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How to Rob a Bank
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00:00:25This is real.
00:00:26This is a robbery.
00:00:28Step away from your cages.
00:00:30He was the most prolific bank robber in the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:34He keeps changing his disguises.
00:00:37He seems like he's in a movie robbing bank after bank.
00:00:41Three or four banks, one right after the other in the same evening.
00:00:44In the FBI, we like to give nicknames to bank robbers.
00:00:48His moniker was Hollywood.
00:00:51Pretty fitting, especially when we learned that he really was inspired by Bodie and Point Break.
00:00:57Why be a servant to the law when you can be its master?
00:01:01Do you want to open the vault?
00:01:02Or do you want me to do it?
00:01:04He'd been successful for four years.
00:01:06That's why he became our number one priority.
00:01:08He was not a stupid bank robber.
00:01:10Hollywood was probably one of the most dangerous people that I went up against because he was a true professional.
00:01:15He wanted to decimate the city of Seattle, and it was not only doable, it was winnable.
00:01:22They knew that this man got millions over the years.
00:01:24They knew that he humiliated them.
00:01:27When he walked into the Lake City branch to rob us, he walked right past his wanted poster.
00:01:33Don't panic, this is a robbery.
00:01:35Step away from your counter.
00:01:36What happened here reads straight from a movie script.
00:01:39He wears heavy makeup, a wig.
00:01:41His co-star is this 9mm handgun.
00:01:43Most political bank robber in the country.
00:01:46He's number one on the FBI's most wanted list.
00:01:49They could not figure out who this guy was and where he was going to hit next.
00:01:54Is this guy some kind of a ghost?
00:01:57How does he just slip away like that?
00:02:30Hollywood was a unique case for us in Seattle.
00:02:34We knew from evidence that he was familiar with security practices.
00:02:39He knew how long he had before he had to get out of there.
00:02:43He was a smart bank robber.
00:02:47He became our number one priority after I became the supervisor of our task force.
00:02:54Sean Johnson was the FBI agent that was the lead on the case.
00:02:59He was like an encyclopedia on Hollywood.
00:03:03He's number one as far as the amount of money that any bank robber has taken.
00:03:08Hollywood was a professional bank robber.
00:03:10He worked at it.
00:03:12He perfected his craft.
00:03:13I think he was enjoying what he did.
00:03:16I think money was part of it, but I think at that point in time was just the adrenaline rush,
00:03:20the challenge.
00:03:23When I assigned Mike to head up the Seattle police response to it, I knew that it would be an
00:03:29electric relationship.
00:03:32Sean and I were night and day, oil and water, two different styles.
00:03:37My partner at the time summed it up.
00:03:40Sean Johnson was the fire and Mike McGann was the can of gasoline.
00:03:45I heard one description that I'm not sure if I totally agree with, but I was the brain and he
00:03:48was the brawn.
00:03:50I don't necessarily agree with it 100%, but the brain part I would agree with for myself.
00:03:54Ellen Glasser was a very talented supervisor who believed in the KISS method, keep it simple, stupid.
00:04:02As one of the first women agents in the FBI, to be able to be supervising this violent crime squad
00:04:09and the task force was such an awesome thing for me.
00:04:13Not only was I in this badass job, I also was blessed to have four young children, and so sometimes
00:04:22I feel like I was two different people.
00:04:24A lot of the guys called me Agent Mom.
00:04:35In the 90s, Seattle was a city in major transition.
00:04:43You went from a two-company town, Weyerhaeuser and Boeing, to then you had Microsoft, and then all the companies
00:04:51that came around Microsoft.
00:04:54Bezos from Amazon, Starbucks was growing like gangbusters.
00:05:00There was a flood of money that came into Seattle.
00:05:04It was amazing how many banks were popping up.
00:05:07I didn't put two and two together at the time, that all the cash coming in from the tech boom,
00:05:12was fueling this, but you could find a bank in the grocery store, you could find a bank in just
00:05:16about every corner.
00:05:18In Washington state, the number of bank robberies is exploding.
00:05:22I told my wife, don't ever go into a bank in Seattle, because the chances are, it's going to get
00:05:26robbed.
00:05:26Three men ran into the U.S. Branch Bank in Woodinville with a shotgun.
00:05:30The man enters the bank, and usually passes a note to the teller demanding money.
00:05:34There were a lot of bank robberies in Seattle.
00:05:35I don't know that we did one every night, but we did a lot of them.
00:05:39Let's go to Deborah Horne, who's at the scene for the latest.
00:05:41Deborah?
00:05:41That's right, David.
00:05:42Just a very few moments ago.
00:05:43Seattle was an exciting place.
00:05:45We were sort of coming into our own as a city, certainly in terms of being well-known around the
00:05:50country.
00:05:51We had Nirvana, so you have grunge.
00:05:54Grunge, to me, to a certain extent, was that frustration that a lot of people were feeling about changes that
00:06:01were coming to their communities.
00:06:03The whole grunge thing, it was so anti-corporate and anti-brands and big name and fame.
00:06:09It was all, pfft, nobody cared, nobody wanted any of that shit.
00:06:12People were literally anti-establishment for all the right reasons.
00:06:15They hated all the oppression, they hated the colonialism, they hated the attack on human rights and the environment.
00:06:20And ripping off banks, especially if they're getting away with it, people love that.
00:06:24He's robbed 14 banks in Seattle since June of 1992.
00:06:27Wow, he's pretty clever.
00:06:30Darn clever.
00:06:31It's the ultimate F-you to the man.
00:06:34It's the Mr. Hollywood.
00:06:35Hollywood, right.
00:06:36We knew that there was a guy with a bunch of disguises who was robbing banks, not hurting anybody, no
00:06:42shots were fired.
00:06:43Sounds very bold.
00:06:45There may have been some rooting for him and people talk about Robin Hood.
00:06:52The mystique of the bank robber, it kind of goes back to the Robin Hood thing.
00:06:55You steal from the rich, you give to the poor, duh, how noble is that?
00:07:01He's kind of legendary in terms of bank robbers.
00:07:05But in terms of who Hollywood was, we couldn't have been more wrong.
00:07:21Wow, man, with the shirt off.
00:07:24Come on, Matt.
00:07:28Let's go, boys.
00:07:28Come on.
00:07:31You still filming?
00:07:32Oh, yeah, man.
00:07:33We're filming this whole trip.
00:07:35You got to hold the camera steady.
00:07:37Yeah, that's a little easier said than done, man.
00:07:40As you can see, we're deep in the forest.
00:07:46And there's not a whole lot of light.
00:07:59Okay, Tarzan, what do you want to do, mate?
00:08:00Go up top.
00:08:01Go up top?
00:08:03Yeah.
00:08:04We're going into Skirlock's domain.
00:08:07What's our elevation here, mate?
00:08:0975 feet.
00:08:1075 feet above what?
00:08:11On the floor of the cedars.
00:08:14Down there.
00:08:18Okay, so tell us a story, mate.
00:08:19How long did it take you?
00:08:20What's the deal here?
00:08:21Took me about two weeks to build this whole thing.
00:08:23Two weeks to build this whole thing?
00:08:25Six stories.
00:08:2858 tons of wood.
00:08:29Did a little work.
00:08:30I haven't eaten breakfast before I did it.
00:08:39Three or four months.
00:08:41Three or four months.
00:08:42Three or four months.
00:08:47The tree house was a really amazing, amazing place.
00:08:50A place you could go to get out of the norm of society.
00:08:57The first time that I went to the tree house, Scott answered the door.
00:09:01He was stripped naked except his tool belt.
00:09:06I'd never had anybody answer the door quite like that, but I pretended that it was an everyday
00:09:10occurrence.
00:09:12You'd see furniture like you would in a normal house, and you'd walk across the deck, and
00:09:18here was a toilet, here was a shower.
00:09:22It was like a real bathroom, except you had a wonderful outdoor experience.
00:09:28It was built around seven trees, and it was really well made.
00:09:32It was like cedar boards and picture windows.
00:09:35It was an extravagant tree house.
00:09:38There was a huge oven range, and we carried this oven range up the stairs 70 feet to the
00:09:44first floor.
00:09:46My brother was good friends with Scott, and he said he'd hired me to come out and build
00:09:51his house, and I said, yeah, why not?
00:09:53We did some of the most insane construction.
00:09:56We would be hanging from ropes from our ankles, be able to nail it and bolt it in place, and
00:10:01it was insanely dangerous.
00:10:04All of it was dangerous, but we didn't care.
00:10:10The tree house was Scott's inner personality that came to life.
00:10:14He was safe.
00:10:15It was his harbor.
00:10:16It was his anchor.
00:10:18He was free from it all.
00:10:22I'm sitting at my desk 40 feet in the trees.
00:10:26The deck extends off the room like a ballerina's tutu in full twirl.
