Transcript

Inside the Mind of the Military-Precision Bank Robber | The FBI Files

From The FBI Files · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 2 h 29 min · 19,380 words · 454 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Inside the Mind of the Military-Precision Bank Robber | The FBI Files", an episode of The FBI Files published December 7, 2025 (2 h 29 min, about 19,380 words). It mentions 13 people, works and ideas, including Cuban detainees, Johnny Madison Williams, Bradley Martin, John F. Kelly, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

What this episode is about

The content explores the case of a highly organized and violent bank robber known as the Shudest, who executed a series of unsolved bank heists in the late 1980s with military precision, leaving terrified victims and minimal evidence for law enforcement. The FBI, led by special agent Jack Kelly, prioritized capturing this takeover-style criminal, whose aggressive tactics set him apart from typical robbers, and who operated in a manner that posed significant challenges for investigators.

Key takeaways

  • A lone gunman with meticulous planning turns bank robbery into a terrifying art form.
  • In a world of crime, fear sometimes outruns the evidence—victims' inconsistent descriptions leave the FBI chasing shadows.
  • The 'Shooest' shows that even the rarest crime style can excel when blended with bold violence and cunning strategy.
  • With each robbery, a ghostly figure amasses cash, but the stakes rise: will his next customer be a casualty?
  • In six months, the Shooest robs with military precision, proving that cash isn't king; control and chaos reign supreme.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: John F. Kelly, Jim Calstrom, Thomas Silverstein
  2. – 30:00: John F. Kelly
  3. – 45:00: John F. Kelly, Johnny Madison Williams, Carol Williams
  4. – 1:00:00: Guy Goodman, Bradley Martin, Johnny Madison Williams, Carol Williams
  5. – 1:15:00: Guy Goodman, Bradley Martin
  6. – 1:30:00: Bradley Martin, Guy Goodman
  7. – 1:45:00: Bradley Martin, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Guy Goodman, Fidel Castro
  8. – 2:00:00: Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Thomas Silverstein, Cuban detainees
  9. – 2:15:00: Cuban detainees, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Delta Force
  10. – 2:28:53: Cuban detainees, Delta Force, Thomas Silverstein, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary

Notable quotes from "Inside the Mind of the Military-Precision Bank Robber | The FBI Files"

  • Gunman, responsible for the longest string of unsolved bank robberies in FBI history. I'm Jim Calstrom, former head of the FBI's New York office. The robber's planning was…
    about Jim Calstrom · at
  • Bank robbery coordinator special agent Jack Kelly considers this gunman a top priority.
    about John F. Kelly · at
  • Johnny Madison Williams is a former Marine from Texas and has a record for robbery and theft there.
    about Johnny Madison Williams · at
  • The medical examiner uses dental records to confirm it is Guy Goodman.
    about Guy Goodman · at
  • Bradley Martin, a repeat thief and drug user, is one of these workreleased prisoners.
    about Bradley Martin · at
  • In the 1980s, the federal penitentiary in Atlanta housed some of the country's most notorious prisoners. 1,800 Cubans fleeing Castro's regime. 400 were hardened criminals. 200…
    about Cuban detainees · at
  • The Attorney General instructs the Bureau of Prisons to find space for them in America's already overcrowded prison system.
    about Federal Bureau of Prisons · at
  • Built at the turn of the century, the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary is the largest penitentiary in the United States.
    about Atlanta Federal Penitentiary · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Johnny Madison Williams — Person · Primary perpetrator (case subject) · 6 mentions · first at
    Identified as the 'Shootist'—a prolific, meticulous, violent serial bank robber operating across multiple states; his capture resolves the longest string of unsolved bank robberies in FBI history.
  • Bradley Martin — Person · Primary perpetrator (second case segment) · 16 mentions · first at
    Escaped work-release inmate whose fingerprints tie him to Guy Goodman’s murder; later linked to Donna Martz’s kidnapping/murder during a multi-state flight with Carolyn King.
  • John F. Kelly — Person · Referenced investigator / primary case narrator (segment) · 9 mentions · first at
    FBI bank-robbery coordinator who leads the multi-state task force pursuing the serial robber nicknamed 'the Shootist' and explains investigative strategy and breakthroughs.
  • Carol Williams — Person · Accomplice (first case segment) · 4 mentions · first at
    Wife and accomplice of Johnny Madison Williams; her vehicle and firearm purchases align with the Shootist’s methods and enable his getaways; later pleads guilty.
    Williams wife, Carol bought a 38 revolver like the one in bank security footage, and Carol drives a red four-door registered in her maiden name.
  • Jim Calstrom — Person · Host / narrator · 3 mentions · first at
    Introduces and narrates multiple FBI case segments, framing the investigations and providing authority as former head of the FBI’s New York office.
  • Guy Goodman — Person · Victim (second case segment) · 14 mentions · first at
    74-year-old retired florist whose murder triggers the fugitive manhunt; his stolen credit card/checks create the financial trail used to track suspects.
  • Thomas Silverstein — Person · Referenced law enforcement collaborator · 7 mentions · first at
    Texas Ranger contacted by Jack Kelly; represents the Texas-side investigative partnership pooling information on the Shootist robberies.
    Ranger Thomas, and investigators in the two states pull their information.
  • Fidel Castro — Person · Referenced political figure (context-setting) · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced to explain the Mariel boatlift and the influx of Cuban detainees into U.S. prisons, setting up the Atlanta penitentiary riot segment.
    A plummeting economy and political unrest prompt Fidel Castro to allow Cuban citizens to leave the country.

Companies & orgs

  • Federal Bureau of Prisons — Company · Headquarters · 4 mentions
    Governing body responsible for the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and its operations.
  • Delta Force — Company · Referenced expert · 7 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of military precision, possibly in relation to the tactics used by the bank robber.
    The only unit in the United States that has a sophisticated explosive or thermal breaching capability is the FBI's hostage rescue team.

Concepts & topics

  • Cuban detainees — Concept · Core topic · 9 mentions · first at
    Group of individuals involved in the riot at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, central to the episode's conflict.
  • INS hearings — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
    Legal proceedings related to the Cuban detainees, mentioned in the context of their status and potential deportation.
    The government of the United States through the voice of the attorney general told him, it's not unreasonable to give you a hearing.

Places & events

  • Atlanta Federal Penitentiary — Place · Setting · 8 mentions · first at
    Primary location where the Cuban detainees riot and take hostages, central to the episode's narrative.

Full transcript with timestamps

His trademark is gunfire. His goal, grab the cash, no matter who gets in the way. In his wake, he leaves terrified victims, fleeting glimpses, and few clues for the FBI agents on his trail. But they are determined to find him and end this gunman's reign of terror. Heat. Heat.

In the late 1980s, the FBI matched wits with a cunning bank robber, a lone gunman, responsible for the longest string of unsolved bank robberies in FBI history. I'm Jim Calstrom, former head of the FBI's New York office. The robber's planning was meticulous. He executed his crimes with military precision. It would take the combined skills of local police and dozens of agents to catch a criminal mastermind they called the Shudest. San Diego, California. On November 5th, 1987, the late morning quiet shatters with a gun blast in a local bank.

A gunman orders customers to the ground, threatening to shoot whoever disobys. The robber forces the teller to fill his bag with money from all the cash drawers, warning against a lot of die packs or marked bills. me so I can see your hands. Go.

He avoids the vault, which would take more time. This robber hits hard and gets out fast. Employees call police immediately.

Yes. Hello. But even in the best case scenario, it takes several seconds to get through to an operator and several minutes for dispatched units to arrive. By then, the gunman is long gone. Authorities conduct a full crime scene investigation. Although the man wore no gloves, he was careful enough not to touch any surface and left behind no fingerprints. Bank robbery is a federal crime. The case goes to the FBI. Bank robbery coordinator special agent Jack Kelly considers this gunman a top priority. He's a takeover robber, taking command of the entire bank rather than slipping a teller a note.

It's a rare style used in less than 5% of bank robberies. Even on the takeover style robbers, uh most of them didn't fire weapons in the bank. So he was again even a smaller percentage of the small percentage of take over over robbers that we had at the time. So from that aspect, he was considered to be much more aggressive and much more dangerous. Also, he doesn't use a partner inside the bank as most takeover robbers do. His violence has a profound effect on his victims.

Victims in a in a takeover style robbery are are pretty traumatized by the event, especially when there's shots fired in the bank. And consequently, your uh descriptions can vary dramatically. I mean, as far as the age, the height, the weight everything. Some victims say he was wearing a disguise. Others disagree. The differing descriptions are of no real help. So, agents turned to the bank security camera photos.

We did have some surveillance pictures of mediocre quality at that time, and it was not a great deal of assistance to us in trying to identify who this individual might have been.

The photos show only that the robber is a white male about 6t tall with a beard and mustache. Agents face a serious challenge. No evidence left behind, no reliable description of the robber.

Special Agent Kelly believes it's not the man's first time robbing a bank. Reviewing unsolved cases for similarities. Kelly suspects the same man robbed another San Diego bank a year earlier. The motus operande was identical with someone coming in the bank, firing the gun in the ceiling, vaultting the counter, similar description.

The gunman left no evidence behind. The fact that there was so few clues was an indication that this guy was pretty good and he he really probably planned these robberies very well.

Soon agents learn the gunman is not finished in the area. After he robbed a second time in San Diego, he actually came back a month later and robbed a third time in San Diego using the identical ammo and and firing the shots into the ceiling.

The robber's choice to fire his weapon makes him a deadly threat. I don't think a robber that does something like this would hesitate to shoot somebody if somebody actually tried to stop him. California.

As a rule, special agent Kelly attaches code names to serial bank robbers to allow for shorthand communication among agents.

Also, a catchy nickname increases publicity. The media would be more willing to pick up the the story and to show pictures in the newspaper on television, which would hopefully help us generate some leads.

Kelly dubbs this one the shooest for his distinctive and dangerous MMO. On December 14th, 1987, the shooist robs a fourth California bank in Mission Viejo, 70 mi north of San Diego.

Check inside the bank. I'm going to go see what's in the convenience store here. See what we can find.

It was my responsibility to review all the robberies that would come in from the surrounding regional FBI offices.

FBI agents respond to the bank. When an robbery occurs, you do an investigation inside the the bank itself for any evidence,

but you also do an investigation outside the bank to look for evidence or any possible witnesses that may have seen this individual. And we did both on all these robberies here.

Yet, they get nowhere. Like they're chasing a ghost. So far, the shooters has stolen at least $44,000. But it's not just about the money. Agents worry that at some point he'll shoot someone.

We're dealing with somebody we thought that was going to become more and more aggressive during the course of his robberies and consequently more and more dangerous. And uh it was something that definitely needed to be uh identified and stopped.

After a year-long absence from California, the shooist struck three times in 5 weeks. Kelly suspects the shooters must have hit somewhere in that year absence.

He's got to be somewhere else. He's got to be robbing banks somewhere else besides California.

Checking with other FBI field officers, Kelly discovers a string of similar unsolved robberies in Texas with dates that fit neatly into the gap between California robberies.

During one of the unsolved heists, the gunman used the sort of violence agents have feared. In July 1986, a white male with a beard and sunglasses hit a bank in Abalene, Texas.

