April 5, 2023 • 55 mins
Craig Pritchert was going to be a Major League Baseball star before Barry Bonds stole his thunder. So Craig decided he would steal too - from banks! He met and fell for Nova Guthrie, a smalltown girl who craved excitement. Their spree of robberies netted them half a million dollars, and they were so in love that the only real crime would be to keep them apart… Well that and all the stealing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, Hello, friends, welcome back. I'm Diana and I'm Eli,
and this is ridiculous romance the future. Episode alert read
yesterday about a thruple of bald eagles yet two males
and a female that are raising eggs together. They have
been for years, so that's coming. Don't you worry, because
(00:22):
I'm they're my new best friends. Wait, I haven't checked
my lotto ticket. I'm gonna do it live. This will
be the first podcast where I win the lot where
someone wins the lottery live on air. Okay, live on air. Look,
we're not live on air. By the spoiler alert, if
you're hearing this, I didn't win because we would immediately
stop recording and quit our job. Oh my god, No,
(00:43):
we wouldn't know, but we wouldn't be rushing. That's true.
I can tell you that. I hang on a second,
here's a rerun and my tickets. Oh my god, Yeah,
did you win? I mean did we? First of all,
check yourself there. You almost set yourself with a problem.
(01:05):
I know, sixty four. I got it. That's that's it.
Just to sixty four. How much do you get for
one number? You don't get anything one number. There's lots
of number. Does anybody get one of them? Well, then
I guess we're doing this, so let's get do it. Yet.
Today comes a story of a couple who have regularly
(01:27):
been called the modern day Bonnie and Clyde and countless
media articles. But honestly, it's not really a great comparison. Firstly,
I think because spoiler alert, they never murdered anyone's story. Yeah. No,
This couple starts with Craig Pritchard, who was a former
baseball star turned bank robber in the nineteen nineties whose
(01:50):
heists were so well planned that he just could not
be caught. But the most precious thing he ever stole
was the heart of Nova Guthrie. She was so love
struck by this charismatic criminal that she joined him, and
together they raked in nearly a half million dollars in
(02:12):
the late nineties. So stick them up, let me see
those hands, and then let me see a clap them
together for today's story. In Lawless love Birds, let's go
Heyla friends. Come listen well, Elia and Diana got some
stories to tell. There's no matchmaking, all romantic tips. It's
just about ridiculous relationships. A lover them might be any
(02:35):
type of person at all, and abstract cons ator a
concrete wall. But if there's a story, were the Second
Clans Ridiculous Romans? A production of iHeartRadio? The Heart of
Nova Guthrie sounds like like an Oprah book Club novel,
(02:56):
now a major motion picture, Frank, what's Reese Witherspoon's production company? No,
But I was like, whoever made Where the Crawdads Sing?
I feel like they also make the Heart of Not Well,
we'll get to her. Craig Pritchart was born in nineteen
sixty two. When he grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona. And
(03:20):
this guy was tall, he was handsome, he was athletic,
and in nineteen eighty three, after an amazing high school
season of baseball, he was signed to Arizona State University.
The guy had his whole life late out for him.
He was told, like, you're the best, You're the best
baseball player. You're really going places. You are a super
star Craig Pritchart, and so he was sure that he
(03:42):
was going on to make big bucks in the major leagues.
He went ahead and got engaged to his high school sweetheart,
the homecoming queen, and head cheerleader Lori Pulzado. So these
guys just you're cliche, perfect, totally high school couple, handsome, jock,
hot cheerleader. I can read the Sports Illustrated profile in
(04:05):
my head right now, so could he. He was ready
for all his questions pre answered. Yeah, I was practicing
his interviews in the mirror. So Craig is totally on
track for stardom. But during his first year at Arizona State,
some new kids showed up and started hogging all the
attention that had previously been Craigs. And this kid's name
(04:26):
was Barry Bonds. Oh man, yea, well, listen. Barry Bonds was,
of course an incredible athlete. We all know that name
for a reason. By the time he was in high school,
he could basically take his pick of baseball, basketball, or football,
and I'm sure Craig was like, Okay, go with basketball,
bro leave the field for me. You could play anything.
(04:49):
But Barry played baseball on the varsity team starting his
sophomore year. By the time he was a senior in
nineteen eighty two, he had been drafted to play for
the Giants straight out of high school, which is crazy
know that happened I don't follow sports well enough. But
they could not come to an agreement on a contract.
So Barry said, you know what y'all think about it,
I'm going to college. So, having his pick of schools,
(05:12):
he ended up at Arizona State, and it wasn't long
before Craig Pritcher was just another nobody backing up the
star player Barry Bonds. N Craig was a little proud.
He could not handle losing out to Barry Bonds like this,
and he felt like his future was being stolen from him.
So he dropped out of school after only a year
and ended up going back to Scottsdale, and there he
(05:34):
married Lorie Polzado and they had three kids together over
the next six years. Now, he could have transferred to
another school, he could have played baseball somewhere else, but
his wife Lorie told Max Alexander of Reader's Digest quote,
he had no patience. It's not a great quality for
an athlete. Quite a lot of baseball. Yeah, you gotta
(05:56):
have patience just to watch baseball. Well, Craig worked odd
jobs to keep his family afloat, but he still had
these big ambitions. He spent most of his life thinking
he was going to be a rich baseball player, and
he was not ready to give up the rich part
of those dreams. Well, I'll drop out of school being
a baseball player, but damn it, I'm still gonna be rich.
(06:17):
I damn it. I want all the fancy stuff. But baseball,
you know, was what he had put all of his
focus and energy into when he was young, so he
was not really sure how to start over, so he
fell into some get rich quick schemes. This led to gambling,
which led to small time scams. None of that, obviously,
was paying off for him. That was not getting him
(06:38):
the big bucks he was looking for, so he decided
to get his life together and really dedicate himself to
a skill that could earn him a decent living. He
was gonna be a bank robber. Oh look at me now,
mount make it. Laurie, his wife, soon learned that not
only was Craig breaking the law, but he had actually
(07:00):
been doing it almost the whole time she knew him.
She said, quote, I found out that in high school
he was stealing tires off cars at fancy dealerships and
then selling them at a swap meet the next day.
Not only that, but Craig had been cheating on her,
and not subtly like he was, as Max Alexander wrote,
(07:22):
quote a controlling, manipulative person who craved danger. This guy
got off on flaunting his infidelities to his wife. At
one point he was even hanging out with another woman
in a hot tub at their own apartment complex. Dang
Lorie was working full time as a bank teller and
raising their three kids, but Craig was out there stealing
(07:44):
and cheating and living it up however he wanted. She
even saw him cruising around town in a silver Porsche Carrera, which,
of course they did not own a Porsche Carrera because
they didn't have money. She's like, where did you get there? Interesting?
This sounds like a real piece of shit. Yeah. Not
not husband of the year, not husband of the year
(08:05):
at all. How crazy to like be in a hot
tub right there? Yeah he really wanted her to Yeah,
what a jerk. Yeah. Well, fortunately Laurie separated from Craig.
She called the whole Man Disposal Services and got rid
of him, and he ended out following the money to
Las Vegas in nineteen ninety and robbed two banks just
(08:27):
outside the city. Now, if you're unfamiliar. Clark County and
the city of Las Vegas take their money pretty seriously,
all right, sort of a big deal there, the kind
of pay pretty close attention to it. I'm saying, if
there's anywhere I'm not gonna steal from, right Las Vegas. Now.
Craig had fled to Hawaii after robbing the banks, but
(08:49):
he was arrested there and picked out of a lineup
by one of the bank tellers that he robbed. Well,
he got shipped back to Arizona, and he was sentenced
to five years in a jail there, and his wife Lorie,
back home near Scottsdale with their three children, told New
York Times in a phone interview, quote, it's so sad.
Those kids are the only good thing he ever did.
(09:10):
And they divorced that same year. It was nineteen ninety
two by the time he started his five year prison sentence,
and while in prison, you can imagine that he really
had a lot of time to think about what he'd done,
you know, about the choices that he'd made, and the
future he was providing for his family at about his hopes,
his dreams and ambitions, and how maybe if he'd put
(09:31):
his talents and efforts into something besides bank robbing. He
might actually find a happy, comfortable life after all. You
can imagine that all you want, But that's, of course
not actually what Craig did. Instead, as FBI agent Edward
Hall told Unsolved Mysteries quote, he met other people that
had robbed banks in jail and they exchanged thoughts, ideas,
(09:54):
ways to perfect robbing a bank better next time. Oh damn,
given each other some looke lessons. Burglary basics. Welcome to
burglary basics. One oh one, some some heist hints. White
color work yeah, white color. Crime workshop. The crime crime classes,
(10:15):
Crime classes, Crime College, Crime College. Welcome to crime College.
It's a crime community college. Okay, we're a community here. Amazing.
This seems like a big problem with the jail system.
It's like sending everyone to crime college, right where you
learn from each other. We have I think we have
(10:35):
come across that before, or we seen it in some
some research or something where I'm like, man, it's almost
like you send them to jail and they learn how
to do it better. Instead of learning how to they
like meet connections that help them like make do more
crimes later. So how'd you get caught. Well, I did
this wrong and you did that wrong. Well, then I
know two things not to do wrong next time. Well,
(10:57):
and also it's like a big conference. Sure, it's basically
everyone at the same hotel exchanging best practices. Oh, you're
gonna make it de Larry's two thirty panel on jewel thievery.
Oh no, I'm going to be at the Art Heist workshop.
Oh I want to. Let's exchange notes afterwards. Yeah, all right,
(11:19):
So he's learning some burglary basics in prison. When Craig
got out of jail in nineteen ninety seven, obviously he
had nothing. His wife had left him, he had no job.
Now he did have something, which was a prison record,
nothing useful, so he was kind of like, oh, what
am I gonna do? So to make up for the
(11:40):
time he lost as a result of robbing banks, he
decided to rob banks really doubling down here. Oh man. Now.
One time, when visiting with his kids, he told his
ex wife's new husband John that robbery was his drug
of choice, saying, quote, there is no better high, and
(12:01):
relating the feeling that he got before a heist to
the minutes before a big baseball game. Oh okay, Okay, well,
now it was time for Craig to get another hit
of that sweet, sweet drug, because on August thirteenth, nineteen
ninety seven, according to the East Valley Tribune, Craig robbed
Norwest Banks in Scottsdale of thirty two thousand dollars, which
(12:25):
today is actually worth let's see here because calculator almost
sixty thousand dollars, almost double today. His ex wife, Laurie,
worked as a teller at a Norwest Bank in the
nearby town of Mesa, and she totally she did not
think it was a coincidence that he chose Norwest to rob.
Oh wow, He's just another opportunity for him to like flaunt, yeah,
(12:48):
I guess in front of her face, make her uncomfortable. Yeah,
very rude. Craig escaped with a diversion of setting a
car on fire and then driving away in another getaway car.
Police close to catching him. There was even a chase
through a luxury shopping mall, but in the end all
they found was his car strewn with loose cash and
(13:09):
a broken tracking device. From there, he fled to New
Mexico and ended up in a bar in the small
city of Farmington. He's got this bar and he's chatting
it up with a local guy. He's talking baseball, telling
war stories. You know how he almost played for the
majors if Barry Bonds hadn't come in. Damn Barry Bonds, right,
And that's a cool story. I mean the guys probably like,
(13:31):
whoa Barry Bonds. Stow your thunder. That's wild. I know.
