Hey, Weirdos, Alayna here.
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From the creator of Think Twice, Michael Jackson, listen to the new Audible original Final Thoughts, Jerry Springer.
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Hey weirdos. I'm Alina.
I'm Ash and this is Morbid.
It's Morbid and I was just whispering about my computer screen being too bright while Lelena said, hey weirdo.
So you might have heard that.
You probably heard that.
You probably, yeah, dad probably did.
Peas are a little hard actually currently.
Your girl ate shit yesterday.
Oh my goodness. Wait, actually, before we get to that super duper fun tale, I feel like I have like a big question to ask everybody.
I feel like there's so many terms for falling.
Yeah, this is something we've learned over the last few days.
like I eat shit is one of them.
Like I didn't get actual shit.
I fell. And then there's also took a digger, which I say a lot like, oh, she took a digger.
Yeah. I've had some people look at me, like I'm like, like what, like what do you mean?
She what? You what?
It's like, fell, fell, everybody took a digger.
Yeah. Ate shit? Eat shit.
Anything else? What else is there?
Took a digger. Took a digger.
Ass over tea kettle.
I love that. But anyway, so yeah, uh, we were at the Celtics game last night.
Elena was nice enough to take me.
It's too soon to talk about.
Um, not a banner game.
My guy was out in the first, like 13 minutes of the game.
My God was killing it.
Yeah. So, um, but on the way there I tripped up the stairs and I really thought I had saved myself.
I was like, oh, okay, we're fine.
Nope. Momentum. I put my hands out.
Luckily it wasn't on like the actual concrete.
There's and I was lucky enough to fall on, which is also fucking disgusting.
But yeah, I put my hands out but it was still too late in the game, so my face skidded onto the carpet.
My lip did, my upper lip, and then my teeth kind of like, like my teeth bit into my top lip and took a chunk.
But I didn't bleed at all.
No she didn't. It was so funny.
And here I am coming at ya from the other point of view, one of the funniest things I've seen in a while.
I made sure she was okay.
Through laughs I made sure she was okay.
No, that's fair. But there was a whole shit ton of people in that stairwell.
Oh my God. That was all I was thinking about the entire, well, there was a few thoughts running through my head, but that was like one of the main ones.
I was like, oh my God, nobody asked me if I'm okay, because I don't wanna talk to you.
Thank you to the people of Boston.
Thank you to the people who were at the TD Bank Garden last night at the Celtics game.
We all suffered together.
Because Boston. And then you guys did us a solid and you did not ask Ash if she was okay.
You just cleared the fuck out of that stairwell.
No, because Boston is the, one of the only places where you'll ask someone if they're okay and they'll tell you to fuck off.
Like, so nice. So nice.
Thank you. I don't want you to ask me if I'm okay right now because I'm horrified.
Yeah, I'm mortified right now.
Mortified. That was great.
I looked around and I said, wow, everyone cleared out.
And then I said, are you okay?
And she was holding her mouth and I said, if you spit out a tooth, I'm gonna ask you to put that back in so we can see the playoffs.
And I would have, but she wasn't, she wasn't missing a tooth, she wasn't bleeding.
But it was one of those falls that's like slow motion.
And I said, oh, she's going.
And then I had no time, even though it was slow motion, I had no time to do anything about it.
It was slow motion and so fast. It was, because then once her hands hit the ground, the momentum just took her into kind of a crow pose.
The non -consensual crow pose that she did not intend to go into, but then her face hit floor instead of yoga mat.
And it was something.
It was something. So now I have like a blood blister on the inside of my lip.
and like one side of my lip is like a little swollen.
I know, I feel bad.
I mean, I'm not in any pain whatsoever.
It's just like annoying.
It was an omen for the game.
I know. Because, some of them did their best. Some of them did really well.
I think they all did their best. I think it was just an off night, but that's okay because I mean for all the non sports people we're just in the second round of the playoffs.
We're playing the New York Knicks, which like, Right?
So uh anytime I saw Nick's player pop up to any of our listeners, a Nick's fan, any of our listeners who are Nick's fans like we're in a fight.
Listen we love you always except at the TD Garden.
Except during the playoffs that's our house when I don't love you.
Yeah. Anytime I saw one of them pop up to cheer I was like sit down.
Sit the fuck down. But it's okay we had a blast. Made so much fun.
I hope Chris stops Porzingis feels better because that's my favorite player and he got sick.
I hope they play Pritchard more next game cause they should have. It was, it was sad.
And he was sick. I know him.
I know him. I know Chris stops.
I don't, but I know, but I know my old friend Chris Paradise as soon as he came out I said, Oh, he's sweaty.
And he was sick. So hopefully he's better for game two because we know him.
I think it's just a tummy thing.
I think it was a tummy thing.
By the time this comes out, you'll know who won everything.
I'm sure you listen, Chris stops.
So I hope you feel better.
Hey well yeah that was our sports night.
I know I don't like any other sports but Elena's made me a basketball fan.
The Celtics are just fun, it's just fun.
It's really fun. That team don't worry we'll stray away from this because I'm sure a lot of people are like I don't give a shit.
The Celtics team is just like a really likable group of dudes and they all like volunteer at Boston Children's Hospital and they protest for great things and like they're just they're a likable group of dudes so they're easy to love we'll keep them feel like it for a team to love love the Celtics and if you think that you don't like sports try basketball yeah it's fun all right never did i ever think we'd have a sports discussion on this show here we are hey there's a first for everything um but i have a really interesting case today uh Dave found this shout out to my boy David David!
It's still sports coded.
I can hear Dave right now being like no. Don't do that.
He's like, never do that again.
He's like, that was too much. We're like, Come on David, go team.
Okay David. He just like hit his butt.
He's like, this is a felony.
This is assault. He's like, I work for you, stop.
Where's HR? Okay, anyway, we're gonna talk about the Norco shootout today.
Hell yeah, we are. Which is fascinating.
I hope I don't come off as like super fuckin' ignorant right now.
I had never heard of this.
No, it's okay, not everybody's heard of everything, I've heard of - Thank you so much. I've heard of the term, the Nor, I've heard of like that, the Norco shootout, like Bank Heist. It's like how everybody knows Waco, you know?
I did not know any of the details of this so I am in the same boat as you.
Okay, I'm so happy to hear that.
Yeah. We're ignorant bitches together.
In a boat. Okay, well, did you say in our boat?
In a boat. in a boat.
I'm surprised you put yourself in a boat.
It's an ignorance boat.
So I didn't even know I was getting into it.
I was ignorant to that.
So the Norco shootout and the robbery that initiated it are among the most shocking and violent events in California's history, which is why they have achieved a certain level of notoriety throughout the years, except to me.
However, while the acts themselves are usually the focus of discussion, it's really the men who committed the crimes that made it especially surprising and notable.
They are interesting.
Not in a good way, but they're fascinating people.
George Wayne Smith and Christopher Harvin, the men who planned the heist, they weren't members of any kind of real criminal organization.
They also weren't even really desperate for, like, quick cash.
It wasn't like they needed to pay for something or were in dire straits or anything like that.
which is usually where these all begin.
Yeah. Um, like you've all seen the cheerleader movie where they steal money.