After firing his gun into the ceiling, he forced the manager to fill his bag. As in California, he wanted only cash from the teller drawers and warned against alarms, die packs, or marked bills. The employees followed all instructions to survive. But that

don't you move. Don't you move. Don't be looking at me. Stay down and see what's going to happen to you.

The robber ran off, leaving the bank manager writhing in pain from a gunshot to the abdomen.

Sir, go lock the door. Go lock the door. I need the police here right away. I'm at Everly Bank. We've been robbed. The manager has been shot. I don't know what else to do.

Texas Rangers, the FBI, and EMTs responded immediately. The manager was gravely injured, but she survived. The other witnesses couldn't provide a solid description. It happened so fast, and they were so terrified, they didn't get a good look at the gunman. The crime scene investigation came up empty,

and the security cameras provided only more photos of a robber with obscured features. Special Agent Kelly contacts the Texas Rangers who are working the unsolved robberies.

Ranger Thomas, and investigators in the two states pull their information. They know the shooters targets branches near highway on-ramps for a quicker escape. The investigators agree the shooist likely has a getaway driver, but no car has been spotted.

Each heist is as clean as the last, and no solid leads emerge. The shooist pulls off six more heists in Texas and California in 1988. Investigators hope the media attention would continue. They need someone who recognizes the gunman to call in a tip.

But because of the danger of this individual, we were hoping to get as much cooperation as we could, and we did. Local newspapers would run pictures of this individual. The local television stations ran pictures of this individual.

With the ongoing media coverage, the shooist rises to infamy. His is an astonishing spree. 14 known bank heists in three years. All perfectly planned and executed. The shooist is destined to make FBI record books, a cunning adversary like they've never seen before. By 1988, a man called the shooist has robbed at least 14 banks in Texas and California.

Special Agent Jack Kelly. He was well organized and planned things out well enough where he didn't leave a lot to track him with.

What he does leave behind are bullets fired into the ceiling. If forensic examiners can find rifling marks on the slugs, they can run them through their ballistics database. And if the gun has been used in other crimes, they might get a lead on the gunman's identity. But that's a lot of ifs. Ballistics experts determined the slugs came from a 38 caliber revolver. But there's a problem with finding traceable rifling characteristics. The rounds that we did find uh were pretty well damaged. They weren't really going to be much benefit for identification as far as the rifling was concerned.

The shooist continues his spree. His 17th known robbery is in the San Diego suburb of University City. Once again, no hard evidence remains in the bank, but outside, investigators find signs of just how meticulous the shootist is. It appears that before the heist, he loosened fence boards across his escape route so that after the robbery, he could reach his getaway car faster. Special Agent Kelly has chased more than a hundred robbers, but this one's the most professional he's encountered by far.

You had to give him some credit. He was good. But you always had the hope that maybe there was some piece of evidence or some witness, some other part of the puzzle that you could put together.

Yet, despite a full neighborhood canvas, agents come up empty. By the middle of 1989, the shootist is made off with nearly $250,000. and he's struck in at least 10 different cities.

Anytime an individual is mobile and he's able to move from not only city to city but state to state, it it really kind of complicates the investigation because there are multiple jurisdictions. Kelly brings together law enforcement from around the country.

California and Texas FBI agents, local police, and Texas Rangers work together, determined to find that one clue that has eluded them.

The more eyes and ears you have out there at the time, the more likely you are to get a break and and uh and catch this individual. Because the shooist acts like a professional, agents suspect he has an arrest record for robbery.

One of the logical leads to take is to look for people that just recently are released from prison and maybe going back to their old ways again.

Investigators asked about bank robbers released from prison in 1986 when the shooters spree began, but it's a dead end. No one recognizes the man. In the surveillance photos, it's difficult to determine what the man really looks like.

And uh the hair, the uh mustache didn't appear to be real. I was extremely dark in color.

The task force concludes the shooist likely uses elaborate disguises, wigs, mustaches, even makeup to change his complexion. When we first realized that uh he was probably wearing disguises, we actually uh took a number of the surveillance pictures to different uh costume shops.

Agents show shop employees the photos asking if they recognize the man or the disguises, but it's another dead end. Investigators analyze the shootists bank robberies, hoping to find a pattern. They compare the amounts taken to the frequency of the heists and determine the shooist spends about $3,000 a week. When he runs low on money, he hits another bank. you were able to see not necessarily a a pattern, but you knew that he was going to need x amount of height. Investigators note the shudist usually strikes on Mondays and Fridays and often robs different branches of the same banking companies.

There were hundreds of bank branches in the general area of where he hits. He was he was just a a kid in a candy store out there with trying to select where he wanted to rob next and and it was our job to try to outguess him. The team sets up surveillance on branches of the banks the shooter seems to favor. They watch on Mondays and Fridays, the robbers favorite days.

It's a long shot. And the problem we had was we had absolutely no idea where exactly it would hit. There were so many branches, so many targets.

Show us team three. Manpower is limited. Predicting which bank he'll hit next proves impossible. Bank robbers often use casinos to launder stolen money. The task force sends bank surveillance photos to casino security offices. One California casino responds with a good lead. A regular high roller there looks a lot like the shooterest.

They were willing enough to give us the uh their surveillance photos of the individual that they had suspected.

Agents track down the man and interview him. Special. He does resemble the shooist, but he has solid alibis for the robbery dates.

Investigators eliminate him as a suspect. Another lead crossed off the list. We'll be in touch.

Okay. On June 23rd, 1989, the elusive shooters strikes in Arlington, Texas, his 18th known heist. He has now hit banks over a 1,400 mile area. This time, a Telus slips an exploding die pack into his bag. When it blows, it renders the stolen money unusable. A few hours later, the shooters robs another bank. He's never struck twice in one day. It's a reckless move.

Away from the counter. Heads out where I can see him. Agents fear he is becoming more desperate.

Special Agent Kelly fears it's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt. stay away from

the more robberies that he did and the more times he shot the weapon and including the times he shot the teller down in Texas, that's a great concern to law enforcement obviously because this individual we thought had a lot of potential for possibly killing someone eventually.

And the way the shooist operates, he could take his next victim anywhere at any time. In the late 80s, a team of investigators from Texas and California hunts the shootist, a cunning bank robber who begins each heist with gunfire, grabs the cash fast, then disappears without a trace. As the robberies pile up, the shest becomes infamous in the western US police community. Everyone's on the lookout. Special Agent Jack Kelly.

Anytime in any jurisdiction that the shooters hit a bank, we would send out our communications to the other offices as as quickly as possible, providing them with whatever information we have in the way of maybe some new clues or new witnesses or or any better surveillance photographs. From the photos, the task force determines the shooist likely uses a Smith and Wesson 38 revolver, a handgun popular with police departments. Investigators also notice he indexes his finger on the side of his weapon, just as officers are trained to do.

It's an ominous possibility. The shooist might be a cop. You come here. Even if he's not an officer, he seems to know how they operate. Investigators suspect he goes as far as surveilling local officers to learn their patrol routes

and then chooses targets away from those routes to increase police response time. The elusive gunman treats bank robbery like a profession and his planning has paid off in more than 20 robberies. Investigators welcome the continuing media coverage. They know their best chance of finding the shooters might be through the public's help. One witness in particular provides an interesting lead. After the 1989 heist in Mission Viejo, a resident near the Rob Bank saw a man climb into the trunk of a car which then sped off.

He described the car as a red four-door with California plates, but he didn't see the driver or get the plate number. Agents run checks on every car that fits the description in California, but there are thousands. It would take months to track down each car, but the sighting does confirm one suspicion.

When we found out that uh he was getting into the trunk of a vehicle, we knew that he obviously had a an accomplice in these robberies. On March 30th, 1990, the shooters robs the same Texas bank he hit a year earlier. To investigators, the repeat job means he's getting even more brash. Unafraid of being recognized by anyone.

By the end of 1990, the task force ties the shooters to 27 robberies that have netted him nearly $400,000. All without a single usable print left behind.

She was very cautious about vaultting the counters not to touch things. Even going out the doors, he would hit the doors with his elbows or his hip to push him open.

Somehow agents need to find a way into the shooist's secretive world. They take the case to behavioral profilers at the FBI Academy in Quantico Virginia. It's not that it's going to be able to place a name on the individual, but it'll kind of give us a little bit more about the guy's personality.

Studying details of each known robbery, the FBI profiler creates a behavioral sketch of the shooters.

Because most criminals start working in their comfort zone, the profiler suspects the shooters is from Texas, where the first robberies occurred. The gunman's level of precision indicates possible military training. You

come here. Since the shooters has gone so long without anyone turning him in, the profiler suggests the robber has only one fiercely loyal accomplice. And experience with other takeover robbers makes the profiler believe the shooist will grow more violent as his spree continues. It's possible the gunman will choose a shootout over surrender. This guy's going to be willing to shoot his way out of the bank or even take hostages to to make an escape from the bank if he's cornered.

In April 1991, did you actually see a gun? The shooist expands his turf into Northern California, robbing a San Jose bank of $15,000.

Okay. Did he shoot the guy? San Jose Detective Sergeant Jack Baxter. We never found a witness as to where he went, what kind of car he had, did he have accompllices. Uh, we had no idea.

This time, the shooist leaves something behind. A partial palm print is found on the counter. But investigators can't make a match. Law enforcement agencies don't include palm prints in their files. The task force is back to square one. Two months later, the shooist robs a bank in Belleview, Washington, just outside Seattle. He's expanding his territory.

I got Washington. Seattle was now in the loop. Now we knew that he was broadening his horizons and moving on to other states. The elusive bandit is one of the most prolific and widespread robbers in modern FBI history. By 1991, the 5-year statute of limitations expires on his earliest robberies, so he can't be charged for them. Agents are racing the clock. Well, he was a a violent multi-state bank robber who was very successful. been hitting every uh six to eight weeks and no one had a a clue as to who he was or where he was from. In August, the shootist robs a bank in Los Altos, California, bringing his known total to $474,457.

Investigators find a solid clue, a false mustache. It's the first evidence recovered that might be physically linked directly to the shootist. But at the time, DNA analysis is expensive and timeconuming, and they have no suspect profile to compare it to.

Unfortunately, that wasn't of any evidentary value to us, other than the fact that we confirmed that he was wearing a disguise. Obviously,

by the end of 1991, investigators linked the shooters to 33 armed robberies in 18 cities. Investigators have nothing. They need a break and soon. Investigating the longest string of unsolved bank robberies in modern FBI history. Agents have little but grainy photos of the man they call the shooest. In them, they see the robber is wearing something beneath his shirt.

FBI special agent Jack Kelly. At first, we thought it might have been body armor, but under closer scrutiny, it it appeared that this thing was really covering the lower abdomen and back portion of his body.

It could be a brace, meaning the shooist might have a bad back. Although he really didn't display that with his ability to to vault the tele counters,

but these back braces were probably just to support his ability to be able to do that. Determined to run down every lead, investigators contact chiropractors in the areas near the banks, but they have only blurry surveillance photos of a disguised man, and they can't get to every doctor in three states.

There's quite a few chiropractors, but we did cover as many as we possibly could, and we really didn't have any luck.

It's another dead end in the years search for the mysterious bandit. 1992 brings seven more shootist heists, including the repeat robbery of the bank in Belleview, Washington.

