How to Rob a Bank (2024)

[bunniefuu]

[rock music playing]

This is real. This is a robbery.

Step away from your cages.

[man 1] He was the most prolific

bank robber in the Pacific Northwest.

[woman 1] He keeps changing his disguises.

He seems like he's in a movie,

robbing bank after bank.

[man 2] Three or four banks,

one right after the other

in the same evening.

[woman 2] In the FBI,

we like to give nicknames to bank robbers.

His moniker was "Hollywood."

Pretty fitting,

especially when we learned

that he really was inspired

by Bodhi in Point Break.

Why be a servant to the law

when you can be its master?

You wanna open the vault,

or do you want me to do it?

[woman 2] He'd been successful

for four years.

That's why he became

our number one priority.

He was not a stupid bank robber.

[man 3] Hollywood was probably

one of the most dangerous people

that I went up against,

because he was a true professional.

[man 2] He wanted

to decimate the city of Seattle,

and it was not only doable,

it was winnable.

They knew that this man

got millions over the years.

They knew that he humiliated them.

[man 1] When he walked

into the Lake City branch to rob us,

he walked right past his wanted poster.

Don't panic. This is a robbery.

Step away from your counter.

[reporter 1] What happened here

reads straight from a movie script.

[reporter 2] He wears heavy makeup, a wig...

[reporter 3] His co-star

is this 9 mm. handgun.

[reporter 4] The most prolific bank robber

in the country.

He's number one

on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

[man 4] They could not figure out

who this guy was,

and where he was gonna hit next.

[man 5] Was this guy some kind of a ghost?

How does he just slip away like that?

[rock music intensifies]

[music fades]

[suspenseful music playing]

Hollywood was a unique case

for us in Seattle.

We knew from evidence

that he was familiar

with security practices.

He knew how long he had

before he had to get out of there.

He was a smart bank robber.

He became our number one priority

after I became

the supervisor of our task force.

[intriguing music playing]

Shawn Johnson was the FBI agent

that was the lead on the case.

He was like an encyclopedia on Hollywood.

He's number one

as far as, uh, the amount of money

that any bank robber has taken.

Hollywood was a professional bank robber.

He worked at it. He perfected his craft.

I think he was enjoying what he did.

I think money was part of it,

but at that point in time,

it was just the, uh, adrenaline rush,

the challenge.

[Ellen] When I assigned Mike to head up

the Seattle Police response to it,

I knew that it would be

an electric relationship.

[man 3] Shawn and I were night and day,

oil and water, two different styles.

My partner at the time summed it up.

"Shawn Johnson was the fire,

and Mike Magan was the can of gasoline."

I heard one description

that I'm not sure if I agree with,

but I was the brains and he was the brawn.

Don't agree with that 100%,

but the brain part

I agree with for myself.

[Mike] Ellen Glasser was

a very talented supervisor

who believed in the "KISS" method:

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

[Ellen] As one of the first women agents

in the FBI,

to be able to be supervising

this violent crime squad

and the task force

was such an awesome thing for me.

Not only was I in this badass job,

I also was blessed

to have four young children,

and so sometimes I feel like

I was two different people.

A lot of the guys called me Agent Mom.

[intriguing music playing]

[man 4] In the '90s,

Seattle was a city in major transition.

[intriguing music continues]

You went from a two company town,

Weyerhaeuser and Boeing,

to then you add Microsoft,

and then all the companies

that came around Microsoft.

Bezos from Amazon.

Starbucks was growing like gangbusters.

There was a flood of money

that came into Seattle.

It was amazing

how many banks were popping up.

I didn't put two and two together

at the time

that all the cash coming in

from the tech boom was fueling this,

but you could find a bank

in the grocery store.

You could find a bank

just about every corner.

[reporter] In Washington state,

the number of bank robberies is exploding.

I told my wife,

"Don't go into a bank in Seattle."

Chances are it'll get robbed."

[reporter 1] Three men ran

into the US Branch Bank in Woodinville

with a shotgun...

[reporter 2] A man enters the bank,

and usually passes a note

to the teller demanding money.

[David] There were

a lot of bank robberies.

I don't know that we did one every night,

but we did a lot of them.

Let's go to Deborah Horne,

who's at the scene with the latest.

That's right, David.

Just a very few moments ago...

[woman 1] Seattle was an exciting place.

We were sort of

coming into our own as a city,

certainly in terms of being

well-known around the country.

We had Nirvana, so you have grunge.

[David] Grunge, to me,

to a certain extent,

was that frustration

that a lot of people were feeling

about changes that were coming

to their communities.

[man 6] The whole grunge thing,

it was so anti-corporate

and anti-brands

and big-name and fame was all... [scoffs]

Nobody cared.

Nobody wanted any of that sh*t.

People were literally anti-establishment

for all the right reasons.

They hated all the oppression,

they hated the colonialism,

they hated the attack

on human rights and the environment.

And ripping off banks,

if they're getting away with it?

People love that.

[reporter] He's robbed 14 banks in Seattle

since, uh, June of 1992.

Wow! He's pretty clever. [chuckles]

Darn clever.

It's the ultimate F-you to the man.

- [woman] It's Mr. Hollywood.

- [reporter] Hollywood, right.

We knew that there was a guy

with a bunch of disguises

who was robbing banks,

not hurting anybody.

No shots were fired.

Sounds very bold. [chuckles]

There may have been some rooting for him,

and people talk about Robin Hood...

[Jimmy] The mystique of the bank robber

goes back to the Robin Hood thing.

You steal from the rich

and give to the poor.

Duh. How noble is that?

[Ellen] He was kind of legendary

in terms of bank robbers.

[Mike] But in terms of who Hollywood was,

we couldn't have been more wrong.

[birds chirping]

Hey, Bubba!

[man 7] Wow, a man with his shirt off.

Come on back!

[man 7] Let's go, boys. Come on.

- You still filming?

- [man 7] We're filming this whole trip.

You gotta hold the camera steady.

[man 7] That's a little easier

said than done, man.

As you can see, we're deep in the forest.

And there's not a whole lot of light.

[pensive music playing]

- Okay, Tarzan. What do you want to do?

- Go up top.

- [man 7] Go up top?

- Yeah.

[man 7] We're going

into Scurlock's domain.

What's the elevation here, mate?

- [Scurlock] 75 feet.

- [man 7] 75 feet above what?

[Scurlock] The floor of the cedars.

Down there.

[man 7] Tell us the story, mate.

How long did it take you?

What's the deal here?

Took me about two weeks

to build this whole thing.

- [man 7] Two weeks to build this.

- Six stories.

Fifty-eight tons of wood.

Did a little work.

Kind of ate breakfast before I did it.

[man 7 laughs] Okay.

Okay, no, it really took maybe...

I don't know.

- Three or four months?

- [man 7] Three or four months.

[tranquil music playing]

[woman 3] The Treehouse

was a really amazing, amazing place.

A place you could go

to get out of the norm of society.

[woman 4] The first time I went

to the Treehouse, Scott answered the door.

He was stripped naked

except his tool belt.

I'd never had anybody

answer the door quite like that,

but I pretended

that it was an everyday occurrence.

You'd see furniture,

like you would in a normal house,

and you'd walk across the deck,

and here was a toilet, here was a shower.

It was like a real bathroom,

except you had

a wonderful outdoor experience.

[Elizabeth] It was built around

seven trees and it was really well-made.

It was like cedar boards

and picture windows.

It was an extravagant tree house.

There was a huge oven range,

and we carried

this oven range up the stairs,

70 feet to the first floor.

[man 2] My brother

was good friends with Scott,

and he said he'd hire me

to come out and build his house.

And I said, "Yeah, why not?"

We did some

of the most insane construction.

We would be hanging

from ropes from our ankles

to be able to nail it

and bolt it in place. And...

It was insanely dangerous.

All of it was dangerous,

but we didn't care.

[gentle music playing]

The Treehouse was Scott's

inner personality that came to life.

He was safe.

It was his harbor. It was his anchor.

He was free from it all.

[Scott] I'm sitting at my desk,

40 feet in the trees.

The deck extends off the rim

like a ballerina's tutu in full twirl.

It's wide enough in places

to bake in the sun's rays,

and maybe catch a wink of sleep

if you're not scared of rolling off.

