Infamous America - MIAMI SHOOTOUT Ep. 2 | “Escalation”

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

After a robbery spree in October and November of 1985, Michael Platt and Bill Matix go dark until January of 1986. They return to their favorite territory in South Miami, but they run into trouble when a witness provides crucial help to the police. Platt and Matix escalate their violence, which leads to their first big mistake. FBI investigators make progress, but they still need a key piece of information in order to crack the case. Thanks to our sponsor, Quince! Use this link for Free Shipping and 365-day returns: Quince.com/infamousamerica Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com or @blackbarrelmedia on Instagram. APC first line:  This episode will be available for free on … . For instant access, ad-free listening and exclusive content, join Black Barrel+ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5, now playing only in theaters to get available now. Barnett Bank, on the corner of South Dixie Highway and Southwest 136th Street in South Miami, was the unsuspecting location of choice in 1986 for armed robbers Michael Lee Platt and William Russell Maddox. The bank was a small building that was nestled in a corner of a huge parking lot which serviced larger companies. Today that branch of Barnett Bank is a branch of Ocean Bank, which sits in front of major retailers, office max and Home Depot. By January of 1986, the employees of Barnett Bank would have known that they suddenly found themselves working in the hunting grounds of two armed robbers. At that time, no one knew the identities of the robbers, but everyone knew that they had struck twice in one

day on South Dixie Highway. On November 8, 1985, they had taken $10,000 from a teller at Florida National Bank. That was less than a mile down the road. road from Barnett Bank. 90 minutes later, the thieves shot a guard and took $41,000 from Professional Savings Bank. Professional Savings Bank was about a block up the road in the other direction from Barnett Bank. A person could walk through parking lots from Barnett Bank to Professional Savings Bank in about five minutes without ever touching a major street. After that crazy day, it would have been understandable if the employees at Barnett had wondered if they would be next. But then nothing happened.

As suddenly as the spree began in early October, 1985, it seemed to end in early November. Michael Platt and Bill Maddox were old army buddies who met while they were military policemen at Fort Campbell, Kentucky in the 1970s. Maddox finished his second short stint in the service in 1976, and Platt finished his longer service in 1979. Tragedy struck the families of both men in the early 1980s. Maddox's wife was murdered at the end of December, 1983. Almost exactly one year later, Platt's wife reportedly took her own life.

Between those two deaths, Bill Maddox moved from Ohio to Miami, Florida, to start working with his old friend Michael Platt. In October of 1985, a little more than a year after Maddox moved to Miami, Platt and Maddox killed a young man named Emilio Brielle and stole his car to use as a getaway vehicle. Then they attempted three armored car robberies over the course of seven days. The first was partially successful, where they stole $2,800, but the other two were failures. Three weeks later, they switched to bank robbery and hit two banks in one day, the ones on either side of Barnett Bank.

That day netted them $51,000, and they went quiet for two months. During that time, the Miami-Dade police and the FBI tried to figure out who and what what they were dealing with. Was the two-man crew a new independent operation, or was it part of a larger network of thieves? No one knew at the time. In fact, the only things the FBI knew were the observations of witnesses and the deductions after the spree.

The two suspects were both about six feet tall. They wore army fatigues and ski masks, and they used a variety of weapons, from handguns to shotguns to rifles. They had used at least two different getaways. away cars, the most recent of which was a 1977 Chevy Monte Carlo which had been stolen from Emilio Brielle. All five robberies had happened in a tiny corner of South Miami, a 15-square-mile box. The easy deduction was that the robbers probably lived in the area, and the deduction was correct. Michael Platt lived in a small house just west of the box of robbery

locations, and Bill Maddox lived in a small house just east of the box of robbery locations. Bill Maddox lived less than a mile from Florida National Bank on South Dixie Highway, which he and Platt robbed on November 8th. Almost exactly two months later on January 10th, probably when the money ran out from the November robberies, Platt and Maddox returned to South Dixie Highway. The only bank they hadn't targeted on their preferred stretch of road was Barnett Bank. In 1986, Barnett would get a double dose of Platt and Maddox, though we would have to be be a Brinks armored car guard who would suffer the worst effects of the violent escalation

of Platt and Maddox. From Black Barrel Media, this is infamous America. I'm your host Chris Wimmer. In this season we're telling the story of the no-holds-barred robberies of Michael Platt and William Maddox in the mid-1980s in Miami, which culminated in a deadly shootout with the FBI. This is episode 2. Escalation.

