CONTACT ME Email: paranaughtica@gmail.com Twitter: @paranaughtica Facebook: The Paranaughtica Podcast The North Hollywood shootout was a confrontation between two heavily armed and armored bank robbers, Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu, and police officers in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles on February 28, 1997. Both robbers were killed, twelve police officers and eight civilians were injured, and numerous vehicles and other property were damaged or destroyed by the nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition fired by the robbers and police.***If you’d like to help me out with a donation and you’re currently listening on Spotify, you can simply scroll down on our page and you’ll see a button to help out with either a one-time donation or you can set up a monthly recurring donation. You can also go to my Facebook page where I have a link to my Ko-Fi account and Pay-Pal account. I would greatly appreciate it and give you a massive shoutout on the show if you'd like! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
I hope you all had a very lovely week and accomplished all of those things that you've been thinking and talking about accomplishing over the past six or seven years.
Maybe longer.
Who knows?
So congratulations on all of those achievements, you guys.
I couldn't be happier for you.
Now, I don't want to waste too much time here, so I want to just dive face-first into the gravel and glass shards that make up today's story.
And I'll premise this by saying that the 1990s was a glorious time for live television.
It seemed that every day around the 5pm mark, we would be watching another high-speed chase going on, or better yet, a bank robbery in progress.
Now, for a lot of you, I'm sure you remember the June 17th, 1994, 90-minute Orenthal James Simpson car chase, otherwise known as The Juice, a.k.a.
O.J. Simpson, who, prior to that car chase in his white Ford Bronco, And for those who want to know my opinion on who killed O.J.'s wife,
Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, well, it was obviously O.J. And if it unequivocally was not him, physically, that slashed their throats and stabbed them to death, well, he was certainly behind it.
For example, in the 2012 documentary, My Brother the Serial Killer, Glenn Edward Rogers claimed that O.J. Simpson hired him to break into Nicole Brown Simpson's house and steal some expensive jewelry, and that O.J. had told him,
quote, you may have to kill the bitch, end quote.
And in a filmed interview, Glenn's brother Clay was adamant that his brother confessed to the murders.
Anyway, you may remember when in February of 1997, we all watched as two masked men with automatic rifles were in an insane shootout with the police in North Hollywood, California, after robbing a Bank of America branch.
And it is that very story that we are going to cover today.
At least the first half of it, which is going to set the scene.
So button up your pigskin socks and throw on your favorite wig because this is going to be a wild ride.
Now before I get started, let's just listen to this live report by a cameraman in a helicopter that was called to the scene very early on in the robbery.
So let's play that.
Well, good morning, Kyle.
We're looking at the Bank of America here on Laurel Canyon.
This is just north of Kittredge Boulevard.
And what's happened here this morning is five, at least five suspects have entered the bank armed in body armor and automatic weapons, and they have robbed the Bank of America here.
Now, LAPD has responded in force to the scene, and let me tell you what's transpired since their arrival.
And here's what we know so far.
There are at least two officers down.
One of those officers, we understand, has just been picked up by fellow officers in a patrol car.
Now, the LAPD responded to the scene here on their first...
The first call of the bank being robbed, and that's when they were confronted with what our pilot being is just telling us that they're firing at us right now.
So we're going to move off a little bit to the side, but we're going to continue with this picture and tell you exactly what we know.
When they were confronted by these suspects dressed in full body armor and AK-47 fire, this is what we heard from the dispatcher when we were on our way over here.
All officers were to stay away from the scene, were to remain low because they were receiving fire from the bank, and that fire was described as automatic weapon fire, AK-47 fire to be precise.
There is SWAT on the scene here.
They have not yet deployed.
Of course, we will not show you that deployment, but suffice to say that there is SWAT on the scene right now, and the LAPD has the bank surrounded.
Now, there is another officer.
The officer that was down was at the corner, a little bit away from the bank.
Suffice to say that these bank robbers were well-equipped with body armor and all the paramilitary gear that goes along with that, so this was a highly planned and professional job.
The problem is, of course, the LAPD arrived and has foiled their plan, in so much as that they didn't get away with it so far.
Now, the situation is still unfolding as we arrive.
I'm listening to several different radios as we speak, and so far that's been...
On the morning of February 28th, 1997, Jorge Montes had quietly opened his dentist office just as he did every morning in the city of flowers and sunshine.
Ah, yes, the warm sulfur dioxide, the anxiety-inducing sounds of distant mufflers and screams, and the much closer mumbles of the unfortunate people who were homeless and forgotten about.
