Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Uh okay, Hey Elizabeth Duttan, Hey, thank ah, I just
Speaker 2: woke up. You know it's ridiculous, I do okay.
Speaker 3: What you you have blue hair? Yes, I mean that's
Speaker 3: a little ridiculous, but it's not really.
Speaker 2: Really, it's it's kind of ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you have blue hair? Do you live by
Speaker 3: your own rules? Because of the blue hair?
Speaker 2: Not because of the blue hair, but it's kind of
Speaker 2: indicative that I do live by my own rules.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And I've had blue hair before.
Speaker 2: Have you had red?
Speaker 4: I've had red, pink flor Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good look for.
Speaker 3: I've never you know, I've never gone into like the
Speaker 3: yellow orange.
Speaker 2: No, I think yellow orange is actually kind of hard
Speaker 2: to wear for most human skin tones.
Speaker 3: But if you live by your own rules, and if
Speaker 3: you live la dulce velvida, which is apparently a lifestyle, yeah,
Speaker 3: hold hold on to your pants. Ladulce velvida is a lifestyle, Saren,
Speaker 3: And if you really want to live it out loud,
Speaker 3: you can die your hair velveta gold.
Speaker 2: Uh huh yeah, so velvida dulcevelvida. Yeah, they did this
Speaker 2: to my man. Fellini.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, did go on.
Speaker 3: So Velvida is launching its very first hair dye, Velveta Gold.
Speaker 3: Now here's the thing. They put out this press release
Speaker 3: on April first, twenty four, so I'm like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is another garbage. We get so many messages about bad
Speaker 3: fake product mashups around April Fool's Day. Of course, this
Speaker 3: one came in from listener Jill Patterson, who was the
Speaker 3: only person to stumble across this this beauty.
Speaker 4: So I look it up.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, well it's got to be like fake.
Speaker 3: But then I go to Amazon and you can buy
Speaker 3: Velvida Gold semi permanent hair color. It is the color
Speaker 3: of Velvida. And you know how they launched it, like
Speaker 3: how they their big product launched. They it says the
Speaker 3: brand tapped the queen of self expression and unapologetic boldness.
Speaker 3: Julia Fox, that cuckoo.
Speaker 2: Bird, Yeah, the one who's with Yeah.
Speaker 3: So she's a little bonkers and she she'd wore it
Speaker 3: around town. I don't know, there's pictures of her with
Speaker 3: Velvida hair.
Speaker 2: It's a very specific color.
Speaker 3: It is very specific and it's spot on. When she
Speaker 3: has it in her hair, she looks like she got
Speaker 3: a bunch of velveto on her.
Speaker 2: Well, let me know when they have cheese whiz color.
Speaker 2: That's the pretty much the same. But I want the ruffling.
Speaker 4: What I'm trying to say is, if.
Speaker 3: You truly lived by your own rules, you would ditch
Speaker 3: the blue and go with velveta gold.
Speaker 2: But if I listened to you, I'd be listening to
Speaker 2: someone else's rule.
Speaker 4: No, I'm I'm omnipotent.
Speaker 2: You're just suggesting. Is that going with the wind?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, if I you know whatever, Okay, fine, you
Speaker 3: make a point there.
Speaker 2: Well that is ridiculous. I know it is, Elizabeth. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I got one for you. Okay, yeah, Okay. You're working
Speaker 2: your day job at a small suburban bank, right, ok,
Speaker 2: just a normal Friday morning, and then boom, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you look up and you have a firearm
Speaker 2: pointed in your face. I don't like that, I know, right.
Speaker 2: Which gets worse because the man holding the gun he
Speaker 2: looks like President George Bush. That's George Herbert Walker Bush,
Speaker 2: the first one, not the dumb fun son Elizabeth. This
Speaker 2: one is a wild story. This is Ridiculous Crime a
Speaker 2: podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heists and cons. It's
Speaker 2: always ninety nine percent murder free and one percent ridiculous. Yes, oh,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Is I know you don't watch TV, right you know, no,
Speaker 2: I don't, but you do watch movies, right?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Sure?
Speaker 2: Okay, what's your favorite bank robber movie?
Speaker 4: You've asked me this Q and I said, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I gave you time, like weeks, months, possibly, I don't remember.
Speaker 2: What's your favorite one?
Speaker 4: The bank Robber?
Speaker 2: Okay, your new answer is Point Break?
Speaker 4: Now I gave you I do love that movie.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go. Next time I ask you, my
Speaker 2: favorite bank robber movie is point point Break.
Speaker 3: I remember that point Break Point Break, because otherwise I
Speaker 3: was gonna be like Bank Robber Joe and The Mystery
Speaker 3: of the Bank Vault.
Speaker 2: It's French you probably haven't seen. Yeah. Well, I think
Speaker 2: Point Break is good for you as your favorite.
Speaker 4: Because you you have an f b I agent.
Speaker 2: You already know it exactly. So what's your third favorite scene?
Speaker 4: When can is all wet?
Speaker 2: So I'll tell you? Thanks for asking? Okay, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: pretty today. What's your third favorite scene in Point Break?
Speaker 2: It's simple? Uh, Nick nalty utah, give me.
Speaker 4: Two wait, flee and Anthony Keitas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are.
Speaker 3: That's my that's my third favorite anything. They're in fight
Speaker 3: on the beach huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can break surfboards and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like it. Okay, I don't like the whole
Speaker 4: party scene just.
Speaker 2: In general, any of the party scenes.
Speaker 4: Isn't there like a beach party scene, the moon Doggie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have played football and then they have moon
Speaker 2: Doggie with they're squirting.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't like that in the Yeah, I don't like that.
Speaker 2: Don't like any of that. Okay, Well, anyway, Pois Break, Yes,
Speaker 2: aside from the party scene. It was directed Catherine Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and came out in nineteen ninety one, So remember that date,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one. It'll be important later. Okay, now you
Speaker 2: know the gist of the movie. We kind of gone
Speaker 2: over that. But a gang of Malibuu surfers they rob
Speaker 2: banks in LA to pay for their life of surfing
Speaker 2: and skydiving and just generally getting.
Speaker 4: Radical Reagan masks.
Speaker 2: Yes, and when the surfer gang robs the banks, they
Speaker 2: wear the mask of ex presidents, So they wear the
Speaker 2: Halloween mask of Ronald Reagan, LBJ, Jimmy Carter and Tricky
Speaker 2: Dick Nixon. Because you got to have ticky Dick Nixon.
Speaker 2: So well, point Brak came out nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 4: The idea came out in nineteen ninety one, by the way.
Speaker 2: Yes, it began in the eighties, right. A producer apparently
Speaker 2: this is the story. He says he took a surf lesson. Afterwards,
Speaker 2: he's sitting on the beach watching other surfers, and he
Speaker 2: thinks to himself, hmmm, A gang of surfers robs banks
Speaker 2: in LA to pay for their surf safaris, and an
Speaker 2: athletic FBI agent starts surfing to go undercover. Boom. That's
Speaker 2: pretty much the whole story.
Speaker 3: It sounds so bad when you described it that way,
Speaker 3: but it's so good, like the athletic FBI like.
Speaker 2: This song named Johnny Utah.
Speaker 4: Johnny, Like would you take a step.
Speaker 2: Back, former college quarterback?
Speaker 4: I just let myself get buried ignor it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, Well, Catherin bigelows she infused into the script,
Speaker 2: like she took her genius and basically fused that into
Speaker 2: the script. That makes it rise above your basic genre picture.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: She turns it into this indie crime film with big
Speaker 2: name stars, and you know she also sees that keanner
Speaker 2: Reeves could be the next great action star. She's the
Speaker 2: first one.
Speaker 4: She makes him and it came out in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: Exactly good before any of the other movies.
Speaker 4: Yes, A Walk to Remember, even.
Speaker 2: Johnny Mnaeamonic I believe, and the early like, let's make
Speaker 2: Kean into something the post speed movies Fielding Minnesota. Wow,
Speaker 2: that's a deep ball, Okay, fun fact I learned in
Speaker 2: the original draft of the script the bank robbing surfers
Speaker 2: they wore the Halloween masks of ex presidents, but they
Speaker 2: were the ones on the money. They wore Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson,
Speaker 2: and Grant mass the dead ex president that right immediately
Speaker 2: now it's James Cameron.
Speaker 4: Do you like your dead president's crispy?
Speaker 2: Of course you know this. So entered the director James Cameron,
Speaker 2: who happened to be Catherine Biglow's husband at the time.
Speaker 3: Right, So maybe one we're getting into like T two
Speaker 3: turt exactly.