A Brinks armored car pulled into the parking lot next to Barnett Bank at 10,000 10.20 a.m. A local man, William Roberts, was already in the lot. He sat in his car and wrote an entry in his checkbook before he went into the bank. Also in the lot was a gold, 1977 Chevy Monte Carlo with two men inside. When the Brinks armored car parked, the driver stayed in the vehicle, which was standard protocol. The guard, who was 29 years old and married with two kids, stepped out and walked around the back of the truck. It was the guard's first week on the route that took him to South Dixie Highway, and he, like everyone else, knew that the road was a hotbed of armed robbery.

Last summer, the summer of 1985, numerous armored cars had been attacked, and a Wells Fargo Guard had been killed. The FBI had busted a crew in August, the crew that killed the guard, but the robberies started up again in October. No one knew if the October crew, two guys were. wearing ski mass and army fatigues was associated with the crews from the summer. Either way, it was extra dangerous to be an armored car guard in South Miami in the mid-1980s. The guard opened the rear doors of the truck and removed a hand cart on which to load two heavy canvas bags of money

to take into the bank. With the rear doors open and the guard occupied, the two men in the Monte Carlos stepped out of their car. The driver now wore a black car. The driver now wore a black ski mask, also known as a balaclava. The passenger now wore a red bandana tied around his face like an Old West outlaw. The man in the black mask leveled a shotgun at the guard and pulled the trigger. The close range blast knocked the guard to the ground. The robber wearing the red bandana walked up to the guard with a weapon described as an automatic rifle and shot the guard twice. Then the bandit grabbed the two canvas bags of cash and tossed them to his partner. The man in the black mask, caught the bags, and loaded them into the Monte Carlo. The two men jumped into the car

and sped away from Barnett Bank. The whole thing took less than a minute, and William Roberts watched it all from his car a few yards away. And then Roberts made the brave decision which led to a revelation in the case. He followed the thieves. The Monte Carlo sped out of the parking lot and onto a residential street, southwest 136th Street. Then it turned left onto Southwerelland, West 84th Avenue and pulled into the parking lot of an outlet store. Essentially, the robbers drove around the block. They parked the Monte Carlo next to a white pickup truck, transferred the weapons and the money to the truck, and then drove away in the truck. William Roberts kept his distance, and he saw the robbers make the switch to the pickup, but he couldn't read the license

plate number. The robbers vanished into South Miami traffic, but the Monte Carlo was still sitting in the parking lot. William Roberts flagged. down a police officer who happened to be driving by and explained the situation. The officer called in the robbery, but paramedics were already on their way to Barnett Bank. On the pavement outside the bank, the guard was bleeding badly, but he was still alive. Paramedics loaded him into an ambulance and rushed him to Baptist Hospital. Doctors began emergency surgery, and X-ray showed roughly 100 shotgun pellets lodged in the guard's body between his legs and his chest.

condition was critical. An assistant manager for Brinks told Edna Buchanan of the Miami Herald newspaper, something must be done. We've all been getting hit, not only Brinks, but all the armored carriers. Miami Metro-Dade Police Sergeant Hugh People said, it's certainly one of the most cold-blooded robbery shootings that we've had in some time. It sounds like their intention was to do exactly what they did. Blow the guy away and get on with it. ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old.

You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. There's no way to know where Michael Platt and Bill Maddox went or what they did after William Roberts lost sight of them. If they wanted to go to ground as fast as possible,

they would have driven the white pickup to Bill Maddox's house. Maddox lived just two miles away. Otherwise, Michael Platt lived about seven miles in the other direction. Wherever they went, they were safe for the time being, with $54,000 from the heist. Within minutes of the robbery at Barnett Bank, FBI agents were on the scene and interviewing employees. They found shell casings from 223 caliber ammunition, which was the same caliber that had been used in robberies in October and November of the previous year. And, critically, they talked to William Roberts. who relayed his experience of witnessing the robbery and the shooting and then following the robbers to their switch car.

