00:00:06
for seven years a group of bank robbers
00:00:08
flaunted their expertise
00:00:10
in front of security cameras
00:00:13
and law enforcement could do little more
00:00:15
than watch and marvel
00:00:18
they left no forensic evidence behind
00:00:20
and always got away before police
00:00:23
arrived
00:00:24
but how they stood what they said and
00:00:27
the clothes they wore all told a story
00:00:30
one that could be deciphered by forensic
00:00:34
science
00:00:35
[Music]
00:00:44
[Music]
00:00:55
um
00:01:00
[Music]
00:01:03
calabash north carolina is a quiet
00:01:05
fishing town located just over the state
00:01:07
line from myrtle beach south carolina
00:01:10
to sum it up is a perfect place to live
00:01:13
quiet
00:01:15
the best seafood in the world
00:01:17
and that's how calabash was known
00:01:20
in september of 1991 in broad daylight
00:01:23
two masked men with handguns walked into
00:01:25
one of the local banks
00:01:28
a teller pushed the silent alarm
00:01:30
but the robbers got away with forty
00:01:32
thousand dollars before police arrived
00:01:36
the closest police station was our
00:01:38
county complex which is about 25 to 30
00:01:40
miles away
00:01:41
the bank was equipped with surveillance
00:01:43
cameras that used 35 millimeter film
00:01:47
in most instances we have bank
00:01:49
surveillance videotapes which don't give
00:01:51
us a lot of quality and don't allow us
00:01:53
the opportunity
00:01:54
to enhance the photos
00:01:56
the pictures showed
00:01:58
a well-organized crime
00:02:01
some individuals go in banks with no
00:02:03
gloves no mask and no plan those are the
00:02:06
easiest ones to catch the folks that are
00:02:09
well planned well orchestrated prove to
00:02:12
be the most difficult challenge in law
00:02:13
enforcement
00:02:15
the men entered the bank just after an
00:02:17
armored truck made its daily delivery of
00:02:19
cash from the federal reserve bank they
00:02:22
didn't walk around the bank like nervous
00:02:23
or anything and they had a getaway car
00:02:25
waiting and they were watching the
00:02:26
getaway car the whole time they could
00:02:27
see us at the door
00:02:29
the high resolution pictures gave
00:02:31
investigators a good look at the getaway
00:02:33
car driven most likely by a third
00:02:36
accomplice
00:02:38
we were able to determine it was a
00:02:39
camaro we were able to determine the
00:02:42
year of the vehicle certain packages
00:02:45
that came with the vehicle that were not
00:02:47
standard
00:02:48
but without the license plate number
00:02:50
it would be difficult to find the car
00:02:53
with so few clues the robbery went
00:02:56
unsolved until one year later
00:03:00
it happened again
00:03:01
at the very same bank
00:03:07
it was turning our quiet town
00:03:10
known for its seafood into a quiet town
00:03:13
known for its bank robberies
00:03:15
a bank employee recognized them
00:03:21
she recognized the voice the way they
00:03:22
stood the same directives she was
00:03:24
positive the same people were robbing
00:03:26
her over and over again in fact the
00:03:28
statement she made was deja vu
00:03:32
of the robbers is about five foot eight
00:03:34
and nearly 300 pounds it was fairly uh
00:03:36
distinct
00:03:37
they got identified that way as being
00:03:39
the same people
00:03:40
[Music]
00:03:41
the robbers warned the tellers not to
00:03:43
throw dye packs in the money bags
00:03:47
dye packs are rigged to explode later
00:03:50
leaving a permanent die on the bills
00:03:54
one of the news crews had come down it
00:03:56
sort of made me mad that reporter stood
00:03:58
in the middle of the street in calabash
00:03:59
and made the comment if you want to rob
00:04:01
a bank calabash is the place to come and
00:04:03
do it
00:04:05
over the next several years these same
00:04:07
men robbed other banks in the area
00:04:11
the getaway cars were stolen and
00:04:13
abandoned miles away
00:04:16
they were not making a lot of mistakes
00:04:18
they were going in they were getting
00:04:19
what they needed to get and they got out
00:04:20
of the bank
00:04:22
we had no hairs we had no fibers we had
00:04:24
no confessions we had no money
00:04:26
