Silent Strike | The FBI Files S3 EP11 | Real Crime

an armored car vanished during a routine stop carrying nearly a million dollars it was supposed to be impenetrable investigators didn't know if the driver was involved or if he had been ambushed fbi agents and local detectives began to suspect a group of former law officers in the heist it would take determination and high technology to track the robbers and make them pay for their silent [Music] strike [Applause] [Music] [Music] money may not be the root of all evil but for some men a million dollars is enough to justify murder even men sworn to uphold the law can sometimes be tempted i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office when robbery turned to murder the fbi would discover that a killer might be among them the arrowhead mall glendale arizona november 28 1994. at 1 30 pm a van pulled up outside a department store at the mall [Music] it was an unmarked fully armored wells fargo vehicle several companies use these customized vans since they are less conspicuous targets for robbery following company protocol the driver remained inside the van while the courier went to pick up cash from the store the van was bulletproof and its doors could not be forced open from the outside inside the department store office the courier exchanged empty bags for those filled with the weekend's receipts it was the monday after thanksgiving the cash pickup followed the busiest shopping weekend of the year when the courier returned to the parking lot minutes later the armored van and the driver were gone he notified police immediately the 9-1-1 call came to the glendale arizona police department they dispatched units to the scene and sent word to the fbi the nearest fbi field office is in phoenix 20 miles from the mall because the money in the van was federally insured the fbi opened a case agents headed out to the scene glendale detectives arrived at the mall first they began interviewing the courier he said he had been gone only four minutes when he discovered the van and his partner john mcgosh had disappeared the courier estimated the amount of cash checks and coins in the van to be just over a million dollars [Music] detectives interviewed others at the mall none reported seeing or hearing anything unusual [Music] fbi agents soon arrived from phoenix evidence technicians had processed the area [Music] where the van had been parked they found a cigarette butt and a pair of broken eyeglasses the courier confirmed that his partner was a smoker and said the glasses looked like those migos needed when he drove [Music] the technicians collected and marked the items as evidence david 44 detective tom clayton is a senior investigator for the glendale police department [Music] and i think the first thought when we saw the van missing was uh the driver took off with the money and and was going to leave town we also considered somebody could have robbed him with the glasses laying there we weren't sure if it's you know is it set up or did something really happen we explored every possibility we could think of okay supervisory special agent stephen chenoweth now retired was the lead for the fbi the investigators organized a search for the van and its driver believing that whoever took the van would abandon it soon in favor of a getaway car [Music] they dispatched some officers to begin a ground search around the mall pilots from the arizona department of public safety conducted an aerial search the dps officers began at the mall then widened their search in concentric circles looking for the van in the surrounding neighborhoods whenever they spotted a white van they radioed ground units to follow up special agent cenoas and the others knew most armored car robberies are inside jobs or armed ambushes witnesses hadn't heard shooting perhaps the driver decided to trade his hourly wage for a million dollars certainly the van is supposed to be locked and the driver inside and there for unaccessible the fact that the van is missing would lead us to initially at least think about the possibility of the guard driver being involved investigators sought more information on the missing driver we investigated john mcgosh first off we started running his name in the computer to see if we could find any arrests or if he had a criminal history we started to the wells fargo file his employment file looking for relatives friends where he lived after securing a search warrant investigators traveled to his apartment his landlady let them in the investigators were looking for evidence that magosh had planned the robbery the apartment appeared undisturbed nothing indicated he had planned the robbery or that he was ready to leave town do you know who this is yes that's lisa johnson detectives learned that magosh had a daughter living nearby in phoenix determining her address through dmv records they went to interview yale police detective detective talk to you for just a moment magash's daughter described her father as honest and stable he took his job seriously police found others who said the same agosh had no criminal record detectives began to consider the 61 year old grandfather not as a suspect but as a victim or something john mcgosh had a good reputation we talked to family friends relatives co-workers he was a person that did not have a lot of requirements in life money wasn't a big concern based on the background we did on him we didn't believe he was going to be involved in the crime with magosh eliminated as a suspect the investigators were back to square one they needed the public's help certainly when you don't have eyewitnesses you you try and put as much information out in the form of press releases newspaper articles things of this nature in hopes that it would reach somebody that maybe saw something that otherwise had not heard about it [Music] that afternoon the fbi and glendale police held impressions outside the mall earlier they released photos and descriptions of the missing van and driver [Music] anyone who had seen john mcgosh or the wells fargo van was asked to contact the fbi without assistance a reward of 60 000 was posted for any tip leading to the recovery of the money and the conviction of those involved anyone may know where the van hours later a 9-1-1 call came in from a church in sun city arizona just outside glendale [Music] the caller reported a van idling