Well Annie did play with Barry. Yeah. Right, So this
guy thought he was pretty cool, and he introduced him
to his sister, a young woman named Nova Guthrie. The
two of them took one look and went full googly
eye at our woga wooga, oh yeah, yelling head over heels,
horny for each other. They were like, oh my god,
(13:53):
you're so hot. She's like, wow, you're un him. Those
are their voices. Pretty's kind of crazy. Well, he asked
her on a date and she probably asked like, well,
what do you have in nine? And he was like, Oh,
let's go get a nice dinner and then wreck the
First National Bank of Durango, Colorado. Oh okay. He was
(14:13):
like I'm in yes, let's do this and we will
hear all about their heisty hookup. Right after this break
welcome back to the show, Everybody. So. Nova Guthrie was
born in Boone, Colorado, in nineteen seventy five, the youngest
of eight children. Her dad was a steel worker, her
(14:36):
mom a school teacher, and they were strict Christian fundamentalists.
They were not even allowed to have a TV in
the house. So Nova lacked a lot of excitement in
her life. But she was very clever and intelligent. She
was in the National Honor Society, and she got a
pre med degree from Morningside College in Iowa. And she
(14:56):
was pretty, but she was tough too. Her college roommates
said quote, she wasn't afraid to get dirty, and she
didn't let anybody push her around. Friends called her bold, stubborn, opinionated,
and courageous. And she and her brother had been selling
vacuum cleaners in New Mexico when he introduced her to
this handsome ex baseball player who was twelve years older
(15:18):
than her. So when Craig charmed her and promised her
a life full of excitement, danger and luxury, Nova was
ready to jump on board. I wonder too, Like you know,
she's the youngest of eight children. She's probably used to
having a work for attention. I was thinking the same thing.
Surely there's some element of like look at me. I
(15:38):
know that can happen with the youngest children. I was
third of four, and I really need attention. Sis, my
little sister, the fourth of four, absolutely does not want attention,
and she's like, let me because please don't bother me.
You know it's not true for everyone, but sometimes interesting.
(15:58):
Do you feel like you have middle old vibes? I
have middle younger child vibes for sure. Yeah, which means
I have both issues. Oh fun. Oh that's so fun
for you. Yeah, it's fun for you. I'll bet it
is so fun for me. Also, whatever that that's what
makes me so exciting. Constant demand for attention. Laugh louder
(16:23):
at that. I'm sorry, I need it. I'm laughing as
loud as I can. This is every day. That was hilarious,
And you're like it was hilarious. I'm like, well, can
you give me some Can I get a Pavlovian response? Please? Something?
How about that that it's better than nothing? See? That's good.
(16:46):
Where's that? When I need it? I mean, you get
it when you earn it. Wow, that's fair. It makes
me better, That's right. Anyway back to Nova and Craig.
So it was Halloween night in nineteen ninety seven when
Craig and Nova did their first lovers crime together and
robbed the Bank of the Southwest in Durango, Colorado, and
(17:07):
they cleaned out the vault of sixty thousand dollars and
fled the city. Jeez, and I remember, like almost every
number you hear at this point is like nearly double
right what it was because the late nineties, you know,
money was free back then. Money you could just take it.
I mean clearly not because they're going to get in
trouble for taking all this money. Craig had learned a
(17:29):
lot from all the bank robbers that he met in
his five years in prison, and he had taken elements
from all their systems to put a plan together of
his own. And this is not your classic you know,
walk up to the window, slip him a note that says,
put on your money on the bag, lady, you know,
and then just walk out of the door kind of robbery. No, no, no. Instead,
Craig and Nova would first go to small towns mostly
(17:51):
they avoided big cities. They would set themselves up in
a hotel or a short term rental, and then they
would go out in the town and wine and dine
at trendy local restaurants and get to know the locals.
They were super charming. So they would go out and
they meet all these locals, and according to the Denver Post,
they would subtly learn from them which banks would be
(18:11):
the best ones to hit and which day they should
hit them up on. So and if you asked me
to do the same thing, I'm like, Okay, I'll i'll
I'll go walk up to a rich person's table and say, hey,
hey pal, so, uh, which bank do you use? And
what days do you deposit your money? I mean, how
do you find this information? They were good. They must
(18:31):
have been like I'm looking for a new bank, you
know what I mean, Like, what do you do? You
like your bank? What do you who do you use?
You know? Oh my god? But you know what I
hate is waiting in line at the bank. Do you
know what it's? When's it dead? That's my question? Why
can't I go in and there's nobody there? These are
pre mobile deposit days right right? When? When when's the
security changed their shifts? Yeah? I want it asked too much?
(18:56):
Gone too far. Don't be suspicious. Don't. Don't be suspicious. Don't.
So after they learned which bank they needed to pick out,
they would spend a few days scouting it out, you know,
kind of walking by, glancing at who's standing outside. Nova
might even go in and have a look around while
she was asking for a money order or something innocuous
(19:17):
like that. Denver Post says they went to Bend, Oregon
in December of ninety eight, when tons of wealthy people
were on high end ski vacations, and they befriended a
local cocktail waitress named Carrie Black. They gave their names
as Will Hicks and Alex Stantini, saying they were in
town to party, and they rented a two month condo
(19:38):
and joined a Gold's gym. That's what I do when
I'm ready to party, join the gym. Look, if you're
the hot athletic type, and when you go on vacation,
you continue to exercise. I've learned this when traveling with
hot athletic types. Who you traveling with, who's hot athletic?
You know? All right, Well, I've heard it from people. Well,
(20:01):
this gym happened to be directly across the street from
the Klamath First Federal Bank, So Nova and Craig would
lift weights while they watched people come and go from
the bank, and they learned the traffic patterns. Also something
you've got to be already an athletic person to do.
That's true. Because I'm standing there and I'm like three
(20:22):
pumps in, I'm like, okay, right, I can't watch the
bank anymore. You can have like a five pounder, you
know what I mean? Yeah, right, everyone's going to be
That guy's been here for six hours. He's not even sweating,
or he's sweating, but all he's done is like sit
down and stand back up again a few times. It's
about the reps. Okay, to weight, Yeah, I'm going for
(20:45):
stamina here. We all have different bests. Okay, no judgment
right there on the wall right there. Not at Golds.
That's plenty of it. Yeah, Golds, just like, please judge me.
A few days before they hit a bank, they would
go out and buy a police scanner and a couple
of walkie talkies and they would either steal or buy
(21:07):
cheap cars to drive to the bank, and then they
had another car ready to swap too for after the robbery.
So they wouldn't show up and leave in the same car.
Gotcha now. Nova would stay outside in the car and
act as a lookout while Craig went inside. And I'll
say that it's been referenced that Craig was sometimes with
another male who was never identified, probably not the same
(21:28):
guy every time though, So he would he would just
hire someone to kind of come in and help. He
would wear gauze on his face or a mask to
hide his identity, and he was very aggressive in his approach.
Like I said, no slipping notes. He would. He would
walk in, pull out his gun right away and point
it straight at the bank teller's face. He would tell
everyone to get down, and then they go around and
(21:50):
tie everyone up at the wrists and ankles with either
duct tape or zip ties. Nova would stay with him
on the two way radio and she would alert him
if anyone approaching the bank or any other signs of
trouble while she listened to the police scanner for the
code to eleven, which meant robbery in progress. But Craig
(22:11):
he would bust in with such force and terror that
the bank employees were usually too startled to strip the alarm.
Bank manager Bill Olsen told reader's Digest quote. I thought
it was a joke at first. He got my attention
when he cocked the gun and threatened to blow my
head off. Every other word was an obscenity. He knew
how to terrorize. Yeah, Craig would order the tellers to
(22:36):
pull the shade on the drive up window. Then he'd
bring employees back to the vault and make one of
them stuffed deffelbacks full of cash. Then he would tie
that employee up last before escaping to the car, Nova
keep a bucket of water in the car. Craig would
dump all their loot to destroy any tracking devices that
had been hidden inside. Then the two of them would
(22:57):
drive to a predesignated location and swap cars. It was
over in minutes, fast, efficient, and ruthless. After the Klamath
robbery in Bend, they went back to their condo and
counted one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in cash. Wow,
which again, for the record, is worth almost twice that year. Yeah,
(23:20):
like over two hundred thousand, my goodness. Then Craig would
burn the mask that he wore, whatever zip ties or
duct tape he had left over, even the jacket that
he wore to the robbery, got burned, and the next
day he would dispose of the walkie talkies and the
police scanner. Now before they left town after the Bend robbery,
(23:41):
Reader's Digest says that they gifted the title of their
first car, the Subaru, to the cocktail waitress that they met,
Carrie Black. Oh. They were like, you were a real
friendly kid. Here's a car for you. He gave us
some really good information. Couldn't have done it without yet,
and it's just like, do I keep this hoops. After
that they left town, including the Bend, Oregon robbery, Craig
(24:05):
and Nova went on a spree, hitting banks all across
the west, from Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, and even
back in Arizona. Tom van Meter, a robbery detective with
the Scottsdale Police, said, quote I consider Craig one of
the more intelligent bank robbers, and Detective Don Vogel said
(24:25):
that what separated them from other bank robbers was their planning.
He said, quote they were not impulsive, They did their homework,
They did surveillance. Detective Don Vogel straight from nineteen twenty. Yeah, yeah,
he's been around. He's kind I've seen some things I
worked on Capome. No, they really do seem to think
(24:48):
of everything. Yeah, I mean they got it all worked
out again. You got a whole system going. You know.
Somebody said, oh, I got caught because I drove away
in the same car I showed up with. You know.
Another guy's like, you know what, they always get me.
They put a little electronic tracking device in the bag there.
That's right. If I just thought to soak it in
some water. And Craig's like, okay, taking notes, taking notes? Yes, man,
(25:10):
this crime conference is great. I'm learning so much. It's
really about the community. They should charge me. Oh wait,
they do. They did charge me right here with crime now.
Craig was as adept at hiding from the law as
he was at breaking it. He and Nova used fake
(25:32):
names and fake ideas. They charmed locals. They never acted suspiciously.
In between robberies, they took luxurious trips. They would go
skiing in the mountains or fly to the tropics to
go snorkel and surf. They blew their money quickly. Craig
loved expensive clothes, fancy watches, and top shelf booze, so
(25:53):
they kept kind of a permanent vacation, going Robin Banks,
spending cash, and a crazy cycle of luxury and larceny.
I don't hate it, I know, I mean, sounds pretty great.
American dream hostess crime doesn't pay it sound sounds like
it's paying really well. I mean, isn't that. The problem
is that, like we tried saying that and then it
(26:15):
turned out to be alive. Now, by the late nineties,
they had stolen and estimated half million dollars, and they
had been featured multiple times on America's Most Wanted, so
people were starting to recognize them wrong kind of fame. Yeah,
and tips started flowing into the FBI, and they came
(26:35):
close to being caught a few times, but they always
stayed a few steps ahead. Then, after two years of criming,
everything changed. Nova really wanted to visit her family back
in Phoenix. She and Craig had been fighting, and she
insisted that she'd be able to see them again, despite
the risks, Because, of course, again America's Most Wanted Unsolved Mysteries,
(27:00):
their faces were out there. At the time. Nova didn't
realize though, that only Craig was technically a wanted fugitive.
