Stephen Jackley: The Wannabe Robin Hood

Lots of idealistic young folks come to believe the world is a rigged game run by immoral fat cats. Many get motivated to change the state of things. Some even fantasize about robbing those same fat cats to get even. Stephen Jackley didn't just fantasize, he acted on it. He became a wannabe Robin Hood, a crimer who wanted to rob from the rich to give to the poor. But then life sorta got in the way.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey Elizabeth, look at you so glad to see you.
I got a question for that smile and face.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
That's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Yes, I do. I do. I love garlic. We know that.
I know that, you know that.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
You even have clothing that says that.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
My neighbors know that I love garlic. And I don't
care if I smell like garlic.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I thought that's half the pleasure. I kind of is
like a bubble of like.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, it's like there are two things when you're cooking
and baking, like if it says add a teaspoon of
vanilla and four okay, And if it says add for
clothes of garlic, like add ahead of garlic.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Ah, that's till like sixteen cloves.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Pretty much. That's just the Those are the like unwritten
rules of of food fixers.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
You got a heavy finger with the garlic.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
I like that, Yes, exactly. So you would think one
would think that if there was a garlic product, I'd
be like all about it.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
We were on such a good no, no, just hold on,
hold on.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Because like I went to the store and there was
the best foods otherwise known as Hellman's on the other
side of they do a garlic ali. It does not
taste good.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
That's the same company.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah, I did not know many.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, learn something new every day.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
It's kind of like dryers and uh, what is it? Eaties?
Sure that that you know? Continental divide Carls Junior. We're
a nation divided. Yeah, AnyWho best foods? Garlic Ali not good.
So I apologize to them. If they want to make
it right with me, fine.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
I'm taking notes. Not good.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
I think I'm just a food snob and I like
it homemade. Aside from that, so a lot of our
listeners were like, tell Elizabeth, I know she likes garlic,
and I know that there are some things that really
irritate the snot out of her. This is both Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
They're finally getting you. Yeah, thank you guys, dudes, you night.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
So apparently I'm not on TikTok. There's book talk, yeah,
which I guess is when people talk about books on
TikTok when they should be actually just reading the books.
But aside from that, there's an author, Jennifer l Arman Trout,
and I think she writes like, I don't know, vampire
books cool. She has a title that's coming out, The

(02:14):
Primal of Blood and Bone, which just like you know
me and fantasy books like vampires and dragons, kind of
like stay far away. Yeah, that's my that's my garlic.
Where I a vampire? Anyway, I'm dragging this off way
too long. So so this lady, she's got a book
coming out. She teamed up with Hellman's What I Know

(02:37):
Stop and they made a special edition garlic scented copy
of her book that is infused with Hellman's garlic aoli
create a one of a kind craven proof books. So
Craven must be a character who's like a vampire.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
This sounds like it the books.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Seeking another worldly experience, fire bound by flavor. This garlic
scented special edition is juicy enough to sink your teeth
right in. Take a closer look at all the fine details,
warning it will consume you. And then I have this
thing like a front plate like in the book. This
van pre repelling special edition of The Primal of Blood

(03:20):
and Bone was printed using garlic aoli infused ink. It
was meticulously crafted to repel nocturnal nibblers, specifically the ugly
creepy kind. So the book's going to spank, and not
in a good way. If it's this garlic AILI from Helmet,

(03:40):
it's greasy. Why I don't know, but the whole thing
is greasy and you can't you can't do that.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Why would anyone want?

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Well, because it's the people who are like, I'm quirky.
Are we going to go to a book fair and
sign it one?

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Really?

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Oh? They do? These people, these people out there, that's
wowd you just need to eat more garlic, drink more
vanilla extract. I don't know when.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Will the mashup culture and when will it come home
from the war?

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Never insummation your honor. That's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I'm going to give you that one. I don't even
know what I know.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
It was just like I kept getting that's forwarded to
be forwarded to me, and I was like, deep sigh, Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Eventually they're going to push you onto my side.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Of They are they are that they're writing a strongly
worded letters to these corporations.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Dear mister mashups, stop it.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Dear mister Hellman, dear admiral.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Help today. I want to tell you a story. Yes please,
I don't even think it's nearly as ridiculous. It's ridiculous,
but not.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Adulous like garlic.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
No, but it is medieval. It will get medieval on you.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I want to tell you a story about a crimer
who you could say was partly inspired by a cartoon Fox.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Wait.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, this is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and

(05:26):
outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent
murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous ridiculous. Elizabeth sar
I mentioned up top how today's crimeer may have been
partly inspired by a cartoon Fox. You want to take
a guess at which cartoon? Fox?

Speaker 3 (05:45):
I mean, is it the animated Robin Hood?

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yeah, he's fine singing.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Well, did you and your brother watch that one? Like
way my sister and I watched it.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Huh?

Speaker 2 (05:55):
I mean we wore that tape out?

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Oh yeah, yeah, I knew all of the songs completely. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, fun fact. That movie came out in nineteen seventy three.
It was the first animated film made by Disney after
Walt Disney passed on the first post Walt movie, Animated one,
and it was also the first animated Disney movie to
feature no human characters. I know. I didn't know that.
So the film features a bunch of my favorites in

(06:21):
the cast. There's the minstrel Allan A. Dale. The rooster
is played by Roger Miller aka King of the Row Sanger.
Of course, it also stars one of my all time
favorite performers, Phil Harris, as the cartoon bear sidekick Little John.
For those who don't know, Phil Harris used to play
himself in the Jack Benny Radio Show and then again
played himself in the Phil Harris and Alice Fay Show.

(06:42):
I listened to both on radio classics. Thank you. I
just love his voice, his whole vibe. I mean, come on, anyway.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Who is the King in the Louis Prima?

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Oh the King? Oh? The King is Peter Houston off
underrated actor? He played both Prince John, the villain, yeah,
Prince the heroic brother King Richard, So you were right.
He did put in the King. Yeah, and apparently the
singer Louis Prima, who was such a hit in the
Jungle Book right as a king Louis the King of
the Swingers the Jungle vip. Well, he expected to get

(07:15):
a role in Disney's Robin Hood and they were like, hey,
Louis bad news. Bro. He's like, what, I'm the King
of the Swingers the Jungle Vip. They're like, we ain't
got a role for you, right. So he was so
steamed about it. He recorded a whole album about it
called Let's Hear It for robin Hood, and then he
went he sold that album to Disneyland Records, which I

(07:37):
did not know was a thing, right, And he was
like Denzel Washington at the Oscars, like I'm leaving with something,
you know. He's like, I'm getting paid on my beat,
getting wet.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
So he wrote his own songs about the movie. Yes,
it wasn't like distracks and.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
It was used in the movie.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
It was just so you could stumble upon it and
in the record.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Store and oh yeah, and they're like, wait a minute,
this is none of this is in the movie.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
It's like a jet and he's important.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Exactly like what we doing.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
In the world. That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
That's how mad you was. So yeah, the fun fact
just for you, Elizabeth. Yeah, as you kind of intimated earlier,
Disney's Robinhood was a major early inspiration for some of
your faves. The furries. They think of the cartoon Fox
as a quasi sex symbol.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Now I told you about my evolution on first, yes,
come around to my side. Have I talked about it
on here? I don't know in public.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
I don't know if you've made this public.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Okay. So my whole thing with furries is they irritated
the bejeebers out of me. And then I started, anytime
you get annoyed or upset with someone, you have to
investigate yourself why that is, yes, And instead of saying well,
because they're lame, like no, really really investigated and I
realized that it was. One of the things I find

