Deadly Heist | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

in arizona a shipment of money vanished into the high desert along with the two men hired to guard it the fbi didn't know if the guards were participants or victims of an ambush answers lay somewhere in arizona's vast northwest fbi agents struggled to piece together scattered clues to reveal the truth [Applause] [Music] [Music] in arizona an armored van loaded with cash failed to 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'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's 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 [Music] a security company transferred 333 000 in cash and coins from their vault to an armored van two courier guards prepared for another day distributing cash to arizona banks y'all about ready to go we got a problem with this door i think you want to take a look at it let me see one guard discovered a problem with the van's side door latch [Music] they would report to the company maintenance garage before they set out [Music] this delay puts cecil newkirk and russell dempsey an hour behind schedule 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 banks waited on the deliveries to provide cash to their customers spiritual security by 10 30 a.m the security company received a call from a bank complaining they had not received their delivery technical problems with the ban so they got a little late start well they should be there shortly at first the dispatchers thought the late start explained the problem but throughout the afternoon the dispatcher couldn't reach the guards face courier one dempsey are you out there this is base come on in [Music] by 4 30 the company contacted the fbi the phoenix field office broadcast an apb for the armored van to all area police state and local authorities used the remaining light of the evening to search for the missing van they found no sign of it or the courier guards special agent stephen chenoweth now retired from the fbi's phoenix field office wondered if the guards had driven off with the money one of the first things that you do is certainly look at the drivers to see whether or not that might be a possibility as to what had happened whether there's a driver involvement both of the missing guards were married that evening an fbi agent interviewed each of their wives separately they confirmed that neither of their husbands had financial problems that would provoke them to steal the money [Music] company officials agreed both guards had given 20 years of faithful service the missing van's route covered a vast area of the state authorities had nearly a thousand square miles to search and most of that terrain was remote desert [Music] [Applause] the next day arizona department of public safety helicopters retraced the guard's scheduled boot [Applause] they flew up interstate 17 north toward flagstaff checking all exits pilots spotted the van 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 deputies cordoned off the area before the fbi arrived [Music] agents approached the van cautiously they did not want to disturb the footprints tracked around the vehicle [Music] the armored vans doors were locked [Music] from the outside there was little to indicate what had occurred there didn't appear to be a struggle on the inside but we had to actually get inside the vehicle before we could really conduct a thorough investigation or examination of the van and it wasn't until later on that morning that they had brought a spare set of keys out and we affected entry into the van the radio was still on yet the base had not received any calls for help the van's siren had not been tripped a shotgun kept in the van for defense had not been fired and its safety was still engaged the guards had not used any of their resources to signal that there had been a robbery [Music] in the back agents found bags containing several thousand dollars in coins but 293 thousand dollars in paper currency was missing blood spatter on the carpet and money bags indicated someone had been injured but agents didn't know who your biggest fear at the time of course is uh is for the safety of the guards money can also always be replaced your life cannot and so we were certainly concerned about the guard's fate amongst the footprints in the dust investigators noted a separate set of tire tracks behind the van evidence technicians captured the tire prints with photos and plaster casts agents concluded that it was unlikely the guards had been overpowered by a single perpetrator the location of the van the condition of the van and everything that we found at the scene just told us that this was a crime that had been well planned and probably had been committed by more than one person deputy dale lent from nearby mohave county was brought in to assist the investigation a narcotics officer trained in ground print identification lent could reconstruct crimes from foot and vehicle prints he was one of only two trackers qualified to testify in arizona court the 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 him so the first thing i did was do a 360 around the scene which included checking the road further up the guards were nowhere to be found but on a hill near where the van was abandoned lent discovered more tire tracks and footprints from this position there was an unobstructed view of the interstate that the guards traveled back near the van itself the deputy found two separate sets of large footprints based on his observations lent concluded that at least one other vehicle and two perpetrators had been involved [Music] the vehicle had come down backed up near the van picked up something up whether it be the two guards or whether it be the money hard to tell but i'd say it was the money because it was a trail it wasn't just one it was a well beat out path examining the strata of tread prints lent deduced that one vehicle had followed the van from the interstate to where it was abandoned deeper tracks leading back into the interstate showed that the vehicle had left much heavier than when it came investigators believe that dead or alive the guards had been taken by the assailants [Music] 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 that people were aware that we were looking for these guards the media reports generated calls from witnesses