 1: Now, when you fight people in like the street or
Speaker 1: in bars, do you tell him like, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: you downtown in David City.
Speaker 2: There's there's trouble in David Cities, and it's in city
Speaker 2: and it starts with it starts with his fist. But
Speaker 2: again it wasn't enough. He gets that itch like he did,
Speaker 2: you know in college, where he was like I really
Speaker 2: wanted to do basketball, but I'd suck at basketball and
Speaker 2: I don't know what to do. He must have been
Speaker 2: pretty insufferable to the dudes around him, you know. He
Speaker 2: gets a military promotion and is like I am better
Speaker 2: than this.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he's under twenty one in a strange place, living
Speaker 2: with a bunch of other enlisted dudes where it's legal
Speaker 2: to consume alcohol at eighteen. What do board soldiers do
Speaker 2: you under those circumstances.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth, Oh, I don't want to know. What I do
Speaker 1: want to know?
Speaker 2: Actually they play Tetris no lots and lots of booze.
Speaker 2: He drinks so much booze that he comes down with
Speaker 2: a cute pancreatitus and nearly dies.
Speaker 1: Like at the under twenty one a cute Oh goodness,
Speaker 1: that's a lot he's drinking that that rot good.
Speaker 2: He's got like a seventy year old liver. Uh So,
Speaker 2: after a week at the Bahrainy Hospital, they ship him
Speaker 2: back to Bethesda to finish off his term, and then
Speaker 2: when the enlistment is done, he ends up in Lincoln, Nebraska,
Speaker 2: and then back in David City, which you know is
Speaker 2: thrilling for him. This time he takes up residence in
Speaker 2: the glamorous shapeer Mayor his parents' basement. Okay, I made
Speaker 2: that up myself.
Speaker 1: I like this. That was really good. That's totally good.
Speaker 1: So he's just sitting in the basement all jaundiced.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he gets a job in the cattle industry, actually
Speaker 2: shoveling manure this time. Oh, cleaning out barns and dealing
Speaker 2: with that side of the business, which you know fair
Speaker 2: enough does suck.
Speaker 1: So he's got to do it. Yeah, someone's got to
Speaker 1: do it. Might as well be the kid with pink creatatus.
Speaker 1: He again creatitis.
Speaker 2: He runs into money problems again. Mister financial genius you know,
Speaker 2: fifth grader or whatever, runs into money problems. It seems
Speaker 2: he was either passing bad checks or very bad at
Speaker 2: personal bookkeeping. Either way, Johnny Law catches up with him
Speaker 2: his dad again, this time very sternly bails him out
Speaker 2: of any immediate danger. After the bad Checks incident, he
Speaker 2: goes back to what he knows, tries to reenlist in
Speaker 2: the Navy. The Navy says no, thank you. They look
Speaker 2: at his record, they're like yeah, yeah. So now he's
Speaker 2: spending a lot of time with his friend Tom, both
Speaker 2: of them trying to chase their depression away with hard
Speaker 2: living and jobs they hate. Around this time, he and
Speaker 2: Tom have an absolute epic throw down in the snow.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a dumb story, so I'm not going
Speaker 2: to tell you the whole thing, but basically it's like
Speaker 2: drunk driving one off spinship throwing haymakers, petty insults and
Speaker 2: as you know, Elizabeth hurt. People tend to wound those around.
Speaker 1: Yes, so it's gruesome Toosome. They're just going around, like
Speaker 1: just living the worst life in David City.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you know, they're working, you know, sixty hour
Speaker 2: weeks at work and then they're boozing and they're like,
Speaker 2: you know, looking for looking for college girls and Lincoln
Speaker 2: the whole thing and visible all the time. After you know,
Speaker 2: about a week after the fight, they end up in
Speaker 2: a bar after exchanging awkward apologies like bros, de like, oh, dude,
Speaker 2: I'm so oh my god, dude, I am so sorry,
Speaker 2: like I was from. Then they have the kind of
Speaker 2: conversation that those of us in the hindsight business call
Speaker 2: a huge mistake. Oh no. It starts with Tom saying,
Speaker 2: so what do you think about us robbing a bank?
Speaker 1: Oh? That is like the worsd especially coming out of
Speaker 1: Oh boy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was it though, that was it. They found
Speaker 2: their cure for their terminal small town boredom and suffocating
Speaker 2: small lives. Here's what Sean says, Here's how he remembers it.
Speaker 2: Most people would have laughed that off. But to me,
Speaker 2: the world was newly framed in that instant, Everything once
Speaker 2: bleak was now interesting and new. The beauty of the
Speaker 2: idea was that we would either go down like Butch
Speaker 2: and Sundance, or we would have the money to really live.
Speaker 2: Either way it would be a big improvement. For the
Speaker 2: first time in a long time, we were excited about
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 1: They were just following their spirit.
Speaker 2: Well hot damn. Needless to say, Sean said, that sounds
Speaker 2: like an absolutely capital idea. My good man. So Sean
Speaker 2: gets home, he opens up Microsoft word Clippy pops up. Yes,
Speaker 2: it looks like you're about to rob a bank? Can
Speaker 2: I offer some suggestions? First, you should figure out which
Speaker 2: bank you will rob. Click more for more ideas, And.
Speaker 1: He clicked word art and wrote bank robbery across the
Speaker 1: top and wavy script like it was thinking totally.
Speaker 2: So they get into Tom's car and they go north
Speaker 2: to go bank shopping. Tom's father owned a small property
Speaker 2: in that direction. Their plan gets a little bit confusing,
Speaker 2: but let me tell you really quick, this is like
Speaker 2: the thing they put the most thought into. They're gonna
Speaker 2: stash their actual getaway car at Tom's dad's farm before
Speaker 2: the robbery. That's location one. Okay, they pick out an
Speaker 2: abandoned cornfield somewhere and stash an old grain truck there.
Speaker 2: That's location two. Then they're going to drive a disposable
Speaker 2: stolen car to the bank and drive it back to
Speaker 2: location two, ditch it, grab the grain truck as car
Speaker 2: number two to get them back to location one, then
Speaker 2: pick up their real car for the actual getaway. You'll
Speaker 2: double switch through. Yeah right, I mean, I guess it's fine,
Speaker 2: Like it seems like over engineered.
Speaker 1: But what's a vehicular shell game?
Speaker 2: So they find their target, they decide to hold up
Speaker 2: Petersburg State Bank. They case it three times. Tom wears
Speaker 2: a baseball cap and a wig and probably put on
Speaker 2: a missus doubt fire accent, and he asks for a
Speaker 2: tour of the safety deposit area. Oh really, really obvious.
Speaker 2: Sean goes in twice and asks for a roll of
Speaker 2: quarters each time.
Speaker 1: It was playing it low. There.
Speaker 2: They made hand drawings what they found. You know, they
Speaker 2: tried to let some time pass in order to remember
Speaker 2: the weirdos obviously casing the joint right now, Remember that
Speaker 2: whole passing bad checks issue. Yeah, Sean blew off his
Speaker 2: court appearance for that, So now he's got a bench
Speaker 2: warrant on top of it. Oh my god, call it
Speaker 2: a sporting handicap.
