October 11, 2021 • 32 mins
The Doughertys have gotten into a high-speed chase and done the unthinkable, shot at a police officer with an AK-47. Knowing there is now a target on their backs they high tail it across state lines into Georgia and contemplate how their past has affected their present.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My mom was a world of contradictions. She would pet
your head and tell you how well behaved and talented
you were. She didn't like to be sassed. She couldn't
stand us screaming in the car or running from her
in the grocery store. The things she hated most was
causing a scene. She felt like outsiders were judging her
for having bad children. Looking back, I can see why
(00:24):
she was so nuts. She had five children in eight years.
Her obstetrician had warned her several times that her body
wasn't going to withstand much more damage. He was right.
She could never have children again. So you see, we
almost killed my mom by just being born. Welcome to
The Dougherty Gang, a production of I Heart Radio and
(00:46):
Katie Studios episode four Less than Perfectly Obedient. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
a crime producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Ladecker. We've
been working with producer Beth Greenwald on The Dockerty Gang
for months now. The three siblings have agreed to tell
their story for the very first time, each from separate prisons.
Lee Grace Dockerty is at Federal Correction Institute Aliceville in Alabama.
(01:09):
Ryan is in the United States Penitentiary Tucson in Arizona,
and Dylan is at the Federal Corrections Institute in Bennettsville
in South Carolina. This call was from the Federal prison.
When you have that amount of a journaline going through you,
you're not sure how to act because it's not something
that's happening every single day. You know, we don't we
don't have that type of interaction, So everything was happening
(01:33):
very staff. The Doughertys had zero chance of flying under
the radar after a high speed chase in which they
shot at a Pascal County sheriff deputy with an AK
forty seven. Here's older brother Dylan. I feel like I'm
having a heart attack for about four hours after that
morning they're troubled. Began in Florida, when officials say twenty
nine year old Lee, one year old Ryan, and twenty
(01:54):
six year old Dylan led police in a high speed chase,
then opened fire, got a way after shooting out the
police car is tired. Sheriff Chris Naco, the sheriff of
Pascal County, shares his thoughts on the start of the
Dougherty Gangs crime spree. It's ironic and law of force.
And we tell people, if you're going to commit a crime,
just commit one crime. If you commit two crimes, you're
(02:15):
way more likely to get caught. Because the fact that
he had cut an ankle bracelet off, we would have
never probably been notified at the time, and had they
just driven down the streets at a normal speed, they
would have blended in with everybody else crying why would
you speed in the middle of town? Did you see
the cops before that? I think we could have made
a different decision. We could have gone a different way
(02:38):
and the police would never have gotten behind us, and
we would have just had continued our merry way, so
he would have been able to get on if that
was their intentions, to get out of state of Florida
very easily. But you know, when you're speeding down, you're
committing now two offenses, one cutting off to the ankle bracelet,
but you are, you know, speeding, It just starts multiplying.
(02:59):
So at that point, you know, it wasn't the fact
that he had cut off his ankle bracelet. Nobody was notified.
Nobody probably would have been notified immediately. What got them,
you know, having wind or pulling behind him was the
fact that they were speeding. We were each in a
in our different version of escape. You know. It was
like when you have nowhere to go. I mean, you
feel like you're cornered. There's no way back. I think
(03:22):
that was probably one of the scariest moments of being
on the road, is knowing that there's no way you
could ever return to where you're from. You know, you
can never go back to Tampa, you can never go
back to Orlando. It's just, you know, you're completely alienated
from the place where you grew up. And I think
as we're driving farther and farther north, there was a
(03:44):
sense of relief that kind of settled in the car,
you know. And I just kept looking at Ryan like,
you're damn good driver, because I know I couldn't have
done that. You know, either I would erecked or killed myself,
killed somebody else. But he really wasn't reacting. I think
away that, you Knowlan and I were reacting. I was
reacting very erratically. I was like, you know, holy sh it,
(04:07):
what are we gonna do? How we just ran from
the cops? What the hell. Here's how Ryan described the
shootout last episode. The goal is always either just not
alcohol on the radiator, because you might have three to
five minutes flat out with one of those Crown Vics
before it overneath fast shot at you from about forty
or left away, and they caught about forty rounds right
(04:28):
above the driver's side. Dire apologize for shooting at him.
