The Great Goth Armored Car Heist

At 11 o'clock thefollowing evening — Monday, November 26th, 2007 — two drivers for AT Systems, the armored-car company where Roger worked, pulled into the company's garage on Tibbetts Wick Road in Girard, five miles north of Youngstown. Chris Walters and Carl Cook had finished a nighttime run to a bank in Cleveland, three hours through driving rain and fog. The two men were looking forward to heading home when they noticed something that made them hope their minds were playing tricks on them: The two large safes used to store money awaiting armored transport had been emptied completely. No doors were jimmied. No glass shattered. The tape from the security cameras was gone. The police soon learned that the alarm had been disabled by an employee's PIN at 8:20 that night and reactivated at about 8:45.

The crime, seemingly flawless in execution, was also perfectly timed. Thanksgiving weekend had just passed, and with it Black Friday, when shoppers in even the most economically depressed regions stampede into the nation's malls, spending an estimated $20 billion. In 25 minutes the thieves had made off with $8.4 million in unmarked cash and checks, making the theft one of the largest cash heists in American history.

Within 48 hours, Roger and Niki had been named suspects in the crime. As the news spread, Youngstown was gripped by the improbable tale of the couple's big score. Some came to see the crime as a result of minds dislocated by fantasy; to others it was a case study in the kind of greed that corrodes so much of America. But to most, the crime was processed as a tale of Rust Belt redemption. "GO ON, TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN!!!!!" posted one reader on the message board of the local paper, The Vindicator, triggering a discussion that snowballed in the days that followed. "I think it's awesome. . . .Hope they left the country," chimed in another. One commenter praised Roger: "He made his fortune in the steal business, in the Mahoning Valley of Ohio, where most steel companies have gone belly up." Others were disgusted by such sentiments. "Typical Mahoning Valley resident," someone responded. "Admiration for criminals." Some began to call the couple the "Goth Bonnie and Clyde."

On the morning after the heist, a sedan carrying three FBI agents pulled up the driveway of 162 Lowell Avenue, the home where Roger and Niki rented the two upstairs apartments with Roger's mother, Sharon Lee Gregory, who had recently kicked an addiction to crack. The landlord, a lifelong resident of Youngstown named Cookie Bowman, was unfazed by the men standing outside her door. "I thought to myself, 'The grass doesn't need cutting,'" she recalls. "'The leaves don't need raking, there's no snow yet, and I already know Jesus, so I'll just tell them to go away.'" The FBI agents introduced themselves and started asking questions. They didn't mention that Roger hadn't shown up at AT Systems that morning. Or that Niki, a few days prior, had given away her Chevy Cavalier with no explanation. Or that, the previous afternoon — the day of the heist — Roger's mother had purchased a used black GMC Safari for $1,400, asking the dealership to please remove the back seats. In fact, the agents did not mention anything about the theft at all.

"Have you noticed anything unusual about Roger lately?" they asked.

No, Bowman had not. Roger, Niki and Lee, as Roger's mother was known, were as good as any tenants she'd ever had. Just yesterday, in fact, Niki and Lee had rushed out in the pouring rain to help Bowman's elderly mother, who had slipped in the driveway and shattered her hip. The reason for the FBI agents' visit became clear the following morning, when Bowman saw the front page of The Vindicator: "Liberty Police, FBI Probe Heist." What followed were some very hectic days for Bowman: more visits from the FBI and from television news vans and reporters, first local, later national. When she finally got around to sorting all the mail that had piled up, she discovered a plastic sandwich bag with a piece of notepaper inside. Bowman unfolded it to find six $100 bills — December rent for Roger, Niki and Lee — along with a single word written in large block lettering: Sorry.