The FBI had no evidence licking her to any crime.
But they decided that they were going to take the
risk and stop in and see her parents and siblings,
and of course they were thrilled to see Nova, but
(27:21):
they resented Craig for what he'd gotten her into. So
her brother confronted Craig in the driveway while Nova was inside,
and he told him, hey, buddy, you're gonna get the
hell out of here. You're done with my sister. You know,
I'm gonna give you an hour head start or whatever.
He just told him to go. It's really funny. Actually,
in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, I watched the reenactment, they
(27:44):
got this pretty boy playing the brother and he says,
he says, you're gonna get out of here. You're gonna
get in your fancy little car and you're gonna go.
J I thought was such a good like improv line,
you get me car, fancy little are fancy little car.
So Craig left, so they knew they were stealing all
(28:07):
this stuff, but they didn't turn them in. No, they
were just like, you know, I think they really just
wanted Nova back, and they were they're very religious, so
they're probably like, you know, God's plan whatever he'll he'll
he'll get his right. But I think they wanted Nova back,
and maybe if they turned him in a Nova could
have gotten caught if the police came right there, because
(28:27):
they would also know Nova was back, and b Nova
would probably resent them, and they're like, we don't want
to push her away when she just got back. I
guess I can see that. Yeah, that's my speculation, station.
I don't really know exactly well. Nova learned that Craig
had split and she was a little uncertain about what
to do next without him, and she spoke with her sister,
(28:48):
who convinced her to at least talk with a religious leader,
the police chaplain of the Colorado State Police, William Faye,
and he agreed to speak with her confidential. He told
Unsolved Mysteries quote, I think deep in her heart she
wanted to be forgiven, but she didn't know how to
go about it. Good chaplain voice, Thank you, I thought so.
(29:11):
I was like, I only want to get some weight.
Yeah it now. Nova told him she thought she was
in trouble. He read scripture to her and asked her, quote,
what do you think it is now that God would
want you to do? And Nova said quote turn myself in.
Its yeah, but it's not the right turn myself in.
(29:36):
That's probably more like it. So Faye took her to
the police station and they agreed to speak with the FBI.
So was this the end of the line for these
criminal cohorts? We will find out right after this break
Welcome back Crime Conference goers. Don't miss don't miss dinner
(30:03):
tonight at the Commissary seven pm. We'll be having a
mystery meat flavorless mashed mush and dry beans. Stay out
of jail kids, the food is ter and good luck
at and a vegetarian option. I'll tell you that for
my twelve hours stint, your hard time, hard time, Kenny
(30:28):
was hard, and they were apologized to me. I wasn't
supposed to be there so much. I still want to
pay money. God, what a racket. Our prison systems a racket. Anyway,
So Nova sat with the FBI for a four hour
interview and she laid everything out. She told them about
(30:49):
all the robberies and how they were committed, all the
details about everything, and they're probably like, he did what,
Oh my god, a bucket of water. That's brilliant. Why
didn't we think of that? From now on, we're putting
all our tracking devices in little plastic baggies. Well, FBI
agent Jane Munroe told Unsolved Mysteries that they didn't arrest
(31:09):
Nova at that time because, quote, they hadn't done any
investigation to corroborate her story, and they didn't have enough
probable cause to get an authorized warrant. Plus they kind
of hope that she would just help them track down Craig.
So they were very much like, we're here to help
where you know, you're not going to get any trouble.
Just give us the info and we'll get this all
sorted out. I mean, he was bad news, but Nova
(31:32):
seemed to be just, you know, some young girl who
got charmed and swept up into this whole thing. Her
friend Dan Knos said that Nova quote would have to
picture herself as a Robin Hood, not a Bonnie and Clyde.
She was always the underdog the fancy resorts. That doesn't
fit her at all. That's a place to hide. Knowing her,
she'd be more likely to hide out under bridges with
(31:53):
the bums. So I wonder if it was Novah's idea
to give the car to that cocktail waitress. Oh maybe
so Yeah, she's got a bit of charity in her. Yeah,
let's do some good with all this. But it seems
like the fancy resorts do suit her pretty well. Yeah,
well maybe even it might have been all Craig's I suppose,
you know, plan to do that, and she's just like, sure,
(32:14):
I mean sounds good. You want to go to snorkeling
the tropics. I mean it. You know, I'm not going
to not have fun doing that. Sure, sure, sure, But
maybe she was like, but I'm glad that we're supporting
all these workers, the local business, the local business. We
have to eat local when we're there. Yeah. But after
her sudden and surprising cooperation with the FBI, Nova made
(32:37):
another unexpected move. She contacted Craig, met with him, and
together they disappeared again. Oh. Psychologist Frank Fay from Temple
University said, quote, she had second thoughts about going with Craig,
stepped back from the brink, then realized it's boring back here.
I'm going back to the brink. I'm so true. Let
(33:01):
me get back to the break. So true, he said.
The thrill of the lifestyle was just too enticing. He added, quote,
my guess is that after these robberies. It's into bed.
It's a thrill, it's exciting. You just want to keep
the thrill going. Yeah, Jay, they would like, go do
it afterwards. Yeah, it's like sexual. Yeah, so full of energy.
(33:21):
Yeah sure, sure, Like God, you're so hot. Yeah. When
you ran in there and cocked a gun and had
purteller space, right, I was like, Wow, what an underdog baby.
When you got in the radio and we're like I
haven't heard anyone say two eleven yet, Oh, I was
just like, man, that's the girl from me. Well, after
(33:41):
Nova disappeared, the FBI was fully on this case. They
poured over her interview with all four hours of footage,
and they learned that they almost always stayed at a
Super eight motel in between robberies, so the detective sent
their photo to every Super eight in the country. They
sent swarms of FBI agents to Craig's sons baseball games,
(34:04):
expecting maybe he'll show up for the championship or something.
But Craig never showed his son's like I look for
him every time. Be on the lookout for dad of
the Year now, right, But Barry Bonds comes to my
if only Laurie Polzato had married Barry Bonds. Afterwards, He's
(34:25):
probably thought the same thing. Will that fall. Nineteen ninety nine,
Craig and Nova allegedly robbed a bank in Spokane, Washington,
before leaving the country. Witnesses saw them at a hockey
game in Nova, Scotia, and Canada before they vanished without
being seen again for years. Another episode of Unsolved Mysteries
(34:46):
came out about them, as well as America's Most Wanted,
but Craig and Nova were long gone. First, they went
to Belize, and they spent about eight months snorkeling and
fishing on the paradise island of Amber Green, k And
I did look up pictures and I'm ready, when you
are right, go rob a bank for this. I've considered it,
(35:08):
you know, It's like I want to go that badly,
but I could never pull it off. I don't have
the stamina. Clearly, I couldn't spend eight hours at the
gym watching a bank. Obviously me neither. I would definitely
like my I would be like thinking other things and
completely like I'd be like, oh, I forgot I was
even looking at it the bank. I've been watching the
Wendy's the sign Spinner out there is just so distracting
(35:32):
dreaming about those French prize. Well anyway, their money was
running thin, and Nova would take work at local restaurants
while Craig played around in day trading, which he had
some talent for, and they kept moving, going on to
other countries like England in Greece, but after the September
eleventh attacks in two thousand and one, they knew that
security would be way too high to return to the
(35:54):
United States again, so they kept moving and in two
thousand and three they ended up in Cape Town, South Africa,
where Nova got a job at a hot spot called
the Bossanova Club under the name Andy Brown. Craig went
by Dane, and he visited the club frequently while he
spent the day's work in stocks online. But their criminal
(36:14):
days actually seemed to be way behind them. They blended
in they had these jobs. They drove a used Volkswagen Beetle.
Patrons and co workers said that Andy and Dane were pleasant,
lovely people who worked with professional diligence and helped out
around town. But then a South African tourist was in
(36:35):
the US and she saw a wanted notice and on
it was a picture of Andy the manager at the
Bossanova Club. So she contacted the FBI and she said,
and why it's all the South Africans just braced themselves
for this accent that's coming. I shouldn't should I it's
(36:58):
the hardest accent to day, really hard. Leo in that
Blood Diamond movie. I'm like, even I don't even think
he pulled it off. No, a lot of people didn't
think that I'm channeling my Diante word. Oh yeah, um God,
can't channel them anymore. They sucks to love die word.
But that guy sucks, all right. So this So the
(37:19):
South African woman contacted the FBI and she was like,
she was like, she was like, hey, I know that lady.
Oh lady, Hey, I know that lady. She's in District nine.
(37:41):
I love District nine. That's great movie. It's such a
good movie movie. An FBI agent, Mike Sandborn, thought that
this was a long shot. I have some club, some
club manager in South Africa, like a likely story. But
he contacted a connection that he had in South Africa
to ask what Cape Town was like, and he got
a one sentence response, quote, Cape Town is a fugitive haven.
(38:06):
Oh so, tourist posters maybe I'll take a closer lug. Yeah,
cape down the Home of Crime conference twenty three. Well,
Agent Sandborn went to the Boston Nova Club's website and
just started pouring through pictures from their parties, hundreds of photos,
(38:29):
and he said, quote, I got to about picture three hundred,
and there she was, plain as day. Damn. Now, South
Africa has an extradition treaty with the US, so local
police helped the FBI stake out the club. They were
pretty sure that Andy, this American girl with tattoos that
matched Nova's, was the girl they were looking for. But
(38:52):
it wasn't until Craig walked in and kissed her that
they knew for sure it was them. Oh kiss of death.
Kiss of death, right the Judas kiss, except it also
got him arrested. Didn't even know he was doing it. Now.
Four nights later, in their cheap ocean side apartment, police
arrested them without incident. There was a pile of fake
(39:14):
passports in the apartment, but no weapons are cash and
agents said quote. They were living near the poverty level,
and the owner of the club, Karapidis, had lent them
money a few times, and he was shocked when he
learned the truth about them. He said Nova had access
to all the club's bank codes and accounts and said, quote,
they could have taken close to a half million dollars.
(39:37):
It seems obvious to me that they came here to change. Yeah,
I mean it really does seem like that she was
running their books. I guess so. I mean, would you
would you steal from the the place you worked? Well,
here's the thing, I mean, I guess not until you
were ready to move on. Well, that's like, yeah, that's
part of it. I mean, first of all, it's not like, oh, well,
(39:57):
you're absolved of your crimes because you stopped doing them, obviously,
But it does seem like they didn't want to do
it anymore. I mean, they'd been there for years. They
led a pretty low key lifestyle. I think that they
were just looking for a place to live on the
beach and snorkel and kind of realized. I think they
sort of found what they wanted. They got enough of
(40:18):
that thrill, yeah, and they were like, all right, well
what were we getting out of it? Once the adrenaline
wore off? You know, we were chilling beach bums. They
were just you know, beach bums. Was hundreds of thousands
of dollars, and now they were like, well, let's let's
try it with just some easy jobs. Straight. Yeah. I
(40:38):
think they took some pride in their work and made
a lot of friends do again. The community loved them right,
so I could see them being like, let's just stay here,
let's quit running, you know. Craig said that too, He said,
you know, we were we were done, We were relaxed,
we were trying to blend in. We were tired of running,
and we kind of stopped looking over our shoulders, which
is why I think Nova's picture ended up online and
(41:00):
that kiss they shared was likely their last. After extradition,
Nova got sent to Denver for arrangements and Craig went
to Phoenix, and in May of two thousand and three,
Nova Guthrie pleaded guilty to three counts of robbery and
agreed to testify against Craig Pritchard. As part of her
plea deal, she faced up to twenty years in prison,
(41:22):
but she was sentenced in September of that year to
ten years plus two hundred and thirty one thousand dollars
in restitution. Craig was a suspect in about twelve bank
robberies in total, but under his plea deal, he was
charged and pled guilty to only three. He faced up
to eighty years in prison, but he was sentenced to
(41:43):
twenty two years, with over two hundred thousand dollars in
restitution and a million dollars in fines. Oh yeah yeah.