we had very few bits of real physical
00:04:28
evidence
00:04:31
[Music]
00:04:35
over a four-year period there were six
00:04:37
bank robberies stretching from calabash
00:04:40
north carolina down to myrtle beach
00:04:42
across the state line
00:04:45
each robbery lasted between two and five
00:04:47
minutes and none of the branches had
00:04:50
armed security personnel
00:04:53
very meticulous very structured very
00:04:55
organized in out and gone
00:04:58
and you're in a rural area i think
00:05:01
you have to be both lucky and good
00:05:04
and the crimes were becoming
00:05:05
increasingly
00:05:08
violent one usually the obese robber in
00:05:12
this case went behind the tellers
00:05:14
counter
00:05:15
and threatened to kill him and the other
00:05:17
one rounded up any customers or other
00:05:20
bank employees sometimes force them into
00:05:22
one office or forced them onto the
00:05:23
ground
00:05:24
in one particular bank robbery a warning
00:05:26
shot was fired at a bank manager
00:05:30
we had several instances where tellers
00:05:32
were struck were dragged or beaten were
00:05:35
threatened
00:05:36
in one instance when an employee
00:05:38
hesitated in opening the bank vault it
00:05:40
almost cost her her life
00:05:43
she was shaking so badly she couldn't
00:05:47
do the combination
00:05:48
that individual
00:05:50
cocked the weapon against her head and
00:05:53
said this is your last chance
00:05:55
you open the vault or you're dead
00:05:59
investigators tried to predict where and
00:06:02
when the robbers would strike again
00:06:06
but they never imagined what would
00:06:08
happen next
00:06:10
the robbers returned to calabash and hit
00:06:13
the same bank for the third time
00:06:18
it turned out to be their biggest heist
00:06:20
to date
00:06:21
they walked out of the bank with a
00:06:23
hundred seventy-five thousand dollars
00:06:26
but this time
00:06:27
there was a witness outside
00:06:30
i had to kind of take a double take to
00:06:32
make sure i was seeing what i thought i
00:06:33
saw and and then i realized it was a
00:06:36
bank robber in progress
00:06:38
king saw two men run from the bank and
00:06:40
get into a green car driven by a third
00:06:42
man
00:06:43
[Music]
00:06:44
king wrote down the license plate number
00:06:46
then did something law enforcement
00:06:49
officers discourage he followed them
00:06:55
the chase reached speeds of 80 miles per
00:06:57
hour
00:07:00
at one point the robbers stopped their
00:07:02
car turned around and confronted him
00:07:05
they were sitting in the intersection
00:07:06
stopped aimed back in my direction
00:07:09
and one of the guys was out of the car
00:07:10
with with a gun
00:07:12
and so i just laid over in the seat and
00:07:14
just kicked it you kicked the gas and
00:07:15
just shot by as fast as it could
00:07:19
he still had the license plate number
00:07:21
which identified the car as stolen
00:07:27
it was later found abandoned in the same
00:07:29
area as the other getaway cars along a
00:07:32
deserted road in south carolina
00:07:35
we told him how brave and how not brave
00:07:37
it was particularly the death that he
00:07:39
helped us but we didn't want him to get
00:07:40
hurt and luckily he didn't
00:07:42
i don't think what i did was anything
00:07:43
close to heroic i think it was just a
00:07:46
it was a civic duty almost to
00:07:49
to to try to help catch these guys
00:07:53
the robbers didn't strike again until
00:07:55
almost a year later this time in myrtle
00:07:58
beach about 20 miles away
00:08:02
they always seem to be one step ahead of
00:08:05
law enforcement
00:08:06
and investigators were beginning to
00:08:08
understand why
00:08:11
it was something they saw in a
00:08:13
surveillance picture
00:08:15
for prosecutors and cops that work in
00:08:17
bank robberies not many robbers wear
00:08:19
holsters okay and this guy wore a police
00:08:21
type holster on his belt to carry his
00:08:24
gun which was quite distinct
00:08:27
and it was clear that the two men inside
00:08:29
the bank knew how to handle a weapon
00:08:32
this wasn't the first time this
00:08:33
individual had ever picked up a gun and
00:08:36
we felt like there was some training
00:08:37