Speaker 1: I wonder why he wasn't able to follow through with call.
Speaker 2: So Sean and Tom are now back in David City.
Speaker 2: Now they'll need to steal a car and also locate
Speaker 2: some heaters because it gets cold in Nebraska. No, I
Speaker 2: mean guns.
Speaker 1: They're have to locate some gus the blower, Yeah.
Speaker 2: A couple blowers. So Sean goes back to Clippy, who says,
Speaker 2: you'll need something to put the money in, and then
Speaker 2: waves at the screen and minimizes. Sean grabs his dad's
Speaker 2: old toolbox and puts some canvas bags in there. He
Speaker 2: pulls together a duffel bag full of criming supplies and
Speaker 2: back to Clippy. You'll need to get away car. And
Speaker 2: then Clippy blows a kiss over its shoulder.
Speaker 1: That's weird.
Speaker 2: They find a car a few towns away in a
Speaker 2: church parking lot with the keys still in it, a
Speaker 2: nice Chrysler New Yorker.
Speaker 1: God, God bless a Chrysler New.
Speaker 2: York good old American leiaha car. Yes, uh so they
Speaker 2: stashed the car in the grain truck where they need
Speaker 2: them to be. They check into a CD motel using
Speaker 2: Tom's real name.
Speaker 1: Oh dumb?
Speaker 2: Smart?
Speaker 1: Okay, is it so dumb? It's smart?
Speaker 2: It might be what will say? In fact, you know
Speaker 2: their room isn't ready yet. So let's take a.
Speaker 1: Break, okay, and I'll wait in the car.
Speaker 2: I'd like you to find things to do in Petersburg,
Speaker 2: Nebraska for a few hours while we take in some
Speaker 2: lovely advertisements.
Speaker 1: Easy enough, all right.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, Elizabeth, wake up. You fell asleep on the nasty
Speaker 2: couch of the motel lobby, reading hemphlets about ghost tours
Speaker 2: and corn mazes.
Speaker 1: Where am I? Did you?
Speaker 2: Did you even hear any of those top shelf ads?
Speaker 1: I feel like they like it was by osmosis, something
Speaker 1: about LifeLock.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't. Should we go back? Should we?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Run?
Speaker 1: Okay it again?
Speaker 2: Well we'll spare you. It's Monday morning, August eighteenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven, and it's go time.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: The boys wake up, shake off the bed bugs. They
Speaker 2: drive the Ford Tempo to the grain truck, the grain
Speaker 2: truck to the Chrysler. They're about to set sail towards
Speaker 2: the bank in the stolen Chrysler. As they entered the
Speaker 2: town of Petersburg, they see a cop car parked about
Speaker 2: half a block away from the bank.
Speaker 1: Woolf oh no.
Speaker 2: They tool around outside of town a while and keep
Speaker 2: making passes around the bank, but the cop core is
Speaker 2: still there. Think Rooseph's think, Elizabeth, Yeah, close your eyes.
Speaker 1: My eyes are closed.
Speaker 2: I would like you to picture it. You're a large
Speaker 2: quadrupedal cree chewing on some delicious acorns by the side
Speaker 2: of the road. You see, Elizabeth, Your highly active salivary
Speaker 2: glands produce enzymes that help deactivate secondary plant compounds such
Speaker 2: as tannins that disrupt digestion, so convenient. You're a white
Speaker 2: tailed deer and you've got no particular place to be.
Speaker 2: You're standing outside your for now home, the remnants of
Speaker 2: an old barn. Part of the roof fell in five
Speaker 2: years ago, but it gives you decent protection from the
Speaker 2: elements and lots of snacks. Plus it's got good bones
Speaker 2: and abundance of natural light. You're thinking of putting up
Speaker 2: ship lap next fall. Your vision is, of course terrible,
Speaker 2: given that you're a deer, but you look up instinctively
Speaker 2: hearing the cheap roar of a Chrysler New Yorker pass.
Speaker 1: I have great hearing.
Speaker 2: Your great hearing picks up, squealing as the Chrysler flips
Speaker 2: a you bone and comes to rest just outside of
Speaker 2: the barn structure. What is this? The boys hop out
Speaker 2: and head for the barn, but by then you've spotted
Speaker 2: some discarded okra. You're chowing down goons. Be damned, you
Speaker 2: don't care. But the next thing you know, you smell something. No,
Speaker 2: your friend, the rabbit doesn't have the winds. That's a
Speaker 2: fart joke. Uh, that's burning hay that you smell.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Oh, the boys have started a fire in the barn.
Speaker 2: What are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: Wait, they start, Oh dough.
Speaker 2: You panic, and then you do the only thing you
Speaker 2: know how. You run real fast in the middle road
Speaker 2: and just stand.
Speaker 1: There and then get hit by a truck. Pretty much,
Speaker 1: well that's pretty much all they know how to do.
Speaker 2: There's an ellipses here, so we don't know what.
Speaker 1: I filled in for you.
Speaker 2: You see, the boys, we're hoping to lure the patrolman
Speaker 2: away with this fire. Oh in their car, yeah right,
Speaker 2: they get back in their car, they thoughtfully avoid you,
Speaker 2: and they park up on a hill to watch. Nothing happens.
Speaker 2: It's like an entire sleepy town rubbed its collective eyes,
Speaker 2: looked at the weak plumes of smoke and said, who knows,
Speaker 2: who cares?
Speaker 1: They probably thought it was someone just burn and brush.
Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently it was a It was a really like,
Speaker 2: it was more of a campfire than a raging barn fire.
Speaker 2: It didn't work. Undeterred and driven by Shawn's need for
Speaker 2: money to pay his lawyer for that bad checks thing,
Speaker 2: and despite that stubborn patrol car's continuing presence, the bros
Speaker 2: pressed on. They're locked in Elizabeth, Are you ready for
Speaker 2: the terminally bored, thrill seeking gen X twenty somethings big
Speaker 2: bank heist.
Speaker 1: Oh you have no idea? Yes, okay, so.
Speaker 2: Now it's Tuesday. They suit up Sean, who they agree
Speaker 2: to call mister Red. They've seen reservoir.
Speaker 1: Oh oh no.
Speaker 2: Shawn is dressed as a construction worker with boots, coveralls,
Speaker 2: a hard hat, and a big mask with eye holes.
Speaker 1: Wait, a mask with like a I guess.
Speaker 2: Scarecrow looking thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Probably, Oh that's not suspicious. Was the other one dressed
Speaker 1: as an Indian?
Speaker 2: Just wait? He's carrying his dad's metal toolbox with the
Speaker 2: canvas bags inside of it. Okay, you know he keeps
Speaker 2: that thing on him.
Speaker 1: And also he's got his daddy's toolbags.
Speaker 2: And he's strapped. Also, patrol car is still there. But
Speaker 2: screw it, we've gone this far. So he walks in.
Speaker 2: First thing he does, he drops the toolbox, bang, gets
Speaker 2: everyone's attention. He unzips his pant leg and pulls out
Speaker 2: his ruffle, which is kind of the coolest scene. Wow,
Speaker 2: he shouts, you.