What's that called?
Sugar and spice. Yeah.
I'm going to watch that this weekend.
Oh my god. That movie.
I love that movie. That's a movie.
Um, but in fact they actually had no criminal record and really didn't have any interactions with law enforcement in their past, which is wild.
That's crazy. So why did they plan this elaborate robbery?
While they were devout members of an apocalyptic sect of Christianity.
There it is. Who were convinced that the world was coming to an end.
And they thought they were gonna need resources in order to survive the end of civilization as they knew it.
That just makes sense.
It does. It just I like, when you said that, I was like yeah.
That's the only other reason you would do that.
There is only like one, I think, I don't know if it was a TV show or a movie made about this.
There's only one, it was made in like 2006.
That's crazy. And then there was gonna be a movie but it doesn't look like it ever came to fruition.
What are they waiting for?
I would like to watch this and by the end of this story, you will too because, wow, interesting.
So as author Peter Houlihan points out, both George Smith and Christopher Harvin were part of the first generation to live their entire lives under the threat of nuclear war.
As kids, they spent their lives overhearing hushed conversations going on among adults about potential nuclear strikes, advanced weaponry, and of course the cold war.
And at the same time, the 60s and the early 70s was, as we all know, a time of revolution in various countries throughout the world.
The front pages of newspapers had photographs of armed guerrilla fighters in South America, headlines about hijacked airplanes bound for Cuba, like there was a lot going on.
It was a scary time.
Yeah, and that's traumatizing.
It is. Houlihan, who wrote Norco 80, the true story of the most spectacular bank robbery in American history, said the key takeaway for both was simple.
We're all going to die.
Which is traumatizing.
It is traumatizing, for sure.
Now, having been born in the mid to late 1950s in Northern California, both men spent their formative years right in the middle of all this social, political unrest. And by the time they'd come of age, violent revolution wasn't just an abstract concept to them.
It was regularly being discussed in bars and college campuses as a path forward to a new future.
Which is scary. That's horrifying.
Yeah. I can't imagine.
Very dystopian. Very.
Now in 1973 George Smith had just returned from two years in Germany where he trained as an artilleryman in the US Army His experience in Eastern Europe gave him insight into what life under an authoritarian Regime pretty much looked like and as an American.
It was a very eye -opening experience for him I'm sure so he was very happy to be in the US again and out of the army but all at the same time he felt directionless and was looking for some kind of purpose something to give his life meaning of Eventually he found that meaning within the Jesus movement, which was very big at the time.
The Jesus movement?
It was straight up called the Jesus movement.
Yeah, you know, that, I mean, that really sells you on what it is.
Jesus moves. Yeah, they don't bury the lead on that.
They don't. It was a group of young people like himself who were somewhat conservative, but they also embraced the politics of like counterculture hippy kind of people and maintained a healthy distrust of authority, which I'm sure he had after he left Germany.
Oh, I'm sure. All things considered, the preachers within the Jesus movement really weren't that different from other Born -Again Christian preachers but they have put a strong emphasis on the Book of Revelations and specifically its end time prophecies.
I don't know if you guys have read that one.
I have not, but I have heard some of the end time prophecies and they actually scare the shit out of me.
Real scary. And I'm not even like a big God gal.
No, I looked into it a little bit when we were interviewing Tobias Forge.
Yes. Because like, why not?
And it's got a lot.
It's got a lot going on.
Yeah, there's like trumpet men, there's horses, there's...
It's not great. It could be agony if it happens.
It wouldn't be fun if it happened.
I'd leave. But for somebody who believes strongly in these predictions, unlike ourselves, like George Smith did, the signs of the coming apocalypse were all around them every day.
On a global scale, the Cold War threats of nuclear war were ever -present, so was the social unrest that was occurring in countries all over the world, and closer to home, there was a lot of political and social divisions over everything, like, there still is race, gender, class, everything.
And it seemed to be pushing Americans closer and closer to the edge, and at the same time, industrial pollution was making the Earths pretty much uninhabitable.
So that's fun. Yeah, just slowly.
To George, who had been trained to interpret these prophecies by the Calvary Baptist Church, everything seemed to be lining up just as it was described in Revelations.
And that coupled with his time in the military and his experience with military grade weaponry, not only did he know that the end of times were coming, but he also knew precisely how and with what weapons it would be fought.
Ooh, scary. Now for Christopher Harvin, things were a little bit different, still very dire and very apocalyptic but different.
Like George, he saw the signs of the impending apocalypse everywhere.
but as somebody whose beliefs leaned more in the direction of spirituality versus actual religion, like organized religion, he took a less biblical form of things.
According to Peter Houlihan, Harvin viewed signs of impending social collapse in the alignment of the planets, predictions of cataclysmic overpopulation, ecological disaster, and an array of other doomsday scenarios that gained traction during the decade.
I hate that. Yeah, Yeah.
It's very interesting how in like very different groups of people everyone is predicting the apocalypse in some way.
Yeah. Because it's everyone's biggest fear.
Yeah. It's just like the biggest fear you can think of.
It is. Yeah. Now Chris and George somehow met in 1973.
They were both working for the Cyprus Parks Department.
They both had grown up pretty similarly but they did have very different personalities.
According to Houlihan, George was evangelical, engaging and outgoing.
Chris Harvin was more stoner than seeker, a burnout rather than a believer.
I love how he wrote that.
Like George, Chris had also joined the army right out of high school, but his behavior and his attitude got him kicked out after just two months.
So, you can see the differences between them.
But also how they aligned on a lot of the scarier topics that they like to talk about.
Which is a little creepy, because it's like they had the same idea, just different methods of getting there.
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Cheri Papini went missing in 2016.
The story that the world thinks they know is that I am a master manipulator.
She is California's real life Gone Girl.
It's not me. This was a hoax.
Oh, you're only talking now because you got caught.
And could this person being playing you?
This is just a lie...
Now I get to tell the truth.
Cheri Papini caught in the lie.
an i -d documentary event, monday at 9 but despite their differences in personality and temperament they did bond over their love of camping outdoor activities music guns weed and you know the apocalypse they were both in agreement that the world was coming to an end and that it was happening soon actually yeah now chris believed so obviously george believes that it's like a biblical thing it's gonna be like in how they say it in the book and the trumpets and all that and the four horsemen.
Exactly. Exactly. Chris, though, this is interesting, and I kind of want to look more into it later.
He believed that the end of the world or the apocalypse would come as a result of what he called the Jupiter effect, which would happen during a rare alignment of planets that would result in major tidal shifts and eventually a massive earthquake that would, you know, it would just tip everything right off the scale.
George's of the end of the world, like I said, was more biblical.
After the rapture, which he believed would happen in 1981, the world would be thrust into seven days of Armageddon and everybody would be scrambling for safety.
So, you know, for three years they spent their days talking about that.
That's healthy. Yeah, totally.
Talking about how they'd survived that, how they would survive it, what types of resources and knowledge they would need to just get through this impending apocalypse.
Chris, like I said, he wasn't religious Chris and he also wasn't exactly what one would consider a follower but George was engaging and very persuasive when he talked about his beliefs and since Chris was already in that headspace he was drawn deeper and deeper into George's paranoid fantasies and started to take them on himself.
