Deadly Heist | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

In Arizona, a shipment of money disappeared in the high desert along with the two men hired to protect it. The FBI did not know whether the guards were participants or victims of an ambush. The answers lay somewhere in the vast northwest of Arizona. FBI agents struggled to rebuild the scattered ones. clues to reveal the truth in arizona an armored van loaded with cash did not reach its destination authorities suspected an inside job when the vehicle was recovered with the drivers and the cash missing those suspicions grew even more i am jim calstrom ex head of the FBI new york office this well-planned crime required extraordinary efforts to solve the FBI knew that the smallest detail could make or break the case May 24, 1977 Phoenix, Arizona, a security company transferred 333,000 in cash and coins from his vault to an armored van two messenger guards prepared for another day distributing cash to banks in arizona are ready to go, we have a problem with this door, I think you want to take a look at it, let me see, a guard discovered a problem with the latch on the side door of the truck. inform the company maintenance shop before leaving this delay puts cecil newkirk and russell dempsey an hour late the day's route included stops from Phoenix, 150 miles north to Flagstaff, with the delay it would be difficult to make all the stops that banks waited in the deliveries to provide cash to their customers spiritual security at 10:30 a.m.

The security company received a call from a bank complaining that they had not received the delivery. Technical problems with the ban, so they started a little late. Well, at first they should be there shortly. Dispatchers thought the late start explained the problem, but throughout the afternoon the dispatcher was unable to contact the guards. They confronted the messenger, a dempsey, are you out there? This is the base. Come in at 4:30. the armored van to the entire area the state police and local authorities used the rest of the light of the night to search for the missing van, they found no sign of it nor the courier guards, special agent stephen chenoweth, now retired from the FBI field office in Phoenix, wondered if the guards had left with the money, one of the first things one does is certainly look at the drivers to see if that could be a possibility of what had happened, if there is an involvement of the driver, both missing guards were married that night and The FBI agent interviewed each of their wives separately and they confirmed that neither of their husbands had financial problems that caused them to steal the money.

Company officials agreed that both guards had provided 20 years of faithful service. The route of the missing van covered a vast area of ​​state authorities. He had almost a thousand square miles to search and most of that terrain was remote desert. The next day, Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopters followed the guard's scheduled start, flying down Interstate 17 north toward Flagstaff, checking all exits, the pilots spotted the truck 50 miles north of Phoenix. It had been abandoned a quarter mile off the interstate in a remote area near the town of Bumblebee, Arizona. Public safety officers and local agents cordoned off the area before the FBI arrived.

The agents approached the van cautiously, not wanting to disturb the footprints traced around the vehicle. The doors of the armored vans were closed from the outside. There was little to indicate what had happened. There did not appear to be a fight inside, but we had to get into the van. vehicle before we could actually conduct a thorough investigation or examination of the van and it was not until later that morning that a set of spare keys were brought in and we affected entry to the van, the radio was still on but the base was not had received no call for help, the truck's siren had not sounded, a shotgun stored in the truck for defense was fired, had not been fired and its safety was still on, the guards had not used any of their resources to signal that there had been a robbery in the back the officers found bags containing several thousand dollars in coins but 293 One thousand dollars in paper money was missing, blood spatter on the carpet and bags of money indicated that someone had been injured, but the officers did not know who it was His biggest fear at that moment, of course, is for the safety of the guards; money can always be replaced.

Your life can't, so we were certainly concerned about the guard's fate Among the tracks in the dust Investigators noticed a separate set of tire tracks behind the van Evidence Technicians captured the tire tracks with photographs and casts The Agents concluded that it was unlikely that the guards had been overpowered by a single perpetrator. The location of the van, the condition of the van and everything we found at the scene simply told us that this was a crime that had been well planned and It had probably been committed by more than one person, Officer Dale Lent. from nearby Mohave County was brought in to assist in the investigation.