It was between him and my freedom and it was
in no way personal. Here's the Docty Gang movie writer
producer director Sean McEwen speaking with Beth All. My understanding
of that came through the police reports, uh and what
the news had eventually covered, and then that fed into
(04:50):
the opportunity that I had to sit down with each
of you know, Lead Grace, Ryan and Dylan in person
and talk to them. So when I first met them,
which now I'm thinking is really been about eight years ago,
you know, I'm sitting there with Dylan and you know,
looking at him eyeball to eyeball. He's obviously in prison
and I was out of visitation. You know, when he
recounts the story and you know, so compelling but fascinating,
(05:13):
I think thinks to valliums is you know, flash forward
two years later, as Ryan's telling the story now in
a way, it's his way of trying to protect his siblings,
like essentially him now saying, well, no, I was the
one who was shooting at the Coppins up for Hills.
I was the one who leaned out the window. Yet
he was the one driving. So listen, I know he
(05:34):
keeps mentioning and everyone around him said he was a
great driver. But that's like something out of a not
even a movie, like out of a cartoon or something.
To think you could be flying around a hundred miles
an hour down the streets and up hills and leaned
out the windows shooting perfectly at a cops tire. Um.
I think what's so fascinating about that is even to
this day, they're still trying anything they can to protect
(05:57):
the other one, even if it means jeopard i using
their own freedom or safety. And I think that again
speaks volumes. Ryan is able to protect them. I guess
the circumstances of Florida are different for each one. So
Ryan being able to do that is because he already
accepted a deal. Um, That's how I understand it. Again,
I don't you know, I'm not wanting to obviously get
(06:19):
anybody in trouble. But how I'm understanding it is is
that you know, Ryan still was up on various charges
and still has certain legal dynamics of dealing with and
because of that, I think he was like, look, I'm
already taking the fall for some things. Um, yes, it
will make my situation that much more challenging, that much
more worse. But again I'd rather, you know, let let
(06:39):
it all right on me to hopefully, you know, ease
up on my my siblings here and makes better for them,
And they always seem to be willing to do that.
This is a family, and these are kids that aren't
going to turn on each other. They would rather take
the fall tenfold than have anything happened to the other one.
Dylan talks to Beth, saying he is actually the one
(07:00):
to pull the trigger. The truth comes down to what
actually happened ten years ago. Were you the one for
the shots or was it Ryan? Sometimes when Ryan talked
about it, it sounded like he had done it. No,
he did. He did. He was driving the car. You know,
when you're driving on in forty it's kind of hard
to shoot. So you know, I did all the student
I which I can say that they know that they
(07:21):
had the video. UM, I've said it before, and you
know what I mean is what it is. I can't
change the past. Here's Ryan followed by Lee Grace. You know,
it just got to a point when we were driving
and we were like, man, what you know what? Essentially
like what are we doing? Because the original plan is
kind of food bar So you've got to kind of
roll with it. After that initial shape and you realize
(07:42):
you're you've gotten away from the cops, there's a euphorical
relief like you're like, oh, okay, we're good. We're saying
we don't have to run anymore, we can just drive normally. Well,
the docertees went along their journey feeling they had no
choice but to continue. Law enforcement had a pretty different interpretation.
Here's the active sheriff Naco. But when you have an
(08:03):
incident where there's numerous people in a vehicle, they're shooting
at law enforcement. Um, and then it starts didding up
that he cut the ankle bracelet. Those are patterns that
kind of don't fit in the normal flow. Here's executive
producer Joseph Morgan, a forensic scientist and criminal justice expert.