00:10:31It's wide enough in places to bake in the sun's rays, and maybe catch a wink of sleep if you're
00:10:36not scared of rolling off.
00:10:39What's going on, mate?
00:10:40I like just sitting on the edge and gazing across the trees at Mount Rainier.
00:10:43Talk to us.
00:10:44I get a feeling of subtle exhilaration.
00:10:48I want a lot out of this life.
00:10:51I think it will be a long search before I find the place where God wants me.
00:10:56My mind is like an undisciplined child that has gone wild.
00:11:00I'll just have to catch it.
00:11:07Everybody loved Scott.
00:11:09Everybody loved the tree house.
00:11:11The two were connected.
00:11:14We clicked right away when we first met in school, and we just both had a lot of energy,
00:11:20wild and free.
00:11:20We liked a great beer.
00:11:23Mark Biggins is an interesting character.
00:11:25He and Scott went to Evergreen College together.
00:11:29People that came to Evergreen were, in some ways, misfits, me included.
00:11:35People are pretty progressive.
00:11:37It wasn't like people taking crazy drugs and drinking and being crazy in that way.
00:11:42It was very earthy, playing drums and taking mushrooms and sitting around fires.
00:11:48It was also a very tight community.
00:11:51Fate just threw us together.
00:11:53Scott was this wild and free guy, even more so than the other Evergreen students who were
00:11:59considered wild and free.
00:12:02Mark is just a really tender, gentle soul.
00:12:06You know, he played guitar and wrote poetry.
00:12:10But he was having a really hard time.
00:12:12He was struggling.
00:12:14So I think Scottie really helped him out.
00:12:17I called him on the phone.
00:12:19And I said, man, my marriage is over.
00:12:21I don't know what I'm going to do, where I'm going to go.
00:12:22And he says, well, get on up here.
00:12:25Move in with me.
00:12:27Mark Biggins was a big, gruff man.
00:12:30He smoked Chesterfield straights.
00:12:32He probably did a pack or two packs a day.
00:12:34He would knock bourbons down like it was no big deal.
00:12:37That was the bond between him and Scott.
00:12:39Biggins could drink Scott to hell.
00:12:49I lived at the treehouse for many years or so, did my daughter.
00:12:53And perfect strangers would come knocking on the door.
00:12:56And they'd say, oh, we heard there's this really cool treehouse on this property here.
00:13:03Can we go see it?
00:13:04And we'd have to turn them away.
00:13:05I mean, it got so bad, we actually built a gate across the driveway.
00:13:11And the treehouse was not built by Scott alone, even though it's been quoted in many places.
00:13:17But dozens of people worked on that place.
00:13:23My brother, Scott, was never going to be controlled, and he wanted to be free.
00:13:27He was an adrenaline junkie.
00:13:28He loved doing daring things.
00:13:32We're sitting at 60 feet up in the air at six stores.
00:13:34And this is the first time I've ever done this.
00:13:39So he's going to do approximately a 100-foot climb upside down.
00:13:54He just kept wanting to go higher and higher and higher, and he needed more and more and more.
00:13:59Right now, if he slipped, he's going to fall 60 feet to the ground.
00:14:05This is hard.
00:14:06I told you, this is a death act, my friend.
00:14:09He was an adventurer.
00:14:10He loved the excitement of life and wanted new things and new experiences.
00:14:16But he made certain pivotal choices that led him into directions he couldn't turn around and back out of.
00:14:35In my studies, I've gotten on the wrong track, delving into areas not good for my spiritual growth.
00:14:43A voice speaks loud and clear.
00:14:46Remember what you are here for.
00:14:49I understand, but do not change course.
00:14:53He was always in pursuit of something of his own world.
00:15:02When I first met him, he was aspiring to get a degree in medicine.
00:15:06But that fell by the wayside once he worked in the chemistry lab.
00:15:11And he saw an opportunity to make a lot of money.
00:15:21Scott was the first person in my life that I'd ever known to produce crystal meth.
00:15:26He would, at nighttime, go up through the ceilings and crawl into the laboratory.
00:15:31Scottie's professors discovered him.
00:15:33They kicked him off the campus, said, don't you ever, ever, ever, ever show your face here again.
00:15:39He was smart enough to have been a doctor.
00:15:43He was one course short of graduating in chemistry and biology.
00:15:47He would have been pre-med.
00:15:48But he didn't want to be.
00:15:49But he didn't want to be.
00:15:50That was not who he was.
00:15:51And he knew that.
00:15:52And then he just continued right on down that road.
00:15:57This grew and grew and grew, and he became so prolific, and his product was so absolutely pure.
00:16:04If you were ever to try his stuff, I'm telling you, it's something unbelievable.
00:16:10He did have a reputation for producing some of the finest substance around.
00:16:17I never heard anybody say that somebody else's meth was better.
00:16:24Scott's use of crystal meth was very moderate and controlled.
00:16:29He just enjoyed it and inspired him for creativity.
00:16:34As time went on, he bought a piece of property with a barn on it.
00:16:38And so I went out there to renovate the barn.
00:16:40In the loft of the barn, he had his whole laboratory set up.
00:16:45Captain Pat was the front man.
00:16:48He was the finance man.
00:16:49The only times they met were in the forest transferring product and money.
00:16:54When Scott would bring 180 pounds to Captain Pat, he would give him $2 million.
00:16:59Pat was the one who introduced Scott to the meth world.
00:17:03The captain, that was Pat's nickname.
00:17:05He'd take it down to Barstow and sell it to the Hell's Angels.
00:17:09And then Scott would come back to the treehouse with these boxes full of $20 bills.
00:17:14And Scott and I would sit and count it out.
00:17:16We'd be up all night counting money.
00:17:18But this got dangerous.
00:17:19I mean, really dangerous.
00:17:22Captain Pat was murdered by some person who was trying to rob him.
00:17:25And he was murdered in his sleep.
00:17:28Scott was devastated when he heard.
00:17:32But that's what people do in that world.
00:17:34And he didn't want to be any part of it.
00:17:36And that's when he quit.
00:17:39Crystal meth was his income, period.
00:17:42And so when he quit distributing, he needed a new way to make money.
00:17:49At that time in the 90s, Point Break was one of the big bank robbery movies.
00:17:54Little hand says it's time to rock and roll.
00:17:56Scott would watch films and see different things to get ideas from.
00:18:01Scott was down on banks and insurance companies.
00:18:04It feels like everyone at the time was.
00:18:10He was always wanting to find a way to beat the system.
00:18:17He's a real searcher.
00:18:18What's he searching for?
00:18:19The ride.
00:18:20The ultimate ride.
00:18:22What he liked about Point Break was the individualism of Bodie and his fearlessness toward life.
00:18:27Whether it was robbing banks or whether it was surfing on wild waves.
00:18:32So when he got out of the drug business, that's when he said, I'm going to become a bank robber.
00:18:37Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
00:18:39And please don't forget to vote.
00:18:47The first bank we robbed, we were just talking about it, kicking the idea around.
00:18:52How would we do it?
00:18:53Could you do this and get away with it?
00:18:56Scott told Mark before the robbery, do not say anything.
00:18:59Just come in and keep people orderly.
00:19:01Okay, okay.
00:19:02He called him boss.
00:19:03Okay, boss.
00:19:03A friend of mine dropped us off a block away from the bank.
00:19:07And she was supposed to meet us at this designated spot.
00:19:13Our plan was to wait for a bank customer to arrive and use his car as a getaway car.
00:19:22Viggins puts his Ronald Reagan mask down.
00:19:26Rock and roll.
00:19:29Scott went in first.
00:19:31He was going to announce the robbery.
00:19:32And then I would come in, make sure that nobody left.
00:19:37I was so freaked out.
00:19:40It's like, I can't believe this is actually happening.
00:19:43I'm actually doing this.
00:19:45Viggins then, he has his gun in his hand.
00:19:47He says, every motherfucker on the ground.
00:19:49Scott turns around and says, everybody stand up.
00:19:52Stand up.
00:19:53Because he doesn't want anybody walking by to see people on the ground.
00:19:58I think Scott ordered everybody on the ground.
00:20:00I think everybody was down when I walked into the bank.
00:20:05If you've ever been in a car that's, you've lost control and, you know, things slow down.
00:20:11And that's what happened to me in the bank.
00:20:13Everything was in slow motion.
00:20:16Finally, it was time to leave and Scott goes, Mark, did you get the keys?
00:20:20He actually used my name.
00:20:23I bent down and I said, sir, can I have your car keys?
00:20:28And the poor guy, he was really frightened.
00:20:32It's a brand new car.
00:20:33And I couldn't hear that it had started.
00:20:40And as I was doing that, this other car pulls in.
00:20:47Finally, this guy goes, I think the car started.
00:20:49Put it in reverse.
00:20:50Let's get out of here.
