"Open the safe! Open the safe!" shouted a bandit, leaping over the counter.
"I don't know the combination!" the teller pleaded.
Then came the sound of clicking, and cries of pain. The bandit was shocking the man with a stun gun, burning holes through his white shirt and searing his skin.
"Yo, man! We gotta go, man!" another bandit shouted. The men grabbed stacks of bills from behind the counter, then climbed into an SUV and disappeared.
That December robbery is one of 21 attributed to the Scarecrow Bandits, among the most violent, organized and daring bands of bank robbers in recent North Texas history.
Named for their style of dress during early robberies – flannel shirts and floppy, wide-brimmed hats – they became greedier and more intimidating as their 11-month spree progressed. They staged "takeover" heists, vaulting over countertops with rifles, assaulting those who stood in their path. By spring, federal agents were closing in, and on June 2, as the bandits converged on a bank in Garland, investigators confronted them. After several high-speed pursuits, authorities arrested six men and one woman, proclaiming they had brought the heists to an end.
Since then, officials have been tight-lipped about the case. But records, court testimony and interviews with those who know the suspects have begun to shed light on how they came together, what finally brought them down and which alleged co-conspirator remains at large. It began with two men, authorities say. They walked into a Dallas bank last July 2 wearing what would become their signature floppy hats. A teller backed away as she noticed them. Push the button, she told a co-worker. We're being robbed. A bank manager met the men at the counter: "Can I help you?" "Put your money in this bag or I'll shoot you, [expletive]," one of them replied. He held a silver handgun, a red and blue bandanna covering his face.
The manager dropped cash into the bag. "Ten, nine, eight ...," one of the robbers began, apparently watching the clock. Their time was up, and they walked out with $3,080. They were good at what they did, authorities admit. As the pair's successes mounted, they brought in others. Those who would eventually be arrested were a group bonded by longtime friendships and family ties.
By late November, the Scarecrow Bandits had robbed banks in Dallas, Garland, Mesquite and Richardson, and officials were offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to their capture. That bounty would grow to $90,000, a record for the area. The bandits spent only a couple of minutes in each bank. They ditched whatever die packs and tracking devices tellers tried to include with the cash. A stolen getaway car would be found somewhere near the bank. And they would be gone.
"These two individuals have gotten progressively more violent. We want the Scarecrow Bandits in jail before the holidays," announced Robert E. Casey, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Dallas office. He would not get his wish. The Capital One robbery just before Christmas was one of four by the bandits in December. Each time, they got away clean. Yet during this time, as Dallas police pursued a seemingly unrelated trail of drugs and murder, they arrested one of the FBI's eventual bank robbery suspects. Dallas police say Travis Nicholas Stenline, 28, was running a drug house late last year. Early on Dec. 9, police had his two-story brick home in Seagoville under surveillance because they suspected that a woman who lived with him was involved in the drug-related killings of two men the night before in Lake Highlands. As officers watched, a man came to the home and picked up a cache of drugs, police say. After his arrest that morning on drug-trafficking charges, he told investigators he worked for Mr. Stenline, referring to him as the "boss."
Mr. Stenline was also arrested that day on drug-trafficking charges, a case that is pending. He was released from jail Jan. 14 on $215,000 bail. After the bandits' 18th robbery, on Feb. 1 in DeSoto, they dropped out of sight for nearly two months. But they returned with a vengeance on March 28, committing two robberies in a matter of hours. About 1 p.m., around the time of the first robbery, authorities say, 42-year-old Tony R. Hewitt was typing text messages into his cellphone to a woman he had dated, 41-year-old Yolanda McDow. "Hey I need some help on a job. U game? ASAP."
"What is it?" she replied. She got directions from him to a Century Bank in Dallas, according to court testimony. Ms. McDow acted as a lookout, authorities say. She was to call Mr. Hewitt if she saw police. During the robbery, the bandits used a stun gun again, demanding the manager give them access to the vault. Later that day, they robbed a State Bank of Texas in Garland. Soon after the March robberies, yet another of the FBI's eventual suspects became ensnared in a murder investigation.