The FBI now had its most important piece of evidence, the Gold 1977 Chevy Monte Carlo. The agents ran the registration of the vehicle and learned that it belonged to Aureliano Briel. Knowing nothing of Aureliano Briel, they had to assume he was involved in the crime. Four days after the robbery, FBI Special Agent Edmundo Morelli, and his partner drove to Briel home. When the agents knocked on the door, Arreliano's wife answered. The agents identified themselves, and the woman immediately asked if they were there because of her son. Morellis said yes, without knowing that the woman was talking about Emilio Briel, not Arreliano,

and that Emilio had been missing for three months. Arrilliono joined his wife at the door and ushered the agents into the house. The Briel's explained the situation with their son. Three months earlier, on October 4, 1985, Emilio had borrowed Aureliano's car to go to an abandoned rock quarry to shoot cans with his 22-caliber rifle. Emilio never came home. Neither he nor his car had been seen since then. The Breels had filed a missing person report, but they had not filed a stolen car report.

They hadn't heard a word from anyone in law enforcement, and they hoped the agents were there to update them on their son's disappearance. Special Agent Morelis and his partner quickly realized that neither Arrelliano nor Emilio Brielle were involved in the robberies. In all likelihood, the thieves had found Emilio at the Rock Pori, killed him, and stolen his car. The agents wouldn't be able to prove it until they found Emilio's body, which was lying in a field in the Everglades west of Miami, but it was the most likely scenario. The agents thanked the Breels for their time and apologized for not having any information about their son. Meanwhile, the Miami-Dade police checked the Monte

Carlo for fingerprints and other pieces of evidence and came up with nothing. Unfortunately, for law enforcement, the Monte Carlo was not the immediate home run they had hoped it would be. But it did create a domino effect. Michael Platt and Bill Maddox needed a new getaway car. And, like they did with their robberies, where they kept the same basic routine each time, they used the same idea to find a new getaway car. In October of 1985, they had found Emilio Brielle by himself at a rock quarry on the western edge of Miami, right next to the Everglades. In March of 1986, they returned to the rock quarry, and in an eerie coincidence, they found Jose Colazo shooting cans with a 22-caliber rifle.

Jose Colazo was 29 years old. Like Emilio Brielle before him, Colazo was at the Rock Quarry shooting cans with a 22-caliber rifle. Also like Emilio, Jose Colazo drove a Chevy Monte Carlo. But Colos was black, and it was a 1979 or 1982 model. On March 12, 1986, Michael Platt and Bill Maddox drove their white Ford F-150 pickup truck into the quarry and paused beside Jose Colazo. Then they pointed guns at him. Platt and Maddox carried the same guns they used in the robberies, a Smith and Wesson 357 Magnum Revolver, and a Ruger Mini-14 rifle. They demanded Colazo's gun, money, and car keys. Colazo handed them over, and then the men marched Colozo to a canal which bordered the quarry. Platt and Maddox forced Colozo down into the

water, and then shot him four times. Colozo fell into the water, and Platt and Maddox walked back to the two vehicles. One of the men climbed in the carlowe's. Colazo's Monte Carlo and the other climbed into the pickup. They drove away and left Jose Colazo to die. But Jose Colazo didn't die. The abandoned rock quarry, which was sometimes referred to as a garbage dump because it was probably a popular spot for disposing junk, was on the extreme western edge of Miami. It was near the intersection of Southwest 16th Street and Southwest 157th Avenue, about five miles from Florida International University. In that area, a community called Tamiami,

157th Avenue is the dividing line between the city and the swamp. On the east side of 157th is the city of Miami. On the west side is the Everglades. Jose Colazo was out there on the edge of the world when he crawled out of the Tamiami Canal. Despite gunshot wounds to the side of his head, his arm, and his back, Colazo walked more than a mile and maybe as many as three miles down a dirt road until he made it to a convenience store. An employee called an ambulance, and by the end of the day, Jose Colazo was at Jackson Memorial Hospital

on the other side of the city near downtown Miami. After Colazo had displayed an incredible determination to live, doctors worked feverishly to make sure he would survive. At the same time, one of his shooters, Bill Maddox, attended to a personal matter. Four hours after Bill Maddox shot Jose Colazo and left him for dead, Maddox sat in the office of a divorce lawyer to discuss the ongoing proceedings with his wife Christy. They had married toward the end of the previous year and had lived together for one month before Christy realized she had made a mistake and moved home with her parents. Now they were in the middle of a divorce, and Maddox had to answer some questions.