Preaching their truth to one another because no one else would listen.
The strange and often disconcerting streets filled with suspicious smiles from ear to ear.
Not to mention the smirks and sideways glances, the double takes, and especially the undulating hips.
Both men and women in micro-bikinis and thongs just can't tell one from the other.
Ah yes, some call it shaky town, others call it the big orange, and yet others call it the city of angels.
But then, there are those who only know it by one name.
Los Angeles.
Jorge Montes had just opened up his doors and was getting ready to take on his first patient of the day.
It was probably some basic filling procedure, maybe a little plaque scraping.
Regardless, by all appearances, it was going to be a happy and laid-back day at the dentist's office, as usual.
But, on this quiet and unassuming Friday morning...
Something changed the entire atmosphere.
Something so incredible and emotionally impactful that it would change how the entire police force of California and perhaps the entire country would prepare for and respond to future quote-unquote domestic attacks.
At approximately 9.16 a.m., as Jorge Montes was vigorously, some would say violently, patting a young child on the back while congratulating him on his near-perfect flossing technique and very slowly handing him a sucker with his other hand, a loud burst of gunshots rang out.
The shots seemed to be coming from Branch 384 of Bank of America, directly across the street from the 6600 Laurel Canyon Boulevard dentist office in North Hollywood.
More bursts of gunfire rang out, and everyone in the dentist office fell to the floor in a panic.
No one knew it at the time, but these bursts of gunfire were coming from an illegally modified fully automatic Norinco Type 56, which is a type of Chinese variant of the AK-47.
Fully automatic weapons had become illegal to possess in 1994 thanks to old Billy Sure Shot Slippery Dick Clinton, and that would be three years before this fateful day that played out like something you'd only see played out in some action film starring a family favorite, Danny Glover.
Remember him?
Remember that line, Lethal Weapon?
I was driving before you were an itch in your daddy's pants.
That's my best, Danny Glover.
Remember that line though, Lethal Weapon?
Great film.
But... In no time at all, really, everyone inside the dentist's office would realize that the gunfire was no ordinary gunfire.
Not even for L.A. at that time.
Everyone was pretty used to hearing gunshots from time to time, not only from your typical armed robbery, but also due to the large sloths of gangs that spread all over the City of Angels.
But this was something far more massive than your daily robbery and gang activity.
This sounded like a full-on war zone.
Soon enough, the cacophony of dozens upon dozens of sirens would blare throughout the neighborhoods, but this didn't slow down the fully automatic gunfire, which only seemed to get worse.
The rapid and unseasoned gunfire was coming from a deranged man with what seemed to be nothing left to lose.
The man's name was Larry Phillips Jr., and he was 27 years old at the time of this event.
But Larry Phillips was not alone.
There was a second gunman who was still inside the bank collecting cellophane-wrapped stacks of cash from the bank's vault and stuffing them into a duffel bag.
His name was Emil Matasrano, and he was 30 years old.
And now before I get into what we know about Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mattis Ranu and how this brazen heist played out over the next 44 minutes, it's important to have a little understanding, just a little bit, about bank robberies in Los Angeles in the 1990s,
specifically in the early 1990s.
Now, between the years of 1985 and 1995, the 3,500 different retail bank branches all around the Los Angeles area By 1985,
L.A. banks were being robbed at least 1,000 times each year.
And by 1990, it rose another 56% to about 1,644 each year.
Also by 1990, the FBI Uniform Crime Reports showed an alarming increase of 1,200 armed robberies and heists from the previous year.
And the previous year, 1989, there were 6,691.
Damn. And by 1991, with another 20% increase, math shows us that there was on average one robbery every 16 minutes, literally through the entire year, all in Los Angeles.
Just fucking crazy, man.
It's just like...
Being a bank teller in those years in Los Angeles would have been scary as fuck.
In fact, it's said that in any ten year period between like, say, 1975 and 1990, just any ten years in that period of time, statistically, you'd be robbed at gunpoint at least four times within any ten year span.
Why would you want to be a bank teller?
They must have gotten paid a lot better back in the day.
I mean, I don't know how much they get paid now, but I'm assuming they get paid well, but man, it's got to be like hazard pay back then, or even now.
I mean, there's got to be something like that, right?
I don't know.
But in 1992, which was the worst year for banks, there were 2,641 separate bank heists.
That comes out to one robbery being carried out every 40 minutes on each day that the banks were open.