His court appointed lawyer, Patricia Getri, said her office was
flooded with calls from national news outlets, TV shows, date Line, Access, Hollywood,
and more, including Hollywood producers seeking movie rights, but she
(42:05):
said she was not willing to be his entertainment agents,
and she also believed that if it weren't for the
romantic connection between him and Nova, nobody would have even
noticed this story. It would have just been some two
bit bank robbers. We sure wouldn't be telling it. That's true. Oh.
When asked what Craig thought of the media attention, according
to the East Valley Tribune, Getra replied, quote, she didn't
(42:28):
care what he thought. She does not seem fond if
this guy is her client. Listen, the guy stole. I'm
just trying to do my job and get him off
my client list. I'm a court appointed lawyer. I ain't
trying to take up. I love that too, that she's like.
I could see her screaming in the phone, like, listen,
he's just a bank robber. If it weren't for his girlfriend,
(42:50):
if they weren't attractive, if they weren't all these things,
you would not care. So get off my case. I'm
trying to get off this case. I'm trying to get
off this case. Are you get up by the Tribune
also says that if Craig does see any financial gains
from the media attention, like selling his rights to a movie, quote,
the courts are likely to mandate the money be used
(43:11):
for restitution. Right their friends. A nightclub owner, Carapetas, said
that they should be considered for parole because quote, they're
not the same people they were, and they never hurt
anybody but Max. Alexander of Reader's Digest cites Craig's first wife,
Lori Pulzato, who used to be a bank teller but
quit herself after being robbed at gunpoint in a totally
(43:34):
separate incident. She said, quote, the mental durest during robbery
is extreme. What flashes through your mind is your kids,
and you're just praying, please don't kill me. And she
says their kids together are victims as well. They were
stigmatized in school and in sports because of their biological
fathers infamy. You know, So it wasn't you know, it
(43:56):
wasn't long before kids realized who they were, right, and
now they're getting teased and her ass and probably judged,
I imagine unfairly. So she's feeling like they did hurt
people even though they did not. Yeah, and I really
see that too. And that's the hard part of being like, Hey,
this lifestyle ain't so bad. Nobody gets hurt. They got
all this money, they're vacationing, they're snorkeling, they're going with skiing.
(44:18):
But people do get hurt. I mean, this is a terrifying,
traumatizing experience. You're in a criminal situation where you don't
know if your life is in danger. That that doesn't
go away. Yeah, And I guess at least with Laurie,
her career ended, right, Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's like
he was the Barry Bonds for a teller, coming in,
(44:41):
ruining their future, messing up their career. Oh, Craig, you've
become the thing you hate him becomes for bank tellers
across the West. Kapetus also says that he spoke to
Craig in prison, who told him that he feels responsible
for what he did to Nova. That quote, he feels
he's the one who got her into trouble. But Alexander
(45:04):
reports that Nova's own family does not hold that same
sympathy for her. Her mom said, quote, had she served
the Lord and not straight from what she knew, this
would not have happened. And her brother, who introduced Nova
to Craig, said, quote, we all follow a path, don't we.
He had a life to lead, and she had a
choice to follow. And I mean, I kind of agree
(45:27):
with that she should have gotten in her fancy little cart.
I mean, I do agree with that we do make choices,
but I also would also attribute possibly I don't know them.
Her mother is supposed to be a lovely person who
like cares for the elderly in town and stuff like that,
but also like you know, they had very strict rules
(45:48):
and upbringing, and like you know, it's one out of
eight is statistically going to act out. No, statistically just
saying people make their own choices and they the law,
but we also need to look at, you know, where
they came from. And what kind of environment they were
in and that kind of thing too. I'm not saying
there's fault there, but maybe look inward too, and don't
(46:09):
just brush it off as like, well, that's your problem
child I raised. No, I get that. I just I
do hate it as an excuse for not taking accountability
like you have. You know, Nova had a lot of
agency in this story to make her decisions, is absolutely so.
It's it's kind of like, partly you want to be
like I do think that there's some extenuating circumstances and
(46:31):
this guy's very charming, and you can get caught up
and all that stuff, but you have to still own
the fact that, Like, but I am a unique individual
and I can make my own choices, and I had
my own I had a time where I got to
say yes or no, right and I made my decision,
and know what I mean, aware of the consequences, who
could be hurt and all this stuff and whatever you
did to justify it to yourself. I think it's clear
(46:53):
that Nova's choices aren't Craig's responsibility, right, but maybe her
family could be a little more sympathetic since I think
they're partly their responsibility a little bit, or at least
they're involved in those choices. Yeah. Well, Nova has served
her time, she has since been released, and from what
(47:15):
we could find, she appears to be teaching yoga at
an upscale resort in Costa Rica. Well, okay, I find
this website and her Nova Guthrie, teach us here and
I'm looking at this picture. They've got her head shot
and her old pictures and I'm like, yeah, that's her.
But they surprisingly don't mention in her bio on the
(47:37):
website her criminal past. It doesn't come up. And personally
I say that we I'll just leave Nova alone and
let her get on with her life. Yeah, but Craig
is due out of prison in twenty twenty five, and
he'll have three years of monitored parole after that. Now,
whether they meet up again, that's anyone's guests. But Karapede
(48:00):
said both of them immediately asked about the other when
he visited them in jail. He had found an email
that Craig wrote to Nova only a few hours before
their arrest, where Craig said, quote, thank you princess for
always taking care of me. I don't know what I'd
do without you. La Times writes that when asked back
(48:23):
in two thousand and three before they went to jail
if they would have any future contact, Craig said, in
his interview quote, that would be up to Nova. I
hope so, And in her interview, Nova told them quote,
it's just a matter of time. Okay. So they're still
in love and wanting to be together they thought they
(48:45):
would be in two thousand and three. Yeah, it's hard
to say. I mean, what twenty two years later, will
they meant back up again? Has Nova moved on and
reconsidered like what Craig put her through and the life
he brought her into and the choices he made, or
is she like, you know what, forget all about we'd
found a life together outside of crime, right, and we
(49:06):
transcended it and we still belong together. Who knows? I
want to know part of me. It's tough with this.
This is one of those stories where I'm like, man,
this Craig sucks. He was so awful to his first wife. Yeah,
and obviously like terrorized quite a few people who have
lasting trauma, and he definitely deserved to go to jail
(49:29):
and get find a ton of money. But dang it,
if the love lover and me doesn't just want those
kids to get back together and live happily of her
hose crazy kids, they learned their lesson. I mean, you hope,
you hope, you hope I and I do believe that.
You know, for all the many near infinite problems that
(49:49):
we have in our court and prison system, I do
generally think that if someone gets sentenced and they serve
that sentence, and then they can keep their ship together
when they get out, you know, all right, go on life.
I don't have to be your friend, no, but you know,
I'm not going to go protest outside your house and
(50:09):
throw mud at your windows or anything like that either, right,
especially for non violent crimes or something like this. Or again,
I mean, as we say, there's some violent elements, yeah,
because people are getting traumatized from the gun in their
face and screaming at them and all that. But he
actually never like did physical damage or took a life
or anything. So yeah, I would be like, well, you
(50:33):
did your time. You know, you paid your debt to society.
I guess you're good now, right, And the other side
of it too, of course, that is just a problem
I can't solve. Is that what level of retribution. Can
we do upon this person that brings peace back to
their victims? You know? And I don't think there is
(50:55):
a level. I don't know. I don't like it. I
don't like having to worry about it. That's why I
elect other people to deal with those problems. Well. And
it's probably like if you were one of those tellers, right,
and someone asked you, well, what do you want? Yeah,
I mean likely your answer is going to be I
don't want them to do it anymore. I just don't
want anyone else to go through what I went through.
(51:16):
I think you know what I mean. Yeah, that's the
rise above it all the emotion answer. Sure, sure, I
mean you know, of course some people are like I
wish I could kick them off in the nuts or something.
That's what they should let you do. Just let you
kick him in the nut the nuts. Do you feel better?
I do? Actually, traumada, I faced my traumatizer. I punished
(51:38):
him in some way. No, but I just, uh so,
I feel like if if they really are seriously like
we're done with crime, we were trying to lead a
normal straight life in South Africa, and we would be
yoga instructors and day traders in Costa Rica or whatever. Um,
(51:58):
I mean that's kind of the best you can hope for,
right right, And then of course the upcoming book The
Heart of Novah Guthrie, The Heart of Nova Guthrie, which
Rhese Witherspoon is adapting. Well, stay tuned for I think
we're up to an eighteen picture deal with HBO right now,
I think so, right, several seasons television, so this will
definitely be one of them. I kind of want to
(52:20):
put together a crime con. Oh man, we got to
call our friends over a ridiculous crime. Now, yes, they
should definitely be a part and this could be a
really cool sting operation and would then make its own
great movie because it's us coming over with a crime con.
All the criminals come my best practices ed arrected. So
you're a narc. I'm a nice what is? But only
(52:43):
for like bad criminals? Only the bad one, only the
bad ones? All right? Well, if you've ever done anything wrong,
don't trust Diana. Don't trust me. I'm over here. Like
why didn't her parents turn her in? Damn? Yeah? Wow,
you really are? But I do think I do you
not get in trouble for that? Like if someone if
(53:04):
you know someone's committing crimes, like, yeah, the only thing
she wasn't wanted oh right at the time. So yeah,
so she was doing stuff. I don't think that they
necessarily knew she was doing stuff. Again, there was no
evidence saying Noah ever committed a crime. All they knew
was that she was with him and he was committing crimes.
I see. Okay, so they would just like, get away
(53:26):
from your criminals. They really just wanted her away from him,
come back to the light, let's start over. You're safe
here with us, I see. Just get away from that loser. Yeah.
Well this was a crazy story about a very loving
criminal couple. Yeah yeah, you know again weird part of
me is rooting for him, but also like this guy sucks,
(53:49):
and also I want to live a life where I'm
just like get large amounts of cash and then blow
it in the tropics and then get more cash. I know,
you can see the attraction. What's the non crime version
of that podcasting? Right? I think it's having a job
traveling podcast show, a traveling podcast. We just make a
bunch of money and then spend a bunch of money.