They sealed their fate at that moment time, because when
(08:25):
someone pulls a weapon with intent to fire in the
direction of police officer, you're challenging not just that police officer,
but all of the other law enforcement agencies that are
about to descend upon you, because they cannot have a
group of people run around buck wild, up and down
the road. The Doughertees cross country Spree was initiated when
(08:49):
twenty one year old Ryan went to court to face
felony charges of sending a minor harmful information and loadingless
of his conduct, sending sexually inappropriate text to a miner
is unarguedly deplorable. It was also one more thing and
a string of bad actions and situations Ryan got himself in.
Going back to his complicated childhood. Here he is talking
about growing up followed by his mother, Barbara Bell. My
(09:12):
mom tried really hard, and she really loved all of
us kids. Like that's not ever anything that's a singled
doubt in my mind ever any any day of the week.
And none of her kids have got the doubt that ever.
But you know, on the flip side of that, man,
like you know, she she came up short to Marius
and she came through stronger than was necessary and others
(09:34):
so like you know. And then on the same side
of that, I think, I sit and I think to
myself and Mike, at least she was present. I'm almost there.
Like she worked a lot, she slept a lot, she
was tired from working doubles back to back to back
to back, working her fucking eyes to the phone, you know,
to provide for us. I thought they would be better
off with a single mother that worked and demonstrated independence
(09:56):
and encouraged them to be independent, rather than a stay
at home, have nothing, go nowhere mother meeting them at
the bus stop with an apron on and a tray
full of brownies. Now, maybe in retrospect, I would have
been better off to wear the apron and baked the brownies.
Dylan lived a much different life than Lee, Grace and Ryan.
When he was younger, his father Doc and mom Barbara
(10:18):
thought Dylan would have more opportunities by going to live
with his aunt Susanne and uncle Glen in Kentucky. Dylan
could not read in third grade, and at that point
he had already spent a lot of summers in Kentucky
with extended family and was very happy and kept very
busy and out of trouble up there, and so um
(10:39):
at the point where I realized Dylan could not read,
DOC and I both felt that education was extremely important.
And he went up to live out of out of state.
And at that point he missed his brothers and sisters
and they missed him, but they kept in touch over
the phone and occasional letter. My brother was raised by
my aunt and uncle, that was their kid. He had
(11:00):
a different upbringing and me. He learned a different skill set,
and we grew up together until I was about seven
or eight when I moved to Kentucky with my aunt
uncle who later at top three and um my dad
sent me up there. I think partly because I had
a d and also because my an uncle had substantially
more money. I don't know, because he's living on a
(11:23):
farm would be good for me. And I remember my
dad telling me, you know, he said, you know, pay
attention and learned everything in I probably would have tried
harder to keep them all together. However, I couldn't have
dreamed of a better upbringing than Dylan was receiving where
he was living at his new home. Therefore, I thought
I was doing the right thing. John and Ivon Clinton
(11:44):
lived next door to Glenn and Suzanne Stanley. I mean
both of them were great people. It's not hard to
get along with, or not not argumentative or anything like that.
I mean very nurturing. I'd say both of them were,
even with Glenn's army career and everything that's for nurturing people.
