Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. It is based on the October 1997 Loomis Fargo Robbery in North Carolina, which was the subject of the 2016 American comedy film Masterminds. On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. . Hed never really been in trouble, he wasnt a career criminal, said retired FBI agent John Wydra. He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. Theres no management around. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. You can garnish wages. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. FILE - Kelly Campbell, one of the 21 people convicted for their involvement in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist, awaits sentencing for her part in the theft at her mobile home near Mount Holly, N.C. on Aug 16, 1999. kellis@gastongazette.com 0:04 1:38 On Oct. 4, 1997, former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt finished his shift as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte. He flew in an ultra-light plane. "I said, 'I don't want him killed.' He told him McKinney was in Mexico to kill somebody. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.. Jim Gronquist was Campbells defense attorney. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. About 10 frantic minutes later, Scott found the right key. The others sat in their cars across the street and watched him struggle to open the heavy gate. Since Ghantt was the supervisor, he sent his co-worker home first. He gave the rest to Kelly. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what they'd talked about that day in the break room. . Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. By this time, agents knew where he was and had a general idea who the other players were, so they went to every bank in town to see if any of them rented a safe deposit box. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. Three weeks after the theft, Steve and Michele moved from their Lincoln County mobile home to a $635,000 house in a gated Cramerton, N.C., neighborhood. ". He became the target of a nationwide FBI manhunt and was arrested five months later near the Mexican resort of Cozumel. . A week later, another informant told the FBI that Eric Payne had quit his job at a printing company soon after the heist and was spending money he probably hadn't earned legally. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. ALSO READ: 14-year-old boy robbed at gunpoint while waiting for bus in east Charlotte, mom says. "I thought he was goofing around.". I've got a good woman.". . And so, he told her, Google my name. Kelly had recently left a job driving an armored-car for Loomis, Fargo & Co. "He's the one who brought it up first," said Kelly, a year after her arrest. Steve told me to tell [David] whatever was necessary to keep him happy.". You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. ". "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. "She just called me up on the phone and said, 'Hey, let's meet one day after work.' And I knew that by that time, Id be in Cancun no matter what. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. And going to see the Mayan ruins. Probably very egotistical of me, I thought, Yeah, sure, I can beat them, theyre college smart and thats about it, Ghantt said. Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. The next day, he was sitting next to FBI agent Mark Rozzi on a US Airways flight to Charlotte. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. "I was thinking, 'They aren't paying me enough,' " McKinney recalled. She tried to apologize for the murder plot. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. . Its everything thats coming north.. She didn't plan to move to Mexico. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. Now worried about both the FBI and McKinney, he spent even more time alone in his room. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. Ghantt and one other employee were the last to leave. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. "A lot of people out there had it worse than me, but . Steve tried keys on a side door. David trusted her. I didnt pick the heist team. ", "Even then . Loomis, then known as Loomis Fargo, experienced two inside jobs in 1997, for $17.3 million and $18.8 million. * I understand and. Twice a week over the next 12 months, we will take you back to the winter of sheep cloning and the summer of Con Air. Kelly drove David to the airport. You can seize property. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. In December, agents got the tie-in they were looking for: Kelly Campbell had bought a $30,000 Toyota minivan with cash and registered it to one of Steve Chambers's aliases. I hear her typing. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said. Campbell left her job in the summer of 1997, but she would later use Ghantt's feelings for her to her own advantage to get him to agree to carry out the multi-million-dollar heist. He has a regular life now, but 25 years ago, Ghantt was the mastermind behind the third-largest bank robbery in U.S. history. I'd probably change jobs. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. Agents began picking up signs that David definitely had help: The abandoned Loomis van with $3.3 million in small bills still inside, and phone records showing that somebody beeped him while he stole the money, using David's own cell phone. There was, however, one problem with his plan. Tuesday marked 25 years since a group of buddies pulled off the third-largest money grab in U.S. history -- the Loomis Fargo heist. The property has changed hands several times since then. Find 145 people named Kelly Loomis along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. The picture, which is directed by Jared Hess and written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, and Emily Spivey, stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Jason Sudeikis . As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. What concerned her was the chance of getting caught. Thatd be the time to do it, Ghantt recalls. The robbers went on a huge spending spree, buying a massive home, artworks, big-screen TVs, expensive cars, pickup trucks, minivans, two boats, six motorcycles and several tanning beds. Even the outtakes during the credits are bad. Twenty-one people were charged and convicted in the robbery, one of the biggest heists in U.S. history. You might as well go all the way now.". He told Steve he hadn't been able to find David. See all of the stories here. