Armored car theft suspect "brainwashed"

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Armored car theft suspect "brainwashed"

Postby nomo » Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:15 pm

September 16, 2005<br>Fugitive in Armored Car Theft Gives Up After 12 Years<br>By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD<br><br>LAS VEGAS, Sept. 15 - A woman who became one of the most sought after fugitives in the United States after disappearing with an armored car and $2.5 million ended almost 12 years on the run on Thursday when she walked into a federal courthouse here and surrendered.<br><br>The woman, Heather C. Tallchief, was a driver for Loomis Armored, now Loomis Fargo, on Oct. 1, 1993, when while making a stop at the Circus Circus casino hotel she took off with her truck and its contents, leaving behind two other guards.<br><br>Over the years, the authorities have said they were baffled about how Ms. Tallchief and her suspected accomplice, Roberto Solis, who had served time in prison for killing an armored car driver in 1969, eluded capture.<br><br>The case had been repeatedly broadcast on crime programs, including "America's Most Wanted" on Fox. A spokesman for the F.B.I. said Thursday that she had been a "highly sought after fugitive."<br><br>In an interview before her surrender, she said she was in Europe much of the time, out of reach of the money and working as a hotel maid.<br><br>In a court appearance in the afternoon, Ms. Tallchief, 33, was ordered held on charges that included bank larceny, fraud, conspiracy and making false statements to obtain a passport. A hearing was set for Sept. 29.<br><br>Ms. Tallchief, dressed in a gray blazer, a pink blouse and pale olive slacks, was led away in handcuffs and leg irons.<br><br>This week, Ms. Tallchief's lawyer, Robert Axelrod, interviewed his client on videotape in Los Angeles in hopes of selling her story to Hollywood. The two people said they would use the proceeds to reimburse the stolen money.<br><br>They allowed The New York Times to observe the interview and ask follow-up questions on condition that the newspaper not publish an article until the surrender.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Contrary to previous reports, Ms. Tallchief said she was not the mastermind behind the crime, but rather a victim of Mr. Solis's brainwashing. </strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->The criminal complaint does not say who organized the scheme but describes the two people as planning and carrying it out together.<br><br>Ms. Tallchief, a Seneca born in Buffalo, N.Y., said she lived a largely unhappy life, ostracized at school as she followed the punk rock scene and becoming addicted to crack.<br><br>She eventually obtained a general equivalency diploma and a nursing assistant certificate and worked in hospitals and clinics in the San Francisco Bay area, but , she said, had trouble keeping jobs. When she had hit bottom, she met Mr. Solis, more than 20 years older, through a friend at a nightclub.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>She said he kept an altar in his apartment with a goat's head, crystals and tarot cards, all of which she initially found shocking but came to accept his beliefs, particularly that their meeting and "spiritual journey" were predestined.<br><br>In the tape with Mr. Axelrod, she said Mr. Solis constantly showed her tapes in the weeks leading up to the crime that had a hypnotic effect.<br><br>"They allegedly opened your mind but made you more receptive" to suggestion, she said. "They had lots of swirling colors like a tie-dye t-shirt."</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Ms. Tallchief said his sway was so powerful that she hardly questioned him, even as he steered her toward finding work at Loomis.<br><br>"He was reformed," she said in the interview. "He wrote poetry. I knew his mother. He was a very normal person. If you sat down and met him, you would probably actually enjoy him. You would laugh at his jokes. You would think he was a nice person. There was never anything about him that you would think he was a heinous, horrible murdering con."<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Ms. Tallchief said she followed Mr. Solis's instructions up to and on the day of the crime "almost like a robot." She said recalled little about the planning.