in the church's parking lot [Music] parishioners arriving for a monday night bingo game noticed the van which fit the description in the news reports license plates and serial numbers confirmed it was the van missing from the mall [Music] investigators approached cautiously not knowing who or what was inside no one was in the driver's seat but investigators could see the outline of a body on the floor [Music] they tried to open the van [Applause] but the armored vehicle was impenetrable even to the agents the engine was going it was locked and a curse for examination initially of the inside disclosed the body line in the center in order to gain access to the van of course we had to call the armored car company [Music] no one at the church had seen who left the van or what vehicle they used to get away [Music] checking the body through the window police could see blood on the chest near a wells fargo badge there was no sign of breathing authorities believed john mcgosh had been killed during the robbery there were no bullet marks on the van's exterior no broken glass and no sign of forced entry at the doors whoever had hit the van knew what they were doing an armored car robbery is a pretty sophisticated crime and it takes a lot of detailed planning and so we knew after finding the van and finding the body that we were up against probably some people who had thought this out very well planned it extensively and certainly would not stop at murder in in carrying this out investigators needed to get inside the van to know what happened on november 28 1994 the fbi and glendale arizona police investigated an armored van hijacked from a mall and abandoned in a church parking lot in nearby sun city the driver 61 year old john mcgosh lay dead in the cab he had been shot once in the head but his death was not instantaneous technicians noted aspirated blood spatter indicating mcgoshit continued breathing after being shot technicians lifted many latent prints from money cabinets in the van's interior these would be compared to known prints of employees no foreign prints were found no hairs or fibers pointed toward a suspect either inside the van investigators found 132 thousand dollars in coins the cash and checks estimated at 920 000 were gone the details of the crime suggested that there had been several violent criminals according to special agent stephen chenoweth after looking at the van um we knew that we were probably dealing with certainly more than one person because this would be very difficult for one person to accomplish so we knew we were looking probably at least two or more and very vicious and violent people who certainly would not stop at anything in order to obtain their goals which was the money located inside the van the glendale detective tom clayton the placement of the van outside glendale city limits spoke to the criminal's understanding of police procedure we believed they dumped the van in sun city to get it out of our jurisdiction into another one to complicate the investigation and communication of police agencies uh maybe hoping we would not be able to link the two things together right away during the autopsy of the armored car driver the medical examiner retrieved several small bullet fragments from the left side of the victim's head [Music] the fragments were too damaged to determine the make of the murder weapon it seemed like a small caliber perhaps at 22. the medical examiner found no powder burns on the victim's head this meant he had been shot from a distance [Music] agash's partner said the driver often smoked a cigarette while waiting in the van though it was against company policy he usually opened his door to let the smoke out investigators believed the killers knew this and shot him when he opened the door because of his experience tracking down elusive criminals now retired fbi special agent ron myers was transferred from the fugitive task force to work the case from the beginning he knew they were not hunting amateurs one of the things they did that made us think that they were professionals was the manner in which they did the robbery they picked an isolated part of the shopping center where not many people parked where there wouldn't be many witnesses they drove through the type of neighborhoods where there weren't many people out during the day and they picked an empty parking lot of a church that had no one at it during the day investigators received dozens of calls to their tip line one witness came forward claiming to have some information that might be helpful he said he had seen a white van quickly leaving the mall at the time in question a red pickup truck followed not far behind but he wasn't sure if the two vehicles were together investigators were frustrated that no one saw the actual ambush at the mall we couldn't find any uh eyewitnesses and when you don't really know what happened or you don't have somebody that can tell you uh what may be transpired with the van it's a mystery with no other solid leads investigators canvassed the neighborhoods between the mall and the church perhaps someone there had witnessed something a resident of sun city recalled that he had seen the van on the afternoon of november 28th mr morgan was returning from the post office when he noticed the van mr morgan stopped because he thought they weren't going to stop for the stop sign and was afraid he'd be hit at that time he noticed the white van with this red truck shortly behind it both speeding through the intersection and driving off and he thought that was kind of unusual not only the way they were driving but the way that the red truck seemed to be following the white van mr morgan couldn't recall details of license plates or the face of the van's passenger desperate for a break investigators wanted to place him under hypnosis to jog his memory morgan agreed to travel to texas with the investigators [Music] there they met with a forensic hypnotist perhaps under hypnosis the witness could remember more details about the incident statements made under hypnosis cannot be used in court but some police agencies find it to be a helpful investigative tool under hypnosis morgan returned to the events of november 28th he recalled the white van and the man in the passenger seat investigators now believe there were at least three people involved in the heist two in the van and one in the red truck