Whatever the answers, the busy day of March 12, 1986, ended with Michael. Platt and Bill Maddox in possession of their new getaway car. And it ended with Jose Colazo in critical condition at Jackson Memorial. Remarkably soon after Colozo was admitted to the hospital, he spoke with FBI Special Agent Ben Grogan. Jose Colazo provided the first descriptions of the faces of Platt and Maddox, and FBI artists drew composite sketches. Colazo provided more information about the white Ford F-150 pickup that the shooters had been driving.

which finally allowed the FBI to take its first real proactive steps to catch the robbers. After Jose Colazo provided facial descriptions of the robbers, the FBI went to work. The effort was tedious, but with the limited information and technology at their disposal, it was the best way to proceed. Agents started doing a grid search of the area around South Dixie Highway. The robbers had struck three banks on that road, all within two miles of each other. It was clearly their preferred territory. Agents drove a grid around South Dixie Highway between 88th Street and 185th Street,

looking for white Ford F-150 pickup trucks. Each time they spotted one, they wrote down the license plate number. After a couple days, they had a list of 10 registrations to check. They searched computerized files to find the names of the owners of the 10 trucks. When they had the names, they gave them to the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles and waited for employees to perform the slow process of finding driver's license photos to match the names. No one knew how long it would take, but whenever the DMV delivered the photos, agents would take them to Jose Colazo to see if he could identify any of them as the shooters.

Today, the entire process would be computerized and it would take minutes. In 1986, it was a mix of extremely slow computer processing and checking files by hand. It ended up taking weeks. And before the search was finished, Michael Platt and Bill Maddox struck again, at the same Barnett bank they had hit in January. Exactly seven days after Platt and Maddox shot Jose Colazo, they used Colazo's car in their final successful robbery. At 9.30 in the morning, on March 19th, while the FBI waited for,

for driver's license photos from the DMV, Platt and Maddox drove Jose Colazo's Black Monte Carlo up to Barnett Bank on South Dixie Highway. Both men exited the car and ran into the bank. They wore dark clothes and ski masks. One carried a pump-action shotgun and the other carried a military-style rifle, which was assumed to be the Ruger Mini-14

that had been used in previous robberies. One of the robbers guarded the door, while the other vaulted over the teller's counter and grabbed two small bags of money. They ran back out to the Monte Carlo and sped away with $8,300. It appears as though at least one witness noted the license plate number of the vehicle, which Miami Police and the FBI quickly confirmed as Jose Colazo's car. But other than that small detail, the FBI received little in the way of usable clues. Security cameras at the bank had recorded the entire robbery from,

various angles, but the poor quality of the cameras and the videotapes made the footage worthless. Agents could not identify anything beyond the obvious. Two men in dark clothes and masks robbed the bank. Platt and Maddox disappeared again, and left law enforcement with a growing sense of frustration. Over the course of five months, the two thieves had conducted seven robberies in a small area of South Miami. Four of those robberies were at banks on the same road. All were conducted in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses. By March 1986, FBI agents also knew that the two thieves had tried to kill Jose Colazo and had probably killed Emilio Brielle.

Agents knew the descriptions of the thieves and their full modus operandi, and yet, no one knew who the thieves were, or where they lived, or how they spent their time between robberies. After each crime, the robbers became ghosts. It was maddening for law enforcement. With no good leads on the suspects, the FBI and the Miami-Dade police could only do more of what they had been doing. Vigilant surveillance of likely targets. AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's just chaos.

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The police had contacted armored car companies and banks in the area that had become the hunting grounds of the robbers and warned them to be extra vigilant in case they were somehow unaware of recent events. The police received pickup and drop-off schedules and delivery routes for the armored cars. Officers increased their patrols in the area, and especially along the routes of the armored cars. They saturated the area with patrol cars as much as possible in an attempt to spot one of the suspect's vehicles, or even better, to catch the robbers in the act. Unfortunately, the plan relied on a fair amount of luck, and neither the police nor the FBI were lucky. The two robbers had returned to Barnett Bank on March 19th, right under the noses of law enforcement. The sliver of optimism was that the robbers were still operating in the same area.