(08:51):
super annoying is when adults talk about how like I
love a sense of play and like they have this like, oh,
it's my childhood. And then I had kind of realized,
like I didn't really have that chance as a kid. Yeah,
I had to grow up really fast for a number
of reasons. And so it's like, I don't think that
I'm jealous of it. I just it's something that's so

(09:11):
foreign to me, and it's something that I feel like
I had to move by so quickly that I look
at these people, I'm like, oh, give it the program.
We got bigger fish to fry, like you don't have
time to put on a little costume run around. So
I'm letting go of that, and it makes them happy
and it fulfills them. And every time like they get
that like that, like tingle, when the barbed wire inside

(09:32):
me starts to coil.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
And get taught.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
I take a deep breath and I go, you know
what you do? You? I love that for you.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
There you go as one of them as well as.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
You're not trashing a hotel. Now that's right across the line.
But you know you want to dress up and stick
something up your ear like a tail, you know, knock
yourself out. Sure they do. I've seen it.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well that's my football coach used to say. You point
a finger. Three fingers are pointing back at you over exactly.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
No, I highly recommend if you get super annoyed with
something and you think it's like why am I like, investigate,
sit on it for a while, think about it. I
like that it might not be an answer that you're
comfortable with. I wasn't comfortable with it, but you know what,
we live and learn.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
You do grow every day that way.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Gross.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
No, for the record, as far as like whether robinhood
was like sexy and the furries or onto something. I
did have more than one female friend who told me
over the years that as young girls they had crushes
on the cartoon Fox robin Hood.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, that ate like the late Gen X. That's like
the everyone's like first crush is the animated Robinhood.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
It goes late Gen X xxennials and then older millennials
the whole span. It's like like a ten year window
of people who.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Are like weird boomers.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
That's one foxy Fox.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah. No, it was non threatening.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Well also, yeah, he's like you know they say confidence
is sexy. Yeah, I think that goes a long way.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
I know who my first childhood crush was.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
I have no idea. Mister slim good body.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
No, it's something that terrified my family.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Oh God, I'm not even going to guess who he's. Richards.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
I thought he was so dream like in the like
like reflective shades, shaggy hair, like you know.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
The skeletal drug addict. I find him.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Attractically recording in the South of France. I was like,
I'm four, let's go.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
If you wanted something embarrassing about me, this is nowhere
near as that.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
I'm just this is a therapy session, a lot out.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Just let's let's share, you know, just sharing time.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
That's ridiculous, it's a crime.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Do you know how I always remember who the King
of England was when the Magna carta was signed Disney's
robin Hood because John is the one. So I always
picture the scaredy cat lion being like bullied by his
nobles and crown. Yeah, exactly, that's how I remember it.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
I like tooth what was it a rabbit or something?
That's all. I don't remember the character whatever, there's the
snakes or his like that. No, I didn't think so
it's like a little cute pie.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Oh there's yeah, the little rabbit, the boy rabbit who
wants to be like Robin Hood.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
That's my favorite.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
And his sister has the list.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Yeah, yeah, I like the little boy Rabbit.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Okay, there you go. Well enough about Disney's robin Head,
no question, Elizabeth. Do you know which movie came out
in nineteen ninety one that does not point break? It
was a major iconic film starring a guy who go
on to play a character named Dutton.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
That's right, Kevin Costner, Yes, in Robinhood. Princis there It
is with the with the iconic soundtrack from Brian Adams.
Everything I do, I do it for you, dude?

Speaker 2 (12:40):
Do you remember the grip that song? Had this on the.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Smerdy Me I had it on single?

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Did you really you couldn't watch MTV without that being
played every least once an hour?

Speaker 3 (12:50):
Why did I get it on? You listen to it?
One's like, that's good. It's on the radio all the time.
I played it like once and then you flip it over.
It's the same song.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
It's not like a Canadian.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, it was all everything I do. I don't know.
I really like, I don't know. I had a lot
of weird singles. Are you just like it's like an
impulse by it?

Speaker 2 (13:09):
I totally feel you on that, sure, No I do.
I had like, well, those of the mine are like
like Beastie Boys KAS singles, but you.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Know I feel them cool.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
I just was like, I want to, you know, check
your head past the mic version three versions of it.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
I got the like EP of root Down and has
like seven versions of Best Boys.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
That's a really good one.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
We're talking now that I did listen to over and
over again.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
That's that's the technical Any.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Is your brain broken.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
So anyway, they're also in That was Mary Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Right, Yes, I thought we were moving forward.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
No, no, we're moving backwards. Okay, cool, So okay, I
got a harder one for you. Do you remember the
other Robin Hood movie that came out in nineteen ninety
one that also was not.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Point bright Brooks right, Robin.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
No, that was nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
There was another robin Hood. Yes.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
The reason why Robinhood is called robin Hood Prince of
Thieves is because the first one was just called robin Hood.
It starred Uma Thurman as Maid Marion.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
Who is Robin Hood.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
I think Patrick Bergen was his name.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah, that's good that now we know.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, now we know that one came out in May. Well,
the Kevin Costner version came out in June, so they
had to have it was a battling Yeah, it was like.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
A whole It was like an asteroid movie.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
But there you go, deep impact and army.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Guess I'm getting it.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, you know. Now have you seen the other more
modern version such as Robin Hood Men in Tights? Yeah,
the Melbrooks version right in it. Then there was the
twenty ten Ridley Scott version that stars Russell Crowe got
you saw that? Yeah, I was curious. I looked it up.
How many robin Hood movies are there? And it's kind
of wild because if you dated back to the silent
film era, motivated by the success of Like Later On,

(14:57):
the nineteen thirty eight version starring Errol fle which is
the iconic one, right, that's like you know, it is
the little green felt hat gives us the look, the
green tights, the whole bit, right. So since then, there
has been at least one robin Hood movie released in
every single decade. Really, except for one decade. There was
one decade that didn't feature a robin Hood movie. Can

(15:18):
you want you want to guess which decade had no
Robinhood film?

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Nineteen forties, good, guess we were a world at wars there, No, we.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Had Robinhood for the war, Oh we did. Yeah, we
needed that gumption.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
I don't know what.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
The nineteen eighties of course, oh really yeah, the me
generations like forget Robinhood. We went on that energy to
this decade. It was like the toll opposite spirit. They're
like rob from the poor to give it to the rich.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Sorry, Michael Douglas.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Saron what's with all the fun facts and trivia questions
about Robin Hood. It's that kind of day, great question?
Was it way to bring your aoly game? I was like,
you know, wondering, like when you get bored on the
robin Hood question. The reason why I wanted to talk
Robin It was to set a mood. Right, you've said
it since. That's what I want to tell you about today,
the cultural hole that that legend has on our imagination. Yeah,

(16:06):
and they set up top. Today's crime is inspired by Robinhood.
This dude wanted to be a real life, actual factual Robinhood.
Like he didn't go into crime to get rich. He
became a burglar to live out his robin Hood fantasies.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
He legit robbed from the rich to give to the poor,
just like the famous outlaud of Sherwood for now. You know,
I love that, right, I've been a robin Hood man
from the jump. In fact, on my first car, I
had a bumper sticker that used to say robin Hood
was right there I am driving around.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
Did you also have one that said, like, it's it's
criminal that what you know? We have to have a
bake sale.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
No, I wasn't that kind of guy. I was like snarky,
but not like that no bake sales while our our
schools have to hold robbin launchers.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
I don't know, I don't remember what it was. Today's
one of those coexist bumper.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Oh, I told you I was. I was snarky. I
thought I was being like, you know, let's take from
the rich. I thought I was.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
It's sort of like I had not in an altruistic way,
but it's that age. It was snarky. In high school,
I had a T shirt that said breathe or die
there and I thought that was absolutely hysterical. I thought
it was the coolest shirt. You know that in my
model U N shirts proceed I'd like to do is