00:20:52We start driving through suburbia.
00:20:55We get out at this designated spot and there's no van.
00:20:59My friend panicked and went to point B.
00:21:02We had a backup.
00:21:05And we end up running across this golf course.
00:21:10We could hear police cars coming, there's sirens.
00:21:14And there's my friend parked where she was supposed to be.
00:21:20That's the way it was.
00:21:21It was a comedy of error.
00:21:23I don't know how they didn't get caught, but they didn't.
00:21:25And then I started thinking about all the possible clues that we might have left behind.
00:21:29We used Scott's van.
00:21:31If anybody took down the license plate, I thought, well, they're going to show up any minute.
00:21:36At one point I sat up and said, I am never doing that again.
00:21:41Scott goes, are you sure?
00:21:42Let's go do another one.
00:21:44Right now.
00:21:48After the robbery, Viggins got real scared and drove off to Montana.
00:21:54But all of the failures inspired Scott to go deeper into it.
00:22:00He realized he could handle the banks himself as long as everything outside was controlled.
00:22:05And that's why he came for me.
00:22:08He was very scientific, analytical.
00:22:11I was more improvising, artistic.
00:22:14I had worked in sculpture throughout Europe and Germany and Norway.
00:22:21I didn't care about the banks themselves.
00:22:23It didn't matter.
00:22:23Great.
00:22:24Take them down.
00:22:25Take every last penny they have in a bank.
00:22:27That's no problem for me.
00:22:29But I couldn't imagine doing it.
00:22:31I just thought, this is insane.
00:22:35But it's Scott and he's convincing.
00:22:38He says, man, this is the easiest thing.
00:22:40It's like taking candy from kids.
00:22:43There's millions to be made in this.
00:22:47But as we always said, there is no school of training for bank robbers.
00:22:53Doing what Scott and I did is the most creative thing I've ever done in my life.
00:22:57Much more than the art world.
00:23:01Finding the perfect bank was a moment of exhilaration.
00:23:05It's like finding a piece of marble that is perfect for some image that I have that I want to
00:23:11sculpt.
00:23:12I would sit on the street close enough that I could observe it.
00:23:16I'd write down the time of arrival of armored cars.
00:23:20The deliveries were an important time of day because that's when you've got the most money in the bank.
00:23:27If it was summer, I would have my windows down and I'd have Bach or jazz going on.
00:23:34I'd be on the scanner all day listening to police calls.
00:23:39And I would watch the patrols in that bank area to know when they come.
00:23:44I would log down the times.
00:23:48The number of the banks we did, there was a very consistent patrol route that the cops took at certain
00:23:54times of the day.
00:23:56We learned these routes so that five minutes after the cops left the area, we knew it was time to
00:24:01hit the banks.
00:24:04I spent months driving around the streets doing surveillance.
00:24:13You can't get a jump on a bank going in with some stupid mask on. It's ridiculous.
00:24:19So I would prepare these prosthetics like they do in Hollywood.
00:24:27What we wanted were just components like a nose, a chin, cheeks.
00:24:37He wore dare caps for two reasons.
00:24:39The first thing people think of is that it's probably a cop who wears a dare hat.
00:24:44And also to smite the police because it's like, here I am, you know what I mean? Dare me.
00:24:48I see my hopes and dreams lying on the ground.
00:24:52When I first saw him, he came back from the woods and I just stood there frozen.
00:24:57I go, oh my God almighty, what in the fuck is this?
00:25:03I could look at it and there would be no way you would ever think this was Scott Scurlock.
00:25:08I feel transformed in an eerie, magical way.
00:25:13I'm changing rapidly in this stage of my life.
00:25:17I feel like a different person.
00:25:30The very first bank robbery that I did was the same bank that he did with Mark six weeks earlier.
00:25:37The important thing in taking down a bank is that initial 15 seconds when nobody thinks anything's happening.
00:25:46And he looked like a person that might have had a skin ailment.
00:25:50So people would avoid looking at him.
00:25:56This is a robbery. Nobody move.
00:25:58He would pull the gun out casually.
00:26:03Nobody in their right mind would ever say no to this man.
00:26:07You two, money in the bag. Everyone stay calm.
00:26:11I was sitting with the scanner and the radio and that was it.
00:26:15There was never any risk on my part because I had my own alibi.
00:26:19I had my own reason for being there and I would never be caught unless, of course, I had to
00:26:24call him out of the bank.
00:26:25And the beauty of all of this was creating and developing one of these robberies so that everything would work
00:26:32flawlessly, safely, and that the actual outcome was what we wanted, which was the money.
00:26:39We didn't talk the whole way.
00:26:42And when we got back to the tree house and began counting the money, it was just five or ten
00:26:47thousand dollars.
00:26:49I go, man, this is ridiculous.
00:26:51Who wants to go to prison for this little bitty kibbles and bits?
00:26:58In the early 1990s, I arrested my first bank robber and I thought, shit, this is like shooting fish in
00:27:03a pond.
00:27:04I don't mean to say it in a braggadocious manner, but within a period of five or six months, I
00:27:11cleared close to 80 cases and it became very addictive.
00:27:15I was subsequently assigned to the FBI's violent crime task force.
00:27:21Hollywood flew under the radar for the first couple of robberies because of the low take.
00:27:24When a suspect gets on top of the counter and dances around and tries to get command and control and
00:27:30you have to carjack an old man for his Cadillac, it showed that these guys were bumbling idiots.
00:27:35They probably started to ask themselves, hey, what are we doing wrong here?
00:27:41I said, Scott, I'm not going to do this for ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars.
00:27:46It's stupid.
00:27:47We either do this right and we either go for the vault or I don't do it anymore.
00:27:51I don't want to be messed up in this nonsense.
00:27:53And he goes, we can't do the vault because I don't have enough information.
00:27:56So he hired Mustang.
00:28:00Mustang was a special young woman.
00:28:02I've never quite met a woman like her.
00:28:07She was hired to work in the Sea First Bank as a teller.
00:28:11She got the manuals and she got all of the bank protocol for teller stations, for the vaults, the armor
00:28:17card deliveries.
00:28:20Once we had all the inside information from Mustang and we knew we could do what we needed to do.
00:28:36We learned from the protocol what to say.
00:28:40This is real. This is a robbery.
00:28:43There's certain terminology you use to the bankers.
00:28:46And when they hear that terminology, they know you know what's going on.
00:28:51Who's the vault teller?
00:28:53That's me.
00:28:56This was the phenomenon of Scott.
00:28:58He could control the lobby and still deal with the vault at the same time.
00:29:08Quickly.
00:29:13He wants them to be calm.
00:29:15Go over there, just open the vault.
00:29:17There's no problem.
00:29:18Don't worry, everything will be fine.
00:29:20Just let me get in and get out.
00:29:33It's like he's going into this katakumu fantasy.
00:29:48It's like he's going into this katakumu fantasy.
00:29:53Everyone on the floor, let's go!
00:30:00When we got home, we drove in the back of the studio and I said, how'd you do it?
00:30:04He says, oh man, it wasn't very, it was not good.
00:30:07It was another bad one.
00:30:07I go, oh, fuck me, man.
00:30:09What are you kidding me?
00:30:10Then we get in and he dumps out this big bag and it's just like, and I go, oh man.
00:30:18That was the biggest hole.
00:30:20It was the game changer.
00:30:22Not only for us, but for the FBI.
00:30:29I began with the FBI in 1987.
00:30:31By the time of the Hollywood investigation, I was the most experienced agent in the Seattle
00:30:37Division working bank robberies.
00:30:39I'm trying to recall the cases I worked where somebody did what Hollywood did from doing
00:30:45teller drawers to doing arm takeovers to doing vault takeovers.
00:30:49I can't think of anyone else that took that route.
00:30:54The Hollywood investigation was similar to a jigsaw puzzle.
00:30:58We had little clues here.
00:31:00I got little clues here.
00:31:01Starting to put the big picture together.
00:31:03I think Hollywood was enjoying what he did.
00:31:06First four robberies, he got more than the average bank robber.
00:31:11But then he started going into the vaults.
00:31:14Doing vault robberies on your own is very risky because you have no idea what's happening.
00:31:19in the rest of the bank.
00:31:21It's more exposure.
00:31:22It's more potential for alarms going off.
00:31:25And at that point in time, his level of sophistication went up.
00:31:30The threat went up.
00:31:31It was a challenge to him, and he wanted to challenge us.
00:31:35But the big picture here was what?
00:31:37It was who is Hollywood?
00:31:39Who is Hollywood?
00:31:43You're running?
00:31:44Welcome to the treehouse.
00:31:45Come right in.
00:31:49My parents were totally in awe of the treehouse.
00:31:51Because my dad loved building things.
00:31:56This is going to be the dining room.
00:31:59It was one of the most remarkable edifices ever.