Speaker 1: Know, his pant leg he's got like a.
Speaker 2: Zip up like those Adidas track suits.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, I was kind of hoping he just unzipped
Speaker 1: his fly and.
Speaker 2: Just dropped trout. He pulls out his heater.
Speaker 1: Or he has like this the snap that like rip
Speaker 1: away warm up pants.
Speaker 2: This is a family show.
Speaker 1: And then there's just him and his skid marked on pants.
Speaker 1: I've just got a whole other mental picture right now.
Speaker 2: He pulls up his cover all zip. Yeah, he's got
Speaker 2: his uh, he's got his long gun. He shouts, this
Speaker 2: is a robbery. A people are kind of smiling uncomfortably
Speaker 2: and sweating profusely. There were lots of fibers in the
Speaker 2: late nineties.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: So. Now Tom, who they agree to call mister Black,
Speaker 2: comes in. So they've got mister red, mister Black. A
Speaker 2: teller asks if this is some kind of joke. Sean
Speaker 2: yells again, everybody get down. Now. People start to move
Speaker 2: a little more alacrity. They hit the floor. Those bodies,
Speaker 2: they allow them to hit the floor.
Speaker 1: But they let the bodies hit the floor. Come on.
Speaker 2: Tom grabs the canvas bags and pulls all the cash
Speaker 2: into the teller drawers. Tom is getting nervous. He wants
Speaker 2: to know what's going on outside, and in a moment
Speaker 2: of unprofessionalism, Tom yells check the windows Hopwood instead of
Speaker 2: check the windows, mister Red.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god, oops, always bet on black.
Speaker 2: Now, all that's left to do is secure the bags
Speaker 2: and lock the would be hostages away so they can
Speaker 2: execute a quick getaway. Sean's checking his watch, seeing they're
Speaker 2: already three minutes in. He's panicking a little. But they
Speaker 2: managed to get everyone in the bank vault, lock him in.
Speaker 2: They mosey on out of there and into the chrysler.
Speaker 2: You know, it's as big as a whale, so there's
Speaker 2: plenty of room for all those canvas bags that cant
Speaker 2: They can.
Speaker 1: Just set sail exactly. Wait, now, is he still wearing
Speaker 1: the scare crow mass? That is terrifying. If I'm in
Speaker 1: the bank and I work there and this dude's sweat
Speaker 1: like limps in because he's got one leg as a
Speaker 1: rifle and he's wearing a construction hard hat and then
Speaker 1: like a potato sack with holes cut. Yeah, God, I
Speaker 1: would just I would just I would just collapse if
Speaker 1: I saw that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's it's funny you should say that.
Speaker 2: Because there were a lot of articles in the paper,
Speaker 2: local paper. He gets the banner press about what trauma
Speaker 2: these people went through. And like I'll tell you disclaimer.
Speaker 2: All these five bank robberies, no one shot, no one's
Speaker 2: pistol whipped, Like, no violence happens. Yeah, and yet there
Speaker 2: are all these like articles about the trauma these people
Speaker 2: who live with forever. And granted it's tough to be
Speaker 2: in a bank robbery, but oh yeah, yeah that's your point,
Speaker 2: Like yeah, it scarred them.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a bank robbery and he's dressed like
Speaker 1: nightmare fuel. Get out of here, yeah, like come.
Speaker 2: On, uh so where are they? They high tail it
Speaker 2: down the highway to the abandoned farm. They stashed the
Speaker 2: Chrysler deep in the woods and pull their jukebox money
Speaker 2: out of it. They switch their clothes from construction worker
Speaker 2: to farm hand. Now they hop in the grain truck
Speaker 2: and they head towards the location one. As they get
Speaker 2: on their way, the portable scanners go nuts. The police
Speaker 2: had gotten there already and removed everyone from the vault.
Speaker 2: They had already had really good descriptions of Sewan and Tom,
Speaker 2: although not the faces obviously. They both kind of slump
Speaker 2: a little lower in their seats in the grain truck. Next,
Speaker 2: they hear the tone on the scanner change cops are
Speaker 2: yelling that they have the vehicle in their sights and
Speaker 2: they're going to take it down. They look around terrified.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, they're on to us, like we are hoes.
Speaker 2: This is it. Yeah, they're still in the truck bed
Speaker 2: or Sean's in the truck bed. He holds tighter to
Speaker 2: his rifle and he braces. He expects to see the
Speaker 2: blue and reds any minute now. Two minutes pass. Nothing, huh.
Speaker 2: Then the scanner lights up again. We got them, say
Speaker 2: the cops. No sign of weapons or money. Turns out
Speaker 2: they nabbed two twin eighteen year old boys who had
Speaker 2: done absolutely nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: Oops, small wearing construction clothes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're roughly the shape of humans, five foot something
Speaker 2: and you have two arms. So, Elizabeth, they done did it.
Speaker 2: They got away with about fifty dollars fifty grand.
Speaker 1: That's a lot, because most of these stick ups they
Speaker 1: seemed to only come away with like, you know, several thousand.
Speaker 2: At the moment. They were kind of smart about it,
Speaker 2: Like they picked a bank that had had an ATM,
Speaker 2: that seemed like it was in a big enough town
Speaker 2: that would have some commerce, but not big enough they
Speaker 2: would actually have a police station, which is part of
Speaker 2: why they were surprised there was a cop there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let me tell you about how they split it. Tom
Speaker 2: took the bulk of his earnings in rolls of quarters.
Speaker 2: He had taken everything from the tills, including the quarters.
Speaker 2: He had said before the robbery he wanted to change
Speaker 2: so that quote he would never have to scrange quarters
Speaker 2: for the coin opp laundry again.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, little pinball wizard, how heavy is that
Speaker 1: twenty five grand in quarters?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean maybe it was like five grand. I
Speaker 2: don't know, Like, yeah, blessed.
Speaker 1: And so you said they got fifty Yeah they did.
Speaker 2: But oh but he took the bulk.
Speaker 1: Of it each Yeah, or like he took a section
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I got it, and it's you know, it's Sean's recollection.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, dude, buy a washer and dry that's right,
Speaker 1: your head on, Dan Sears. Get a warranty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, get an apartment that has a washer dryer.
Speaker 2: How about that.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of options.
Speaker 2: Tom, you know, as you can tell, is thinking about
Speaker 2: other things. He decides he's going to get off the
Speaker 2: fast moving bank robbery train and uses money to go
Speaker 2: to college. Oh, which is a smart move. Sean, who
Speaker 2: remember needed the money for his previous legal entanglement, does
Speaker 2: no one to quit. He's going to press his luck.
Speaker 2: Maybe he's finally found his special purpose in life. Perhaps,
Speaker 2: and it's in this time. So we're around October. This
Speaker 2: happened in August. A couple months after this job. Sean
Speaker 2: also gets popped for procuring alcohol for his brother, who
Speaker 2: is a miner. So he sent it to a five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars fine and spend sixty days in county jail.