(17:24):
just in.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Today's primer is a British cat named Stephen George Dennis Jackie.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
Stephen George Dennis Jackie.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
There will not be a quiz at the end. Stephen
Jackie he was. He was from the South Devon Coast,
from a place called Sidmouth or Sidmouth if you're an American, sidmth.
His father was a painter an engineer. He was also
a bit of a bully. His mother was a tragic figure.
She suffered three episodes of schizophrenia, and so his early
years are basically marked by memories of his mom being
hauled off by either cops or medical staff, you know,

(17:54):
the guys in white jackets, or his father like yelling
at him. Right. So this was all very hard on
young Stephen. He was also very sensitive lad, and so
in his early formative years it gave him a certain
distance from others, like he didn't have any friends. His
neighbors said of young Stephen, he was a very quiet lad.
I've only seen him a half a dozen times in
all the years they ever lived there. He used to
spend a lot of time in the house. Another neighbor said,

(18:15):
he did not seem to have any friends around here.
He was a very much a loner. You never saw
him playing out in the street or anything like that.
He was very quiet. You never saw him out socializing.
So as a result of his parents and his perennial shyness,
young Stephen retreated into fantasies. He was this highly moral,
ethical kid, so he liked to dream of making the
world a better place, and to do that, he dreamed
of one day becoming an outlaw ful hero yeah, man

(18:37):
after my own heart, because even as a young kid,
he saw that the world was a very unfair place.
This bothered him again his teen years. Right. For instance,
he was traveling with his family in Thailand and he
witnessed like the vast wealth disparities between what he knew
in the UK and what he was seeing in Southeast Asia,
and it bothered him to his core. So at some
point he gets into like this spiritual debate with a

(18:57):
Buddhist monk that he talks to. He's like a team, right,
but he's like, you know, asking him the ethical questions,
like is it ethical to do wrong if you do
it for the greater good? And the Buddhist Monk's like, well,
what are we talking about here? I need some parameters, kid.
So I don't know what the monk told him, but
it was apparently a very formative moment in his development
because it's mentioned in almost every story I read about him. Right,

(19:20):
he had then this is where his fantasies about becoming
an outlaw folk hero start to take hold and really
just grip his mind. Right. Eventually, he left his childhood
home behind. He went off to college at the University
of Wooster or is it's spelled on paper Warchester. But
you know, he entered the university as a geography student,
and yet even as a young man, he still harbored
all these childhood fantasies. Right, so one day he's like,

(19:42):
I'm going to become an outlaw folk hero, a do
gooder like by man Robin Hood Nice, And he did that,
Elizabeth Nice. Let's take a little break. When we get back,
I will tell you about the crime career of Stephen Jackly. Elizabeth,

(20:15):
we're back now. It's something I forgot to mention about
Steven Jackie that I probably should have mentioned when I
was introducing him.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
He's imaginary.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
No, No, he's totally real, and he's not me. This
is like I'm telling you a story where I'm using
a fake name. No, he was. When he was a
college student. He also got into experimenting with drugs, particular
smoking weed and blowing lines of cocaine. So that may
have had an influence on his whole life. I'm gonna
rob the rich and the poor, me being one of them.

(20:42):
So anyway, that also may have inspired some of his
fantasies of becoming an outlaw folk hero, because you know
how cocaine is. It's like, hey, man, you know what
I'm gonna do. I'm going to become a hell maybe
a smoke pot. He's like, yeah, I love that idea.
Like they're both telling him the same thing. But what
do I know. What I do know is this Elizabeth
In two thousand and seven, while he was studying geography

(21:04):
at the University of Wooster, he decides it's time to
start pulling my ethical crimes. He's twenty one years old
at the time. He's living in the dorms on campus,
really student housing, it's not exactly the dorms, and he
was like, I'm going to become a real life Robin
Hood now you can believe it. The very next year,
in two thousand and eight, there was this huge worldwide
financial crash and melt down, and it was already starting

(21:26):
to happen in two thousand and seven. We dated in
two thousand and eight, but it was it was very evident,
and so this threw a ton of fuel onto his
righteous fire that was already burning inside of him. So like,
while other students are going out and like making placards
to march and attend protests and and you know, like
argue against the wealth inequalities of the world and like,
you know, shout about this insatiable greed of bankers. Stephen

(21:48):
Jackie's like, I'm going to steal their money.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
I'm just gonna cut to the chase right to it, right.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
So to do this obviously, He's like, I will be
a college student by day, robin Hood by night.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
And he still doesn't have a whole lot of friends
right now.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
No, I should be clear about him deciding to become
a real life Robinhood. Like, I don't mean he started
wearing green tights in imagine greenfelt.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
Hat is a shame.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, No, No, he was as fun as that would
have been. He kept it low pro, right, he well,
I'll get to that a second, not exactly low pro.
But he didn't wear the Robinhood uniform. I'll just put
it that, okay, Okay. I should also probably mentioned that
Stephen Jackie's moral wreckted to was partly motivated, at least
by everything I read, by his Asperger syndrome.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
He was suspected that his Asperger syndrome partly motivated him
to want to right society's wrongs to balance the scale
he gave him this moral like fiber. Now years later,
looking back at what became, you know what he became?
Rather in his university years, Stephen Jacklie. He wrote this
letter to a newspaper, the Sunday Mercury, and he reconsidered
what he was thinking at the time, and as he

(22:51):
told his Sunday Mercury, it became apparent I could fulfill
the role of a hero, following in the footsteps of
a legend who had broken the law to bring wealth
and justice to the people. I could become a modern
day Robin Hood. He also addressed his motivations, his ethical
motivations that are more modern. He said, quote capitalism and
the unregulated market economy is responsible for immense human inequality.

(23:13):
It is driven and continues to drive a widening gulf
between the rich and the poor. I made a promise, nay,
a vow to change things, to make a difference.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
All right, God, you get the feeling right.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Like he wants to make a lasting difference. What would
be a lasting difference? Great question, As he explained, drastic, unprecedented,
courageous actions were required. But for every goal and dream,
there is one crucial ingredient needed to bring it to fruition.
It's the same ingredient that all human endeavors require, regardless

(23:46):
of effort or need. Yes, money was widlicked. So he's
not like your man Willy Sutton. Right, He's like, why
do you rob banks? Willy? Why? Because that's about the money.
So Stephen Jackley, he's like another man might have taken
a road of reason getting a job or beginning a

(24:07):
career that would be a pathway to accomplishment. Many would
have simply have accepted that they could make no difference,
or that ultimately it wasn't the worth the effort. In youth,
self centered desires take priority fast cars, pretty women, drugs,
and drink. Even when the survival of humanity is at
stake the future of their families. Most people do not

(24:28):
take active steps to change things. They simply ignore the
impending crisis, accept it, or don't do enough. Not my
man Stephen jacks.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
But I mean, he's like, oh, y'all don't do enough.
But I'm still gonna do the drugs and do enough.
I was like, you guys are out there doing drugs.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Keep that in mind.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yes, I still do it.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
He's like, he says, another point. Day by day, I
could feel the rails vibrating. I think he means metaphorically.
Day by day I was aware of what could, what
would happen, and then it's fate would have it. One
day it did happen. In the autumn of two thousand
and seven, he became Robin Hood.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
Good for him.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
So at the first the cops in the UK, they
were confused by this sudden appearance of this new bank
rubber on the scene, this man who seemed to work alone,
man who was armed and dangerous, but he was also
a very sophisticated kind of professional thief. No, I should
be clear. To disguise himself, our new outlaw folk hero
in training. He employed a pair of dark, oversized sunglasses.

