Criminal - American Dream

Episode Date: November 27, 2015

When we're kids, we have ideas of what we want to be when we grow up -- movie star, doctor, astronaut. But what if we dream of being like Butch Cassidy, Jesse James, or John Dillinger? And what happens when you're not a kid anymore but you're still obsessed with becoming an outlaw? For Clay Tumey, this dream led him to commit a series of robberies in 2006. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family.

Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Your own weight loss journey is personal. Everyone's diet is different. Everyone's bodies are different. And according to Noom, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Thank you. for a healthier lifestyle. Stay focused on what's important to you with Noom's psychology and biology-based approach. Sign up for your free trial today at Noom.com. I think he said something along the lines of robbing banks is easy, I can get away with it. It wasn't exactly his quote,

but it was somewhere around those lines, and I just laughed it off. Like, of course, yeah, sure you can. Audrey Fernandez had been friends with Clay Toomey since they were in high school in Texas in the 90s. They reconnected on MySpace around 2006 and started a relationship. Anyone that knows Clay, he says things that can or can't be true with a straight face,

and you don't know if it's a joke or not because it could very well be true. But this wasn't the first time Clay Toomey had made a joke about robbing a bank. I remember him just blurting out one day that he was going to rob a bank one day to see if he could get away with it. Larry Smith, Clay's childhood best friend, remembers him making the joke when they were 15. We laughed at him and told him he was stupid and went on about our way, but for whatever reason, that always stood out in my mind. Larry Smith grew up to be a police officer, and Clay Toomey grew up to be a turbine mechanic. But Clay never stopped thinking about robbing banks. You know, bank robbery is kind of the American dream.

It's kind of, you know, we make movies about it, we talk about it, and I don't know why, but we like bank robbery in America. He never outgrew his obsession, and he says he knew it was getting more serious when he started Googling it. Actually, I think it was AOL search bar. It wasn't Google back then. But I was looking up bank robberies, like how often did they happen? And what I found was that there were a lot of banks getting robbed in the country back then. But I was looking at bank robbers, like how often did they happen? And what I found was that there were a lot of banks getting robbed in the country back then. This was 2006. Not only did he learn that there were a lot of banks being robbed all over the country, but only about half of the robbers were ever caught. The other half were getting away with it. And Clay thought that if he was really, really prepared,

he could absolutely pull it off. He started training the way someone might train to run a marathon or teach themselves a new language, and he made himself an expert in what to do. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Anything to do with bank robbery, whether it was stats, whether it was really just any kind of information I thought I could use to my benefit when I started planning.

So after a few months of doing that, I finally worked up the nerve to go do it. The first thing that would come into my mind is, do I have to wear a mask? You know, I would just be thinking, I mean, what were the things that you were trying to check off and figure out? Well, the number one thing was if I can just look normal, then nothing else really matters. So I wasn't worried about a mask. You know, to me, walking in a bank with a mask is, you're like, everybody knows what you're doing the minute you're there.

And my thought process was get in and get out without anybody knowing, except for the teller that I robbed. Clay wanted everything to be simple. No gun, no tough guy stuff. It would be what's called a note-only robbery. It's literally a note you write down on a piece of paper. You could rob a bank with a sticky note. I mean, that's all you need.

That could be the weapon. And once I realized it was that easy, I started thinking, okay, if I can just go into the bank and stand there like a normal customer and not really tip anybody off that I'm there to do something bad, and I can just have my note ready and wait in line. And when the next available teller was ready, I could just hand them the note and never say a word. You must have thought a little bit about what that note would say. I thought a lot about what that note would say. I probably thought too much about it. I wanted it to be very clear in terms of instructions, and I wanted it to have an instruction for them, something for them to do. In other words,

give me money. And then I wanted it to say something that would hopefully ease their stress level. And then I also wanted them to know that I didn't want them to look at me. So the three things that I wrote were, give me your 50s and 100s. I'm not going to hurt you. Don't look at me. He chose his bank. We are at the Chase Bank in Garland, Texas. And as you might have noticed, Clay doesn't do things haphazardly.

He chose this bank for a reason. Yeah, I grew up, my stepmother worked here most of my childhood, and I grew up, I'd been here a few times. This was when my first checking account was here. And yeah, so I'd been here more than once. A few weeks ago, I went to Texas, and he took me there. It was Sunday, and the bank was closed, so we looked through the windows. He walked me through exactly what he did. First, he wrote his note on an envelope. He wanted the teller to put the money in the envelope and hand it back to him so there would be no evidence left behind.