[man 7] What's going on?

[Scott] I like just sitting on the edge,

gazing across the trees at Mount Rainier.

[man 7] Talk to us.

[Scott] I get a feeling

of subtle exhilaration.

I want a lot out of this life.

I think it will be a long search

before I find the place

where God wants me.

My mind is like an undisciplined child

that has gone wild.

I'll just have to catch it.

Everybody loved Scott.

Everybody loved the Treehouse.

The two were connected.

We clicked right away

when we first met in school

and we just both had a lot of energy,

wild and free.

We'd like to drink beer.

Mark Biggins is an interesting character.

He and Scott

went to Evergreen College together.

[Elizabeth] People that came to Evergreen

were in some ways misfits.

Me included.

People are pretty progressive.

It wasn't like people taking crazy drugs

and drinking and being crazy in that way.

It was very earthy.

Playing drums and taking mushrooms

and sitting around fires.

It was also a very tight community.

[Mark] Fate just threw us together.

Scott was this wild and free guy.

Even more so

than the other Evergreen students

who were considered wild and free.

Mark is just a really tender, gentle soul,

you know?

He played guitar and wrote poetry.

But he was having a really hard time.

He was struggling.

So I think Scotty really helped him out.

[Mark] I called him on the phone,

and I said, "Man, my marriage is over."

"I don't know what I'm gonna do,

where I'm gonna go."

And he says, "Well, get on up here!

Move in with me."

[Steve] Mark Biggins was a big, gruff man.

He smoked Chesterfield straights.

He probably did a pack or two packs a day.

He would knock bourbons down

like it was no big deal.

That was the bond between him and Scott.

Biggins could drink Scott to hell.

[Mark] I lived at the Treehouse

for many years. So did my daughter.

And perfect strangers

would come knocking on the door

and they'd say, uh,

"Oh, we heard there's this

really cool tree house on this property."

Or "Can we go see it?"

And we'd have to turn them away.

I mean, it got so bad we actually built

a gate across the driveway.

And the Treehouse

was not built by Scott alone,

even though

it's been quoted in many places,

but, uh, dozens of people

worked on that place.

[woman 5] My brother Scott

was never gonna be controlled

and he wanted to be free.

He was an adrenaline junkie.

He loved doing daring things.

We're sitting at 60 feet up in the air

at six stories and

this is the first time

I've ever done this.

[laughter]

[Mark] So he's gonna do approximately

a 100-foot climb upside down.

Anytime go, Rambo, Tarzan.

[Scott] Woo!

- Whoa!

- [Mark] Oh! [laughs]

He just kept wanting to go

higher and higher and higher

and he needed more and more and more.

[Mark] Right now,

if he slipped he's gonna fall

60 feet to the ground.

[Scott] This is hard!

[Mark] I told you.

This is a death act, my friend.

[Suzanne] He was, uh, an adventurer.

He loved the excitement of life,

and wanted new things and new experiences.

But he made certain pivotal choices

that led him into directions

he couldn't turn around and back out of.

[intriguing music playing]

[Scott] In my studies,

I've gotten on the wrong track,

delving into areas

not good for my spiritual growth.

A voice speaks loud and clear.

"Remember what you are here for."

I understand, but do not change course.

He was always in pursuit

of something of his own world.

[Mark] When I first met him,

he was aspiring

to get a degree in medicine,

but that fell by the wayside

once he worked in the chemistry lab

and he saw an opportunity

to make a lot of money.

Scott was the first person in my life

I had ever known to produce crystal meth.

He would, at nighttime,

go up through the ceilings

and crawl into the laboratory.

Scotty's professors discovered him.

They kicked him off the campus.

Said, "Don't you ever, ever, ever, ever

show your face here again."

He was smart enough to have been a doctor.

He was one course short

of graduating in chemistry and biology.

He would have been pre-med.

But he didn't wanna be.

That was not who he was and he knew that.

And then he just continued

right on down that road.

[Steve] This grew and grew and grew

and he became so prolific,

and his product was so absolutely pure.

If you were ever to try his stuff,

I'm telling you,

it was something unbelievable.

He did have a reputation for producing

some of the finest substance, uh, around.

I never heard anybody say... say

that somebody else's meth was better.

Scott's use of crystal meth

was very moderate and controlled.

He just enjoyed it

and it inspired him for creativity.

[Steve] As time went on, he bought

a piece of property with a barn on it.

And so I went out there

to renovate the barn.

In the loft of the barn,

he had his whole laboratory set up.

Captain Pat was the front man.

He was the finance man.

The only times they met

were in the forest,

transferring product and money.

When Scott would bring

180 lb. to Captain Pat,

he would give him $2 million.

[Mark] Pat was the one

who introduced Scott to the meth world.

The Captain, that was Pat's nickname.

He'd take it down to Barstow

and sell it to the Hells Angels.

And then Scott

would come back to the Treehouse

with these boxes full of $20 bills.

Scott and I would sit and count it out.

We'd be up all night counting money.

But this got dangerous.

I mean, really dangerous.

Captain Pat was m*rder*d

by some person who was trying to rob him

and he was m*rder*d in his sleep.

Scott was devastated when he heard.

But that's what people do in that world,

and he didn't want to be any part of it.

And that's when he quit.

[Alban] Crystal meth

was his income, period.

And so when he quit distributing,

he needed a new way to make money.

[Steve] At that time in the '90s,

Point Break was one

of the big bank robbery movies.

[Bodhi] Little hand says

it's time to rock and roll.

[Steve] Scott would watch films and see

different things to get ideas from.

[Jimmy] Scott was down on banks

and insurance companies.

It feels like everyone at the time was.

[Bodhi] On the floor, as*h*le.

The money's insured,

so it's not worth dying for.

He was always wanting

to find a way to beat the system.

- He's a real searcher.

- What's he searching for?

[woman] The ride. The ultimate ride.

[Steve] What he liked about Point Break

was the individualism of Bodhi

and his fearlessness toward life,

whether it was robbing banks

or whether it was surfing on wild waves.

And so when he got

out of the drug business,

that's when he said,

"I'm gonna become a bank robber."

[Bodhi] Thank you very much,

ladies and gentlemen,

and please don't forget to vote!

[tense music playing]

[Mark] The first bank we robbed,

we were just talking about it,

kicking the idea around.

How would we do it?

Could you do this and get away with it?

Scott told Mark before the robbery,

"Do not say anything.

Just come in and keep people orderly."

"Okay, okay."

He called him Boss. "Okay, boss."

[Mark] A friend of mine dropped us off

a block away from the bank,

and she was supposed to meet us

at this designated spot.

Our plan was to wait

for a bank customer to arrive,

then use his car as a getaway car.

[Steve] Biggins puts

his Ronald Reagan mask down.

Rock and roll!

[Mark] Scott went in first.

He was gonna announce the robbery

and then I would come in

and make sure that nobody left.

I was so freaked out.

Like, "I can't believe

this is actually happening

and I'm actually doing this."

[Steve] Biggins has his g*n in his hand

and he says,

"Every m*therf*cker on the ground!"

Scott turns around and says,

"Everybody stand up! Stand up!" [laughs]

Because he doesn't want anybody walking by

to see people on the ground.

[Mark] I think Scott ordered

everybody on the ground.

I think everybody was down

when I walked into the bank.

If you've ever been in a car

that you've lost control,

and it, you know, things slow down,

that's what happened to me in the bank.

Everything was in slow motion.

Finally, it was time to leave,

and Scott goes,

"Mark, did you get the keys?"

He actually used my name.

I bent down and I said,

"Sir, can I have your car keys?"

And the poor guy,

he was really frightened.

It's a brand-new car

and I couldn't hear that it had started.

[engine starts]

And as I was doing that,

this other car pulls in.

Finally Scott goes,

"I think the car's started."

"Put it in reverse.

Let's get out of here."

We started driving through suburbia.

We get out at this designated spot

and there's no van.

My friend panicked and went to point B.

We had a backup.

And we end up

running across this golf course.

We could hear police cars coming.

There are sirens.

And there's my friend,

parked where she's supposed to be.

[sirens wail]

That's the way it was.

It was a comedy of errors.

I don't know how they didn't get caught,

but they didn't.