(25:27):
I'm talking like, imagine like Audrey Dunner shades totally, but
more like Audrey Hepburn shades. Yeah right, so big yeah,
big dad so. And then also he we like to uh.
He favored a rather outrageous blonde wig like I'm picturing
like a Dolly Parton number.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Oh you're seeing it go high. I'm going long and scraggling.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Long, scraggly high, deep and wide. I mean, it was
just all the descriptions.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
For deep Mountain high. Is it like Dolly Parton like
the I don't think.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Like taller the hair, I don't think like Dacas. No,
I'm thinking like maybe in B fifty twos. Let's go
with that. That's kind of fun, but it's more of
a bee hive. Yeah, I'm thinking it had some more length,
like shoulder length hair.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Okay, let's place it somewhere in like Tampa Bay newscaster
nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Boom, there it is.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, settled almost on a man, almost a prince valiant.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, good point, Yeah, very good. So at this point,
all this has nothing to do with robinhood, right, No,
little greenfelt had for this brother. No, but it did
allow him to have a you know, a costume, one
would say, a way to disguise himself. Now, looking for
an early taste of success, he tried to wrap like
a bank courier outside the bank. He's like, just one

(26:44):
on one, me and him. Right, it shows up armed
with a knife and a pellet gun. Oh, which must
not have looked very convincing because the courrier was like,
piss off. Nice. He's like, all right, So he decided
letast start out with easier targets. Maybe get some practice
under my belt. Or so he decided to hit a bookie,
like a bookie spot, you know, like in the UK
they have those like bookiey houses or usual shop makers.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
So for one of his earliest successful robberies, he walks
into a bookie like one of those betting shops, and
he was like armed with a hammer and a knife.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Like one of the like storefront styles.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, I imagine, but I also imagine kind of like
the storefront type like you'd find in a guy Ritchie film.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, you see him, there's just like yeah, countertops.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yes, it's exactly high. Countertops are like a woman working
there with a bit of an attitude. Sure, all right,
So he tells the two clerks working.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
There, I'm sorry, he had a hammer, hammer and.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
A knife and a nice shows up. I got one
for each of you.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
Break an ice block.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
They're like, oh, he's nuts. Okay, so this is not
going to end well. So he tells the two clerks
working that they need to stuff his backpack with cash
or else. Yea, they decided they didn't want to learn
more about the orls. They looked at the hammer like
that's good enough. Yeah, and then they stuffed eight hundred
and twenty five pounds in his backpack and he called
it good okay, big successful first robber, one of his

(27:58):
first robbery. That his confidence now is like you know,
modern day Robinhood surges. He decides, I'm gonna now Robin
actual bank.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, I got a baby steps job.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, work your way up, so you know, you gotta
walk before you run. So to hit the bankers, he
broke in with his imitation gun, his outrageous blonde wig,
his oversized dark sunglasses. He would move quick, no time
wasted like in the vaults. Nope, he just demanded money
from the bank tellers, whatever they had in his drawers.
Then he would be gone within ninety seconds and he's
out right. So by the time the police arrived, there's

(28:30):
just nothing but like, you know, whispers of who was
just here? Who was that mask man? So his motos
operandi was to basically hit banks in the Midlands area
of the UK and yeah, there you go, and he
would bust into a bank and a daring daytime stick up.
He'd brandish a handgun, but don't worry, no one would
ever or could get hurt since it was an imitation gun. Yeah, right,

(28:51):
So it's like unless you, you know, get shot with
a pellet. But the bank tellers they don't know this,
so they would like, you know, like you no, exactly.
A lot of people haven't really seen a gun pointed
at them. They don't know what a gun looks like
outside of a movie.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
Imagine in crimes, you're not really anticipating having a gun
pulled on his whole knife crime.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, and a lot of people don't really look at it.
They look at they could just all of a sudden
look at the outline of the person, and part of
the outline is holding a gun. Yeah, so they would
believe his make believe gun and then hidden behind his
oversized dark sunglasses and his outrageous, ridiculous blonde wig. So
there is this stranger demanding the bank's money or else,
so they would give over whatever they had in their drawer.
And then after he fled with whatever money he could

(29:31):
scare out of the bank tellers, they would report it
to the local news that a man by himself, wearing
a comical blonde wig and giant dark sunglasses came in
and robbed the place.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
It looks like JT. Leroy in my house.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, kind of So at first, like, you know, his
disguise is getting most of the press, like they keep
talking about this ridiculous blonde wig, these crazy sunglasses because
he keeps getting away with it. There's not much else
to write about. He's not getting cuts. They're like, well
do you looked? Like how crazy was the wig? So
eventually though, the police in the UK, they make it
their mission to like change that. They're like, we got
to catch this guy, so they launch a nationwide.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Man hunt for him.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
Stephen Jacklie. Remember he's a college tudent by day, robin
Hood by night. He could have focused his efforts directly
on like charity work instead of being a Robinhood by night.
And he's like, nope, I need to rob these banks.
You know. It's like so it's based on his Robinhood obsession.
He decides like once he has some success, now he's like,
I'm gonna go bigger. So as here this is how

(30:27):
he explained it to the Sunday Mercury quote, banks, bookmakers,
and building societies are icons of the current socioeconomic system.
There are more than just exchanges of money and legalized
loan sharks. They were to me a legitimate target. So
he's getting like ginned up. He's firing himself up, like
he's now like the good guy of all, like a legend.

(30:48):
He's like Batman on one right, I'm punching you because
you're bad. You're like you've got anger issues, buddy, He's
not dealing with any of that, right, So you killed Eventually.
He writes in his diary at the time that he
had a goal that he would keep hitting banks and
bookies until he was able to steal one hundred thousand pounds. Okay,
that's his goal. Once he amassed that one hundred thousand pounds,

(31:09):
this one man Robinhood charity organization would start his own
official organization, and then he donated all to charity. Oh
not all of it. He did donates sixty percent.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Wait, okay, so first of all, did he think through,
how am I going to start an actual nonprofit organization?
And where am I going to say this money came from?