That makes sense. That could happen.
You're spending all your time with this person.
And you do believe in one thing so wholeheartedly together.
Like you can understand why that group thing can happen.
I mean you see it happen all the time and you never think it could happen to you but you know there it is.
So Chris actually left the Cyprus parks department in 1976.
He wanted to find a place, a job closer to home.
He had expected George would join him since their boss really seemed to hate George.
But George stayed on for a few more years for whatever reason.
And in the meantime they remained incredibly close and in 1979 they scraped together enough money for a $5 ,000 down payment on a small house in Mira Loma, California.
And they financed a $56 ,000 VA loan taken out in George's name.
Jeez. This would be their home base, they were moving in together, and it was going to be the shelter that they would fortify and that would protect them from the coming apocalypse.
It's getting a little scary.
So they're moving in together.
I don't like that. And creating basically like a bunker.
Yeah. Yeah. That's just an echo chamber delusion and paranoia, yeah.
That obviously does not end well.
Not healthy. No no no. So Mira Loma is in Riverside County and it's just about 45 miles away from LA.
It's always been a relatively working -class town.
Neighbors are said to be pretty friendly, most people take pride in their homes appearance.
And that's exactly why George and Chris stuck out.
One neighbor told a reporter bluntly, they were weirdos.
Oh, I mean, which like usually I'd be not at, but there's a D.
There's a certain like weirdo that it's where you put that emphasis on it.
I feel like they were weirdos.
Like that's bad. You guys like us are like weirdos.
They're fucking weirdos.
They're apocalyptic.
Yeah. You know, that's different.
Just wait. They let their lawn grow out and they rarely tended to it, which is one thing, that's like annoying.
But here's the real kicker.
They built a 10 foot high fence around the backyard, basically to prevent anybody from seeing what they were doing back there.
The fence was supported by three feet of fiberglass and cinderblock, and George ran concertina razor wire around the top to keep people out.
Wow, and should anybody make it past that razor wire, the two men had hammered hundreds of carpet tacks to the sides sharp side up so that anything that came into contact or like tried to hop over that fence would be shredded.
Whoa. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah, just imagine, like, hearing, like hearing the construction of that and then seeing it erected.
That's a lot. I just. You know.
I'd be like, that's your business.
Like, you want to keep people out?
Yeah, that's your, that's your choice.
I'd be so nervous, um, but that's the thing.
It's like, I would be like, that is, like, you go off.
Go off. Like, I get it.
Keep everyone out. A lot of people suck.
Yeah. But this would make me nervous.
It would not make me feel like you were someone that was, um, approachable, like I'd be– I'd feel like you were a dangerous person.
I feel like you were unsafe.
It's the paranoia for me.
I think that's where it takes me, is like the paranoia takes me into, like, you might be unhinged.
yes definitely you know that goes past having like a a gate or like a security system it's also just real bold like yeah i want to put up a fence but i'm nervous that it's gonna like rub my neighbors the wrong way yeah meanwhile like they put up a fence with barbed wire essentially on the top of it yeah they they just said we don't give a fuck and it was 10 feet tall that's quite wild 10 feet tall that's insane yeah i mean i they obviously don't have an hoa it's taller than Kristops Porzingis.
Oh my God. It's taller than him.
I hope you're feeling better.
Full circle. So the fence was mostly successful at protecting their privacy, but on one occasion, a very brave loose dog managed to knock one of the boards free.
So neighbors got a rare glimpse into the backyard. Luckily, it sounds like he just bumped into it.
Okay, I was like don't go in there.
In my version of events, he's fine.
Yeah, he is. But, so people were able to peek into the backyard. Oh damn.
Oh, I'd be right there.
Like, you gotta look.
Face against fence.
You're making a big stink of keeping it private.
I wanna know what it is.
I need to know. You should have been a little more subtle about that.
Yeah, 100%. One neighbor said, I seen them digging.
They got a big hole.
I know, insert all the jokes here.
But like, why are they digging a big hole?
It's not okay. It's not.
I'm very nervous about that.
According to more neighbors, George and Chris started what sounded like a construction project in the backyard around April 1980.
For days all neighbors heard was the sound of digging all throughout the day and the night.
Okay, that would piss me off.
I would get pissed off.
And then it just abruptly stopped one day.
Was anybody calling anybody?
I don't know what you would say really because I don't know what they're if they're doing anything wrong.
I don't know if they're adhering to noise regulations.
I mean were there noise regulations in the 80s?
Probably not. I don't know.
I don't know when that shit start.
I'm not sure. I just, I'm like, I don't know.
Don't start digging big holes in your backyard unless you have something, like a pool that's gonna go in there.
Yeah, do it during the daytime.
You know, like something that you can show after and be like, this is why we did that.
Yeah, come on over, swim in our pool.
And not even just see that.
You said no. No, don't come over.
But here, you know that big hole was digging that made you all nervous this is what that was for don't come over you're not welcome but that's what that was for i also wonder if people were just like i mean i don't wonder people were afraid of them for sure so that's probably why they didn't call yeah you know what i mean yeah so the fence kept out anybody who might take an interest in the greenhouse full of marijuana that they were cultivating in the backyard oh that but it also served to shield from view the larger project that they'd been working on because you don't put your marijuana operation in a large
hole? Of course you don't.
Neighbors didn't know it at the time but what Chris and George were doing was building...
you guessed it, a bunker in the backyard. George had come up with the idea a few months earlier.
They were going to dig a tunnel leading from the garage to the backyard bunker so that they wouldn't have to go outside in the event of, you know, an inevitable assault on their compound.
I mean okay. Yeah the bunker they were planning would be stocked with food, water, all the essentials, and enough firepower to hold off an army should it come to that, which they of course believed it would.
Yeah, this is getting scary.
Oh, just wait. Now there's no way of knowing at what exact point Chris and George's fantasies turned into a dangerous reality, but it seems that 1979 was a critical year for both of them.
In August 1979, George actually got fired from his job with Cypress Park's department, Ooh.
And he started collecting unemployment.
Not long after, Chris also became unemployed and they just spent all day at that point talking, strategizing, coming up with plans on how to fortify the house.
That's not good, man.
Yeah. That is not good.
Now losing his job and becoming fully absorbed in violent fantasies was the last straw for George's wife.
Yeah. He's married everybody.
and they have a child.
Oh, no. Yeah. A few months later, his wife took their daughter and left the house and George behind.
Oh, man. Neighbor Anna Grimley told a reporter, she said she was going home to her mother.
I mean good for her.
Yeah, she said we're gonna get the fuck out of here.
Yeah, you get the fuck out of there.
That is no place for a child.
Yeah. Losing his job, then his wife and his daughter, those, seem to be the stresser that pushed George Smith from being an evangelical guy with dark fantasies to being a fully delusional man with violent plans.
Oh, that sucks. It does.
By the end of 1979, Chris's wife, Lonnie, also moved out of the house, taking their young son with her because he also was married with a child.
Why are you two parents?
So many people are parents, that should not be - So many people are parents.
Now, unlike George though, Chris's reaction to his wife and child's departure was a lot more reasonable.