[Mark] And then I started thinking

about all the possible clues

we might have left behind.

We used Scott's van.

If anybody took down the license plate,

I thought, "Well,

they're gonna show up any minute."

At one point, I sat up and said,

"I am never doing that again."

Scott goes, "Are you sure? Let's go

do another one! Right now!" [laughs]

[Steve] After the robbery, Biggins got

real scared and drove off to Montana.

But all of the failures

inspired Scott to go deeper into it.

He realized

he could handle the banks himself

as long as

everything outside was controlled.

And that's why he came for me.

He was very scientific, analytical.

I was more improvising, artistic.

I had worked in sculpture

throughout Europe, in Germany and Norway.

I didn't care about the banks themselves.

It didn't matter.

"Great. Take 'em down."

"Take every last penny

they have in the bank."

"That's no problem for me."

But I couldn't imagine doing it.

I just thought, "This is... This is insane."

But it's Scott and he's convincing.

He said, "Man, this is the easiest thing.

It's like taking candy from kids."

"There's millions to be made in this."

But, as we always said,

there is no school of training

for bank robbers.

Doing what Scott and I did

is the most creative thing

I've ever done in my life.

Much more than the art world.

Finding the perfect bank

was a moment of exhilaration.

It's like finding a piece of marble

that is perfect for some image

that I have that I want to sculpt.

I would sit on the street,

close enough that I could observe it.

I'd write down

the time of arrival of armored cars.

The deliveries

were an important time of day

because that's when you've got

the most money in the bank.

If it was summer,

I would have my windows down

and I'd have Bach or jazz going on.

I'd be on the scanner all day,

listening to the police calls.

[police radio chatter]

[Steve] And I would watch

the patrols in that bank area

to know when they'd come.

I would log down the times.

A number of the banks we did,

there was a very consistent patrol route

that the cops took

at certain times of the day.

We learned these routes

so that five minutes

after the cops left the area,

we knew it was time to hit the banks.

I spent months driving around the streets

doing surveillance.

You can't get a jump on a bank

going in with some stupid mask on.

It's ridiculous.

So I would prepare these prosthetics,

like they do in Hollywood.

["Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus playing]

What we wanted were just components,

like a nose, a chin, cheeks.

["Goodbye Horses" continues]

He wore D.A.R.E. caps for two reasons.

The first thing people think of

is that he's probably a cop

who wears a D.A.R.E. hat,

and also to smite the police.

'Cause it's like, "Here I am."

You know what I mean? "Dare me."

I see my hopes and dreams

lying on the ground...

[Steve] When I first saw him,

he came back from the woods

and I just stood there frozen.

I go, "Oh my God Almighty.

What in the f*ck is this?"

I could look at it and there'd be no way

you'd ever think this was Scott Scurlock.

Goodbye horses...

[Scott] I feel transformed

in an eerie, magical way.

I'm flying over...

[Scott] I'm changing rapidly

in this stage of my life.

Goodbye horses...

[Scott] I feel like a different person.

I'm flying, flying, flying

[tense music playing]

[Steve] The very first bank robbery

that I did

was the same bank

that he did with Mark six weeks earlier.

The important thing in taking down a bank

is that initial 15 seconds

when nobody thinks anything's happening.

And he looked like a person

that might have had a skin ailment.

So people would avoid looking at him.

[teller] How can I help you?

This is a robbery. Nobody move.

[Steve] He would

pull the g*n out casually.

Nobody in their right mind

would ever say no to this man.

You two! Money in the bag.

Everyone stay calm.

[police radio chattering]

[Steve] I was sitting with the scanner

and the radio, and that was it.

There was never any risk on my part

because I had my own alibi.

I had my own reason for being there,

and I would never be caught,

unless of course

I had to call him out of the bank.

And the beauty of all of this

was creating and developing

one of these robberies

so that everything

would work flawlessly, safely,

and that the actual outcome was

what we wanted, which was the money.

We didn't talk the whole way.

When we got to the Treehouse

and began counting the money,

it was just five or ten thousand dollars.

I go, "Man. This is ridiculous."

"Who wants to go to prison

for this little bitty kibbles and bits?"

[tense music playing]

[Mike] In the early 1990s,

I arrested my first bank robber,

and I thought, "sh*t,

this is like sh**ting fish in a pond."

I don't mean to say it

in a braggadocios manner,

but within a period of five or six months,

I had cleared close to 80 cases,

and it became very addictive.

I was subsequently assigned

to the FBI's violent crime task force.

Hollywood flew under the radar

for the first couple of robberies

because of the low take.

When a suspect gets on top of the counter

and dances around

and tries to get command and control,

and you have to carjack

an old man for his Cadillac,

it showed that these guys

were bumbling idiots.

They probably started to ask themselves,

"Hey, what are we doing wrong here?"

[Steve] I said, "Scott, I'm not gonna

do this for 10, 15, 20 thousand dollars."

"It's stupid."

"We either do this right,

and we either go for the vault,

or I don't do it anymore."

"I don't wanna be messed up

in this nonsense."

He goes, "We can't do the vault

'cause I don't have enough information."

- So he hired Mustang.

- [telephone rings]

Mustang was a special young woman.

I've never quite met a woman like her.

[sultry music playing]

She was hired

to work in the Seafirst Bank as a teller.

She got the manuals

and she got all of the bank protocol

for teller stations, for the vaults,

the armored car deliveries.

Once we had

all the inside information from Mustang,

we knew we could do what we needed to do.

[funky music playing]

[Steve] We learned from the protocol

what to say.

This is real. This is a robbery.

[Steve] There's certain terminology

you use to the bankers,

and when they hear that terminology,

they know you know what's going on.

Who's the vault teller?

[woman] That's me.

[Steve] This was the phenomenon of Scott.

He could control the lobby

and still deal with the vault

at the same time.

[tense music playing]

[Scott] Quickly.

[tense music continues]

[Steve] He wants them to be calm.

"Go over there. Just open the vault."

"There's no problem.

Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

"Just let me get in and get out."

[tense music continues]

[Steve] It's like he's going

into this catacomb of fantasy.

[tense music continues]

Do you have another bag?

[police radio chatter]

[Scott] Everyone on the floor. Let's go!

[tense music continues]

[Steve] When we got home,

we drove into the back of the studio.

I said, "How'd you do?" And he says,

"Oh, man, it wasn't... Not good."

"It was another bad one."

I go, "Oh, f*ck me, man."

"What, are you kidding me?"

And we get in

and he dumps out this big bag.

And it's just like... And I go, "Oh, man."

[tense music continues]

That was the biggest haul.

It was the game changer.

Not only for us, but for the FBI.

[music fades]

I began with the FBI in 1987.

By the time

of the Hollywood investigation,

I was the most experienced agent

in the Seattle division

working bank robberies.

I'm trying to recall the cases I worked

where somebody did what Hollywood did,

from doing teller drawers

to doing armed takeovers

to doing vault takeovers.

I can't think of anyone else

that took that route.

The Hollywood investigation

was similar to a jigsaw puzzle.

We had little clues here,

little clues here.

Starting to put the big picture together.

I think Hollywood

was enjoying what he did.

First four robberies,

he got more than the average bank robber.

But then he started going into the vaults.

Doing vault robberies on your own

is very risky,

because you have no idea

what's happening in the rest of the bank.

It's more exposure.

It's more potential for alarms going off.

At that point in time,

his level of sophistication went up.

The threat went up.

It was a challenge to him,

and he wanted to challenge us.

But the big picture here was what?

It was, "Who is Hollywood?

Who is Hollywood?"

- [man] All right. You ready?

- Welcome to the Treehouse. Come right in.

[Suzanne] My parents

were totally in awe of the Treehouse

because my dad loved building things.

[man laughs] This is going to be

the dining room.

[Scott] Yup.

[Suzanne] It was one

of the most remarkable edifices ever.

So they were in awe of who Scotty was

and what he had done in that arena.

[wistful music playing]

We grew up in a loving household.

My father was a minister,

a very well-loved minister.

My mother was a teacher

of learning disabled children.

We were preacher's kids, and darn it,

from a very young age,

we were gonna prove to everybody

that we're not goody-two-shoes.

[man] Both of us were very adventurous.

That's what made us friends.

He had a different quality,

a fearlessness.