Nevertheless, the rates of armed robberies started to steadily decline right around 2010, and as of 2020, the rate of bank robberies was actually slower than they were in the 1970s,
which is apparently when the FBI started to track them.
In 2007, $78,213,984.25 was taken during 6,676 robberies and heists.
And only $19,522,578.55 was recovered.
And that left $58,691,405.07 unaccounted for.
In 2009, of the $45,978,048.97 taken during 5,943 robberies and heights, only $8,015,546
.46 was recovered.
That leaves $37,962,502.51, completely unaccounted for.
And in 2011, Of the $38,343,501.96 taken during 5,086 robberies and heists, only $8,070,886.97, leaving $30,272
,614.99 unaccounted for.
This means that $162,535,535.18 was stolen and $126,854,522
.57 was never recovered.
Where the hell is all of that money?
Where did all of that money go?
Just where?
Where did it go?
Obviously, a lot of bank robbers have a lot of money stashed.
And a lot of those robbers' families are doing pretty well, I'm sure.
You know, I'm sure a lot of those robbers stashed a shit ton of money, went to prison for it, and they have something pretty nice to look forward to when they get out, you know?
But due to today's technology advances with computers, cameras, security alarms, etc., fewer and fewer bank robberies and armored truck heists take place.
And when these larger robberies do take place, Not as much money is taken due to safety protocols.
Also, the FBI says that more and more of the money that is stolen is recovered.
But, uh, hmm.
Yeah, I don't know.
Check this out.
This is pretty interesting, I thought.
Special FBI agent Detective Rader, who was working on robberies and heist cases in the late 1990s, said that up to 85% of all bank robbers during that time period were addicted to one drug or another.
They usually had a chronic crack addiction, but powdered cocaine was a huge runner-up as well as methamphetamine and heroin.
He said that he could track how bad their addictions were because as they would rob banks over a period of weeks or months or even years, their facial features would become noticeably gaunt.
You know, cheeks all sunken in, darkness around the eyes, prominent cheekbones, pretty much the making of an Angelina Jolie.
Or maybe in her case, it's a lack of adrenochrome.
But it was clear that the addiction was taking its toll on the bank robbers' physical and mental health as time went on.
So that's pretty interesting.
And a raider also said that over time, they had become more erratic, understandably, as their addiction took its toll.
They'd become more paranoid, more excitable, and therefore more dangerous.
But man, there were so many crazy robberies and heists going on through the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
And then, like, what happened?
We don't see them on TV anymore, right?
We don't see robberies anymore.
We don't see these on TV.
We might see car chases like in LA, or yeah, basically just around LA, but you don't see bank robberies anymore.
Why is that?
I've heard one theory that we don't see bank robberies on TV anymore as they're being played out or whatever because it kind of glamorizes the bank robbers, is the argument.
And so the government...
Doesn't want to air those bank robberies because they think that other people will be like, oh, that's so cool.
Let's go do our own.
But honestly, I don't think we need to watch something on television to get an idea to do something.
You know what I mean?
But we don't see them anymore, though.
We don't see live bank robberies on television anymore.
I say bring them back.
Bring them back.
Put them back on TV.
Maybe television will get more ratings.
Maybe these news stations that are still on...
Television, NBC, ABC, Fox, these things, maybe if they started airing more excitable things than telling the truth, people would start watching and ratings would skyrocket.
I mean, that's just my opinion.
But anyway, take a guess at what the largest cash heist in U.S. history was.
Taking a guess?
Just Google it really quick, alright?
Alright, Google it.
Okay, it was $18.9 million, which happened only seven months after the robbery that we're covering today, which was September 12, 1997.
And it also took place in Los Angeles, of course.
And the $18.9 million is the equivalent to $34.5 million in 2022.
And it's probably closer to, I don't know, probably $40 million by 2024 at the time of this recording.
So... That robbery was the famous robbery at the Dunbar Armored Facility downtown LA.
It was planned and executed very well, but the crew was caught two years later when one of the five crew members decided to buy a house or some shit with a stack of cash that still had the original label band around it.
The real estate agent person was pretty suspicious, and they went directly to the cops, and that was it, man.
The jig was up.
Fucking jig was up, man, because, you know, if you're gonna rob a bank, everyone knows you have to sit on the money for a long time.
You have to sit on it for a long time, like two, four, five, probably like six years.
You know, I think maybe five, six years would be a good enough time to just sit back and let shit settle down, and then don't go buy a house with it, with the label still on it that came from the bank you stole it from.