In a conversation with his mother, he told her he felt like his life was going down the tubes.
He was just like my life's going down the tubes, of course they left. He's probably like why wouldn't they leave. Yeah, he was weirdly rational in some ways, but in a lot of other ways not so much at all.
But that feeling became even stronger when a few months later he lost his job and apparently any motivation he had to continue participating in society.
Awesome. At that time Anna Grimly said, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.
They sleep in the day and they go out all night and they never talked to anybody.
Yeah. Kinda like that.
So by the spring of 1980, Chris and George were just barely getting by.
They were working odd jobs here and there and when they couldn't find work, they just collected unemployment.
By that point, Chris's brother Russ had also moved in with them, but he too was unemployed more often than not and barely contributed to the household budget.
Damn, this is going really well.
Yeah, it's really not.
Their collective financial situation had important implications in their future plans.
George had already started to scrap his idea for buying a cabin in the Utah Mountains should the apocalypse come.
But now with the mortgage severely overdue, it was beginning to look like they might end up losing the house that they had worked so hard to fortify into this fuckin apocalyptic bunker.
And without their bunker, the likelihood of surviving the apocalypse seemed low and for George that was unthinkable.
So one afternoon in late spring Chris was sitting at the kitchen table when George came home with a former co -worker from Cyprus, 21 year old Manny Delgado, and announced that they were planning to rob a Denny's restaurant in Corona.
Manny Delgado is the name of Jay and uh...What's her name?
Son in Modern Family.
OKAY. I thought that Jay and um...
Gloria. I almost said Julia.
I couldn't think of it.
I thought that too.
Manny Delgado as soon as you said that I was like when I i'm so happy you said that because when I read that name I said I know that person you do I know that you know that person well this is a very different this is a very different Manny Delgado he's not very in touch with his feelings okay so very different this Manny Delgado uh you know they were gonna rob a Denny's restaurant yeah that's not great Chris was like that's stupid if you're gonna rob anything why wouldn't you just rob a bank?
I guess valid criminal thinking you know so I guess so.
Not rational thinking.
No. To George, robbing a Denny was just a means to an end, something that would give them enough to cover the mortgage and maybe finish building the bunker.
But Chris was right in theory.
If they were gonna take a huge risk, they might as well just be more ambitious.
Yeah, and again, that's just criminal thinking.
Yeah, criminal thinking.
For Manny, who already had one child at home and another on the way, one robbery was just as good as the other.
So he was like, yeah, that's fine.
I'll still do that.
Yeah, why not? I got a baby on the way.
Like I said, different Manny.
Yes. As for Chris, he already bought into the End Times fantasies that George had been spinning for nearly a decade at this point.
Damn. And saw no reason why they shouldn't take the risk.
But there was just one thing.
Chris told George, I'm not going into any bank unless we're armed up.
I won't get taken alive.
Ooh, that's scary. That's very scary.
Yeah. It's going to get a whole lot scarier, girl.
It's that way of thinking.
Yeah. A few weeks later, Manny Delgado quit his job at the Cypress Parks Department and told his people at work that he was moving to Arizona, not true.
He also recruited his 17 year old brother, Billy to be their getaway driver.
Sadly, Billy had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis a few years earlier.
Yeah and he was - 17, too, so young.
Yeah, and I mean, he was even younger when he got diagnosed.
He was constantly in pain and he actually expected the disease to get even worse by his mid 20s.
So according to hula hand there, the, um, author, he Billy quote, figured he had nothing to lose and tried to be sad.
That's yeah, that's a big tragedy.
With their driver in place, the men only needed one more person and they didn't have to look very far to find him throughout their lives.
Chris Harvin and his brother Russ hadn't really been especially close.
In fact, if you had to describe their relationship, someone would probably say that it was just straight up adversarial.
Oh yeah. if not, just plain strained.
But prior to moving in with Chris and George, 26 -year -old Russ just lived at home with his parents and spent a lot of time hanging out in his room getting high.
Productive. Yeah, he's got a lot going for him.
More importantly, Russ didn't share his brother's interests in New Age spirituality or astrological prophecies.
He also did not believe that the world was coming to an end anytime soon.
You know what, it's niche.
It is niche. I understand.
Yeah, so they didn't have a lot in common. But at the same time, Russ didn't really think he had anything going for him.
So when Chris and George asked for his help with the bank heist, he was like, alright.
Damn. The amount of people in this story that are just like, you know what, might as well rob a bank.
It's like, I've never been in a place where somebody would say, do you wanna go rob something?
And I'm like, well, I don't have anything else going on.
So, I have no plans that day.
I've been bored. I've been in a place where I didn't have a lot going on.
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Lamont Jones' world is shattered when his cousin dies in custody just weeks after entering prison.
The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story, From Wondery comes Death County, PA, a chilling true story of corruption and cover -ups that begins as one man's search for answers, but soon reveals a disturbing pattern.
Maman's cousin's death is just one of many, and powerful forces are working to keep the truth buried.
With never before heard interviews and shocking revelations, Death County, PA pulls back the curtain on one of America's darkest institutional secrets.
This isn't just another true crime story, it's happening right now.
Follow Death County PA on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts You can binge all episodes of Death County PA early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus But the final and arguably most important piece of this plan to them was weaponry Having both grown up in conservative and somewhat rural parts of California and again both having spent time in the military, Chris and George were what would appropriately be called gun enthusiasts.
They like to pew pews.
Did you just say dang pew pews?
He said they like a pew pew.
They like a pew pew.
Even before they moved into the house together, they both already had collected a surprising number of handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles.
But as far as they were concerned, that collection still wasn't enough.
I'm going to clear my throat for the next part because it's going to take me a minute.
Ahem. That spring, Chris and George withdrew the rest of their savings—all of it—and went to a local gun store and picked up more weapons, including—I hope I say these alright.
I'm not a PPU enthusiast so I'm doing my best—a semi -automatic handgun, a Heckler Kock NHK 93, a top -of -the -line .223 caliber German assault rifle similar to that used in military combat.
Oh. And then a few weeks later they returned to the store and bought a Remington 870 Wingmaster shotgun, what's more commonly known as a riot gun.
Then that wasn't enough so a week later they were back yet again and bought an uncommon, one might say, amount of ammunition including hundreds of rounds of two 23 bullets, high capacity magazines and 40 shotgun slugs, quote, powerful enough to cracked the engine block of an automobile.
I'm sorry. What? A month later, after working some day -labor jobs, Chris went to another gun store and purchased a Colt AR -15 assault rifle and a large number of 40 -round high -capacity magazines.
Did anyone at that first gun store say, huh, they're coming in a lot and buying a lot of guns?
I would think so. No one was sitting there being like, What you doin?
Yeah Maybe keep an eye on that person I'm not sure because like what business do you have coming in getting that much shit weeks apart?
It's very strange I'd be concerned.
It's very strange. Obviously today we would all yeah, what the fuck are you doing?
You would think any day though.
That's a lot of guns It is and a lot of ammo.
Yeah, so what their arsenal I would say more than fully stopped Yes, it's runneth over.
It runneth over. They now turned their attention to making explosives.
Oh, because yeah, you need that, too.