There were showroom houses

all around Reston, Virginia.

We knew how to get into all of them.

Scotty and I both learned

how to pick locks.

We did not learn to pick locks

to steal anything.

We learned how to pick locks

so we could get

to the other side of the door.

[wistful music continues]

[Suzanne] As he grew older

into his teen years,

he became more and more

and more secretive.

And we used to call him

the master of disinformation

because he wouldn't outright lie to you,

but he would tell you something

that you knew wasn't quite right

or he would leave something out.

When he first started to do crazy stuff,

one of the things he did,

and I think he was 15, maybe 16,

was that he and this friend stole a car,

a van I believe,

from a local day care center,

and drove it to the beach,

and they got caught.

And I think that was

a big break for my father,

because he realized with that event

that something

had really gone south in Scotty.

[wistful music continues]

He grew up and didn't outgrow the behavior

that we had as kids or adolescents.

He just sort of refined it

and kept right on going.

[Steve] Everything with Scott

was a stepping stone.

The Hawthorne Hills Bank

was the opening of a new world for us.

Once you enter the vaults,

you're on another level.

At this point,

when we would intentionally

leave a vehicle for the cops,

we would make sure we hired a person,

either a woman or some guy

that looked totally different from us,

maybe he'd be 6 ft. 3 in.

and long, scraggly hair or whatever,

give him $1,000,

he would go purchase the car,

drive it to me, and I would take it.

We sanitized them with mineral spirits.

We would get female hair

and put that in the back seat.

Tried to make it

always as confusing as possible.

Sometimes there were multiple roads

leading to the bank

where police would be coming,

so we would hire somebody as a lookout.

My role, only two occasions I did,

uh, was to be a point man.

He gave me a radio, told me to park here.

When you see the police coming,

just say, "Mama's coming."

That's all you gotta do.

There was no hesitation on my part

to help Scott out.

You know,

it was just a thing among friends.

[Steve] One of Scott's main methodologies

was to repeat robbing the same bank.

Nobody's gonna believe

that you're gonna come right back

and do the same thing again

within a few days.

The first thing we'd do,

we'd dump all the money out

and then we would go through

with ultraviolet lights

any money that looked like

it might be marked.

New money was the most dangerous

'cause you have sequential serial numbers,

so we would scatter those around.

We would lock up all of the equipment

in military canisters

that we would bury in the ground.

Then we took the clothes

back into the forest

and we had a pit

where we burned everything.

After that, I had to go launder the money.

["I Want More" by Can playing]

Scott did a lot of sportsbook gambling.

And the laundering of the money,

he thought of that.

That was his creation.

It's an ingenious creation.

You place the same amount of money

on both teams that are playing

at two different casinos,

and one of the teams is gonna win.

So you end up getting back all your money

except for what the house receives

on the losing team,

which is 5%.

We weren't losing anything, really.

["I Want More" continues]

Scott did a lot with his money

and he just lived his life

the way he wanted to live it.

["I Want More" continues]

Travel, seeing the world,

meeting different people.

That's what he loved.

[Scott] I have been realizing lately

the virtues of traveling alone.

All my wildest experiences

have happened while I'm alone.

[T.J.] Scott was definitely

a man of mystery.

He would disappear for a while.

One time I thought maybe he was CIA.

Maybe he was a pot grower.

[Jimmy] I never really asked him

what he did for money.

He must be a contractor. I don't know.

That's why he was so handy building.

I found out that he was really interested

in stopping the logging of the forest.

[Steve] He worked with Earth First,

and he would give donation money

to these environmentalists.

And I said, "Why do you do that, Scott?

Why waste money on these hippies?"

[Alban] Scott did view himself

as a Robin Hood figure.

And I think it was, uh, evident

in the way he acquired the money

and then also the way he dispersed it.

[Jimmy] In terms of him being

a Robin Hood figure, I know that was true.

He gave money to me. He gave money

to other people and other things.

I saw him give money away.

[Steve] He helped people.

They needed something, he'd give them

a few thousand dollars for whatever.

He spread the money around.

[Mark] It's a funny relationship

you have with money.

You didn't earn it.

You stole it. You took it.

Spend it freely, and then go get more.

[Scott] Mmm, mmm.

[Steve] He wasn't Robin Hood.

If you look at Robin Hood,

it was idealistic.

He stole from the rich and gave,

you know, all of that nonsense.

And Scott wasn't like that.

He helped people that he knew

if he needed something

in the future to be done,

he could call on them

and they would do it.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Steve] Regardless

of how successful it all was,

there's a certain point

where you're challenging fate

and it doesn't always turn out

the way you want it to turn out.

[suspenseful music continues]

One robbery we had to abort

because a customer recognized him

as he was walking in.

I got the dispatch call,

and I had to call him out.

[Steve on radio] We're out.

Let's go, let's go.

[Steve] For the next one,

as soon as he got in his getaway car,

the dye pack blew up

and he threw that whole thing out.

[suspenseful music continues]

[tires screech]

We found the vehicle

just blocks away from the bank.

I sat in that station wagon

at the scene for a couple of minutes,

just absorbing that.

That was the closest

I had come to him at that point in time,

sitting in that car

waiting for the next robbery to happen.

We were able to trace it

to previous owners.

Through that, we were able

to develop composite sketches

of individuals who had bought cars.

[Ellen] We had a police profiler come in

and brief all of the people

that were working on the case

who suggested

that he might be a police officer.

We thought that because of the skill

that he had when he was robbing banks.

There was suspicion

that Detective Magan had

that Hollywood might be a police officer.

Shawn Johnson had the belief

that Hollywood could be a police officer.

Did I believe he was a police officer? No.

I didn't buy that theory.

We definitely considered it,

and we thought that

that made him more dangerous.

We wanted to get the word out

so we could solve this case.

So we used the media,

and that was part

of a very carefully laid-out plan.

We told you about

a bank robber nicknamed Hollywood.

He's number one

on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

[reporter] Disguises are the reason

the FBI dubbed this man Hollywood.

He's successfully hit

more than a dozen banks

in the past four years.

[David] It changed the story dramatically

when the FBI came out

with this nickname of Hollywood,

because we knew that they were having

a hard time tracking this guy,

and it seemed to be on a cycle.

Like every six months,

a bank was being hit,

and it became, "Was this Hollywood again?"

[reporter] FBI agent

Shawn Johnson's mission

is to find anyone

who knows anything about Hollywood.

I think initially,

we'll start off, uh, door-to-door,

half of us on one side, half on the other.

[David] You didn't usually see

an FBI agent walk into a neighborhood

and say, "Can you tell me anything

about this bank robbery?"

That was wild, to see an agent,

you know, being so open.

Also a clue that they had no clue.

Maybe I wanted him to know

that I was there, you know?

I was there too. So here's me on TV.

[mysterious music playing]

[Mike] Most suspects followed their media.

In fact, I think they actually loved it.

[Steve] The first time

we heard about Hollywood

was from the two-page article

with Shawn Johnson.

He was saying,

"Somebody out there knows who this man is

and we need your help."

- [reporter 1] His nickname is Hollywood.

- [reporter 2] Hollywood wears makeup...

[Steve] That name

influenced him immensely.

I think it built him up even more.

I think it excited him,

without him saying it or acknowledging it,

but I know his personality.

Deep inside, he was proud.

[Ellen] We thought he would rob again

if he was getting so much attention.

[tense music playing]

[Steve] Each robbery was an opportunity

to try something new.

For the getaways, we would try to figure

out what the FBI would expect us to do,

and then we would just do the opposite.

For the bank we wanted to do, to get away,

you either go down Madison

toward the police coming in,

or you have to go all around the lake.

So I said, "Why don't you get into the van

and just stay there?"

"And I'll go to a restaurant,

and I'll sit and wait for the heat to go."

"When the police are gone,

I'll get back out in my car,

and I'll radio you and let you know,

uh, that it's clear to come out."

He had a van and we had it retrofitted

so he could get under the floor.

So if they shined lights in there,

they couldn't see him.

[tense music continues]

I told Scott, I said,

"Man, this is gonna be big."

"I just had a dream last night."

"We're gonna have

over a quarter of a million dollars

and you're gonna get out safely."

"It's not gonna be a problem."