several motorists claimed to have seen the van stopped on the northbound side of interstate 17 on the morning of may 24th [Music] one saw an arizona department of public safety officer walking towards the van other witnesses had similar stories but details differed the make and color of the officer's car varied in some accounts he was parked in front of the van other times he was stopped behind agents contacted the arizona department of public safety no officers had reported stopping an armored van on i-17 that morning well at that point i was fairly convinced that something amiss had probably happened to the guards that somehow some place they had been stopped and they had let their guard down and that they'd been taken captive and being that we didn't find the guards in the immediate vicinity it soon became evident that the guards probably were taken against their will the fbi and deputy lent searched interstate 17 for the spot witnesses had described the tracker found the place where he believed the van had been stopped marks were fresh within the time frame 24 to 48 hours you can see where the door was where somebody got out where there were scuff marks there on the ground looked like you know where there had been movement digs and gouges in the dirt indicated that there had been a struggle near the rear of the van a second vehicle's tire tracks at the interstate matched those in the remote area where the van had been abandoned curiously the same tracks were found further up the road just in front of where the van had been pulled over several motorists even underwent hypnosis to provide details to a sketch artist of what they remembered some recalled that the officer at the scene wore a hat others claimed the officer had no hat but none of the sketches produced any leads 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 at lake mead the men discovered a body floating in debbie's cove they contacted the national park service investigators sped to the cove where the body had been spotted local law enforcement joined the national park service divers [Music] they pulled close to the court the body was fully clothed its head and torso were covered with a canvas bag an officer retrieved a wallet from the back pocket the victim was russell dempsey one of the missing armored car guards the divers searched the area but couldn't find the second guard's body [Music] not far below the surface they discovered two sticks of wood connected by a rope what do you got okay bring it on over the boat here to investigators it 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 suspects they only knew that an arizona public safety officer or someone masquerading as one might be involved on the morning of june 16 1977 national park service divers in arizona retrieved a dead body from lake mead it was one of two armored car guards that had disappeared on may 24th along with 293 000 the whereabouts of the second guard and the money remained unknown the county medical examiner determined that the guard found in the lake had suffered a heart attack he had also been strangled investigators believe that a garage recovered near the body had been used to choke him a strand 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 [Music] whoever had dumped the body had likely used a boat to get to the deeper water more than 20 agents canvassed rental shops around the 247 square mile lake [Music] no one reported any suspicious activity but agents collected rental receipts in the hopes they'd eventually have a suspect's name to reference special agent laird keystand now retired from the fbi's kingman resident agency joined the case he would search for names on receipts any place a traveler might have visited in the area we didn't have any good leads on who had committed this crime and our assistant agent in charge in the phoenix office decided to have fbi agents check every service station from the area where the armored car was located all the way up to lake mead where the bodies had been transported that was a distance of more than 300 miles considering all the different routes to the lake the agents had hundreds of service stations to check [Music] the agent started his inquiries at the station owned by an acquaintance named stan i asked dan if he had heard anything about the robbery and he said to me i've been waiting for somebody to come to talk to me and then he related to me that the day after the robbery that he had to take his tow truck up to lake maid and pull a truck out of the lake that had backed out into the lake on may 25th standard received a call from two men whose truck was stuck at benelli landing on the lake the men explained they'd gotten drunk while fishing and backed their truck too close to the water the owner didn't see any fishing equipment in the pickup but he did notice drag marks in the dust of the flatbed it appeared that something heavy had been hauled out of the back all right stan brought the two men to his service station he wrote a receipt and asked for a signature the customers hesitated before one agreed to sign [Music] the name he used was mike poland the station owner believed he'd be able to identify the men if he saw them again it was the break investigators had been hoping for the ease by which he found it surprised special agent he stand [Music] the first place i walk into i developed this information it totally got me off guard and shocked me and i said oh boy this is it we we finally we have something that we can start from agents search for the name michael poland amongst the thousands of boat rental receipts collected from lake mead after several hours they found it michael poland had rented a boat the day after the robbery naming benelli landing as his destination it was the same spot from where his truck had been towed [Music] agents returned to lake mead searching for additional evidence between benelli landing and the boat metal shop on the opposite shore within the breadth of that four and a half mile span officers spotted another bag-covered corpse floating on the surface it was the second missing courier guard he had been severely beaten before he was drowned the medical examiner found two welts on his chest consistent with wounds inflicted by a high voltage taser gun the guard's personal effects were removed including a self-winding watch