Using recipes found in the Notorious Anarchist Cookbook, they created dozens of fragmentation grenades from PVC piping and beer cans filled with gunpowder and shrapnel.
That's so fucking scary.
It is scary. The grenades were fashioned in such a way that they could be fired from the Remington Wingmaster.
Shut the fuck up. effectively making it a grenade launcher.
What the fuck? Yet even the addition of dozens of improvised explosives still wasn't enough for George, who still felt they needed more guns.
A few days later, he returned to that first store, which I'm like, now you really gotta ask questions.
Yeah, you gotta ask that guy about this.
Where he purchased a .223 rifle and this time a second Colt AR -15 and a Heckler & Koch HK91, an assault rifle modeled on the ar -15 but that fired larger and more destructive 30 caliber rounds the fact that no one was concerned about this is disconcerting to me yeah you would say so yeah so with these last purchases they had everything they thought they needed to pull off the bank job finally holy hell yeah now interestingly I didn't actually know this by the 1960s the FBI had labeled la the bank robbery capital of the world what a title I know with one every four California robberies occurring
in Los Angeles County.
Holy shit. That's fascinating.
Imagine taking a job as as a bank employee there?
No. At this time? I cannot.
According to Houlihan, this was mostly because the city had a significant number of banks and was built within a network of freeways, which made it easy to rob a bank and get away quickly.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So all that to say robbing a bank in the 70s and 80s was a pretty easy way to make money with relatively low risk, assuming you could get away from the scene before the police got there.
Which is wild. It is, it really is.
By 1980, robberies had increased across America with an average of 6 banks being robbed each business day.
Holy shit. Yeah. And more than 1500 banks robbed a year.
And now you never hear about a bank robbery.
No, not at all. So that meant if nothing else, law enforcement officials and bank employees had gained considerable experience with robberies and now had many protocols in place to deal with situations like that.
Under the circumstances, it would have been in the gang's best interest to keep things as simple as possible, and just do what other successful bank robbers did, rob a bank in downtown LA, get away from the scene as quickly as possible, and disappear on the freeway headed toward one of California's more forgettable towns.
Yeah! One, two, three, done.
Keep it simple, stupid!
But George Smith had other plans.
Of course he did. In George's head the plan was simple, in mine it was...
not. the foreman would enter the Norco branch of the security Pacific Bank in the afternoon while Billy waited in the getaway van outside.
each would be armed Chris with the hk -93 Russ with the Colt ar -15 and George with the heckler rifle and Manny with the riot gun.
each man would also carry a semi -automatic handgun and large amounts of ammunition just on their person.
in the van Billy would have the other ar -15 on the passenger seat beside him and he too would have a handgun.
Holy shit. Yeah. They had also loaded around 3 ,000 rounds of ammunition into a duffle bag, stashed in the back of the van, as well as a dozen grenades, three Molotov cocktails, and a box of beer bottles that were filled with gasoline and a detonation device.
Holy shit. The serial numbers on the guns were all covered with black electrical tape so that they wouldn't be able to be read on the security camera footage and traced back to Chris and George.
They really thought of everything.
They did. Kinda. Before heading to the Security Pacific Bank, George was planning to place a small explosive under a gas main about a mile from the bank.
His plan in his head was that before they entered the bank, he would detonate that bomb creating a diversion to draw authorities away from the bank giving the robbers more time to escape.
Which seems like it would make sense.
Yes, smart in a criminal way in theory.
But there was the matter of transportation to think of.
None of them owned a vehicle that would carry all five men and their arsenal of weapons would never be carried in a vehicle that they owned, and it also wouldn't carry the money that they planned to take with them.
So that was a big problem.
That's a problem. But George's solution was that they would drive to a large parking lot several miles from the bank and just steal the first van they saw.
That is risky as fuck.
It is. Wow. He said, from there, Billy would drive the van with the rest of them in the back.
like the gas main explosion would occupy emergency services for hours and that would give them ample time to escape.
So that's his plan.
It's also crazy that there's four of them going into this bank because it's like the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Good point, dude. Like I wonder if they planned that.
I know because you would think four people is like too many.
Yeah it feels like way too many cooks in the kitchen here.
Yeah that's a very good point.
And like haunting, isn't it.
So according to Peter Holhan, George Smith broke Cardinal rule number one when it comes to bank robbery.
He robbed his own bank.
Shut the fuck up. He robbed his own bank.
That feels like the first day of freshman year of bank robber school.
They tell you the number, hi, welcome to bank robber school.
We're gonna tell you something that we think you don't need to know.
Yeah, don't rob your own bank.
Yep. And they have literally all your information.
All your information and they recognize you, they know you, and you're stealing your own money back.
Like what? I can't.
And I just told you how many banks there are in LA.
There's a shit ton of banks.
So many other options.
So yeah, that was incredibly risky because rather than robbing a bank in downtown LA, like I said, where no one would have recognized him, he chose to rob a bank where employees were familiar with his face and his voice, which was not that hard in a town of only 20 ,000 people.
But more than making bad choices, it was actually really just a lot of bad luck that caused things to go wrong.
Maybe bad karma one would say.
Yes. On the morning of May 9th, which is interesting cause it's May 6th right now, we always do that.
We always do that. And we never mean to do that.
No, I picked this case, literally like not knowing anything.
So that's weird. That's crazy.
So on the morning of May 9th, all five men loaded into George Smith's Matador and headed to Norco, stopping at the Westminster Mall about half an hour from Norco just after 9 .30 a .m. General telephone service worker Steve Cantelli was sitting in his van just flipping through a Thomas's guidebook when three men appeared at the driver's side window and pressed a 38 special to his head.
One of the men shouted, get out of the fucking van now.
And Cantelli complied.
He said, you got it?
Sure. As soon as he stepped out of the van, he started running.
But to his surprise, no one followed. Instead, a man sitting in his car a few yards away just watched as the three soon to be bank robbers opened the back of the telephone van.
And have now caused a scene.
And have now caused a scene.
Cool. One of the men climbed in the back, only to emerge a few seconds later shaking his head.
As indicated by the sign on the outside of the van, in probably very large letters, it was a telephone service vehicle.
So the rear cargo area was fitted with shelving and full of equipment, so it wasn't gonna work for what they needed it too.
My goodness. But not seeing any other vans in the lot, the men returned to the matador and the witness watched as they fled the scene.
Wow, so now they've been spotted.
You guys are killing it so far.
Now they've been spotted and they still don't have a getaway car.
So after leaving the lot, George drove about three miles down the road to the, I think it's Brea, or Brea Mall.
Brea Mall? Brea, the Brea Mall, thinking that they would surely find another van there.
Of course, why don't we leave this up to chance?
yeah of course his assumption turned out to be a reasonable one although they had to wait a few hours eventually they spotted a mid 70s dodge tradesman van with a faded logo on the side that read D 'Amano Cappuccino known for being large and powerful the tradesman was exactly the kind of vehicle they were looking for so this was good okay the driver of the van 35 year old Gary Hakala had stopped at the mall around 11 30 that morning just get some parts to fix a broken side view mirror on that actual van before going to deliver the freeze dried food that he had in the trailer hitched to the back
of the van. He noticed the men in the blue sedan as soon as he pulled in the parking lot.