Glynn was a marine and he had an extraordinary experience
(12:06):
in Vietnam where his all of his unit basically was
killed except for him, and he had to play dad
for I don't know, like twenty four hours. It's I've
read the story of its incredible. So he was a
he was a gentle person, but he also had a
tough side. I mean I would have trusted him to
raise my children. Living on a farm with it was
an interesting childhood and I called my parents, you know,
(12:26):
it's my aunt and my uncle put there with my
mom and dad. The whole thing really for me, I
had two moms that did love me, and both of
them had their own individual impacts on my life and
its developed to who I am and then I'll had
to fathers. It had a big impact on my life
where I've got all my core character and beliefs from
the president. They were great. I think he had a
(12:49):
good balance one now that I've had teenagers, I don't
say that he was necessarily completely out of control. And
at one time he missed the bus and so one
time they had him walked to school and maybe he
didn't go. I think there's some story like that, but
it was it's almost like a humorous story, like later
on humorist, like you know, this is the things we
went through or whatever. But um, as far as I know,
(13:11):
I mean, there wasn't any serious things. There was just
teenage stuff. And obviously he didn't throw trauma losing his
dad and obviously that's gonna make life difficult. We're going
to take a quick break here. We'll be back in
a moment. Mom Barbara recounts her husband Doc's death and
(13:38):
the impact on their children. When his father was dying,
and I see you at Central Florida Regional Hospital in Stanford,
where by the way, he had excellent care. Uh. Dylan
was escorted to his bedside and Doc ask him, please
please look after your younger brother. The hardest thing I
ever had to do in my life was to tell
my children that their father had died, that he had
(14:00):
breathing and that he had passed away and that they
would not see him again, even the kids that weren't
they weren't his nieces and nephews. That everybody called him
huncle dog everywhere. But that was just our family. Our
atmosphere in our home was, you know, what was having fun.
We were always said, you know, run and you know,
the rains were very loose. But yeah, I think he's
would be way different. Obviously if my father hadn't passed away.
(14:21):
I don't think it was permanent at the time. I
don't think he wants to do with like perman I
think it may have been in his mind I was
going to go up there and live for two or three,
you know years or something, and not what happened. You know,
he died and I wasn't able to move back. Then.
He was not legally adopted up there until after Doc died.
And after Doc died, I said, this is the best
thing I could possibly do for my son is to
(14:42):
allow him to be adopted. And so we was. We
still kept in touch. We were all in the same family,
but it was different. Dylan has a very strong draw
to all his siblings, and I think this was hard
on Dylan, and once he became an adult, he kept
in very close touch with his sisters and his younger
(15:03):
brother and sister. Once Doc passed away, I knew I
couldn't handle five kids, especially with two teenage girls who
were already less than perfectly obedient. As is not unusual
at all, Lee Grace and Ryan were growing up under
far different circumstances. My mom is just the academy of
you know, mommy diarist, So you just had to catch her,
you know, on a good day. After Doc died. It
(15:27):
was like night and day. Before Doc died, those kids
were pretty much well behaved and no problems. But after
he died, I will admit I lost control of the kids.
The oldest was fourteen, the youngest was seven. The younger
ones were still good, but the teenagers did not do
everything I asked them to do. Here's Lee Grace speaking
(15:49):
with producer Beth Greenwald. My mom's number one rule for
us children was, if you of an adult is speaking
to her, do not contradict what she is saying, because
she wants to be in control of the narrative. You know,
she wants to be in charge and kids are not
to back cross their parents because it looks trashy. What
was the punishment for talking back? You know, it was
(16:09):
different for each child because my mom was very last
with Ryan, and you have to look at what type
of child he was. He was a very smiley, very
easy going, soft spoken. He was a real sweetheart. So
my mom she didn't really have to put her hands
on Ryan like the older children. So I think when
(16:30):
my mom looked at him, maybe she's all something of
my father in him, you know, maybe that's why she
didn't hit him as much. You know, the one time
that I did fight my mom, I ended up in
juvenile you know, I was in j DC, So you know,
I knew that was wrong to hit my mom. Why
did I hit my mom? Because I felt like she
deserved it, and it was really something I'm not proud of.
(16:52):
But I think everything in your path you have to
own it. You have to say I did this. I
did this for a reason. It might not be a
great reason, but you did it. Did you tell my
mom would lose her temper she fold her tongue in half,
that she would bite it and then you would know, crap,
she's lost her cool? Get away from her. But when
we live on a big farm, go away from her
for like an hour or two, and she's fine again.