Jesus, man.
Anyway. Alright, so...
We are about to get into who Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Matasarani were and what they would eventually go on to do on February the 28th, 1997, which shocked television viewers worldwide as they watched it all unfold live.
Let's start with Larry.
Larry Phillips Jr. was born on September 20, 1970 in Los Angeles to his father, Larry Phillips Sr., and his mother, Dorothy Clay, who was 10 years senior's senior.
His assumed name was Larry Eugene Warfel, but this would later be changed after the divorce.
The family environment was a bit chaotic, to say the least, but before Dorothy had married Larry Sr., she had met a Brian Elton O'Neill, Who was born Neil Henry Reynolds back in 1941, and the two would be happily married for a total of an entire seven weeks until their divorce on July of 1974.
Larry Jr. would be around three and a half years old at this point.
Later, in 1988, O'Neill would be ambushed in Echo Park, California and shot in the face with a shotgun.
Which opened up some questions about who Brian O'Neill actually was.
There has been a lot of speculation about him being a CIA spy or some operative or possibly a doctor, maybe a cobbler even.
Who knows?
Thing is that nothing has ever been substantiated.
So the patriarch here, Larry Sr., Had his hands in some small criminal enterprise which included armed robberies, gun sales, drugs, all that shit.
And he would even serve a couple stints in prison for a couple of the robberies.
One of those stints being at the Colorado State Reformatory at Buena Vista.
Quick side note.
Larry Sr. would be transferred to the Colorado State Hospital, which was originally built in 1897 on 40 acres of land and was originally built for 14 people.
And those 14 people consisted of 12 men and 2 women.
Can you imagine?
This is co-ed dorm at this Colorado State Hospital.
12 men, 2 women.
Good luck.
So, just two days before Larry Jr.
So, just two days before Larry Jr. was to turn six years old, he would watch as his father was arrested by federal agents for another one of those stupid bank robberies.
It's like, why are there banks if you can't rob them, right?
Be that as it may, it was strongly thought that Dorothy had ratted on him.
And speaking of Dorothy, let's go back to her really quick.
First, where do you think the two would meet?
It is believed that the two actually met...
First, while both during time at the Colorado State Hospital in 1968.
She also had an alias or two.
Hers was Dorothy Lopez or just Clay, and was a bit of a criminal herself.
She even stabbed a corrections officer once.
But check this out.
Going back to Larry Sr. for a moment, in 1969, on the night of April 18th, he escaped the hospital.
Possibly through the vast underground tunnels, just about four miles of them, and at this point Dorothy had already been released.
But after escaping, Larry Sr. and Dorothy headed to the one and only Salt Lake City, Utah under presumed names, Daniel Ira Warfell and Barbara Allen.
And you can decide who went by which.
Anyway, they were there for about six months when one night Sr. was pulled over while he was driving.
Obviously. When the warrants for his arrest were mentioned, Sr. bounced.
And he got away.
Eleven months after that close call, on Sunday, September 20, 1970, Dorothy and Sr. would arrive at the California Hospital in Los Angeles where little Larry Eugene Warfeld Jr. was birthed right into this cold world.
Around this time, possibly immediately after seeing his son be born, Eugene Sr. would again bounce.
And would disappear from the radar entirely for quite a while.
Dorothy would take Junior and move to Kiowa, Colorado, where they would stay for several years.
Dorothy would later divorce Larry Sr. and he'd be more or less out of the picture, but we do know that he was involved in Junior's life quite a bit.
And this is where we bring it back to the day that Junior watched his father be arrested by the feds, where he and his mother were living.
The feds had been surveilling the place and pounced on Senior as the family of three were eating some bomb-ass homemade chili.
Just, oh, the best, you know what I mean?
And like I already said, it's thought that Dorothy had ratted on him.
But Senior quietly went with the officers and finished up his stint in prison.
After finishing up his chili, of course.
And after Larry Senior was released from prison, he would become more involved in Junior's life.
He would take Junior to the shooting ranges, to some wrestling matches, and he'd even take him off into the beautiful Rocky Mountains for some hikes.
And it was during these times of father-son bonding that Larry Sr. began to foster within Larry Jr. a deep-rooted disdain for law enforcement.
He would tell his son tales about being an outlaw, and Larry Jr. was young, impressionable, naive.
Very angry inside, and given the little mix of things that make us us, he was naturally gripped by the suspenseful stories.
In 1983, Larry Jr. dropped out of school after the 9th grade with no solid plan.
