I went on a date with a bank robber so not fair for me to comment.
HOWEVER I will.
When on ONE single first date he tells me this at the bar in a supper club having one predinner cocktail, early on in the date, and I am stuck. I am or was too polite to be obvious and I am not a liar and knew I'd fail at trying to suddenly bail and come up with a reason. My mind was scrambling however on how to do that during the date at some point and calculating how long would seem reasonable and believable.
First date. Had met him prior, then talked on phone which led to date. No HINT he was a bank robber. And I wasn't dumb, I had told a family member I was going on a date, where I'd be, etc. playing it safe although I had no idea there was any reason to, it was simply a safe dating guideline I followed.
I'm a real person and I like real and honest people which probably has not always helped me in life. I no more than get on this date, the restaurant was out of town, this is before cell phones or at least I didn't have one and he didn't either. Anyhow he dumped this on me probably meaning to be upfront and honest at this point (not before getting a date though, he never hinted at such before I was now on one) and I panicked inside and tried to not show my shock and fear on the outside. It may sound minor but finding oneself out with a person who committed an armed robbery and just got out of the fed pen is not fun. Inside I was calculating or trying to how long I had to go and how to get back to town safe and get out of this date. Well had to do dinner I figured and then get back to town, home, safety, etc. Would have been way too obvious to bail the minute hearing this or try to. Yes, I was also being or trying to be nonjudgmental and fair, he was being honest and had did his time but inside I was totally panicked and any interest in him dropped and changed. Instantly. And nothing i told myself about how it isn't fair to judge was helping that.
We get to this supper club and are having one drink at the bar and in what one would call getting to know each other, he tells me he robbed a bank, just came out of the federal pen and wanted to be upfront and honest. I am FLABBERGASTED and stuck I felt and inside I am freaking out. BUT since I was stuck for the ,moment, and at least I was in a public setting, I just tried to calm myself (impossible) and act like I was not shocked, etc. Act nonjudgmental. And I asked him about it. The why?? Did he regret it? The how much? Where? Etc. This is also before at least for me or anyone I knew, internet. Anyhow he was one of a few friends who did so. Young. To see if they could and get away with it, etc. Never really gave a lot of thought to consequences, a thrill, thinking they could pull it off and wanting to see if they could, etc. I think he was like 22 and was out at 32 or some such, seems to me he served ten years. Or 25 and 35.
I say all this for a reason. Think about this. Think about how it is glamorized and it is. The old westerns and bank robbery. How many movies with heists. Even cat burglars and artwork. Robin Hood. James Bond. And how even today and always white collar crime is minimized and sentenced to less, it came up a lot at the recent Murdaugh sentencing.
It is stealing from a business rather than an individual (not Murdaugh but most others) but tell me why it is different for a white armed robber at a bank than a black armed robber at a convenience store? As to how it is looked at and sentencing? One is federal and one is not is one thing but still... Both are just as bad. And bank robbers are almost glorified. Probably played into big time why this guy and some friends did as they did.
It isn't funny and it isn't minor. BUT like anyone I love mysteries like the DB Cooper thing, I love/d movies about smarts and theft. And yeah this one has someone that managed to change identity and elude forever. Clearly he had some remorse or didn't want his family hurt and either feared where he was going in the afterlife to come clean or he knew his wife and daughter would be hurt and the truth may come to light and he cared enough to tell them, or to try to save his own soul. It does not, however, excuse him and it is not glamorous or a lesser crime. Field trips, etc. makes him a good father and a man? Alex Murdaugh attended most or all of his sons' sports and events. I mean wow. Such an adult. And in the end he killed his son.
Maybe one or two gravitate to this because of the sheer attention put on the smarts and crime in movies about such things and so on. Or when young and not having the experience or smarts to discern but you know what, they are criminals just the same wielding a gun or even a fake gun, note about a bomb or whatever and striking fear in those on the other end of it just like a convenience store robbery but boy are both treated differently and one is glamorized and boy if they get away with it for how long, even more so.
The date guy when asked was not desperate for money, he had no real reason other than he and his buddies wondered and figured they were smart enough to pull one off and again he was young. Ten years isn't much but he did it on a "fluke" or for the fun/thrill just to see if they could? Never a thought of how it would affect his life if caught etc. Afterwards I figured he couldn't have even adulted yet other than in prison as in maintained a job, a household, a checkbook. I also could not go home and look him up because internet was not quite the thing yet. and of course could not beforehand either. Nothing with which to do so. Early/mid 90s. I am guessing.
It needs to quit being glamorized and minimized. I'm no different in that one of my favorite movies of all time is The Sting. I love movies and fictional novels where the smarts of the bad guy are better than the investigators are superior and he is a good guy inside and doing it for the right reasons or he turns into a good guy. Women love the bad boy ya know. I wonder why... Or love things where the bad guy really turns out to be the good guy.
Well i did not like such when really finding oneself with such.
This all does entertain us and we think wow, that's almost admirable like emu thinks of this guy. My brother would too, I love him and miss him. Loved westerns, the Old West, all of it and more. We all are intrigued and it is romanticized about people like Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde and more. Myself included. Intrigued. And so on.
Yes, I was due for a long one and to shake off some real life before facing it again. Hey it isn't a food post lol.
I don't even like this article about this guy and his family and there are things in it that bother me. I don't even recall all of what now but one thing was mom and daughter's decision to keep it to themselves for exactly one year. Hmm. Sure. Maybe forever if no one had come knocking is more likely. And that's assuming neither had a clue throughout, especially mom and maybe she didn't.
Again in Murdaugh, white collar crime came up in the recent sentencing a lot and it was pointed out more than once that his agreed on deal and sentence was more than any white collar criminal had ever got in SC. So what. He was facing like 200 years or some such on all of them. Now he defrauded real people and not just banks but the point is the same.
From what I heard "my" bank robber wouldn't have been one but for the thrill and seeming mystique and adulation such criminals get and they never see serious consequences result. At least not in many and certainly not in the movies.
DB Cooper too. I am as intrigued as anyone by it. But he's still just a criminal. Just like when a rich wife arranges a hit on her hub whether successful, carried out or not, it gets looked at less seriously than the man in lower class to middle america who just bludgeoned his wife in their home and tried to cover it up.
I don't know. I do know finding yourself out on a date with a bona fide bank robber is not as fun as the movies would make it out to be. And he did seem to be a truly nice guy. Maybe I dumped the right one (didn't go on a second date) and ended up with a worse one, I don't know. But how could anyone like that be an adult unless prison taught him to be one as that's where he'd been since reaching adulthood or close to it.
I am like anyone. James Bond, Oceans 11, old westerns, novels written for women, the guy is always a bad boy, at first anyhow, one has to admit it is all glamorized as this one right here in its way, how smart he was and how long he eluded capture. He never was captured. All of it is intriguing, mysterious and glamorized. He's still just a common criminal.
And i don't buy a few things in this article. Mom and her agreed to wait a year and made a pact but I think they may have agreed to never share it but LE came knocking. Also it alludes to friends or some such that knew... Seems a bit glamorized also.
I'm tired but there was one other thing I waned to point out and who knows if you will ever see me again on this one before I am behind times ten but I don't know what it was without looking at it again. But I do remember this. He is no Robin Hood.
Nowadays that sounds like a minor amount of money but it would have been huge then. And he was a bank employee

Sure. Of course he was.
My overdue long one. Hopefully my distracting myself with this total away from the real world talk allows me to handle the rest of this day and my complicated real world which could probably be largely fixed by robbing a bank but only if not caught. Although I guess utilities and a roof over my head would be provided....