New total, nearly $600,000. Seattle FBI special agent Don Glasser tried to process the bank for fingerprints. uh extensive interviews of the witnesses and uh of course our fond wildest hope would some would say yes I saw them get into a specific car

I uh walked by I saw the people but no one saw anything you head to the other bank

there is this concern that you're not serving the public well that here's a man that's allowed to come in and do a bank robbery and fire a shot and eventually there could be an accident or an intentional shooting and uh you know you you feel it's frustration that you didn't do everything you could although you can't think of anything else that to be done.

They must stop the shootist before he graduates to murder during a heist in San Jose. The shooist's luck begins to Wayne.

This time before he vanishes, the bank security camera catches the best shots yet of his face. A San Jose police forensic artist uses the photos to build a composite sketch of what the shooist would look like without his disguises. Recreating features that are obscured requires a thorough knowledge of human physiology and a remarkable artistic eye. The fugitive is still

agents blanket the target areas with the sketch, asking Crimestoppper programs to air it regularly

and placing it in dozens of banks. San Jose Detective Sergeant Jack Baxter. We thought that in order to get this guy, we needed the help of the community. We needed somebody to call in with information, something that they had seen or heard.

On May 11th, 1994, investigators get the break they need. Hey, an anonymous caller says he knows the shooters, though it's no slam dunk.

The information was fairly generic. The name that was given was was Johnny Williams or John Williams, and then he also supposedly used the name of Robert Hall.

The caller says Williams is about 40 years old, drives a red four-door, and has a devoted accomplice, his wife. He says Williams is always armed, has a hair triggered temper, and has vowed never to be taken alive. In fact, he and his wife have a suicide pact if they're ever cornered. This is a good tip, but the case is far from over. Those names are so common that there were literally hundreds of Johnny Williams and Robert Halls that we had to go through and we try to narrow the list down to the ones that were approximately the same age as our as u the caller had given.

Agents cull through California DMV records and find a Johnny Madison Williams and a Robert Hall that appear in their photos to be the same man. They then compare the photos to the composite sketch.

It was an exact match for the sketch done by our police artist, just as if he had done it right off the picture. So, we knew that uh we had the right guy.

Social security number. California fingerprints drivers. The DMV fingerprint records confirm Hall and Williams are the same man. Johnny Madison Williams is a former Marine from Texas and has a record for robbery and theft there. Williams wife, Carol bought a 38 revolver like the one in bank security footage, and Carol drives a red four-door registered in her maiden name. Investigators find no legitimate source of income. Yet, the couple lives in a $350,000 house overlooking the ocean in Los, California. FBI special agent Jim Wilkins.

The area where he was living was on high ground overlooking Mororrow Bay. It was an affluent area that actually had one road in.

It's an exposed area where agents might stand out as strangers. We did not know where Johnny Williams was at the time.

Despite the risk, FBI agents have to check the house. They find a spot they hope is obscured and set up surveillance.

We knew he carried a weapon. We knew he would use it. We also had information from the anonymous tipster that he carried that weapon all the time.

Dispatch, don't move. The agents see no sign that anyone's at the house. The team watches and waits.

We had made a contingency plan that if we saw Williams returning in that vehicle, we would do a felony car stop before he got into the neighborhood where we had safe fields of fire and where there were no escape routes for him in his vehicle.

Agents watched the house for several days, but the couple fails to show. dance at the end of the shift.

Investigators suspect the shooist is off preparing for another heist. Jack Kelly has a hunch it will be in the Seattle area. The shooters is robbed there in one-year intervals and the year is up.

Kelly contacts Seattle special agent Don Glasser. He said it's definitely going to happen and he's going to definitely rob in your area. So be on the lookout.

It's just a hunch, but it's all they have. A glasser hits the streets looking for the red car.

I was out of the office and on the street so I could be in the vicinity of the Belleview area. Getting very antsy, very excited about being prepared to respond to a dispatch saying that there was a a 91 um a bank robbery. July 1st, 1994. The shooterist strikes again. He robs a bank in Kirkland, Washington, just 10 miles north of where special agent Glasser is on patrol looking for him.

After his trademark gunshot, the shooist orders a teller to load his bag with cash. Get away from the car.

As before, he warns against bait bills or die packs and threatens to shoot if she tries anything.

The teller accidentally drops wooden paper weights in the bag, which the shooters mistakes for die packs.

What are you trying to do? He's enraged. July 1st, 1994. The shooterist commits his 48th bank robbery. Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up.

A frightened teller angers the robber, but she is spared. What are you trying to do? You trying to get me? I'm going to get you.

The gunman runs out without firing another shot and disappears before police and the FBI can respond.

Investigators get word of the latest robbery. We call classic, right? Special Agent Jack Kelly's hunch about Seattle was right.

We knew where he was at this point, at least what vicinity of the country he was in in the general Seattle area.

Kelly has already flagged Williams credit cards, so he'll be notified if one is used.

Just after the Kirkland robbery, the plan works. Uh, I was fortunate enough to be able to get some information from one particular credit card company that had a recent transaction up in the state of Washington at a particular hotel up there.

Seattle Special Agent Don Glasser rushes to the hotel. I went up there very excited. I know now we've got some real good information.

The hotel is in Bathlon, 10 miles from the latest rob bank. Johnny Williams used a credit card in the name of his alias, Robert Hall, to check in,

but there's no guarantee he's still there. I drove through the parking lot. I saw the red card sitting in the parking lot, nose in in the parking space.

When Glasser calls in the plate number, it comes back registered to Carol Williams under her maiden name of Hawkins. Hello, sir. How can I help you?

Yeah, let me see the manager. I'll do that. If Williams is still in the hotel, they must be careful not to tip him off or create a barricade or hostage situation.

What I really need from you is I need you to look at this picture. Okay, I need you to tell me if

The manager recognizes suspect Johnny Williams as Robert Hall and says he and his wife have not checked out

here for me, please. So, I immediately called Jack Kelly back. gave him the news and suggested he get an airplane and fly north and he was already packing his bags.

At that point in the investigation, uh, I was very excited. I contacted my counterpart, Jack Baxter from the San Jose PD, told him they had the guy, not only we got him identified, but also we know where he is. So Jack hopped on a plane and I hopped on a plane. Glasser also calls for reinforcements from the Seattle police and FBI. I'm

here in the hotel. We made sure that none of our agents wore radios, guns, rate jackets, FBI ball caps, any kind of identifying um ask them to act normal when they were moving around.

Within minutes, more agents and detectives quietly arrive and set up a perimeter. We made sure that no FBI four-door as we call them G- rides were visible to this guy that we would use surveillance vehicles. If we happen to casually look out his window, he wouldn't see anything unusual happening outside. We set up locations completely surrounding the the hotel. We rented a couple rooms that would give us a a base to operate from

so there was no way he would walk out. If he detected us, then he might try and escape.

We made sure we had it really covered. for the office 112. Rather than rush the room, the investigators decide to wait until they get a visual ID of Williams.

Yeah, I'm going to take a break. We had made sure we had an eyeball on his door at all times.

By nightfall, Detective Baxter and Special Agent Kelly arrived from California.

Detective Jack Baxter. We didn't want to move too fast. We had to have patience and we wanted to make sure we could arrest him in a way that nobody was going to get hurt.

The agents want to take Williams into custody outside his room in case he has guns inside.

As as dinner time approached, we hoped that we'd see him come down and go to eat or something like that and that we were prepared to arrest him if he did that.

But hours pass with no sign of Williams or his wife. While they watch, investigators have to stay under the shooters's radar and not use police radios.

We had been told he had a scanner, so we had to be careful what we said on the radio uh for fear of tipping him off that that we were there.

It does appear someone is in the room. Special Agent Jack Kelly. We knew that there was a light on in there. We could see the light. All the drapes were drawn. We could see the flashing of the television in there. After 7 years, agents and police may finally have the shooters cornered. After an 8-year search, the FBI believes they have traced Johnny Madison Williams, the shooist, to a Washington State hotel room. A full day and night of surveillance passes with no movement from the room.

In the morning, agents devise a roost to see if their suspect is actually there. doesn't know if it's white.

They recruit a hotel employee to help. Look around, see if there's any. Investigators show the man what their target looks like and ask him to knock on the door to ask a maintenance question

and get a good look at whoever's inside. Despite the danger, the employee has to act natural. If Williams gets spooked, he could turn violent. I need to change your filter.

When the door opens, the hotel employee asks when would be a good time to change the room's air filters.

Detective Jack Baxter. Our suspect told him that he was going to leave in an hour so he could come back in an hour and change the filters. Well, he ran back to us and positively identified him as being in the room. We had the room secured, so there's no way he was going to get out.

Now they know the shooest is definitely there. And in an hour, he should emerge.

I want everybody in place in 45. An hour passes, then two. Williams could be on to them. But then an opportunity presents itself.

Special Agent Jack Kelly. There was a phone call from that room down to the front desk and uh he had asked if he could borrow a typewriter cuz he wanted to write a letter to someone and he was asking the people at the front desk if they could bring the typewriter up to the room. We instructed him not to do that. an office that you can use.

On the FBI's order, the manager tells Williams he's welcome to use the typewriter in an office near the front desk,

which he agreed to. They'd be down shortly. The small office is a good place for an arrest away from the public. No chance of escape.

Special Agent Don Glasser. We quickly go to the room, decide where the typewriter is going to be, do a little quick rearranging of furniture so that we can go into that room. Once he's in there and not be obstructed by furniture, we have a nice clean path to get to him. As a final touch, investigators place a sheet listing the Miranda arrest rights in the typewriter, then hide in an adjacent room and wait for the word from their men outside. After 40 tense minutes, a man leaves the room and heads toward the front desk.

It's Johnny Williams. We saw him walking across the parking lot. Absolutely no question in our mind that is him. We recognized him as if he were our best friend.

He just left his room. He's on his way to the lobby. This is it. the culmination of an 8-year chase.

He walked into the front desk and they instructed him to go over to this office.

Mr. Williams, the office went. So, he walked behind the front desk and went over there.

Page me if you need anything else. Williams is cornered, cut off from escape. Agents know he is dangerous. They are prepared for the worst. FBI,

but he is completely caught off guard. Right here behind your back. Agents take him into custody without a struggle. He is unarmed.

Because of the investigator's careful planning, it's a perfectly quiet arrest. I called him by his true name. I said, you know, Johnny Madison Williams Jr., you know, it's over and he his head kind of dropped.

Next agents have to get Williams wife, Carol. We figured there was no reason to charge into the room if we just wait long enough and she would come down. In fact, she did. He's on the move right now.

She came out of the room and she was going to her car and we just stepped out and took her into custody there without incident.

Please FBI, you're under arrest. Place your hands where I can see them. Place them on top of the car.

Hands in the car. You can't cover the car. There you go. Can't stop the car. Don't let it Don't put it. Okay, there you go. Need your left hand. Other hand. The FBI, Jack, under arrest.

Once again, a safe arrest. Now, agents go looking for evidence. He provided a consent to search his room. And um in that room, he had a couple scanners. He had handyalkies, he had disguises, he had money.

They also discovered the shootist's own notes, a log of all his robberies. There was a gray briefcase that had a a detailed record of the bank robberies, very very organized, the date, the uh day of the week, information on the total, the address of the bank, the name of the his bank. Very very very uh incriminating evidence.

Investigators find more in Williams car. He had two pistols. They were in the trunk of his car. We recognized the 4-in 38 revolver from the pictures, surveillance pictures. We knew we had the right weapon. He had a 2-in revolver that we hadn't seen before. Both of them were loaded.