[tense music continues]

[sirens wail]

[Steve] It was a good 45 minutes

I was in the restaurant.

There was four or five cop cars out there,

and I could just look out the window

and see when it was dispersed

and finished.

I arrive at the scene and I'm thinking,

"Is this guy some kind of a ghost?

How does he just slip away like that?"

[tense music continues]

[Steve] One thing he discovered

while he was in the van

was the condensation from his breathing.

If the police had been aware,

they would see that

and think there was someone in there.

I went over

to a wine shop across the street

and when I came out of the wine shop,

they had all gone.

And I went to the car

and I got my radio out

and I radioed Scott,

and I said, "Boss, let's go."

It was this cat and mouse game.

It was clear that police

and law enforcement were frustrated.

They couldn't figure out

who this person was.

[reporter 1] What everyone

seems to remember

is how he orders people around

and threatens to sh**t them.

[reporter 2] FBI agents are frustrated

that Hollywood has been able

to get away with so much for so long.

They fear that he will turn violent

before he's caught.

[David] I think that's what changed

the Hollywood story,

is that, until we started

to hear from the tellers

who told these horrifying stories,

he hadn't hurt anybody.

[tense music playing]

[Shawn] He got more desperate sometimes.

He tried to get in the vault.

The vault tellers weren't there

to let him in, he got real upset.

He said, "It's Christmas.

I don't want to k*ll anybody,"

and used a stun g*n

on one of the employees.

So he was willing to use weapons.

I've seen people crying.

I mean, just very emotional,

and you're trying to get to the point

where you calm them down a bit

to... to talk to them, what happened.

It was unlike any robbery that any of them

had ever gone through before.

[bank teller] We could not tell

from one second to the next

what he was likely to do.

He was extremely threatening.

[Ellen] Bank robbery

is not a victimless crime.

The people that are

in the bank are traumatized,

tellers are traumatized.

When you have a g*n pointed at your face,

where people threaten to k*ll you,

these take a toll on human beings.

I've been robbed 14 times,

and one of those

was the Hollywood bank robber.

He commanded this presence,

and he told everyone to freeze

and everyone froze.

It's unusual for a robber

to have that much control.

It doesn't ever leave you.

You can go on with your life,

but it doesn't ever leave you. Ever.

[bank teller] There's got to be something

more that we can do to stop these people.

Somebody's going to get hurt.

He thought that he was

just having the greatest time,

living his best life.

But for him to think

that he was gonna get away with this

was just a false premise.

[laughter]

[Steve] When you step

into the world we were living,

you have no idea

the toll it's gonna bring upon you.

It's impossible.

After so many years of bank robberies,

you are no longer the same person

that you were before you began.

[Alban] Scott started to get stressed.

He was no longer

the casual, happy-go-lucky person.

That person was gone.

[T.J.] The vibe

around the Treehouse changed.

He became more closed off,

and more isolated, and way less social.

[Steve] Scott had me

live up at the front house

to keep people out of there.

More and more,

his life was becoming secretive

and he needed to have people away.

He didn't want people around,

seeing what he was doing.

[Mark] Once you do cross the Rubicon

and start living that life,

you have to lie

to everybody about everything.

Everybody you care about.

Everybody you meet.

[Scott] I keep going

in the wrong direction.

I start things and then stop

before the great benefit can be gotten.

Many females have felt

my no-follow-through.

Do I just want to want?

Is that why I get no satisfaction?

I one time kidded with him

when I'd observe him with certain women.

I'd say, "What do you do? Treat women

like condiments? Give me a break."

[T.J.] Is he single or what?

You got women in your bed?

[Scott] Things don't compute

like they used to.

I usually feel free and secure

about my plans in life,

but now I'm beginning to feel captured.

[T.J.] Cheers!

[Suzanne] He showed up at the door,

"Gotta talk to you."

And as we're sitting there,

he's sitting across from me

and he just starts to cry,

like tears streaming down his face.

And he says,

"Suze, I don't know what's going on."

"But when I look in the mirror,

the face looking back at me isn't my own."

"What is that?"

I knew at that point

he was really in trouble.

This light and dark tussle in him,

he was losing the battle.

[Steve] He started drinking more and more

and more to subdue the anxieties.

But Scott wanted one final act,

and that was three or four banks,

one right after the other

in the same evening.

We get 10 to 15 million dollars

and we call it a day.

I go about my business,

you go about yours.

[tense music playing]

We had three banks figured out.

First, you hit a small bank,

go in and get out,

and you don't care about the money.

You just care about

diverting the police to that small bank.

Then you go back and hit a bigger bank.

Then by the time they get there,

there's a third one.

I mean, what are they gonna do?

We wanted to decimate the city of Seattle,

and it was not only doable,

it was winnable.

[tense music playing]

[Shawn] I was getting a bit frustrated

during this investigation.

We had come up with

a couple of getaway vehicles and such,

but it was getting close

but not close enough.

I got tired of waiting,

just reacting to his bank robberies.

I started digging back through the files,

back through the MO,

the time of day, the day of the week,

location of the banks,

how much money he was taking.

I knew he had an ego.

That's why I knew he was gonna come back

at some point in time.

I sat down and did the math,

figured out that he was going through

approximately $21,000 a month.

So with that in mind,

I predicted that he was going to hit

one of three days

the following year in January.

I knew that he would be back.

Certain locations I thought

were likely targets.

It was a waiting game

for them to come back,

and that we were in the right spot

at the right time.

[Steve] After the last big robbery,

we took a year off.

We were finally planning

to take down three banks,

but we needed another person

because of the logistics

of taking down these banks.

[Mark] After the first bank robbery,

I went right to Montana

and was hiding out there

and then Scott showed up

and drew me back into it.

Scott's been going

into the banks by himself,

and he was having trouble

with crowd control.

So he told me, "All you have to do

is stand in the lobby."

"Make sure nobody leaves.

That's all you gotta do."

[Shawn] A year had passed

since I made those predictions

on three days in January

that he was gonna hit.

- [police radio chattering]

- So myself and a task force member

surveilled banks I figured

were logical targets for Hollywood.

First day, nothing happens.

Second day, nothing happened.

The third day, I was out there

waiting for him by myself.

[Steve] With Mark back,

we decided to hit one bank,

just to get the feel of it,

before we hit three.

[tense music playing]

[Mark] My second robbery

was so different than the first.

More under control, went a lot smoother.

It was more like a job than an adventure.

[tense music continues]

[indistinct radio chatter]

[Shawn] I knew immediately

based on the description,

"Oh sh*t, it's Hollywood."

He's hitting another bank a mile up

from where I was waiting for him.

He came back just as I said.

He came back the third day.

I was getting closer and I felt like,

"I'm just a couple of minutes behind you."

"Not months, not weeks.

Just a few minutes behind you now."

[tires screech]

[Shawn] I proceeded up to the bank.

We had secured the scene.

I was the first follow-up person

at the scene.

And I get to the bank

and I'm looking at Shawn Johnson,

like, "How did you get here so fast?"

And I found out

that he and FBI agents only

were running their own surveillance

looking for Hollywood.

He cut everybody else out

on the task force.

Other task force officers decided

that what I was doing was crazy.

"He's not gonna come back.

He's not gonna be here."

[Ellen] I remember how

that kind of ramped up everybody's energy

to work this case,

'cause it had been some gap

since his previous robbery.

[Mike] Everybody on the task force

thought at that point

that something bad

was definitely gonna happen.

And to Ellen's credit,

she saw that this case

was spinning a little bit out of control,

and we needed to put an end to it.

[Ellen] Hollywood was kind of predictable

in terms of the times of day

and where he would rob.

We hatched a plan to do surveillances,

hoping that one of our guys

would be out on the street

when he robbed a bank.

We needed the Seattle Police Department.

We needed their special patrol unit.

We needed aerial resources.

- We added extra FBI resources.

- [camera clicks]

To get all of that in line

was an absolutely Herculean effort.

So we made a commitment

to bring all these resources together

for an indefinite period.

This was a time when

one of the new techniques was ProNet.

It was using these electronic tracers

that were attached to money.

They would sh**t their signal to towers.

And so then you had to have

a mechanism to follow the tags.

So we had to put 'em

in a lot of police cars.