A narcotics officer trained in land print identification was loaned out. He was able to reconstruct crimes from footprints and vehicle prints. He was one of only two trackers qualified to testify in Arizona court. My first concern was to check the area to see if the guards had been taken somewhere away from the van and something had happened to it, so the first thing I did was do a 360 degree turn around the scene, which included checking the path further up, the guards were nowhere to be found except on a nearby hill. where the van was abandoned he discovered more tire tracks and footprints from this position there was an unobstructed view of the interstate the guards traveled on near the van the agent found two separate sets of large footprints based on his observations he concluded that at at least one other vehicle and two perpetrators had been involved the vehicle had backed out near the van he picked up something, whether it was the two guards or the money, it's hard to say, but I would say it was the money because a trail wasn't just one, It was a well-traveled road.

Examining the layers of tread marks showed that a vehicle had followed the truck from the interstate to where it was abandoned. Deeper tracks leading back to the interstate showed the vehicle had left much heavier than when it arrived Investigators believe the guards had been taken dead or alive by the attackers The FBI turned to the media for help We did what we could to keep this on the front page of the news and we did what we could to make sure people knew we were looking for these guards, media reports generated calls from witnesses. Several motorists reported seeing the pickup truck stopped on the northbound side of Interstate 17 on the morning of May 24.

One saw an Arizona police department. security officer walking towards the truck other witnesses had similar stories but the details differed the make and color of the officer's car varied in some stories he was parked in front of the truck other times he was stopped behind the officers contacted the department of public safety Of Arizona no officer had reported stopping an armored van on I-17 that morning, well, at that point I was pretty convinced that something bad had probably happened to the guards, that somehow somewhere they had been stopped and they had let their guard down and had been taken captive and as we did not find the guards in the vicinity, it soon became evident that the guards were probably taken against their will.

The FBI and the agent searched Interstate 17 for the location the witnesses had described. The tracker found the place where I thought the van had been stopped. The marks were fresh within the 24 to 48 hour time period. You can see where the door was, where someone came out, where there were scuff marks on the floor, it looked like you knew where there had been movement, digging and indentations. The dirt indicated that there had been a fight near the back of the truck. Tire tracks from a second vehicle on the interstate matched those in the remote area where the pickup truck had been abandoned.

Curiously, the same footprints were found further down the road, right in front of where the van had been stopped. Several motorists even underwent hypnosis to provide a sketch artist with details of what they remembered. Some recalled that the officer on the scene was wearing a hat. Others claimed that the officer was hatless, but none of the sketches produced any leads for the FBI. had reached a dead end, then, on the morning of June 16, 1977, 300 miles northwest of where the van had been abandoned, two men made a gruesome discovery while fishing in Lake Mead. The men discovered a body floating in Debbie's Cove and contacted National Park Service investigators.

He quickly headed to the cove where the body had been seen. Local police joined divers from the National Park Service and approached the field. The body was

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y clothed. The head and torso were covered with a canvas bag. An officer removed a wallet from his back pocket. The victim was Russell Dempsey, one of the guards on the missing armored vehicle. Divers searched the area but were unable to find the body of the second guard, not far below the surface. They discovered two wooden sticks connected by a rope. What do you have? Bring it over the top. boat here to investigators appeared to be a garat used to strangle someone the robbery was now a murder investigation investigators still had nothing that could lead them to any suspect they only knew an Arizona public safety officer or someone posing as one could be involved On the morning of June 16, 1977, National Park Service divers in Arizona recovered a body from Lake Mead.

He was one of two armored car guards who had disappeared on May 24 along with 293,000 people. The whereabouts of the second guard and the money remained unknown. The county. The medical examiner determined that the guard found at the lake had suffered a heart attack. He had also been strangled. Investigators believe a garage recovered near the body had been used to strangle him. A lock of the victim's hair found tangled in the device supported their suspicions. FBI agents traveled to Lake Mead to question people who were familiar with the resort area. Whoever had dumped the body had probably used a boat to reach deeper water.

More than 20 agents searched rental stores around the 247-square-mile lake. No one reported any suspicious activity. But agents collected rental receipts in hopes of eventually having a suspect's name to reference. Special Agent Laird Keystand, now retired from the FBI's resident agency Kingman, joined the case and would search for names on receipts anywhere. that a traveler might have visited in the area. We had no good leads as to who had committed this crime and our assistant agent in charge in the Phoenix office decided to have FBI agents check every gas station from the area where the armored vehicle was located to Lake Mead where the bodies had been found. been transported a distance of over 300 miles considering all the different routes to the lake.