The investigators separate Williams and his wife while they await transport to an FBI office for booking.

Williams agrees to talk. We linked them to I think a total of 48 robberies. And when I did the interview, he asked me that. He says, "How many do you have me for?" I said, "Well, how many do you think we for?" He says, "Oh," he says, "You know, you wouldn't be here arrested me and know my name and everything else. You probably have all 56."

Williams goes on to detail each of the 48 robberies the FBI know about, plus eight they don't. The entire interview eventually lasted about 12 hours and I was writing constantly. I mean I had writer's cramp at the end of the uh the 12 hours with all the information he was providing.

Johnny Madison Williams took his work seriously casing banks for weeks outlining intricate escape plans.

He says he wore the brace after injuring his back in a car accident and frequented chiropractors. just not the ones investigators got to. Knowing the FBI would try to trace his disguises, he stocked up in Dallas before he started his robbery spree. He tells agents he studied police routes, radio dispatch codes. All that work brought him close to a million dollars in stolen cash until authorities stopped him.

Be right. And it wasn't just the agents and officers working the case who solved it. Many times it's the assistance of the public that that leads to the capture and and successful resolution of these cases. It's very important. I think no more so than now with the terrorism threat. Is that important? Carol Williams pleads guilty and receives 20 years for her role in the Shudest robberies. Her husband, Johnny Madison Williams, the shooist himself, also pleads guilty to the 27 robberies still under the statute of limitations.

He is sentenced to 92 years in federal prison. His unprecedented reign finally over.

Two deadly fugitives are on the run from justice. Authorities follow an electronic trail

and chase the escaped convict and his partner from state to state. The suspects are moving fast, determined to avoid capture.

The police and FBI must track them down before they take another life. In Pennsylvania, an inmate escaped with the help of his female accomplice. Following a trail of fraudulent credit card receipts and death, authorities track the pair, but always find themselves one step behind. I'm Jim Calstrom, former head of the FBI's New York office. The FBI and police raced to capture the deadly couple who seem to be running with no direction, no sense of fear, and nothing to lose.

107 investigation in September 25th, 1993. Friends of 74year-old Guy Goodman contact the Palmyra, Pennsylvania police. How you doing?

Um, Mr. Goodman. They're concerned because they have not heard from him in over a week.

Goodman's landlord meets an officer at his rented house. You have a key for the door there?

I do. Okay, let's go check it out. Okay. You just want to step back there? All right. The officer observes shards of broken porcelain on the floor and dried blood on the floor and walls. Blood spatter trails down the hall and leads to the basement stairs.

In a storage room, he discovers a body. The officer calls for assistance. Headquarters. Code three. Code three. Requesting backup. Are you clear?

Unit 1 833. Go ahead. Detective Paul Zman of the Lebanon County Detective Bureau takes the lead in the investigation.

Go ahead. 104. I'll be in route to that location. The countywide bureau helps township police departments with major crime investigations.

It was evident that the house had been ransacked. Kitchen drawers were open. Things were strewn around on the floor.

Going down into the basement area, you could see drag marks led from the uh stairway uh to a small storage room. The crime scene is gruesome. The victim's hands and feet are tied behind his back. Several layers of plastic bags, sheets, and blankets enshroud his head. Coverings are tightened at his neck with makeshift bindings.

These items were either duct taped or tied with electrical cords. The plastic bag was duct taped over the cloth covering.

Hoping to find a trace of the perpetrator, crime scene investigators carefully process the house. They dust every surface for latent fingerprints. and collect a roll of duct tape left on a table. Likely the same tape used in the bindings. With no witnesses, only the careful examination of every item can help the detectives understand this crime. We were trying to not only obtain the forensic evidence, but we were also trying to determine if any of the property was taken from the residence. We were able to establish that Mr.

Goodman's wallet was missing. They find American Express charge statements. Oh,

but the card itself is missing. Statement here. The account numbers get that old

in the bedroom. Investigators discover an open box of checks. checks. A series of checks from the middle of this box had been removed. We also knew that the vehicle of Mr. Goodman was also missing at this point.

What do you have to do out here yet? Guy Goodman seemed like an unlikely target for this type of attack. Like most of the Palmyra, Pennsylvania community, Chief Michael Wayman knew of the victim.

Guy Goodman was a retired florist. He was a lifelong resident of the of the Palmyra area. Uh well known within the community and liked by uh everyone in the community. It was apparent that either the motive for this crime was a robbery that had gone bad or that there was a robbery after the fact uh after Mr. Goodman was assaulted and died.

Palmyra, Pennsylvania is located in Lebanon County. This peaceful community sees fewer than three murders per year. In most cases, the victim knows the killer. At the autopsy, the victim's face is unrecognizable. The medical examiner uses dental records to confirm it is Guy Goodman. Based on the body's decomposition, he concludes Goodman has been dead for about a week. Although the victim was severely beaten, his wounds were not fatal. An examination of his respiratory tract reveals he died slowly from suffocation.

Leighton prints recovered from Goodman's house processed at the lab. Examiners check the prints against local arrest records and find a match. When the forensics report arrives on Zechman's desk, he isn't surprised by the results.

Fingerprints that we had obtained at the crime scene matched Bradley Martin. Zachman knows the name all too well.

I just entered him as a wanted person charging him with the escape from the county prison. So, I knew he was on the run.

Many of Lebanon County's inmates are part of a work release program. Bradley Martin, a repeat thief and drug user, is one of these workreleased prisoners. Over a week earlier, Martin used a 2-hour pass, a weekly perk of the work release program, to meet his new girlfriend, Carolyn King. 27-year-old King worked at a factory where she met the 21-year-old workrelease prisoner. When Martin failed to return, prison officials launched a fugitive investigation. They called the Lebanon County Detective Bureau. After obtaining a fugitive warrant for Martin, the detectives checked Carolyn King's apartment, concerned for her wellbeing.

But King is not there and they find nothing to indicate where she is gone or even if she is with Martin. The detectives entered Martin in NCIC, the National Criminal Information Center.

Once the murder of Guy Goodman is discovered, there is a greater urgency to find Martin and to determine if Carolyn King is unharmed. The detectives interview Martin's friends and co-workers. What they learn surprises them.

Through interviews, we were able to establish that Bradley Martin and Carolyn King were together several days after Guy Goodman was murdered. We were able to establish that they were together in the Palmra area and then it was just blank. Detectives faced the possibility that Carol and King may be Martin's accomplice.

Earlier, when Detective Zechman ran a statewide background check on King, she came up clean.

He tries again, this time using a national database. He learns she has a long criminal history, including theft and check forgery. She has outstanding warrants for her arrest and is also a suspect in two murders in Virginia.

The detectives have no idea where the two suspects are. If they left town right after the Goodwin murder, they have more than a week's head start. Detectives hope to track the suspects using the American Express charge card and the check stolen from the victim's home. Okay, let me call the guy at the American Express security department.

It's great. Detective Weman asks American Express Global Security in New York to help.

Joe Ganon, the chief investigator in AMX security works to assist the police. And I'll be back to you as soon as I can.

Got it. Thanks. We flagged Mr. Goodman's account because he was the victim of a homicide and the chances were that the perpetrators of that homicide were in possession of that car. A review of Goodman's account shows purchases made after Goodman's death. The transactions leave a trail that may lead to Goodman's killer. We discovered that the charges began in western Pennsylvania and continued out through the Ohio Valley down into Iowa and Kansas and then they turned north. And the last transaction we had on record was in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Armed with a solid lead, the Pennsylvania detectives waste no time. They catch the next available flight to Rapid City, South Dakota. The killers had disappeared,

but the victim's charge card had become the investigator's best informant. Police hope the trail of surfacing transactions will lead them to the murderers. Within hours, the Pennsylvania detectives arrive in Rapid City. Accompanied by local police, they visit the last stores where the charge card was used. Interviews with clerks verify their suspicions. Up until this point, we were speculating that Bradley Martin and Carolyn King were the two people that were using Goodman's American Express card.

Then investigators catch their first real break. Some of the individuals were able to identify Bradley Martin

as a user of the card. Some were able to identify Carolyn King as a user of the card. This one,

the revelation confirms their theory. It was no longer a who done it. We knew for certain who had done it. Now it was a matter of changing the focus of the investigation to apprehending them.

The Pennsylvania detectives circulate photos of detailed information about the suspects to all South Dakota law enforcement agencies. The Rapid City Police Fraud Unit or Bunko Squad tells them of an interracial couple who've been passing bad checks at local stores. Rapid City Police Department had a black and white bunko team who are trying to do a con game within the area was a black female and a white male driving a vehicle with Virginia plates. We knew that this fit the description of Carolyn King and Bradley Martin. We knew that Carolyn King had a vehicle with Virginia plates. We felt that they were there working in the Rapid City area.

Drivers registration, please. The Pennsylvania detectives assist as Rapid City police pull over the couple in the car with Virginia plates.

They confirm the couple is the team Rapid City detectives have been hunting down,

but not the suspected killers. The black female and the white male were in fact not Martin and King. They were just simply another couple that matched the description and who were doing their own criminal activities. American Express informs the detectives there have been no new charges in over a week. The investigation appears to be back at the beginning with no leads. Okay. What I can do for you is give me

But King and Martin are having trouble using their murder victim's outofstate checks.

Let me get my manager for you, ma'am. They need another source of cash. Come on.

Their next victim, a 59year-old woman traveling alone. Donna Martz. Why are you doing this?

The terrified woman complies when they force her to take them to her car. The next day, the Pennsylvania detectives learned that someone passed several of Guy Goodman's checks in North Dakota.

The bank had cleared checks written in a number of locations in the Bismar, North Dakota area.

This supports the detective's theory. They had used the credit card. Now, they were utilizing the checks stolen from Guy Goodman at the time of his homicide that further validated that they had to have been the persons who committed the homicide.

Detective Allander, please. Zachman phones authorities in Bismar from the road.

I'm Sergeant Zeman from Leon County, Pennsylvania. I made contact with a detective within the Bismar Police Department. Uh, I told him of locations that I had had checks passed and I gave him the rundown of the Guy Goodman homicide and who was involved and and what evidence we had discovered up to this point. And there was a long pause uh from the detective and I asked him what was wrong and he said, "Well, we're investigating a missing person's from that same hotel where one of these Goodman checks were passed."

Donna Martz's family called police when she did not return home from Bismar. They described Marts in their Chrysler New Yorker.

Police comb Bismar for any sign of Marts or her car, but find nothing. The detectives fear Martin and King have grabbed Donna Martz. The case has a new urgency. A woman's life is at stake. Police investigate the death of 74year-old retired florist Guy Goodman, who was severely beaten, then murdered in his rural Pennsylvania home. Investigators determined that the victim's charge card and a book of checks were stolen right there in a row.

Fingerprints at the scene identify two likely perpetrators. 21-year-old Bradley Martin and his 27-year-old girlfriend Carolyn King.

Pennsylvania detectives Paul Zman and Michael Weman follow the pair of fugitives to Bismar, North Dakota,

and learn authorities there are investigating the disappearance of a woman from the same hotel where one of Goodman's checks was passed. Donna Martz, a traveling tour guide for an interstate bus line, was last seen at the hotel where the suspects were staying. When March didn't arrive home as scheduled, her family reported her missing. Local authorities issue an APB on March's Chrysler New Yorker. The Bismar FBI joins the case, led by special agent Craig Welker.

