I remember this case once. It happened a long time ago so please forgive me if I do not have all the details correct. I think it took place in the Seattle area. Maybe you have heard of it? I will try to relate the story from what I remember.
It was a case about a stockbroker. He wanted to achieve his dream of being a great stockbroker and making a lot of money. Unfortunately he was not very good at making stock decisions. He lost money and the more he tried, the more money he lost. Eventually the company he worked for fired him.
Still determined to be a great stockbroker he tried to keep making trades with the money he still had. But it got worse. Eventually he was broke, but he never told his family. I cannot remember if he was married or living at home, but he was so embarrassed by the situation that every day he would still dress up in a suit and tie and leave to make it appear he was still going to work. Saddled with debt, broke, and unemployed, he felt he had nothing left. I cannot remember if he was investing other peoples money too, but he was in a bad situation.
So he decided to start robbing banks in order to get money. But he realized that since he was not a criminal he was probably not going to be that good at it. So he did something that I think most regular bank robbers you read about never do. He went to the library and researched and read as many stories as he could about bank robberies.
According to his research he came up with an interesting statistic: 90% of bank robbers get caught because of their vehicle. So this man decided that if he was ever going to be successful at robbing banks he would have to figure out how to do it without using a vehicle. I cannot remember all the little details but I think he took a change of clothes with him whenever he robbed the bank so he could change soon after leaving the bank. His method was to simply pass the bank teller a note requesting money. I think he may have used his finger in his jacket to imply he had a weapon or maybe he did not have to, I cannot remember.
But the best part was the finishing touch that he put on each bank robbery. It is the one thing that I remember to this day. Before each bank robbery, he would go to Starbucks and get a cup of coffee. Then he would walk to the bank, but before he went inside he would leave the cup of coffee sitting somewhere outside the bank. After the robbery he would calmly pick up his cup of coffee and walk down the street, sometimes as the police were passing him responding to the robbery. Who would ever think a person walking down the street with a cup of coffee just got done committing the bank robbery?
Eventually he got caught because he got careless and left his fingerprint on one of the bank teller notes. Since he had a small juvenile record for something he did in high school, police were able to quickly match up the fingerprints and make a traffic stop to arrest him, which is ironic when you think about his research. I never read what happened to this man, except I think he did end up going to prison.
Understanding how people think sometimes is more complex. It is like when people respond, "So you have never taken anything that belongs to you?! We all have." I even got into an argument with family members because I said that police officers have a lot of integrity to do the right thing. My family members said that even police officers have lots of things in their background that includes cheating, lying, etc so stop trying to act like they are perfect. They're not. This is what was told to me. And I already know police officers are regular people too and that they are not perfect.
I am not saying it is ok to rob banks if you do not have money. But sometimes the line between ordinary people and criminals can get rather close sometimes.