Agents had hundreds of gas stations to check. The agent began his investigation at the station owned by an acquaintance named Stan. I asked Dan if he had heard anything about the robbery and he told me that he had been waiting for someone to come talk to me and then he told me that the day after the robbery he had to take his tow truck to Lake Maid and pull it. A truck leaving the lake that had backed into the lake on May 25 received a call from two men whose truck was stuck at Benelli Landing on the lake.

The men explained that they had gotten drunk while fishing and had backed up too close to the water. The owner did not see any fishing equipment in the truck, but he did notice drag marks in the dust on the bed. It looked like something heavy had been taken out from the back. Well, Stan took the two men to his gas station. He wrote a receipt and asked for a signature. Customers hesitated before one agreed to sign. The name he used was Mike Poland. The station owner believed he could identify the men if he saw them again.

It was the break the researchers had been waiting for. The ease with which he found itsurprised the special agent. It was the first place I entered. I developed this information. He totally took me by surprise and surprised me and I was like, "Oh, boy, this is it. We finally have something we can start with." Agents search for Michael Poland's name among thousands of boat rental receipts collected on Lake Mead, after several hours they discovered that Michael Poland had rented a boat the day after the robbery and named Benelli Landing as his destination. It was the same place where his truck came from. had been towed, officers returned to Lake Mead looking for additional evidence between Benelli Landing and the boat metal shop on the opposite shore, within the width of that four and a half mile span, officers saw another body covered in a bag floating on the surface;

He was the second The missing courier guard had been brutally beaten before drowning. The medical examiner found two welts on his chest consistent with wounds inflicted by a high-voltage Taser gun. The guard's personal belongings were removed, including an automatic watch that had stopped at 10:37 a.m. On May 26, Special Agent Steven Chenoweth's team redoubled its search for clues in Lake Mead based on where their bodies were found, the currents and how long we felt they had been in the water. We were able to track where we were. I thought they might have been placed in Lake Mead, that area was only 100 yards from Debbie's Cove where the first guard's body had surfaced.

The divers concentrated on a ledge 12 feet deep that bordered an 800-foot ditch. A sweep of the ledge turned up a third canvas bag similar to those covering the bodies. The bag was sent to the FBI laboratory for processing. Inside the bag, agents recovered an Arizona license plate that resembled those used on cruise ships. Arizona public safety Two revolvers were also found, but no prints could be extracted. Examiners also found corroded gun rocks matching those at Benelli Landing holding the bag at the bottom. Concrete dust adhered to the fabric of the bag. canvas, agents called Stan in hopes that the gas station owner could identify a photo of the driver's license of Michael Poland, one of the two men who had hired him to tow his truck from Benelli Landing , among six photos.

Stan recognized Michael Poland's face the FBI had finally confirmed a prime suspect they expected Michael Poland to lead them to another in June 1977 the FBI hunted down the man who killed two armored car guards and took $293,000 tire tracks and footprints at the crime scene suggested that at least two perpetrators were involved the officers believed one of them was Michael Poland they hoped Poland's surveillance would lead to another although he did not appear to have a job Poland was spending a lot of money the officers saw a new motorcycle in the property the FBI identified a man he visited frequently as Michael's younger brother, Patrick Patrick Poland had just bought a new car when the brothers were inside, an agent approached Michael's teenage son and complimented the new motorcycle, the boy He replied that his father had recently bought two of them and a lot.

More agents expanded their investigation to include Patrick Poland and subpoenaed the financial records of both brothers before the armored van robbery. Each had serious money problems shortly after paying off their debts and both had purchased new vehicles. Special Agent Steven Chenoweth compared their income to their recent spending habits we tried to document as much as we could about how much money they were spending and what kind of means of support they had and the two just didn't seem to fit together very well and when that happens and then we know that people have access to a fairly large amount of money without any real means of support, that's a good clue for us.