00:32:02So they were in awe of who Scotty was and what he had done in that arena.
00:32:10We grew up in a loving household.
00:32:13My father was a minister, a very well-loved minister.
00:32:17My mother was a teacher of learning disabled children.
00:32:22We were preacher's kids.
00:32:23And darn it, from a very young age, we were going to prove to everybody that we're not goody-two
00:32:28-shoes.
00:32:30Both of us were very adventurous.
00:32:32That's what made us friends.
00:32:34He had a different quality of fearlessness.
00:32:38There were showroom houses all around Reston, Virginia.
00:32:42We knew how to get into all of them.
00:32:45Scotty and I both learned how to pick locks.
00:32:49We did not learn to pick locks to steal anything.
00:32:52We learned how to pick locks so we could get to the other side of the door.
00:32:59As he grew older into his teen years, he became more and more and more secretive.
00:33:04And we used to call him the master of disinformation.
00:33:07Because he wouldn't outright lie to you, but he would tell you something that you knew wasn't quite right.
00:33:15Or he would leave something out.
00:33:18When he first started to do crazy stuff, one of the things he did, and I think he was 15,
00:33:25maybe 16,
00:33:26was that he and this friend stole a car, a van I believe, from a local daycare center, and drove
00:33:33it to the beach.
00:33:34And they got caught.
00:33:36And I think that was a big break for my father, because he realized with that event,
00:33:42that something had really gone south in Scotty.
00:33:47He grew up and didn't outgrow the behavior that we had as kids or adolescents.
00:33:53He just sort of refined it and kept right on going.
00:33:57Everything with Scot was a stepping stone.
00:34:00The Hawthorne Hills Bank was the opening of a new world for us.
00:34:05Once you enter the vault, you're on another level.
00:34:09At this point, when we would intentionally leave a vehicle for the cops,
00:34:13we would make sure we hired a person, either a woman or some guy that looked totally different for us,
00:34:19maybe six foot three and long, scraggly hair or whatever.
00:34:24Give him $1,000, he would go purchase the car, drive it to me, and I would take it.
00:34:31We sanitized them with mineral spirits.
00:34:34We would get female hair and put that in the back seat.
00:34:39Tried to make it always as confusing as possible.
00:34:42Sometimes there were multiple roads leading to the bank where police would be coming,
00:34:46so we would hire somebody as a lookout.
00:34:48My role, only two occasions I did, was to be a point man.
00:34:53He gave me a radio, told me to park here.
00:34:57And when you see the police coming, just say, Mama's coming.
00:35:00That's all you gotta do.
00:35:02There was no hesitation on my part to help Scott out.
00:35:05You know, it was just a thing among friends.
00:35:07One of Scott's main methodologies was to repeat robbing the same bank.
00:35:12Nobody's gonna believe that you're gonna come right back
00:35:14and do the same thing again within a few days.
00:35:21The first thing we do, we dump all the money out,
00:35:24and then we go through with ultraviolet lights,
00:35:27any money that looked like it might be marked.
00:35:29New money was the most dangerous because you have sequential serial numbers,
00:35:32so we would scatter those around.
00:35:36We would lock up all of the equipment in military canisters
00:35:40that we would bury in the ground.
00:35:42Then we took the clothes back into the forest,
00:35:44and we had a pit where we burned everything.
00:35:47After that, I had to go launder the money.
00:35:51Scott did a lot of sports book gambling,
00:35:54and the laundering of the money, he thought of that.
00:35:57That was his creation.
00:35:58It's an ingenious creation.
00:36:00You place the same amount of money on both teams that are playing
00:36:04at two different casinos, and one of the teams is gonna win.
00:36:09So you end up getting back all your money
00:36:11except for what the house receives on the losing team,
00:36:14which is 5%.
00:36:15We weren't losing anything, really.
00:36:19Scott did a lot with his money,
00:36:21and he just lived his life the way he wanted to live it.
00:36:28Travel, seeing the world, meeting different people,
00:36:31that's what he loved.
00:36:32I have been realizing lately the virtues of traveling alone.
00:36:37All my wildest experiences have happened while I'm alone.
00:36:40Scott was definitely a man of mystery.
00:36:43He would disappear for a while.
00:36:46One time I thought maybe he was CIA,
00:36:48maybe he was a pot grower.
00:36:52I never really asked him what he did for money.
00:36:55He must be a contractor, right? I don't know.
00:36:57That's why he was so handy building.
00:37:04I found out that he was really interested in stopping
00:37:07the logging of the forest.
00:37:10He worked with Earth First,
00:37:11and he would give donation money to these environmentalists.
00:37:15And I said, why do you do that, Scott?
00:37:17Why would you waste money on these hippies?
00:37:18Scott did view himself as a Robin Hood figure,
00:37:22and I think it was evident in the way he acquired the money,
00:37:26and then also the way he dispersed it.
00:37:29In terms of him being a Robin Hood figure,
00:37:31I mean, I know that that was true.
00:37:32He gave money to me.
00:37:33He gave money to other people and other things.
00:37:35I mean, I saw him give money away.
00:37:38Yeah, he helped people.
00:37:39They needed something,
00:37:40and he would end up giving them a few thousand dollars for whatever.
00:37:43He spread the money around.
00:37:46It's a funny relationship you have with money.
00:37:48You didn't earn it.
00:37:49You stole it.
00:37:50You took it, spend it freely, and then go get more.
00:37:54He wasn't Robin Hood.
00:37:55If you look at Robin Hood, it was idealistic.
00:37:57He stole from the rich and gave, you know, all of that nonsense,
00:38:00and Scott wasn't like that.
00:38:02He helped people that he knew if he needed something in the future to be done,
00:38:06he could call on them, and they would do it.
00:38:18Regardless of how successful it all was, there's a certain point where you're challenging fate,
00:38:24and it doesn't always turn out the way you want it to turn out.
00:38:29One robbery we had to abort because a customer recognized him as he was walking in.
00:38:36I got the dispatch call, and I had to call him out.
00:38:40We're out. We're out. Let's go. Let's go.
00:38:43For the next one, as soon as he got in his getaway car, the die pack blew up, and he
00:38:48threw that whole thing out.
00:38:54We found the vehicle just blocks away from the bank.
00:38:58I sat in that station wagon at the scene for a couple minutes just absorbing that.
00:39:04That was the closest I had come to him at that point in time,
00:39:07sitting in that car waiting for the next robbery to happen.
00:39:11We were able to trace it back to previous owners.
00:39:14Through that, we were able to develop composite sketches of individuals
00:39:18who had bought cars.
00:39:20We had a police profiler come in and brief all of the people that were working on the case
00:39:25who suggested that he might be a police officer.
00:39:28We thought that because of the skill that he had when he was robbing banks.
00:39:33There was suspicion that Detective McGann had that Hollywood might be a police officer.
00:39:38Sean Johnson had the belief that Hollywood could be a police officer.
00:39:42Did I believe he was a police officer? No.
00:39:44I didn't buy that theory.
00:39:46We definitely considered it, and we thought that that made him more dangerous.
00:39:51We wanted to get the word out so we could solve this case.
00:39:54So we used the media, and that was part of a very carefully laid out plan.
00:39:59We told you about a bank robber nicknamed Hollywood.
00:40:02He's number one on the FBI's most wanted list.
00:40:05The disguises are the reason the FBI dubbed this man Hollywood.
00:40:08He successfully hit more than a dozen banks in the past four years.
00:40:12It changed the story dramatically when the FBI came out with this nickname of Hollywood.
00:40:17Because we knew that they were having a hard time tracking this guy.
00:40:21And it seemed to be on a cycle, like every six months a bank was being hit.
00:40:25And then it became, what was this Hollywood again?
00:40:27FBI agent Sean Johnson's mission is to find anyone who knows anything about Hollywood.
00:40:31I think initially we'll start off door to door, you know, half of us on one side of the street,
00:40:37half on the other.
00:40:37You didn't usually see an FBI agent walking in the neighborhood and say,
00:40:41Hey, can you tell me anything about this bank robbery?
00:40:43But that was wild to see an agent, you know, being so open.
00:40:48Also, a clue that they had no clue.
00:40:52Maybe I wanted him to know that I was there.
00:40:55You know, I was there too.
00:40:57So here's me on TV.
00:41:02Most suspects follow their media.
00:41:04In fact, I think they actually loved it.
00:41:07The first time we heard about Hollywood was from the two page article with Sean Johnson.
00:41:12He's saying, somebody out there knows who this man is.
00:41:14We need your help.
00:41:15His nickname is Hollywood.
00:41:17They call him Hollywood.
00:41:18Hollywood wears heavy makeup.
00:41:19That name influenced him immensely.
00:41:21I think it built him up even more.
00:41:23I think it excited him without him saying it or acknowledging it.
00:41:27But I know his personality deep inside, he was proud.