(17:13):
It's like anybody. There's no like real abuse that occurred,
nothing more than whatever happened with other kids in the
eighties and nineties. You know, I never saw my siblings
get abused. Never. Never, Like if you get spat, if
you get whipped. I don't see that as abused, as
long as you have your emotions in check when you
do it. My relationship with my mom deteriorated, so I
(17:33):
didn't have a real close relationship. Um. You know, no
matter how close we were, we still had a lot
of you know, animosity, a lot of anger. The way
that his death affected my children, Lee, Grace, my oldest,
my beautiful little China doll, she more or less blocked
it out. She never grieved till over a year after
(17:56):
he had been gone. She called mother good night. There
was something funny in her voice, and I went in
the living room and sat down with her and we
went through a photo album together, and that was the
first she cried after Doc died. She did not handle
it well. I think that we need counseling. I think
that we need somebody to sit down with us in
(18:17):
a private room and go back to our childhood, our
young adulthood and to see where all this trauma and
this you know, this family dynamic that makes you do
something that brings you to prison. Here again, Sean McEwan,
and the Grace has been open about this, and you
(18:37):
know she had her drug use problems, and it's almost
like this sense of like, man, she could have used
help and not jail, Like do any feeling on just
that subject. I'm so sorry for my daughter because she's
a different person now, a very kind, caring, loving person.
And all my kids will always be my kids, and
I love them very much, and I'm very proud of
(18:59):
them for holding up as well as they have under
extremely dire circumstances. It would be the greatest hope for
their futures from where you're sitting. Who did Doc used
to say, hoping one hand and ship in the other
and see which one fills up first. I have hope
that my children will continue to be strong and courageous
(19:20):
and good people no matter where they are. That's not
a hope, that's a that's a reality. Okay, They're gonna
be strong they're gonna be brave, they're gonna be good
people wherever they are. All the times I was just underwater,
just drowning, just I had nothing going on in my life,
you know, I was just going down that rabbit hole
of drugs and pills and just my own insecurities and
(19:44):
my anxiety. You know, one hall or text message from Dylan,
and I would just realize, Hey, he's gonna come get me,
and I'm gonna be okay, you know. So I didn't
have a lot of worry because I knew at the
end of the day, if I called Dylan and told him, Hey,
this is what's happening, I knew Dylan was gonna draw
what he was doing and saved me, you know. And
that's important when you have a sibling like that, you
(20:04):
know that you cannot go under a certain line. Here's Joseph,
you know. Even her brother, you know, years later, had
to bring her back to what they referred to as
the farm and help her dry out. Can you imagine,
you know, And it's hard for a lot of folks
to image and that you've got an older sister whom
you're a door and you love and you're bound to
you've been through a lot, You've been through a lot
(20:25):
of loss, and you see her kind of spinning you
off like a top off its axis. I can't speak
to this as a lifelong death investigator. That's all I
did for a living, working with a corner of New
Orleans of the Emmy in Atlanta. I've described death from
the four. It's like the slabby drunk at a party
(20:46):
that will never leave your life. Death is always there.
It has a residue that sticks to you. I moved
out and after id and then with my stepdad got cancer,
my parents kind of asked me to move back home
because my mom needed a lot of help. My stepdad, uh,
you know, he died when I was twenty four. It
was weird. And I lost my real dad when I
(21:07):
was twelve, and then he died twelve years later when
I was twenty four. And uh, my aunt mom has
since remarried, and she's been married for several years now,
and she lives in Virginia and the Canada River Valley
with her new houseband, which which I like. He's a
nice guy and takes takes care of her. And you know,
I can't ask for anything more than the son McEwan
discusses how Dylan tried to help Brian and Lee Grace
(21:29):
get back on track. I think that you know from
my discussions with Dylan that he always spelt a sense
of guilt in that here he got to go live
with me at and uncles, you know, where they were
raising horses and doing the whole farthing thing and all
that kind of great stuff, and here they were kind
of left in a situation that was challenging to say
the least, and in doing so, I think when he
(21:49):
did eventually come back into a live and make his
way back down to Florida, uh, in his you know,
late late teams to early twenties, um, he did always
steal the sense of response, stability and maybe guilt and
regret that he got to go away. So, you know,
keeping them safe was, you know, seemed to be always
a motivation for him. So when he comes back into
(22:10):
the picture and he sees that limes in this kind
of situation where you know, Lion's gotten into trouble with
the law and is going to potentially violate his probation,
and he sent back for far too many years to
mention and the graces I mean to be blunt is,
you know, stripping in a strip club down in Cocoa Beach, Florida,
and you know, getting in trouble with a long people
and using drugs and all that stuff. And he saw
(22:30):
that their lives were kind of a mess, and I
think in a way, he saw this opportunity to protect
them finally, to kind of round them up and keep
them safe and obviously making a lot of very distinct
decisions and doing so that impacted their lives and probably
not the right decision. And I say that very facetiously,
but he did that nonetheless. So that was a big
(22:53):
part of that. Also, my brother has always been there
to kind of bail me out, and even to his
own gentriment. You know, he just has that in him.