Officers interviewed the brother's father and photographed his truck. Mr. Poland admitted that his sons had borrowed the truck on the day of During the robbery, the father had mixed concrete in the bed several weeks before robbery agents took a sample of the powder for processing. FBI examiners analyzed the concrete sample and compared it to cement dust in duffel bags recovered from Lake Mead. Examiners concluded that the dust in the bag came from the same batch of concrete taken from the truck. Once again, the FBI asked Stan to look at a series of photographs. The station owner was unable to identify Patrick Poland as the man with Michael.

He looks exactly like him, but he did recognize my father's truck as the one he towed from the lake, that's all, positively, in the early morning hours of July 27, 1977, agents arrived at Michael Poland's house with a search warrant. my diamond claimed to be a self-employed jewelry salesman, he said that on the day of the robbery he was in las vegas buying gems for three days what did you do on the way back investigators found twelve thousand dollars in cash that he claimed was used for his jewelry business the Agents confiscated numerous receipts, one of which was for a pair of high-voltage Taser weapons sold to a man named Mark Harris a month before the robbery a short distance away.

Agents searched the home of Michael Patrick's brother, Poland, FBI Special Agent Frank Mowry. Now retired, he asked if he and his brother Michael had been to Lake Mead. Patrick told a different story than his brother, initially saying that he and his brother were there fishing. He was very nervous. He was extremely nervous. He had difficulty explaining many things about his whereabouts, especially the day of the crime and the day after the crime. patrick was being interviewed he received a call it was his brother michael yes they are here he urged patrick not to talk to investigators the search of patrick's house turned up a cache of weapons and sixteen thousand dollars in cash the fbi tracked and processed the cars that the brothers possessed before the robbery.

The tire treads did not match the tracks found at the crime scene. Examiners found no physical evidence linking the cars to the crime. Officers visited the gun store where Tasers had been sold for Mark Harris before the robbery. The employee who had made the sale could only remember that Harris was a white man in his 20s since the receipt was found at Michael Poland's home, they theorized that it was probably his alias. One of the things the FBI does is try to eliminate all other good logic. suspicious and we did this in that case the name mark harris fairly common name we had to remove that name for being anyone other than mike pollen's alias special agent mao investigated public records of a mark harris between the ages of 25 and 40 In fact, we identified literally hundreds of Mark Harrises from vehicle records, motor vehicle records, phone books, and every way possible, we went to their homes, physically located them, interviewed them, and found that they had nothing to say. do with this crime with no evidence that mark harris was an alias for michael poland and there was no physical evidence linking the brothers to the crimes.

Agents were unable to arrest the brothers for the next 10 months. All the agents could do was care

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y follow his movements. Special Agent Chenoweth flew in a surveillance helicopter. We wanted to know everything that Michael and Patrick Polon did, what they had done in the past, what they were going to do in the future. The researchers continued to document the brothers' spending habits. They watched as the Poles closed a deal at an arcade despite of the circumstantial evidence that the agents were Unable to make an arrest, the FBI had to find stronger physical evidence to prevent the Polen brothers from getting away with the murder.

In April 1978, the FBI suspected that Michael and Patrick Poland had killed two courier guards and stolen nearly three hundred thousand dollars after eleven months. Investigating agents did not have enough to convince a grand jury to indict the special agent. of the FBI Frank Mowry desperately searched for evidence that would strengthen the case what we urgently needed was physical evidence we didn't have fingerprints we didn't have any really good eyewitnesses we didn't have any physical evidence that could lead to Mike and Pat Paul in the crime. The agent focused on the three duffel bags recovered from Lake Mead with the guards' bodies.

He checked with more than 20 sources in the Phoenix area where the bags might have been. no one recognized the work, no one could even give me a clue who in the city would make such a bag. Some even said they probably came from out of town, so I was really discouraged. The agent visited the last store on his list and showed the The owner acknowledged that the bag came from his company. It was a custom size with a single stitch sewn only by their seamstresses. He also identified specially ordered lanyard purchased from a Georgia company, as far as the owner knew, his was the only store in the area. that did something similar, he said I will have a receipt in my record somewhere because someone would have walked through that door and said I need to order so many bags of a certain length, of a certain width, of certain specifications at the FBI office in Phoenix.