00:41:30We thought he would rob again if he was getting so much attention.
00:41:41Each robbery was an opportunity to try something new.
00:41:45For the getaways, we would try to figure out what the FBI would expect us to do.
00:41:49And then we would just do the opposite.
00:41:52For the bank, we wanted to do.
00:41:54To get away, you either go down Madison toward the police coming in, or you have to go all around
00:41:59the lake.
00:42:00So I said, why don't you get into the van and just stay there and I'll go to a restaurant
00:42:04and I'll sit and wait for the heat to go.
00:42:07When the police are gone, I'll get back out of my car and I'll radio you and let you know
00:42:11that it's clear to come out.
00:42:14He had a van and we had it retrofitted so he could get under the floor.
00:42:17So if they shined lights in there, they couldn't see him.
00:42:24I told Scott, I said, man, this is going to be big.
00:42:26I just had a dream last night.
00:42:28We're going to have over a quarter of a million dollars and you're going to get out safely.
00:42:32It's not going to be a problem.
00:42:45It was a good 45 minutes I was in the restaurant.
00:42:50There was like four or five cop cars out there and I could just look out the window and see
00:42:54when it was dispersed and finished.
00:42:57I ran off the scene and I'm thinking, is this guy some kind of a ghost?
00:43:04How does he just slip away like that?
00:43:11One thing he discovered while he was in the van was the condensation from his breathing.
00:43:17If the police had been aware, they would see that and think that there was someone in there.
00:43:22I went over to a wine shop across the street and when I came out of the wine shop, they
00:43:27had all gone.
00:43:28And I went to the car and I got my radio out and I radioed Scott.
00:43:32I said, boss, let's go.
00:43:42It was this cat and mouse game. It was clear that police and law enforcement were frustrated.
00:43:47They couldn't figure out who this person was.
00:43:50What everyone seems to remember about this guy is how he orders people around and threatens to shoot them.
00:43:55FBI agents are frustrated that Hollywood has been able to get away with so much for so long.
00:44:00They fear that he will turn violent before he's caught.
00:44:03I think that's what changed the Hollywood story is that until we started to hear from the tellers who told
00:44:10these horrifying stories, he hadn't hurt anybody.
00:44:14He got more desperate sometimes. He tried to get in the vault. The vault tellers weren't there to let him
00:44:19in. He got real upset.
00:44:21He said, it's Christmas time. I don't want to kill anybody. And he used a stun gun on one of
00:44:25the employees.
00:44:25So he was willing to use weapons.
00:44:28I've seen people crying. I mean, just very emotional.
00:44:33And you're trying to get to the point where they calm them down a bit to talk to them, what
00:44:37happened.
00:44:37It was unlike any robbery that any of them had ever gone through before.
00:44:42We could not tell from one second to the next what he was likely to do. He was extremely threatening.
00:44:49Bank robbery is not a victimless crime. The people that are in the bank are traumatized. Tellers are traumatized.
00:44:57When you have a gun pointed at your face, where people threaten to kill you, these take a toll on
00:45:03human beings.
00:45:04I've been robbed 14 times. And one of those was the Hollywood bank robber.
00:45:10He commanded this presence and he told everyone to freeze and everyone froze.
00:45:16It's unusual for a robber to have that much control. It doesn't ever leave you.
00:45:22You can go on with your life, but it doesn't ever leave you ever.
00:45:28There's got to be something more that we can do to stop these people. Somebody is going to get hurt.
00:45:33He thought that he was just having the greatest time living his best life.
00:45:40But for him to think that he was going to get away with this was just a false premise.
00:45:47When you step into the world we were living, you have no idea the toll it's going to bring upon
00:45:52you.
00:45:52It's impossible.
00:45:55After so many years of bank robbers, you are no longer the same person that you were before you began.
00:46:03Scott started to get stressed. He was no longer the casual, happy-go-lucky person. That person was gone.
00:46:12The vibe around the treehouse changed. He became more closed off, more isolated, way less social.
00:46:21Scott had me live up at the front house to keep people out of there.
00:46:26More and more his life was becoming secretive and he needed to have people away. He didn't want people around
00:46:32seeing what he was doing.
00:46:36Once you do cross the Rubicon and start living that life, you have to lie to everybody about everything.
00:46:44Everybody you care about, everybody you meet.
00:46:49I keep going in the wrong direction.
00:46:51I start things and then stop before the great benefit can be gotten.
00:46:55Many females have felt my no follow through.
00:46:59Do I just want to want?
00:47:01Is that why I get no satisfaction?
00:47:03I one time kidded with him when I observe him with certain women.
00:47:08I say, what do you do? Treat women like condiments? Give me a break.
00:47:12Is he single or what? You got women in your bed?
00:47:16Things don't compute like they used to.
00:47:18I usually feel free and secure about my plans in life.
00:47:22But now, I'm beginning to feel captured.
00:47:27He showed up at the door, got to talk to you.
00:47:31As we're sitting there, he's sitting across from me and he just starts to cry, tears streaming down his face.
00:47:37And he says, Suze, I don't know what's going on, but when I look in the mirror, the face looking
00:47:42back at me isn't my own.
00:47:43What is that?
00:47:46I knew at that point he was really in trouble.
00:47:49This light and dark tussle in him, he was losing the battle.
00:47:54He started drinking more and more and more to subdue the anxieties.
00:47:59But Scott wanted one final act and that was three or four banks, one right after the other in the
00:48:05same evening.
00:48:06We get 10 to 15 million dollars and we call it a day.
00:48:10I go about my business, you go about yours.
00:48:13We had three banks figured out.
00:48:16First, you hit a small bank, go in and get out and you don't care about the money.
00:48:21You just care about diverting the police to that small bank and you go back and hit a bigger bank.
00:48:27Then by the time they get there, there's a third one.
00:48:29I mean, what are they going to do?
00:48:31We wanted to decimate the city of Seattle and it was not only doable, it was winnable.
00:48:39I was getting a bit frustrated during this investigation.
00:48:42We had come up with a couple of getaway vehicles and such, but it was getting close but not close
00:48:47enough.
00:48:48I got tired of waiting, just reacting to his bank robberies.
00:48:53I started digging back through the files, back through the MO, the time of day, the day of the week,
00:49:00location of the banks, how much money he was taking.
00:49:04I knew he had an ego, that's why I knew he was going to come back at some point in
00:49:09time.
00:49:10I sat down and did the math, figured out that he was going through approximately $21,000 a month.
00:49:19So with that in mind, I predicted that he was going to hit one of three days the following year
00:49:24in January.
00:49:27I knew that he would be back at certain locations I thought were likely targets.
00:49:32It was a waiting game for them to come back and that we were in the right spot at the
00:49:36right time.
00:49:42After the last big robbery, we took a year off.
00:49:46We were finally planning to take down three banks, but we needed another person because of the logistics of taking
00:49:53down these banks.
00:49:58After the first bank robbery, I went right to Montana and was hiding out there and then Scott showed up
00:50:04and drew me back into it.
00:50:07Scott's been going into the banks by himself and he was having trouble with crowd control.
00:50:12So he told me that all you have to do is stand in the lobby, make sure nobody leaves, that's
00:50:17all you got to do.
00:50:20A year had passed since I had made those predictions on three days in January that he was going to
00:50:24hit.
00:50:25So myself and task force members, surveilled banks, I figured were logical targets for Hollywood.
00:50:31First day, nothing happened.
00:50:34Second day, nothing happened.
00:50:37The third day, I was out there waiting for him by myself.
00:50:42With Mark back, we decided to hit one bank just to get the feel of it before we hit three.
00:50:49My second robbery was so different than the first.
00:50:53More under control, went a lot smoother.
00:50:55It was more like a job than an adventure.
00:51:04I knew immediately, based on the description, oh shit, it's Hollywood.
00:51:09He was getting another bank about a mile up from where I was waiting for him.
00:51:11He came back, just as I said, he came back the third day.
00:51:17I was getting closer and closer and I felt like, yeah, I'm just a couple minutes behind you right now.
00:51:20Not months, not weeks, just a few minutes behind you now.
00:51:25I proceeded up to the bank.
00:51:26We had secured the scene.
00:51:29I was the first follow-up person at the scene.
00:51:32And I get to the bank and I'm looking at Shawn Johnson like, how did you get here so fast?
00:51:38And I found out that he and FBI agents only were running their own surveillance, looking for Hollywood.
00:51:45He cut everybody else out on the task force.
00:51:48Other task force officers decided that what I was doing was crazy.
00:51:53He's not going to come back.
00:51:54He's not going to be here.
00:51:55I remember how that kind of ramped up everybody's energy to work this case,
00:52:00because it had been some gap since his previous robbery.
00:52:04Everybody on the task force thought at that point that something bad was definitely going to happen.