(54:11):
That's all I need. I don't need a home. Oh well,
I mean not, I need somewhere to live, but just
temporarily while I'm in until the next place. Yeah, all right,
it's like a nomad living that nomad life. Yes, so
email us and tell us how much money you would
donate to our travel show, Nomad Life, Our Nomad Life
Ever ridic Romance at gmail dot com right or slide
(54:33):
into the DMS on Instagram. I'm at Dynamite Boom and
I'm at Oh great, it's Eli and the show is
at ridic Romance. It's right. Thank you so much for
tuning in today and spending your time with us. We
love hearing from you. Keep those five star reviews coming
if we love those two. Thanks for tuning in, and
we'll catch you all the next one. Love you by
so long. Friends, It's time to go. Thanks for listening
(54:55):
to our show. Tell your friends names uncles in this
listen to much your ridiculous Well mansh
Hey everybody, Hello, friends, welcome back. I'm Diana and I'm Eli,
and this is ridiculous romance the future. Episode alert read
yesterday about a thruple of bald eagles yet two males
and a female that are raising eggs together. They have
been for years, so that's coming. Don't you worry, because
(00:22):
I'm they're my new best friends. Wait, I haven't checked
my lotto ticket. I'm gonna do it live. This will
be the first podcast where I win the lot where
someone wins the lottery live on air. Okay, live on air. Look,
we're not live on air. By the spoiler alert, if
you're hearing this, I didn't win because we would immediately
stop recording and quit our job. Oh my god, No,
(00:43):
we wouldn't know, but we wouldn't be rushing. That's true.
I can tell you that. I hang on a second,
here's a rerun and my tickets. Oh my god, Yeah,
did you win? I mean did we? First of all,
check yourself there. You almost set yourself with a problem.
(01:05):
I know, sixty four. I got it. That's that's it.
Just to sixty four. How much do you get for
one number? You don't get anything one number. There's lots
of number. Does anybody get one of them? Well, then
I guess we're doing this, so let's get do it. Yet.
Today comes a story of a couple who have regularly
(01:27):
been called the modern day Bonnie and Clyde and countless
media articles. But honestly, it's not really a great comparison. Firstly,
I think because spoiler alert, they never murdered anyone's story. Yeah. No,
This couple starts with Craig Pritchard, who was a former
baseball star turned bank robber in the nineteen nineties whose
(01:50):
heists were so well planned that he just could not
be caught. But the most precious thing he ever stole
was the heart of Nova Guthrie. She was so love
struck by this charismatic criminal that she joined him, and
together they raked in nearly a half million dollars in
(02:12):
the late nineties. So stick them up, let me see
those hands, and then let me see a clap them
together for today's story. In Lawless love Birds, let's go
Heyla friends. Come listen well, Elia and Diana got some
stories to tell. There's no matchmaking, all romantic tips. It's
just about ridiculous relationships. A lover them might be any
(02:35):
type of person at all, and abstract cons ator a
concrete wall. But if there's a story, were the Second
Clans Ridiculous Romans? A production of iHeartRadio? The Heart of
Nova Guthrie sounds like like an Oprah book Club novel,
(02:56):
now a major motion picture, Frank, what's Reese Witherspoon's production company? No,
But I was like, whoever made Where the Crawdads Sing?
I feel like they also make the Heart of Not Well,
we'll get to her. Craig Pritchart was born in nineteen
sixty two. When he grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona. And
(03:20):
this guy was tall, he was handsome, he was athletic,
and in nineteen eighty three, after an amazing high school
season of baseball, he was signed to Arizona State University.
The guy had his whole life late out for him.
He was told, like, you're the best, You're the best
baseball player. You're really going places. You are a super
star Craig Pritchart, and so he was sure that he
(03:42):
was going on to make big bucks in the major leagues.
He went ahead and got engaged to his high school sweetheart,
the homecoming queen, and head cheerleader Lori Pulzado. So these
guys just you're cliche, perfect, totally high school couple, handsome, jock,
hot cheerleader. I can read the Sports Illustrated profile in
(04:05):
my head right now, so could he. He was ready
for all his questions pre answered. Yeah, I was practicing
his interviews in the mirror. So Craig is totally on
track for stardom. But during his first year at Arizona State,
some new kids showed up and started hogging all the
attention that had previously been Craigs. And this kid's name
(04:26):
was Barry Bonds. Oh man, yea, well, listen. Barry Bonds was,
of course an incredible athlete. We all know that name
for a reason. By the time he was in high school,
he could basically take his pick of baseball, basketball, or football,
and I'm sure Craig was like, Okay, go with basketball,
bro leave the field for me. You could play anything.
(04:49):
But Barry played baseball on the varsity team starting his
sophomore year. By the time he was a senior in
nineteen eighty two, he had been drafted to play for
the Giants straight out of high school, which is crazy
know that happened I don't follow sports well enough. But
they could not come to an agreement on a contract.
So Barry said, you know what y'all think about it,
I'm going to college. So, having his pick of schools,
(05:12):
he ended up at Arizona State, and it wasn't long
before Craig Pritcher was just another nobody backing up the
star player Barry Bonds. N Craig was a little proud.
He could not handle losing out to Barry Bonds like this,
and he felt like his future was being stolen from him.
So he dropped out of school after only a year
and ended up going back to Scottsdale, and there he
(05:34):
married Lorie Polzado and they had three kids together over
the next six years. Now, he could have transferred to
another school, he could have played baseball somewhere else, but
his wife Lorie told Max Alexander of Reader's Digest quote,
he had no patience. It's not a great quality for
an athlete. Quite a lot of baseball. Yeah, you gotta
(05:56):
have patience just to watch baseball. Well, Craig worked odd
jobs to keep his family afloat, but he still had
these big ambitions. He spent most of his life thinking
he was going to be a rich baseball player, and
he was not ready to give up the rich part
of those dreams. Well, I'll drop out of school being
a baseball player, but damn it, I'm still gonna be rich.
(06:17):
I damn it. I want all the fancy stuff. But baseball,
you know, was what he had put all of his
focus and energy into when he was young, so he
was not really sure how to start over, so he
fell into some get rich quick schemes. This led to gambling,
which led to small time scams. None of that, obviously,
was paying off for him. That was not getting him
(06:38):
the big bucks he was looking for, so he decided
to get his life together and really dedicate himself to
a skill that could earn him a decent living. He
was gonna be a bank robber. Oh look at me now,
mount make it. Laurie, his wife, soon learned that not
only was Craig breaking the law, but he had actually
(07:00):
been doing it almost the whole time she knew him.
She said, quote, I found out that in high school
he was stealing tires off cars at fancy dealerships and
then selling them at a swap meet the next day.
Not only that, but Craig had been cheating on her,
and not subtly like he was, as Max Alexander wrote,
(07:22):
quote a controlling, manipulative person who craved danger. This guy
got off on flaunting his infidelities to his wife. At
one point he was even hanging out with another woman
in a hot tub at their own apartment complex. Dang
Lorie was working full time as a bank teller and
raising their three kids, but Craig was out there stealing
(07:44):
and cheating and living it up however he wanted. She
even saw him cruising around town in a silver Porsche Carrera, which,
of course they did not own a Porsche Carrera because
they didn't have money. She's like, where did you get there? Interesting?
This sounds like a real piece of shit. Yeah. Not
not husband of the year, not husband of the year
(08:05):
at all. How crazy to like be in a hot
tub right there? Yeah he really wanted her to Yeah,
what a jerk. Yeah. Well, fortunately Laurie separated from Craig.
She called the whole Man Disposal Services and got rid
of him, and he ended out following the money to
Las Vegas in nineteen ninety and robbed two banks just
(08:27):
outside the city. Now, if you're unfamiliar. Clark County and
the city of Las Vegas take their money pretty seriously,
all right, sort of a big deal there, the kind
of pay pretty close attention to it. I'm saying, if
there's anywhere I'm not gonna steal from, right Las Vegas. Now.
Craig had fled to Hawaii after robbing the banks, but
(08:49):
he was arrested there and picked out of a lineup
by one of the bank tellers that he robbed. Well,
he got shipped back to Arizona, and he was sentenced
to five years in a jail there, and his wife Lorie,
back home near Scottsdale with their three children, told New
York Times in a phone interview, quote, it's so sad.
Those kids are the only good thing he ever did.
(09:10):
And they divorced that same year. It was nineteen ninety
two by the time he started his five year prison sentence,
and while in prison, you can imagine that he really
had a lot of time to think about what he'd done,
you know, about the choices that he'd made, and the
future he was providing for his family at about his hopes,
his dreams and ambitions, and how maybe if he'd put
(09:31):
his talents and efforts into something besides bank robbing. He
might actually find a happy, comfortable life after all. You
can imagine that all you want, But that's, of course
not actually what Craig did. Instead, as FBI agent Edward
Hall told Unsolved Mysteries quote, he met other people that
had robbed banks in jail and they exchanged thoughts, ideas,
(09:54):
ways to perfect robbing a bank better next time. Oh damn,
given each other some looke lessons. Burglary basics. Welcome to
burglary basics. One oh one, some some heist hints. White
color work yeah, white color. Crime workshop. The crime crime classes,
(10:15):
Crime classes, Crime College, Crime College. Welcome to crime College.
It's a crime community college. Okay, we're a community here. Amazing.
This seems like a big problem with the jail system.
It's like sending everyone to crime college, right where you
learn from each other. We have I think we have
(10:35):
come across that before, or we seen it in some
some research or something where I'm like, man, it's almost
like you send them to jail and they learn how
to do it better. Instead of learning how to they
like meet connections that help them like make do more
crimes later. So how'd you get caught. Well, I did
this wrong and you did that wrong. Well, then I
know two things not to do wrong next time. Well,
(10:57):
and also it's like a big conference. Sure, it's basically
everyone at the same hotel exchanging best practices. Oh, you're
gonna make it de Larry's two thirty panel on jewel thievery.
Oh no, I'm going to be at the Art Heist workshop.
Oh I want to. Let's exchange notes afterwards. Yeah, all right,
(11:19):
So he's learning some burglary basics in prison. When Craig
got out of jail in nineteen ninety seven, obviously he
had nothing. His wife had left him, he had no job.
Now he did have something, which was a prison record,
nothing useful, so he was kind of like, oh, what
am I gonna do? So to make up for the
(11:40):
time he lost as a result of robbing banks, he
decided to rob banks really doubling down here. Oh man. Now.
One time, when visiting with his kids, he told his
ex wife's new husband John that robbery was his drug
of choice, saying, quote, there is no better high, and
(12:01):
relating the feeling that he got before a heist to
the minutes before a big baseball game. Oh okay, Okay, well,
now it was time for Craig to get another hit
of that sweet, sweet drug, because on August thirteenth, nineteen
ninety seven, according to the East Valley Tribune, Craig robbed
Norwest Banks in Scottsdale of thirty two thousand dollars, which
(12:25):
today is actually worth let's see here because calculator almost
sixty thousand dollars, almost double today. His ex wife, Laurie,
worked as a teller at a Norwest Bank in the
nearby town of Mesa, and she totally she did not
think it was a coincidence that he chose Norwest to rob.
Oh wow, He's just another opportunity for him to like flaunt, yeah,
(12:48):
I guess in front of her face, make her uncomfortable. Yeah,
very rude. Craig escaped with a diversion of setting a
car on fire and then driving away in another getaway car.
Police close to catching him. There was even a chase
through a luxury shopping mall, but in the end all
they found was his car strewn with loose cash and
(13:09):
a broken tracking device. From there, he fled to New
Mexico and ended up in a bar in the small
city of Farmington. He's got this bar and he's chatting
it up with a local guy. He's talking baseball, telling
war stories. You know how he almost played for the
majors if Barry Bonds hadn't come in. Damn Barry Bonds, right,
And that's a cool story. I mean the guys probably like,
(13:31):
whoa Barry Bonds. Stow your thunder. That's wild. I know.