Speaker 1: Wait, so he robs a bank but doesn't get caught
Speaker 1: by his alcohol for a miner gets caught.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like, oh my god, Keystone cops.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So after all that he gets out, he's thinking about
Speaker 2: his next job, his next bank job. He moves to Lincoln.
Speaker 2: He finds an apartment with a bunch of college dudes.
Speaker 2: This guy Craig, a friend from high school and fellow traveler,
Speaker 2: shows up. Craig had a much tougher start to life
Speaker 2: than Sean, and then he'd gone through a remarkably similar
Speaker 2: patch as Sean had, kind of like you know, getting
Speaker 2: kicked out of armed forces for one reason or another.
Speaker 2: But now Sean, now Craig is living in a car.
Speaker 2: Sean is a really nice guy, and he's like, I'd
Speaker 2: like to help this guy out. So he asked the
Speaker 2: other dudes if this guy can crash with him for
Speaker 2: a while. These dudes, you know, they shrug in between
Speaker 2: bites of hot dog and buns soaked in lemonade and
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, sure, dude, whatever, they're what they're warming
Speaker 2: up for every.
Speaker 1: Course they're getting gus I guess.
Speaker 2: So now it's about five months on. Sean's money is
Speaker 2: running dry because we've established he cannot handle money, so
Speaker 2: he's prepping for his next bank job. He offers to
Speaker 2: cut Craig in and see if you'll come along. Craig's like, sure,
Speaker 2: doesn't batter not. Now, we've talked on the show about
Speaker 2: a lot of ridiculous criminals who loved us at the details,
Speaker 2: right mm hmmm, where like the whole heist becomes kind
Speaker 2: of an extended Martha Stewart craft project.
Speaker 1: Oh totally, and I love them.
Speaker 2: This is very much not Sean. No sew Sean. A
Speaker 2: lot less planning goes on into the second one, and
Speaker 2: Sean himself admits that as time goes on, his heist
Speaker 2: get more and more half assed. He goes from elaborate
Speaker 2: multi car slide of hand and costume changes to more
Speaker 2: of a brute force and prey kind of thing. And
Speaker 2: as much as he manages to slog through five of
Speaker 2: these things, you don't get the sense that he loved
Speaker 2: the criming life.
Speaker 1: No, No, it doesn't sound like it.
Speaker 2: So like is falling out of college after the scholarship,
Speaker 2: and like he's drinking his way out of the Navy,
Speaker 2: and like his small score of a free happy meal
Speaker 2: in McDonald's monopoly game, Elizabeth, he got a taste of
Speaker 2: something bigger and didn't really care for it all that much. No,
Speaker 2: it doesn't sound like it, So okay. The second arm robbery.
Speaker 2: This time they target a bank near Lincoln, which is
Speaker 2: a little riskier because it's like, you know, a bigger,
Speaker 2: bigger place, more like county stuff, state stuff. We're now
Speaker 2: in December nineteen ninety seven. This is a saline state
Speaker 2: bank of Hallam. Hallum's a tiny town, but it's on
Speaker 2: the outskirts of Lincoln. This time they get in and
Speaker 2: out in three minutes, and they don't lock the onlookers
Speaker 2: in the vault. This time they could hear police choppers
Speaker 2: on their way out. But it was a real foggy
Speaker 2: day and that seems to have given them the cover
Speaker 2: they needed. Okay, the hall this time around twelve grand.
Speaker 1: Eh, bigger city, and they didn't get more money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just you know, they didn't. They didn't case
Speaker 2: the place.
Speaker 1: They lucked out that first one.
Speaker 2: I think so too. But by this time Sean had
Speaker 2: rung up a big tab with that lawyer representing him
Speaker 2: on the bad checks. Most of his six grand goes
Speaker 2: to the attorney fees a Hopwood always pays his debts.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: He hands the lawyer a paper grocery bag full of cash,
Speaker 2: mostly ones, and tells him they are tips from a
Speaker 2: restaurant job. Who would you have told him?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'd say, like, you know, I run a
Speaker 1: coin op laundry.
Speaker 2: I'm a dancer, I think is what I would have
Speaker 2: gone with, Like it's your second job.
Speaker 1: No, well, I mean it's sloths. People don't tip in dollars.
Speaker 1: They've tip in twenties.
Speaker 2: The acorns or.
Speaker 1: Corn cobs. I don't know what do like leaves? I
Speaker 1: guess I don't know, something like low calorie because they
Speaker 1: don't expend any energy. So yeah, they're like fiscal. That's
Speaker 1: for Koala is down the block.
Speaker 2: David, you got you gotta wait, like your home growing
Speaker 2: your look at this tree until it's like there's leaves again, and.
Speaker 1: They just come and they like squeeze hot chocolate into
Speaker 1: our mouths. Way there, you.
Speaker 2: Just dropped the g O, I know. So that's it
Speaker 2: for the second bank. Craig gets his cut. Sean's descriptions
Speaker 2: of these robberies get shorter and shorter in his book.
Speaker 2: Maybe he's too grosseddad about all his own behavior, or
Speaker 2: maybe they're just all a blur.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you say book?
Speaker 2: Yes, so this is not a spoiler. He did not
Speaker 2: his his like amazing second career is not.
Speaker 1: Author just okay, okay, I like that.
Speaker 2: That wouldn't be fair. No, so let's see. So they're
Speaker 2: now a duo though, Craig and Sean the magnificent pair.
Speaker 2: The next the next rob York State Banking, Gresham. A
Speaker 2: few months later, we're now March twenty fourth, nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: They get about sixteen grand and now we're at the
Speaker 2: fourth Bank, Bank of Peru. Sean artfully goes in disguised
Speaker 2: as quote a dirty homeless guy and started screaming like
Speaker 2: the characters in pulp fiction who robbed the Diner. Oh no,
Speaker 2: you just can't escape movie references.
Speaker 1: And in the nineties you can't get away from Tarantino references.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, yeah, but it is just.
Speaker 1: That cinematic draw for them.
Speaker 2: For yeah, I wish he had done the be cool.
Speaker 2: That probably would have been a yeah move.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: Total take on this one is about twenty five grand, Okay,
Speaker 2: but this time they are a hair's breadth away from
Speaker 2: getting caught, like a dog's hair away from getting.
Speaker 1: Adent hair away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get it. After the Caper, Sean gets pulled
Speaker 2: over in a speed trap, just after dropping Craig off Creigor's.
Speaker 1: McGregor.
Speaker 2: He's got a handgun and fifteen grand in the trunk
Speaker 2: and he's pulled over in a speed trap. That's a
Speaker 2: good look, and you know they look him up. Beep,
Speaker 2: Seawan's warrant from the bad checks come up. When the
Speaker 2: cops do their search, they get so excited about having
Speaker 2: him dead to rights for the warrant that they forget
Speaker 2: to search his car.
Speaker 1: No way, well, I mean on a speed ticket. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if he didn't have the warrants, I don't think
Speaker 1: they would have searched it for a speedy ticket.
Speaker 2: So he gets picked up in jailed friend coming.