involved and planning involved in these
00:08:39
robberies
00:08:40
there was also something strange about
00:08:42
the way one of the robbers stood
00:08:46
the old weaver stance which was a type
00:08:48
of a stance that you're trained to do in
00:08:50
police work back in the late 80s and 90s
00:08:53
and he just had a
00:08:55
manner in which he held his his gun in
00:08:57
his hand that was unusual it's hard to
00:08:59
describe we thought there was a high
00:09:02
possibility that it was somebody that
00:09:04
had maybe gone through some kind of law
00:09:06
enforcement training or even military
00:09:07
training
00:09:09
investigators now knew
00:09:11
how the robbers were getting away with
00:09:13
the crimes
00:09:17
[Music]
00:09:20
police now believe that the men robbing
00:09:22
banks throughout north and south
00:09:24
carolina were somehow involved in law
00:09:26
enforcement
00:09:29
over a six-year period they had gotten
00:09:31
away with close to a half million
00:09:33
dollars
00:09:35
their favorite target was the small town
00:09:38
of calabash
00:09:39
at the time the nearest police station
00:09:41
was a 20-minute drive away
00:09:45
they robbed the same bank three times
00:09:50
i think that they had a nerve to go into
00:09:53
these banks
00:09:54
on more than one occasion
00:09:56
but also to stay into the inside the
00:09:59
banks as long as they stayed in
00:10:01
why the individuals chose north carolina
00:10:05
national bank three times we do not know
00:10:08
but we do know that apparently they did
00:10:10
this because they have been successful
00:10:12
and i think with each robbery it became
00:10:14
easier and easier and they became more
00:10:16
confident
00:10:17
the robber's next target was a bank
00:10:19
right up the street
00:10:21
a customer at the drive-thru window
00:10:24
witnessed the robbery
00:10:27
he also noticed a third man in a pickup
00:10:30
truck who appeared to be the lookout and
00:10:32
he wrote down the license plate number
00:10:37
when the robbers drove away in a red suv
00:10:40
the customer followed them
00:10:42
that individual followed both of those
00:10:44
vehicles along a route that in one of
00:10:46
the previous bank robberies another
00:10:48
witness had followed the getaway vehicle
00:10:51
and they both took exactly the same
00:10:52
route
00:10:54
the bank customer eventually lost the
00:10:56
robbers but the license plate number
00:10:58
turned out to be an enormous break
00:11:01
the truck belonged to alvin bellamy a
00:11:04
landscaper who lived in rural south
00:11:07
carolina
00:11:09
the fbi went to the bellamy's home
00:11:12
neither alvin nor the truck were there
00:11:15
but alvin's wife was
00:11:16
she proceeded to tell us where he was
00:11:19
that he was with his brothers claude
00:11:21
bellamy and larry bellamy so that is the
00:11:24
first time we come up with three names
00:11:27
around 1am
00:11:29
a car approached the bellamy home
00:11:32
but it wasn't alvin it was alvin's
00:11:34
brother larry who was a lieutenant with
00:11:37
the myrtle beach police department
00:11:40
they gave me the name of lieutenant
00:11:41
larry bellamy and the
00:11:43
my initial reaction was they've made a
00:11:45
bad mistake there's no possible way that
00:11:48
that they've got the right person or
00:11:50
that they should even be looking at this
00:11:52
particular person
00:11:54
larry vehemently denied any involvement
00:11:57
in the robberies
00:11:58
alvin came home a short time later in
00:12:01
the truck identified as the lookout
00:12:03
vehicle
00:12:07
the fbi found a hundred and sixteen
00:12:10
dollars in brand new bills in alvin's
00:12:13
wallet
00:12:15
fresh crisp fives and ones
00:12:18
i started writing down the serial
00:12:20
numbers to the one and five dollar bills
00:12:23
there was basically one of those ploys
00:12:25
that you use
00:12:26
i told him that i was going to take him
00:12:28
back to the bank and compare it with the
00:12:29
stolen money from the bank he got very
00:12:32
agitated got very upset demanding he'd
00:12:34
never seen that money before
00:12:38
the next morning
00:12:39
investigators went to the third
00:12:41
brother's home nearby
00:12:44
claude bellamy was a heavyset man with a