Well Annie did play with Barry. Yeah. Right, So this
guy thought he was pretty cool, and he introduced him
to his sister, a young woman named Nova Guthrie. The
two of them took one look and went full googly
eye at our woga wooga, oh yeah, yelling head over heels,
horny for each other. They were like, oh my god,
(13:53):
you're so hot. She's like, wow, you're un him. Those
are their voices. Pretty's kind of crazy. Well, he asked
her on a date and she probably asked like, well,
what do you have in nine? And he was like, Oh,
let's go get a nice dinner and then wreck the
First National Bank of Durango, Colorado. Oh okay. He was
(14:13):
like I'm in yes, let's do this and we will
hear all about their heisty hookup. Right after this break
welcome back to the show, Everybody. So. Nova Guthrie was
born in Boone, Colorado, in nineteen seventy five, the youngest
of eight children. Her dad was a steel worker, her
(14:36):
mom a school teacher, and they were strict Christian fundamentalists.
They were not even allowed to have a TV in
the house. So Nova lacked a lot of excitement in
her life. But she was very clever and intelligent. She
was in the National Honor Society, and she got a
pre med degree from Morningside College in Iowa. And she
(14:56):
was pretty, but she was tough too. Her college roommates
said quote, she wasn't afraid to get dirty, and she
didn't let anybody push her around. Friends called her bold, stubborn, opinionated,
and courageous. And she and her brother had been selling
vacuum cleaners in New Mexico when he introduced her to
this handsome ex baseball player who was twelve years older
(15:18):
than her. So when Craig charmed her and promised her
a life full of excitement, danger and luxury, Nova was
ready to jump on board. I wonder too, Like you know,
she's the youngest of eight children. She's probably used to
having a work for attention. I was thinking the same thing.
Surely there's some element of like look at me. I
(15:38):
know that can happen with the youngest children. I was
third of four, and I really need attention. Sis, my
little sister, the fourth of four, absolutely does not want attention,
and she's like, let me because please don't bother me.
You know it's not true for everyone, but sometimes interesting.
(15:58):
Do you feel like you have middle old vibes? I
have middle younger child vibes for sure. Yeah, which means
I have both issues. Oh fun. Oh that's so fun
for you. Yeah, it's fun for you. I'll bet it
is so fun for me. Also, whatever that that's what
makes me so exciting. Constant demand for attention. Laugh louder
(16:23):
at that. I'm sorry, I need it. I'm laughing as
loud as I can. This is every day. That was hilarious,
And you're like it was hilarious. I'm like, well, can
you give me some Can I get a Pavlovian response? Please? Something?
How about that that it's better than nothing? See? That's good.
(16:46):
Where's that? When I need it? I mean, you get
it when you earn it. Wow, that's fair. It makes
me better, That's right. Anyway back to Nova and Craig.
So it was Halloween night in nineteen ninety seven when
Craig and Nova did their first lovers crime together and
robbed the Bank of the Southwest in Durango, Colorado, and
(17:07):
they cleaned out the vault of sixty thousand dollars and
fled the city. Jeez, and I remember, like almost every
number you hear at this point is like nearly double
right what it was because the late nineties, you know,
money was free back then. Money you could just take it.
I mean clearly not because they're going to get in
trouble for taking all this money. Craig had learned a
(17:29):
lot from all the bank robbers that he met in
his five years in prison, and he had taken elements
from all their systems to put a plan together of
his own. And this is not your classic you know,
walk up to the window, slip him a note that says,
put on your money on the bag, lady, you know,
and then just walk out of the door kind of robbery. No, no, no. Instead,
Craig and Nova would first go to small towns mostly
(17:51):
they avoided big cities. They would set themselves up in
a hotel or a short term rental, and then they
would go out in the town and wine and dine
at trendy local restaurants and get to know the locals.
They were super charming. So they would go out and
they meet all these locals, and according to the Denver Post,
they would subtly learn from them which banks would be
(18:11):
the best ones to hit and which day they should
hit them up on. So and if you asked me
to do the same thing, I'm like, Okay, I'll i'll
I'll go walk up to a rich person's table and say, hey,
hey pal, so, uh, which bank do you use? And
what days do you deposit your money? I mean, how
do you find this information? They were good. They must
(18:31):
have been like I'm looking for a new bank, you
know what I mean, Like, what do you do? You
like your bank? What do you who do you use?
You know? Oh my god? But you know what I
hate is waiting in line at the bank. Do you
know what it's? When's it dead? That's my question? Why
can't I go in and there's nobody there? These are
pre mobile deposit days right right? When? When when's the
security changed their shifts? Yeah? I want it asked too much?
(18:56):
Gone too far. Don't be suspicious. Don't. Don't be suspicious. Don't.
So after they learned which bank they needed to pick out,
they would spend a few days scouting it out, you know,
kind of walking by, glancing at who's standing outside. Nova
might even go in and have a look around while
she was asking for a money order or something innocuous
(19:17):
like that. Denver Post says they went to Bend, Oregon
in December of ninety eight, when tons of wealthy people
were on high end ski vacations, and they befriended a
local cocktail waitress named Carrie Black. They gave their names
as Will Hicks and Alex Stantini, saying they were in
town to party, and they rented a two month condo
(19:38):
and joined a Gold's gym. That's what I do when
I'm ready to party, join the gym. Look, if you're
the hot athletic type, and when you go on vacation,
you continue to exercise. I've learned this when traveling with
hot athletic types. Who you traveling with, who's hot athletic?
You know? All right, Well, I've heard it from people. Well,
(20:01):
this gym happened to be directly across the street from
the Klamath First Federal Bank, So Nova and Craig would
lift weights while they watched people come and go from
the bank, and they learned the traffic patterns. Also something
you've got to be already an athletic person to do.
That's true. Because I'm standing there and I'm like three
(20:22):
pumps in, I'm like, okay, right, I can't watch the
bank anymore. You can have like a five pounder, you
know what I mean? Yeah, right, everyone's going to be
That guy's been here for six hours. He's not even sweating,
or he's sweating, but all he's done is like sit
down and stand back up again a few times. It's
about the reps. Okay, to weight, Yeah, I'm going for
(20:45):
stamina here. We all have different bests. Okay, no judgment
right there on the wall right there. Not at Golds.
That's plenty of it. Yeah, Golds, just like, please judge me.
A few days before they hit a bank, they would
go out and buy a police scanner and a couple
of walkie talkies and they would either steal or buy
(21:07):
cheap cars to drive to the bank, and then they
had another car ready to swap too for after the robbery.
So they wouldn't show up and leave in the same car.
Gotcha now. Nova would stay outside in the car and
act as a lookout while Craig went inside. And I'll
say that it's been referenced that Craig was sometimes with
another male who was never identified, probably not the same
(21:28):
guy every time though, So he would he would just
hire someone to kind of come in and help. He
would wear gauze on his face or a mask to
hide his identity, and he was very aggressive in his approach.
Like I said, no slipping notes. He would. He would
walk in, pull out his gun right away and point
it straight at the bank teller's face. He would tell
everyone to get down, and then they go around and
(21:50):
tie everyone up at the wrists and ankles with either
duct tape or zip ties. Nova would stay with him
on the two way radio and she would alert him
if anyone approaching the bank or any other signs of
trouble while she listened to the police scanner for the
code to eleven, which meant robbery in progress. But Craig
(22:11):
he would bust in with such force and terror that
the bank employees were usually too startled to strip the alarm.
Bank manager Bill Olsen told reader's Digest quote. I thought
it was a joke at first. He got my attention
when he cocked the gun and threatened to blow my
head off. Every other word was an obscenity. He knew
how to terrorize. Yeah, Craig would order the tellers to
(22:36):
pull the shade on the drive up window. Then he'd
bring employees back to the vault and make one of
them stuffed deffelbacks full of cash. Then he would tie
that employee up last before escaping to the car, Nova
keep a bucket of water in the car. Craig would
dump all their loot to destroy any tracking devices that
had been hidden inside. Then the two of them would
(22:57):
drive to a predesignated location and swap cars. It was
over in minutes, fast, efficient, and ruthless. After the Klamath
robbery in Bend, they went back to their condo and
counted one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in cash. Wow,
which again, for the record, is worth almost twice that year. Yeah,
(23:20):
like over two hundred thousand, my goodness. Then Craig would
burn the mask that he wore, whatever zip ties or
duct tape he had left over, even the jacket that
he wore to the robbery, got burned, and the next
day he would dispose of the walkie talkies and the
police scanner. Now before they left town after the Bend robbery,
(23:41):
Reader's Digest says that they gifted the title of their
first car, the Subaru, to the cocktail waitress that they met,
Carrie Black. Oh. They were like, you were a real
friendly kid. Here's a car for you. He gave us
some really good information. Couldn't have done it without yet,
and it's just like, do I keep this hoops. After
that they left town, including the Bend, Oregon robbery, Craig
(24:05):
and Nova went on a spree, hitting banks all across
the west, from Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, and even
back in Arizona. Tom van Meter, a robbery detective with
the Scottsdale Police, said, quote I consider Craig one of
the more intelligent bank robbers, and Detective Don Vogel said
(24:25):
that what separated them from other bank robbers was their planning.
He said, quote they were not impulsive, They did their homework,
They did surveillance. Detective Don Vogel straight from nineteen twenty. Yeah, yeah,
he's been around. He's kind I've seen some things I
worked on Capome. No, they really do seem to think
(24:48):
of everything. Yeah, I mean they got it all worked
out again. You got a whole system going. You know.
Somebody said, oh, I got caught because I drove away
in the same car I showed up with. You know.
Another guy's like, you know what, they always get me.
They put a little electronic tracking device in the bag there.
That's right. If I just thought to soak it in
some water. And Craig's like, okay, taking notes, taking notes? Yes, man,
(25:10):
this crime conference is great. I'm learning so much. It's
really about the community. They should charge me. Oh wait,
they do. They did charge me right here with crime now.
Craig was as adept at hiding from the law as
he was at breaking it. He and Nova used fake
(25:32):
names and fake ideas. They charmed locals. They never acted suspiciously.
In between robberies, they took luxurious trips. They would go
skiing in the mountains or fly to the tropics to
go snorkel and surf. They blew their money quickly. Craig
loved expensive clothes, fancy watches, and top shelf booze, so
(25:53):
they kept kind of a permanent vacation, going Robin Banks,
spending cash, and a crazy cycle of luxury and larceny.
I don't hate it, I know, I mean, sounds pretty great.
American dream hostess crime doesn't pay it sound sounds like
it's paying really well. I mean, isn't that. The problem
is that, like we tried saying that and then it
(26:15):
turned out to be alive. Now, by the late nineties,
they had stolen and estimated half million dollars, and they
had been featured multiple times on America's Most Wanted, so
people were starting to recognize them wrong kind of fame. Yeah,
and tips started flowing into the FBI, and they came
(26:35):
close to being caught a few times, but they always
stayed a few steps ahead. Then, after two years of criming,
everything changed. Nova really wanted to visit her family back
in Phoenix. She and Craig had been fighting, and she
insisted that she'd be able to see them again, despite
the risks, Because, of course, again America's Most Wanted Unsolved Mysteries,
(27:00):
their faces were out there. At the time. Nova didn't
realize though, that only Craig was technically a wanted fugitive.
The FBI had no evidence licking her to any crime.