Speaker 2: He's exactly working on T too. So while she's working
Speaker 2: on a script rewrite, Cameron tells her having George Washington
Speaker 2: in the bank is not as cool as next in
Speaker 2: er Reagan. So she's like a good point, Jim changes
Speaker 2: it up and then filmmaking history. Now, then think about
Speaker 2: getting robbed by Dick Nixon. How much funnier that is
Speaker 2: than getting robbed by George Washington? General Grant, I mean, like,
Speaker 2: how would you even as this? Not to like pick
Speaker 2: on the screenwriter, but like, come on, man, how do
Speaker 2: you say, yeah, they're running president's masks and you do
Speaker 2: not think of Dick Nixon?
Speaker 3: Well, with Nixon you can do like the voice and
Speaker 3: like hold the two fingers up and shake your hold
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 4: But what do you do for for like Washington, You're like, here's.
Speaker 2: My card, hand out a dollar bill? I mean, what
Speaker 2: do you do? Yeah, Lincoln to go, here's my card,
Speaker 2: it's a penny. So also, if you have like Reagan, right,
Speaker 2: this is the eighties so it's very music video heavy, Yeah,
Speaker 2: another great voice, you could get into like weird, funny
Speaker 2: music video territory with Reagan. I just don't understand we
Speaker 2: missed all these opportunities. Anyway, I'm not going to pick
Speaker 2: on them anymore, but like, okay, if you have Reagan right.
Speaker 4: On the screenwriter, well no, I got.
Speaker 2: Fixed, yeah basically sorry, But like if it's Reagan, you
Speaker 2: can know all those eighties jokes. It'll be like, sir,
Speaker 2: haven't you done enough to the country? You know? Like sure,
Speaker 2: But anyway, I bring up Point.
Speaker 4: Break timely humor exactly stands time.
Speaker 2: So for the reason I bring up Point Break, Elizabeth because.
Speaker 4: It came out in ninety ninety one.
Speaker 2: Thank you, good memory. Well, we're not going to just
Speaker 2: keep talking about what a dope movie is for a
Speaker 2: full episode. I know you could, as fun as that
Speaker 2: would be. But I have this really weird cosmic coincidence
Speaker 2: for you. Right, the screenwriter who first came up with
Speaker 2: the idea in the mid to late eighties, at that
Speaker 2: same period of time, but what I would call it
Speaker 2: eighty sitada, there was someone working on the exact same idea,
Speaker 2: except for this person, they did it in reality.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it wasn't like a deep impact ormageddon.
Speaker 2: No, oh exactly beautiful. Like, let's pick the same movie
Speaker 2: different now.
Speaker 4: I love when that happened.
Speaker 2: It happens often the sentergy of that in Hollywood. Yeah, So,
Speaker 2: from what I can tell, the real ones in this way,
Speaker 2: the real bank robber in no way inspired the screenwriter
Speaker 2: to PenPoint Break. He was apparently not aware that this
Speaker 2: story took place. He never mentions. I looked at a
Speaker 2: bunch of a bunch of his like inspiration and interviews
Speaker 2: of like how we came up with it? Nothing right drug?
Speaker 2: So yeah, this cat right. He starts way back in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty Citada, and there's this bank robber in the
Speaker 2: Chicago Land area who's going around robbing banks wearing halloween
Speaker 2: masks of presidents nice and he's wearing Timely won so
Speaker 2: he's wearing Reagan. Okay, right, he gets it right. This
Speaker 2: wasn't the news, but not like national news. That's why
Speaker 2: I don't think the screenwriter caught it right. But the
Speaker 2: bank robber, he gets away with it for years, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden he just stops. He just
Speaker 2: lays low for years, and then in March of nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety he gets back in the game. No way, Yeah,
Speaker 2: just before the movie, the ex president bank robber is
Speaker 2: back in business. Except he wasn't called that because instead
Speaker 2: the newspapers of the Chicago Land area they called this
Speaker 2: man the flesh mask Bandit.
Speaker 4: The flesh masked band. Yes, that's not easy to get
Speaker 4: your mouth around.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. No. And also first I kept thinking
Speaker 2: that you should be the flesh mask bandit. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: that way you get rid of that whole weird ed
Speaker 2: past tense flesh masks. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway we're trying to mask into a verb.
Speaker 4: You just call it the masked bandit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the flesh mask is important, because bandits the
Speaker 2: flesh daddy. So, Elizabeth, if you were going to start
Speaker 2: robbing banks, right, what would be your ideal bank robber.
Speaker 4: Name the skin bandits.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be the I think the one
Speaker 2: eyed Jack.
Speaker 4: Bandit, the one eyed Jack band Yeah.
Speaker 2: You see, my calling card would be a literal playing card.
Speaker 2: I would just leave a one eyed Jack. That way,
Speaker 2: the FBI would know it was me, precious, right, and
Speaker 2: they'd be like, ah, the one eyed Jack bandit. Again.
Speaker 3: I would just get like fully sunburned and then go
Speaker 3: in and peel the.
Speaker 2: Sunburns DNA everywhere.
Speaker 4: People would be like, it's so gross. They get away
Speaker 4: from me.
Speaker 2: On me and the skin.
Speaker 4: Here's the thing, it's not my skin, it's Elmer's glue.
Speaker 4: Oh so thinks.
Speaker 3: And then there's no DNA on it. There's touch DNA,
Speaker 3: but we're going to pretend like that doesn't exist. Okay,
Speaker 3: So I'm just pulling off sheets of what they think
Speaker 3: is my skin and they're like, the skin band that's here,
Speaker 3: and I throw it on the counter and everyone steps back.
Speaker 3: Of course, yeah, like nobody response, nobody moved, nobody get hurt,
Speaker 3: give me all your money at you, or I'll throw
Speaker 3: my skin at you.
Speaker 4: And they're like, oh, skin band it, come on.
Speaker 2: That's so grossic book bankrupt, like a Dick Tracy level.
Speaker 2: It's good. I kind of pictured you as like having
Speaker 2: like a the name like the dog pack Robber, because
Speaker 2: you roll with the pack of dogs.
Speaker 4: That'd be pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone's distracted. They're petting the dogs, all.
Speaker 4: So cute, and then the dogs they all play along
Speaker 4: like oh, we're so cute. And then when I snap.
Speaker 2: My finger there they take all the money.
Speaker 4: Chewings and they take the money and then we run.
Speaker 2: I was picturing Elizabeth as it's like, you know, we
Speaker 2: had the pretty Pants bandit, which was really horribly named.
Speaker 2: Would you be like the December shirt bandit like something
Speaker 2: else out.
Speaker 3: I would wear a December shirt with my dog pack.
Speaker 3: I would have a rotisserie chicken in my mouth, and
Speaker 3: much like.
Speaker 4: The dogs, you wouldn't be able to get it out.
Speaker 4: Maybe trying.
Speaker 2: No, you can't a whole rotisserie chicken.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, and then I not like a quarter dark,
Speaker 4: It's the whole thing, the whole thing. And then I
Speaker 4: got fake skin coming off the picture.
Speaker 2: It's so good the dogs would be happy.
Speaker 4: I'm going to be famous.
Speaker 2: Nineteen nineties, the Fleshbacks, mask bandit. I can't even say it.
Speaker 2: It got back into business across the country. Bank robberies
Speaker 2: were up all across the country because we able to
Speaker 2: talk about in La being the bank robbery capital of
Speaker 2: the world's.
Speaker 4: Like seventies, eighties, I guess into the early nineties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the nineties is really what it is like popping off.
Speaker 4: You know what happened in ninety one, what happened on
Speaker 4: to break came out?
Speaker 2: That's it takes place in La. It's about a bank robbery.
Speaker 2: Do you know why bank robberies is picked up in
Speaker 2: the early nineties. The real reason, George Herbert Walker kind
Speaker 2: of kind of the real reason is kind of wonky.
Speaker 2: It was deregulation, bank deregulation. When the banks were deregulated
Speaker 2: Agains Chicago, for instance, they were able to pass a
Speaker 2: law that allowed the banks previously could only have two
Speaker 2: branches in the city. Now they could have, you know,
Speaker 2: as many as thirty. So suddenly now in the suburbs,
Speaker 2: all these small suburban banks, lightly guarded near easy access
Speaker 2: to the freeways for all those suburban.
Speaker 4: Commuters, a post savings and loan issue.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, exactly, bank's like eighty seven. Yeah, so this
Speaker 2: is likely early ninety so they did do all the
Speaker 2: bank regulation and deregulation, right and then so now we
Speaker 2: have this crop up all about these little tiny suburban banks. Yeah,
Speaker 2: bank robbers noticed that this is really close to freeways.