[Shawn] I had to go back again

through the robberies to date

to find out logical targets

that I would hit again

to put devices into the banks.

[Ellen] We put two of these electronic

tracers in as many banks as we could.

[Mike] Everything revolved around time.

The more of these tracking devices

that were in the vault,

the more time it allowed me to get there.

[Al Pacino] If it's between you

and some poor b*stard

whose wife you're gonna turn into a widow,

brother, you are going down.

[Mark] Scott and I had watched Heat,

which was a pretty intense movie.

- [screaming]

- [grunting]

[man] Don't move! Don't f*cking move.

[Mark] The bank robbing scenes

in that movie are spot-on.

And then the shootout

just scared the bejesus out of us.

I remember Scott and I

looking at each other, just going,

"Oh my goodness, what if that happened?"

And that was the game we were playing.

It was a real possibility,

which put the fear of God into us.

Fear of our own mortality.

[dramatic music playing]

Throughout my time working on this case,

I always thought

there was a great possibility

that someone could get hurt.

I've been close

to other bank robberies before in the FBI

where colleagues of mine were k*lled

in a major shootout in Miami in 1986.

[reporter] In a firefight

lasting over four minutes,

two special agents of the FBI were slain

and five other agents were wounded.

We may not have known who Hollywood was,

but what we did know is that

if we faced off with him in the street,

he would not go down without a fight.

[somber music playing]

[Steve] At some point

in the middle of everything,

I had a very vivid dream.

I was crawling up a beach from the water

and a shark had just bitten

both of my legs off.

[somber music continues]

[Steve] I took the dream as advice.

The advice was to get out of it.

I could sense that Scott felt

that there was something looming.

We took hikes up in the Olympics.

The Olympics were special to Scott.

That was our time of peace.

We cleared our mind of the city,

of the chaos,

and we would go up there in nature

and we'd challenge ourselves.

On the top of Mount Washington,

Scott said to me, "Listen. No matter what,

let your own hand be the hand of fate,

and never let your enemy

dictate your fate."

"You make sure you're in control

of what you do with your life."

[Alban] One bank was not enough for Scott.

He wanted to do three banks.

I said, "You're nuts, man."

I talked to Steve and I told him,

"Listen, man. I think this guy

is getting out of hand here."

"And I'm going to California

and I suggest you come with me."

And he actually was thinking about it,

except he didn't want to let Scott down.

[Steve] With the final robbery,

I knew I had to go through with it,

because something had to culminate.

Something had to finalize itself.

The last time that I saw Scott,

I had this really bad dream.

The dream involved g*ns, a shootout.

It was in Seattle. People were running.

And I'm telling him this dream

and he got all white.

He took a big breath and says,

"You're probably not gonna see me again."

"I'm probably gonna go

to the Seychelle Islands."

And I go, "Really?"

I said, "You're gonna come back, right?"

He goes, "I don't think

you're gonna see me again."

[somber music continues]

[Scott] I walk into the night and scream

at God to make his message known to me.

God is not responding

and I sense rejection.

It is a time of pain

and anger and resentment.

Where the f*ck do I go from here,

oh great winged white horseman in my mind?

This will be the last entry

for a long time.

[music fades]

[Steve] We prepared for years

to rob these banks.

And about two weeks before Thanksgiving,

Scott said there's good news and bad news.

The bad news is that they now have

ProNet tags in the vault money.

There is no way to beat the tags

in time to do our original plan.

So we had to abandon

the multiple banks scenario.

[tense music playing]

The good news is,

we take this bank up on 125th Street.

Mustang told us that there should be

five to seven million dollars

within the bank.

So our whole game plan changed.

But the tracers we had to figure out,

and we had to figure out quickly.

We did a bank

just to see how we had to deal with it.

We de-disguised Scott into a ski mask.

We didn't want them to think

it was Hollywood taking out the tracers.

And I said, "Listen, just go in there.

Don't even f*ck around with the tellers."

"Go into the vault, get the money,

and when you come out,

we'll have the tracers."

"Then we'll find out

how they're planted in the money."

All of these tags

were put between $20 bills,

because you can fan it,

you can feel this lump.

In a very short time, we got two

that we discarded out the window.

And then after all of that,

we both felt comfortable and confident

that we could actually do it.

[tense music playing]

[Shawn] I woke up the morning

of Thanksgiving Eve 1996.

My wife says to me that morning

before I leave, "This is the day."

"This is the day.

You're catching Hollywood today."

And I'm thinking, "Well,

yeah, I... I don't know about that."

[Mike] Thanksgiving week

was always a short week

and most of the people

aren't even in the office.

[Steve] We wake up Thanksgiving Eve.

We look out the windows.

The rain was pounding.

It was gray and dark.

It was beautiful. Wonderful.

Perfect day for what we were doing.

[tense music continues]

I'm in there cleaning,

setting things up, making it perfect.

[Mark] We go to the makeup room

and we put on

the prosthetic pieces and the wigs,

and there wasn't really a lot said.

[Steve] I walk into the studio.

Scott has the guitar case out.

He has his as*ault r*fle out.

He has the shotgun out.

[Mark] The idea was

that if a cop car came up on us,

we would grab the shotty,

jump out, and sh**t out the engine,

and disable the cop car.

[Steve] Everything was finalized.

We were ready to get in the van

and take off for Seattle.

We had Mustang as a lookout on the hill.

It's time to do it.

[music fades]

We had been trained specifically

on the Hollywood Bandit.

And when he walked

into the Lake City branch to rob us,

he walked right past his wanted poster.

Don't panic. This is a robbery.

[Steve] Scott walks in first, sets

the motion of getting everybody in place,

and then Mark comes in,

and he starts

directing the patrons in there.

[Mark] You're not even afraid.

You've rehearsed it in your mind

and you've done it before,

and so you do it.

My worst nightmare. Not one Hollywood,

but two, walk through the door.

And sh*t just hit the fan.

So I started pulling up the bill trap,

which sets off an alarm.

Who's the vault teller?

So I said, "Well, that's me."

So we both went back,

and the vault can open

with a special duress combination

that activated another alarm.

[tense music playing]

I wanted every f*cking

law enforcement agency in Seattle there,

and there as quick as possible.

[Mike] The office was a ghost town.

Nobody was there. Lights were out.

[Ellen] I'm at my desk,

just trying to tie up some loose ends.

[Mike] We're monitoring

the Seattle police radio

when the tones go out.

And you hear this beep, beep, beep.

They're in there for two minutes,

three minutes, five minutes.

I don't hear anything from Mustang.

Everything is cool.

And then finally I get the radio.

[dispatch] We have two suspects

who entered the bank with hats on.

Long green coats,

wearing white pancake style makeup

on their faces.

[Scott Levine] I hear someone calling in

over a radio, "You've been seen."

- He was not calm.

- Get in here. Help!

[Scott Levine] He was angry.

He wanted in, he wanted out.

He meant business.

[Scott] Let's go, let's go, let's go!

[Scott Levine] I dumped the ProNet

into the bag.

As he has a g*n aimed at me,

I'm thinking,

"Is he gonna come back and sh**t me?"

[keys tapping]

Mike runs by and he says,

"A bank's been hit.

I think it's Hollywood."

[Mike] We ran to the car,

turn on the lights,

turned on the siren

and took off down Second Avenue.

[Shawn] I leave my office

about five o'clock,

thinking the day's over with.

I walk into the kitchen of my house,

my pager goes off.

I looked down. It was Hollywood.

[Mark] Scott was in the vault

for a little too long, I thought.

But then here he comes

bounding out of that area,

and he had this great big duffle bag,

which I took immediately.

I'm grabbing the 1,080,000

in this duffle bag.

[tense music playing]

- [sirens wailing]

- By this point, we can hear the sirens.

And that's when we noticed

that there were cops everywhere.

Thick as flies.

[sirens continue wailing]

[Steve] Scott yells, "Steve,

maybe we should just abort right now."

"Let's just quit."

I say, "What the f*ck

are you talking about?"

"Let's go! Get this sh*t done.

Get these tracers out."

I was driving that f*cking car

like it was stolen.

We were getting updates constantly

from the chief dispatcher.

Two suspects armed with handguns,

but I'm trying to focus on

the tracking devices that left the bank.

[Mike] Do we have any signs

going at all at this time?