The FBI and the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation set up a task force which was joined by other agencies including the Bismar Police Department and the local sheriff's department.

When the Pennsylvania detectives arrive in Bismar, they share the information on the fugitives that they gathered over the past week. me and take me to the store.

They became an integral part of the task force on this case. The linking of King and Martin was very critical in the investigation.

With potential suspects identified in the abduction of Donna Martz, the task force still struggles for viable leads.

They continue to search the hotel. We spoke with the clerks at the hotel in Bismar where where Don Marts was last seen and they were able to tell us that Bradley Martin and Carolyn King stayed at the same hotel. Hotel personnel also recall that around 9:00 a.m. on September 26th, King and Donna Marts were only a few feet apart.

They were able to confirm that Carolyn King had been in the lobby at the same time that that Donna Marts was in the small dining area uh having her continental breakfast.

No one noticed Marts leaving the hotel with anyone, but investigators fear she has been kidnapped. Now they need to find out where the fugitives went next. Then police discover Guy Goodman's car abandoned outside Bismar. There is no sign of Donna Marts.

I got and the search reveals only receipts from stores along the suspect's route and several unused checks bearing Goodman's name. Once again, the suspects have left authorities with no leads. FBI special agent Craig Welcon knows they must find Mars before her kidnappers decide to kill her.

Everybody in an investigation like this is extremely busy. Lots of information coming in, including information that really is extraneous, but you don't know that at the time. So, there's a lot of sifting and sorting of information. um a lot of trying to prioritize and make sure that your primary emphasis is in the right direction to recover the victim alive and well and apprehend the suspects.

Sleepless hours pass with no leads. Then a break. Working with Donna Mars's bank, detectives learn her credit card was used in a shopping mall more than 100 miles away.

She had no relatives out there. There was just absolutely no reason for her to go that way.

The MMO matches that of Goodman's killers. Mart's credit card started showing charges on it uh a day or so after she had gone missing. We were fairly certain that she was not the one doing the charges.

The FBI dispatches teams to interview sales clerks at the mall. None of the clerks can positively identify Martin or King as the user of the card, but they are sure March did not make the purchases which were for young men's clothing.

Did they say where they were going? When you're working the case, you become very much aware that the clock is working against you. Particularly when you have a situation like this where we know that Guy Goodman was murdered. The next significant lead comes when Marx's account posts a withdrawal in Montana. It occurred days earlier at an ATM in the small town of Shelby. Montana FBI agents bring the ATM surveillance tape to the command post in Bismar.

Detectives Wayman and Zechman positively identify Bradley Martin using March's credit card. It is the first definitive proof linking the suspects to Donna Martz.

The tape confirms Martin and King traveled west, but there is still no sign of Marts. The evidence is building yet. Investigators main concern is not prosecution, but finding Donna alive. And although we had an ideal that they were heading in a general direction of west, they could change that direction at any time. So it was very frustrating because we felt that there was a short time frame in which if Donna March was still alive that we would be able to apprehend them and save her.

Special Agent Welcon knows they must speed up the process of tracking the victim's credit card usage. I contacted Ben Patty, a retired FBI special agent who was employed by a major credit card company issuing Donna March's cards.

At Visa's San Francisco headquarters, International Fraud Control Director Ben Patty agrees to help. Normally, when a card holder uses their credit card, that bank that issued the card will not see that transaction information for two to three days. That's when it's posted. And the bank would then know where the transaction occurred. Craig Welcon was really wanting to find out when the card that belonged to Donna Mars was used in real time, which we could not do with the systems as they were at that time.

To locate the suspects the instant they use the card, Visa must create a complex reporting system for a single credit card. But Donna Mart's life is on the line. We contacted the systems people in the computer center and explained to them what we wanted. They said, "Okay, we'll go into our systems, make the necessary changes in the mainframe computer so that this specific card holder number could be captured as it came through our systems."

The programmers estimate it will take at least 24 hours to create and implement the new program. No problem.

FBI agents hope that the computer program will finally put them closer to the murder suspects and to Donna Martz before she too is killed. The coroner for Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, determined that retired florist Guy Goodman was savagely beaten and then slowly suffocated to death. His face was unrecognizable at the autopsy. The suspects, 21-year-old Bradley Martin and 27-year-old Carolyn King, have more than 20 felony convictions between them and are now fugitives on the run across the heartland of America. Authorities believe the couple is holding their latest victim, Donna Martz, captive and using her credit cards.

The last charge was recorded in Montana. The FBI and police from across the country are in pursuit. Tracking the suspects through the victim's credit card usage, investigators remain one step behind.

Led by special agent Craig Welcon. That was due to the flow of the information from the merchants to the credit card company. And then when that information was actually available from the computer database

in 1993, banking computers take days to post each transaction. Investigators await a new Visa program that will trap any activity on Mart's card. Pennsylvania Detective Paul Zman chased the pair from the beginning of their flight. It was very frustrating being days behind locating places that Mart's credit card had been used because we knew that number one, this couple had killed Guy Gman. We knew that Donald Martz potentially was going to be the next victim. If she had not already been killed, that there's nothing we could do more than what we were doing to try and locate them and stop this from happening.

Investigators try to estimate where the suspects will go next. They alert all law enforcement agencies on the suspect's possible routes.

They post descriptions of the suspects in their vehicle and the National Crime Information C Center's nationwide database.

We entered both Bradley Martin and Carolyn King in NCIC. They were also entered in as kidnapping suspects. In addition to that, regional messages had gone out to all the police departments to be on the lookout for Donna Marts, Carolyn King, or Barley Martin. If any police force in the country runs into the couple, the Bismar task force will be notified. To further increase their chances, investigators fax descriptions of the suspects and the victim to police agencies along Martin and King's likely routes. But there are no incoming leads beyond the sporadic credit card purchases.

Detectives Weman and Zachman returned to Pennsylvania to reinter everyone who knows the fugitives. They hope Martin and King have made contact with someone back home.

We continually talk to individuals in the Palmary area who were associates of Bradley Martin trying to find out if there was recent contact with him or Carolyn King and if there was where were they at where did they call from

but no one offers new information. Despite every effort, investigators still have nothing.

The FBI receives an update from the Visa Corporation in San Francisco. This Ben Patty International

Visa fraud investigator and former special agent Ben Patty had asked the company's systems programmers for a way to trace Martz's credit card transactions as they are made. TZ and I told the FBI and we set up a system of contact between our systems people in Virginia, myself and then the FBI and their command post. After the system was in place, the first transaction that came through was a service station gas transaction in Southern California. It was in Los Angeles several hours earlier. Investigators are closer, but still too far behind.

While the task force notifies authorities in the LA area, Visa gets another hit on Donna March's card. The transaction came through our systems in real time. As soon as it came through the systems, we notified the FBI's command post with and it would have been within our 2hour time that the transaction actually occurred.

Then a transaction is made at a hotel in National City outside San Diego. Agents at the command post contact the FBI's San Diego field office and the lead goes to Supervisory Special Agent Sam Stanton. We received information that uh that the Donna Mars credit card had been used at the hotel in National City. So immediately I dispatched agents over to the hotel off Interstate 5. agents interviewed the uh manager and the security guard and employees at the hotel and was able to determine that uh a couple matching Martin and King had stayed at the hotel using Donna March's credit card.

Yes. But the couple checked out 2 hours earlier, paying for the room with the Visa.

Identify them. Probably. Police officers and FBI agents swarm the area, checking hotel parking lots, convenience stores, and gas stations for Donna Mars's Chrysler New Yorker or any sign of Martin and King. Special Agent Stanton knows finding the car is a long shot, especially when that car has a 2-hour lead on authorities. that

where San Diego is a very large city and to try to find a vehicle in a city that size would be almost impossible,

but we did put out an all points bulletin and notified the uh state judicial police and the federal police in Mexico and the border patrol uh thinking that maybe the individuals were headed toward Mexico.

The Tijana border is the busiest in the world. In 1993, nearly 40,000 Americans cross into Mexico every day without having to show even an ID. If the fugitives make it past the border, it is unlikely they will ever be found.

All right, I know it's been a couple of days, but have you heard from Brad or Carolyn?

Wow. Then the Pennsylvania detectives finally catch a break that narrows the search.

What do they have to say? According to Chief Michael Weman, San Diego, we received information from a an associate of Bradley Martins indicating that they had received a phone call from Bradley and that Bradley was in San Diego, that he was with Carolyn King, and that they were headed back towards Pennsylvania. Um, we took that information. We notified the San Diego office of the FBI and they in turn notified the California Highway Patrol. The fugitives made the call as they checked out of the hotel in San Diego. Martin and King still have a 2-hour lead, but authorities continue closing the gap.

Soon, a hunch and a bit of luck will bring the investigation to a violent and dangerous conclusion. Fall 1993, authorities chase Bradley Martin and Carolyn King, suspected of murder in Pennsylvania and kidnapping in North Dakota. Investigators from both states are frustrated that for weeks they have been one step behind the suspects. They hope to find the pair before the abducted woman, Donna Martz, is killed. Then, a new program created by the Visa Corporation at the FBI's request puts investigators only 2 hours behind the suspects.

Investigators learned the two have just checked out of a San Diego area hotel based on their checkout time and the tip that the fugitives are heading east. FBI agents try to estimate their position.

Special Agent Stanton has a hunch that the suspects will use Interstate 8, the southernmost highway going east.

Well, yeah. He determines that Martin and King will soon be approaching El Centro California near the Arizona border.

It's just two hours. I called Agent Paul Vic in the El Central office of the FBI and asked him to send out an all points bulletin. Stanton hopes he's picked the right route

as El Centro special agent Paul Vic takes it from there. I called the California Highway Patrol dispatchers and asked them to broadcast the Mars's car description. wanted for murder that just left a a hotel in San Diego and we suspect they might be headed east on Interstate 8 and even stopped. The All Points Bulletin about 187 suspects police code for murder is transmitted to every officer on Interstate 8, including California Highway Patrolman Richard Chambers. CHP unit central contending a semi copy information on 187 suspects possibly in route to uh petrol.

I went checked my section of the freeway like I normally would on in the beginning of my shift and uh I went west on Interstate 8.

As Chambers drives, he receives the suspect's descriptions. First suspect is a Bradley Martin, white male, 6' 160. Second subject is a Carolyn King, black female, wanted by the FBI.

Within minutes, Chambers believes he has spotted the car. I was driving west on the freeway through the desert, and there's not that much traffic. I saw the car go by eastbound and I believed it matched the description.

The chambers cannot see the car's license plate. I wasn't sure, so I made a U-turn through the center divider and overtook the vehicle and verified the license plate and it was in fact uh bearing the North Dakota license plate that we had received.

L Central 11684, I think I'm behind the 187 vehicle. Could you send me a backup car?

Two suspects in the vehicle. Looks like the black female's driving. Dispatch advises officer Chambers that there is no backup immediately available.

888 respond. Only one unmarked unit races to catch up to the suspects. Sergeant Riley come responding to the pursuit. Uh joining pursuit. Police know the suspects are desperate and probably armed.

Two suspects of black female driving. We'll attempt to contact DPS and they know I'm behind them at 60 mph. Coming up on 186 at 50 mph coming up on 186.