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Turns out, most of the thieves and their accomplices have been about as effective coming up with their court-ordered restitution as they were hiding their original crimes. Tickle Me Kaczynski: How the Inventor of the Ultimate Elmo Toy Became a Unabomber Suspect, The Unexpectedly Sweet Story Behind Those Viral Semi-Truck Pregnancy Photos, I Wore Magnetic Underwear for a Week to See If It Would Give Me a Boner of Steel. To that end, Campbell brought in her childhood friend Steve Chambers, who was characterized in the local press as a small-time drug dealer and a local fence for stolen goods, to lead the team. Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S. News for ranking the 50 U.S. states, alongside news analysis and daily reporting. Scott Grant said he hesitated, but agreed if no guns would be involved. ". What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) _ A woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored car company Loomis, Fargo & Co. was sentenced Tuesday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. FILE - Kelly Campbell, one of the 21 people convicted for their involvement in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist, awaits sentencing for her part in the theft at her mobile home near Mount. When I call Ghantt to discuss his involvement in the Loomis Fargo heist, he confesses that hes feeling a bit tired from a day of honest labor. Her case closes in 2025. None of the suspects had been in any serious trouble before this. He goes, My name is Bruno. Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. In the meantime, however, Chambers not only refused to wire money to Ghantt in Mexico, but ultimately hired a hitman (Jason Sudeikis) to take him out. You can have your whole career and not have a case like that. One number is working in Campbells favor. When October 1997 began, Steve and Michelle Chambers lived in a double-wide trailer. He quickly found out when you have money, you just have different problems, Wydra said. When he finished, the van was filled with $17 million. Back then, it was one of the hotspots for hiding money. Ghantt planned to live off the interest for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, outside Reynolds & Reynolds, Steve, Scott and Eric needed to move 2,748 pounds of cash, quickly, from the Loomis van into the Budget van. They set the date, Oct. 4, a Saturday when David knew he could be alone in the building after his shift. At the end of one session, they wound up kissing outside the pickup. The Chambers, however, didnt fit in with the other members of the gated community. Its 90-minutes of mugging for the camera, but the only people who feel mugged are those that pay to see Masterminds. To the community, the Loomis Fargo heist was a big joke -- the largest hillbilly caper of all time. Al hacer clic en Aceptar todo, aceptas que Yahoo y nuestros socios procesarn tu informacin personal y utilizarn tecnologas como cookies para presentarte anuncios y contenido personalizados, evaluar anuncios y contenido, obtener datos clave sobre la audiencia y desarrollar productos. Theres some things I want to do., Ghantt planned on traveling from Mexico to the Cayman Islands, bypassing customs along the way. It wasnt a big hit, but Ghantt, who was played by Galifianakis, gives it a rave review. They hatched the idea half-jokingly, over a game of Uno, never dreaming they were about to make Bonnie and Clyde look like bottom feeders. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) Username. I studied up on the FBI. Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. I missed my wife. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. With a cast like this, and Emily Spivey (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Up All Night) as part of the writing team, Masterminds shouldnt be nearly as obnoxious and dull as it is, but nothing ever clicks. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. Ghantt spent a solid hour moving what ended up being 2,700 pounds of cash more than an actual ton into an unmarked company van. Twelve hours later, at 6 that evening, Eric Payne drove a rented Budget van to his workplace, a graphics company on Performance Road in western Mecklenburg County called Reynolds & Reynolds, which was closed for the night and had a secluded parking lot where they intended to transfer the cash. Steve, who had sworn Kelly, Eric and Scott to secrecy the night of the theft, named them all to the FBI. It was released in 2016 and Wydra was invited to the premiere. I really enjoyed the little scuba diving trip. In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. That first day in prison was scary, Ghantt said. Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. He partied, met women, drank, skied and hung out at the beach. He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. At the time, it was the largest cash heist in history. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. In Florida, a Loomis Fargo employee had pulled a gun on his coworkers and gotten away with $18 million, a move that FBI agents theorize Ghantt, Campbell and other employees all sat around talking about - and what they would do with that amount of money - for a while. If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. They assumed that whoever was involved would keep the cash in a safe place, like a safe deposit box. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. They stocked a wine cellar. Warning! A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. 145 Matches for Kelly Loomis. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP), Baltimore to Pay $6M in Latest Police Misconduct Settlement, Australia Family Hurt in Helicopter Crash Suing Vegas Firm, Massachusetts Governor Unveils Proposed $55.5B State Budget. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. Of course the problem was, the money belonged to someone else. The authorities didn't know yet how much was missing from the armored-car company, but Steve did. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. Federal prosecutors would ultimately charge 21 defendants in the case, including the Floyds, who were charged with (and pleaded guilty to) money laundering. Kelly was no criminal. So the original gang was all totally shocked, Wydra said. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]. She declined to take a lie-detector test. About six months before the Charlotte theft, on March 29, a total of $18.8 million was taken from Loomis, Fargo in Jacksonville, Fla., in what was believed to be the largest heist in U.S.. "Love" has four. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. They paid for all of it in cash. When he said, 'I'll give you $20,000 to hold a million,' I said, 'Sure.' Once I start something, Im going to the end., As for how he felt in the moment, he says, Imagine me and you went on an airplane. Time she saw the house to Loomis Fargo found out when you have money, you just have different,... About both the FBI and McKinney, he spent even more time alone in his room lot of people there. 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