[dispatch] Wedgwood and Lake City

are both hot.

[Shawn] I'm following

this tracking device.

It's hitting different areas of the city,

different antennas, hot and cold,

hot and cold.

I'm trying to follow that signal.

Finally Scott yelled out, "I got one!"

He gave me two $20 bills

that were glued together

with the ProNet tag,

and I threw it out the window

and kept going down the street.

[Mike] An officer

pops up on the radio and says,

"I'm starting to get

a real strong indication here."

I roll up on the scene

and found on the street

the tracking device discarded.

And immediately, I said, "Oh, sh*t."

But I knew there's one more

tracking unit still out there.

They were back there working. I said,

"Biggins, straighten your mind up."

"Get the f*cking sh*t going.

Don't be afraid. Just get it done."

[Mark] It was such a panic

with all the police out buzzing around.

We knew that they were hunting us.

We had taken $1,080,000 out of the bank

and it was too difficult

to find the tracking devices.

[sirens wailing]

All of a sudden my display lights up

and goes, "Poof!" It's game day. Showtime.

[dramatic music playing]

[Steve] Scott said, "Pull over.

I want to drive. I know better where...'

I said, "I know where I'm going.

Just do what you gotta do."

And he was stubborn.

[Scott] Get over here!

[Steve] And I finally said, "Okay,"

and I looked behind my driver's seat,

and there was this pile of money.

And they didn't have

any order to what they were doing,

and I go, "Oh my God. Oh my f*cking God."

[Scott] Just drive!

What are you doing? Let's go!

I'm still a ways back.

I need to get there.

It's my case. I need to be there.

[Mike] I'm listening to the tone

and it's going, "Eeee."

And I'm following the display

and it's guiding me in

towards this white van.

And I shut off all my lights

and I'm just following the display

right towards the rear end

of this Chevy van.

I could see there was condensation

on the back windows.

[Ellen] And we could see lights

through the back window.

It looked very odd.

So we knew

they were scouring through the money.

I said, "Radio,

we're gonna be doing a felony car stop."

[Mike] We're gonna have to do

a felony stop here.

I'd like to have more units.

[Steve] And so Scott, as he pulls up,

we're on a little knoll,

he pulled up to the street to turn left.

And as he turned left, I saw the cop cars.

Three cop cars behind us.

[Mike] The van coasted to a stop

against the curb.

As I was getting out of the car

and drawing my p*stol and going on target,

I realized that the suspect

was already out of the van.

The police have always said we shot first.

It didn't happen that way.

They were the ones that ambushed us

and began sh**ting at us.

Meyers' mouth is moving again,

so he's obviously lying.

Let me tell you this.

Let me tell you this.

I could see, along the driver's side door,

a silhouette,

and it was dark,

but I could see they had a r*fle.

And I saw the r*fle come down on me.

[Ellen] I didn't see it.

I... I could only see

through the front windshield.

So I never saw anybody get out of the van.

[Steve] The reason for those g*ns

wasn't to have a shootout with the cops.

It was to disarm the vehicle.

No. That r*fle was pointed right at me.

Everything that I was taught

was kicking in.

He went down to take aim at me,

and I thought, "Oh, sh*t."

And for some reason

the r*fle was not firing.

And then,

"click, click, click." Three clicks.

I go, "Oh my God."

Suddenly the cops started sh**ting

into the back of the van.

I could tell my rounds

were going through the back door.

[Mark] All I remember is getting hit

by a b*llet, and getting knocked over.

Suddenly, my left arm

just starts flying in front of my face.

"They f*cking shot my arm off!

They f*cking shot my arm off!"

I'm screaming.

And then a little bit further up,

Scott stops again and gets a shotgun.

When we get to that second location,

a firefight really ensues.

As I was getting out of the car

to draw down on the van again,

I heard three of the loudest booms.

[g*nshots]

[Ellen] There are b*ll*ts

whizzing by my head.

All I could see was glass breaking.

I didn't have my body armor,

and I am in the middle of a shitstorm.

I'm trying to communicate

with the FBI office.

I'm telling 'em, "Shots fired."

[Mike] The van takes off again.

[Steve] My left arm

is just floating in the air.

Biggins is shot in the abdomen.

Blood everywhere.

And then suddenly

the van comes to a thud. Boom.

[van crashes]

As I lay in the back of the van,

Scott runs off.

I'm thinking,

"This is what we always spoke about."

We were all in this on our own.

[Mike] As I was running

towards the vehicle,

I'm seeing a silhouette of a body

running south in an alley.

[Steve] The wipers were going,

it was still in gear,

and Biggins is not saying a word,

so I don't know

if he's alive or if he's dead.

And Scott's gone

and all I could hear

were all the cops yelling,

"He's gone. He's running over there."

"sh**t that m*therf*cker!

k*ll him! k*ll him!"

I went to the alley and I... I stopped.

I thought, "Don't go down this alley.

This is what we call the Fatal Funnel.

At that point I realized I should back off

and go back to the van

where other officers

had two suspects down.

And I saw this white male

down on the ground handcuffed.

I said, "Who are you? Are you Hollywood?"

And he says, "No. He ran down the alley."

I said, "sh**t me, son of a b*tch.

You were doing it a minute ago."

"Just sh**t me.

k*ll me, get it over with."

He said, "Don't worry about it.

The courts will take care of your a*s."

When he told me to sh**t him, I said,

"No. You're not getting out of this one."

"We beat you at your game."

[Steve] I didn't want to go to prison.

I mean, at that point nothing mattered.

Life was over as far as I was concerned.

And suddenly, the fear

and the pain and all that goes away,

and I looked in the van

and I saw this pile of money

and all the b*llet holes

that the cops put in the van

were like laser beams of light.

And suddenly, this beautiful divine music

came into my head.

I'd never heard earthly music like it.

And the money became

almost like this talisman of...

"What is it? It's a bunch of paper.

Who gives a sh*t?"

"Who does what people do

for this stupid stuff

that has no meaning, really?"

[ethereal music playing]

[Mike] The Fire Department

was at the scene treating Biggins,

and he was motionless

like he was dead on the ground.

As I was looking at him, the firefighter

looked up at me and he went...

He gave me a thumbs down. I thought,

"Oh, sh*t. I just k*lled somebody."

I took a deep breath and I said to myself,

"This is something I never thought about."

I'd been in one previous sh**ting,

but I was not in a sh**ting like this.

This was a shootout.

[Mark] Outside of the van,

I was in and out of consciousness.

I remember Mike Magan

opening one of my eyelids,

checking to see if I was living or dead.

I remembered having a sense of relief

that it's finally over.

I can let it go now.

I don't have to live like this anymore.

[reporter 1] The two men who were shot

were taken into custody

and then taken to the hospital.

One man remains at large.

[reporter 2] Dozens of officers,

FBI agents, K-9 units,

even the SWAT team

were called in to look for the fugitive.

Especially if somebody's

still on the loose, that's a scary thing.

They could be anywhere.

[Shawn] I follow the ambulance

down to Harborview Hospital.

I would deal with the crime scene later.

I need to talk to Steve

and find out who else

we were looking for that night.

This is it. I'm not putting up with this

anymore. This has gotta be the closure.

[Steve] In the waiting room

in the hospital,

Shawn Johnson asked me questions.

And if you can imagine me being shot up

and I'm in a situation, here we are,

Scott's on the loose,

I don't know if he's dead or alive,

Biggins might die.

Your mind is not clear.

So I'm trying to protect myself.

After two hours,

Steve Meyers finally tells me

that the person I'm looking for

is Scott Scurlock.

He said Scott Scurlock is Hollywood.

[dispatch] Seattle Police and Fire 19.

[man] Yeah, I know they're doing a search

in our neighborhood.

- [dispatch] Yeah.

- [man] Somebody just pounded on our door.

[woman 1] There is a canoe

with a tarp over it.

[dispatch] Uh-huh.

[woman 1] I don't know

if anybody should check it.

[woman 2] I didn't see anybody,

but I'm thinking that, um, under my deck

would be a good hiding place.

I keep hearing that the officers

are going door-to-door

throughout the night

and throughout the day,

trying to find some lead.

Nothing is turning up.

[woman 3] I'm just wondering, in my area

there's police all over and helicopters...