00:12:46
similar bill to the man in the security
00:12:48
pictures he was also
00:12:50
a former policeman
00:12:53
he also denied any involvement in the
00:12:55
robberies and investigators found no
00:12:58
large sums of money in his home
00:13:01
but in his bedroom closet
00:13:04
investigators found a black and white
00:13:06
czech jacket
00:13:08
it happened to be the only garment
00:13:09
hanging in that closet
00:13:11
which
00:13:12
was interesting to me and why you would
00:13:14
have this coat hanging separately in a
00:13:15
room they didn't use a closet it didn't
00:13:17
appear to use
00:13:18
the jacket was sent to fbi expert david
00:13:21
davies he's a photographic technologist
00:13:24
with 20 years experience in garment
00:13:27
identification
00:13:29
at first glance
00:13:30
davies knew he was dealing with a
00:13:32
mass-produced product
00:13:34
you could have 10 million jackets that
00:13:36
look like that
00:13:40
davies used computer enhancement
00:13:42
software to improve the quality of the
00:13:44
bank's security photos
00:13:46
[Music]
00:13:48
he then photographed a model wearing the
00:13:50
jacket standing the same way as the
00:13:53
robber
00:13:55
shirts and jackets are manufactured
00:13:57
differently depending on the price and
00:13:59
quality of the garment
00:14:01
for example
00:14:02
in more expensive shirts the
00:14:04
manufacturer lines up the breast pockets
00:14:07
to match the overall pattern on the
00:14:09
garment
00:14:10
anytime you have a pattern that has to
00:14:13
be aligned
00:14:14
it's got to be done by a human
00:14:16
and it costs the company money
00:14:19
therefore the more alignment you have in
00:14:22
the pattern the more expensive your
00:14:24
shirt is going to be
00:14:26
in an inexpensive shirt the manufacturer
00:14:29
in this case the arrow company doesn't
00:14:30
even attempt a match
00:14:33
by going to aero
00:14:34
we ask the people who are there
00:14:37
okay
00:14:39
exactly what are you trying to line up
00:14:41
here
00:14:42
exactly what are you doing when you make
00:14:45
this shirt
00:14:46
the manufacturer aligned the breast
00:14:48
pocket at a 45 degree angle
00:14:51
because of the pattern all points of
00:14:54
alignment at the seams happen at random
00:14:57
the more seams i can see
00:15:00
and the more uniqueness
00:15:02
that i can determine
00:15:05
in this case
00:15:06
the
00:15:07
bank robbers stood at the same place
00:15:10
and basically turned around
00:15:13
a couple times
00:15:14
and i had some outstanding views of
00:15:18
various scenes
00:15:20
and davies discovered the alignment of
00:15:22
the pattern at all of those random
00:15:24
points was identical
00:15:29
in the surveillance pictures
00:15:31
davies noticed another distinctive mark
00:15:34
a discoloration in the fabric on the
00:15:37
left sleeve
00:15:39
i saw a little light mark in what should
00:15:42
have been a gray square
00:15:44
you're seeing the uh
00:15:46
the white threads that's below the dyed
00:15:50
gray
00:15:52
he found
00:15:53
the same anomaly a tear in the material
00:15:56
in the exact same spot on bellamy's
00:16:00
jacket
00:16:01
i was absolutely sure that it was that
00:16:03
jacket so there's no doubt whatsoever no
00:16:06
doubt the examination of plaid shirt by
00:16:08
the fbi was exceptional we've never seen
00:16:10
or heard of this before this was a new
00:16:11
process to us
00:16:13
what i couldn't tell was who the bank
00:16:16
robber was but what i could tell was
00:16:19
the jacket robbed the bank
00:16:22
investigators now had to prove
00:16:24
that one of the bellamy brothers wore
00:16:27
the jacket
00:16:28
[Music]
00:16:29
and they also wanted to find the money
00:16:34
[Music]
00:16:36
the fbi's photographic analyst
00:16:38
determined that the jacket found in
00:16:40
claude bellamy's home had been worn by
00:16:43
one of the bank robbers
00:16:47
from the surveillance pictures it
00:16:49
appeared to be
00:16:50
larry bellamy
00:16:52
larry was a lieutenant in the myrtle
00:16:54
beach police department
00:16:55
his supervisor warren gaul recognized
00:16:58
him in the pictures by the way he held
00:17:00
his gun
00:17:01
i have been on the range