But they decided that they were going to take the
risk and stop in and see her parents and siblings,
and of course they were thrilled to see Nova, but
(27:21):
they resented Craig for what he'd gotten her into. So
her brother confronted Craig in the driveway while Nova was inside,
and he told him, hey, buddy, you're gonna get the
hell out of here. You're done with my sister. You know,
I'm gonna give you an hour head start or whatever.
He just told him to go. It's really funny. Actually,
in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, I watched the reenactment, they
(27:44):
got this pretty boy playing the brother and he says,
he says, you're gonna get out of here. You're gonna
get in your fancy little car and you're gonna go.
J I thought was such a good like improv line,
you get me car, fancy little are fancy little car.
So Craig left, so they knew they were stealing all
(28:07):
this stuff, but they didn't turn them in. No, they
were just like, you know, I think they really just
wanted Nova back, and they were they're very religious, so
they're probably like, you know, God's plan whatever he'll he'll
he'll get his right. But I think they wanted Nova back,
and maybe if they turned him in a Nova could
have gotten caught if the police came right there, because
(28:27):
they would also know Nova was back, and b Nova
would probably resent them, and they're like, we don't want
to push her away when she just got back. I
guess I can see that. Yeah, that's my speculation, station.
I don't really know exactly well. Nova learned that Craig
had split and she was a little uncertain about what
to do next without him, and she spoke with her sister,
(28:48):
who convinced her to at least talk with a religious leader,
the police chaplain of the Colorado State Police, William Faye,
and he agreed to speak with her confidential. He told
Unsolved Mysteries quote, I think deep in her heart she
wanted to be forgiven, but she didn't know how to
go about it. Good chaplain voice, Thank you, I thought so.
(29:11):
I was like, I only want to get some weight.
Yeah it now. Nova told him she thought she was
in trouble. He read scripture to her and asked her, quote,
what do you think it is now that God would
want you to do? And Nova said quote turn myself in.
Its yeah, but it's not the right turn myself in.
(29:36):
That's probably more like it. So Faye took her to
the police station and they agreed to speak with the FBI.
So was this the end of the line for these
criminal cohorts? We will find out right after this break
Welcome back Crime Conference goers. Don't miss don't miss dinner
(30:03):
tonight at the Commissary seven pm. We'll be having a
mystery meat flavorless mashed mush and dry beans. Stay out
of jail kids, the food is ter and good luck
at and a vegetarian option. I'll tell you that for
my twelve hours stint, your hard time, hard time, Kenny
(30:28):
was hard, and they were apologized to me. I wasn't
supposed to be there so much. I still want to
pay money. God, what a racket. Our prison systems a racket. Anyway,
So Nova sat with the FBI for a four hour
interview and she laid everything out. She told them about
(30:49):
all the robberies and how they were committed, all the
details about everything, and they're probably like, he did what,
Oh my god, a bucket of water. That's brilliant. Why
didn't we think of that? From now on, we're putting
all our tracking devices in little plastic baggies. Well, FBI
agent Jane Munroe told Unsolved Mysteries that they didn't arrest
(31:09):
Nova at that time because, quote, they hadn't done any
investigation to corroborate her story, and they didn't have enough
probable cause to get an authorized warrant. Plus they kind
of hope that she would just help them track down Craig.
So they were very much like, we're here to help
where you know, you're not going to get any trouble.
Just give us the info and we'll get this all
sorted out. I mean, he was bad news, but Nova
(31:32):
seemed to be just, you know, some young girl who
got charmed and swept up into this whole thing. Her
friend Dan Knos said that Nova quote would have to
picture herself as a Robin Hood, not a Bonnie and Clyde.
She was always the underdog the fancy resorts. That doesn't
fit her at all. That's a place to hide. Knowing her,
she'd be more likely to hide out under bridges with
(31:53):
the bums. So I wonder if it was Novah's idea
to give the car to that cocktail waitress. Oh maybe
so Yeah, she's got a bit of charity in her. Yeah,
let's do some good with all this. But it seems
like the fancy resorts do suit her pretty well. Yeah,
well maybe even it might have been all Craig's I suppose,
you know, plan to do that, and she's just like, sure,
(32:14):
I mean sounds good. You want to go to snorkeling
the tropics. I mean it. You know, I'm not going
to not have fun doing that. Sure, sure, sure, But
maybe she was like, but I'm glad that we're supporting
all these workers, the local business, the local business. We
have to eat local when we're there. Yeah. But after
her sudden and surprising cooperation with the FBI, Nova made
(32:37):
another unexpected move. She contacted Craig, met with him, and
together they disappeared again. Oh. Psychologist Frank Fay from Temple
University said, quote, she had second thoughts about going with Craig,
stepped back from the brink, then realized it's boring back here.
I'm going back to the brink. I'm so true. Let
(33:01):
me get back to the break. So true, he said.
The thrill of the lifestyle was just too enticing. He added, quote,
my guess is that after these robberies. It's into bed.
It's a thrill, it's exciting. You just want to keep
the thrill going. Yeah, Jay, they would like, go do
it afterwards. Yeah, it's like sexual. Yeah, so full of energy.
(33:21):
Yeah sure, sure, Like God, you're so hot. Yeah. When
you ran in there and cocked a gun and had
purteller space, right, I was like, Wow, what an underdog baby.
When you got in the radio and we're like I
haven't heard anyone say two eleven yet, Oh, I was
just like, man, that's the girl from me. Well, after
(33:41):
Nova disappeared, the FBI was fully on this case. They
poured over her interview with all four hours of footage,
and they learned that they almost always stayed at a
Super eight motel in between robberies, so the detective sent
their photo to every Super eight in the country. They
sent swarms of FBI agents to Craig's sons baseball games,
(34:04):
expecting maybe he'll show up for the championship or something.
But Craig never showed his son's like I look for
him every time. Be on the lookout for dad of
the Year now, right, But Barry Bonds comes to my
if only Laurie Polzato had married Barry Bonds. Afterwards, He's
(34:25):
probably thought the same thing. Will that fall. Nineteen ninety nine,
Craig and Nova allegedly robbed a bank in Spokane, Washington,
before leaving the country. Witnesses saw them at a hockey
game in Nova, Scotia, and Canada before they vanished without
being seen again for years. Another episode of Unsolved Mysteries
(34:46):
came out about them, as well as America's Most Wanted,
but Craig and Nova were long gone. First, they went
to Belize, and they spent about eight months snorkeling and
fishing on the paradise island of Amber Green, k And
I did look up pictures and I'm ready, when you
are right, go rob a bank for this. I've considered it,
(35:08):
you know, It's like I want to go that badly,
but I could never pull it off. I don't have
the stamina. Clearly, I couldn't spend eight hours at the
gym watching a bank. Obviously me neither. I would definitely
like my I would be like thinking other things and
completely like I'd be like, oh, I forgot I was
even looking at it the bank. I've been watching the
Wendy's the sign Spinner out there is just so distracting
(35:32):
dreaming about those French prize. Well anyway, their money was
running thin, and Nova would take work at local restaurants
while Craig played around in day trading, which he had
some talent for, and they kept moving, going on to
other countries like England in Greece, but after the September
eleventh attacks in two thousand and one, they knew that
security would be way too high to return to the
(35:54):
United States again, so they kept moving and in two
thousand and three they ended up in Cape Town, South Africa,
where Nova got a job at a hot spot called
the Bossanova Club under the name Andy Brown. Craig went
by Dane, and he visited the club frequently while he
spent the day's work in stocks online. But their criminal
(36:14):
days actually seemed to be way behind them. They blended
in they had these jobs. They drove a used Volkswagen Beetle.
Patrons and co workers said that Andy and Dane were pleasant,
lovely people who worked with professional diligence and helped out
around town. But then a South African tourist was in
(36:35):
the US and she saw a wanted notice and on
it was a picture of Andy the manager at the
Bossanova Club. So she contacted the FBI and she said,
and why it's all the South Africans just braced themselves
for this accent that's coming. I shouldn't should I it's
(36:58):
the hardest accent to day, really hard. Leo in that
Blood Diamond movie. I'm like, even I don't even think
he pulled it off. No, a lot of people didn't
think that I'm channeling my Diante word. Oh yeah, um God,
can't channel them anymore. They sucks to love die word.
But that guy sucks, all right. So this So the
(37:19):
South African woman contacted the FBI and she was like,
she was like, she was like, hey, I know that lady.
Oh lady, Hey, I know that lady. She's in District nine.
(37:41):
I love District nine. That's great movie. It's such a
good movie movie. An FBI agent, Mike Sandborn, thought that
this was a long shot. I have some club, some
club manager in South Africa, like a likely story. But
he contacted a connection that he had in South Africa
to ask what Cape Town was like, and he got
a one sentence response, quote, Cape Town is a fugitive haven.
(38:06):
Oh so, tourist posters maybe I'll take a closer lug. Yeah,
cape down the Home of Crime conference twenty three. Well,
Agent Sandborn went to the Boston Nova Club's website and
just started pouring through pictures from their parties, hundreds of photos,
(38:29):
and he said, quote, I got to about picture three hundred,
and there she was, plain as day. Damn. Now, South
Africa has an extradition treaty with the US, so local
police helped the FBI stake out the club. They were
pretty sure that Andy, this American girl with tattoos that
matched Nova's, was the girl they were looking for. But
(38:52):
it wasn't until Craig walked in and kissed her that
they knew for sure it was them. Oh kiss of death.
Kiss of death, right the Judas kiss, except it also
got him arrested. Didn't even know he was doing it. Now.
Four nights later, in their cheap ocean side apartment, police
arrested them without incident. There was a pile of fake
(39:14):
passports in the apartment, but no weapons are cash and
agents said quote. They were living near the poverty level,
and the owner of the club, Karapidis, had lent them
money a few times, and he was shocked when he
learned the truth about them. He said Nova had access
to all the club's bank codes and accounts and said, quote,
they could have taken close to a half million dollars.
(39:37):
It seems obvious to me that they came here to change. Yeah,
I mean it really does seem like that she was
running their books. I guess so. I mean, would you
would you steal from the the place you worked? Well,
here's the thing, I mean, I guess not until you
were ready to move on. Well, that's like, yeah, that's
part of it. I mean, first of all, it's not like, oh, well,
(39:57):
you're absolved of your crimes because you stopped doing them, obviously,
But it does seem like they didn't want to do
it anymore. I mean, they'd been there for years. They
led a pretty low key lifestyle. I think that they
were just looking for a place to live on the
beach and snorkel and kind of realized. I think they
sort of found what they wanted. They got enough of
(40:18):
that thrill, yeah, and they were like, all right, well
what were we getting out of it? Once the adrenaline
wore off? You know, we were chilling beach bums. They
were just you know, beach bums. Was hundreds of thousands
of dollars, and now they were like, well, let's let's
try it with just some easy jobs. Straight. Yeah. I
(40:38):
think they took some pride in their work and made
a lot of friends do again. The community loved them right,
so I could see them being like, let's just stay here,
let's quit running, you know. Craig said that too, He said,
you know, we were we were done, We were relaxed,
we were trying to blend in. We were tired of running,
and we kind of stopped looking over our shoulders, which
is why I think Nova's picture ended up online and
(41:00):
that kiss they shared was likely their last. After extradition,
Nova got sent to Denver for arrangements and Craig went
to Phoenix, and in May of two thousand and three,
Nova Guthrie pleaded guilty to three counts of robbery and
agreed to testify against Craig Pritchard. As part of her
plea deal, she faced up to twenty years in prison,
(41:22):
but she was sentenced in September of that year to
ten years plus two hundred and thirty one thousand dollars
in restitution. Craig was a suspect in about twelve bank
robberies in total, but under his plea deal, he was
charged and pled guilty to only three. He faced up
to eighty years in prison, but he was sentenced to
(41:43):
twenty two years, with over two hundred thousand dollars in
restitution and a million dollars in fines. Oh yeah yeah.
