The End of the Dream (22 page)

Thirty years or more ago, a dog-in-the-manger attitude about sharing evidence and information was more common than anyone admitted. Some of the most infamous cases in criminal history including the Manson murders, the Hillside Strangler, the Atlanta child murders, and the Son of Sam case were hampered by the hesitancy of one police agency to share information with another. In the 1990s, no department has the luxury of being territorial any longer. Being a cop today is much more difficult than it once was. With the advent of gangs and pervasive drug use, no law enforcement agency can afford to be an island. In 1993, the pressure was on in the Seattle area. There were enough major crimes particularly robberies and bank robberies for the FBI to suggest forming a task force. The Seattle Police Department agreed. This task force would allow many police agencies instant access to each other’s personnel and special knowledge. It would be comprised of the very best officers for the job from a number of departments both local and federal, six FBI special agents, four Seattle Police detectives, and two from the King County Sheriffs Office. The smaller police departments in the county would participate, along with HUD (Housing and Urban Development), the Secret Service, the a.T.F (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms), and the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration).

This new task force would be housed in the FBI’s “annex” on the 28
^th
floor of 1000 Second Avenue in downtown Seattle. Foremost among the task-force goals would be to remove Seattle from its spot near the top of the list for bank robberies in the United States. In addition, the task force would work to solve other other serious crimes, unsolved cases including homicides would be among them. It would be called the Puget Sound Violent Crimes Task Force. Still, the main focus of the task force would be to wage war on the army of bank robbers who were thumbing their noses at cops in and around Seattle. There were a lot of investigators who wanted to be on the task force among them Mike Magan.

For six years, except during the most inclement weather, he had spent his patrol time on a bicycle. Although he had never caught a bank robber and didn’t know much about that criminal specialty, it was something that had been at the back of his mind for years. Getting an assignment to the task force wasn’t going to be quick or easy. Mike was enthusiastic but realistic, he doubted that he had a much of a chance.
 
He wasn’t even a detective yet, although he had completed his compulsory time on patrol, and he had been on the detective eligibility list for three years. Helping to clean up a neighborhood ridden with drugs and prostitution would have been satisfying to any good cop, and Mike had had some some exciting moments. He had chased a bully, who beat and robbed vulnerable shoppers and transients, for eight blocks, although he was on a bicycle and the robber was in a Chevy Nova. He got the license number that led to an arrest. He was becoming so adept, in fact, in identifying robbery suspects that he often worked with the Seattle Police Department’s Robbery Unit. During February 1993, when Scott Scurlock was traveling in Europe and renewing his romance with the Swiss banker in a snowy resort, Mike Magan was working bike patrol in the rain in the north end of Seattle. A number of women had been attacked and sexually molested as they rode their bikes on the popular Burke-Gilman trail near the University of Washington. The precinct commander assigned the day-watch bicycle officers to stakeout the trail. The next day, Mike was riding the trail when he spotted a man who had removed half of his clothes. When he tried to question the man, he fled.

Mike caught him. The suspect admitted to the Burke-Gilman assaults and to an extensive criminal history of indecent exposure, burglary, resisting and obstructing officers. Mike Magan’s file in the Chiefss office was thick with commendation letters from the public and from other police agencies, and he was grateful for that. He loved his job, but he was thirty-one years old and he had the roaring energy and drive that young cops have. The adrenaline of a police chase is a strong motivator, and he found that he thrived in that edgy milieu. Mike didn’t take unnecessary risks, but he was never more alive than when he was responding to an emergency. His wife, Lisa, knew that. She knew that he wouldn’t be happy if she worried or put a guilt trip on him.

They had met in November 1990, at Nordstrom’s, where Lisa was in charge of the cosmetics department. Mike approached her as directly as he would have any suspect, and she found herself accepting a date. He had a forceful personality, but she was as independent as he. They made a great pair. Sometimes, Lisa grew impatient when Mike called off their plans because he had to meet an informant or somebody in trouble, but she always forgave him.

If she worried about him and she did she never let him know it.

Being a cop was who Mike was. That was part of why she loved him.

Shawn Johnson would be assigned to the Puget Sound Violent Crimes Task Force almost from the beginning. His style was very different from Mike Magan’she was more low key and reflective. If Mike got the assignment he longed for, that would be a plus, investigators stalking a common enemy work together more effectively when their personalities are not similar.
 