They appeared to be staring at him intensely as he parked.
Concerned that the men in the cars might be looking to steal from other cars in the lot, Gary grabbed the padlock from the dashboard intending to lock the trailer before going inside.
But he barely got the lock in his hand when both doors of the van flew open and Gary had three guns pointing in his face.
Manny Delgado told him, I swear to God, we will fucking kill you if you try anything.
I just be like, okay.
Yeah, he basically did.
That's all you should do in that situation.
Yo, take the van. That's exactly what he did.
But they forced him to the ground.
He gotta go look at the driver though, Billy Delgado.
But once he was on the ground, they taped his hands and ankles, placed a paper shopping bag over his head and threw him in the back of his own van.
Oh no, now they have a hostage.
Oh no. Well, now with their hostage, Billy started the van with George and Manny in the back.
And when they pulled out of the lot, Chris and Russ followed behind in George's car.
Oh shit. With the bag over his head, Gary couldn't tell where they were or where they were even going.
They drove for a short distance and then he felt the van come to a stop and he could hear the men removing the trailer from the hitch. Now free of the trailer, they started driving again, this time for about an hour before they stopped a second time.
This time Manny forced Gary into a small equipment cabinet in the back of the van so all he could do was listen to the sounds of the men loading equipment in the back and then the three car jackers were joined by the two other men.
Oh, he feels so bad for Gary.
I know, this poor man.
So now everybody's getting in the van.
Then, Billy drove a little ways until they reached the gas main a few miles from the bank, and George jumped out and placed the explosive under the main.
From inside the cabinet, Gary heard George jump back in the van and shout, it's a go, go.
Then the van lurched forward and they were driving again.
Ten minutes passed before it came to a stop in the parking lot just outside the Security Pacific Bank in Norco.
Now, until this point, the gang had made a few mistakes, chief among them being seen by at least three witnesses.
Yeah, that's a big deal.
Yeah, that's not great.
But here's where the element of bad luck slash bad karma really comes into play and throws George's plan fucking off the rails entirely.
By the time they arrived in the parking lot, George had detonated the explosive under the gas main.
but rather than cause a large explosion as they thought it would, it started a modest fire.
Oh, no. Which I'm so happy about, and it makes me loll a little bit.
It is great that that's what happened.
That fire was almost immediately spotted by a passerby who flagged down a truck driver, and that truck driver literally just used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames and went about his day.
Good for him, man. There was no need for any kind of large emergency response.
Distraction? No. So that was bad.
Now the gang in the van realized this, but by then they'd already put their plan in motion and nobody seemed willing to back out.
The second instance of bad luck came in the parking lot of the security pacific bank.
As soon as Billy Delgado put the van into park, the four heavily armed men piled out of the back and made their way into the front door.
I can't imagine witnessing this.
Seeing this. Because they're all, they all have ski masks on.
Yeah, that's terrifying.
And they're heavily armed.
Unbeknownst to them though, an employee from the bank across the street, because there's another fucking bank witnessed what was happening as did the two mothers in the pack of Cub Scouts standing outside the bank.
Oh my God. Yeah. But still the men blew past the group and burst into the bank.
And George brandishing the heckler rifle, yelled, everybody down while the three others secured the dozen customers who were in the lobby.
Oh God. George went up to the teller and said, if there are any alarms or anything, there's be a lot of dead people here oh that's fucked up then he handed over one of the duffel bags and demanded the teller fill the bag with twenty thousand dollars it'd be about seventy seven thousand six hundred and twenty one today wow solid chunk of change yeah hey weirdos if ash and elana's episode on ken mcelroy left you wondering how someone could become so cruel, manipulative and untouchable, you'll want to hear my psychological breakdown of this case on my podcast, killer psyche.
I examined the twisted mindset behind McElroy's reign of terror, how he exploited fear, used charm as a weapon and turned an entire town into his victims. Understanding what made him tick is exactly the kind of insight I bring on Killer Psyche, where I use my experience profiling criminals for the FBI to uncover what drives people, like Ken McElroy, to become predators.
So if you're curious about the mind behind the mayhem, join me for an inside look at the psychology of a man who got away with everything until he didn't.
Follow Killer Psyche on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Now although they'd seen the group standing outside the bank, it didn't occur to any of the men that one of those mothers would have called the police.
But it wasn't the group outside the bank who had alerted the police.
It was the bank teller across the street who saw them get out of the van.
And their run of bad luck was only just getting started.
They were in the bank for a little over two minutes.
But the report about the robbery had gone out over the police radio while they were still inside.
And the closest deputy, Glenn Belaski, was sitting in his cruiser at a stoplight.
literally around the corner.
Wow. Around the corner.
Around the corner. So, Bilski raced over to the Security Pacific.
Which also it's just so wild to me that they robbed a bank called Security.
Yeah, that really hit me as well.
That's a bad omen you know.
Yeah that's not good.
But anyway he raced over and pulled into the lot while the four men were still inside.
But from his position in the van, Billy Delgado could see the wave of sheriff's officers arriving at the bank.
and he grabbed his walkie -talkie and fumbled with it before alerting George that the police had arrived.
Now in a panic, they grabbed whatever money they could and made their way out the front door.
From inside the bank, several of the customers heard a voice shout, there's one, and then everything was drowned out by the sound of gunfire.
Oh no. The first thing Deputy Belaski saw when he looked up from his police radio was Manny Delgado step right in front of his cruiser with the riot shotgun aimed directly at him.
Oh shit. So he threw himself down across the bench seat, like within seconds, avoiding having his head blown off.
Holy shit. Yes, like that weapon is insane.
He would have, it would have been, it would've been wild.
From that point forward, the scene was absolute chaos with Riverside Sheriff's deputies firing in the direction of the men who had now spread out behind the area around the van.
Then Belaski heard George shout, we've got a hostage in here." But his voice was quickly blocked out by the sound of bullets just ripping through the metal of cars in the lot.
Can you imagine being the hostage, Gary?
No. And remember, I'm about to talk about him.
He's in a cabinet, like a tiny cabinet.
He's prone to get shot here.
Oh yeah. And they don't even know he's in there by police.
He's hearing a ton of cars around him getting shot and just gunfire.
So from inside the cabinet in the back of the van, Gary Hakala was fucking terrified.
Later, he told the jury, I heard a lot of gunfire, an awful lot of gunfire.
I heard shots of something hitting the outside of the van.
Oh my God. And through all the chaos, he then heard the four men climb into the van and the vehicle started up and they started moving, but they didn't make it very far when the car came to a complete abrupt stop, clearly having hit something.
What Gary didn't know at the time was, as the van sped out of the parking lot Deputy Belaski aimed his shotgun at the driver's side and fired, the round of buckshot hitting Billy Delgado behind the ear, killing him instantly and sending the van careening into a telephone pole.
Oh wow. So now their getaway driver is dead.
Holy shit, and 17 years old.
17 years old. As soon as that happened the other men piled out of the van and ran just leaving Gary behind their hostage.