when asked about the truck's license plate morgan was able to remember a portion it wasn't much but it gave investigators a start we had to go to the department of motor vehicles to run all combinations of those license numbers and that produced several hundred possible vehicles because arizona does not have color on their motor vehicle registration so we knew we were looking for a particular type of truck but from looking at the motor vehicle registrations we didn't know what color they were on the registration which meant we had to do interviews of everybody on the list investigators eventually tracked down hundreds of truck owners each was interviewed but no suspect emerged [Music] with his refreshed memory of the van's passenger morgan worked with a police sketch artist [Music] there was no guarantee that the details were called through hypnosis were accurate but authorities were ready to try almost anything the fbi released the drawing to the media for nearly a month now the fbi and glendale arizona police believe three men were involved in the robbery homicide yet as the end of 1994 approached they still didn't have suspects [Music] it began to look like the killers might never be found [Music] but the investigators did not know that the suspect in the composite sketch had been recognized by december of 1994 a month after the deadly hijacking of an armored car in glendale arizona the investigation had stalled [Music] investigators believed at least three people pulled off the heist they had a composite sketch of one and little else then on december 31st the investigators received a call a mesa arizona detective had been told that a local woman had information about the crime a background check showed that the woman had a suspended license [Music] this would make it easy to bring her in for questioning without arousing suspicions the fbi asked local law enforcement to pick her up on the suspended license challenge [Music] the investigators asked the woman if she knew anything about the armored car robbery in glendale she claimed that she didn't have any real information but she knew someone who did [Music] she told investigators that her friend judy espinoza had talked to her after the news reports of the robbery espinoza suspected that her boyfriend might have been involved are you watching it [Music] the woman told the investigators where espinoza worked the investigators spoke with espinosa they asked her about the robbery reminding her that interfering with a federal investigation was itself a crime she agreed to answer their questions she explained that her boyfriend james greenham who went by the nickname yoda had asked her what she would do if he held up an armored car and suddenly had a lot of money she told fbi special agent ron myers that greenham sometimes worked as a bounty hunter and was usually broke jim never had a dime but the day of the robbery he came home that night told her he had to kill somebody and he had plenty of cash on his person she uh told us that jim did his bounty hunting with a guy named tim ring and that she had been over to tim's rings house and noticed several new all-terrain vehicles jet skis a new motorcycle and tim had made a comment about how she'd never know how much money was in that garage the information was good but it was only hearsay investigators needed more solid evidence espinoza had kept several rolls of coins that greenam had given her rappers were consistent with those used by merchants on the armored vans route [Music] more than a month after the crime the investigators finally had names they looked into the two suspects backgrounds fbi special agent stephen chenoweth was familiar with the name of one of the men [Music] tim ring had been used as an informant in other fbi cases we had paid him for some information that he had furnished us in the past and you know in order for us to get information from informants uh you aren't dealing with priests and and with you know you know good people you're dealing with bad guys out there and rings a bad guy and when you're ready focused squeeze the trigger tim ring and james greenham had worked as prison guards in phoenix and now work bounty hunter jobs together both had many hours of firearms training any questions ring was an expert marksman fire when ready pursuing bounty hunters would be dangerous the fact that the suspects had law enforcement training in their background made the case pretty difficult for one they would be schooled in surveillance techniques if they were looking for somebody following them they'd know what to look for they'd know what to expect anybody following them to do so we had to be very cautious when we were following them around the fbi and glendale police began 24-hour ground and air surveillance they had to be covert you know if they're looking for air surveillance they're looking up you know well we're way over here because we can't see anything if we're right up here you know so we're way over here way over here the agents wanted to see how the pair earned money and how much they spent at the time that we were following mr greenham and mr rang around neither one was gainfully employed that we could tell they had no income coming in from any legitimate sources yet we observed them spending a lot of money ring overhauled his truck and greenham got a new apartment both bought motorcycles [Music] it seemed the suspects did not exceed a certain level in order to avoid the attention of the internal revenue service and they always seem to be careful whenever they spent their money to stay under the ten thousand dollar limit knowing that if they spent more than that in cash the expenditure would be reported by the businesses to the irs investigators continued tailing ring in greenham building a list of associates they photographed everyone the suspects met they still didn't know who the third partner was glendale detective tom clayton hoped surveillance would spot the three meetings somewhere we would watch them go to restaurants where they would meet we would see them go to strip clubs where they met a couple dancers that they knew everywhere they went the suspect spent a lot of cash unaware that investigators were watching circumstantial evidence linked them to the robbery and homicide but the fbi and glendale police still didn't know exactly what had happened and who else was involved somehow