Speaker 1: Made a warrant for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the gun and the cash are all still there
Speaker 2: in the trunk when he picks up the car. No way,
Speaker 2: he's like he's blessed, like absolutely hashtag blessed. So now
Speaker 2: there have been four armed robberies the Greater Lincoln area
Speaker 2: in a pretty short period of time, right from the
Speaker 2: first one in August ninety seven, this fourth one was
Speaker 2: in May ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, he's really cram him in there.
Speaker 2: Nine months by now. The FBI is looking over local
Speaker 2: law enforcement's shoulder and scouring for patterns, and the local
Speaker 2: cops have a reasonable sketch of Sean now with the face.
Speaker 2: His dad actually sees this on local TV and like
Speaker 2: lock himself in the office and starts crying, so his
Speaker 2: dad knows what's up. Yeah, yeah, Sean could sense that
Speaker 2: the walls were closing in. Though that's such a podcast cliche.
Speaker 2: I'm really embarrassed that I put it in this. There
Speaker 2: should be like a jar, I have to drop a fiver.
Speaker 1: Into something exactly well, head head down to sloths five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we're take your cares away.
Speaker 1: If you tip, if you tip a dancer at sloths
Speaker 1: five bucks, she'll just roll over on the stage, pull
Speaker 1: the blanket further up.
Speaker 2: Is that wow? Okay? Is that good or bad? You
Speaker 2: want to Victorian?
Speaker 1: It's very Victorian. Show a little bit of ankle.
Speaker 2: Getting I'm getting heated. So let's take another break. When
Speaker 2: we come back, I will take you through the final
Speaker 2: ill advised bank job and how Sean's life gets flipped
Speaker 2: turns upside down Elizabeth Dave after the Four Capers. Now
Speaker 2: Sean has a reputation among his friends and family. It's
Speaker 2: like he sent out an email and he was like, hey, everybody,
Speaker 2: it's like twenty percent off.
Speaker 1: His Christmas letter. He sends herund well, this year robbed
Speaker 1: a couple banks.
Speaker 2: But they all know. And he's got siblings, his brother Brooke.
Speaker 2: He's got another brother, Brett, who thought it was really cool.
Speaker 2: Like I said, his dad knew. There's this other guy
Speaker 2: named Tyler who is like a medium level weed dealer
Speaker 2: and gun supplier who also hooked him up with stolen cars.
Speaker 2: And Sean was spending a lot of time with Tyler,
Speaker 2: a far cry from his old Larry Bird lifestyle. Seawan
Speaker 2: is now, you know, taking bong hits, playing video games
Speaker 2: and watching reruns of Cheers in the Cosby Show.
Speaker 1: Do we know that's so different from the Larry Bird lifestyle. Well,
Speaker 1: that's who's to say. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: how he lives now. His brother is named Brooke.
Speaker 2: He's got to Brooke and Brett.
Speaker 1: Do you think Brooke's name is spelled b are uk?
Speaker 2: I wish? Yeah, he's got the double o's.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, No, no, I'm telling you his brother's name
Speaker 1: is belled b are you seeing?
Speaker 2: Well, how about how about we compromise. He's got the
Speaker 2: double o's, but that becomes his nickname. Everyone calls him
Speaker 2: double oh.
Speaker 1: Oh. Okay, that's perfect. That's how this happens.
Speaker 2: Okay. The big problem for Sean, though, is not with
Speaker 2: Double Oh. It comes when he finds out his brother Brett, Craig,
Speaker 2: Craig's little brother Cody, and their friend Harley, bunch of
Speaker 2: seventeen year olds are all themselves now planning a bank job.
Speaker 2: He had captured, Yes, he had captured the hearts and
Speaker 2: minds of a generation.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So Shan tries to play the big brother card on
Speaker 2: Brett and order him not to and you know, give
Speaker 2: him noogies and rope burns and all this, like, hey,
Speaker 2: don't rob the bank, come on the But at that point,
Speaker 2: what credibility does Sean have.
Speaker 1: Right, Who are you going to tell me what to
Speaker 1: do from watching you, Sean?
Speaker 2: If you don't let me do this, there's never gonna
Speaker 2: be a bank left for me to rob, exactly. But
Speaker 2: you know, Brett wasn't about to let Sean have all
Speaker 2: the fun for himself. So they make a deal. The
Speaker 2: David City U twenty two's as I call them, which
Speaker 2: in soccer that's what they call the under twenty two
Speaker 2: professional leagues.
Speaker 1: M huh.
Speaker 2: They could help out Sean on Sean's next and final
Speaker 2: big bank job, and Sean would allow them to what
Speaker 2: their beaks in case you.
Speaker 1: Were worried, right, a little apprenticeship, Yeah, but under.
Speaker 2: No circumstances could they go inside the bank with him.
Speaker 2: And after that they all agree, We're going to retire
Speaker 2: from the game, like this is our last score, which
Speaker 2: always works in the movies.
Speaker 1: And we've heard that on this show so many times
Speaker 1: as one last score, and then I'm retiring.
Speaker 2: So Sean reflects, bringing in Brett is the moment of
Speaker 2: my past for which I have the least patience or understanding.
Speaker 1: It's not that he has a regret, he has the
Speaker 1: least patience or understanding of what he was.
Speaker 2: He was out of his mind. Yeah yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: well that is the thing, like we don't know of
Speaker 2: any any drug activity going on here other than you know,
Speaker 2: just like a little yeah, yeah, a little too. But
Speaker 2: but it's not later on like like there's an allegation.
Speaker 2: It's not clear anyway. Uh s. Shawn and Craig at
Speaker 2: this point had already selected their fifth and final target,
Speaker 2: which is going to be Farmer's National Bank in Pilger
Speaker 2: or Pilger p I L G E R.
Speaker 1: You can say it both ways. I mean, who knows
Speaker 1: from Nebraska, but I'll say on authority you can. You
Speaker 1: can say it how.
Speaker 2: Oh I see, Okay, Yes, it's both a different eras
Speaker 2: in time it was owned by different.
Speaker 1: If you're on the left side of town, you say
Speaker 1: it one way and on the right side, and it's
Speaker 1: not northwest you no, it's left or right side.
Speaker 2: I'm there when it was French occupied and it was
Speaker 2: called perfect Okay. So the U twenty two's Bretton Harley
Speaker 2: steal the car for the getaway use. This time, that's
Speaker 2: like their big job, but they do a half assed job,
Speaker 2: like a seventeen year old is gonna do. They stashed
Speaker 2: it in a nearby abandoned farm, which seems like a
Speaker 2: theme mysteriously like the next day it's back where it was,
Speaker 2: So they picked a not so abandoned farm.
Speaker 1: Is basically yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they find another car, but it runs out of gas.
Speaker 2: Now they all walk up to a farmhouse to borrow
Speaker 2: some gas, which again seems like a dumb ass move. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and those old folks charm the pants out of this
Speaker 2: robbery crew. Sean's there. Sean gets so warmed up he
Speaker 2: even tells them they're all from David City. Oh no,
Speaker 2: but they have no gas. So then the robbery crew
Speaker 2: to a gas station. They all turn their pockets out
Speaker 2: like empty promises from a monopoly and realize they have
Speaker 2: no way to pay, so they fuel up, but then
Speaker 2: tore ass out of there, leaving one of the bigger
Speaker 2: criminal footprints you can leave before a crime has ever
Speaker 2: been committed. Right, dummy, dumb, dumb. So then the sad
Speaker 2: sacks the transmission goes on the way to the bank,
Speaker 2: like drops the tranny, like.