They bring more to an investigation. Although FBSPECIAL Agent Shawn Johnson and Seattle Police Officer Mike Magan might someday find themselves tracking the same suspect, they would come at him from a different angle. But, first, Mike Magan had to find a way to get on the task force. It was nearing November 1994. Like every cop on the Seattle Police Department, Mike Magan and Chris Gough began to hear radio reports of bank robberies. “We’d pedal up on our bikes, “ Mike laughed, “and arrive ten minutes after the fact, not exactly in a position to do much good. I said to Chris, You know I’ve never caught a bank robber.
 
Chris had about ten years on me on the force, and he said, I’ve caught two or three, and he went into this long spiel telling me how great it was chasing them down.”

“Let’s work on this, “ Mike said. “Let’s get some surveillance photographs from the FBI agents.”
 
Mike Magan knew that the FBI was looking for take-charge bank robbers who all had nicknames. There was someone called Abe Lincoln and Partners and someone dubbed Hollywood who worked with at least one other guy.

Mike made a few notes on the most likely suspects. Sooner or later, it seemed as if all the bad guys in the western half of the United States would show up along the Aurora corridor and he and Chris had a huge network of friends and informants. They decided to see what they could do to catch themselves a bank robber or two.

After the Key Bank in Northgate was robbed, Mike and Chris talked to two special agents. Mike gave them his card and asked if he could have some FBI bulletins describing the suspects. At about the same time, their supervisor, Sergeant Mont, asked Mike and Chris if they’d like to work plainclothes for a while and investigate a bank robbery in the tiny north end suburb of Mukilteo. It was November, the winter rains had begun, and working plainclothes in an unmarked squad car was preferable to riding their bikes through mud puddles and pelting rain.

They assured Mont that they would be delighted to look for the Mukilteo bank robbers. “Sure, we will, “ Mike said. “But who are we looking for?
 
“ Howard Mont gave them the name of a suspect, Nick Donteri, * who was believed to be living in Ballard. They obtained a picture of Donteri and went to the residence where he was supposed to be, but it turned out he had only been using the address. Nobody knew where he was. Chris and Mike had no luck at all locating Donteri. They told the resident FBI agent in charge of the bank robbery investigation that they had run out of leads.

Even so, Mike Magan’s eerie knack for snaring bank robbers had begun.

He and Chris Gough drove to the Starbuck’s on Aurora Avenue to get a cup of coffee. They strolled in, and Mike locked eyes with a man standing several feet away. “I knew him, but I didn’t know from where, “ he recalled. “We just kept staring at each other over the sugar and cream.” Mike whispered to Chris to go to the car and check the “Wants” bulletin.
 
Chris did and gave him a thumbs down gesture. The familiar-looking man was getting into his truck when Mike and Chris strolled over and identified themselves as police officers and asked him what his name was. “Nick ..

.” he said, a bit nervously. Immediately, Mike Magan knew.

This was Nick Donteri. “Donteri! “ Magan yelled, drawing his gun. It had been two years since Donteri had posed for the booking photo they were working from, and he had shaved his mustache and cut his hair in the interim. But his eyes gave him away. He surrendered without a fight.
 
“I’d caught my first bank robber, “ Mike Magan remembered. “I thought, Hey, this is going to be easy. It’s pretty sweet, making arrests like this, if they all go down this way.” They would not all go down like that, Magan didn’t know it then, but chasing bank robbers was about to become his job, his hobby, and his obsession. Being a bank robber had been Scott Scurlock’s job, hobby, and obsession for more than two years by the time Mike Magan arrested the Mukilteo bank robber. Scott’s first bank robbery had been a thrill, a pure adrenaline rush that made jumping off cliffs and meeting up with boy-soldiers in Nicaragua seem as innocuous and unchallenging as the mornings he and Kevin used to steal pies in Reston. In a sense, it was as if Scott had spent his whole life searching for the kind of thrill he experienced when he walked into the bank on Madison Street in Seattle. There had been next to no chance that he wouldn’t do it again. Just as Shawn Johnson and Mike Magan loved what they were doing and never considered other careers after they became working lawmen, Scott Scurlock had discovered if not a career, a challenge that seemed to satisfy his need for excitement and danger. He had carried off six successful bank robberies in 1992 and escaped all of them with enough money to last him for a long time. However slapdash Scott might have been about some areas of his life, he viewed robbing banks as an intricate venture from the very first. He learned from every robbery, and he grew more accomplished each time. Who helped Scott after his first robbery with Mark and Traci? It couldn’t have been Steve because Steve hadn’t moved from Chicago until August, and then he had a torn tendon that kept him on crutches. It couldn’t have been Kevin, or, rather, it wouldn’t have been Kevin, Kevin had let Scott know what he thought about illegal activities and his disapproval had bounced him right out of Scott’s inner circle. The accomplice might have been one of Scott’s women, but, if it was, no one ever saw her.