Police say Charlie Runnels, a relative and childhood friend of Mr. Hewitt, was running a Red Bird drug house. On April 13, he was accused of fatally shooting a lifelong friend there during an ongoing dispute over money. Mr. Runnels, 42, posted $100,000 bail, a low amount for a convicted felon charged with murder, and was released April 19. Five days later, authorities say, the Scarecrow Bandits committed their 21st and final known robbery, at a Bank of America in Irving. Again, they used a stun gun to shock an employee and hauled away $85,000.
Early the following morning, April 25, Dallas police would have yet another encounter with an eventual Scarecrow Bandit suspect. At 2:35 a.m., two rookie officers stopped 29-year-old Jarvis Dupree Ross in Far East Dallas for driving with no front license plate. He had a stolen 9 mm pistol under the driver's seat and a bulletproof vest in the back, police say. He was arrested without incident on charges of unlawfully possessing them. He was released from jail within a day.
By this time, the FBI had been told by a woman that she felt body armor when a bandit grabbed her during a robbery, but one law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation said it was not the bulletproof vest's discovery that provided them with a break. Instead, according to the official and others close to the case, it was a suspect's cellphone that created one of the first important leads. Noting which cell towers the phone used and when, the FBI realized it had been in the vicinity of many of the robberies. By mid-May, undercover agents were staking out a Lake Highlands apartment rented by Mr. Stenline, federal court records say. Corey Deyon Duffey, a relative of Mr. Stenline, seemed to be living there.
Mr. Ross later told the FBI it was Mr. Duffey who would call him shortly before a planned robbery. Another of the eventual arrestees, 30-year-old Darobie Kentay Stenline, would tell the FBI that Mr. Duffey, 27, hired him as a lookout in five robberies. On the morning of May 15, the FBI watched several of the suspects as they appeared to case a bank in Fort Worth. The next morning, they watched as Mr. Duffey met Mr. Hewitt, Darobie Stenline and others at an Oak Cliff apartment complex near 4100 Druid Hills Drive. The men were loading what looked like rifles wrapped in black towels into a vehicle, as if staging for a robbery. But the holdup in Fort Worth never happened, and neither did another that investigators believed was later planned in Richardson. On May 22, the FBI received authorization for an emergency wiretap of Mr. Hewitt's cellphone. Agents began listening to the calls, which included talk of the robberies. A week later, the FBI also tapped Mr. Duffey's cellphone. The agents kept watching and listening. The suspects talked about getting a stolen SUV's windows tinted. And they began discussing a bank in Garland near Shiloh Road and Bush Turnpike. The next morning, June 2, FBI agents got in place. And they let the Dallas police's SWAT team know it might be time to stop a robbery. The investigators watched Mr. Hewitt leave an apartment complex in his sporty gold 2001 Mercedes-Benz. About the same time, Ms. McDow left the same complex in her black Lexus. They and others converged on a Regions Bank in Garland.
Dallas police tactical officers swarmed the area, and the suspects scattered.
Ms. McDow and the other lookout suspect, Darobie Stenline, were arrested nearby in a Kroger parking lot. Ms. McDow had a loaded 9 mm handgun with her, authorities say.
Mr. Ross fled with Mr. Duffey in a white Cadillac, and Mr. Hewitt fled in his Mercedes. Mr. Runnels and another man, 31-year-old Antonyo Reece, fled in a different car. Authorities found themselves in three separate high-speed chases.
Authorities say Mr. Ross broke into a sleeping woman's apartment in Lake Highlands before being captured. Police say Mr. Runnels and Mr. Reece tried to escape by ramming a squad car in central Oak Cliff. Mr. Hewitt fled north at speeds exceeding 100 mph and tried to disappear inside a Plano discount store.
Remarkably, all seven suspects finally surrendered without any shots being fired.
The FBI spent the coming hours sifting through the contents of the suspects' cars, including rifles, ammunition, body armor, stockings, gloves, handcuffs and a stun gun. Each of those arrested was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank robbery and using a firearm during a crime of violence. The indictment lists only one bank: the Regions in Garland. The FBI held a news conference the afternoon of the arrests to announce that the Scarecrow Bandits had finally been stopped. Agent Casey was asked whether more arrests were on the way. "The investigation is ongoing," he responded, "and if we develop evidence that would support that, certainly we would do it." Travis Stenline was not among those arrested. But federal court records that have emerged since then call him a co-conspirator in several bank robberies. Mr. Stenline could not be reached, and federal officials declined to comment.