Agents combed through hundreds of receipts covering years of the bag maker's business. After nearly a week, they found a receipt for three personalized canvas bags dated a month before the theft that were sold to a man named Mark Harris. Agents had seen the name before on a receipt for a pair of Tasers. They had found the voucher months earlier during a search of Michael Poland's home. The FBI was also convinced that Mark Harris was an alias for Michael Poland. The receipt for the bag. of canvas connected the alias to the murdered guards and the cement dust in the van the brothers were driving Matching dust found in the bags On May 17, 1978, after almost a year of investigation, the federal grand jury returned an indictment for murder, kidnapping and robbery against michael and patrick poland, the fbi suspected that the poles would not surrender quietly, both of you already killed two men we know you have your ralph planned you are going to pick up patrick we are going to pick up the light check your weapons check your vest, special agent Stephen Chenoweth believed that an armed confrontation was possible, he had to do it, they had to be very well and plan meticulously, the Poles were very violent, they had demonstrated their violence, they had a strong propensity to, you know, commit violence, as they demonstrates the fate of the guards, and one of the things we absolutely knew we couldn't do was arrest.

Officers feared the suspects would barricade themselves in their homes and shoot if they found out they were going to be arrested. The agents waited for Patrick Poland to emerge. When he finally did, they realized he was carrying a gun case and followed him to a safe location to make the arrest. The second arrest team waited for Michael Polon to emerge from a real estate office. Once outside, there would be less risk for passersby. If the shooting broke out, the first arrest team caught up with Patrick outside the game room, the agents intercepted him before he entered the building, we identified ourselves, of course, he already knew me from previous contacts and I told him that I had arrived the moment and that we had arrest warrants.

They arrested him and he surrendered without any problem. He was armed. He had a .44 Magnum gun and a couple of other guns in his car, but he made no effort to use them. The officers radioed the other team that Patrick had been detained. Michael Poland. been in the real estate office for almost 45 minutes the agents feared that he had somehow found out about patrick's arrest and was preparing for an armed confrontation they decided to risk entering the building the federal agents the alleged killer surrendered without incident michael Poland refused to answer the questions and insisted that his brother do the same.

There are no fingerprints linking any of the brothers to the murdered guards or the kidnapped man. Van Michael remained confident that the FBI's case was weak. In a case like this, you have a joint venue, a venue certainly falls to the federal government with respect to the actual theft of the van and we also have a homicide case that falls to state authorities. Authorities considered their best strategy for a successful prosecution. State and federal prosecutors decided to split the charges. Poland was tried for robbery and kidnapping in federal court, based on circumstantial evidence gathered, a federal jury found the brothers guilty of the charges on February 15, 1979.

They were sentenced to 100 years. These were two guards who worked very hard, very loyal to their company. Both had worked for approximately 20 years. years for the company they were actually just a few weeks away from retiring they were family men they were good men religious men men whoThey had dedicated a lot of time, effort and loyalty to this company and on the eve of their retirement they were murdered in November 1979. A jury in the state of Arizona returned a verdict of guilty for murder. The judge sentenced the brothers to the death penalty. The Poles appealed. their conviction the arizona supreme court determined that the testimony of a hypnotized witness and the taser evidence should not have been used they also found that the jury had improperly discussed the federal trial the pollen brothers the state murder convictions were overturned the agents They were certain that the brothers had brutally murdered two men and state prosecutors would not seek a new trial because of parole laws at the time when Michael and Patrick Poland would be eligible for parole.

In less than seven years, in 1982, an Arizona prosecutor refused to retry Michael and Patrick for murder, citing the cost as well as the difficulty of proving the case with evidence that had been excluded by the Arizona Supreme Court. U.S. Attorney Melvin McDonald was outraged that the Pollen brothers could get away with this. He had followed him through the media and never dreamed he would play any role in the case until 1982, when it became clear that the ball was going to drop. unless someone stopped at me. He called the county attorney and offered to take the case for the first time in history.