Speaker 1: They say on a stolen car, on a stolen car,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, so it's out of gas. Transmission is
Speaker 1: on its last legs. Yeah, gives out when they have it.
Speaker 2: They finally dump that one. They find a third car
Speaker 2: and that one sticks, so finally, And I think I'm
Speaker 2: actually getting sick of bank robberies and describing them at
Speaker 2: this point like yeah, yeah, YadA YadA, stick it, I
Speaker 2: get it, I get it. Sean does all the dirty
Speaker 2: work right, so he doesn't have much of a plan.
Speaker 2: He's running out of patience too. He walks into the
Speaker 2: bank brandishing a handgun and screaming blah blah blah. He
Speaker 2: walks to the registers. It said he like used the
Speaker 2: gun to scoop the cash out of this tills. But
Speaker 2: I don't really see that.
Speaker 1: Well let's say he did. Let's say that the gun,
Speaker 1: like the handle at the bottom he had welded like
Speaker 1: a large serving spoon on it, I like, or like
Speaker 1: a soup ladle.
Speaker 2: Or what about one of those grabbers from the Straight Story?
Speaker 1: Perfect, perfect good. He's like, Look, if you're going to
Speaker 1: modify a weapon, do it in a utilitarian way.
Speaker 2: I love it. And some people like a bump stock.
Speaker 2: I like, you know, a grab like a grabber. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh so okay, so he's got that.
Speaker 1: He gets all the grabbers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got the grabber gun. Uh he uh. He
Speaker 2: goes into the vault, he gets the stuff out, maneuvers
Speaker 2: into a bag. Customers and staff not okay. People are
Speaker 2: running out of the back screaming. I'm picturing like they've
Speaker 2: waving their hands around like the But Sean manages to
Speaker 2: get done. He gets out. Craig's little brother Cody is
Speaker 2: there waiting in the getaway car, like leaning against it.
Speaker 2: They know how to do this this time. Sean gets
Speaker 2: away with between one hundred and fifteen and a hundred
Speaker 2: more than thirty thousand dollars, get out way way more
Speaker 2: than he expected. Oh yeah, they It turns out they
Speaker 2: had just received a shipment of ATM cash, which he
Speaker 2: had no way of knowing. It just all worked out,
Speaker 2: dumb luck.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they're also like those crisp bills that smell real good.
Speaker 1: I like my dead president's crisy.
Speaker 2: So Sean heads to Omaha. He buys a fancy our
Speaker 2: money suit for an upcoming wedding he checks into the
Speaker 2: Double Tree for some of them free cookies. I love
Speaker 2: those free cookies. At this point, the FBI had all
Speaker 2: but made Sean and much of the crew. The first
Speaker 2: one to go down is little Harley, one of the
Speaker 2: U twenty two's Harley. Well, Harley gets popped for something
Speaker 2: minor but had way too much cash on him.
Speaker 1: As you know, I'm going to pretend in my head
Speaker 1: that Harley's eight years old.
Speaker 2: Continue, so all the mistakes start adding up on Sean.
Speaker 2: I've got some details. I think you're gonna have to
Speaker 2: skip them. One that I'll give you is there's just,
Speaker 2: like you know, a comedy of details. Sure, the couple
Speaker 2: they tried to get the gas from.
Speaker 1: The ones that supplied them with baked goods befriended them though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, last couple they talked to the people at the
Speaker 2: gas station who they had stiffed, and then they all
Speaker 2: go to the cops together like I think of a clue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's detectives.
Speaker 2: So that last job is on June twenty sixth, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety eight. The FBI arrest Sewn at the Double Tree
Speaker 2: in Omaha. On the thirtieth of June, like four days later,
Speaker 2: they also grabbed Cody Bach. That's Craig's brother, little brother.
Speaker 2: So I have Sean, Harley and Cody, two of whom
Speaker 2: are under eighteen. Oh boy, so that's it. This is
Speaker 2: all just for the part, for that one bank job.
Speaker 2: But the connections start being seen. The case gets transferred
Speaker 2: to federal court July eighth, nineteen ninety eight, which you know,
Speaker 2: everyone's sweating, and I won't go into all the details
Speaker 2: on how they tied them all together. Broke the case
Speaker 2: wide open. Most of it just like went through the
Speaker 2: U twenty two's and their friend's big mouse and kind
Speaker 2: of amateur hour. Right now, Remember Shawn's friend Tom, who
Speaker 2: called it quits after the first bank job and decided
Speaker 2: to move on with his life.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, he used his Yeah, he exactly used it
Speaker 1: to pay for college.
Speaker 2: Well, a year and a half later, the Feds nabbed
Speaker 2: Tom right on his college campus. They are no, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're waiting outside of his classroom. He's taking a test.
Speaker 2: They put the cuffs on just as he finishes up
Speaker 2: and walks out.
Speaker 1: Well, he's now the coolest guy on campus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was also in a criminal justice degree program.
Speaker 1: Oh stop it. Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 2: He pleads guilty. He gets four years, nine months in prison,
Speaker 2: then supervised release, and forty eight k in restitution. I
Speaker 2: don't know how that's like half the job plus some
Speaker 2: maybe damage or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, probably.
Speaker 2: Younger brother, Brett Hopwood not double O. He's a senior
Speaker 2: in high school, but they try him as an adult ouch.
Speaker 2: He pleads guilty. He gets twelve to thirty months. They
Speaker 2: do let him finish off his extracurriculars since technically the
Speaker 2: robbery happened while school was not in session, so you know,
Speaker 2: he can play his baseball playoffs or whatever.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, like before he asked to report for jail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's incredible.
Speaker 2: Among the other U twenty two's, Harley gets one to
Speaker 2: three years minus time served. Corey gets two to four
Speaker 2: years minus time served. His brother Craig Big Daddy, he
Speaker 2: gets thirteen years thirteen Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's like four bank corrupting minors. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So now we get to Sean. Sean starts off
Speaker 2: pleading not guilty, but changes his plea because each of
Speaker 2: the five robberies carried a max of twenty years in
Speaker 2: federal penn each, he becomes a cooperating witness against Tyler,
Speaker 2: who I think has the government named Glenn Woodard. I
Speaker 2: wasn't positive, but it seemed like they must be the
Speaker 2: same dude, or else he's two or separate. Yeah, Glenn
Speaker 2: the creator, Yeah, Glenn, Glenn the Creator. He attests to
Speaker 2: Glenn the Creator providing the guns and stolen cars and drugs.
Speaker 2: So Glenn gets six counts of aiding in a bedding. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's ten years in federal which you know, remember, as
Speaker 2: we know from the show, you don't get any parole
Speaker 2: in federal prison. Sean from that is able to plea
Speaker 2: down to twelve years and three months in federal prison.