But he had a dream.
A dream to accumulate a shit ton of those green bags.
You know what I mean?
Stacks upon stacks of green bags.
And one year later, he would meet a girl named Sharon Santos.
He and Sharon got on quite well, and the relationship was said to be a good one.
Dorothy and Larry would later move back to Los Angeles about three years later, and Sharon, with nothing better going on, went along for the ride.
Sharon and Larry would soon marry and get their own place together at 23 West Harriet Street in Altadena, California.
Larry became gung-ho obsessed with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferregno, and all those bodybuilders of the time.
He got himself a membership at Gold Gyms and went hard at it for five years, hoping that he, too, could become a famous bodybuilder.
Woefully, though, it was not to be, and he would later end up regretting giving up the idea of being the next Frank Columbo, Lee Haney, or Tom Platt, you know, all the heavy hitters, but he still frequented the gym and was in pretty good shape.
In December of 1987, Dorothy would petition the court to change Larry Jr.'s assumed name of Larry Eugene Warfel to the name of Phillips, which was granted.
And I think we'll take a quick break right here.
a quick break.
Now, like most of us in our younger adult years, he became heavily intrigued by infomercials showing the Get Rich Quick commercials by Tom Vu.
Anyone remember Tom Vu?
Anybody? Well, Tom Vu had these free seminars that were just advertisements for paid seminars, and the most expensive one was a $16,000 week-long seminar in Orlando, Florida.
Pretty ingenious, right?
This is how it all pretty much worked.
Tom would basically tell people on these infomercials about foreclosed homes, bankruptcies, houses wrapped up in divorces, tax liens, the market, all that.
And he would explain how to buy these properties.
And he would explain how to buy these properties at a cheaper price and sell them for a profit.
That was basically it.
He would tell you how to find these properties, and then you just buy them, and then you sell them.
And people bought these seminars left and right, making Tom Vu rich, right?
He was eventually caught, but for some reason was never formally charged.
I don't know why.
But after all that, he decided to become a professional poker player.
And he did really well.
But if you go and watch his infomercials on YouTube, I promise you that you'll be glad you did.
So, anyway, I'm serious.
Go watch Tom Vu infomercials on YouTube.
You'll be stoked.
You will be stoked.
And you'll probably want to buy into his thing, too.
So anyway, Larry was good with computers and tech, and so Dorothy bought him a computer and a black BMW to go along with it, because why not?
Larry had hoped to get in on the flowering tech market in Silicon Valley during the boom that was happening at the time, which would have been awesome, but he was stuck in LA.
Therefore, at age 19, he decided that he would get into the property market and be like Tom Vu, because that's what all the kids were doing.
Everyone wanted to be like Tom Vu.
Everybody. But the property market that was booming and what had lured Larry into its shadows had all but come to a halt in 1989.
And this was another insufferable blow to Larry.
So, what do you do when the property market crashes?
Well, like everyone does, you go get yourself some suits.
And that's exactly what Larry did.
He decided that he needed some suits.
And not just one suit.
He needed multiple suits.
So he went to a Sears store in LA, and he stole $400 worth of suits.
He didn't buy them, because why would he do that?
He's trying to make money.
Now lose it.
I mean, come on.
But unfortunately for him, he was caught and arrested on a theft charge.
This also landed him a three-day stint in a county jail over the weekend, plus a one-year probation term which went without issue.
But that was just a minor slip on the proverbial banana peel.
Let's slide to the date of October of 1992.
Larry was back in Denver, Colorado, and had devised a little rental scheme where he would post ads in newspapers listing available houses to rent, and to call Mark...
The landlord alias that he created, to set up a viewing and hopefully execute a rental agreement.
He also obtained copies of all the usual documents that he would need to fool people.
And this is how he would do it.
First, he himself would reply to legitimate rental ads, and upon a viewing with the legitimate rental agents or landlords, he would make sure to watch as they put in the combination to the lockbox which contained the property's keys.
Upon having that combination, his own scam rental ads would be placed for those same addresses.
Then he would wait for a call and he would actually get multiple calls.
And at that point, he would set up an appointment with the potential renter to show them the property and go over the rental agreement.
And this is exactly what he did with Cheryl Meyer, who fell victim to his trap.
She arrived at the address and met Mark.
They did a very quick viewing and Cheryl would later say that it looked like someone was presently living there.
Mark, who was Larry, assured her that the current tenants would be gone by the following weekend.