But so far the suspects appear calm as they approach State Route 186. report. They're going to head us south on 186. They're getting off 186 southbound on 186.

Chambers backup is still several miles behind, racing to catch up. On route 186, the chase intensifies. Do not stop and turn to accelerate to 70.

The suspects try to shake Officer Chambers, but he maintains pursuit even as they escalate to 90 m an hour.

Notify you and DPS. Looks like we're going to be going yellow and they go right eastbound.

Proceeding eastbound in Arizona. The suspects cross into Arizona with Chambers on their heels. Although a California officer outside of his jurisdiction, Chambers continues his pursuit. He relays information to Arizona authorities. Then the danger increases. The male passenger did come out of the uh right front window with a handgun.

They're shooting. They are shooting. Sound like they're shooting. Chambers stays on them, intent to capture the deadly suspects as the cars speed toward the town of Yuma, Arizona. Dozens of officers listening in race to cover chambers. October 5th, 1993. California Highway Patrol officer Richard Chambers engages in a high-speed chase with murder and kidnapping suspects Carolyn King and Bradley Martin. Shoot at him. Do something.

Near El Central California, the pursuit crosses into Arizona. Backup is responding. But as the suspects barrel toward the town of Yuma, Arizona, Officer Chambers is on his own and under fire. He knows he must capture the pair before they kill again.

The suspects exit onto a smaller road. This one with intersections. Chambers radios their position.

They're going into human now. Get my units out there to back them up. They run through two stop signs without incident. Then when they crash, the suspects flee on foot.

I got out of my car and drew my uh my pistol and ordered them to stop. And I I told them if they didn't stop, I'd shoot. And at that time, the female did stop.

Then Carolyn King orders Martin to stop. Get down. Call right there. and I was able to handcuff the female. I just had one pair of handcuffs with me at the time and uh I held the male passenger at gunpoint until uh Yuma PD arrived.

It was probably only a minute or two, but it seemed longer than that. When the backup officer arrives, he helps take the suspects into custody. Trans your back. After a two-w weekek cross-country flight pursued by police and the FBI, Carolyn King and Bradley Martin have finally been stopped. But investigators first concern is the safety of the kidnapped woman, Donna Martz. She is not inside the car. On the floorboards lies the handgun Martin fired at Chambers. They open the trunk. Inside, police find duct tape, a knife, and Donna Martz's glasses, but nothing indicating where she is.

Martin and King are taken to the Yuma Police Department, but they refuse to tell officers what happened to the kidnapped woman.

Been there once. FBI agents arrive and interrogate the suspect separately. The one

Carolyn King is defiant from the start, refusing even to admit her real identity. She claims no knowledge of Donna Martz.

Another agent is unsuccessful with Bradley Martin as well. When special agent Paul Vic reaches the station, he learns that Martin has refused to talk.

Bradley Martin was pacing back and forth with his hands handcuffed behind him. He appeared to be in some kind of discomfort. Vic decides to try another approach.

Martin told me that his neck hurt and he had pain extending down into his right arm.

Hoping to win Martin over and get him to cooperate, Vic offers to recuff him in front so he will be more comfortable. His strategy works.

Martin told me that he would speak with me. The agent reminds Martin he had earlier invoked his right to an attorney, but the suspect says he is now waving that right.

Vic drafts a statement to ensure Martin's waiver will hold up in court. Once he agreed to that, he signed this piece of paper that I wrote out that he agreed to talk to me even though he had invoked earlier. after he signed that document. I looked him straight in the eyes and I told him that I knew that he killed somebody in Pennsylvania, but that I wanted to know that Marts was okay. And then I told him, "Is she okay?" And Martin looked at me and he told me, "No, I killed her." Martin says they kept Mrs. Marts for over a week.

But after several close calls with police, he decided to get rid of her. They stopped in the Nevada desert. He got her out of the trunk and walked her to a ditch at gunpoint. He says she knew he was going to kill her. She said one thing before he fired, that she loved her children. The news devastates everyone who had hoped to save Donna. At the conclusion of the interview with Martin, we obtained a map which showed approximately where Barts could be located in Nevada. And we then faxed the map to the Elco Nevada FBI office. at which time, late at night, a search was initiated to look for Donna Mart's body.

But Martin was doing drugs during his fugitive trek. His memory is unclear and his map inaccurate.

Several times during the night, search crews call in for more information. The desert area near Elco, Nevada is hundreds of square miles. The crews do their best searching through the night and into the morning. Then on October 7th, investigators find the body of Donna Martz about a mile and a half off Interstate 80. In a case like the guy Goodman Donna Mart's homicides, the drive is to keep anyone else from getting hurt. Secondly, it's solving the case. Get them off the street and into jail and then successfully prosecute them.

In Nevada, Martin and King plead guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Donna Martz and receive life sentences. In Pennsylvania, they are found guilty of the murder of Guy Goodman. Both Martin and King are sentenced to death. This case is an excellent example which showed the inter agency cooperation between the FBI and local county and state officials uh in California, Arizona, North Dakota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and numerous other states. From working together, we were able to solve this case and apprehend King and Martin and get them convicted.

For Donna Martz's 11 grandchildren, three children, family, and friends, the convictions bring a sense of closure. Even today, they are comforted in knowing police and the FBI caught Martin and King before they could claim yet another victim. Blazing fires, raging adrenaline, and total anarchy, all within the walls of a federal prison. FBI tactical teams and negotiators work around the clock trying to avoid a smallcale war

and keep nearly 100 hostages alive. Heat. Heat. In the 1980s, the federal penitentiary in Atlanta housed some of the country's most notorious prisoners. 1,800 Cubans fleeing Castro's regime. 400 were hardened criminals. 200 were insane. I'm Jim Calstrom, former head of the FBI's New York office. Castro called them undesirabs. The US government called them detainees. In 1987, they staged a bloody revolt. Now, the FBI and special operations teams must infiltrate a burning prison to stop the violence before it rages out of control.

Cuba 1980. A plummeting economy and political unrest prompt Fidel Castro to allow Cuban citizens to leave the country. For the first time in history, the notorious dictator permits American boats to enter Cuba's Marial Harbor. In a 5-month period, over 120,000 undocumented refugees flee the country, heading for Florida. 2,700 are considered criminals or mentally ill under US law. The Attorney General instructs the Bureau of Prisons to find space for them in America's already overcrowded prison system. 1,000 Cuban refugees are sent to the Federal Detention Center in Oakdale, Louisiana.

Nearly 1,400 are transported to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. For 7 years, the US and Cuban governments negotiate to send the criminals and mentally ill refugees back to Cuba. On November 20th, 1987, the State Department strikes a treaty with Cuba. Over 2700 Cuban detainees will be sent back. Within 24 hours, Cuban detainees in both prisons get news of the decision. In Oakdale, Louisiana, a thousand of them riot, taking 28 prison guards hostage. But at the Atlanta Penitentiary, all is quiet. Warden Joe Petrovski,

there was a trust between the detainees and the correctional officers. And that d trust was basically the treatment that the detainees got from the correctional officers.

Early Monday morning, 3 days after the treaty is signed, prison employee Ted Maner arrives at work. He notices an eerie silence.

There were hardly any inmates in the breakfast area. And normally it would be uh full of inmates were making a lot of noise and talking and there was hardly anybody in there. So it was really quiet, unusually quiet.

On the first floor of the prison industries building, detaineees make mattresses. On the surface, it looks like business as usual. But in an instant,

detainees overpower their guards and ignite fires. On the third floor of the industry's building, Maner and his supervisor oversee a furniture making shop. In a matter of minutes, the riot spreads to the rest of the floors.

It sound like a war and it was coming up the stairwell. They got the door down and they just came running in and they had these hoods over their head like they were made out of gray t-shirts or gray sweatshirts and they just had holes poked out for their eyes so they could see.

Tries to report the emergency but he is attacked by one of the riers and I don't know if he was trying to hit me or just a telephone out of my hand. He knocked the phone out of my hand that went across the room.

Prison employees are facing their worst nightmare. Although they are well aware of the risks, they never thought it would happen to them.

We did realize there was a threat, but I guess you think you can control it. When you work with inmates, you get used to them and sometimes you forget who they really are. The guards and factory workers are helpless.

Unarmed and outnumbered, they face rioters carrying homemade weapons. The staff member notifies Warden Petrovski of the crisis.

Inside the wall, nobody carried weapons. The inmates always vastly outnumbered the staff. So if we had weapons in there, we could lose those weapons. The only weapons that we had was weapons in the tower. Petrosky alerts the FBI, the prison's regional director.

I try to give him an assessment of exactly what transpired and brought him up to date. As fire spreads throughout the industries building, the detainees force the guards and employees into a tool cage and lock the door.

We kind of thought that unless there's some miracle that we were probably just burn up because there's no way to get out of one of the cages.

The riot spreads throughout the entire penitentiary complex. Enraged detainees capture guards, taking keys as they take hostages. They begin to release the regular prison population from their cells. The riot is beyond containers. The detainees now control most of the central buildings. Riers attempt to gain access to the main cell block, but guards lock down the sallyport just in time.

As flames and smoke engulf the massive prison complex, nearly 100 guards and employees are trapped inside. Built at the turn of the century, the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary is the largest penitentiary in the United States.

It was a fortress inside that was surrounded by a wall. It raised from the ground approximately 40 ft and the width on the top of the wall was approximately three uh yards wide. So, it was a massive, massive wall.

Show me what you got. The penitentiary is built on 300 acres of land with 28 acres of property inside the walls.

Okay. Well, we've got Warden Petroski needs to figure out exactly where his people are located inside the complex. building to the warehouse or the

we had staff members in 11 towers that had very good observation over the entire outside compound

who logged those employees that they recognized in those areas. Tell me who they are.

We started a list of the officers that we thought were hostages. Ted Maner and his colleagues are trapped inside an equipment cage in the Burning Industries building. Several riers try to convince the Cuban detaineees guarding the cage to unlock the door.

They were trying to uh talk the guard into opening the door cuz they wanted to get us out and kill us or do whatever. So the guard had to tell them that they couldn't open the door and occasionally they would push one off for getting a little rrestle. But the raging fire threatens to destroy the building. So the riers are forced to move their hostages to another part of the prison complex. The only route takes them across the yard in clear view of the towers.

A tower guard spots what he believes are detainees threatening prison employees. There was a guy that was up ahead of me and he got hit. I remember seeing him. He was a Cuban. He got hit right behind the ear. One of the hostage takers is killed and five others are wounded.

I was getting worried because the bullets were going pretty close around where we were. Chaos reigns as guards and detainees run for cover.

They ran us across to the corner of the building where they couldn't shoot at us. And that time they took us in the chapel.

Detainees forced their hostages into a small room and locked them inside. Go. I got this. Go say something.

Less than an hour after the riots begin, FBI agents from the Atlanta field office arrive at the penitentiary. The FBI has jurisdiction over criminal matters in all federal prisons.

Gordon Petroski briefs Welen Kennedy, the special agent in charge. The first thing that I wanted to accomplish was to find out how many hostages had been taken. Uh how many might be injured. Uh what was the threat to those people who were in fact taken hostage. All these people were like on an emotional high. I mean they'd been prisoners for literally 8 10 years. Uh some of them serving life sentences and now they're free to roam around the prison. It was like a holiday. on the radio. This is the area where they

Agent Leon Blakeley heads the Atlanta FBI SWAT team. Was there agent Blakey appears in Silhouette to protect his identity.