Huh. But again, like you said, people don't know he's in there.
certain they were gone though, he managed to smash his way out of the cabinet and found the cargo area of the van quote, filled with shell casings, broken glass, money, guns, and what appeared to be bombs.
Holy shit, imagine coming out and finding that?
And trying to make your way around that while going outside, but also you're coming out of the same van that they were just in.
So you don't want them to think that you're one of them and it's like, ugh.
Exactly. So still bound at his wrists and ankles, he managed to get to the broken window and yelled, I'm a hostage help me with a slight push.
It's fucking horrifying.
He fell out of the back door of the van and managed to crawl to safety on the other side of the street, which is just astounding.
Yeah. Now Norco isn't now, and it wasn't then a very heavily populated town, but it was busy in this area, the afternoon, not the shooting, well when the shooting began.
Outside the bank on one of the town's main streets, several drivers just sat in awe as these heavily armed men poured out of the van and a horde of sheriff's deputies trailed behind them.
Countless residents had already been alerted to the shootout since bullets had begun tearing through cars, businesses, and houses all around the bank.
Yeah, you got to think about that.
There's people just going about their lives.
Right, exactly. Now at first Manny Delgado tried to lift his brother's body from the driver's seat either to carry him out of the van or just to move him so somebody else could drive, but the position of Billy's body and the density of the dead weight It just made that impossible.
So Chris and George grabbed the duffle bags full of guns and made their way out the back door with Russ and Manny close behind them.
As soon as they were outside the van, Chris and George started firing in the direction of Belaski's cruiser where the deputy was ducked behind the front right tire.
This must've been horrifying.
Yeah. By that point, he'd been struck several times in the face, arms and shoulder, but he was continuing to engage the men until additional deputies arrived.
My God! Brave. Holy shit, brave man.
By the time deputies Charles Hill and Andy Delgado arrived on the scene, the remaining four bank robbers were out of the van and still firing in Bilaski's direction.
Andy Delgado drew their attention in gunfire, while Charles Charles Hill made his way over to Bilaski, who was now bleeding heavily.
Fortunately, Hill was able to get Bilaski back to his cruiser and evacuate him to the nearest hospital though.
Damn. He is. That's like heroic shit.
like name something more heroic.
It's insane. As the gunfight ensued, George spotted an Ford F -250 stopped at a nearby light and just started walking toward it, like Michael Myers style.
Hate that. Inside the truck, the driver, 24 -year old Mike Linville, spotted George coming in his direction.
Remember he's wearing a ski mask and holding like however many guns.
No, thank you. So he sees George coming in his direction and then also notices three other men not far behind him.
Manny Delgado was the only one who did not have his face covered with a ski mask.
And they were all also carrying large green duffel bags.
So he's like, I'm good.
He's like, that seems conspicuous.
Yeah, so they're, so they're waving, they were like weaving around cars, pointing their guns at drivers and passengers.
It's very clear that they're looking for a new vehicle.
And he knew that his truck was probably exactly what they wanted.
So rather than sit it out and wait for them to order him out of the truck, he threw open the door, jumped out, ran toward the bank parking lot, scrambled up a cinderblock wall and found safety on top of the century 21 Realty building, like essentially scaled a wall.
Literally brilliant.
It is. Just, I mean, like self preservation wise, that is, and also you're saving other people.
Saving a lot of people in that area by just being like, you know what, this is probably what you want.
So you can take it, let the police deal with it.
And yup, we're all safe now.
So good for him. Yeah, good for him.
I just love that he scaled a cinder block wall and found safety on a roof.
He assessed on a roof.
He assessed the situation.
He said, I got what they want.
And he got, he just said, bye.
And then he just went on a roof.
Smart. I would go on a roof.
He's safe, everyone else is safe.
Good job. Let's go.
Everyone else is not quite safe yet.
But he saved a lot of people.
He tried. So when the officers finally heard a break in the shooting, they looked up to see all four remaining robbers climbing into Linville's now empty truck.
Three of the men were in the cab of the truck while another stood in the bed holding an assault rifle.
I'm just going to give you all a minute to conjure that in your mind.
That's a terrifying image.
It's not an image you want to think about.
No. They also now appeared to be in no hurry as they took their time loading the truck and then pulled out from the intersection and headed in the direction of the Little League field on the other side of town where they had stashed George and Chris's cars I don't like that at all yeah the fact that they're not in a hurry now is freaky and that they stashed the cars at a little league yeah fields upsetting gross now as Chris drove the truck George studied the wound in his leg where he'd been hit it was bleeding real bad and he didn't know what he could do to make it stop so he tied his bandanna around
it as a temporary solution everyone else remained silent likely reflecting on how George's simple plan had gone so fucking badly.
I know I would be if I were in their situation.
It'd be like what the fuck did we get ourselves into?
But as they neared the little league field they encountered yet another problem.
Having heard the call go out over the radio, the local fire department used their trucks to set up blockades across the town to make sure they blocked main escape routes.
Yeah they did. Smart.
Yeah they did. So Chris cut down a side road though to avoid the blockade and soon they were barreling down the back roads of Norco, desperately making their way toward the freeway.
Oh shit. The plan had worked, at least in as much as that it got them to the freeway, but it also allowed the horde of law enforcement officials to catch up to them.
With Chris driving, Manny sat on the frame of the passenger door, just firing Chris's HK93 in the direction of pursuing officers.
Fucking A. Sitting on the frame of the passion passenger door as they're driving.
Just firing at police officers.
So scary. Meanwhile Russ Harvin was positioned in the bed of the truck filing his assault rifle in their direction as well and occasionally tossing homemade grenades at them.
Yeah, no big deal. Yeah.
As they raced through San Bernardino County towards the Sierra mountains Chris and Manny were largely successful at keeping pursuing officers at a distance because they're throwing fucking hand grenades and they were also picking off any vehicles that got too close.
By the time they reached the area around Mount Baldy, Chris had put enough distance between them and their deputies that the pursuers didn't immediately see the truck turn off a rural road.
Rural road. So hard to say.
Toward the mountain.
So now they're like a little bit out of sight.
Eventually the deputies did find the truck at the dead end of a service road, but they were completely unaware that they had driven straight into a trap.
Oh no. Now bottlenecked on a dead end road, there was no way for them to turn around or retreat.
In fact, by the time lead deputy, James Evans realized the truck was empty, it was already too late.
The four men emerged from around the truck and started firing in his direction as he took cover behind his cruiser.
In returning fire, he managed the incredible achievement of hitting Chris Harvin from 75 feet away using just his service revolver.
it. The bullet sent Chris flying back into the dirt, but the other three continued firing, and the next time Evans popped up to, uh, to return fire.
He was sadly struck in the head.
Oh no. Yeah. He's a hero too.
As the remaining deputies attempted to return fire, they too were struck by the Hill of gunfire sustaining injuries of various degrees of severity.
The death of deputy Evans gave Manny rust, Chris and George enough time to retreat further into woods though and up the mountain now they're going in the they're fleeing into the mountains they're literally going out like to like a snowy mountain.
fuck that. yeah fleeing to mount baldy was surely never part of george's plan but like a lot of other aspects of the robbery it reflected the reality that they were way out of their fucking lead.
yeah. at least criminally speaking in their panicked attempt to escape they fled up the mountain which meant that the only way to actually escape was to, um, go back down the mountain.