He's he's a fighter. He's gonna fight for his family,
he's gonna fight for people that he loves. And once
you're a friend of Dylan, he will never leave you behind,
no matter how bad or treacherous. I've never seen Dylan
falter never, no matter what it is. You know, when
(23:16):
we were on the road, something bad would happen. I said,
oh my god, I'm so you know, what's gonna happen
in Asia, he'd say, just calm down, I'm here. We're
gonna take care of this as a team. You know. No,
Dylan's big thing is no man left behind. He's not
gonna leave a straggler. He does not drop his teammates.
He's gonna pull you out of that burning building. I
don't care if your bar, your body is charged to
(23:37):
a Chris, He's still gonna save you. Dylan was loyal,
hard working, and had a clean record, despite what the
media was saying. The sheriff here in Pascoe County says
all three siblings have a criminal record, and the siblings
all have a troubled past, including drug possession, battery, and burglary.
Mom Barbara speaks up in defensive her son. He had
a misdemeanor marijuana charge for an empty baggy that may
(24:00):
or may not have contained an herb that is now
legal in seventeen state. So that was his big criminal record.
Twenty six years old, Eve's never a trouble a day
in his life. A really fine, hard working, good person.
I've never been to jail. I was twenty three. I
was actually taking Ryan to turn himself into jail. That's
hard to believe. Isn't it. My brother actually had an
(24:21):
active warrant and that's why we he was over there
to to to go to jail and get that. We
get that taken care of. When I got arrested, I
went to jail for an empty plastic bag, I believe
it or not. It probably had like residue. There was
no shaking. It was just like the crystal, like the
actual the th HC. They arresting for possession of marijuana.
That's what that was. What it was like I said,
(24:42):
it was an empty plastic bag. Was later expunged off
my record. You know, I don't litter, so if the
bag was still in the car, let's stop here for
another quick break. We'll be back in a moment. Lee
(25:06):
Grace talks about their decision to make the next choice
on their journey, and then, um, as we got to
the north part of seventy five, you know, you're realizing
that you got away, but how far are you going
to get with very little cash flow? Once that money
is gone, you know, you need money for gas, you
need money for food, and traveling very expensive. So I
(25:31):
felt like at that point, you know, once we got
over the state line, it was kind of one of
those situations like we're just looking at each other like, well,
I guess it's I guess we're gonna have to do this,
And I think, um, you know, as you know, you're
a group dynamic and you have an incident happening, you
(25:52):
make it away from that incident. It kind of gives
you a feeling that you know you're invincible. You can't
get caught because if you it, if they really wanted
to catch you, or if they could catch you, they
would already cost you. So it gives you that you
fork freedom to kind of do something else. And I
think that's you know, that's where you get. You get
(26:13):
caught up, that's where you get you make your mistakes.
It's because you allow yourself show us enough for what
elp to hang yourself because you realize, well, it really
wasn't that hard. My brother was a good driver, you know,
our fumer held up pretty well and we didn't get caught.
