The oldest robber in the world
Time is an inexorable thing, and it is quite a robber. Let us tell you a sad story about how time robbed J. L. Hunter, nicknamed "Red", stealing his fortune, dreams, health, and his loved ones. And then he began to rob banks, becoming the oldest bank robber in the world.
J. L. Hunter "Red" Rountree was born on December 16, 1911 in Texas, and until the age of 86 he did not even have a ticket for speeding or illegal parking. He founded a successful oil rig equipment company, married a beautiful woman named Frey, and raised his stepson James as his own son.
In the 1970s, Rountree sold his company for several million dollars and began investing in shipyards. But then luck changed him - the investments went bankrupt, bank loans had to be repaid from personal funds, the stepson died in a car accident, and in 1986, after 50 years of marriage, his wife died.
"Red" became addicted to drinking, began to indulge in light drugs, and in 1989, at the age of 78, he married a 31-year-old dancer from a bar, Juanita Adams, with two children, who "gobbled up" the rest of his savings, running away a few years later.
And on December 9, 1998, a week before his 87th birthday, J.L. Hunter Rountree was arrested for the first time for robbing SouthTrust Bank in Mississippi - he handed the bank teller an envelope and ordered him to fill it with money, threatening with a bottle of coca-cola, which he kept in the pocket of his raincoat.
The cashier followed the instructions, but followed the robber into the street, who was immediately detained by police officers who happened to pass by. The retiree was sentenced to three years probation, a $260 fine, and an order to leave Mississippi.
And less than a year later, in 1999, Rountree robbed Nations Bank in Florida for $8,000 according to the same scheme, but was stopped on the street by a kick of some random passer-by Good Samaritan karateka who heard the cry of the cashier “We are being robbed!” This time, J. L. Hunter Rountree went to prison for three years, of which he served two and a half.
A year after his release, on August 12, 2003, at age 91, Rountree showed up at First American Bank in Texas and handed over to the cashier an envelope with the inscription "This is a robbery" and a demand to fill it with money. The cashier, sadly looking at the almost transparent skin on the wrinkled hands of a 91-year-old old man, asked him twice: “Are you joking?”, but he assured that he was not.
Coming out with $1999 of stolen money, an elderly robber got into a car, the plate number of which was memorized by the vice president of the bank. Half an hour later, the car was stopped, and the old man said to the policeman, who pointed a gun at him, "Get that damn thing out of my face, I never had a gun." And then he lamented: “How could this happen? I planned out the robbery well, but forgot to smear the license plate of the car. Sclerosis…"
Then Rountree claimed that he pulled off several successful bank robberies, but few people believed him - most likely there were only three of his bank robberies, and they all ended with the capture of the robber. And no one doubted that a prison term of twelve and a half years in prison would become a life sentence for a 91-year-old prisoner.
And a year later, on October 12, 2004, the oldest bank robber in the world, J.L. Hunter Rountree, died in a prison hospital. When asked during his lifetime why he robbed, "Red" invariably replied: "Because I hate banks."
But most likely the ninety-year-old man did this because there was nothing left of what he loved in life, and robberies gave him at least some sharpness of sensation. This somehow warmed up the blood in the senile veins of a person who once had millions, health, loved ones, and ruthless time stole all this from him.