Speaker 2 (31:29):
Not exactly. He figured he could do it international.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
And he's doing like the serious, like shady nonprofit of
he for.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Me, Yes, sixty percent for the effort, the administrative management.
You gotta pay for that. So his plan was he
would establish a business that would then subsequently establish branches
in foreign countries. And then yes, and he would give
out his money, his stolen proceeds to help combat food
insecurity in the so called Third World.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Okay, yeah, as.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
He wrote in his diary, he planned to donate, as
I said, sixty percent to charity and the homeless, and
then forty percent to the Robin.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Hood him sixty world peace.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Has. He later explained, I could have easily been a
person who's cycled to work and recycled, someone who did
their best to save the planet. But no, I decided
on a drastic, almost revolutionary course of action. It's so proud,
he's so high on his own supply. So it's it's
much more fun to throw on an outrageous, comical blonde
wig than recycled and then.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
The bike in the rain. Yes, exactly, this is way
more fun.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Give me them, Audrey, hepburn stunner shades. Let's do this,
And so at one point he says, this is going
to sound crazy, but I marked the notes with an RH.
So he's going around giving out stolen proceeds to homeless
folks and then putting a little RH on it so
people would know that.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
He's already passing out bills like.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Rolls of twenties to like homeless people.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
That's eating away. It is one hundred k, yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
But he wants to do it, you know, like he
wants to gig. Yeah, all right away, book at the
work I'm doing.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
But he's true, he doesn't want to be truly anonymous.
He wants to put his little rh on there.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah. Well, you know, a person may start out with
high minded ethics, pure motivation, but then life dance again.
In this case, he made a mistake the kind anyone
pretending to be Robinhood could have made. I mean, it
was a very harmless mistake. You see, he got confused
and he robbed the wrong place.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
Okay, yeah, that happens. It happens, is the best of us.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Stephen Jackie remembered on one occasion, I burgled a premises
and it turned out to be a charity office, which
I hadn't realized at the time. That was a nightmare.
So he robbed a charity.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
Oh my god, he broke into an ox fan.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
He's not taking the money from the people. He wants
to give the money to.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Well, because he'll do better with it. He knows better everything.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
The charity was next to a bank, and so he
broke into the charity, thinking he was breaking it to
the bank, robbed it and he realized, oh that we
got outside, that it was the wrong building.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Because it looks like a bank in the charity office.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
I don't know. He wasn't so to even the scales
of justice. Yeah, he decided he'd give the money back
to the charity the like stolen. He didn't want to
get caught because if he gave it immediately back, they're like,
this is exactly how much we have lost in the robbery.
Find out who gave us this. So let's get some
c CCTV cameras working. So instead he's like, I need

(34:18):
to give it back to them in dribs and drabs.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
So and.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
As he tells it, I gave the charity incremental sums,
starting with two hundred fifty pounds and eventually going up
to seven hundred and fifty pounds. I was going to
keep increasing the mound until I reached to about twenty
thousand pounds.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
I was going to but then what happened.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
It didn't happen, Elizabeth. But if you're curious, how much
did he manage to donate to the charity. Over his
time as modern day Robin Hood, he donated two thousand pounds,
which worked out to be about three thousand American dollars.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
Yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
He's like, although, altogether I donated around two thousand pounds
to charity, which doesn't sound like a lot, but my
intention was to donate.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
More, it doesn't. That's okay, Yeah, to keep things what
they say about the road to hell, yeah, like bricked lined,
paved with them, so to keep things square un fair.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Over the four months that he was hitting banks and
bookies in towns like Wooster and Herefordshire and Exeter in
his hometown of Devon, Steve and Jacklie managed to steal
eleven thousand pounds, far short of his goal of one
hundred thousand pounds, but that ain't nothing, and he donated
two thousand of that. And now if you're curious how
much that works out to be, that is not sixty percent, No, no,

(35:32):
that is is far from it. That is about eighteen percent.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
Well, he's also missing the mark on that. You know
he's aiming high. Yeah, he means he's shooting for the
stars and landing in the dust bin.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
He did keep up, though, with his Robinhood fantasy, because
even if he wasn't hitting his real world goals. At
one point, as the press covered his crimes and he
remained this unknown figure, a dangerous wanted man if you will,
he stoked the flames of his status as an outlaw
folk hero by writing a letter to the local newspaper
like it's me. I'm the one, and this is what
I think. At one point in the letter says I

(36:04):
will continue to take from the rich and give to
the poor. And he signed the letter, what ourh.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
That's more Zodiac than Robinhood.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
He also when he would rob banks, he would walk
up to the teller, right, so he just wants whatever
they have, so he would fill out or withdraw slip.
That said, paying out slip account holder rob.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
Hood, Oh stop it, he's so pleased with him.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
His plans to donate his stolen proceeds to charity kind
of fell by the wayside. Instead, he began to fantasize
about getting his hands on a real gun so he
can do some real bank robbery. He's like, I'm going
to invest in some hardware.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Oh no, he's going to pick up some World War
two revolver.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Well, he was so far from his one hundred thousand
pound goal. He's like, I need to get bigger. I
can't wear more outrageous outfit. My wig is not going
to do anything for me. I need a hand cannon.
So exactly, well, you know he had a pellic gun.
He's like, what do I I need? Maybe if I
scared them more, they would give me more, Like without
going into the vault. Brother, he ain't getting much more anyway.

(37:06):
At this point, time is still on his side because
the police in the UK have no idea who he is.
His stunner shades in his wig game have been working
beautifully for him. He's just known that as this new
outlaw folk here, Robinhood want to be that's bouncing around
robbing anything he can't. They have a working theory that
it's this Robinhood, but that's it. I don't have any
idea of like what worre sholl we look what town

(37:27):
is he in?

Speaker 4 (37:28):
Right?

Speaker 2 (37:28):
He leaves no clues to his identity. He has nothing
that as a trail that would lead back to him.
But if we're being honest, it would only be a
matter of time until he got caught because by now
he's addicted to playing Robin Hood. He's separating from reality,
he's untethering himself. Plus he could see that he was
not the ethical criminal he wanted to be, So he's

(37:49):
having an internal fight there as well. Sure, so let's
take a little break, Elizabeth, and after these messages, I'll
tell you how everything goes sideways for my man. Pretend
Robin Hood. We're back, Elizabeth, We're back, Saron. How you

(38:21):
enjoying the tales? You ready to hear how he got
himself jacked up? I well, let's do this like like
like Caesar got done by Brutus. Remember how I told
you Stephen Jacklie had a diagnosis of having Asperger syndrome. Well,
that would come somewhat into play for how and why
he was eventually busted. An interview after the fact, Stephen

(38:44):
Jacklie addressed how his Asperger's diagnosis affected his life in crime.
And there have been studies about people who are on
the spectrum doing crime and how it affected them and
why I have driven them there.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
And it's interesting you mentioned this because I know two
different people who had And now I think asked Burgers
isn't really a diagnosis that's put onto the spectrum.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Right, Yeah, from what I understand.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, but they were both like at the time, diagnosed
with it, and they each independently have this almost like
Robin Hood's sensibility of like for the greater good and
I'm going to take on like the bad guys. And
in some cases it's like this hero kind of thing
of like I'm going to step in on the street
if I see someone being wrong totally, you know, it's

(39:25):
fascinating and it's a good quality to have.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
The scales of justice are very forward in their mind.
It's just like front and center. Yes, So when he
was asked point blank about Asperger's and if it played
a role in his crime career and his choice to
become a real life Robinhood exactly said, it certainly played
a role in so far as my inability to understand
the effects of my actions upon others. I didn't thought
about that part. Yeah, in the abstract, he wanted to

(39:49):
be an outlaw folk hero, right. In the short term,
it meant he had trouble seeing how his actions affected others,
say emotionally, he didn't connect to like the terror in
their faces, being like real terror of them. It was
just like part of the gig, like, of course you're scared.
I've got my gun in your face. He's not not
thinking about of course you're scared.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
And they're not because they're not expressing it explicitly to him.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, so he said, quote, if I didn't have that,
I think I would have had a better understood the
emotional impact on people. Right. So I thought that was
just an interesting point. But as for the greater good
that he planned to do with his organization, that Scales
of Justice part his looted funds, he never actually got
around to that. The organization never came out to be.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
He never got to thought I was going to cut
a check.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
The only money he gave to charity was some rolled
up bank notes, and he gave to the homeless folks
in the area full of cook with the rh Right.
Then there was the money he gave back to the
charity that he actually broke into, and that was it. Yeah,
he just gave back some money, he's told me, gave
some homeless guys some like walking around cash. Meanwhile, though,