A U.S. attorney was replaced as Arizona state attorney. McDonald had to resurrect a case that many considered impossible to retry. Five years had passed between the time of the crime. and as the trial witnesses travel and move around the country, memories begin to fade, so you have to recreate and present the crime as if it had happened a month ago when you are faced with the problem that in It's actually five years old. The prosecutor wanted to determine the exact time that the victims had been deposited in Lake Mead and prove that it was the same time that the Poles were at the lake so that there would be no doubt that the Poles were responsible, one of the problems with the guards' finding was that their bodies were missing and recovered over six weeks the defense we knew would argue that the real killers could have dumped them there at any time working with the FBI the prosecutor found a piece of evidence that had been overlooked in the previous case In testing the second guard's automatic watch, the examiners noted that the watch stopped at 10:37 pm on May 26, that particular automatic watch would stop working if it was not moved for 12 hours, which meant that the guard's watch stopped 12 hours after his The arm stopped at the bottom of Lake Mead.

In fact, we had watch experts take the watch apart to prove that the watch had not stopped due to water damage. There was no water that had entered the parts of the clock that controlled its operation. i literally went all the way to switzerland to get experts there to talk about how long it would take for a watch that hadn't been cleaned and hadn't been cleaned in five years to finally unwind the watch in front of the jury please forensic experts used this information To determine exactly when the bodies had been dumped in the water, his estimate coincided exactly with the time the FBI had established that the Poles were in the lake while towing their truck from Benelli to the prosecutor.

I explained that the brothers had been there. to get rid of the bodies for the dramatic point. I told the jury that while Mr. Newkirk is dead, he is speaking to you from the grave and asking you to look at my watch. I'm sending you a message through my watch. After three hours of deliberation, the jury was convinced that the defendants would rise on November 18, 1982, they found Michael and Patrick Poland guilty of murder, the judge reinstated them once again the defendants appealed the conviction , it was one of the rare cases in which his case reached the united states supreme court of the united states in a published opinion a very divided court again affirmed his conviction and sentence how is the situation with nothing to lose patrick poland agreed to tell the investigators and the victims' families exactly what happened in 1987 he gave his confession to FBI special agent Frank Maury, in reality they had spent almost a year following the van, they knew his route those mornings when he went to Prescott and handed over his money to the banks in Prescott, they knew the exact route, they knew the stops they made.

They knew how many times he did it They knew all about it The Poles didn't use any of their own cars in the robbery They had rented one with cash that the FBI couldn't trace We never found it It was a rental car and at that time the rental car It was returned, by the time they realized what was happening, it had been rented probably 200 times since then, we were never able to pinpoint with certainty the car that may have been used in the brothers' case. They've fixed up a light bar and plate that looked like those used by Arizona Department of Public Safety batteries.

The Poles waited more than an hour. The van was unexpectedly delayed. They finally saw their prey. Patrick drove the car in disguise while Michael hid under the dashboard. He stopped the truck under the pretext of speeding. Company policy insisted that guards never open the van doors to anyone, even if they were stopped by police. Patricio ordered the driver to get out when he did not follow procedure. The driver and his companion were helpless. Poland's post. the guards in the back of the van, Michael was supposed to drive the van while Patrick drove the car, but when Patrick got out, the van did not follow him.

This explained the footprints found in front of where the truck stopped when Patrick reached the back. from the van, michael was beating the guards, they stunned the guards with high voltage tasers, the brothers drove the vehicles into the desert near the city of Bumblebee Fat, one of the guards looked like he died from the beating , Michael decided that the other one would have to die he also had a makeshift garage in his pocket a rope tied to two pieces of wood and the only thing we discovered, of course, is that Mike was obviously the planner, the instigator and the executor and everything related to crime. and that he was the one who physically murdered the two guards.

Pat, of course, helped him at Mike's insistence, but it was Mike who put the rope around their necks and strangled them. He went for the back. Patrick claimed that Michael had buried most of the money. In the desert at least one of Poland's relatives knew where she was because she cooperated the authorities did not prosecute her for her involvement the money had rotted away from the elements in the intervening years Patrick's confession closed the case we knew most of it Of course , we feel better when the person actually admits it because there is always room for doubt until you get it out of the heart and mouth of the perpetrator.

The courts rejected all appeals for Poland. The state of Arizona finally administered a lethal. injection to michael poland on june 16, 1999, after all petitions for clemency were denied, patrick poland was executed nine months later, on march 15, 2000, unlike his older brother, patrick used his final moments to express his regret for the pain and suffering he had caused her.