Speaker 2: It's easy is there in leafy residential neighborhoods and a
Speaker 2: quiet on like a Tuesday at ten.
Speaker 4: Am, mushrooms after the rains.
Speaker 2: Exactly, they become prime targets.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: So the bank robbers, you know, typically we think them
Speaker 2: being these like glamorous guys. Back in the day. They
Speaker 2: had great nicknames, baby Face Nelson, pretty Boy, Floyd Skin.
Speaker 2: Classic criminals like my man John Dilidger didn't even need
Speaker 2: any he'ment exactly. Now, this is back when the FBI
Speaker 2: first made its name as g men. Right now, can
Speaker 2: you guess how many bank robberies there were in one year?
Speaker 2: I'll take a year nineteen thirty four. Take a guess
Speaker 2: how many bank robberies there were in nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 2: at the peak of bank robbery era seven million, eighty
Speaker 2: six A right, that was a little off, Yeah, just
Speaker 2: a little bit. Now that's not just the Midwest, that
Speaker 2: was the entire country. See to see Shining Sea eighty six.
Speaker 2: Now take a guest for nineteen ninety how many bank
Speaker 2: robberies were there ce two Shining Sea eighty seven, five
Speaker 2: and forty two. Oh yeah. Now, as one little writer
Speaker 2: noted from the Chicago Tribune, to be a bank robber
Speaker 2: in the nineties was a very odd choice as a criminal, because,
Speaker 2: to quote from the Tribune, quote, bank robbery is a
Speaker 2: ridiculous crime he is to commit in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 2: Even apart from the cartoonish get up you have to
Speaker 2: wear to avoid identification from omnipresent video cameras in the
Speaker 2: first place, bank robbers aren't celebrities anymore, possibly because of
Speaker 2: the nickname crisis. Even the man with the false faced disguise,
Speaker 2: who is believed responsible for sixteen Northwest suburban robberies, including
Speaker 2: the one Thursday in Streamwood, has done no better than
Speaker 2: the flesh mask Bandit hardly a handle to sees the
Speaker 2: popular imagination. Secondly, the hall just ain't what it used
Speaker 2: to be. Willie Sutton, your boy Elizabeth, who rob banks
Speaker 2: from the nineteen twenties to the nineteen fifties, did so,
Speaker 2: he said, and I quote because that's where the money is.
Speaker 2: But in this era of computer finance and plastic transactions,
Speaker 2: banks and tellers simply don't have much cash on hand anymore.
Speaker 3: He's like a hipster bank robbery gatekeeper exactly.
Speaker 4: It used to be so cool, but now too many
Speaker 4: people are doing it.
Speaker 2: It's lame. So that's where we're at in the early nineties.
Speaker 2: When my man the flesh mask bandit makes is emergence.
Speaker 2: There's re emergence. Yeah, so let's take a little break.
Speaker 2: We'll come back and we'll get into more bank robbery.
Speaker 4: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: Keep your skin on, all right, and we're back now
Speaker 2: as we were talking about before baby Face Nelson in
Speaker 2: the heyday of the thirties, right, how this changed to
Speaker 2: the nineties. The other big thing that I didn't really
Speaker 2: get tuned to was if you rob a bank, right
Speaker 2: thanks to the baby Face Nelson era, the FBI we
Speaker 2: get involved because it became a national crime, but that
Speaker 2: would be more like for kidnapping. The reason it became
Speaker 2: a national crime was because the money was federally insured.
Speaker 2: So boom, Now they're getting on every bank robbery. Right,
Speaker 2: So then if you add in the penalty if you
Speaker 2: get caught. Right, Let's say you rob a bank with
Speaker 2: a computer, right, people bobby bop it and then you
Speaker 2: get popped.
Speaker 4: Oh you hack it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right, you hack it? Yes, with the key.
Speaker 4: Here's the correct and it's called hacken.
Speaker 2: So when you're when you when you're hacking and scraping cash, right, you,
Speaker 2: Let's say you get tried for bank fraud or whatever
Speaker 2: you get charged with, right, most like you get sent
Speaker 2: to a white collar federal facility for like eighteen months.
Speaker 2: Right now, Let's say you walk into a bank and
Speaker 2: you rob it, right, you've got a gun or a
Speaker 2: bomb or some threat of death on you. You're looking
Speaker 2: at least five years in.
Speaker 4: A federal pat a weapon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's that's not the little security con. You're
Speaker 2: most likely you're not gonna be hanging out with Wall
Speaker 2: Street bankers, right, You're gonna be hanging out with hard people, right,
Speaker 2: But you know you don't need to listen to me
Speaker 2: on that. Listen to France's Keating, chairman of the Security
Speaker 2: Management Committee of the American Bankers Association.
Speaker 4: Oh he sounds like a barrel fun Oh.
Speaker 2: We got funded parties. Keating said, don't use a gun,
Speaker 2: use a pencil. If you forge a check and walk
Speaker 2: out with ten thousand dollars, society still thinks you deserve
Speaker 2: only a slap on the wrist. But people keep robbing
Speaker 2: banks because there's still a certain romance to it. They
Speaker 2: think they can go in and walk out with a
Speaker 2: million dollars. So the point being is that, Okay, I
Speaker 2: don't know if he's in relation to Charles Keating of
Speaker 2: the savings some loan scandal. I wonder I do, right,
Speaker 2: But at the point being that banks they're kind of
Speaker 2: prized by society and not because everybody's money is in there.
Speaker 2: I don't know why it is that it's if you
Speaker 2: rob with the pencil, you get like a slap on
Speaker 2: the wrist and like kind of like encouraged to do
Speaker 2: it again. Ultimately, because you think about the price you're making.
Speaker 2: Until you get seven million dollars in eighteen months, wouldn't
Speaker 2: you do that again?
Speaker 3: Well, right, but if I if you rob it with
Speaker 3: a pencil, if you forge a check, no one is traumatized.
Speaker 3: But if you've got the point weapons, it's human trauma.
Speaker 2: That's the money, that's the difference in the amount of money.
Speaker 2: I say, yeah, I'm with you. I was.
Speaker 3: Any time that you're you know, traumatizing or possibly injuring
Speaker 3: or killing a person, that's what ups the ante on it.
Speaker 2: So just even the traumatizing. Ye I'm not saying you're
Speaker 2: not hurting them, but just the scaring.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, and it is. It's very upsetting thing. And
Speaker 3: then there's also the potential for death. Yeah, so there's
Speaker 3: no potential for death when you're forging a check, unless
Speaker 3: like you run out of the bank and you trip
Speaker 3: and you fall on the pencil, it goes into your temple.
Speaker 2: You're just like, what about downstream effects?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: You know what if people like you anyway, doesn't mean
Speaker 2: So back to the flesh Mask bandit, Right, at the time,
Speaker 2: he was not alone. There were a bunch of other
Speaker 2: oddly named bank robbing colleagues in the Chicago Land area.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. For instance, there was the pot Bellied Bandit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Chicago police to call him a stout Man, a waddling
Speaker 2: thief has successfully robbed about six banks, right, so yeah,
Speaker 2: then he would show up in the most like Chicago
Speaker 2: way possible. I guess you could just kind of waddle
Speaker 2: up to the teller, hand her a wrinkled paper bag
Speaker 2: from a fast food restaurant, and you tell her to
Speaker 2: fill up the bag with cash, right.
Speaker 4: Like he's really like a trim guy wearing a fake tummy.
Speaker 2: That would be smart, Yeah, and then like.
Speaker 3: Just just pregnancy it up with like the fast food bag.
Speaker 4: Look at me, I'm a potbelly, and they that's all
Speaker 4: they remember, just.
Speaker 2: A painted pot belly. Just lets his shirt lift up
Speaker 2: a little bit so you really get a good look
Speaker 2: at it. So there are also the bank robbers who
Speaker 2: didn't earn nicknames Elizabeth, like John Wortman. Yeah, he was
Speaker 2: sitting in his car outside the bank. He put on
Speaker 2: his surgical mask, and he pulled on his knit hat,
Speaker 2: and then apparently he lost his nerve because he pulled
Speaker 2: it all back off. And then he waited a little
Speaker 2: bit and he hyped himself up, and he pulled on
Speaker 2: his surgical mask, he pulled on his knit cap, and
Speaker 2: then he pulled that back off. And then then he
Speaker 2: hiped himself up, being okad, I gotta do this, and
Speaker 2: he pulled on his surgical mask, he pulled on his
Speaker 2: knad hat before he walked into the bank. Someone saw
Speaker 2: him doing this. It called nine to one one. The
Speaker 2: cops arrived. They watched him do this, They approached the car.