(40:55):
he went on pursuing his Robinhood fantasy, and he dreamed
of being able to carry out his future robberies had
him to his hundred grund goal. And then he obviously,
like I said, he needed a real gun. They no
more pretend pistols, no pet guns look convincing. He wanted
the real deal, like you know, something like Schwartzenegger or
stallone eighties exactly in the UK. That'd be very difficult, right,
But Stephen Jackie knew where they did sell guns to

(41:17):
practically anyone who walked into a gun store, That's right,
the good old us of.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
A Yeah, sure, so come on down.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
He used some of his stolen loot to buy himself
a ticket to America to.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Buy to bring it back.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
It was an investment, Elizabeth, So Steven he was going
to smuggle a gun back into England. Coincidentally, he chose
to fly over to New England to do his gun shopping. Well,
he went from Old England to New England and he's like,
how do I get a gun? This would turn out
to be a fateful trip for Stephen Jackey. Rather than
me tell you about it, Elizabeth, I'd like you to
close your eyes closed to picture It's a lovely day

(42:02):
in may and Waterbury, Vermont, and you've been enjoying it immensely.
You began your day drinking from a drop of dew
nestled in a flour blossom, and after that you spent
your mid morning hours finding the perfect blade of grass.
You wanted to find a spot that would allow you
an easy jump at some lunch. You finally settled on
a tall blade of switchgrass near to the parking lot
of a gun shop in small towns Vermont. Now you

(42:23):
sit and wait for a hot meal to pass by.
Any mammal will do, since you are a blood drinking tick,
a deer tick, to be specific. As you wait for
lunch to go ambling by, you hear a promising sound.
A car has parked near to where you linger on
that blade of grass. You hear the door open, A
footsteps out and scratches at the gravel of the gun
shop parking lot. You spot your lunch, You time your jump,

(42:47):
and just as the young man walks past the switch
grass there at the edge of the parking lot, you leap,
and you land not on flesh, but on his pantlet.
No bother. You can scurry about until you find some
warm flesh to feast on. Meanwhile, while the young man
hustles into Paro's gun shop, that's the name of the place,
Paro's Gun Shop. The door swings open and you're met

(43:07):
by a blast of cool, cold, air conditioned air. The
place has a musty smell and an overwhelming odor of
gun oil. As you cling to the young man's pant leg,
you cross the gun shop. The young man stops at
a glass display case of handguns. There's all manner of
firearms that compete for his attention. Meanwhile, you work your
way down his pant leg, hoping he's wearing low socks.

(43:30):
There's only a couple other folks in the rural gun store.
The owner of the gun shop walks over. He asks
the young man what he's looking for, and that's when
you both hear it his English accent. Although it sounds
like he's trying to do an American accent, it's just
really bad, and his natural English accent shines through, especially
on the vowels. The young man says he's looking for
a real big handgun, something to scare a home intruder.

(43:52):
But when he says it, it sounds like the word
rhymes with Buddha, a home intruder. It sounds to your
tiny ears like the gun store owner is a immediately
suspicious of this Englishman looking to buy an American gun
while using a terrible American accent. You pause at around
mid ankle, frustrated to find he's wearing thick, tall wool
hiking socks. As you gather the energy to traverse a

(44:13):
thick woolen sock, you hear the gun store owner ask
the young man, what do you need the gun for.
He has the suspicious tone of a cop, which makes
sense since he's a retired police officer. The young man
says he's made one hundred pound bet that he could
not buy a gun in Waterbury. He quickly corrects himself,
I mean one hundred and fifty dollar bet. Yes, dollars

(44:33):
US dollars. The gun store owner asks if the young
man has any ID on him. The young man says,
I should do, but the R sounds is all wrong.
It sounds like he's swallowing the R. Even though you're
just a hungry tick looking for some lunch. You wait
to hear how this all plays out. The young man
hands over his state ID. The gun store owner gives
it the once over. The way he sighs and his

(44:56):
breathing changes, you can tell his suspicions are growing. You
hear the guns st owner say, well, let me phone
in your ID to check it in. As long as
it clears with the state, we can get you a
handgun today. Now it's the young man's turn. He sort
of stammers and says, all righty again. The r sound
just doesn't sound right. The gun store owner walks off
to use the phone. Although you can't hear it, he

(45:17):
calls the police. The young man did hear it and
has heard enough. He senses that the gun store owner
is on to him, so he makes a break for it.
He runs out of the gun shop, shoves open the door.
You cling on for dear life as he sprints across
the parking lot back to his car. He slides back
into the driver's seat, shuts the door, starts the car
in his hastey to get away. He floors it in

(45:38):
reverse and slams into another park shop, probably the gun
store owner's car. He changes gears as you grip tight
to the wool sock. The young man mashes his foot
down on the gas pedal. The car tears off, peeling out.
The young man narrowly avoids traffic as he pulls out
onto the road a car that he just misses gives
an irritated hank to the horn. You wonder where you

(45:59):
and this young man are now headed. You get an
answer quickly, and the answer is not very far. About
a mile down the road, police sireens sound and as
they give chase, the young man in the now smashed
up rental car pulls over to the side of the road.
He failed to get his gun. Instead, looks like he's
going to get a nice, cool jail cell all to himself.

(46:21):
The local small town Vermont police tell him to step
out of the car. He obliges, and you jump off
his sock and decide to find a less dramatic lunch.
My god, so there you go, Elizabeth. The Ballad of
Robinhood Junior getting nabbed in America, goes to a gun
star with a fake ID, tries to buy a gun,

(46:41):
says it's for a bet with somebody. The gun owner
is like, what are you talking about, right, and he's like, no,
it's right, just right. I would just give me a gun.
One are the big ones. And then they's like, hey,
let me just call it. And then it didn't take
a long They got nothing to do in Waterbury.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
I mean, I've never purchased a gun, but I would
think that if I needed to do it under the radar.
It's my understanding that it's looser at gun shows. Yes, yes,
And I wouldn't have gone into a gun shop like
a pawn shop.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Maybe they don't care as much, but like gun shows
are the thing.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
That's the shows are the thing, and you just rock
The English accents say you you.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Know you're a collector.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
You've moved here, or you're a collector you've lived here.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
I like that too.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
I live here now.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah, I'm very scared of all your urban people.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
You people are terrifying. You're not right in the head,
not one of you. And so I need to protect
myself or you know, go somewhere in Europe and get
one from like a he tried.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
He tried getting guns in He went up to Birmingham
to get a gun and like it didn't work out.
I think I couldn't get all the details on that part,
but I think he did. He got jacked cash some
geezer like Robin Hood. They used knife crime on him
for his fake gun. So once he was in police custody,

(47:55):
the offers pat down Stephen Jacklee. They frisk him to
check his wallet. They discover his student ID card from
the University of Wooster. So now the cops know that
they're dealing with an Englishman and not a local, so
they interview, or if you prefer, interrogate the suspects. Jacklee
tells the Vermont detectives that he was just trying to
buy a gun to win one hundred pound bet, I
mean one hundred and fifty dollars, And the Vermont detectors

(48:16):
are like, how much was that bet? And it's like,
I said, one hundred and twenty five US dollars. I
don't know what's exchange rate these days. So the cops
were like, right, right, sure you do, So go on,
tell us about this gun you wanted to buy. And
he repeats the same story, and then when he's done,
the Vermont detectives were like, so about these notes we
found in your pockets and in your diary that outline
plants for bank robberies. What's the story there?

