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The Bank Robber

49:54 recording · EN · 4 speakers

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Brief overview

A man who robbed a bank at 14 seeks his victims' forgiveness and finally grants his own.

  1. A bullied kid borrowed his plan from the moviesYoung Guns, Point Break and an encyclopedia of crime gave him a script; daily versus monthly hotel rates were the one thing the movies never covered.
  2. The apology he wanted was mostly unavailableThe officer had died in 2019, the bank no longer exists, records were sealed, and both tellers chose to leave the past in the past.
  3. Closure came from naming himself, not from being forgivenHe had felt that self-forgiveness was a luxury he could not have until his victims granted theirs; saying his own name out loud felt like lightness and relief.
Executive Summary AI
  • On this Heavyweight episode from Pushkin, host Jonathan Goldstein tells the story of a 14-year-old who robbed a bank for $40,000 with his father's sawed-off shotgun and, 33 years later, wants to apologize to the people he harmed.0:35
  • The man, identified only as X, emailed Goldstein to say that in 1992, one month past his 14th birthday, he committed an armed bank robbery; he was one of seven brothers raised on a dairy farm, beaten at home with a belt or broomstick and bullied at school, and he escaped into fantasies of movie outlaws and a new mafia family in New York.6:11
  • In October, at the beginning of ninth grade, he hacksawed the barrel off his father's hunting shotgun, pulled his mother's pantyhose over his face, entered the bank at 10.15 with the gun unloaded, made two tellers fill a green and yellow sports bag with over $40,000, and was arrested on the street minutes later because the hotel he planned to hide in only rented rooms by the month.14:06
  • He was sentenced to 12 years, served three at a youth facility with daily therapy, was released at 17, and went on to college, marriage, good jobs and even a stint working in a bank, while his parents kept the crime secret and one brother still hasn't told his wife of over 20 years.17:31
  • Goldstein spent three years tracing the victims — the arresting officer Roy Tupin died in a 2019 diving accident, a customer named William remembered only screaming, and tellers Darlene and Judy declined to talk — and after his father died in November and was eulogized, X stopped waiting for their forgiveness and said on tape, "My name is John Paul, and when I was 14 years old, I robbed a bank for44:16
Key Quote
“I was just one month past my 14th birthday.”
— John Paul5:46
Key Quote
“Well, you would call it abusive today.”
— John Paul6:11
Key Quote
“I'm on this track now that I can't back up on. I have to go forward because I've now destroyed my dad's gun.”
— John Paul11:41