00:52:09And to Ellen's credit, she saw that this case was spinning a little bit out of control and we needed
00:52:17to put an end to it.
00:52:23Hollywood was kind of predictable in terms of the times of day and where he would rob.
00:52:28We hatched a plan to do surveillances, hoping that one of our guys would be out on the street when
00:52:34he robbed a bank.
00:52:35We needed the Seattle Police Department.
00:52:38We needed their special patrol unit.
00:52:40We needed aerial resources.
00:52:42We added extra FBI resources.
00:52:44To get all of that in line was an absolutely Herculean effort.
00:52:50So we made a commitment to bring all these resources together for an indefinite period.
00:52:59This was a time when one of the new techniques was ProNet.
00:53:03It was using these electronic tracers that were attached to money.
00:53:08They would shoot their signal to towers.
00:53:10And so then you had to have a mechanism to follow the tags.
00:53:14So we had to put them in a lot of police cars.
00:53:16I had to go back again through the robberies to date to find out logical targets that I would have
00:53:22hit again to put devices into the banks.
00:53:25We put two of these electronic tracers in as many banks as we could.
00:53:31Everything revolved around time.
00:53:33The more of these tracking devices that were in the vault, the more time it allowed me to get there.
00:53:39If it's between you and some poor bastard whose wife you're going to turn into a widow,
00:53:46brother, you are going down.
00:53:50Scott and I watched Heat, which was a pretty intense movie.
00:53:57The bank robbing scenes in that movie are spot on.
00:54:01And then the shootout just scared the bejesus out of us.
00:54:08I remember Scott and I looking at each other and just going,
00:54:11Oh my goodness, what has that happened?
00:54:17That was the game we were playing.
00:54:20It was a real possibility, which put the fear of God into us.
00:54:25Fear of our own mortality.
00:54:30Throughout my time working on this case, I always thought there was a great possibility that someone could get hurt.
00:54:37I've been close to other bank robberies before in the FBI where colleagues of mine were killed in a major
00:54:45shootout in Miami in 1986.
00:54:48In a firefight lasting over four minutes, two special agents of the FBI were slain and five other agents were
00:54:56wounded.
00:54:56We may not have known who Hollywood was, but what we did know is that if we faced off with
00:55:03him in the street, he would not go down without a fight.
00:55:11At some point in the middle of everything, I had a very vivid dream.
00:55:17I was crawling up a beach from the water and a shark had just bitten both of my legs off.
00:55:28I took the dream as advice. The advice was to get out of it.
00:55:35I could sense that Scott felt that there was something looming.
00:55:41We took hikes up in the Olympics and the Olympics were special to Scott.
00:55:46That was our time of peace.
00:55:49We cleared our mind of the city, of the chaos, and we would go up there in nature and we'd
00:55:54challenge ourselves.
00:55:57On the top of Mount Washington, Scott said to me,
00:56:00listen, no matter what, let your own hand be the hand of fate and never let your enemy dictate your
00:56:05fate.
00:56:06You make sure you're in control of what you do with your life.
00:56:11One bank was not enough for Scott. He wanted to do three banks.
00:56:15I said, you're nuts, man. I talked to Steve and I told him, listen, man, I think this guy is
00:56:21getting out of hand here.
00:56:23I'm going to California and I suggest you come with me.
00:56:26And he actually was thinking about it, except he didn't want to let Scott down.
00:56:33With the final robbery, I knew I had to go through with it because something had to culminate, something had
00:56:38to finalize itself.
00:56:41The last time that I saw Scott, I had this really bad dream.
00:56:47The dream involved guns, a shootout. It was in Seattle. People were running.
00:56:52And I'm telling him this dream and he got all white.
00:56:58And he took a big breath and he says, you're probably not going to see me again.
00:57:02I'm probably going to go to the Sacial Islands.
00:57:03And I go, really? I said, you're going to come back, right?
00:57:06He goes, I don't think you're going to see me again.
00:57:13I walk into the night and scream at God to make his message known to me.
00:57:18God is not responding and I sense rejection.
00:57:22It is a time of pain and anger and resentment.
00:57:26Where the fuck do I go from here?
00:57:28Oh, great winged white horseman in my mind.
00:57:32This will be the last entry for a long time.
00:57:41We prepared for years to rob these banks.
00:57:44And about two weeks before Thanksgiving, Scott said there's good news and bad news.
00:57:50The bad news is that they now have ProNet tags in the vault money.
00:57:54There is no way to beat the tags in time to do our original plan.
00:57:58So we had to abandon the multiple bank scenario.
00:58:02The good news is we take this bank up on 125th Street.
00:58:06Mustang told us that there should be five to seven million dollars within the bank.
00:58:11So our whole game plan changed.
00:58:15But the tracers we had to figure out and we had to figure out quickly.
00:58:19We did a bank just to see how we had to deal with it.
00:58:23We de-disguised Scott into a ski mask.
00:58:26We didn't want them to think it was Hollywood taking out the tracers.
00:58:30And I said, listen, just go in there.
00:58:32Don't even fuck around with the tellers.
00:58:36Go into the vault, get the money, and when you come out we'll have the tracers.
00:58:40Then we'll find out how they're planted in the money.
00:58:44All of these tags were put between $20 bills because you can fan it and you can feel this lump.
00:58:51In a very short time we got two that we discarded out the window.
00:58:56And then after all of that we both felt comfortable and confident that we could actually do it.
00:59:13I woke up the morning of Thanksgiving Eve in 1996.
00:59:18My wife says to me that morning before I leave, this is the day, this is the day, this is
00:59:22the day you're catching Hollywood today.
00:59:24And I'm thinking, well, I don't know about that.
00:59:27Thanksgiving week was always a short week and most of the people aren't even in the office.
00:59:33We wake up Thanksgiving Eve.
00:59:35We looked out the windows.
00:59:36The rain was pounding.
00:59:38It was gray and dark.
00:59:39It was beautiful, wonderful, perfect day for what we were doing.
00:59:43I'm in there cleaning, setting things up, making it perfect.
00:59:48We'd go to the makeup room and we'd put on the prosthetic pieces and the wigs and there wasn't really
00:59:53a lot said.
00:59:55I walk into the studio.
00:59:57Scott has the guitar case out.
00:59:59He has his assault rifle out.
01:00:01He has the shotgun out.
01:00:03The idea was that if a cop car came up on us, we would grab the shot eight, jump out
01:00:09and shoot out the engine and disable the cop car.
01:00:13Everything was finalized.
01:00:15We were ready to get in the van and take off for Seattle.
01:00:18We had Mustang as a lookout on the hill.
01:00:22It's time to do it.
01:00:30We had been trained specifically on the Hollywood bandit.
01:00:37And when he walked into the Lake City branch to rob us, he walked right past his wanted poster.
01:00:43Don't panic. This is a robbery.
01:00:46Scott walks in first, sets the motion of getting everybody in place and then Mark comes in and he starts
01:00:52directing the patrons in there.
01:00:55You're not even afraid.
01:00:56You've rehearsed it in your mind and you've done it before and so you do it.
01:01:01My worst nightmare, not one Hollywood, but two walked through the door and shit just hit the fan.
01:01:08So I started pulling up the bill trap, which sets off an alarm.
01:01:13Who's the vault teller?
01:01:16So I said, well, that's me.
01:01:18So we both went back and the vault can open with a special duress combination.
01:01:26That activated another alarm.
01:01:30I wanted every fucking law enforcement agency in Seattle there and there as quick as possible.
01:01:39The office was a ghost town. Nobody was there. Lights were out.
01:01:44I'm at my desk just trying to tie up some loose ends.
01:01:47We're monitoring the Seattle police radio when the tones go out and you hear this beep, beep, beep.
01:01:54They're in there for two minutes, three minutes, five minutes.
01:01:56I don't hear anything from Mustang. Everything is cool.
01:01:59And then finally I get the radio.
01:02:08I hear someone calling in over a radio. You've been seen.
01:02:15Get in here! Help!
01:02:17He was angry. He wanted in. He wanted out. He meant business.
01:02:21Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
01:02:26I dumped the pro net into the bag.
01:02:28As he has a gun aimed at me, I'm thinking, is he going to come back and shoot me?
01:02:36Mike runs by and he says, a bank's been hit. I think it's Hollywood.
01:02:40We ran to the car, turned on the lights, turned on the siren, and took off down 2nd Avenue.
01:02:47I leave the house about 5 o'clock, thinking the day is over with.
01:02:50I walk into the kitchen of my house. My pager goes off. I look down. It was Hollywood.
01:02:56Scott was in the vault for a little too long, I thought. But then here he comes bounding out of
01:03:02that area.
01:03:03And he had this great big duffel bag, which I took immediately.
01:03:07I'm grabbing a million eighty thousand in this duffel bag.
01:03:15But at this point, we can hear the sirens.