Nobody really knew what area that the uh that the inmates controlled and they really didn't know how many hostages were taken.

You had 2,500 people housed in that institution. Here's the administration. There were people running around all over the place and and quite frankly, it was chaos.

Chaos that had already turned deadly. As agents Kennedy and Blakey developed their plan to retake the prison, they received critical intelligence from two sources. From FBI agents posted outside the walls of the prison complex and from prisoners inside the walls who don't want any part of the riot. We began to learn uh who the hostages might be, where the detainees were holding up, uh how many were there, uh what kind of weapons they might have.

The detainees have taken the guard's radios, compromising prison communications.

Agents and guards switch to a secure frequency. Two white males and two black males.

The situation is grim. Negotiations will be critical to resolving the standoff.

Special Agent D. Rosario, an FBI negotiator, opens up a dialogue with the rioters. Unreasonable demands are being made. The hostage takers want things done now. And that's why it is so important to try to bring them down to a level where they can be reasonable.

Can you negotiate with people at that very high emotional level? Generally speaking no so we had to give it time. The riers are emotionally charged, angry over the shooting death of a detainee. This theme came up time and again.

You killed one of ours. You had no reason to and you killed him. And they wanted me to see the bodies. So I had the body brought out to where we were. I looked at the body. They wanted me to get emotionally involved with it. And these four that originally came out to talk to me really were only speaking for themselves, they were not speaking on behalf of the 1400 that were in there.

In the command post, Warden Petroski receives a frantic call from 16 employees who have barricaded themselves in cell block E. Eblock is home to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary's most dangerous criminals. These particular group of inmates were locked away in Es keep them from harming someone.

If the detainees get into cell block E and free the inmates, the lives of all 16 employees will be in danger. The E cell block is also home to the prison systems most notorious inmate, Thomas Silverstein. A number of people in the Bureau of Prisons told me that he singularly was the toughest prisoner they believed that the Bureau of Prisons had ever housed or had in their custody. He was just an absolute uh animal. And he hated everything to do with uh the Bureau of Prisons or any of their staff.

Silverstein was incarcerated in 1975 for a bank robbery. Years later, he was sentenced to multiple life terms for fatally stabbing an inmate in a prison guard.

Thomas Silverstein was cold and he was a killer. He had two things on his mind to escape from jail because his crimes were such he was going to die in jail. Uh and then the other objective was to kill people. Uh, it was as simple as that.

The guards in cell block E are in grave danger. Special Agent Kennedy works with the FBI SWAT team to come up with a plan to rescue them.

I want you to go out and The SWAT analysis was that they believe that they could go over the wall out of view of the rioting detainees and retrieve those people out of that building successfully. The SWAT team will need ladders to get over the 40 foot high wall. Special Agent Blake calls on the Atlanta Fire Department and a National Guard helicopter crew to help carry out the plan. We put a helicopter up uh on the opposite side of the prison to attract their attention and uh at least have some diversion.

Chief, here's the situation. We've got a strike. 7 hours after the riot began, the FBI SWAT team launches a daring mission to rescue 16 prison employees without endangering the lives of nearly 100 hostages.

We need to put a truck up on the southwest corner of Atlanta. Everybody got it?

7 hours after a riot breaks out at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, an FBI SWAT team launches a mission to rescue 16 employees barricaded in one of the prison cell blocks. FBI special agent Weldon Kennedy knows that if the rescue attempt is seen by rioting Cuban detainees, it could spell disaster.

They would not hesitate to kill hostages if it became apparent to them that we were going to try to retake the prison or retake any part of it.

After scaling the wall, the FBI SWAT team approaches cell block E, home to the prison's most dangerous inmates. Guard, come out. Guard. Guard. Out.

SWAT rushes the prison employees out of the building. Keep your head down. Identify yourself when you get down there.

Across the prison yard, 27 employees, afraid for their safety, have barricaded themselves inside the prison hospital. Frustrated, they watch as their colleagues are escorted to safety. FBI SWAT team leader Leon Blakey. You know, they're screaming, franic, you know, come and get us. Come and get us.

The director of the Bureau of Prisons urges the FBI SWAT team to go back for the hospital employees.

The SWAT personnel informed me that there was a 100% probability that they would be detected going over the wall to try to affect the rescue of the hospital people. we can't protect the other hostages that are being held in other parts of the prison. And my concern was if if in fact we were observed, then uh they would start killing the other employees.

Blakey wants to rescue the hospital staff, but knows it's a risk he cannot afford. the door. This door get

the detainees break into cell block E and release the inmates. Vicious criminals run free, including Thomas Silverstein, a ruthless killer. As darkness falls, three buildings have been consumed by fire. Nearly 100 guards and employees have been taken hostage or have barricaded themselves inside the prison. Prison employee Ted Maner is being held inside a room in the prison's chapel. A man came up to the window and he wasn't a Cuban. And the guy beside me said, "That's Silverstein." And he came inside and he had a flashlight. And he started shining his flashlight.

He shined the light on me. He said, "Don't I know you?" And I told him, "No." He said, "I don't I never seen you before." and he said, "You don't know who I am."

He looked worse than anything I've ever seen in any type of movie or anything. When you look at him, you'd know he hadn't a normal. There's something something strange about him. He's really scary. Detainees finally distract Silverstein and he leaves without harming the hostages.

On day two of the standoff, FBI Tactical Commander Danny Coulson arrives at the prison.

You could hear this huge roar. It was like a million bumblebees. You could almost feel the energy of those rioting prisoners. Coulson started the FBI's hostage rescue team, an elite counterterrorism group in 1982.

The HRT is law enforcement's equivalent to the Navy Seals for the Army's Delta Force.

The only unit in the United States that has a sophisticated explosive or thermal breaching capability is the FBI's hostage rescue team.

But the HRT is already tied up handling the riot at Oakdale. So, I was going to a very difficult tactical assignment without the team I was used to commanding.

Despite not having the hostage rescue team available to him, Coulson must still develop a full-scale tactical rescue plan. He faces several obstacles.

A prison is built to keep bad guys in. You have barred doors. You have steel gates. Well, these same type of things keep a rescue force from getting in. I needed help from the military primarily from the Delta Force.

Delta Force is the Army's special operations unit, but using them at the prison would be illegal.

A posy commatatus law was passed right after the civil war and that law prevents the military from being involved actively with their personnel in civil law enforcement. Barring approval from the White House, the FBI must rely solely on civilian law enforcement.

Weldon Kennedy assembles over 400 SWAT members at the prison. We had SWAT teams from all around the country, Chicago, uh, New York, uh, as well as, of course, the immediate, uh, surrounding area. We figured that based on the capability we had, we were probably maybe an hour away from getting in to rescue the hostages.

We were all concerned that that that they started killing hostages. We we were helpless to get in there. And that's one of the reasons that that D Rosario and the other negotiators were working so hard to try to get somebody to talk to to calm the situation down.

But the negotiations are not going well. None of the riers D. Rosario has spoken with has enough power to influence the detainees.

The negotiators need a different approach. We could be here for a very long time. Unless we come up with a group of people in there among the detainees that can speak basically for if not all of them for the majority.

Rosario asks prison employees which detainees command the most respect. I said he's he has a pretty good repar.

Files of these people were opened to us and we looked at several of them and we decided on five or six men. We went to the grading and called them by name and they came to the grading and we invited them to come over to our side and sit down at a table with us and talk with us.

The detainees agreed to talk with negotiators and we began our first serious conversations in terms of how can we resolve this? What is it that you're looking for? The number one demand

that they had was that ultimately the Immigration and Naturalization Service conduct individual hearings for each and every one of them to remain in the United States.

It's a straightforward request. Lucario agrees to pass it on to the Department of Justice.

As the meeting ends, the negotiator uses a bit of psychology to help solidify the group's standing as leaders within the prison.

We uh decided to give these men the mail that had accumulated since before the riot began. In the penitentiary, Daily Mail is an important link to the outside world.

They went back in there and we could literally hear the shouting uh of glee uh when these guys showed up with two bags full of mail.

We believe it created in the minds of the others that these guys could get things done for them. And that's where it began. After that, we kept asking for the same money.

Rousario is beginning to make progress, but negotiations go slowly. In the prison hospital, 27 trapped employees are out of time. Detainees are trying to break down the door of the hospital with a battery. Hurry up, man.

The employees call Warden Petrosky in the command center. Warden Petrosky relays the information to Weldon Kennedy.

Detainees could break through the hospital doors at any moment. You had 27 people in there and there was concern that once the hospital was taken over they might be injured or even killed. So the ram is going. We can hear it as a matter of fact banging the metal doors of the prison.

Bureau of prison officials worry about what could happen if detainees get access to the drugs and narcotics stored in the hospital.

Um what about right here? Weldon Kennedy asks HRT Commander Danny Coulson for a second assessment.

I said, "Yeah, we can get him out. We can go over the wall. We can defend the area with a perimeter and slide them out over the walls and we're out of there."

Coulson's biggest concern is that the detainees are watching news coverage of the riots.

Inmates were watching TV to see what we were doing as much as they could and they could very well believe that a rescue of the entire prison was underway. and then they can start executing the hostages.

Hospital workers are moments away from becoming hostages or worse. So here we have a huge dilemma. Do we go in and take those people out of the hospital and save them or do we let them be taken hostage?

Kennedy decides the rescue is too risky. My decision was based on all the information that I had, we will not go for the rescue. I will not authorize the rescue.

And when he went back in and announced it to the Bureau of Prisons, I remember one Bureau of Prisons official storming past me and looking at me and said, "If those are FBI agents, you'd go get them." And I said, "No, he wouldn't."

Weldon Kennedy wonders if he has just signed a death warrant for 27 innocent people. For two days, a riot rages at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. Dozens of Cuban detainees now control the prison. 27 Bureau of Prison employees are trapped in the prison hospital. Walden Kennedy, special agent in charge of the FBI's Atlanta field office, makes a tough decision. If we entered the penitentiary, if we tried to retake it, there was a threat. They were going to immediately kill them all.

Kennedy decides not to launch a rescue mission. 2 hours after the decision, communication is lost with the employees in the prison hospital.

There warden pick up if you hear me. I knew that if anything happened to any one of those 27 people that I would forever live with that as being the person responsible. Guards stationed at the prison towers gather intelligence as detainees move hostages across the prison yard. One guard calls the FBI command post with a disturbing development. A group of detainees is dragging a settlement tanks into a basement where they can access the prison's utility tunnels. Danny Coulson is the FBI's tactical commander at the scene.

They might be able to bring those tanks, get enough of them underneath our command post where the tunnels ran and uh caused an explosion which would have decimated the command post and maybe have allowed them to escape.

Coulson and the FBI SWAT team prepared to go down into the tunnels. The tunnels were were designed for two purposes. One is all the utilities went through the tunnels, the steam pipes, the electrical pipes, and they were big tunnels. There were also ventilation tunnels that started big enough for a man to walk in standing up and ended up only a few inches uh uh high.

Coulson and SWAT team leader Leon Blakey have no idea what they will encounter once they are inside. Prison maps aren't reliable and communication with agents above ground is not possible. As the team makes their way through the underground maze of pipes, they encounter a group of detainees, Leon Blakeley.