He parked his truck across the street and sat there for a minute, getting his courage up. And then he walked into the bank, said hello to the receptionist, and got in line to see a teller. And when the lady says, you know, I can help you over here, I walked over to the window and I just gave her the slip as though it were any other normal piece of paper. And she read it and she went into this kind of robotic, very slow motion, make sure she does everything right, puts the money in the thing. And, you know, I specifically asked for 50s and 100s,

so she was very particular about making sure she did that and, you know, handed me the money. Did she look scared? She looked scared in a, not a fear for your life type of scared. It was more like, this is crazy, but it's more like that when you see a cop in your rearview mirror, you straighten up and you do things right. You're not necessarily afraid that the cop's going to kill you, but you know that you've got to do things right. And it was that kind of fear. She very clearly followed the directions and except for the one that said, don't look at me because that's the first thing she did. That's

the first thing they always did was like, they look at you as if to verify that you're not just playing a joke on them. And she handed me the money and I just kind of nodded and turned around and left. He got back in his truck and drove out of the parking lot. There were no police following him. His plan had worked. Wow, like I just, I said like the F word as loud as I probably could and it was just so, it was like exciting. I mean it was like I couldn't believe that I really had done that and that it was really that easy. I mean it was so quiet and just a peaceful, like it was, it was really strange but it was also very, at the time it was just worth it. I loved the way it made me feel.

Clay had walked out of that bank and driven away with $2,850, money that he didn't even need. I mean, he had a good job. He had just bought a new home. He had a new home with new furniture. He had new vehicles. He had the American dream. Everything was just, if you had aligned it out, just check off the box. Clay's mother, Sherry Lee. I met her when I invited myself to a family pool party. Kids rode around on four-wheelers, and someone was cooking on an industrial-sized grill.

What was Clay like growing up? Oh, Clay was a mischievous little boy. Whatever I expected him to do, that was boring to him. So he just would do things out of the ordinary, I guess you would say. You know what the sun and moon is, right? I think it's a good analogy. This is Clay's older brother, Clint. He couldn't stop laughing when I asked if he and Clay had a lot in common.

It's hard to put into words. We have the same parents, which I think he'd even agree, it's quite amazing. There was one thing that happened that was impossible for his family to chalk up to Clay's being different. For a long time, his mother had a CD in the bank worth $25,000. She'd set it up to cover her funeral expenses. And when Clay was 25, he decided he'd just go take it for himself. I kind of had an issue with money in general. And I thought, you know, I had some people in my family that did very well financially and some that were kind of hurting. And I thought that there should, that gap was too big. And I was and I just had issues with money in general.

So I decided, you know, I'm going to go take this money and do what I want to do with it. And so that's what I did. When the thing matured, I went and I transferred all that money to my personal account, and then I just started giving it away slowly over the next probably two or three weeks, just doing what I thought was quote-unquote right. Clay says he used the money to help a guy who'd gotten his car stereo stolen and to help another friend who'd gotten a little behind on a house payment. Seems nice enough.

But I don't know if you can call yourself Robin Hood when you're stealing from your own mother. Sherry got a letter from the bank telling her that her account was empty. She drove down to the bank and watched the surveillance camera footage to try to help the security guards figure out who'd stolen from her. It was a grainy, blurred image, but a mother can recognize her son pretty much anywhere,

and there he was. I mean, everybody, my age, my race, my size, whatever, we pretty much look the same on those cameras. Now, in 2006, things were a little bit different than they are now in 2015. But even still, their priority is not to catch criminals who are coming in and doing these little robberies here and there. And I just thought, you know, I could totally do that. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials.

This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Autograph Collection Hotels offer over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Hand-selected for their inherent craft, each hotel tells its own unique story through distinctive design and immersive experiences, from medieval falconry to volcanic wine tasting. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of over 30 hotel brands around the world. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. How far are we from, right now we're actually kind of close to where you were living. Yeah, I lived in Rockwall at the time, and I was probably 10 miles away.

Clay drove me to bank number two, the American National Bank in Rockwall, Texas. This is actually kind of the closest option. Yeah, it's almost bike riding distance. It's really close to where I was living. Which kind of goes counter to everything that we think we might know about bank robbering, which is get away from anyone who might know you. I wasn't really thinking very clearly. It wasn't a good idea to do something so close to my house, but at the same time that's kind of what made it more appealing, I guess. It's kind of like the one where my stepmom worked, you know, it's a bad idea to do that,

and that's kind of what made it fun. Again, he used his note method, and again, it worked. He walked out of there with just over $7,000, no trouble. But a month later, when he walked into a Chase bank in Allen, Texas, Clay met his match. So I was in the bank, and the lady, you know, I can help you over here, and so I walked up to her, and I gave her the envelope, and she did, I'll never ever forget this. It's clear as day in my memory. She did this thing where it's like, almost like a

teenage girl who's just like put up with her dad's silly jokes. Her shoulders, she just kind of rolls her eyes and she opens the drawer real slowly. And she grabs like a couple of hundreds and a couple of fifties. And I could see clear as day that it wasn't all of anything. And she puts the envelope and she slides it back. And I didn't even pick it up. I just looked at it. And I said, you can, this is one of the only times I ever actually spoke during a robbery. And I said, you can do better than that. And she puts her, you know, hands up, you know, kind of like this shrug motion, palms up, and she goes, that's all I got. Clay was furious. You can see it in his face when he tells the story now, even all these years later. But he'd made rules for himself. And rule number one was