00:17:03
numerous times with larry when we were
00:17:06
qualifying
00:17:07
for the police department and i knew his
00:17:10
stance i knew his pose and
00:17:13
it was exact
00:17:16
larry's shooting stance was unique it
00:17:19
was a combination of two different
00:17:21
styles taught at the police academy
00:17:24
larry had never really adjusted to the
00:17:26
new stance and shot with a hybrid sort
00:17:29
of stance in between the old square stop
00:17:31
and shouldered stance and the newer
00:17:33
weaver stance that was quite distinctive
00:17:36
a number of these witnesses had been on
00:17:38
the shooting range practicing with them
00:17:39
for years
00:17:41
and recognized that shooting stance
00:17:44
larry knew a great deal about bank
00:17:46
robbery because he was a crime scene
00:17:49
specialist
00:17:50
he worked bank robberies as a crime
00:17:52
scene officer he took fingerprints
00:17:54
photographs he communicated with bank
00:17:57
tellers and employees in the fbi in the
00:18:00
incidents that occurred in myrtle beach
00:18:02
he was aware of evidence he was aware of
00:18:04
what is looked for in terms of evidence
00:18:06
at a crime scene
00:18:08
incredibly
00:18:09
larry bellamy helped investigate one of
00:18:11
his own crimes hindsight being 2020
00:18:16
looking back at the
00:18:18
day that we
00:18:20
located this stolen car i remember larry
00:18:23
bellamy
00:18:24
showing up on the scene
00:18:26
offering his assistance to us
00:18:29
because he was a crime scene
00:18:32
officer with the myrtle beach police
00:18:33
department
00:18:35
larry's timesheets indicated he was not
00:18:37
working when the robberies occurred
00:18:40
investigators also discovered an
00:18:43
interesting clue in the way the getaway
00:18:45
vehicles were abandoned they were so
00:18:48
successful for so many years
00:18:50
that they just got sloppy and towards
00:18:52
the end they started using their own
00:18:54
cars to carry out the robberies
00:18:57
investigators found the red suv used at
00:19:01
their last robbery at a safe house the
00:19:03
brothers rented about a hundred miles
00:19:05
away in aberdeen north carolina
00:19:09
by the time the fbi found it
00:19:11
everything else was gone
00:19:14
we never recovered the money from these
00:19:16
bank robberies and there was a total
00:19:17
take of approximately eight hundred
00:19:19
thousand dollars
00:19:21
when you break down that amount of money
00:19:23
over that
00:19:24
time frame split maybe three ways
00:19:27
we felt that it would be easy to spend
00:19:29
that type of money without a great deal
00:19:31
of notice
00:19:32
or even if they put it away which to
00:19:33
this day we don't know
00:19:35
ironically the bellamy brothers lived
00:19:38
just across the highway from the robbers
00:19:41
roost golf club
00:19:44
in 2000
00:19:46
they were arrested and charged with
00:19:48
numerous counts of bank robbery
00:19:51
they pleaded
00:19:52
not guilty
00:19:54
but the forensic garment analysis was
00:19:57
more than enough to satisfy the jury
00:20:00
most of the evidence they had was
00:20:02
circumstantial
00:20:04
and this was the only forensic evidence
00:20:07
that was basically a fingerprint that
00:20:10
was very unique
00:20:11
that pointed to
00:20:13
one of the bank robbers
00:20:15
all three were convicted
00:20:18
larry and claude were each sentenced to
00:20:20
50 years in the federal penitentiary
00:20:23
they were the men who had taken an oath
00:20:26
to protect these people from violent
00:20:29
criminal activity
00:20:31
and they're the very people preying upon
00:20:32
them and so we felt that there was a
00:20:35
certain amount of culpability that went
00:20:37
to those two that didn't go to alvin
00:20:40
alvin was sentenced to 15 years
00:20:43
and i think it was the shirt that an fbi
00:20:45
investigator at the lab was able to
00:20:48
identify that this is the exact shirt
00:20:50
that was worn in this robbery and it
00:20:52
matches identical to the surveillance
00:20:54
film inside the bank i think that that
00:20:57
became the straw that broke the camel's
00:20:59
back
00:21:00
and broke the case
00:21:04
[Music]
00:21:26
[Applause]
00:21:32
[Music]
00:21:41
you