She also noticed the odd for sale sign in the yard, which didn't make sense, but Mark evaded the subject.
He then had her fill out the rental agreement and told her that he would call her the following day to let her know if she qualified.
Of course...
Mark would call them back and give them the exciting news that they qualified for the rental.
The next step was to set up a meeting to actually sign the rental agreement and make whatever payment he was requesting.
In this case, it was $600 for rent and $400 for the deposit.
Back at home, Cheryl notified her husband of the situation and he decided that he would like to go look at the property himself.
He politely told the tenants that were living there of the situation and their response was that they didn't know who this mark was and that the house was definitely not for rent but it was in fact for sale.
They even gave the contact information for the actual agent with Remax who was the registered seller.
Cheryl Mayer and her husband would follow through with that and the agent with Remax told them to go through with the meeting with this mark.
But to contact the authorities first because they might be interested in making a bust.
And so they did.
And they did.
The police went undercover as mechanics and the meeting went through.
Once the bait money was handed over to Mark and the agreement was signed by both parties, the mechanics stormed in and arrested Larry, Mark, without incident.
During the search of his car that was missing its license plates, They found evidence that he had already done this exact scheme at least once that day, and the car was registered to his mother, Dorothy.
Larry was charged with two counts of burglary, two counts of theft, and one count of attempted theft.
Knowing that he wasn't going to simply get out of the situation, he realized that the only hope of escaping a harsher sentence was to tell the truth about who he was and what he had done.
Larry was so sincere and so convincing that the detectives were uncommonly impressed with his behavior.
But the person who was most impressed with his behavior was his own lawyer, who apparently sent a letter stating the following, and I think it goes without saying what the intention was.
Quote, Mr. Phillips has consistently been a cooperative and responsible client.
His whole demeanor throughout my relationship with him as his attorney has been considerate and appreciative.
He is punctual and mature.
He is very intellectual, and if given an opportunity, would be a very productive member of society.
More clients should behave as Mr. Phillips.
It would make our jobs easier.
It is noteworthy that both investigating detectives remarked to me how nice a person Mr. Phillips is for someone so...
And the rest is damaged and unreadable.
Can't read the rest of that.
But yeah, that was a letter he sent to him.
But let's skip forward to February 16th, 1993.
Larry would sign some probation documents and list his total assets as zeros across the board.
He tests negative for illegal substances, and then on March 26, 1993, he would be sentenced.
His lawyer was able to strike a deal, and he agreed to a two-year term in county jail while he participated in the work release program.
He would also have to pay $230 in court costs.
The day of sentencing came, and as all the eyes eagerly awaited for the appearance of Larry Phillips, Larry Phillips never showed.
He was nowhere to be found.
That same year, though, he also became a father to his own son.
And then, one random day while at the gym, Larry would meet another man as they were both mid-jumping jack, their fingertips barely brushing against each other.
And this would go on for quite a while, until slowly the brushing of fingertips would morph into the brushing of entire hands.
And that, inevitably, Would eventually morph into the brushing of each other's hair.
And in the midst of the awkward situation, but only awkward to those around them, Larry would introduce himself to this other man who happened to compliment Larry perfectly, just like a turd in a turd bowl.
And this man's name was Emil Matasarano.
And I think I got that name right, Matasarano.
And I think that's how you pronounce it.
M-A-T-A-S-A-R-E-A-N-U.
Matasariano? Matasariano?
Matasariano? Matasariano?
I don't know.
Something like that.
Emil Matasariano, whose full name was Decibal Stefan Emilian Matasariano, was born on July 19th in 1968 and was an only child born to Valeria Nicolescu and Viorel Dominic Matasariano,
being of Romanian descent.
And a huge shout-out to our Romanian listeners.
Emil apparently suffered from terrible headaches, and as a result of these headaches, he would sometimes go into epileptic shock, resulting in seizures.
And he was born with a congenitive heart disease.
The family desperately wanted out of what was a totalitarian regime at the time, led by Nicolae Ceaușescu.
And so, with the suspected help of the International Red Cross, Valeria was able to go on a tour of Italy in 1974 with an opera company that she apparently was part of.
And without going deep into the details, she defected and was able to get to the United States where she would start work at a real estate company as a cleaner.
But she worked her way up and got a real estate license.
Emil and his father would remain in Romania.
For another two years, but would eventually reunite with Valeria in Pasadena, California.
Another report says that all three of them left to California at the same time, regardless.
You know, whatever.
His father, Viorel, would take up work with the Gilbert Engineering Firm, which is still in operation today and apparently specializes in home decor lighting.