Speaker 2: They eventually arrest him before he even set foot in
Speaker 2: the bank. Apparently intentional bank robbery. I don't quite get
Speaker 2: how this lays out, but that's enough evidence for them
Speaker 2: that got him on bank robbery charges, right there was
Speaker 2: How about this guy the cross country runner, This dude,
Speaker 2: he should have had a nickname. He would have if
Speaker 2: he gotten like he probably got a pretty cool nickname
Speaker 2: if he got away with.
Speaker 4: It, even make it into the bank.
Speaker 2: He did make it into the bank, but he did
Speaker 2: not get away with his first robbery. Right, Yeah, so
Speaker 2: William Burzawa, he walked into a bank in the Chicago
Speaker 2: Land area and he robbed it and he fled on foot.
Speaker 2: But see that was his plan. Cross country runner that
Speaker 2: he was. He was, Yeah, he's not a long distance
Speaker 2: runner of those cops. Right, he takes off running, but
Speaker 2: he did not anticipate there'd be multiple cops coming from
Speaker 2: different angles, so he just.
Speaker 4: Like in cars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so four officers just basically run him down and
Speaker 2: ten minutes later there he is.
Speaker 4: Buildiness, he's going in the distance, Yeah, exactly, He's.
Speaker 2: Not going with speed. So the big hidden factor beside
Speaker 2: the deregulation of banks, right, that led to small branches
Speaker 2: being he was easier to rob There was also a
Speaker 2: recession in the nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one time, so
Speaker 2: people are losing their jobs. You also have just immediate need, right,
Speaker 2: so people had hard reasons. Ron Hosco, acting supervisor of
Speaker 2: the FBI's Violent Crime Task Course and Robbery Division at
Speaker 2: that time, he saw the economic drivers and he was like,
Speaker 2: that's really a big push. He said, and I quote
Speaker 2: there are people who may have lost their jobs. They
Speaker 2: see a bank, a big institution with all the money,
Speaker 2: they think they can outsmart the law once or twice.
Speaker 2: To them, it's just a crime of opportunity. It's not planned.
Speaker 2: So that was like I think most of the people
Speaker 2: I just mentioned, right, So at this point the FBI
Speaker 2: is getting their clearance rate on robberies, what do you
Speaker 2: think it is catching the robbers? Not that good? Seventy
Speaker 2: five percent and had gone up from two thirds to
Speaker 2: seventy five. Yeah, so there's improving, right. So those are
Speaker 2: pretty mean odds to play if you're playing the FBI
Speaker 2: or this bank like a casino. But bank robbers lined
Speaker 2: up all through the nineties to beat those lean ods
Speaker 2: like one in four chance. I'm taking it. Enter the
Speaker 2: Flesh Mask Bandit or should I say the flesh Mask Bandits?
Speaker 4: Oh plural?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Who gave them this name? The tops? The press?
Speaker 2: The press? Yeah, yeah, because.
Speaker 4: I expect better from them.
Speaker 2: They had it right there in the original reporting. They
Speaker 2: talked about how he's wearing a halloween mask. You could
Speaker 2: call him the Halloween Mask bandit. He's wearing a halloween
Speaker 2: mask that looks like an ex president. You can call
Speaker 2: them the ex president bandit.
Speaker 4: President.
Speaker 2: You call them the Dead President band to get hip
Speaker 2: hop about it. But no, what do they do there?
Speaker 2: Flesh mask brandish because like one person said, he was
Speaker 2: wearing a fleshy mask. Another person said he was wearing
Speaker 2: a mask. Was flesh color to the flesh Mask Bandit anyway,
Speaker 2: So dude's name, I'll just telly, Yeah, John T. Hunter.
Speaker 2: That's our man of the John Hunter. Yeah, but not
Speaker 2: John the Hunter, Elizabeth the tea is I don't know
Speaker 2: what the he stands for. We'll just say Tiberia though, like, okay,
Speaker 2: there you go, John the Hunter. So, John the Hunter.
Speaker 2: He was in the Chicago Land area in the seventies
Speaker 2: and the eighties. He gets married, has a son. Nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six, opens an electronics wholesale parts company. Right, he
Speaker 2: names it a Universal Flash Controls. Really inspired, all right,
Speaker 2: but it was right for the time, or maybe a
Speaker 2: little bit too late. Anyway, the business closed in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, and just after three years of being a business.
Speaker 2: Perhaps it was the economic downturn following the October nineteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven financial crash. AKA, yes, that could be.
Speaker 2: That would be a probably a big factor. Anyway, Black
Speaker 2: Monday probably changed his life. That craters the economy hurts
Speaker 2: businesses like Universal Flash Controls. He decides to even with
Speaker 2: the banks.
Speaker 3: Oh, so he's going to become a dancer and call
Speaker 3: himself John the Hunter.
Speaker 2: There you go. That would be a good way to
Speaker 2: get even with the banks if the banks were John's Yeah,
Speaker 2: at strip clubs.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: At the same time, he had a son who just
Speaker 2: left college Loyola University, graduates in nineteen eighty eight with
Speaker 2: a degree in business administration. Smart kid. Right after college,
Speaker 2: he becomes a CPA. That's a public accountant. As you know,
Speaker 2: his boss said, John Junior was quote the typical stereotype
Speaker 2: of an accountant. Oh so he was quote quiet, well dressed,
Speaker 2: mild mannered, meticulous.
Speaker 4: Mild manner.
Speaker 2: Yah. Dude gets married in nineteen ninety one, a June wedding,
Speaker 2: same year that point break came out, Elizabeth.
Speaker 4: Is that the year?
Speaker 2: Keep yea nineteen ninety one. Yeah, so by April ninety
Speaker 2: two he's divorced. Yeah that's oh no, Yeah, that's about
Speaker 2: when he decided to go into the family business. So
Speaker 2: it turns out John the Hunter the Elder was a
Speaker 2: bank robber, and he'd rob two banks in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2: Right then things went a little quiet until March of
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety, as I told you, when all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: his electronics supply parts company has shut her. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: gets back in the game and he's good. Right between
Speaker 2: March nineteen ninety and August nineteen ninety one, he successfully
Speaker 2: rubbed seventeen banks. Wow, yeah, is Chicago try being reported
Speaker 2: on August twenty first, nineteen ninety one, the flesh Mask
Speaker 2: Bandit strikes again for the ninth time in seventeen months.
Speaker 2: The gun wielding man with the flesh colored Halloween mask
Speaker 2: has left his mark on a Northwest suburban bank. The
Speaker 2: story is at nine thirty am, the flesh Mask band
Speaker 2: It walks into a suburban bank. He walks past a
Speaker 2: row of five teller windows, and they got five tellers
Speaker 2: in each of the wind there's a teller in each
Speaker 2: of the windows. Elizabeth, this is back when all the
Speaker 2: windows were staffed. Yeah. Right, So the flesh mask Mandy
Speaker 2: walks he quote pointed a blue steel handgun at each
Speaker 2: and directed them to put money into the final bag
Speaker 2: he was carrying.
Speaker 4: So he had to stay on way back and then
Speaker 4: pointed in each five or did he.
Speaker 2: Go no, one window a window, pointing the gun like
Speaker 2: loaded up, goes to the next one, loaded up. I
Speaker 2: don't know why they're waiting.
Speaker 4: I remember five. I'm in the back. I'm not there anymore.
Speaker 2: I remember big two.
Speaker 4: If I'm quick, you know, yeah, five, I'm in the back.
Speaker 2: Only three numbers. Police recording, Police Sergeant Robert Duffy. He
Speaker 2: went down the line and he hit each teller at gunpoint.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, I don't know how this played out.
Speaker 2: Why they're waiting anyway, dude walks out with twenty grand.
Speaker 2: The bank employees they watched the flesh Mask Bandit hop
Speaker 2: into a late model American car. The car was later
Speaker 2: found by police abandoned a few blocks aways, something like that.
Speaker 2: But we'll get into the cars in a second. The
Speaker 2: FBI get called in, right, they tell the Chicago Tribune
Speaker 2: all they knew about the Flesh Mask Bandit at the time.
Speaker 2: FBI spokesman Bob Long said, he demands money from tellers,
Speaker 2: flees the bank, and in several instances, gets into a
Speaker 2: stolen car and then dumps it. And he's always wearing
Speaker 2: this mask. So about the mask, all right? Descriptions varied,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth flesh good good guess. Some of eyewitnesses said it
Speaker 2: was Ronald Reagan. Others said it was Richard Nixon, but then,
Speaker 2: far more strangely still, others said it was then President
Speaker 2: George Bush, the elder, This is George tu Walker Bush.