Mark Biggins had been in Montana until he came back in December and pulled his own clumsy and very lucky bank robbery. After that, he stayed in California. Indeed, Mark didn’t see Scott for most of 1992, and would not for all of 1993 and 1994. It had been a year since Scott’s last robbery on November 19, 1992. He had no more money for Steve to “launder” in Nevada. In a year’s time, Scott had managed to spend more than $300,000. It was time to begin again. Scott was totally unaware, of course, that this time he would be pitting his skill, brains, experience, and strong athletic body against a whole task force of menand women who were just as smart as he was. Maybe smarter. It would never again be as easy as it was the first year.

Once again, Scott Scurlock needed an accomplice. His first choice was Bobby Gray. Bobby was still living in Florida, working hard to keep his concrete business growing. Scott figured that he was temptable.

Bobby had known trouble in the past, he’d seen the inside of a prison after a drug conviction. And he owed Scott.

Bobby’s dream of having his own concrete operation had come true because Scott had loaned him $25,000 to buy his first concrete pumper.

It was a used rig, but it worked fine. Now the time had come, as it did with almost all of Scott’s “loans, “ and he called it in. Bobby fit the profile that Scott envisioned as an ideal accomplice, savvy, agile, and smart. Scott called Bobby and offered him more money than Bobby had ever had all for a few hours work. After listening long enough to Scott’s persuasive argument that this would be a fail proof operation, Bobby was convinced.

Scott immediately sent him a round-trip ticket to Seattle. But, as Bobby would recall later, he was on his way to the airport when he passed a Toys R Us store. He caught a glimpse of a rack of new bicycles outside.
 
Like the friends Scott had recruited in the past, Bobby Gray had a daughter whom he adored. His little girl wanted a bike, but he hadn’t yet seen his way clear to buy her one. Now, he thought, It things go wrong, I may never see my daughter again. But I can at least leave her something that will make her happy to remember me by. He wrenched the steering wheel and turned left into the Toys R Us parking lot. He bought the bike and headed for home to give it to his daughter. But when Bobby got home and looked at his family, he had a searing glimpse of reality.
 
His daughter didn’t need “more money than you’ve ever seen”, she needed him. He picked up the phone and called Scott.

“I’m not coming.” Scott was stunned, and then furious. “You get out here on the next plane, “ he said menacingly, “or else ..

.” and he slammed the phone down. Bobby stayed up all night, worrying about what forces Scott was about to call down on him.

Nothing happened. The next day, he called Scott, and said, “Or else, what? I’m still here, and I’m not coming to Washington.” Scott had cooled down. He apologized and said he hadn’t meant the threat literally. Bobby was never sure. Bobby Gray stayed in Florida and worked long, punishing days in one of the hardest areas of the construction business. By 1996, Bobby would own four concrete pumping trucks and he was well on his way to becoming wealthy. Even so, the tragedies that seemed to stalk everyone close to Scott Scurlock also followed Bobby.
 
Amazingly, Scott turned next to Kevin, who had stubbornly resisted him.
 
When Kevin asked him what he had in mind, Scott said he couldn’t tell him any details of what was involved or what the project was. He asked Kevin to trust him. “He only said, “ Kevin recalled, “”I guarantee you that you will make more money than you have ever had in your entire life. All it will take is one afternoon. One afternoon. I am talking about a quarter of a million dollars, Bubba.” It wasn’t even a decision for Kevin Meyers. He stared back at Scott and felt only sadness. He didn’t want to know what Scott’s project was. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.