Speaker 3 (48:35):
Wait, he went on the trip and brought all of
his criming notes with you.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
He's got a ton of diaries, you know how, I
got like a lot of note pats. But he's got that,
so he would just jot down par light for this thing.
Well he's on the plane, he's like jotting down somebody,
you know if I go into.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
Yes, there's a time of the place.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Oh yeah. So, as one would say, legally speaking, the
suspect was now screwed. Yeah, that's After talking the detectives,
they charge them with leaving the scene of an accident
and then trying to buy a gun without proper paperwork
or something. I don't know exactly the charge in Vermont,
but they get on the phone to the FBI, right
and they're like, yo, should we call the ATF We

(49:14):
call you guys. We got this kid who's over here
trying to buy a gun, trying to smuggle back into
the UK. And then also he's got like a bunch
of fake id's and a bunch of bank robbery paperwork,
but it looks like it's for the UK. So the
FBI they reach out to police in the UK and
they tell the Bobby's back in England about this crazy
kid with all these notes about robbing banks, Like apparently
he's a student at a University of Worcester and they're like,

(49:36):
woo Street, you're right, yeah, okay, so then they go
over and then they check, right, the UK cops, so
actually the West Mercia police. Okay, they take a business
trip over to the student housing and they search his
flat and that's where the police find a ridiculous blonde wig,
Audrey Hepburn, dark sunglasses, knives, a hammer, detailed notes outlining

(49:57):
his plans for future bank robberies, as a as a
cat named Detective Inspector Fox of the UK reported it
to local reporters. We were made aware of Jackie win
FBO officers dealing with him for firearms offenses, including attempting
to buy a gun in America, recovered a diary from
him which suggested he may have committed offenses in the UK.
We then conducted searches at his Wooster University residents and

(50:19):
premises in London. As Devin and Cornwall Constabulary searched his
home and dress, items were recovered that linked Jacklee to
numerous offenses including replica guns, knives, botta Clava's demand notes,
disguises and of course has written notes in diaries detailing
his offending.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
So they find just a cache of evidence amazing.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
For instance, in his crime diary, one of his entries
recorded his attempt to buy a gun. As I said,
back in England, he took a trip to Birmingham. He
had seven hundred and fifty pounds on him, and then
once he tried to get the gun, he would head
over to a bank, kidnap the staff and rob the place.
But he wasn't able to get the gun. And I
think at your point is he got jack for the seven.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
So he then went home and journaled it out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, he wrote down therapy he went to, Yeah, and
then when he went to America, he also journaled all
of that, like I'm going to go to this gun
store and I'm going to buy a gun and it's
going to look like this. He either wrote about the
stuff he had done, stuff he was going to do,
stuff he wanted to do. It was all there. They
had all of it right. And also, by the way,
when the cops were searching his dorm, his student housing,

(51:25):
they found a homemade bomb. Oh yeah, but it was fake.
It was something that Jackie said was the result of
the fact he was I was drunk and high when
I decided to keep it in my room. I don't
know if it sounded like he was a homemade bomb
he made and not like a World War two munitions
that he liked. Yes, fake, yeah, was it like the
But the West Mercy of Police didn't know that. When

(51:46):
they see it, it looks totally it was like.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
Three empty toilet paper rolls like duct taped together within
like some speaker wire coming out of it.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
That'd be amazing, But I think it was more like
one of those like crock pots, you.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Know, like cooker preussure cooker like legit.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Yeah, exactly like Boston Marathon style.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
I think it's like he pulled a key pad off.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Of that would be good, like a cartoon character to
a bunch of like fake dynamite.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
A couple of bottle like plastic bottles of.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Some road flares. So yeah, well, the West Mercy of
Police they had to evacuate the area, calling the bomb squad,
and the students living in the Wyvern and Bread and
blocks of flats which are on the campus were evacuated
for more than five hours and the Explosive Ordinance Disposal
Unit was called in. So after it's all settled and
done with the fake bomb, the UK police they go

(52:40):
into Jacquie's place. They harvest all the evidence and this
is all the evidence they need to solve the case
of the Robin Hood Bandit well done, so they have
all the evidence they need on them. Right, it's a
case open and now case immediately close. So it's just
page after page of diary notes from the crime career
of the modern day Robin Hood.

Speaker 4 (52:59):
Right.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
So at this point, now before the UK can get
justice and take him to trial, the folks in the
US were like, no, no, he's here. We want to
get our taste of justice first. So the US refuses
to send him back to the England. Right, America wants
some American justice for trying to buy a gun in Vermont,
Elizabeth even do it, No, but he tried. That's good enough.

(53:22):
So his trial he goes. They take him to Vermont's
Southern State Correctional Facility and he arrived right with the
like the reputation of this master criminal. So at that point,
the head of security for this place, Mark putanis he said,
I was told that he had very sophisticated abilities and
that escape should be at the forefront of my mind
when dealing with him. He was considered such an escape risk.

(53:44):
There were very few prisoners we worried about to the
extent that we worried about him. He was basically on lockdown.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
Wait where did they get that?

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Because of his diaries? His plans were so elaborate, he's
so like self aggrandizing. They're like, there must be a
master criminal. He's real good. So this point, now Stephen
Jacklie gets to know the FBI, so they keep showing
up trying to get him to talk, like where'd you
learn all this? Are you part of like a major
international organization? Who was the organization you're talking about? So

(54:13):
this one guy, specially Agent Scott Murray, right, he had
met him the day he was arrested in May of
two thousand and eight, and so he then becomes like
his point person. So he's visiting him in prison. And
the way he put it is, I do a lot
than devolves firearms and explosives. Every case is different, but
this one is memorable. I guess that's just the best
way to put it. Like everyone was just so geeked

(54:33):
by this Robin Hood, who's a master international criminal apparently,
So imagine him this in this interrogation room at Vermont's
Southern State Correctional Facility. And now we got special Agent
Scott Murray sitting across the desk from this twenty two
year old former geography student turned international man of mystery
with an Interpol warrant, right he would he would explain
to the college kid from Mooster who the FBI were,

(54:56):
what they did for a living, because he hasn't known
any of this, he's not from America.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
He's like, I think I see a lot American team.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yeah, He's like, are you guys like the Federal I
don't know how this is like a thing, yeah, like
what are we doing here? So, especially Agent Murray then
drops copies of all the evidence they have against Jacklie.
So they're photocopies primarily of his crime diary, and then
there was additional journals from his student housing back in
the UK that they like faxed over, So they're all
the detailed plans for the bank robbery. So he's trying
to get him to talk, like you know, it's open up,

(55:22):
maybe like get you some justice. So there's all sorts
of strange series of numbers and dates and coded language.
They're like, is this like how you communicate with your
international cabal and like So it turns out that no,
it was just him eventually he drops this. He does
like a like I don't know, imagine like a Pirouet turn.
He's like, oh, here you go, and what about this
last one? And he drops the photo copy that he'd