Speaker 2: He also has to make one hundred and thirty four
Speaker 2: thousand restitution like immediately.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, good luck.
Speaker 2: And the judge, this guy's name is Judge Kopp says
Speaker 2: this is a tragedy. It sickens me to have to
Speaker 2: sentence this young man. By all accounts, Sean came across
Speaker 2: as like a pretty even keeled person in court. He
Speaker 2: was smart, he was attentive, he told the truth. He's
Speaker 2: a former basketball star who everybody knew, like people in
Speaker 2: the courthouse knew. One of the dispatchers from one of
Speaker 2: these crimes who had called it in she was marrying
Speaker 2: his point guard from the basketball team. Like it is
Speaker 2: a small town.
Speaker 1: Small town, Yeah, it's David's city.
Speaker 2: So yeah, like it just didn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: And the judge was just like, I hate that all
Speaker 2: has happened. I don't know why it happened. And the
Speaker 2: thing that I was going to say is, like Sean
Speaker 2: in his what is it called, like his declaration, there's
Speaker 2: a word for that.
Speaker 1: Declamation, no allocution.
Speaker 2: Allocution, that's right in Sean's what's another funny word for that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and Sean's cuticle, he says husness. Yeah. He says that
Speaker 2: he did it to get money for drugs, and I
Speaker 2: didn't I didn't see that anywhere, Like you don't need
Speaker 2: that much for weed, And he didn't say he was dealing,
Speaker 2: and like it's just not in the narrative. So I
Speaker 2: don't know if he just like weird fludged that one
Speaker 2: because he didn't have another answer.
Speaker 1: But well, maybe what he was getting the money for
Speaker 1: was so embarrassing that it would be better just to
Speaker 1: say it was for drugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or maybe it was. And when it came to
Speaker 2: book time, like he didn't want to talk about that,
Speaker 2: which is fair, you know, maybe yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 2: but anyway, he does say, it's sentencing. Quote. Through this
Speaker 2: whole thing, I have become a better person. Unlike most
Speaker 2: people in the system. I had a good, loving family
Speaker 2: that raised me the right way. I have no excuse,
Speaker 2: which is mobile of him, right, Yeah, that is Judge.
Speaker 2: Kopp replies, we'll know in about thirteen years if you
Speaker 2: meant what you said. Oh yeah. As it turns out,
Speaker 2: Sean does mean what he says. From the time he's
Speaker 2: in federal custody all the way until he finishes his
Speaker 2: sentence in two thousand and nine, he's growing into a
Speaker 2: better person. And I'm got to tell you about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: your face is like on the floor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm shocked, right, Like, this doesn't happen, right, It
Speaker 1: never works out this way.
Speaker 2: So he does his time at FCI Peakin in Illinois, Pekin.
Speaker 1: Or Pekin it goes any way, you like, Oh okay.
Speaker 2: But Paul, and you know, federal prison is extremely difficult,
Speaker 2: but he figures out how to navigate the system over time.
Speaker 2: Most of his book, which is called it's called law
Speaker 2: Man Memoirs of a jailhouse. Hmmm, I'll tell you later.
Speaker 2: Most of this book is really about that time in
Speaker 2: his life, so if you're interested, I highly recommend picking
Speaker 2: it up. Okay, But what's important is that while he's
Speaker 2: in prison, a job opens up in the prison library
Speaker 2: and Sean takes it. He has to share it with
Speaker 2: some of the gangs who are dealing weed in the back,
Speaker 2: but he figures all that how to work around that.
Speaker 2: Over time in the library, he teaches himself how to
Speaker 2: research cases for the guys around him and provide like
Speaker 2: basic procedural law advice. He quickly becomes a trusted jailhouse
Speaker 2: legal assistant, and more so than any of the other
Speaker 2: short term successes he has earlier in life, he's really
Speaker 2: into it, Like he's like, I found it, I found
Speaker 2: my special purpose.
Speaker 1: This is it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And remember he walked in doing absolutely nothing about
Speaker 2: the law and like five months of college.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So in two thousand and two he has a major breakthrough.
Speaker 2: He uses the library typewriter to bang out a a
Speaker 2: cert petition for his fellow inmate, John Fellers. A cert
Speaker 2: is basically an appeal to the Supreme Court. This is
Speaker 2: a crapshoot kind of fireling. Like every inmate fills one out,
Speaker 2: nobody expects to get it right, and even the best
Speaker 2: lawyers in the country they're like, yeah, this probably isn't
Speaker 2: gonna work. Well, it works. Shawn's petition is one of
Speaker 2: seven that are chosen amongst seven two hundred that are submitted.
Speaker 1: No way, and.
Speaker 2: Next it lands on the desk of the US Solicitor
Speaker 2: General at the time, Seth Waxman, who said it was
Speaker 2: one of the best he had ever seen.
Speaker 1: You're kidding, wow, And this is for another inmate.
Speaker 2: It's not for himself, right, this is for this guy,
Speaker 2: John Feller's another inmate who is serving time with him.
Speaker 2: Waxman likes it so much he's like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'll hop on. He takes the case on with John Hopwood.
Speaker 2: They win a nine zero unanimous decision in the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: You're kidding.
Speaker 2: His fellow inmates sentence is knocked down by four years.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: At this point, if you're not rooting for the guy
Speaker 2: out in rude, dude, Land, I don't know, go fly
Speaker 2: kite exactly.
Speaker 1: He's now David City's finest.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So then in two thousand and five he does
Speaker 2: it again. He lands another Supreme Court appeal hearing for
Speaker 2: an inmate getting his decision vacated and sent back to
Speaker 2: a lower court. Oh wow, he does that. He helps
Speaker 2: other guys get sentence productions from three years to ten years, right,
Speaker 2: like his best one. Incredible, I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: While he's in prison, he also reconnected with the girl
Speaker 2: he had a huge crush on in high school and
Speaker 2: Marie Metzner. Is she a CEO from a little David City. No,
Speaker 2: she's like coming to visit him. Here's what happens. Shawn's
Speaker 2: mom was working for Anne Marie's dad at a pet
Speaker 2: medicine supplier back in David City. Anne Marie asks Shawn's
Speaker 2: mom about him, like, hey, how's that guy doing, writes
Speaker 2: to him in prison, and she visits and they hit
Speaker 2: it off. And what he says is she was wearing
Speaker 2: an engagement ring the first time she comes in to visit.
Speaker 2: The next time she comes in to visit, she's not
Speaker 2: wearing an engagement.
Speaker 1: Oh dang, but she's just cheeking him some gaba penin.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that was the thing. So they discover
Speaker 2: they both had crushes on each other in high school.
Speaker 2: And when he gets out in August of nine, they
Speaker 2: get married and they've been together ever since. They have
Speaker 2: two kids.
Speaker 1: Wow, happily. Ever after, what does he do now that
Speaker 1: he's out?
Speaker 2: So his meteoric rise in law circles continued once he
Speaker 2: got out, right, he tracks down a job opening first
Speaker 2: thing at Cockle Law Brief Printing Company, which is a
Speaker 2: great name that they're only one of five firms in
Speaker 2: the country that helps lawyers prep filings for the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Kind of perfect for that, right, Yeah, but he's worried about,
Speaker 2: you know, having the record, he's a felon and everything.