His court appointed lawyer, Patricia Getri, said her office was
flooded with calls from national news outlets, TV shows, date Line, Access, Hollywood,
and more, including Hollywood producers seeking movie rights, but she
(42:05):
said she was not willing to be his entertainment agents,
and she also believed that if it weren't for the
romantic connection between him and Nova, nobody would have even
noticed this story. It would have just been some two
bit bank robbers. We sure wouldn't be telling it. That's true. Oh.
When asked what Craig thought of the media attention, according
to the East Valley Tribune, Getra replied, quote, she didn't
(42:28):
care what he thought. She does not seem fond if
this guy is her client. Listen, the guy stole. I'm
just trying to do my job and get him off
my client list. I'm a court appointed lawyer. I ain't
trying to take up. I love that too, that she's like.
I could see her screaming in the phone, like, listen,
he's just a bank robber. If it weren't for his girlfriend,
(42:50):
if they weren't attractive, if they weren't all these things,
you would not care. So get off my case. I'm
trying to get off this case. I'm trying to get
off this case. Are you get up by the Tribune
also says that if Craig does see any financial gains
from the media attention, like selling his rights to a movie, quote,
the courts are likely to mandate the money be used
(43:11):
for restitution. Right their friends. A nightclub owner, Carapetas, said
that they should be considered for parole because quote, they're
not the same people they were, and they never hurt
anybody but Max. Alexander of Reader's Digest cites Craig's first wife,
Lori Pulzato, who used to be a bank teller but
quit herself after being robbed at gunpoint in a totally
(43:34):
separate incident. She said, quote, the mental durest during robbery
is extreme. What flashes through your mind is your kids,
and you're just praying, please don't kill me. And she
says their kids together are victims as well. They were
stigmatized in school and in sports because of their biological
fathers infamy. You know, So it wasn't you know, it
(43:56):
wasn't long before kids realized who they were, right, and
now they're getting teased and her ass and probably judged,
I imagine unfairly. So she's feeling like they did hurt
people even though they did not. Yeah, and I really
see that too. And that's the hard part of being like, Hey,
this lifestyle ain't so bad. Nobody gets hurt. They got
all this money, they're vacationing, they're snorkeling, they're going with skiing.
(44:18):
But people do get hurt. I mean, this is a terrifying,
traumatizing experience. You're in a criminal situation where you don't
know if your life is in danger. That that doesn't
go away. Yeah, And I guess at least with Laurie,
her career ended, right, Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's like
he was the Barry Bonds for a teller, coming in,
(44:41):
ruining their future, messing up their career. Oh, Craig, you've
become the thing you hate him becomes for bank tellers
across the West. Kapetus also says that he spoke to
Craig in prison, who told him that he feels responsible
for what he did to Nova. That quote, he feels
he's the one who got her into trouble. But Alexander
(45:04):
reports that Nova's own family does not hold that same
sympathy for her. Her mom said, quote, had she served
the Lord and not straight from what she knew, this
would not have happened. And her brother, who introduced Nova
to Craig, said, quote, we all follow a path, don't we.
He had a life to lead, and she had a
choice to follow. And I mean, I kind of agree
(45:27):
with that she should have gotten in her fancy little cart.
I mean, I do agree with that we do make choices,
but I also would also attribute possibly I don't know them.
Her mother is supposed to be a lovely person who
like cares for the elderly in town and stuff like that,
but also like you know, they had very strict rules
(45:48):
and upbringing, and like you know, it's one out of
eight is statistically going to act out. No, statistically just
saying people make their own choices and they the law,
but we also need to look at, you know, where
they came from. And what kind of environment they were
in and that kind of thing too. I'm not saying
there's fault there, but maybe look inward too, and don't
(46:09):
just brush it off as like, well, that's your problem
child I raised. No, I get that. I just I
do hate it as an excuse for not taking accountability
like you have. You know, Nova had a lot of
agency in this story to make her decisions, is absolutely so.
It's it's kind of like, partly you want to be
like I do think that there's some extenuating circumstances and
(46:31):
this guy's very charming, and you can get caught up
and all that stuff, but you have to still own
the fact that, Like, but I am a unique individual
and I can make my own choices, and I had
my own I had a time where I got to
say yes or no, right and I made my decision,
and know what I mean, aware of the consequences, who
could be hurt and all this stuff and whatever you
did to justify it to yourself. I think it's clear
(46:53):
that Nova's choices aren't Craig's responsibility, right, but maybe her
family could be a little more sympathetic since I think
they're partly their responsibility a little bit, or at least
they're involved in those choices. Yeah. Well, Nova has served
her time, she has since been released, and from what
(47:15):
we could find, she appears to be teaching yoga at
an upscale resort in Costa Rica. Well, okay, I find
this website and her Nova Guthrie, teach us here and
I'm looking at this picture. They've got her head shot
and her old pictures and I'm like, yeah, that's her.
But they surprisingly don't mention in her bio on the
(47:37):
website her criminal past. It doesn't come up. And personally
I say that we I'll just leave Nova alone and
let her get on with her life. Yeah, but Craig
is due out of prison in twenty twenty five, and
he'll have three years of monitored parole after that. Now,
whether they meet up again, that's anyone's guests. But Karapede
(48:00):
said both of them immediately asked about the other when
he visited them in jail. He had found an email
that Craig wrote to Nova only a few hours before
their arrest, where Craig said, quote, thank you princess for
always taking care of me. I don't know what I'd
do without you. La Times writes that when asked back
(48:23):
in two thousand and three before they went to jail
if they would have any future contact, Craig said, in
his interview quote, that would be up to Nova. I
hope so, And in her interview, Nova told them quote,
it's just a matter of time. Okay. So they're still
in love and wanting to be together they thought they
(48:45):
would be in two thousand and three. Yeah, it's hard
to say. I mean, what twenty two years later, will
they meant back up again? Has Nova moved on and
reconsidered like what Craig put her through and the life
he brought her into and the choices he made, or
is she like, you know what, forget all about we'd
found a life together outside of crime, right, and we
(49:06):
transcended it and we still belong together. Who knows? I
want to know part of me. It's tough with this.
This is one of those stories where I'm like, man,
this Craig sucks. He was so awful to his first wife. Yeah,
and obviously like terrorized quite a few people who have
lasting trauma, and he definitely deserved to go to jail
(49:29):
and get find a ton of money. But dang it,
if the love lover and me doesn't just want those
kids to get back together and live happily of her
hose crazy kids, they learned their lesson. I mean, you hope,
you hope, you hope I and I do believe that.
You know, for all the many near infinite problems that
(49:49):
we have in our court and prison system, I do
generally think that if someone gets sentenced and they serve
that sentence, and then they can keep their ship together
when they get out, you know, all right, go on life.
I don't have to be your friend, no, but you know,
I'm not going to go protest outside your house and
(50:09):
throw mud at your windows or anything like that either, right,
especially for non violent crimes or something like this. Or again,
I mean, as we say, there's some violent elements, yeah,
because people are getting traumatized from the gun in their
face and screaming at them and all that. But he
actually never like did physical damage or took a life
or anything. So yeah, I would be like, well, you
(50:33):
did your time. You know, you paid your debt to society.
I guess you're good now, right, And the other side
of it too, of course, that is just a problem
I can't solve. Is that what level of retribution. Can
we do upon this person that brings peace back to
their victims? You know? And I don't think there is
(50:55):
a level. I don't know. I don't like it. I
don't like having to worry about it. That's why I
elect other people to deal with those problems. Well. And
it's probably like if you were one of those tellers, right,
and someone asked you, well, what do you want? Yeah,
I mean likely your answer is going to be I
don't want them to do it anymore. I just don't
want anyone else to go through what I went through.
(51:16):
I think you know what I mean. Yeah, that's the
rise above it all the emotion answer. Sure, sure, I
mean you know, of course some people are like I
wish I could kick them off in the nuts or something.
That's what they should let you do. Just let you
kick him in the nut the nuts. Do you feel better?
I do? Actually, traumada, I faced my traumatizer. I punished
(51:38):
him in some way. No, but I just, uh so,
I feel like if if they really are seriously like
we're done with crime, we were trying to lead a
normal straight life in South Africa, and we would be
yoga instructors and day traders in Costa Rica or whatever. Um,
(51:58):
I mean that's kind of the best you can hope for,
right right, And then of course the upcoming book The
Heart of Novah Guthrie, The Heart of Nova Guthrie, which
Rhese Witherspoon is adapting. Well, stay tuned for I think
we're up to an eighteen picture deal with HBO right now,
I think so, right, several seasons television, so this will
definitely be one of them. I kind of want to
(52:20):
put together a crime con. Oh man, we got to
call our friends over a ridiculous crime. Now, yes, they
should definitely be a part and this could be a
really cool sting operation and would then make its own
great movie because it's us coming over with a crime con.
All the criminals come my best practices ed arrected. So
you're a narc. I'm a nice what is? But only
(52:43):
for like bad criminals? Only the bad one, only the
bad ones? All right? Well, if you've ever done anything wrong,
don't trust Diana. Don't trust me. I'm over here. Like
why didn't her parents turn her in? Damn? Yeah? Wow,
you really are? But I do think I do you
not get in trouble for that? Like if someone if
(53:04):
you know someone's committing crimes, like, yeah, the only thing
she wasn't wanted oh right at the time. So yeah,
so she was doing stuff. I don't think that they
necessarily knew she was doing stuff. Again, there was no
evidence saying Noah ever committed a crime. All they knew
was that she was with him and he was committing crimes.
I see. Okay, so they would just like, get away
(53:26):
from your criminals. They really just wanted her away from him,
come back to the light, let's start over. You're safe
here with us, I see. Just get away from that loser. Yeah.
Well this was a crazy story about a very loving
criminal couple. Yeah yeah, you know again weird part of
me is rooting for him, but also like this guy sucks,
(53:49):
and also I want to live a life where I'm
just like get large amounts of cash and then blow
it in the tropics and then get more cash. I know,
you can see the attraction. What's the non crime version
of that podcasting? Right? I think it's having a job
traveling podcast show, a traveling podcast. We just make a
bunch of money and then spend a bunch of money.
(54:11):
That's all I need. I don't need a home. Oh well,
I mean not, I need somewhere to live, but just
temporarily while I'm in until the next place. Yeah, all right,
it's like a nomad living that nomad life. Yes, so
email us and tell us how much money you would
donate to our travel show, Nomad Life, Our Nomad Life
Ever ridic Romance at gmail dot com right or slide
(54:33):
into the DMS on Instagram. I'm at Dynamite Boom and
I'm at Oh great, it's Eli and the show is
at ridic Romance. It's right. Thank you so much for
tuning in today and spending your time with us. We
love hearing from you. Keep those five star reviews coming
if we love those two. Thanks for tuning in, and
we'll catch you all the next one. Love you by
so long. Friends, It's time to go. Thanks for listening
(54:55):
to our show. Tell your friends names uncles in this
listen to much your ridiculous Well mansh
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