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>After driving off her route with the truck, she said, she drove to a warehouse, but did not know what happened to the money after helping Mr. Solis load it into boxes there. "I probably asked him about it but he wouldn't ever answer," Ms. Tallchief said, adding that when the subject came up he would say things like: " 'Don't worry about it. I'm taking care of it. It's O.K. It's safe. I've got it under control.' "<br><br>She took flight, she said, at first disguised as an old woman in a wheelchair pushed by Mr. Solis. She later led a low-key life in Amsterdam as a hotel maid, affecting an English accent that she still faintly speaks with now.<br><br>She declined to discuss how she slipped out of the United States with Mr. Solis and how she returned. Mr. Axelrod said she re-entered through Los Angeles a few days ago.<br><br>Ms. Tallchief said she had seen a psychiatrist in Los Angeles in the last few days.<br><br>She added that she had no contact with Mr. Solis after she took their took their infant son and left him. The boy, now 10, is in Amsterdam with friends of Ms. Tallchief.<br><br>Mr. Solis, 60, is at large.<br><br>Mr. Axelrod said that though the notion of being brainwashed "is a hard concept to follow" he believed a jury or the authorities would find that a "mitigating factor" in her case. He would not let Ms. Tallchief answer whether she would plead guilty, though she does not deny carrying out the crime.<br><br>Joe Parris, a supervisory agent for the F.B.I. in Washington, declined to comment on her brainwashing statement. A spokeswoman for the United States attorney here said the office would have no comment.<br><br>Ms. Tallchief said she decided to abandon her flight for the sake of her son, who she fears will ultimately suffer consequences of her crime. The boy, she said, does not have a legitimate birth certificate or other documentation and is growing curious about her past and his.<br><br>"I didn't give my child a normal life, but I think I am on the way to doing that," Ms. Tallchief said in the taping of the video, which a Hollywood producer, Robert Aaronson, is trying to sell to television networks and studios.<br><br>Mark Clark, a spokesman for Loomis, Fargo, said repaying the stolen money "would be a nice gesture" but he declined to address the case in detail, saying the company would "let it take its course."<br><br>Living abroad, Ms. Tallchief said, she avoided Americans and did not socialize much, to avoid people asking about her past.<br><br>"I've learned how to not have so many close friends, so I don't get asked all the questions," she said. "It's a lonely life, being a fugitive. And I certainly don't go to, you know, book clubs and, you know, cake sales and stuff. I don't have coffee morning with the girls."<br><br>Ms. Tallchief's history is the subject of a screenplay that is being worked on. A former chairman of 20th Century Fox, Bill Mechanic, who produces films through his own company, Pandemonium, in Los Angeles, said his company was finishing a script based on the robbery.<br><br>For all its dramatic potential, Ms. Tallchief's life on the run ended in anticlimactic fashion. Accompanied by her lawyers, she entered the office of the United States marshal at 9:29 a.m., sat on a couch and tapped her foot as officers conferred and then, after about 20 minutes, led her away.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/national/16fugitive.html">www.nytimes.com/2005/09/1...itive.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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I remember this AMW episode

Postby proldic » Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:57 pm

and I remember being curious as to why they were covering it, seeing as nobody died in that robbery. <br><br>"Over the years, the authorities have said they were baffled about how Ms. Tallchief and her suspected accomplice, Roberto Solis, who had served time in prison for killing an armored car driver in 1969, eluded capture."<br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: I remember this AMW episode

Postby Dreams End » Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:49 pm

Wonder if solis served time at Vacaville in California...AKA Mind Control U.<br><br>Edit: Nope...Folsom. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=dreamsend@rigorousintuition>Dreams End</A> at: 9/16/05 2:52 pm<br></i>
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homebrew mind control?

Postby proldic » Fri Sep 16, 2005 5:16 pm

I can also imagine a dedicated person doing that stuff DIY.<br><br>I suppose you could pick up the rudiments from reading books from Loompanics or something.<br> <br>Maybe an initial experience (prison/military?) showing him the "value"?<br><br>Doesn't seem like your everyday criminal shit, but preachers/cults use variations of it all the time, so... <p></p><i></i>
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