that had stopped at 10 37 pm on may 26th special agent steven chenoweth's team redoubled their search for clues at lake mead based upon where their bodies were found and the currents and the length of time that we felt that they had been in the water itself we were able to track back where we thought they may have been put in at lake mead that area was just 100 yards from debbie's cove where the body of the first guard had surfaced divers focused on a ledge 12 feet down that bordered an 800 foot trench a sweep of the ledge yielded a third canvas bag similar to the ones that covered the bodies the bag was sent to the fbi lab for processing inside the bag agents recovered an arizona license plate that resembled those used on arizona public safety cruisers two revolvers were also found but no prints could be lifted from the corroded weapons rocks that match those from benelli landing had held the bag at the bottom examiners also found concrete dust caked in the weave of the canvas bag agents called on stan hoping the service station owner could identify a driver's license photo of michael poland one of the two men that had hired him to tow their pickup from benelli landing among six photos stan recognized the face of michael poland the fbi had finally confirmed a primary suspect they hoped michael poland would lead them to another in june of 1977 the fbi pursued whoever killed two armored car guards and made off with 293 thousand dollars tire tracks and footprints at the crime scene suggested that at least two perpetrators were involved agents believed one of them was michael poland they hoped surveillance of poland would lead to another though he did not appear to have a job poland was spending a lot of money agents saw a new motorcycle on the property the fbi identified a man who visited frequently as michael's younger brother patrick [Music] 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 responded 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 prior to the armored van robbery each had severe money problems shortly after their debts had been paid 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 as to how much money they were spending and to what kind of means of support that they had and the two just didn't seem to mesh very well and when that happens and then you know that folks have got access to a fairly large amount of money with no real means of support that's a pretty good clue to us agents interviewed the brother's father and photographed his pickup truck mr poland admitted that his sons had borrowed the truck on the day of the robbery the father had mixed concrete in the flatbed several weeks before the robbery agents took a sample of the dust for processing fbi examiners analyzed the concrete sample they compared it to the cement dust on the canvas bags recovered from lake mead examiners concluded that the dust on the bag had come from the same batch of concrete taken from the truck once again the fbi asked stan to look at a photo lineup the station owner could not identify patrick poland as the man with michael he looks exactly like him but he did recognize their father's truck as the one he towed from the lake that's it positively in the early morning of july 27 1977 agents arrived at michael poland's house with a search warrant my diamond [Music] claimed to be a self-employed jewelry salesman he said that on the day of the heist he was in las vegas buying gems three days what did you do on the way back investigators found twelve thousand dollars in cash he claimed it was used for their jewelry business the agents confiscated numerous receipts one of them was for a pair of high voltage taser guns sold to a man named mark harris a month before the robbery a short distance away agents searched the house of michael's brother patrick poland fbi special agent frank mowry now retired asked if he and his brother michael had been at lake mead patrick gave a different story than his brother had which he initially said that he and his brother were there fishing he was very nervous he was extremely nervous he had a difficulty in explaining a lot of about his whereabouts particularly on the day of the crime and the day after the crime while patrick was being interviewed he received a call it was his brother michael yeah they're over here he urged patrick not to talk to investigators the search at patrick's house yielded a stash of weapons and sixteen thousand dollars in cash the fbi tracked down and processed the cars the brothers owned before the robbery the tire treads did not match the tracks found at the crime scene examiners found no physical evidence that tied the cars to the crime agents visited the gun store where the tasers had been sold to mark harris prior to the robbery the clerk who had made the sale could only remember that harris was a white male in his 20s since the receipt was found in michael poland's home they theorized it was probably his alias one of the things the fbi does is try to eliminate all other good logical suspects and we did this in that case the name mark harris rather common name we had to eliminate that name as being anybody other than the alias of mike poland special agent mao researched public records for a mark harris between the ages of 25 and 40. we actually identified literally hundreds of mark harris's from vehicle records motor vehicle records phone books and every way we could and went out to their houses physically tracked them down and interviewed them and found that they did not have anything to do with this crime with no proof that mark harris was an alias for michael poland and no physical evidence tying the brothers to the crimes agents couldn't arrest the brothers for the next 10 months all agents could do was keep careful track of their movements special agent chenoweth flew helicopter surveillance we wanted to know everything that michael and patrick poland did what they had done in the past what they were going to do in the future investigators continued to document the brothers spending habits they watched as the poland's closed a deal on a gaming arcade despite the circumstantial evidence agents were unable to make an arrest the fbi had to find stronger physical evidence to prevent the pollen brothers from getting away with murder in april of 1978 the fbi suspected michael and patrick poland