I think the dispatcher was VERY STUPID to ring the bank to see if there really was a bank robbery in progress.

I mean if the bank manager had set off the secret silent alarm, than the dispatcher would just send the police cars there outside without letting the bank robbers know.

As soon as the dispatcher rung the bank to ask & verify if the silent alarm had been set off because of some trouble, the bank manager was forced to answer the phone and give a nervous answer. The dispatcher asked the bank manager to go outside and talk with the police officers. Pretty rediculous suggestion considering this is in the middle of an armed holdup.


The bank robbers overhearing the conversation knew the bank employees had set off the alarm and got mad after having shouted at them not to set off any alarms.


This whole silent alarm systems at banks don't make any sense to me if the dispatcher is going to call the bank. What's the point of that? It's supposed to be silent and secretive as not to alert the bank robbers but only to alert the police that there is a bank robbery in progress. As soon as the dispatcher called, the cover had been blown.

I saw an hour-long program regarding those bank robbers just a couple of weeks ago. They had successfully eluded capture, or even identification, until the mid-'90s or so. The two men lived in separate midwestern states and apparently had almost no contact with each other beside getting together for the robberies.

Apparently one of the two men was building a dream house, but his wife kept complaining to the builder about minor details during the construction. He was so annoyed with her complaints that he tipped authorities that he had been paid entirely in cash. That led to a lengthy investigation that solved the case.

As an aside, I know the man who portrayed the Henderson bank manager in the Unsolved Mysteries segment. He is Chipper Chirimbes, a longtime sports handicapper in Las Vegas who has appeared on those weekly televised football tout programs for 20 years or so.

I saw this segment a couple of days ago while going through my old tapes. It did seem a bit strange that the dispatcher would call the bank to confirm that the silent alarm went off, but it could be that the dispatcher was following directions of what she is supposed to do when she is alerted by a silent alarm going off. The bank manager deserves a lot of credit for "keeping his cool", and making up the story to one of the gunmen, that the phone call was by the guy who worked at the market across the street, who thought there was something suspicious going on, so he had to go across the street to tell the guy everything was ok. Also in that segment, Katherine Scott, a news reporter, heard the robbery over her police scanner, decided to try to get a picture of the robbers and she drove by the getaway car going in the opposite direction, stuck her camera out and snapped the picture. The photo was blurred a bit by the sun, but they cleared it enough to get a composite sketch of one of the men. He was caucasian or hispanic in his 40's to 50's, I believe.
UPDATE-2 men were later identified as "Trenchcoat Robbers", Raymond Lewis Bowman, and William Arthur Kirkpatrick.

To clarify something else: The robbery took place in Henderson, Nevada, not Las Vegas.