[dispatch] Right,

you need to stay inside, ma'am,

and, uh, try not to tie up

the emergency lines with calls.

When I learned that Hollywood had escaped,

I was angered because so much work

had gone in to try to apprehend him.

The only word that kept coming

to my mind is, "f*ck. Really?"

Hollywood was right there.

How did he get away?

[suspenseful music playing]

[Mike] For the next several hours,

I was walking around with nervous energy

when my pager went off.

[man] I think that bank robber might be

hiding in my camper in the backyard.

[dispatch] And what makes you think that?

[man] I saw somebody's in there

and it's all locked up

and nobody's supposed to be in there.

It was my old partner and he said to me,

"They have your suspect cornered

right near the sh**ting scene."

[dispatch] Could you tell

if it was male or female?

[man] No, I just saw some dark hair.

- [dispatch] Okay. How long ago?

- [man] I just came in, right now.

[Mike] The officers

are dispatched to the camper.

They're pounding on the camper,

trying to see who's inside.

So they bust the window

and spray in pepper spray.

And a moment later

they hear a single g*nsh*t.

[g*nsh*t]

[Mike] The officers

fire back into the camper.

- [g*nshots]

- [smashing glass]

I was told that 76 rounds

had been fired into the camper

by officers who were at the scene.

[David] Good evening.

Thanksgiving has been interrupted

for dozens of families.

It's a police standoff,

and the suspect may be

the bank robber known as Hollywood.

[reporter] Right now,

Hollywood the bank robber,

one of the luckiest,

most prolific in the country,

looks like his luck has run out.

[tense music playing]

[Mike] As I was arriving,

Seattle police

was getting there simultaneously

with their armored vehicles

and setting up a command post.

[Shawn] We had helicopters.

We had armored vehicles.

There were probably a couple of hundred

law enforcement officers there that day.

I'd never seen such a huge response.

This is Thanksgiving Day.

The whole city is at home

with their families

and able to watch what's happening on TV.

Not only does

the entire neighborhood come out,

but if you live near that neighborhood,

you come out.

People come to see what is happening,

especially when something

that's almost like a movie

is so close to their homes.

[David] I mean,

a quiet North Seattle neighborhood,

and you have hundreds of police,

the SWAT team.

All this happening on Thanksgiving.

A Thanksgiving

that nobody's going to forget.

Our last of our guests were leaving

and I got a call

from my Aunt Helen who lives in Seattle,

and she was hysterical.

[reporter] Our top story...

[Suzanne] It was all over the Seattle news

that there was this police shootout

with this bandit named Scott Scurlock,

and there's a SWAT team

around this little trailer

in this lady's backyard.

And then I, at that point, sat down

and just said... [exhales] "Whoa. Whoa."

It was just so mind-blowing

to find out that he's been robbing banks

for five years.

[reporter 1] People are

out of their homes,

their Thanksgiving disrupted

by this, uh, police manhunt

that has been going on now

for more than 24 hours

in this neighborhood.

[reporter 2] Police and FBI agents

have been in standoff mode,

g*ns drawn, and negotiators in place.

[David] The standoff is still underway.

We know that shots have been fired.

They've been banging on the door.

They've tried to contact him. They can't.

They wanted this to end

in the way they wanted it to end.

They weren't gonna take any chances.

[Shawn] And after two hours of no response

we decided to make entry into the camper.

[tense music playing]

[Shawn] I walk in with the Tactical Team.

We found a body underneath the table.

I had a picture with me. I look down.

[tense music continues]

Scott.

At that point, I knew that it was...

We had him.

And turned out that he had k*lled himself.

That first shot the officers heard

was him k*lling himself.

[reporter] Good evening.

A suspected bank robber who died yesterday

during a standoff with police

apparently k*lled himself.

[David] Scott Scurlock,

who police dubbed Hollywood,

was found dead in a camper last night...

[Steve] I woke up the next morning

in the hospital and the TV was going

and the news was carpeted with us,

and my name and Scott Scurlock

from Olympia, Washington, deceased.

A self-inflicted wound.

And, uh, I kind of looked and I just go...

"Thank God," you know.

I just said, "Thank God."

The shootout was the end.

Not only the end of our endeavors,

but the end of a certain life that I had.

We were like two comets that came together

and we met up and we started flying

through the f*cking universe

and suddenly, boom!

It's all busted up in one second.

It's gone.

[Ellen] I feel like this episode

tested me in every possible way.

I was thinking about my kids

when the sh**ting started,

and wondering, you know,

am I doing the right thing

by doing this job

when there's a lot of other jobs

I could be doing in the FBI?

[somber music playing]

[Mike] A day doesn't go by

where you don't think about it.

My only question to him would probably be,

"Why did you take your life?"

And I'll quote Mark Twain,

and Mark Twain said

that he would never wish death upon a man,

but he's read some obituaries

with great pleasure.

[Shawn] The major regret I have

in this investigation

is the fact I never got

to sit down with Scott

and talk to him face-to-face, man-to-man.

If I had been in the vehicle that night,

in front of that pursuit line,

would I have done what Mike did,

sh**t into the back of that van? No.

There's always another day to catch him.

Seriously, there's always another day.

[somber music continues]

[camera clicking]

[Suzanne] It was heartbreaking

for the whole family.

It was almost like a...

like a double whammy of... of,

"Whoa. He was doing what?

He ended up here?"

My father adored Scott

and was heartbroken.

Not only that we lost him.

We also lost who we thought he was.

[Scott's father] I miss

being able to love him.

I miss being loved by him.

And he really genuinely loved me.

I don't think

there's any question about that at all.

And I loved him dearly.

No matter what he was like.

The number of secrets he had

about the life he had been leading

were so huge

that if he had walked out of that trailer,

put his hands in the air, and surrendered,

he would have had to have faced

his entire world.

And I honestly believe

that the last decade of his life,

he was making choices that he knew

were gonna come down to a dead end.

[Steven] I received a call.

"Scotty's died.

He died in a bank robbery."

My mind immediately went into,

"He was trying to stop the bank robbery.

He was being the hero."

And so I asked the question. "Well,

how did he die in the bank robbery?"

And the answer came back

that he was the bank robber.

It felt like my heart

and my brain exploded.

[Steve] When I was in prison,

Mustang visited me four or five times.

She would always come on the anniversary,

the day before Thanksgiving.

She'd always think of Scott.

And I got a letter from her sister,

said that she'd committed suicide.

She just couldn't bear the fact

that all that she'd been involved with

over the years with Scott and me,

and that suddenly he's dead

and I'm in prison for all these years,

and that she is walking free.

It's like, she's not walking free

in her own soul.

I don't think she believed

she was walking free.

[T.J.] Steve Meyers,

who used to go to Shakespeare plays

with my husband and I.

He's going to prison.

We have Mark Biggins.

Sensitive guy. Poet, guitar player.

He's going to prison. Blows my mind.

People always say,

"Oh, you knew the guy in the Treehouse?"

"You knew Hollywood?"

I'd go, "Hey, I didn't know Hollywood."

"I knew Scott Scurlock."

[Mark] Scott and I

had several discussions about,

"What are you gonna do if we get caught?"

And he would always, always say,

"I'm not going to prison.

I'm gonna head for the white light."

I've read the victim impact statements

and some bank tellers and some customers

in the bank were... were truly traumatized

by the... the whole experience,

and that I regret sincerely.

[somber music continues]

[T.J.] Scott had a T-shirt

that said "Live Free or Die."

And I think he spent a lot of years

figuring out how to live free.

But in the end,

he died and he wasn't free.

[Steve] After his death,

the Treehouse died

within a year, a year and a half.

It crumbled and fell.

I mean, this tree house and Scott

were one soul, inseparable.

And Scott's death was its death.

And it had to be that way.

[Mark] After being released from prison,

I went back to the Treehouse.

It looked like a shipwreck.

It was just a pile of timber.

And I took some of Scott's ashes

and spread them and said goodbye, finally.

[Scott] I have just finished

reading my whole diary

and it seems like a thing of the past.

I feel like a completely different person.

So many things have happened to me

that there's no way

I could write them all down.

My mind seems to be farther than my body

from the earth below.

I feel excited but scared.

It is a time of new beginnings.

[soft rock music playing]

[music fades]