And Emil, of course, enrolled in Pasadena High School.
There is a lot leaning toward Emil being bullied throughout school for reasons unknown, and I leave that open to speculation, but as far as I could find, his mother did indeed admit in an interview she gave to the media after the fact that he did have troubles at school,
but that he himself was never a violent person.
In an AP News article dated March 3rd, 1997, she is quoted as saying, Quote, never I heard that he fight with someone.
End quote.
Then she shrugs her shoulders, sort of saying, what do you expect?
And then said, quote, he grows up here, he grows in America.
End quote.
Implying that America is what did it to him.
And? Yeah.
Yeah, probably not far off.
So, Emil's parents were quick to say that he had an attitude problem.
And they suspected that their son's final bank robbery was a...
Some things come to light in this article I found about Emil's state of mind.
Apparently, Emil and his father were not seeing eye to eye and his father was angry at him for marrying too early and not having a better education.
Emil did eventually graduate from DeVry with a three-year course in electronics engineering, but his father still wasn't satisfied and annoyingly pushed for him to get his master's degree.
And Emil appeared to be very invested in that idea.
His parents said that they had not spoken to him for around 6-8 months before the robbery took place, and the family tension between them had been ongoing for at least the past 5 years.
But in the span of 8 months of not talking to his parents, he ended up suffering a major seizure, and after that, his wife decided that she wanted to separate from him, which she did, and then she moved back to Romania, and she also took their son.
This was it.
Devastating blow to say the least.
But he went on to graduate, and after graduating from DeVry, Emil started his own business selling computers and computer parts, and he also did computer repair and offered software counseling, which is fucking badass.
This is also when he developed an interest in firearms.
Emil was also writing some small DOS-based accounting software using C++, and then selling these programs to other businesses, which...
If he would have just stuck with that, it's quite possible, highly possible, that he would have been a multi-millionaire today, living at large in Silicon Valley, if that's where he wanted to be, just railing massive lines of blow and boofing mad amounts of MDMA,
you know, just like everyone else in the Valley of the Heart's Delight does.
But even without a drug problem, his business struggled for various reasons, as did he.
Later on, his mother would tell the media that Emil had told her at some point before the attack that he could not handle life any longer, and it was clear to her that he was pretty depressed, and she tried to talk to him about it, but there's only so much you can do for someone else,
you know?
There's just only so much.
But of the robbery and shootout, she would later say that she thought it was a suicide mission, and if they had gotten away, He would have just planned for another suicide mission, which I think is the trick to being a successful bank robber, right?
You're just kind of going in there with no real expectation to get away.
You're just really hoping for it because there's always a chance you're not going to get out.
It's 50-50 every time, man.
You're rolling the dice.
I don't know.
It's probably a suicide mission for every bank robber every time they do a robbery.
I don't know.
At least they're ready for it.
So yeah, Emil and Larry would meet at a Gold's Gym at Rose Street in Venice, California in 1989.
That's what's speculated, and it's quite possible that the two had met previously to this, but we just don't know that for certain.
Well, let's skip ahead and bring us back to the year 1993.
It's October 1st.
The time is right around 10.30pm on a Friday night in Glendale, California.
Larry and Emil were just about to leave the gas station in a stolen red 1993 Ford Thunderbird.
As they left the gas station, Larry, who was driving, decided to peel out as they sped out of the parking lot.
This, of course, caught the attention of a police officer.
But not just any old police officer.
This was Sergeant Ian Grimes with Glendale's undercover auto theft department.
Sergeant Grimes was immediately in hot pursuit.
So Larry and Emil are just cruising through the streets, not paying attention to any traffic laws or even the flashing lights in Sergeant Grimes' pursuing car.
They're speeding through intersections left and right, but Larry finally decided to pull over to the curb to see what the old boy behind them wanted.
Grimes walked up to the passenger side and asked Larry what his name was, but he told him it was Dennis Franks.
He also didn't have a driver's license with him because, well, he left it at home.
Grimes then asked who the car belonged to, and this is when Emil made a bit of a misstep.
He spoke out of turn and told Sergeant Grimes that the car belonged to Dennis Frank's mother.
The only problem was that the car was stolen from an airport rental.
At this point, Grimes asked Larry to step out and meet him at the rear of the vehicle, and he complied.
And this is where the cop notices that Larry is sort of bent at a strange angle, and so he thinks it's wise to pat him down really quick to see if he has a gun on him, because why not?