Speaker 2: So his buddy Fellers, who had helped get out four
Speaker 2: years earlier, he's now running a car dealership. He gives
Speaker 2: him a vintage Mercedes with like, you know, like it
Speaker 2: looks really nice. It's old, but he's like, here, thank
Speaker 2: you for getting me out. So that helps, and he
Speaker 2: calls in a fave from Seth Waxman, now formercial listener
Speaker 2: general who picks up the horn personally and calls this,
Speaker 2: you know, RinkyDink Law Publishing Company and is like, hey,
Speaker 2: can you give my due to break and they do
Speaker 2: so that gets it done. So then he he had
Speaker 2: been taking law courses while at FCI Pekin, and then
Speaker 2: he enrolls at University of Washington Law School in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: Next he interns for a federal District Court judge in Seattle.
Speaker 2: Then he works in the Federal Public Defender's office. He
Speaker 2: keeps climbing. Now he's got a gig clerking for Judge
Speaker 2: Janice Rogers Brown of the US Court Appeals of the
Speaker 2: d C Circuit in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: Whoa so.
Speaker 2: Twenty fifteen, he lands a highly competitive teaching fellowship at
Speaker 2: Georgetown's Litigation Clinic. Oh you're kidding, like yeah, And he
Speaker 2: does so well with that they then give him a
Speaker 2: professorship at Georgetown Law School. And that's what he's doing.
Speaker 1: Now what Yeah, this is amazing.
Speaker 2: Dude has made it.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: But that's not all, Elizabeth. Oh, the most most satisfying
Speaker 2: of all these things, he gets a Maya kulpa in
Speaker 2: writing from the federal judge who sentenced him.
Speaker 1: You're kidding as perfect?
Speaker 2: You remember blogs?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I do remember blog Okay.
Speaker 2: So in twenty thirteen that Judge Richard G. Kopp, He
Speaker 2: wrote an entry in his personal public blog which.
Speaker 1: Was called blogging it Out blogging it out.
Speaker 2: It was called Hercules and the Empire. This was the
Speaker 2: era when like everybody who was anybody had a blog.
Speaker 1: Everybody had a blog.
Speaker 2: This this blog is now defunct, but you can still
Speaker 2: see it in the Internet archives.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, way back.
Speaker 2: Nice support the Internet archive, by the way, you know,
Speaker 2: like such good work.
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
Speaker 2: So his post is reflecting on an article all about
Speaker 2: Shawn hopwoods accomplishments to date. In the body of the post,
Speaker 2: Judge cop Frights. These are like bullet points. One. Hopwood
Speaker 2: deserves all the credit in the world. I hope he
Speaker 2: makes the best of an astounding opportunity. Two. Hopwood proves
Speaker 2: that my sentencing instincts suck. When I set him to prison,
Speaker 2: I would have bet the farm and all the animals
Speaker 2: that Hopwood would fail miserably as a productive citizen when
Speaker 2: he finally got out of prison. My gut told me
Speaker 2: that Hopwood was a punk, all mouthed very little else.
Speaker 2: My viscera was wrong.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine, But he his sentencing. I don't think
Speaker 1: his sentencing was wrong. I think that he Sean would
Speaker 1: not have done this were he not put in the
Speaker 1: position of being confined and being forced to do this,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Well, let's see what Sean says back.
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, let's see what Sean says because.
Speaker 2: You've got this like in the comments. The comments go
Speaker 2: on and on and on, and you've got like, you know,
Speaker 2: wife guys and reply guys in there, but like eventually
Speaker 2: Sewn shows up. Yeah, this is just the first paragraph,
Speaker 2: do you judge Kopf. I wouldn't say that your sentencing
Speaker 2: instincts suck. While I meant what I said at sentencing,
Speaker 2: I was hardly the person that could back it up.
Speaker 2: I was a reckless and selfish young man back then.
Speaker 2: I changed. I think most of us changed from the
Speaker 2: age of twenty two to thirty eight, and many, like me,
Speaker 2: outgrow the irresponsibility and foolishness. I can't tell you how
Speaker 2: many law enforcement officers, including prosecutors, have come up to
Speaker 2: me and said something similar to this tears in their eyes, sir, sir. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know your story, and I too committed some crimes
Speaker 2: when I was young, although not in the category of
Speaker 2: bank robberies, and I was lucky enough to not get caught.
Speaker 2: They changed and channeled their energies and became responsible professionals.
Speaker 2: I did too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is not that amazing. I think the thing is
Speaker 1: is that we act like everyone that education is one
Speaker 1: size fits all and that when you're eighteen you go
Speaker 1: right to college and that's the time for you to
Speaker 1: do it. And if not, then you know, you go
Speaker 1: into the workforce. But not everyone neat can do that.
Speaker 1: And obviously for Sean his I mean, it's not good
Speaker 1: to rob banks in the meantime, but his development was
Speaker 1: later on, like his you know, figuring out what he
Speaker 1: wanted to do, where, why he was supposed to be here.
Speaker 1: And it sucks that he had to do it in prison,
Speaker 1: in a federal facility, but you know, better less than
Speaker 1: some of the state facilities.
Speaker 2: Did I just hear a ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 1: I think you just heard a ridiculous takeaway. Well, my
Speaker 1: other takeaway is it please tell me that when like that,
Speaker 1: you often say to your wife like, hey, welcome to
Speaker 1: David's city, and then she just rolls her eyes at you.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, no I haven't, but I'm using that.
Speaker 1: I think you should. I think you should.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The other thing about Sean is so he's now
Speaker 2: obviously like a huge advocate for criminal justice reform. It's
Speaker 2: kind of what he does and one of the things,
Speaker 2: the other thing he's said on this blog is that
Speaker 2: he has a firm belief that it should be five
Speaker 2: years and that's it. Nobody should be in prison for
Speaker 2: longer than five years.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 2: It's going to do whatever it can do in that time,
Speaker 2: and the rest is just absolute garbage.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: I think that's a yeah, a really remarkable way of looking.
Speaker 1: At that is that's a really interesting, interesting way.
Speaker 2: My ridiculous takeaway is, Yeah, the flip side of yours
Speaker 2: is like, welcome to David City for one thing, but
Speaker 2: for the other thing. You know, criming is not for everybody, no, no,
Speaker 2: and some of our criminals really get into it and
Speaker 2: it's like it becomes their special purpose. I think Sean
Speaker 2: like did a crime and he was like, all right,
Speaker 2: that was okay, but I didn't get any spark from it, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not really me.
Speaker 1: He wasn't taking the boxes for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, and you know, in a very gen x
Speaker 2: sort of way, he had to wear a lot of
Speaker 2: hats before he figured out what his thing is.
Speaker 1: Ain't that the truth? Yep?
Speaker 2: So yeah, bless him, God bless job, blessed, and God
Speaker 2: bless you rude dudes.
Speaker 1: Yes, thanks to the story, Dave. That is a good one.
Speaker 2: You're so welcome. That is what we have for today.
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