Speaker 2: Now the eyewitnesses agreed.
Speaker 4: It's just a mask the whole time.
Speaker 2: Why witnesses agreed that the mask was quote opaque flesh
Speaker 2: colored mask that obscures the face that gets repeated over
Speaker 2: and over.
Speaker 4: Report he might have my mask.
Speaker 2: Yeah mask. Well, let's just say there will be confirmation
Speaker 2: in this story about masks. So the Chicago newspaper notes
Speaker 2: that the local record holder for banks robbering in the
Speaker 2: area was this man, James w. Oliver aka the loop
Speaker 2: Bandit loop band Yeah. I think he wrote the Chicago Loop,
Speaker 2: the train.
Speaker 4: Lanyards or something.
Speaker 2: He'd robbed seven banks back in eighty seven, right, the
Speaker 2: flesh mask banded. He easily doubled his total and then some.
Speaker 2: So now the Chicago newspapers were like, whh we got
Speaker 2: a guy, we got a goer number. Yeah. So the
Speaker 2: FBI's spokesman, they were like, wait a minute. On the
Speaker 2: national level, the record was thirty three banks, right, and
Speaker 2: that was pulled off by an unnamed East Coast bank
Speaker 2: rubber and all the reports were caught. They would know,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't name the guy they caught him, but they're like,
Speaker 2: he got thirty three. I'm like, who is it? Which guy?
Speaker 2: So I gotta go cross reference and find the guy
Speaker 2: who's exactly thirty three? Yeah, anyway, I couldn't find it.
Speaker 2: But they is making him up. I think they just
Speaker 2: wanted to remind Chicago that they are the second city
Speaker 2: and they will always beat the second city to the
Speaker 2: East Coast.
Speaker 3: I mean, don't you think it's like you shouldn't be
Speaker 3: putting out these goals for people.
Speaker 2: That's my point. That's a competitive person. I'm like, I
Speaker 2: can break up.
Speaker 4: I can do thirty three.
Speaker 2: So by November, the flesh Mask Bandit, he's back at it, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: He walks out of a bank in a neighborhood called Stream.
Speaker 2: What's the report we heard earlier? Twenty three thousand dollars
Speaker 2: of the bank's money. No one gets hurt. I don't
Speaker 2: know about trauma. I have to admit you're right about that.
Speaker 2: Hi witness is report the flesh Mask Bandit fled in
Speaker 2: a light blue four door Chevy. I'm like Ford or
Speaker 2: Chevy sounds rocking to this time, Hie Witness has offered
Speaker 2: a more exacting description. They said that the robber was
Speaker 2: six foot three, he weighed about two hundred and forty pounds,
Speaker 2: and he was a white man. His hair was brown,
Speaker 2: and this was noted because his hair was sticking out
Speaker 2: from his President Ronald Reagan mask. Very clearly a President
Speaker 2: Ronald megnum. So now we get an identifier someone's actually
Speaker 2: paying attention.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: FBI agent Richard Eggleston did not confirm though, that it
Speaker 2: was indeed President Reagan, because he's like, I haven't seen
Speaker 2: the tape, so he's like, I won't confirm, So there's
Speaker 2: still debate, some debate, but he did add that it
Speaker 2: was the same he's used in other robberies, and the
Speaker 2: bank robber wore quote a flesh colored mask and opaque
Speaker 2: Halloween type mask you can see through, but which distorts
Speaker 2: the facial characteristics, so you really can't see what the
Speaker 2: individual looks like. So it's kind of like a clear
Speaker 2: like see through plastic masks, masks from the eighties.
Speaker 3: Yes, son, Yeah, exactly need one.
Speaker 2: Another good reason is it would be difficult to get
Speaker 2: a very good description of the flesh mask. Banded is
Speaker 2: the obvious one. As one Chicago cop said, I quote,
Speaker 2: when you look down the barrel of a gun, the
Speaker 2: gun is all you see. So I'm thinking.
Speaker 3: That's actually Ronald Reagan wearing one of those clear masks.
Speaker 2: And he's just looking for kicks.
Speaker 3: And everyone thinks, God, that looks like Ronald Reagan. But
Speaker 3: it's so creepy like, and then he does a fake voice.
Speaker 3: He's like, you know, it's a genius, Darren.
Speaker 2: I love it. I'm thinking, Reagan, where was he in
Speaker 2: eighty seven?
Speaker 4: I would like to know.
Speaker 2: So at this point, though, Okay, now we're in November
Speaker 2: of ninety one.
Speaker 4: What happened in nineteen ninety one? What point break came out?
Speaker 2: Get out of time?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Seriously?
Speaker 2: Huh Well, I interestingly that you mentioned that. This is yes,
Speaker 2: keep it in mind. So at this point he's not
Speaker 2: gone more than a full season without pulling a bank job.
Speaker 2: Every three months, at least he's robbing a bank, right.
Speaker 2: He took off the month of July the copy they
Speaker 2: noted that, and then time he want it, I want
Speaker 2: a vacation, you know, go and hang up with the kids. Yeah,
Speaker 2: from April to October he robbed at least one bank
Speaker 2: every month in the Chicago Land area. Right then boom,
Speaker 2: February of ninety two, walks into a bank in Rockford,
Speaker 2: as in the Rockford Peaches pulls off his eighteenth successful
Speaker 2: bank robbery in a row. And then he continued this
Speaker 2: run through the rest of ninety two, like he's the
Speaker 2: Chicago Bulls. Till December of ninety two. That's when the
Speaker 2: FBI investigators noticed a new wrinkle in the crime. As
Speaker 2: the Chicago Tribune reports on December tenth, nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: Apparently even bank robbers but believe imitation is the sincerest
Speaker 2: form of flattery. Now what did the Tribune mean by this,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Well, proof of that came Wednesday morning, when a
Speaker 2: Wheeling bank was robbed by a man authorities believe has
Speaker 2: joined forces with the infamous Flesh Mask Bandit and has
Speaker 2: patterned his robberies after his new found partner's methods, even
Speaker 2: down to using his trademark mask. Now there were two
Speaker 2: of them, eliab.
Speaker 3: And were they there at the same time? Well, otherwise
Speaker 3: it's a copycat.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's just one guy.
Speaker 4: We're working together.
Speaker 2: Well, apparently he's working fast to catch up, because he
Speaker 2: gets credited before robberies of his own, before the FBI
Speaker 2: acknowledges he even exists. Right back to my man, Bob Long,
Speaker 2: FBI spokesman. Now he has an accomplice, a partner. This
Speaker 2: guy does the exact same things. Everything is exactly the same,
Speaker 2: except this guy is shorter.
Speaker 4: Why do they say it's a partner? I say it's
Speaker 4: a copycat, Well they figured out right.
Speaker 2: I'm with you, it seems like it's a copycat. Technically
Speaker 2: it is a.
Speaker 4: Copy driving that same light blue Chevy.
Speaker 2: He modeled everything, even down to the late model Chevy
Speaker 2: or GM brand car. So at this point, the og
Speaker 2: flesh Mask band has successfully pulled off twenty five bank jobs.
Speaker 2: His accomplice is understudy, if you will call it that,
Speaker 2: he's pulled off four more of his own. Right, So
Speaker 2: if he piled their crimes together, they've now pulled off
Speaker 2: twenty nine bank jobs. They only need five more to
Speaker 2: break the record.
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Sun Spoilerli.
Speaker 2: Yes, the new flesh mask band it was estimated to
Speaker 2: be five foot eight. He preferred to drive an Olds
Speaker 2: to a Chevy because you know, but keeping a GM
Speaker 2: because it's Chicago. Now, he was spotted in an Oldmobile
Speaker 2: Delta eighty eight. My dad have one of those nice ride,
Speaker 2: right this stolen ride he ditches it. The car was
Speaker 2: located later. Now, at this point, the FBI has to
Speaker 2: admit to the press that there were now two flesh
Speaker 2: mask bandits. And if I were in the Chicago press,
Speaker 2: I would have had to ask the g men, do
Speaker 2: you think they share the same president mask. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: which is me weird. But then the FBI would have
Speaker 2: rolled its eyes and they would have told me that
Speaker 2: sometimes the two flesh mask bandits did indeed work together.
Speaker 2: So obviously there'd have to be two president's mask Which ones?