the investigators had to get inside the bounty hunter's shadowy world as the fbi and glendale arizona police continued to investigate a deadly armored car heist they got a tip from an associate of their two main suspects [Music] bounty hunter michael sanders said that he had cased armored cars with two other men he believed those men did the glendale hit without him angry at being cut out of the deal he decided to talk he gave fbi special agent ron myers a lead on the third perpetrator sanders came forward to tell us that he thought that tim rang and jim greenham were involved in this armored car robbery and that an ex-phoenix police officer named fergie who worked for a camera shop in the paradise valley mall might be the third man investigators needed to identify fergie they reviewed their case photos try to take some pictures and get a quest for that guy there too surveillance teams had watched ring and green and meeting with a bearded man who drove a camaro the car was registered to william ferguson since sanders said fergie was an ex-cop glendale detective tom clayton checked the personnel records of the phoenix police department as we investigated william ferguson's background we found he retired at 20 years from the phoenix police department and his retirement was uh precipitated by some disciplinary problems investigators began surveillance on ferguson they saw that the ex-cop met often with the other suspects and was also spending a lot of cash agents believe they had identified the three men responsible for the robbery and murder [Music] the investigation was affected by the three suspects having law enforcement training because we knew that they were going to cover evidence and they were also known to have firearms training which made them dangerous to the surveillance officers detectives and agents needed evidence linking the men to the crime during surveillance they began trash pulls confiscating trash bags from the suspects in the hopes that some clues might surface fbi technicians examined the trash in rings they found several 3x5 index cards each card had notes detailing armored car routes analysis confirmed the handwriting was rings [Music] but investigators needed more [Music] they wanted tapes of the suspects discussing the crime all three men had keys to james greenham's apartment fbi special agent stephen chenoweth believed they used the apartment as headquarters timothy ring was married had a wife children and i think the likelihood of discussions occurring in regards to this armored car robbery at his house were somewhat remote but we felt that they were occurring at greenham's residence so that was the impetus for which we decided to go ahead and proceed and place a listening device inside the apartment of greenham [Music] special agent meyers was part of the team that entered the apartment to place the bug when we opened the door to go in an alarm went off immediately at which point we shut the door and exited the area we had to come back at a later time with an expert in alarms and when we went in the door that time we learned that it was just a real simple um motion detector sitting on top of the refrigerator and all we had to do was just flip the off switch wasn't anything sophisticated at all while the team was inside greenham's apartment the detective surveilling tim ring saw him leave his house ring owned a red truck like the one reportedly seen following the van [Music] the detective trailed behind ring after a few turns he realized where the suspect was headed agents were still in the apartment tim ring was headed that way ring often went to greenham's place even when greenham was out if he went to the apartment he would interrupt the planting of the bug the team inside needed more i'll time him over and hold him until you get here the detective called in a uniformed officer to stop ring for speeding anything to delay the suspect the officer lectured ring on the dangers of speeding detectives wanted to keep him busy while the team finished at the apartment let's go gang they're on their way over [Music] okay put everything away let's get this thing back they made it out just before ring arrived investigators also tapped the home and cellular phones of the two other suspects [Music] to get them talking supervisory special agent stephen chenoweth released false information about the case we decided to make a press release um talking about the investigation which we thought when they would hear would certainly generate some telephone conversations and other discussions amongst these three suspects and it did have its desired effect and that they did talk um about the information that we released and how accurate they thought it was and whether or not we were on the right trail and and and whether or not they thought we were getting close to them [Music] as the suspects talked the investigators [Music] listened we didn't get an actual confession where they said i did the armored car robbery what we got were several conversations among themselves about different aspects of the case they would always listen to the news follow any printed reports or follow any television stories and as soon as anything would appear on tv they'd call each other and they'd make comments like well this isn't the way it happened you know they'll never find that license plate the evidence against the suspects was built but prosecutors wanted more direct statements about the crime before they ordered arrests investigators provoked the suspects one more time [Music] a glendale detective went to james greenham's apartment when the suspect was out on the door he left his business card with the note lead 173 investigators watched greenham's response to the card he knew what the note meant the authorities considered him a lead greenham became distraught he sped away from his apartment calling tim ring on his cell phone agents kept watch from an airplane and listened in on the phone taps [Music] yeah man listen greenham drove out into the desert before stopping business card in my door look man they ain't got nothing on you don't worry about it ring tried to calm green down promising that the authorities had nothing on him the authorities were not on to them but i see one more cop greenham said that if another cop contacted him he was going to bury the money it seemed a direct reference to the crime investigators felt