Once we got in the tunnels, we discovered then that that in fact the Cubans were in there

and often times we'd come in very close proximity to them within 10 ft of them. There would be a bunch of them and we'd confront them and fortunately uh every time they turn around and run. The SWAT team is unable to find the acetylin tanks in the vast underground system, but they are convinced the detainees are exploring the tunnels for a possible escape route. We decided the tunnel system was was a real threat to a successful uh resolution of of the crisis.

Ultimately, we were able to to station uh SWAT teams down there. The Chicago SWAT team handle one part of the tunnel system and the Washington field office SWAT team handle another uh part of the tunnel system. On day three of the standoff, Danny Coulson receives intelligence from agents with high-powered binoculars positioned around the prison. The detainees have moved nearly all the hostages to a building known as the American dorm.

What do you guys think they will be able to do? Coulson begins to formulate a tactical rescue plan.

What do you think they mean? What can outside the prison? Crowds gather. Families of the hostages, the prison guards, and even the detainees wait for information about their loved ones. The media covers breaking news from the penitentiary. There was hundreds of media people there. There were networks. There was local TV. They established a tent city right across the street from the from the prison. A single reporter and a simple error threatened to bring the standoff to a violent end. Special Agent D. Rosario.

The New York SWAT team was coming off shift and the Chicago SWAT team was coming on shift and they passed each other right at the steps of the administration building. And it looked impressive because there was two very large groups of armed men all dressed in black.

Local reporter in Atlanta is watching this and sees these 40 or 50 men dressed in SWAT gear going up the front steps and jumps to the conclusion and says so on live TV that, well, there they go. Looks like the FBI is going to retake control of the prison. When the detainees see the media report, they take immediate action.

They brought several hostages out to the yard. And for the benefit of of our camera so we could see them, they brought these hostages out and they poured gasoline over them. And then they took their cigarette lighters out and began clicking while literally screaming at us, "If you want to assault us, go ahead. As soon as you do, we're setting fire to these men."

Without knowing it, a young journalist may have just made a mistake that could cost the lives of nearly 100 innocent people. At the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, FBI agents negotiate with Cuban detainees who have taken over the prison. The lives of nearly 100 hostages hang in the balance. On day three of the standoff, a journalist's error ignites a crisis. FBI tactical commander Danny Coulson. All along, our negotiators have been telling the the Cubans that that we weren't coming in, that we wanted to negotiate and wanted them to surrender.

And now a reporter is saying, "We're coming in." The erroneous media report makes special agent D. Rosario's job even tougher as he negotiates for the lives of the hostages.

We had brought them down to such a a reasonable level of emotion. And when they thought that the FBI was about to assault, they literally lost. We came literally within a few heartbeats of losing the hostages right then and there.

We sent everybody to what we call phase line green which is the last position you are in before you do a rescue. It was like a spark that was about to uh ignite this terrible inferno of of of energy we had built up there. I had to convince him that no such assault was going to take place and that, you know, if if things were going so well and so positive, why wouldn't we even think about assaulting them?

After three tense hours, the riers agree to continue negotiations and spare the hostages.

We're just lucky that our negotiators are able to calm them down and we didn't have any loss of life. For Coulson, the close call is a warning sign that the standoff could explode into a fullscale riot with very little provocation. At the end of day three, he obtains presidential approval to deploy Delta Force in a civilian crisis. The special operations team arrives in Atlanta disguised as FBI agents. There were three things that I desperately needed from them. The first was their breaching capability. They had all the breaching capability that would be necessary to get back into that prison to do a dynamic rescue. They had the ability to use explosives to blow steel doors down or blow blocks out.

They had the ability to use thermal devices to cut in an instant through steel and cable. The second thing I wanted was their sniper capability. When we went into that prison, if we had to go in, I wanted the very best snipers I could find doing cover for my men as they went in. The other thing is they have tremendous medical capability.

They travel with a complete hospital. They set up with the doctors, nurses, uh emergency equipment, the latest state-of-the-art everything.

If Delta Force or FBI teams engage the detainees in combat, the military hospital is prepared to treat any injury. They can bring their doctors right in with us.

They can pop a chest and do open heart surgery right there in the premises if necessary.

For the next several days, Delta Force snipers keep the detaineees under constant surveillance kind of tank. It looks like

the riers are working 24 hours a day making weapons by the thousands. There was all kinds of steel inside the uh the prison and they were very resourceful with the equipment. They ground weapons and the spears. Each one of them must have had at least two weapons. Delta Force sets up surveillance cameras all over the complex to track the movement of the detainees. Okay. Agents look for ways to get closer to the areas where the hostages are being held. If the Cuban detainees decide to kill the hostages, the tactical team must be able to launch an assault on a moment's notice.

We've got uh two people guarding the American dorm. This is not something where you play a video game and after it's over, you hit your reset button and everybody's alive again. You're talking about the lives of human beings here and you have a tremendous responsibility to try to get those people out. Coulson and Blakey go back into the tunnels underneath the prison. One of the tunnels leads to the prison's electrical room. It's located right outside the American dorm where most of the hostages are held.

We were literally uh on the other side of the window from inmates that were uh right across right across the walkway from where the hostages were being held. By doing that, we moved our response time from half an hour to 10 seconds. It was a tremendous a tremendous leap in our capability at that point. With the FBI SWAT teams and Delta Force in place, they will be in a better position to protect the hostages if negotiations break down. Until they start harming a hostage, there's no reason for us to try to gain forcible entry to save these people. We therefore will wait as long as it takes.

The rioters have enough food to survive for up to a year. The day after Thanksgiving, they erect a Christmas tree on the roof of the building.

That was very disheartening to us. Maybe they didn't intend it psychologically to be that way. We interpret it as we are going to be here through Christmas. On day eight of the crisis, prison guards stationed in the tunnel hear the sound of a drill. One guard recognizes the voice of Thomas Silverstein, the most vicious inmate in the federal prison system. They think Silverstein is searching for a way out.

We knew he would absolutely kill a hostage if he if he would help him escape. Weldon Kennedy asks Danny Coulson to go back into the tunnels to apprehend Silverstein.

So we walked down the tunnel and and we did a tactical formation going down the tunnel. We had lights and our weapons. Suddenly we noticed there was water on the floor and then the water started getting deeper and it was over the tops of our shoes and over our ankles and up to our knees. Then what we finally realized is that that tunnel was actually flooded. The water flooding the tunnels had been dumped by National Guard helicopters to fight the fires.

Looking further into the tunnel, he can see water fills it to the ceiling. He knows there is no way Thomas Silverstein can be in there.

And what they were hearing was there were there were tubes, ventilation tubes that were above the water line. So the guards were actually hearing his voice, but we knew he wasn't going to get out.

Still, Coulson knows that Silverstein is as dangerous inside the prison as he is on the outside.

He was a sociopath and he'd already proven he would commit murder. So, had he done that, had he attempt to to harm a guard or or anybody else in there, uh it would have caused us to have to go in and launch a rescue we didn't want to have to launch. And again, we were faced with significant loss of life.

Knowing Thomas Silverstein is such a dangerous wild card. FBI negotiator D. Rosario must convince the detainees to turn him over.

United States. Okay. I emphasized and kept reemphasizing the fact that uh Tommy Silverstein could become a very grave liability to the Cuban detainees and to their cause and to what they were trying to attain. I was told that they would think about it.

Rosario tells the riers that until Silverstein is back behind bars, the hostages are in grave danger. As long as the vicious killer roams free, the standoff could come to a sudden and violent end. More than a week into the intense standoff with Cuban detainees at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, FBI negotiators worry that a dangerous American prisoner could jeopardize a peaceful end to the conflict. What I suggested to them was that at some point or another, it would be in your best interest to turn Tommy Silverstein over to us.

Special Agent D. Rosario tries to convince the riers that Silverstein is a serious threat to prison employees who are being held hostage.

The American inmate is jeopardizing their position in the negotiations. A short time later, a large group of detainees appears at the Sallyport gate of the main cell block

and there was about a 100 Cubans screaming, waving their sabers in the air. And I can see the head silver. And in the midst of all these screaming Cubans, they threw literally threw Silverstein at us.

Detainees tell agents how they captured Silverstein. So they gained access to the pharmacy. They took some narcotic. They put it in a can of uh fruit cocktail, which he was known to like, and fed him fruit cocktail laced liberally with this drug, which in effect knocked him out.

The FBI viewed Silverstein's capture as an act of good faith. That told us a lot. They don't want to hurt the hostages.

It showed the negotiators that these Cubans were responsible. they were willing to do things to cooperate with us in order to reach a common goal, which is a a great step in a negotiation process. On December 1st, a separate riot at Louisiana's Oakdale Penitentiary is resolved. The Cuban detainees incarcerated at Oakdale agree to release their hostages if the INS will review their cases. The government of the United States through the voice of the attorney general told him, "You know, it's not unreasonable to give you a hearing."

D. Rosario offers the Atlanta detainees the same deal. Hostage takers have gotten exactly what they want, but still negotiations stall. Audio surveillance reveals the rioters think the FBI will not use deadly force to remove them from the prison, that they would have a fighting chance to overpower federal forces.

The Cubans thought that the FBI and the other assets would come in with nightsticks and batons and just duke it out.

The next day, Coulson decides to send the hostage takers an indelible message. The detainee agrees to talk with Coulson

and he said, "I need to go to the restroom." So I said, "Wait right here." So I went around the barrier and I got the Marshalls SOG team and the New York City SWAT team. I I got them all up and I said, "Put on all your gear and line up along the walls and look mean." and he walked around that barricade and when he walked down that corridor, he literally jumped off the ground. I said, "This is not going to be a a nightstick duel with your swords. We're going to use deadly force." The rioters agree to the terms of the surrender.

On day 12 of the standoff, the Cuban detainees release their hostages. I will never ever forget those guys coming through that Sallyport and walking right by me and and the look of relief. They were haggarded and they were tired and they were worn out, but this great sense of relief and they're all smiling to ear.

When we finally walked out with hostages, not one of them having been harmed in any way, we regarded that as a huge success. After 12 intense days, the Atlanta prison riot is over.

One of the most important things that sort of focused the American public on the plight of the Cubans. And I think that was important. They did have a story to tell. They just told it in the wrong way.

After the riots, all detainees are granted an INS hearing. Some are released. Others with criminal records or mental disabilities are repatriated back to Cuba. The rest remain in prison. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

video. Okay.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Inside the Mind of the Military-Precision Bank Robber | The FBI Files"?

Jim Calstrom (Host), Jack Kelly (Host), Don Glasser (Guest), Danny Coulson (Guest), D. Rosario (Guest), Leon Blakey (Guest).

What is "Inside the Mind of the Military-Precision Bank Robber | The FBI Files" about?

The content explores the case of a highly organized and violent bank robber known as the Shudest, who executed a series of unsolved bank heists in the late 1980s with military precision, leaving terrified victims and minimal evidence for law enforcement. The FBI, led by special agent Jack Kelly, prioritized capturing this takeover-style criminal, whose aggressive tactics set him apart from…

What is mentioned in this The FBI Files episode?

13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Cuban detainees, Johnny Madison Williams, Bradley Martin, John F. Kelly, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Carol Williams. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Inside the Mind of the Military-Precision Bank Robber | The FBI Files"?

The episode runs 2 h 29 min; the transcript is about 19,380 words in 454 timestamped sections.

More from The FBI Files

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 25, 2026.