Speaker 2: Is it? Like Reagann but and Nixon? Like what are
Speaker 2: we talking about? Because you know they were like kind
Speaker 2: of competitive and they're like, come on, what kind of
Speaker 2: questions are they?
Speaker 4: President? Vice president?
Speaker 2: So a good call, yeah, trying to get the incumbent
Speaker 2: in there. So the FBI has done the legwork. They
Speaker 2: figured out the two flesh mask band it's their new mo.
Speaker 2: They they'd wear similar outfits, the president masks. They'd both
Speaker 2: drive stolen cars made by GM. The two would arrive
Speaker 2: together in separate cars. One man would rob the bank,
Speaker 2: then he'd walk out to his getaway car. The second
Speaker 2: president would then follow the getaway car and act as
Speaker 2: a roadblock in case the cops gave chase.
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to say, the second guy
Speaker 3: would then go in after and hit him again.
Speaker 4: No, that would be great least expected.
Speaker 2: So the new one was working, though he starts working
Speaker 2: on his own alone. They switched up their m O again.
Speaker 2: So they only do this for a little bit, and
Speaker 2: perhaps it was a training period. Here's your training wheel, son.
Speaker 4: Because mentorment situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Princess Bribe a dread Pirate Roberts where there's
Speaker 2: the overlapper and he's like, you beat the dread pirate Roberts,
Speaker 2: then we'll get a new crew. Anyway, the flesh mask banded.
Speaker 2: They keep at it and now it's the younger one,
Speaker 2: the shorter one, doing all the robbing. And Elizabeth, you
Speaker 2: were right. It was a father and son, John T.
Speaker 2: Hunter the elder and John T. Hunter the younger. Wow,
Speaker 2: so let's take a little break here, we get back.
Speaker 2: I will tell you how it all goes wrong.
Speaker 4: It's the family that crimes together, all.
Speaker 2: Right, Elizabeth, Yes, it's nineteen ninety three, now you're ready
Speaker 2: for it. Yes, crazy year, I love it. You know
Speaker 2: what's gonna happen with the flesh mask bandits? No, they
Speaker 2: made the record thirty five banks in seven years. They
Speaker 2: took it to the house early or Chicago Pride, what
Speaker 2: ut slap and I Five's and Michael Jordan totally yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know if they're considered breaking the
Speaker 2: record because the FBI is really hard about like parsing out.
Speaker 2: They only will give them credit for thirty three banks
Speaker 2: even though they have thirty five, and then all the
Speaker 2: numbers line up. They're like, oh, I don't know, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 4: Why they are they fix why they hold.
Speaker 2: In Chicago down. But anyway, they did it, Elizabeth, just
Speaker 2: like Hammer and Hank, Aaron cal Ripkin Junior, Joe Imaggio,
Speaker 2: they went the distance it so. April twenty eight, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three, Chicago Tribune reported that quote, the flesh Mask
Speaker 2: Bandit and his accomplice eluded authorities for seven years, pulling
Speaker 2: off thirty five bank hest in seven states, seven states.
Speaker 2: The father and son now they're working in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio,
Speaker 2: and Indiana. Wow, yeah, right, thirty fifth robbery occurred in Toledo, Ohio.
Speaker 4: They're putting some miles on that eighty eight that.
Speaker 2: Holds me eighty eight. So the delta keeps rolling, right,
Speaker 2: that delta eight ads good. So it's now official. They're
Speaker 2: about to end their run. I'll just I'll cut to
Speaker 2: the checks. Because after their thirty fifth successful bank robbery
Speaker 2: in a row, the flesh mask bandits get busted. Yeah.
Speaker 2: With each bank they rob, the FBI learned more and
Speaker 2: more about them, right, the g men. They work up
Speaker 2: this very accurate profile. The FBI field agents. They start
Speaker 2: to know that here's their mo. They have flesh mass bandits.
Speaker 2: They always strike between nine thirty am and ten thirty am, always.
Speaker 4: The beginning of the day, exactly.
Speaker 2: People are in a lull. They've done what they've opened up,
Speaker 2: and now that the first customers are gone, they got
Speaker 2: like that little pause. And always on Thursday or Friday,
Speaker 2: always in a suburban area. Pair was mad loyal to
Speaker 2: GM cars, Yeah, proper so they always told GM cars
Speaker 2: for night a tour nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: And they always use those as air getaway whips. No Tauruses, no,
Speaker 2: no Dodge k cars. No. They brought guns, never used them.
Speaker 2: Their guns might not even be loaded. We don't know.
Speaker 2: It turns out all that though, it was accurate, the
Speaker 2: FBI's profile spot on. They did all of that.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, it's not really a profile. Those are just observations.
Speaker 2: Whatever, you know, That's what that's what the FBI called it.
Speaker 2: I'm quoting them, Melissa, But it wasn't their profile that
Speaker 2: becomes their undoing. Instead it was what dumb luck? That's right,
Speaker 2: they get brought down by dumb luck. No bothering sound
Speaker 2: the wildly successful for seven years they rob banks, never
Speaker 2: get greedy, never hurt anyone. They just did what they did.
Speaker 2: They pulled money. It was going so good. How did
Speaker 2: they get caught? What would be the dumb story? The
Speaker 2: ridiculous of this neess.
Speaker 4: It's usually like greed too when they try and do
Speaker 4: too much.
Speaker 2: Well, came down to basically a pain in the neck
Speaker 2: innocent bystander, one of them busy bodies. Yeah, yep, in
Speaker 2: one of your people, yes, and a license plate oh yeah. Right. So,
Speaker 2: around three thirty AM on a Thursday morning, right before
Speaker 2: they're gonna go rob a bank. Later that day, apparently
Speaker 2: a call comes into the Tippy Canoe County Sheriff's Department. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: The call reports suspicious activity going down in an apartment
Speaker 2: complex parking lock. So an officer responds to the call,
Speaker 2: Deputy Sheriff Richard L. Walker, Right, so, Dick Walker. He
Speaker 2: arrives on the scene. The off spies a man huddled
Speaker 2: low behind a car. He's busy. This man he's attempting
Speaker 2: to steal the license plate, so the headlights of the
Speaker 2: cop car catch his attention. Though the young man scampers off.
Speaker 2: He bounds over to a Toyota cameray, hops in the
Speaker 2: camera and it speeds off. This is their first mistake.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying dumbing against Toyota, fine car maker, but
Speaker 2: they had been sticking with GM. They brought their own pattern.
Speaker 2: And then the deputy sheriff right, he sees the car
Speaker 2: the camera speed off. Well, Elizabeth, remember, let me just
Speaker 2: tell you about this. I'd like you to close your eyes. Yes,
Speaker 2: as a close I'd like you to picture it. It's
Speaker 2: the small hours of the morning. The quiet is shattered
Speaker 2: by the sound of a Toyota camray's speeding engine and
Speaker 2: squealing tires as it tears out of an apartment complex
Speaker 2: parking the camera, followed close fo by the throaty roar
Speaker 2: of a well maintained patrol car engine. And you, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: are behind the wheel of a second patrol car, second
Speaker 2: on the scene and now engaged in a high speed pursuit. Nice, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: you are Deputy done. Based on your time in the
Speaker 2: London Flying Skull, you were able to get a job
Speaker 2: in Tippy Canoe County right away. So it's your second
Speaker 2: week on the job, and now you're racing through the
Speaker 2: dark at ninety miles an hour. You and Deputy Walker
Speaker 2: pursue the Toyota Camry for about six miles. It's a
Speaker 2: heavy chase. Then Deputy Dick Walker's patrol car draws closer.
Speaker 2: He gets within about one hundred feet of the camera.
Speaker 2: That's when you spot a man as he slides out
Speaker 2: of the passenger side window. The man has a long
Speaker 2: barreled gun. He levels it at you in Deputy Walker's
Speaker 2: patrol car and then boom wow. The man hanging out
Speaker 2: the shotgun window gets busy with his scatter gun. He
Speaker 2: fires three times. He hits both Deputy Walker's car and
Speaker 2: your car. One bolt shatters Deputy Walker's windshield. Your car
Speaker 2: gets hit twice. One of your car tires is shot out.
Speaker 2: The camera speeds off. Brake lights so flash, and the
Speaker 2: car pulls to a sliding stop on the side of
Speaker 2: the road. You're confused, Deputy Dick Walker's confused. You both
Speaker 2: roll to a stop a safe distance. Your car has
Speaker 2: been shot twice. One wheel nut is sagging. The Camray
Speaker 2: idols though in the dark, you and Deputy Walker call
Speaker 2: for backup. You wait, watching the camera, worried the man
Speaker 2: with a shotgun might just get out and start shooting again.