they finally had enough evidence continue to search northbound they sent units to arrest greenham and ferguson jim greenham was arrested by one team william ferguson was arrested by another and attempted to resist arrest but was quickly subdued tim ring was lured down to the fbi office on the premise of looking at some photographs because ring had previously offered to help the fbi try to find who these people were which we believe was an effort on his part to try and find out what we knew the fbi agent who had previously used ring as an informant called the suspect ring agreed to come in on february 16 1995 tim ring arrived at the phoenix fbi field office undercover agents were waiting for him in the lobby they believed he would not be armed at the fbi office but they couldn't be positive to ensure their safety they needed to surprise him we had two big burly defensive tactics instructors one of which was a guy with 25 years of martial arts expertise who came up and blocked him in the head and knocked him down like a sack of potatoes before he knew what what he was doing all three suspects were off the streets now investigators needed physical evidence to make sure the prosecutions were successful on february 16 1995 after arresting three men for an armored car robbery and murder fbi agents and glendale arizona detectives searched the suspect's residences at the house of tim ring suspected leader of the three they found important evidence investigators recovered a note marked with the initials f y and t each initial had a number beneath like serial numbers the numbers added up to the amount of cash taken from the armored car agents believed f stood for fergie y for greenham's nickname yoda and t for tim [Music] it was the worksheet the three used to divide the money in the garage investigators found a red pickup truck that resembled the vehicle seen by witness edward morgan in sun city the license plate number however did not match the ones morgan recalled under forensic hypnosis ring kept several weapons and plenty of ammunition at his house [Music] in a duffel bag agents also recovered two hundred seventy thousand dollars in cash [Music] another sixty four thousand was founded on stack [Music] nearly six 000 in cash had been stolen noting the money spent by the suspects investigators found that about 100 000 was unaccounted for the case against the three suspects seemed solid fbi special agent ron myers hoped the evidence might get one of them to roll we finally got first-hand information about this crime when jim greenham decided to cooperate jim greenham was the only one of the three of them that showed any remorse about what they had done about how they had killed this driver jim decided to cooperate uh he told us what happened he told us all the parts that these individuals played in the robbery greena met with the investigators and explained that the planning started in the fall of 1994. first not just watched tim ring had the idea to hit an armored car i wasn't crazy about the fact that he was gonna kill him what were you planning on so they began to case wells fargo vehicles they drove around glendale following different trucks and vans on their roofs then they zeroed in on the van driven by john mcgosh they managed to observe this one particular armored car making several stops they noticed that every time the messenger would get out to make a delivery the driver would open the door about eight inches to smoke and blow the smoke out the side of the door they observed the driver at several stops and they noticed this one particular stop on the back side of a shopping center and noticed that he always parked in the same position on november 28 1994 the monday after thanksgiving a day they were sure a lot of money would be in the van they were ready to strike [Music] james greenham and william ferguson waited unnoticed by the store they watched until the courier was out of sight as if on schedule magosh opened the door to smoke tim ring was parked 50 feet away a stolen license plate on his truck the expert marksman had a silencer on his 22 caliber rifle so no one would hear the shot he aimed through the opening and fired once the force must have knocked magosh's glasses to the ground with the driver down the van was unprotected no one noticed the vehicles they drove to the church parking lot [Music] it would be empty at that time of day [Music] they transferred the money and checks to the pickup they knew authorities would be searching for the van they left most of the coins and went to destroy the checks and other evidence according to detective tom clayton they loaded the money into timbering's truck and drove out in the desert where they separated the money changed clothes and burned all the evidence greenham said they buried the burned evidence and stolen license plate in the desert and you can take us to where the plates are buried special agent stephen chenoweth wondered if it was the plate witnessed by edward morgan we went out there and actually found the location and then dug it up and found that the three numbers actually on the plate did in fact match those that were given to us by mr morgan so he was actually right on on his information james greenen pled guilty to second-degree murder and armed robbery and is serving 27 and a half years william ferguson pled guilty to armed robbery and accessory after the fact and is doing 17 years on december 6 1996 tim ring was found guilty of first-degree murder conspiracy and burglary any time that you have somebody actually assassinate a driver like this it's a very heinous crime and you certainly want to expend all of your resources in an effort to identify the people involved and and put them behind bars [Music] for his crimes ring received the death penalty he currently awaits execution at the arizona state prison in florence [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

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Keywords: real crime, crime documentary, true crime, The FBi files, FBI, FBI files, crime patrol, true crime daily, tv show - topic, crime stories, crime documentaries full episodes, full episode, investigation, classified files, murder documentary, the fbi files full episodes, fbi files season 3, fbi files silent strike

Id: 4CBHQVzZpYk

Length: 50min 5sec (3005 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 19 2020