It's LA, it's 93. That is when Sergeant Grimes would find a Glock 17 handgun loaded with a 33-round extended clip in his jacket.
He also noticed that Emil was retrieving his own weapon.
And when that happened, Sergeant Grimes retreated to a corner to place space between them and was able to hold them down while backup arrived.
At that point, a zoo of responding LA officers would arrive and remove ammo from the Thunderbird.
Then their attention went to the trunk of this stolen car.
There was a lot in the trunk.
There was one Chinese Polytech AKS underfolding semi-automatic rifle.
There was one Chinese Norinco Mach 90 semi-auto.
There was one Springfield Armory.45 pistol.
There was one Colt.45 pistol.
They had 1,649 rounds of ammunition of 7.6239mm in addition to numerous drum magazines filled with nearly 1,000 rounds of 9mm.
There were also other magazines and drums filled with 9mm hollow point bullets.
And there were also 357 rounds of 45 hollow point bullets, six smoke bombs, two improvised explosives, one gas mask, two sets of national armor, level 3A bullet resistant fests, two police scanners with earpieces,
all the sunglasses, gloves, wigs, steam masks, stopwatches you'd ever need for a typical Tuesday night.
Plus, there were two cans of hairspray,
So as it turned out...
The two men were in a hurry to get all those goods to a safe house.
But they got a little sloppy by laying down that rubber while leaving the gas station.
Both men would be taken to the Los Angeles County Men's Jail and booked in with all the normal routines.
Fingerprints, photos, yada yada yada.
They both sat in jail for 25 days before their initial hearing.
Larry would be represented by a public attorney and Emil would retain private counsel.
They were both charged with some serious shit too.
Conspiracy to commit a felony, some grand theft, perjury, a bit of false impersonation, there was also the carrying illegal weapons such as the.50 Cal Brownie machine gun, and some other shit.
Then Colorado was informed that their man was caught up in LA on more serious crimes, so they decided not to extradite Larry for the property crimes back in LA because it would have just been a waste of money that could otherwise have just been in a few county officials' pockets.
So both Larry and Emil would each end up taking pleas in exchange for a three-year probationary period and a $200 to $300 fine after the time served, which was something like 99 days for Larry and 71 days for Emil.
But once the two old boys were back together again, they devised yet another plan to commit some brazen armed robberies.
This time, it was July 14th, 1995.
They were in Los Angeles, California, and right around 12.25 p.m., they robbed a Brinks-owned armored car.
They shot open the back doors and gained access to all that money.
Stacks and stacks of monies.
Then they got away in a dark blue Chevy Cavalier.
Unfortunately, the Brinks car security guard, 51-year-old Herman Dwight Cook, was dead from a gunshot, and the driver...
53-year-old Felipe Cortez, he was left uninjured.
But one year later, there was another attempt on a Brinks-owned armored car.
But it was unsuccessful, but thought to be the work of Emil and Larry.
And on May 2nd, 1996, the pair decided that robbing armored cars was too difficult and that they should try to carry out an actual bank robbery.
So, what did they do?
They walked into a Bank of America at Los Angeles Van Nuys, and eight minutes later, they were $755,048 richer.
And about one month later, May 31st, they robbed another Bank of America branch and left with another $794,000, but which left two tellers injured.
Interestingly, there were supposed to be $2 million at the bank, but because of some new security measures that were put in place due to the mounting bank robberies happening, Of which Larry and Emil were surely part of, a lot of that $2 million had already been collected from other carriers two days earlier.
So, after hauling in around $1.5 million in two bank robberies that took a total of about 14 minutes, the FBI's bank squad gave the pair the name the AK-47 Bandits.
But then, they changed the name to the High Incident Bandits.
The boys were weary enough to know that they couldn't get all willy-nilly with their unchecked spending.
They refrained from buying flashy cars and huge houses for now.
Larry did, however, purchase a Rolex and some new Nike runners that his father, Larry Sr., would later see him wearing at a Thanksgiving dinner back in Denver in 1996 and thought it should be a little peculiar.
But other than a few small purchases that wouldn't raise too many red flags, the two men simply laid low and focused on formulating their next plan.
The next plan was to hit up the next bank, which would be Branch 384 of Bank of America on 6600 Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, Is where I'll have to end today's episode.
I'm truly sorry, but I have an engagement to attend.
It's very important.
But you bet your bottom buttons that I'll be back next week to finish this shit out.
And it's going to be a longer episode, I promise.
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