Speaker 2: The night is still and quiet. The peace, though, is
Speaker 2: broken when the camera speeds up again. Your patrol car
Speaker 2: is done, so you're out of this high speech chase, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: After your initial encounter with the father and son bandits,
Speaker 2: the other officers did join the pursuit from all these
Speaker 2: different county roads they're closing in. Fifteen minutes later, one
Speaker 2: of the cars they see the camera and another six
Speaker 2: miles away. The camry kills its headlights and disappears into
Speaker 2: the darkness because they realize, oh, they can't see us
Speaker 2: on these farm roads, so they're now running like thunder
Speaker 2: road lights out. An hour later, sometime around four point
Speaker 2: thirty am, a deputy spots the camera gives chase again.
Speaker 2: This time, man riding a shotgun slides out of the
Speaker 2: window just like last time, takes amen boom. He fires
Speaker 2: that long barrel weapon and the deputy recalled later, I
Speaker 2: saw a muscle flashes coming from the vehicle. Now one
Speaker 2: of the slugs tears through the cars metal skin and frame.
Speaker 2: Hits the officer lodges in the deputy's left calf. All right,
Speaker 2: he feels this like a stinging and a buzzin in
Speaker 2: his left Six shots were fired in total at him.
Speaker 2: He only gets hit once. The camera again slipped away
Speaker 2: in that fast disappearing dark. Just before the dawn. They're
Speaker 2: running out of darkness, Elizabeth, things are starting to turn
Speaker 2: purple the camera. He gets seen again, parked beside a barn.
Speaker 2: Officers called in for backup. Other officers respond once again.
Speaker 2: Now we're getting multiple counties. The chase begins all over again.
Speaker 2: This time though one officer decides he or she I
Speaker 2: don't know, has had enough. They pilot their patrol cruiser
Speaker 2: right into the camera at high speed, and the cop
Speaker 2: car broadsides the cameray just takes them off the road.
Speaker 4: Crown Vick, full of anger.
Speaker 2: Exactly, just folds the camera around the front end chases over.
Speaker 2: Father John T. Hunters captured after he tries to make
Speaker 2: a run for it. He's run down by several cop
Speaker 2: cars and is promptly arrested. The younger man, the son,
Speaker 2: John the Hunter Junior, He also fled the camera. He
Speaker 2: makes it to the woods, disappears into the shadow and
Speaker 2: shade of the trees gone. The deputies. They go on.
Speaker 2: They searched the camera, Elizabeth, what do you think they
Speaker 2: found the camera? They did find the camera. Underneath all
Speaker 2: of that was the camera, but inside of the camera
Speaker 2: were guns, mass lots of guns, three handguns, two rifles,
Speaker 2: two shotguns, about five hundred rounds ammo. They also found
Speaker 2: a map of local banks with notes on their security
Speaker 2: like stars of like this one's good. And then there
Speaker 2: was also you know, since there were the flesh mask bandits,
Speaker 2: there should be some evidence, right, yeh, cops. They find masks,
Speaker 2: several masks like it's your closet opake latex masks.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: One of the masks is a Michael Doucoccus mask.
Speaker 4: Get out here? Did they put the giant homet on?
Speaker 2: It's probably my favorite part of the story for Michael Doucoccus.
Speaker 4: Masks, obscure mask if you had it today, totally like people,
Speaker 4: who are you? Michael?
Speaker 2: Getting robbed by Reagan is one thing, but if a
Speaker 2: bank robber came in nineteen ninety three with a Michael
Speaker 2: Ducaccas mask, I would laugh them out of the bank
Speaker 2: and they'd be like you gotta be joking, man, Come on,
Speaker 2: they pull a gun.
Speaker 4: I'm like, come on, man, is a Howard Dean mass Later.
Speaker 2: Who So back to the sun, John the Hunter Junior,
Speaker 2: or the Younger if you prefer. He was still on
Speaker 2: the run, right, So he's in the woods. Cops bring
Speaker 2: out a small fleet of helicopters. They go, all right,
Speaker 2: we'll cover the woods from above. Choppers are outfitted with
Speaker 2: thermal imaging devices. They're bound to catch this boy. They're
Speaker 2: just military tech and stuff. Right after a day of searching, though,
Speaker 2: the choppers they get grounded because they ain't found nothing.
Speaker 2: Squat did the squat no signs of John the Hunter Younger? Right,
Speaker 2: One FBI agent told the press at the time, these
Speaker 2: guys are no dummies. They're good. So meanwhile, on foot,
Speaker 2: they have twenty officers going through these woods, four different
Speaker 2: law enforcement agencies. They're continuing. They basically a five square
Speaker 2: miles search at this point, a manhunt and no luck.
Speaker 2: But given enough time, this lone flesh mask bandit out
Speaker 2: there by himself in the woods, Elizabeth. He grows scared
Speaker 2: and more importantly, he grows hungry. John johns Yeah, little
Speaker 2: John Junior. He walks out of the woods and he
Speaker 2: walks over to a McDonald's at five point thirty in
Speaker 2: the morning. He's like, on a Friday.
Speaker 4: Morning, have you started serving lunch yet?
Speaker 2: And he's like, are you guys open? And they're not open.
Speaker 2: So he phoned the police and he told them where
Speaker 2: to find him.
Speaker 4: He was just like, that's it. I'm starving. All I
Speaker 4: wanted was, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Didn't get my m so can you guys pick me
Speaker 2: up and maybe take me to McDonald's.
Speaker 3: Over you ever, I've been that defeated and hungry where
Speaker 3: you're just like, I give up on life. I am
Speaker 3: so hungry and I'm so frustrated. You know what, arrest
Speaker 3: me call I'll call. The other night, I was like,
Speaker 3: I want to eat dinner, and I was so tired
Speaker 3: and I was so hungry.
Speaker 4: Just went out in the road and said, just arrest me.
Speaker 2: Somebody laid down and then a squirrel.
Speaker 4: Came over and brought me a hammurger.
Speaker 2: One of your buddies.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 2: Nice. Well, the FBI, they were stoked, right, and they
Speaker 2: caught him because he calls him up, arranges his own arrest. Right,
Speaker 2: they go and they pick him up, but they had
Speaker 2: to acknowledge too the Chicago Press that this is just
Speaker 2: a case of pure dumb luck, and they said, just
Speaker 2: a matter of chances, someone called nine to one one
Speaker 2: to report the license plate theft.
Speaker 4: Good for them, right, yeah, exactly for the busy buddy.
Speaker 2: Little shot the Chicago p D. The town. So, the
Speaker 2: FBI estimated that the father and son bandit team stole
Speaker 2: about a half million dollars in their multi year multi
Speaker 2: state bank robbery spreef million. Yeah. They were just grabbing
Speaker 2: like twenty grand here, twenty three grand there, eighteen grand around. Yeah,
Speaker 2: basically whatever they get off of the they didn't. They
Speaker 2: never hit a vault, so they always had small amounts.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the bigger reason why it took so long for
Speaker 2: them to get caught was once they pulled on their
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan masks, they didn't pull them off until they
Speaker 2: were safe back in their hideout. They were committed to
Speaker 2: the bit. Elizabeth Wow. Yeah, once they were Reagan, they
Speaker 2: stayed right.
Speaker 4: Yeah. They were in character exactly like.
Speaker 2: The little Dustin Hoffman's robbing you choices. So, one of
Speaker 2: John the Hunter Junior's neighbors, a man named Brian Frack,
Speaker 2: he told reporters. He was surprised to learn that his
Speaker 2: neighbor was one of the flesh masked bandits. Track said,
Speaker 2: and I quote, I don't know where he worked. We
Speaker 2: always thought he was going to the health club with
Speaker 2: the duffel bag he carried, so his father health nut,
Speaker 2: John the Hunter the elder. He also had neighbors who
Speaker 2: clocked him right. One neighbor, Marcos Garcia. He told the
Speaker 2: press that the elder flesh mass band it was also
Speaker 2: a quiet man who kept it himself, and then neighbors
Speaker 2: always assumed he was retired. Right. Occasionally he would dramatically
Speaker 2: change his appearance, though.
Speaker 4: So as Garci hair like Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 2: No exactly, as Garcia recalled, he had gray hair around
Speaker 2: Christmas and he dyed his hair black.
Speaker 4: He did, yeah, yeah, just die.
Speaker 2: One for the Gipper. So once the father and son
Speaker 2: they get caught, the FBI and the DJ and they
Speaker 2: threw all the laws out of Elizabeth. The father and
Speaker 2: sons bands they get charged with sixty six count indictment.