01:03:18And that's when we noticed that there were cops everywhere, thick as flies.
01:03:26Scott yells at me. He says, Steve, maybe we should just report right now. Let's just quit. Let's quit.
01:03:30I say, what the fuck are you talking about, Scott? Let's go. Get this shit done. Get these tracers out.
01:03:34I was driving that fucking car like it was stolen.
01:03:37We were getting updates constantly from the chief dispatcher.
01:03:41Two suspects armed with handguns.
01:03:43But I'm trying to focus on the tracking devices that left the bank.
01:03:52Following this tracking device, it's hitting different areas of the city, different antennas, hot and cold, hot and cold, hot
01:03:57and cold.
01:03:58I'm trying to follow that signal.
01:04:00Finally, Scott yelled out, I got one. I got one.
01:04:02He gave me two twenty dollar bills that were glued together with the pro net tag.
01:04:05And I threw it out the window and kept going down the street.
01:04:08An officer pops up on the radio and says, I'm starting to get a real strong indication here.
01:04:13I roll up on the scene and found on the street the tracking device discarded.
01:04:18And immediately I said, oh shit.
01:04:21But I knew there's one more tracking unit still out there.
01:04:25They were still back there working.
01:04:27And I said, big and straight in your mind to get the fucking shit going.
01:04:30Don't be afraid. Just get it done.
01:04:32It was such a panic.
01:04:34With all the police out buzzing around, we knew that they were hunting us.
01:04:38We had taken a million eighty thousand dollars out of the bank.
01:04:42And it was too difficult to find the tracking devices.
01:04:49All of a sudden my display lights up and goes poof.
01:04:52It's game day. Showtime.
01:04:58Scott said, pull over. He says, I want to drive. If I know better where.
01:05:01I said, I know where I'm going. Don't worry about it. Just do what you got to do.
01:05:04And he was stubborn.
01:05:06And I finally said, OK.
01:05:07And I looked behind my driver's seat and there was this pile of money.
01:05:11And they didn't have any order to what they were doing.
01:05:14And I go, oh my God. Oh my fucking God.
01:05:19I'm still a ways back. I need to get there.
01:05:22It's my case. I need to be there.
01:05:24I'm listening to the tone and it's going.
01:05:26I'm following the display and it's guiding me in towards this white van.
01:05:30I shut off all my lights and I'm just following the display right towards the rear end of the Chevy
01:05:36van.
01:05:38I could see there was condensation on the back windows.
01:05:42You could see lights through the back window. It looked very odd.
01:05:47So we knew they were scouring through the money.
01:05:51I said, radio, we're going to be doing a felony car stop.
01:05:53We're going to have to have a felony stop here. We're going to have to have more guns.
01:05:58And so Scott, as he pulls up, we're on a little knoll, he pulled up to the street to turn
01:06:02left.
01:06:03And as he turned left, I saw the cop cars, three cop cars behind us.
01:06:08The van coasted to a stop against the curb.
01:06:11As I was getting out of the car and drawing my pistol and going on target,
01:06:16I realized that the suspect was already out of the van.
01:06:21The police have always said we shot first. It didn't happen that way.
01:06:25They were the ones that ambushed us and began shooting at us.
01:06:27Meyer's mouth is moving again, so he's obviously lying.
01:06:31Let me tell you this. Let me tell you this.
01:06:34I could see along the driver's side door a silhouette and it was dark, but I could see they had
01:06:42a rifle.
01:06:43And I saw the rifle come down on me.
01:06:47I didn't see it. I could only see through the front windshield, so I never saw anybody get out of
01:06:53the van.
01:06:55The reason for those guns wasn't to have a shootout with the cops. It was to disarm the vehicle.
01:07:00No. That rifle was pointed right at me.
01:07:04Everything that I was taught was kicking in.
01:07:06He went down to take aim at me, and I thought, oh, shit.
01:07:10And for some reason, the rifle was not firing.
01:07:13And then click, click, click. Three clicks. I go, oh, my God.
01:07:19Suddenly, the cops started shooting into the back of the van.
01:07:23I could tell my rounds were going through the back door.
01:07:26All I remember is getting hit by a bullet and knocked over.
01:07:30Suddenly, my left arm just starts flying in front of my face.
01:07:33They fucking shot my arm off. They fucking shot my arm off. I'm screaming.
01:07:38And then a little bit further up, Scott stops again and gets a shotgun.
01:07:41When we get to that second location, a firefight really ensues.
01:07:46As I was getting out of the car to draw down on the van again, I heard three of the
01:07:51loudest boom.
01:07:54There are bullets whizzing by my head. All I could see was glass breaking.
01:08:00I didn't have my body armor, and I am in the middle of a shitstorm.
01:08:06I'm trying to communicate with the FBI office.
01:08:09I'm telling them shots fired.
01:08:13The van takes off again.
01:08:15My left arm is just floating in the air.
01:08:17Biggins is shot in the abdomen. Blood everywhere.
01:08:21And then suddenly, the van comes to a thud. Boom.
01:08:27As I lay in the back of the van, Scott runs off.
01:08:30And I'm thinking, this is what we always spoke about.
01:08:32We were all in this on our own.
01:08:35As I was running towards the vehicle,
01:08:37I'm seeing a silhouette of a body running south in an alley.
01:08:43And the wipers were going.
01:08:44It was still in gear.
01:08:46And Biggins is not saying a word.
01:08:47So I don't know if he's alive or if he's dead.
01:08:50And Scott's gone.
01:08:51And all I could hear were all the cops yelling,
01:08:54he's gone. He's running over there.
01:08:56Shoot that motherfucker. Kill him. Kill him.
01:08:59I went to the alley, and I stopped.
01:09:01And I thought, no, don't go down this alley.
01:09:03This is what we call the fatal funnel.
01:09:05At that point, I realized I should back off and go back to the van
01:09:09where other officers had two suspects down.
01:09:12And I saw this white male down on the ground, handcuffed.
01:09:15And I said, who are you? Are you Hollywood?
01:09:16He says, no.
01:09:17He ran down the alley.
01:09:19I said, just shoot me, you son of a bitch.
01:09:21You were doing it a minute ago.
01:09:22Just shoot me. Kill me.
01:09:23Get it over with.
01:09:24He said, oh, don't worry about it.
01:09:25The courts will take care of your fucking ass.
01:09:28When he told me to shoot him, I said, no.
01:09:30I said, you're not getting out of this one.
01:09:31We beat you at your game.
01:09:35I didn't want to go to prison.
01:09:36I mean, at that point, nothing mattered.
01:09:38Life was over, as far as I was concerned.
01:09:41Suddenly, the fear and the pain and all that goes away.
01:09:44And I looked in the van and I saw this pile of money.
01:09:47And all the bullet holes that the cops put in the van
01:09:49were like laser beams of light.
01:09:52And suddenly, this beautiful, divine music came into my head.
01:09:56I'd never heard earthly music like it.
01:10:00And the money became almost like this talisman of, what is it?
01:10:05It's a bunch of paper.
01:10:06Who gives a shit?
01:10:08Who does what people do for this stupid stuff
01:10:11that has no meaning, really?
01:10:19The fire department was at the scene treating Biggins.
01:10:22And he was motionless like he was dead on the ground.
01:10:25As I was looking at him, the firefighter looked up at me
01:10:28and he went, gave me a thumbs down.
01:10:30I thought, oh, shit.
01:10:32I just killed somebody.
01:10:33I took a deep breath and I said to myself,
01:10:36this is something that I never thought about.
01:10:39I'd been in one previous shooting, but I was not in a shooting like this.
01:10:43This was a shootout.
01:10:47Outside of the van, I was in and out of consciousness.
01:10:51I remember Mike began opening one of my eyelids, checking to see if I was living or dead.
01:10:57I remember having a sense of relief that it's finally over.
01:11:02I can let it go now.
01:11:04I don't have to live like this anymore.
01:11:10The two men who were shot were taken into custody and then taken to the hospital.
01:11:15One man remains at large.
01:11:16Dozens of officers, FBI agents, canine units, even the SWAT team were called in to look for the fugitive.
01:11:22Especially if somebody's still on the loose, that's a scary thing.
01:11:26They could be anywhere.
01:11:29I follow the ambulance down to Harborview Hospital.
01:11:33I'll deal with the crime scene later.
01:11:35I need to talk to Steve and find out who else am I looking for that night.
01:11:39This is it. We're not, I'm not putting up this anymore.
01:11:41This has got to be the closure.
01:11:44In the waiting room in the hospital, Sean Johnson asked me questions.
01:11:49And if you can imagine me being shot up and I'm in a situation, here we are.
01:11:53Scott's on the loose. I don't know if he's dead or alive.
01:11:56Biggins might die.
01:11:59Your mind is not clear.
01:12:01So I'm trying to protect myself.