of killing two courier guards and stealing nearly three hundred thousand dollars after eleven months of investigation agents did not have enough to convince a grand jury to indict fbi special agent frank mowry desperately searched for evidence that would strengthen the case what we badly needed was physical evidence we didn't have fingerprints we didn't have any real good eyewitnesses we didn't have any physical bits of evidence that could leak mike and pat paul into the crime the agent focused on the three canvas bags retrieved from lake mead with the guard's bodies he checked with over 20 sources in the phoenix area where the bags might have been manufactured none recognized the work nobody could even give me a hint of who in town would make such a bag some even said well they probably came from out of town so i became very discouraged the agent visited the last store on his list and showed the bag the owner recognized it as coming from his company it was a custom size with a unique stitch sewn only by their seamstresses he also identified the specially ordered cord purchased from a georgia company as far as the owner knew his was the only shop in the area that made anything like it he said i will have in my record somewhere a receipt because somebody would have walked in that door there and they would have said i need to order so many bags a certain length a certain width certain specifications at the phoenix fbi office agents poured over hundreds of receipts covering years of business from the bag manufacturer after almost a week they found one receipt for three custom canvas bags dated one month before the robbery they 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 house the fbi was further convinced that mark harris was an alias from michael poland the canvas bag receipt connected the alias to the murdered guards and cement dust in the pickup the brothers drove matched dust found in the bags may 17 1978 after nearly 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 poland's would not surrender quietly they've both already killed two men that we know of you've got your ralph planned you're gonna be picking up patrick we're gonna be picking up light check your weapons check your vest special agent stephen chenoweth believed an armed confrontation was possible it had to be very well and meticulously plan uh the poland's were very violent they had shown their violence they had a strong propensity to uh you know commit violence as evidenced by the guards fate and one of the things that we absolutely knew we could not do was to arrest them while they were in the in the house and we absolutely had to take them away from the homes agents feared the suspects would barricade themselves in their houses and shoot it out if they discovered they were going to be arrested agents waited for patrick poland to emerge when he finally did they noticed he was carrying a case for a handgun they tailed him for a safe place to make the arrest the second arrest team waited for michael polon to come out of a real estate office once outside there would be less risk to bystanders if shooting erupted the first arrest team caught up with patrick outside the game arcade the agents intercepted him before he entered the building we identified themselves of course he knew me already from previous contacts and i told him the time had come and we had warrants for the arrest and he gave up without any any problem he was armed he had a 44 magnum weapon on him and another couple of weapons in his car but he made no effort to use them agents radioed the other team that patrick had been picked up michael poland had been in the real estate office for almost 45 minutes agents feared that he had somehow gotten word of patrick's arrest and was preparing for an armed confrontation they decided to risk entering the building federal agents the suspected murderer surrendered without incident michael poland refused to answer questions he insisted his brother do the same no fingerprints tied either brother to the murdered guards or the abducted van michael remained confident that the fbi case was weak in a case like this you've got uh a joint venue a venue certainly lies with the federal government with respect to the actual robbery of the van and but we also have a homicide case that rests with the state authorities authorities considered their best strategy for a successful prosecution state and federal prosecutors decided to split the charges the polands went on trial for robbery and kidnapping in federal court [Music] based on the 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 that were very hard working very loyal to their company both of them had worked for about 20 years for the company they were actually within weeks of retiring they were family men they were good men religious men men that had devoted a lot of time and effort and loyalty to this company and on the eve of their retirement they were killed in november of 1979 an arizona state jury returned a guilty verdict for murder the judge gave the brothers the death penalty the poland's appealed their conviction the arizona supreme court found that the testimony of a hypnotized witness and the taser gun evidence should not have been used they also found that the jury had inappropriately discussed the federal trial the pollen brothers state murder convictions were overturned agents were certain that the brothers had brutally murdered two men state prosecutors would not seek a new trial because of parole laws at the time michael and patrick poland would be eligible for parole in less than seven years in 1982 an arizona prosecutor declined to retry michael and patrick for murder he cited the cost as well as the difficulty of proving the case with the evidence that had been excluded by the arizona supreme court united states attorney melvin mcdonald was outraged that the pollen brothers might get away with murder i had followed it by way of the media and it never dreamed that i would play any role in the case until 1982 when it became clear that the ball was going to get dropped unless somebody stopped in i called the county attorney and volunteered to take the case for the first time in history a u.s attorney was deputized as an arizona state prosecutor mcdonald had to resurrect a case that many considered impossible to retry there