(55:44):
received from his you know, colleagues overseas. It's a photocopy
of a British bank note and scribbled on it were
just two letters r H. And he's like, what is this?
What is this all about? This is a code name,
because like they were still like, you know, the UK
cops were fairly certain it was Robin Hood, but they
he had not said it, he'd not confirmed it, so
they wanted confirmation. So Special Agent Murray's like, what does
this mean? R H? And Jackie looked at him and

(56:06):
he's like, Robin Hood or as I prefer, rob Hood.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
And they are just like such a door.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
So no matter. He couldn't crack this kid's edifice though,
because he wouldn't, he would not talk at all. He said,
I never felt I got a scope of who he is.
So once he's done, he uh with you know, his
early interrogations. He gets tried, convicted, He does ten months
stretch in federal.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
Prison, federal prison, and for what were the guard.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
For the attempting to buy a gun. I don't know
why this is such a big deal. But also then
obviously running from the place the high speed car chase
into a gun store owner's car. I mean they tacked
him together. Right, So, as Jackie put it, it was terrible,
no other worst to describe it. It was the worst experience.
My relationship with fellow prisoners was really difficult because of

(56:54):
my aspergers. I find it difficult to get on with people.
The fact I was moved to about twenty prisons didn't help,
So I think, let's say that's an exaggeration, right, Let's
say it was ten prisons in ten months. So after
his two of America's finest federal facilities the law back
in the UK, they get their hands on the Robin

(57:15):
and bank robber, the West Mercy of Police. They think
they're gonna have to extra at him because the Americans
just will not give him up. Come on, give us
our guy we want. We got the press, keep the
daily mails, call me every day for Christ's sake. So
they finally send him back. Right, He's taken to the
Wooster police station and they get this master criminal to
explain about how he's been hitting the banks, the bookies
and what have you, the local charity shops. So Detective

(57:39):
Inspector Jim Fox died Fox and Fox right. I thought
this nice full circle exactly. So the complexities of the
case continued as we could not interview xactly due to
legal restrictions and had to prepariphile that proved every aspect
of our case against him, down to handwriting analysis to
prove the diaries were his and obtaining DNA and fingerprints
from the USA. It was such a well prepared case

(58:01):
that we were confident of a guilty plea due to
the overwhelming evidence.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
Well yeah, he boxed it up for you pretty much.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
They had it all and then they have the ten
month head start until he gets back. So when he
gets back, he faces twenty one different charges. No boy,
Oh yeah, it comes down to five armed robberies, three
attempted armed robberies, seven firearms offenses in relation to the robberies,
the assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and finally one attempted
burglary of a bank and one burgley. I assume that's

(58:28):
the charity shop. Sure, yeah, So all during his trial
he confesses to doing the jobs he did for practice.
Then also he mentioned that he was in the Netherlands
he pulled a knife point robbery and then he fled
back to England. He was never caught for that one,
and since it was in the Netherlands, the British were like,
we'll give you that one for free. So meanwhile, the
judge is not particularly moved by his whole robin hood thing.

(58:49):
He's like, he doesn't find that cute. Apparently he has
grandkids or whatever. He's like, I don't I'm not going
for this whole robbin hood thing. Was he stopped playing
dress up and scaring people or working for a living.
So he said that his activity had no beneficiaries but himself,
although in just one incident that delivered cash to a
charity shop that he had damaged during its attempts to
gain entry to an adjoining bank, he'd also stolen items

(59:10):
from that same charity shop, so he threw the book
at him. Jackie eventually pleads guilty to eighteen of the
twenty one charges, convicted to a twelve year stretch and
British prisons. His sentence was later shortened after he appealed,
and so he peeled on grounds of his Asperger syndrome
affecting him, and then the London Criminal Appeal Court ruled

(59:31):
that he lacked full quote awareness of the consequences of
his actions and therefore his culpability to have been significantly impaired. Right,
So I got to keep that in my back pocket
if I ever get into legal trouble in the UK,
Your honor, we consider the fact I'm kind of aspy,
like seriously, I mean, no, I don't have a professional diagnosis.
It's just something people say about me. But I think

(59:51):
that we should introduce so anyway, Stephen Jacklie gets released
in twenty fourteen after doing five of the twelve years. Yeah,
you know, while he was inside, Jackie did what he
did best. He compulsively wrote down his thoughts and when
he was released he had a whole book ready to go.
And as Reli said time and time again, yes, prison
is apparently the best writing group there is. It is

(01:00:13):
so many book deals come out of prison. Jackly, though
true to his nature, set up his own publishing company
because he was still very much an anti capitalist. He
stayed true to his ethical stance and he gave himself
a book deal. There you go, Elizabeth what's a ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
My goodness, don't take notes the right Stop journaling. Everybody,
stop journaling. You're all incriminating yourselves. Oh you think even
if you're like, this is this is these are my
emotions for the day. Crimes top in the old cranium.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Interesting. You know, I think that I journal journal. I
put a lot of notes down journal. I wouldn't say
that it's a journal, but I have a lot of notes.
But like, people just look at this, They're like, what
is this crackpot math that I'm looking saying.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
I've seen one of your notebooks. I've peaked over your
should it's just mass.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Yeah, exactly, there's nothing numbers like I could be. I
could be like, you know, I think indicted by like
the the annals of math. Journal.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
Don't many ideas.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
But there you go. That's my ridiculous takeaway. Don't give
me any ideas.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Don't give many ideas.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
So hey, you in the mood for a talkback to
wash this down?

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Can you favors with one? Oh my god, I.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Love get.

Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
Hey, ridiculous crime crew. This is Katie calling from Tacoma, Washington.
I just finished listening to the plant Crimes episode, and
I just learned I have that same purple tomato in
my garden from the episode, So yeah, I thought that
was really exciting. Thanks Aul, love the show and keep

(01:01:55):
producing great stuff as you always do.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Thanks very much, Thank you, Katie, ma'am. How can you
tell me you have the tomato and not give me
like a full rundown review flavor profile? What's the color
when you cut her?

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Like?

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
Is it like other purple tomatoes where the outside were
where it takes much longer to come right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
But a lot more Katie? Can you reach it back out?

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
Don't another talk though?

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Just looking at her face?

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
She needs me a review of the tomato. I love
that you have that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Well. As always. You can find us online Ridiculous Crime
on social media. That's Instagram, blue Sky, Maybe we'll go
to TikTok, I.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Don't know, Banger and Flanger the jump Shot.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
We have the account Ridiculous Crime Pod on YouTube. That
one is actually cool. You should check it out, Tell
a friend, leave a comment like subscribe, Tell your mom
and tell your daddy. Tell you greasy Greasy Granny. We
also have a website, Ridiculous Crime dot com. We love
the talkbacks. Obviously, so go hit the ird app, download
that record a talkback. Maybe you'll hear your voice here.
We'd love to hear it, yes, and oh, email us

(01:02:56):
if you like it. Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
We do love the emails too. Thank you for listening
and we will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is
hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett, producing, edited by
The Little John to Our Friar Tuck, Dave Kustin, and

(01:03:17):
starring Annalys Rucker as Judith. Research is by co presidents
of Disney's Robinhood Fan Club, Marissa Brown and Jabbari Davis.
Our theme song is by co presidents of the Disney
Robinhood Official Furry Fandom, Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. The
host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred guest Haarn, makeup
by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Bend you

(01:03:38):
know I went through a robin Hood phase in my
teens Bowlin and No, Yeah, well I went through Kevin
Cosker phase during my teens.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Brown, Why say it one more time? Cry?

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.