01:12:04After two hours, Steve Myers finally tells me that the person I'm looking for is Scott Scurlock.
01:12:10He said Scott Scurlock is Hollywood.
01:12:31I keep hearing that the officers are going door to door throughout the night and throughout the day, trying to
01:12:38find some lead. Nothing is turning up.
01:12:40Yes, I'm just wondering in my area, there's police all over and helicopters and everything.
01:12:44Right. You need to stay inside, ma'am, and try not to tie up the emergency lines with calls.
01:12:50When I learned that Hollywood had escaped, I was angered because so much work had gone in to try to
01:12:55apprehend him.
01:12:56The only word that kept coming to my mind is, fuck, really? Hollywood was right there. How did he get
01:13:02away?
01:13:09For the next several hours, I was walking around with nervous energy when my pager went off.
01:13:16I think that bank robber might be hiding in my camper in the backyard.
01:13:20And what makes you think that?
01:13:22Because I saw somebody's in there, and it's all locked up, and nobody's supposed to be in there.
01:13:26It was my old partner, and he said to me, they have your suspect cornered right near the shooting scene.
01:13:34Did you tell if it was a male or female?
01:13:36No, I just saw some dark hair.
01:13:38Okay, how long ago?
01:13:39No, I just came in right now.
01:13:43The officers are dispatched to the camper, and they're pounding on the camper, trying to see who's inside.
01:13:49So they bust the window and spray in pepper spray.
01:13:52And a moment later, they hear a single gunshot.
01:13:55The officers fire back into the camper.
01:14:05I was told that 76 rounds had been fired into the camper by officers who were at the scene.
01:14:14Good evening, everyone. Thanksgiving has been interrupted for dozens of families.
01:14:18It's a police standoff, and the suspect may be the bank robber known as Hollywood.
01:14:22Right now, Hollywood the bank robber, one of the luckiest, most prolific in the country, looks like his luck has
01:14:28run out.
01:14:32As I was arriving there, the Seattle police was getting there simultaneously with their armored vehicles and setting up a
01:14:38command post.
01:14:39We had helicopters. We had armored vehicles.
01:14:43There were probably at least a couple hundred law enforcement officers there that day.
01:14:46I never seen such a huge response.
01:14:49This is Thanksgiving Day. The whole city is at home with their families and able to watch what's happening on
01:14:55TV.
01:14:57Not only does the entire neighborhood come out, but if you live near that neighborhood, you come out.
01:15:02People come to see what is happening, especially when something that's almost like a movie is so close to their
01:15:08homes.
01:15:08I mean, a quiet North Seattle neighborhood, and you have hundreds of police, the SWAT team, all this happening on
01:15:18Thanksgiving.
01:15:19Thanksgiving that nobody's going to forget.
01:15:21Our last of our guests were leaving, and I got a call from my Aunt Helen, who lives in Seattle,
01:15:27and she was hysterical.
01:15:29Our top story right now...
01:15:31It was all over the Seattle news that there was this police shootout with this bandit named Scott Scurlock.
01:15:37And there's a SWAT team around this little trailer in this lady's backyard.
01:15:41And then I, at that point, sat down and just said, whoa, whoa.
01:15:51It was just so mind-blowing to find out that he's been robbing banks for five years.
01:15:58People are still out of their homes. They're Thanksgiving disrupted by this police manhunt that has been going on now
01:16:05for more than 24 hours in this neighborhood.
01:16:07Police and FBI agents have been in standoff mode, guns drawn, and negotiators in place.
01:16:13The standoff is still underway. We know that shots have been fired. They've been banging on the door. They've tried
01:16:19to contact him. They can't.
01:16:22They wanted this to end in the way they wanted it to end, and they weren't going to take any
01:16:25chances.
01:16:28After two hours of no response, we decided to make entry into the camper.
01:16:36I walk in with the tactical team. We found a body underneath the table.
01:16:43I had a picture with me. I looked down.
01:16:49Scott.
01:16:50At that point, I knew that we had him.
01:16:54And it turned out that he had killed himself.
01:16:56That first shot the officers heard was him killing himself.
01:17:05Good evening, everyone. A suspected bank robber who died yesterday during a standoff with police apparently killed himself.
01:17:12Scott Scurlock, who police dubbed Hollywood, was found dead in a camper last night.
01:17:16I woke up the next morning in the hospital, and TV was going, and the news was carpeted with us,
01:17:23and my name, and Scott Scurlock from Olympia, Washington, deceased.
01:17:29A self-inflicted wound.
01:17:32And I kind of looked, and I just go,
01:17:37thank God, you know. I just said, thank God.
01:17:41The shootout was the end. Not only the end of our endeavors, but the end of a certain life that
01:17:47I had.
01:17:50We were like two comets that came together, and we met up, and we started flying through the fucking universe,
01:17:57and suddenly, boom, it's all busted up in one second. It's gone.
01:18:06I feel like this episode tested me in every possible way.
01:18:11I was thinking about my kids when the shooting started.
01:18:15And wondering, you know, am I doing the right thing by doing this job when there's a lot of other
01:18:20jobs I could be doing in the FBI?
01:18:25A day doesn't go by where you don't think about it.
01:18:30My only question to him would probably be, why did you take your life?
01:18:35And I'll quote Mark Twain, and Mark Twain said that he would never wish death upon a man, but he's
01:18:41read some obituaries with great pleasure.
01:18:46The major regret I have in this investigation is the fact I never got to sit down with Scott and
01:18:52talk to him face-to-face, man-to-man.
01:18:56If I had been in the vehicle that night in front of that pursuit line, but I've done what Mike
01:19:00did, shoot him in the back of that van, no.
01:19:02There's always another day to catch him. I mean, seriously, there's always another day.
01:19:12It was heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking for the whole family. It was almost like a double whammy of, whoa, he
01:19:19was doing what? He ended up here?
01:19:23My father adored Scott and was heartbroken. Not only that we lost him, we also lost who we thought he
01:19:31was.
01:19:32I miss being able to love him. I miss being loved by him. And he really genuinely loved me. I
01:19:41don't think there's any question about that at all. And I loved him dearly, no matter what it was like.
01:19:46The number of secrets he had about the life he had been leading were so huge that if he had
01:19:53walked out of that trailer, put his hands in the air and surrendered, he would have had to have faced
01:19:59his entire world.
01:20:02And I honestly believe that the last decade of his life, he was making choices that he knew were going
01:20:10to come down to a dead end.
01:20:13I received a call. Scottie's died. He died in a bank robbery. My mind immediately went into he was trying
01:20:22to stop the bank robbery. He was being the hero. And so I asked the question, well, how did he
01:20:27die in the bank robbery? And the answer came back that he was the bank robber.
01:20:31I felt like my heart and my brain exploded. When I was in prison, Mustang visited me four or five
01:20:39times. She would always come on the anniversary day before Thanksgiving. She would always think of Scott.
01:20:45And I got a letter from her sister said that she committed suicide. She just couldn't bear the fact that
01:20:51all that she had been involved with over the years with Scott and me and that suddenly he's dead and
01:20:57I'm in prison for all these years and that she is walking free.
01:21:02It's like she's not walking free in her own soul. I don't think she believed she was walking free.
01:21:08Steve Myers, who used to go to Shakespeare plays with my husband and I. He's going to prison. We have
01:21:15Mark Biggins, sensitive guy, poet, guitar player. He's going to prison. Blows my mind.
01:21:24People would say, oh, you knew the guy in the treehouse? You knew Hollywood? I go, hey, I didn't know
01:21:29Hollywood. I knew Scott Scurlock.
01:21:35Scott and I had several discussions about what are you going to do if we get caught? And he would
01:21:41always, always say, I'm not going to prison. I'm going to head for the white light.
01:21:49I read the victim impact statements and some bank tellers and some customers in the bank were truly traumatized by
01:21:57the whole experience and that I regret sincerely.
01:22:07Scott had a t-shirt that said, live free or die. And I think he spent a lot of years
01:22:12figuring out how to live free.
01:22:15But in the end, he died and he wasn't free.
01:22:25After his death, the treehouse died within a year, a year and a half. It crumbled and fell.
01:22:31I mean, this treehouse and Scott were one soul, inseparable.
01:22:36And Scott's death was its death. And it had to be that way.
01:22:45After being released from prison, I went back to the treehouse.
01:22:49It looked like a shipwreck. It was just a pile of timber.
01:22:55And I took some of Scott's ashes and spread them and said goodbye finally.
01:23:03I have just finished reading my whole diary and it seems like a thing of the past.
01:23:09I feel like a completely different person.
01:23:12So many things have happened to me that there's no way I could write them all down.
01:23:19My mind seems to be farther than my body from the earth below.
01:23:24I feel excited but scared.
01:23:30It is a time of new beginnings.
01:24:02And it by Catholics away.
01:24:02I wish all the officers came out.
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