Yeah. So in that case, all the Sheriff's Department and now the newly arrived SWAT team had to do was wait them out.
And eventually they'd get them.
Yeah. Now you're stuck, right?
But the only question was, would they take them alive or dead?
By the time the sun had gone down, Mount Baldy was surrounded by hundreds of law enforcement officers from the, from Riverside and the surrounding counties as as federal agents.
That was crazy. Yeah.
In killing Jim Evans, the gang had upped the ante significantly and it seemed unlikely that they were going to be able to escape.
Oh yeah, it's like now you've killed a cop.
You killed a cop. Yeah.
Shot a cop in the head.
In the meantime, officers accompanied tracking dogs up into the mountains following the trail of blood left by Chris and George who are both now bleeding heavily from gunshot wounds.
Wow. Throughout the night, occasional bursts of gunfire could be heard from and around the mountain but for a few hours, at least, the chaos seemed to settle.
The following morning, deputies and SWAT members finally cornered George, Chris, and Russ in a snow -covered patch of mountains.
They were soaking wet, freezing, exhausted, and Chris and George had lost a lot of blood.
By that point, they had become separated from Manny Delgado, who was tracked by officers with dogs.
But as soon as deputies closed in around him, he took his own life, rather than be taken into custody.
yeah in the end the crime scene was the largest in US history stretching out more than 50 miles from Norco into the sangaroa mountains and littered with thousands of spent shells shrapnel and other debris from the shootout holy shit in the fight more than three dozen cars were destroyed a san bernardino county helicopter was badly damaged and countless homes and businesses in and around norco showed evidence of having been hit with fire oh my Sure.
And there was the human cost. In addition to the murder of Deputy Jim Evans, Billy Delgado had been shot by the police and killed.
His brother Manny had taken his own life on Mount Baldy.
Throughout the ordeal, at least eight officers sustained serious injuries and three civilians were injured.
Oh, I'm surprised there wasn't more.
I am to actually. And as for the money they had stolen, most of it flew out the window of the truck as they made their getaway you've got to be fun so this was all for this was for literally nothing yup in the days that followed none of the bank robbers were compliant and it took law enforcement officials some time before they were even able to identify them because remember these people have no past criminal history yeah that's what's even scarier it's insane they really went for it in the meantime the press descended on Norco looking for any information on the robbers or any firsthand counts of the Robberty
security Pacific employee Tim Murphy told a reporter, it was scary.
They looked and acted like commandos.
They were professional and they didn't mind shooting.
Yeah. Other residents in Norco were simply stunned that the robbery had happened at all.
One resident said, things like this just don't happen.
Well, not here anyway, cause it's so massive.
Like what a scale. And like I said, this is a small town.
It's like 20 ,000 people.
Yeah. A week later, all three men were arraigned on 40 separate charges, including willful murder, armed robbery and killing an officer during the commission of robbery.
In his statement to the press, Assistant District Attorney Tom Hollenhorst noted the charges included four, quote, special circumstances that could very likely lead it to becoming a death penalty case.
But despite the crime having occurred across multiple jurisdictions, the federal government deferred the case to the Riverside County District Attorney for prosecution.
The case was delayed several times than the months that followed. And the three men didn't end up going before a judge until the summer of 1981 so almost a year past. Wow.
After several months of testimony from witnesses and multiple Sheriff's deputies, the jury deliberated for 16 days before emerging to find them all three of them guilty on 45 counts.
Holy shit. Including two counts of murder for Billy Delgado and Jim Evans, one of their own and an officer and 25 counts of attempted murder damn yeah despite the complexity of the case and the number of delays the prosecutor Jay Hanks never doubted that they would receive a guilty verdict he told reporters I would not have been surprised to have seen some charges compromised but I fully did expect to see the murder charges stand but I'm sure it surprised him that they got convicted on almost like like every single count yeah I mean that's a risk you take it is that many counts you assume a lot
are gonna fall off but the fact that they were I got all of them on 45 counts.
Holy shit. So the following month, all three were sentenced to serve the rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of parole and the world didn't end.
Today George Smith is serving his sentence at Richard J.
Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
And Chris Harvin is serving his sentence at the California State Prison in Vacaville.
Russ Harvin his brother died from heart failure in December of 2019.
Damn. But I just think it's absolutely insane that they went to all this, I don't even want to say all this trouble, there's not even a word for.
All this nonsense. All this chaos, all this nonsense for money to fortify a bunker for the end of the world, and the world is still going.
It really, and that's the thing.
The irony. And also that they put themselves in this position where they could easily have been killed.
To survive. To survive because they didn't want to die.
Like, make it make sense.
It's a truly fascinating case.
And that they – I don't, there's not one part of me that believes that that was a simple reason for this because if it was simply that they would have done what every other bank robbery was doing at the time, run in there, get the money, run out and go hide somewhere with your money.
That's what worked.
When they went so far, I think they wanted to cause chaos.
I think so too. Yeah.
I absolutely think so.
They were looking to scare people, to terrorize people.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Because they were scared and terrorized.
Yeah! So they wanted to.
They wanted to do it.
Spread that. Yeah. I think so.
And I think they wanted some kind of notoriety.
For sure. For sure, yeah.
Which the case has notoriety.
They don't. They really don't get even talked about that much. Well nobody knows their names.
Nobody knows their names.
They just know the name in the case.
And remember, you know, Jim Evans, you remember that name.
Absolutely, you do.
But yeah, fuck those guys.
Fuck them. Fuck those guys.
Fuck them. But damn, what a, what a ride.
Truly from start to finish.
It just, that case takes off and you're just like.
You're like, I'm sorry, what?
But it's tragic that an officer lost his life and many others had to spend weeks and weeks healing from like insane injuries.
People were hit with grenades.
And shrapnel and all kinds of shit.
And people had to repair their homes, their businesses, their cars.
Like imagine that, like imagine like a stray bullet comes through your door.
And forget like all the time spent healing and the, you know, all of that, just the trauma.
Oh yeah. Even for somebody that wasn't hit, but they just witnessed that.
You would be so fearful to leave your house ever again.
Yeah, of course. Can't imagine, no. But damn, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird. But not as weird as that.
If you think the end of the world is coming, you page Buffy, exactly.
And you know, if the world is ending, there's nothing we can do to stop it.
That's the thing, just write it out man.
Just vibe into that.
fine. Yeah, we're good.
It's all good. Love you.
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Last year, long crime brought you the trial that captivated the nation.
She's accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer, John O 'Keefe with her car.
Karen Reed is arrested and charged with second degree murder.
The six week trial resulted in anything but resolution.
we continue to find ourselves at an impasse i'm declaring a mistrial in this case but now the case is back in the spotlight and one question still lingers did karen reid kill john okieff the evidence is overwhelming that karen reid is innocent how does it feel to be a cop killer karen i'm kristen thorn investigative reporter with law and crime and host of the podcast karen the retrial this isn't just a retrial, it's a second chance at the truth.
I have nothing to hide my life is in the balance and it shouldn't be.
I just want people to go back to who the victim is in this it's not her.
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