never to attract any attention. So he turned around and headed back to his truck. Immediately, she started screaming, Lock the doors! Lock the doors! And I was just like, like, shit, I'm screwed. There was about 40 feet between Clay and the bank doors. He realized he had three options. He could run and hopefully beat anyone who started to chase him. He could stand there

and turn around and pretend that the teller had lost her mind, which seems like maybe an idea he saw in a movie once. Or he could ignore it all and slowly continue walking. And that's what he did. One step at a time to the door. And when I got to the door, you know, she'd been screaming at the top of her lungs, you know, to lock the door, so I wasn't sure if it was going to open. And when I got to the first set of doors, I kind of leaned on it, and it opened. I was like, all right, cool, one more set, I'm good to go. And I got to the second set of doors and leaned against it. I wouldn't use my hands because of fingerprint stuff, but I leaned against it, and it opened. It opened, and when he got onto the sidewalk, he managed to meet someone even more out of their mind than he was.

There was a guy walking in as I'm walking out, close enough to where I would normally hold the door open for him. And I shut the door. I was like, ah, you don't want to go. It's kind of busy. You might want to go through the drive-thru. And he was like, yeah, nah, it's just going to be a couple minutes. So he goes to open the door, and it was already locked.

For some reason, the it was already locked. For some reason, the man went completely wild. He was pounding on the bank doors with both fists and yelling, completely offended that the bank had locked its doors in the middle of the day. Anybody who had seen anything was now watching this lunatic go crazy on the door that was locked. And so I walked across the parking lot, and I'd parked on the other side of Starbucks, so you couldn't see my truck from the bank. He got into his truck and stayed put

as police cars started arriving, sirens blaring. The man who was pounding on the doors was arrested, and when he thought it was safe, Clay drove away. But instead of driving as far away as possible, Clay chose to drive just across the street, literally just across the street, to a Chili's where he ordered food. You know, I just really like their chips and queso. The last thing in the world that I would ever do is stop at that Chili's for some queso. Like, I mean, I can't even... We're not far away from this bank.

We are across the street from this bank. Yeah, that's one of the things that I thought was really entertaining at the time. According to Clay, that was it. After that very close call, he retired. All told, he admits to robbing three banks and getting away with about $11,000. But that's just what he admits to.

But you robbed banks for a year. So you, I mean, it seems like if you were doing this for a year, one could assume that maybe there are a lot more than three. Yeah, one could assume that. One could assume a lot of things. I mean, it was, look, it was a blast. It's not that I was, you know, it's not that I was doing it like every day or even every week. You know, it was just whenever I felt like doing it. Three Banks was also the number he was willing to tell the police when he turned himself in. He says he knew that just because he hadn't been caught didn't mean he never would be. You know, a lot of people think that I had a guilty conscience or that I had some other motive in turning myself in,

but the real reason was I just wanted to get it, you know, behind me and do my time, not have to worry about it, and then get out and then start over from there. Clay had a young son. He figured he could do his time and get out before his son was old enough to really remember things. So he called the police, and at first he tried to get away with only telling them about one robbery. They said, no way. We've seen the security tapes for that one, and it doesn't look like you're a first-timer. So Clay admitted to two more. On the 26th of June, 2008, he was indicted on three counts of bank robbery, a federal crime, and sentenced to 36 months in prison.

I have to say that after spending all day with Clay, I found it pretty hard to believe that he had robbed only three banks. I couldn't stop asking him about it. I'm going to guess like eight total. A lot of people have guessed a lot of things and none of them have been successful in getting me to give any indication if they were accurate or inaccurate. I'm just going to go with like eight to eleven. I'm changing it a little bit. There's also the question of why, and we talked about that a lot. I kept thinking that if I asked the question enough different ways, I'd somehow be able to figure him out. He told me he'd always imagined he would end up being famous one day. He says maybe a rock star. He says he never thought he'd wind up being a regular guy in Texas, because he always felt like he was different.

On the one hand, I kind of got that. But another part of me wondered if he might be a narcissist. Yeah, narcissism was my middle name. I mean, everything was all about me. I knew better. I was, my ego was just out of control, and I thought that the world was just stupid or stingy or all these things that I thought I could correct. And it started with that little bit of money and eventually spiraled all the way down to the point

to where I was waking up in a jail cell trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my life. He got out in 2010, just before his son's fourth birthday, and spent time working in the oil fields in West Texas, where a lot of felons end up. He says the question he gets asked most is not why he did it. People don't really seem to care about that. They just want to know how he pulled it off. Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohr and me. Audio engineering help from Rob Byers and Russ Henry. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com, where you can also learn more about our show and listen to past episodes. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC.

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