had been five years transpired between the time of the crime and the time of the trial witnesses travel and move all over the country memories start to fade and so you've got to recreate and present the crime as if it happened a month ago when you're facing the problem that it's really five years old the prosecutor wanted to lock down the exact time that the victims had been deposited into lake mead and prove it was the same time the poland's were at the lake so there would be no question the polands were responsible one of the problems with the finding of the guards was that their bodies were not and recovered for six weeks the defense we knew would argue that they could have been dumped there by the real killers at any time working with the fbi the prosecutor found a piece of evidence that had been overlooked in the earlier trials the second guard's self-winding watch examiners noted that the watch stopped at 10 37 pm on may 26th that particular self-winding watch would stop working if it weren't moved for 12 hours that meant that the guard's watch stopped 12 hours after his arm came to rest at the bottom of lake mead we actually had watch experts take the watch apart to prove that the watch had not stopped because of water damage there was no water that had gotten into the in portions of the watch that controlled its operation we literally went all the way to switzerland to get experts there to talk about how much time it would take for a watch that hadn't been cleared and it hadn't been cleaned in five years to finally unwind watch to the jury please forensics experts used this information to determine exactly when the bodies had been dumped into the water their estimation exactly matched the time the fbi had established that the poland's were at the lake getting their pickup towed from benelli landing the prosecutor explained that the brothers had been there to dump the bodies for the drama point i told the jury that while mr newkirk is dead he is speaking to you from the grave he's asking you look at my watch i'm sending you a message through my watch after three hours of deliberation the jury was convinced will the defendants rise on november 18th 1982 they found michael and patrick poland guilty of murder the judge reinstated once again the defendants appealed the conviction it was one of the rare instances where their case went to the united states supreme court in the united states in a published opinion a very closely divided court again affirmed their conviction and sentences how's the situation with nothing left to lose patrick poland agreed to tell investigators and the families of the victims exactly what happened in 1987 he gave his confession to fbi special agent frank maury they had actually spent almost a year tailing the van they knew its route on those mornings that it went up to prescott and delivered its money to the banks in prescott they knew the exact route they knew the stops that made they knew the times that it did it they knew everything about it the poland's used neither of their own cars in the robbery they had rented one with cash that the fbi was unable to trace we never found it it was a rental car and by the time the rental car was taken back it was by the time they figured out what was going on it had been rented out probably 200 times since then we were never able to actually pin down for certainty the car that may have been used in the case the brothers have fixed a light bar and a license plate that resembled those used by the arizona department of public safety batteries the poland's waited more than an hour the van was unexpectedly delayed finally they saw their quarry patrick drove the disguised car while michael hid under the dash [Music] they stopped the van on the pretext of speeding company policy insisted that the guards never open the van doors to anyone even if stopped by the police patrick ordered the driver to step out when he failed to follow procedure the driver and his partner were defenseless [Music] the poland's put the guards in the rear of the van michael was to drive the van while patrick drove the car but when patrick took off the van didn't follow this explained the tracks found in front of where the van was stopped [Music] by the time patrick reached the rear of the van michael was beating the guards [Music] they stunned the guards with high voltage tasers the brothers drove the vehicles into the desert near the town of bumblebee fat one of the guards looked as if he had died from the beating michael decided that the other would have to die as well he had a makeshift garage in his pocket a cord tied to two pieces of wood and the one thing we found out about it of course is that mike was obviously the the planner the instigator and the enforcer and everything related to the crime and that he was the one who physically murdered the two guards uh pat of course helped him at mike's insistence but it was uh mike who put the rope around their neck and choked them went around the back patrick claimed that michael had buried most of the money in the desert at least one of the poland's relatives knew where that was because she cooperated the authorities didn't prosecute her for her involvement the money had rotted from the elements in the intervening years patrick's confession gave closure to the case we knew most of it we felt better of course when the person actually admits it because there's always some room for doubt until you get it from the the heart and from the mouth of the perpetrator the courts turned down all appeals for the poland [Music] the state of arizona finally administered a lethal injection to michael poland on june 16 1999 after all calls 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 regret for the pain and suffering he had caused [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The FBI Files

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Keywords: FBI, FBI Files, FBI Documentary, Documentary, Crime, Crime Documentary, Crime Patrol, True Crime, True crime daily, Unsolved, Crime Stories, Crime Documentaries Full Episodes, Full Episode, unsolved true crime, fbi files full episodes, we got him, mystery, solved, investigation, police, criminal, prison, jail, poland brothers

Id: Kwx8KG8-gz4

Length: 49min 53sec (2993 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020