In theory, a surveillance plan could still work, again, if law enforcement got lucky. On Thursday, April 10, 1986, FBI supervisory Special Agent Gordon McNeil and Special Agent Ben Grogan were at the shooting range discussing the situation. McNeil was 43 and Grogan was 53, and they were longtime veterans of the Bureau. They had already established a grid of roughly 50 city blocks that was their area of focus. Random patrols of the area had not turned up any new leads, but there was one variable which could help the FBI become more specific with its surveillance, and that was timing.

Three of the last four robberies had happened on a Friday. Fridays were popular days for robberies because they were often paydays. The day after McNeil and Grogan met at the firing range was Friday, April 11th. The gap of time between robberies had been anywhere from three weeks to two months. Friday, April 11th, would be three weeks since the March 19th robbery. And finally, most of the robberies had happened between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. Since the FBI still had not received the driver's license photos from the Florida DMV, McNeil and Grogan decided the FBI should try to make its own luck.

If the window of time for the next robbery opened on Friday, April 11th, the FBI should be patrolling the 50-block grid in force. McNeil mobilized a unit called the reactive squad of the Miami Division of the FBI. The squad was made up of 14 agents who worked the southwest portion of the city. They received a briefing about the suspects and the mission, though most were familiar with both. The two suspects were roughly 30 years old and six feet tall with solid builds. One who turned out to be Bill Maddox was sporting a bushy mustache. They would be driving one of two vehicles. A black Chevy Monte Carlo stolen from Jose Colozo was their preferred vehicle for the robbery,

and a white Ford F-150 pickup was their go-to vehicle as a switch car after the robbery. If the men were spotted, they would be heavily armed with an assortment of handgun. guns, shotguns, and military-style rifles. And they would, of course, be extremely dangerous. They were the epitome of shoot first, ask questions later. In the grid that would be the area of focus for the reactive squad, there were four banks which could be targets for the bandits. Three of them, all of which were along South Dixie Highway, had already been struck.

Florida National Bank, Professional Savings Bank, and Barnett Bank. Florida National and Professional Savings had been hit on the same day in November, 1985, and Barnett Bank had suffered the two recent attacks in January and March, 1986. The fourth bank on the list was a different branch of Barnett Bank, a couple miles away from the hotspot of South Dixie Highway. On Friday morning, April 11th, the 14 agents of the FBI squad met at a parking lot at 8.45 a.m. Teams of agents would station themselves at the four banks. banks on the target list, and the others would be on roving patrols in the neighborhood. In theory, they were all set, 14 agents versus two bank robbers.

But as often happened, numbers wouldn't tell the full story. There was certainly no guarantee that all of them, or even most of them, would be able to work together to stop the bandits. If the robbers actually showed themselves, the agents would have to coordinate a fast response. There was no way to know which agents would be involved, and that was where it became a little dicey. According to Special Agent Ed Morales, who was part of the squad on April 11, the agents were limited in the types of weapons they could carry.

They all carried a department-issued sidearm. A few used 9mm semi-automatic pistols, which held one round in the pipe and 14 in the clip, but most carried a classic six-shot revolver, the exact model that Danny Glover used in the original lethal weapon movie. A couple agents had pump-action shotguns in their cars, but Morelis said later, FBI rules stated that the only agents who could carry assault rifles were those who had completed qualifications for the SWAT team. A couple agents in the squad had, quote, submachine guns in their cars, and one had an M-16 assault rifle. But as fate would have it, none of those agents would be part of the bloodiest shootout in FBI history on the morning

of April 11th. As military commanders since the dawn of time have said, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Next time on infamous America, on the morning of April 11th, 1986, the FBI gets lucky and then unlucky. Michael Platt and Bill Maddox drive right into the FBI drag nut with the intent to commit another robbery. But when the robbers discover they're being followed, they lead agents on a chase, which ends in a shootout the likes of which the FBI has never experienced. That's next week on Infamous America. To binge all the episodes of a new season and to listen to every episode of the podcast with no commercials, subscribe in Apple Podcasts, or sign up through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com.

The series was researched, written, and produced by me, Chris Wimmer. Original music by Rob Valier. Thanks for listening. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets. Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music. They feel seen by it, like it belongs to them. So when your brand shows up on Spotify, that's who you're talking to. And you're right next to artists like me, Lizzo. So, are you ready to talk to fans? Spotify Advertising. You're among fans.