Speaker 2: That's a lot. And at the time, John the Elder
Speaker 2: was fifty five, John the Younger was twenty eight. The
Speaker 2: pairent they get charged with thirty three bank robberies. Once again,
Speaker 2: that guy's like, we're not giving you the record like
Speaker 2: fun exactly. So between nineteen ninety nineteen ninety three they
Speaker 2: wouldn't throw in the other ones. I guess. Prosecutors relied
Speaker 2: on quote a day calendar with handwritten notations corresponding to
Speaker 2: the dates and amounts taken in du Caucus robberies committed
Speaker 2: from January nineteen ninety three to the present.
Speaker 4: Wait is it with this note taking people?
Speaker 3: I know, right, I mean, either come up with a
Speaker 3: code or like use invisible ink or.
Speaker 2: Something something like this whole like maybe commit some stuff
Speaker 2: to memory. I don't know the accus robberies though, that
Speaker 2: sounds like a John Grishop's style novel you'd buy in
Speaker 2: the airport in to Caucus robberies. So in court, the
Speaker 2: defenders they never spoke more than a one word answer. Yep, nope,
Speaker 2: that's all they're saying. Right on the defense side, the
Speaker 2: father and son bandits, they had defense attorney Edwin J.
Speaker 2: Bells Now that's with a Z and his defense strategy
Speaker 2: was based on the argument that the gunfight with the
Speaker 2: police was never serious. You know, come on, there's joshing
Speaker 2: around or has he put it, there was not an
Speaker 2: intent to kill, but an intent to scare these officers.
Speaker 2: They're trying to keep these cops at bay. So look,
Speaker 2: that's your lawyer, and that's his argument. You are going
Speaker 2: to jail.
Speaker 4: Attorney j Bells so.
Speaker 2: Mean, seemingly aware of the fact that they were losing
Speaker 2: the case. Late in all the legal wrangling of the court,
Speaker 2: the father, John the Hunter of the Elder, he finally
Speaker 2: said more than one word and he decided he'd speak
Speaker 2: up and try to save his son. He testified that
Speaker 2: his son wasn't even in the camera and then instead
Speaker 2: it was his friend, Frank Wilson. Yeah, he was in
Speaker 2: the car with me. So Frank Wilson is Frank Wilson
Speaker 2: my buddy. You don't know him. He's from Canada. So
Speaker 2: Hunter the Elder, right, he testified when the officer chased Wilson,
Speaker 2: my son got out of the car and ran across
Speaker 2: the street. So he's going with it, right. Prosecutors laughing
Speaker 2: at this, like literally mocking him in court about this
Speaker 2: this last minute hail Mary's legal strategy. He's calling the
Speaker 2: friend fictitious. Frank. He's like, look, we've heard enough about
Speaker 2: fictitious Frank. Oh yeah, and he told the jury you
Speaker 2: have to discount all the evidence to believe him. What
Speaker 2: you have here is a classic example of a dad
Speaker 2: trying to protect his son. So you'll forget about fictitious Frank.
Speaker 2: The trial concludes, Elizabeth, the jury deliberates. What do you
Speaker 2: think was their verdict?
Speaker 4: Not guilty?
Speaker 2: Guilty mostly John the Hunter the Elder he gets found
Speaker 2: guilty on two counts of attempted murder and twelve other
Speaker 2: fellon accounts of the bank robbering and so forth. For
Speaker 2: his son, John the Hunter the Younger, the jury was
Speaker 2: a little less certain. They couldn't place him in the car.
Speaker 2: Apparently it worked the course exactly, but he's only He
Speaker 2: gets convicted on charges of accepting stolen property for the
Speaker 2: license plate theft. They could only get it.
Speaker 4: Introduce doubt, yep.
Speaker 2: John the Hunter the Elder gets sent ten to eighty
Speaker 2: years in prison. He's fifty five. He ain't never seen
Speaker 2: sunshine again, all right? His son, John the Hunter the
Speaker 2: Younger was sentenced to just three years in prison for
Speaker 2: his involvement. Wow, and with that, their record setting run
Speaker 2: was over and done.
Speaker 4: Do you think he feels guilt that his dad's doing well.
Speaker 4: His dad started it.
Speaker 2: Ye, his dad tried to make the move.
Speaker 4: I think he yeah, he was just maybe his dad
Speaker 4: was forcing him to do it.
Speaker 2: There you go. That's the end of the flesh masked bandits. Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: what's our ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 6: Man?
Speaker 4: You know, if you're gonna use a mask, use a
Speaker 4: really obscure.
Speaker 2: One, obscure mass, obscure mass, like like, what what are
Speaker 2: we talking?
Speaker 3: Are like if they're like, oh, there was a Reagan
Speaker 3: mask and then people are looking around for other car
Speaker 3: drivers with Reagan masksh.
Speaker 2: I'd be wearing like a Marcel do shomp mask. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: a Hochi min mask. Like what are we talking?
Speaker 4: Air Well, I'm thinking like a Boutros Buttros golly mas?
Speaker 2: Can I get like an e I mean yeah, sures
Speaker 2: Butros Collie ye, yes? Or Secretary General that's Weinberger mash.
Speaker 3: That's good, um Pete bootage edge keep it modern.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Ralph, Yeah, so you know Ross Perot.
Speaker 2: Mask with withe like with the ears coming out with
Speaker 2: the pointy big wi.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying like, go go deep into the into
Speaker 3: the archives, but you're not particularly recognizable.
Speaker 4: Sarn that's my ridiculous take it there you go.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for not asking, because I don't have
Speaker 2: one for you, so we're even. Hey, pretty, can you
Speaker 2: mellow out this vibe with a talk?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Hit me, I got just the thing.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I I have something ridiculous.
Speaker 6: I think is going to take two to three talkbacks.
Speaker 6: It's from Weird History one oh one and a book
Speaker 6: by John Richard Stevens. I'm going to read a portion
Speaker 6: to you. At one famous trial in France in fifteen
Speaker 6: twenty two, some rats were charged with felonious eating and
Speaker 6: one timely destroying the province's barley crop, and so were
Speaker 6: ordered to appear in.
Speaker 4: Court part two.
Speaker 6: When they failed to show, the rats attorney argued that
Speaker 6: the summons was too specific. He insisted that all the
Speaker 6: rats in the diocese should be summoned, that the summonses
Speaker 6: should be read from the pulpits of all the parishes
Speaker 6: in the area. The court agreed, and another hearing was scheduled.
Speaker 6: When the rats again failed to appear, The defense attorney
Speaker 6: explained that the rats really did want to come to court,
Speaker 6: but were afraid to leave their holes and make their
Speaker 6: long journey because of the vigilance of the plaintiff's cats.
Speaker 6: He added that the rats would appear if the plaintiffs
Speaker 6: posted bonds under heavy penalties that the cats would not
Speaker 6: molest his clients. The judges thought this was fair, but
Speaker 6: the plaintiffs refused to be responsible for the behavior of
Speaker 6: their cats, so the case was adjourned without setting a
Speaker 6: date for another hearing, which in effect ended the case
Speaker 6: in the rats favor. The attorney, named Bartholomew Chousina went
Speaker 6: on to become a famous French lawyer. That is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Also, but there's this like surreal quality where I feel
Speaker 3: like we're in high school and the teacher asked her
Speaker 3: to read from the book and we're all.
Speaker 4: Sitting there and getting really confused. This is amazing. Thank
Speaker 4: you so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. That was great.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: As always, can find this hat ridiculous crime on the
Speaker 2: social media's. We have the website ridiculous crime dot com.
Speaker 2: Hit it up. It's a fun ride. We also love
Speaker 2: you talkbacks obviously, so please share them. Go to the
Speaker 2: iHeart app downloaded, speak in to it and the emails
Speaker 2: if you like a ridiculous crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: As always typed Dear Elizabeth and there you go. So Hey,
Speaker 2: we'll be back next Crime. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 4: Hey.
Speaker 2: Ridico's Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett,
Speaker 2: produced and edited by Dave head On. Straight Mask Go On,
Speaker 2: Crooked Exit, Stage left with the cash Gone took it.
Speaker 2: Houston Research is by MRSA. I don't like masks, Brown
Speaker 2: and Andrea me either, unless it's like an opera mask
Speaker 2: song Sharpened Tears. Our theme song is by Thomas with
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Speaker 2: like alien science, Lee and Travis but the other side
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Speaker 2: Aquaman's Pops Can't Want to Check Me, Bowland and Noel
Speaker 2: with a Bill Clinton mass and then play school Hammers, Brown.
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