So maybe we can just keep going down this road
and you know, get away with it. So you know,
(26:35):
it's a double edged forward. You get away, but for
how long? Here again is on the whole idea of
robbing banks was still on the fly. And this is
how this was expressed to me, was that as they
were on the run, one bad situation led to another,
and then all of a sudden they faced with the
fact that they get in the shootout with a cop
(26:56):
and then it's like, man, how are we going to
make this happen to get out of the country. I'm
not trying to romanticize this, but this all came through
the sieve of watching movies. It's like, you know, banks, well,
banks are ensured it's the government's money. In a way,
we're not. We're not taking from people, you know, it's
the system that did us wrong. That was their perception
(27:17):
and misperception. So we'll go in and we'll take from
the banks, because hey, that's fair, and then we'll use
that money to finance ourselves and get It's kind of
like the you know, came from the rich, give to
the poor kind of thing, because they kind of looked
at hey, we're the poor. I know it sounds funny
and comical, but that's kind of how they looked at it. Hey,
we deserve this, So that's that's what they did. At
(27:39):
the time of their crime spree, they were all doing
very well. They were all three working. They were all
three in a stable family and home life. Everything was
going going so well. We knew that, you know, these
three had to be smart enough not to use credit cards.
(28:00):
Would then it start up following more in line up
there death breats. They're willing to do anything over You
had to believe that they were going to have to
get cash somewhere. Mainly it's like, yo, what do you
do in order to get more money? What do you
do in order to get some fake papers? What do
you do in order to get somebody to kind of
usher you across the border? What's the issues with security
with going across the border? You know what? What's there's
(28:20):
a million questions and a lot of them you don't
have answers to, and it causes trepidation and you're just
you're not sure what it is that you want to do.
It's it's a vacillation. It's not a big old indecisiveness.
You're not really sure what it is that you should do,
and it's you know, it's just most of it's just
based out of fear. I can say I'm not ashamed
(28:42):
of it, man, I was afraid. That situation made me
brave and made me scared. Dylan was blinded by love
and loyalty for his little brother. It was taking him
in a completely different direction from the clean life he'd
been living, and he was about to commit a federal crime.
We weren't already committed after dimity appealing floor, so to speak.
We were really committed after that. I mean, it was
(29:03):
just like, you know, I don't think the actually like
a number, like like, oh, this is how much money
we need per state. I know Mexico's exchange rates pretty good,
but it's not that good pretty At that point, we
were already committed. That's not you know. I thought, somehow
my had that it would be a good idea to
rob some banks and leave the United States. The dopertees
(29:26):
knew they had little chance of successfully robbing a bank
in Florida. They'd have a better chance in a surrounding state.
We're going to rob a certain bank that was in Florida.
But when we got caught speeding there and we banged
it out with them in the street, it was a
bad idea to stay in Florida, and when you cross
state lines to confuses them until it gets to a
point where it's federal and then certain states automatically they
(29:48):
don't like cooperating with another one another. You would think
that there'd be some interage andcy cooperation there, and there's
really not. They really don't like each other, like they
don't want help from one they don't want to ask
for help. And then like Florida gets piste off is
we make them look stupid, and then the whole United
States is not at Florida, like, Yo, not only did
you born and breathe these fucking kids that are psychotic,
but you let them out of your sight throw into
(30:11):
that certest bank there like eleven in the morning and
stuff like that. I literally just got my heart back
in my resting heart, me to you know, fifty eight
pieces a minute. And I was like, all right, let's
rob a bank now. It was just like that's where
the money is, that is where we're gonna go get it.
Boom boom boom. As far as how we picked a bank,
you know, in a in a Walmart parking lot. You
know they had multiple exits and you know entrances and
there was no cops in the parking lot. You know
(30:32):
that the action is therey all the like strategical planning
that went into it. We looked at one bank and
there was there was a completly right across street. I
was like, well, we're not gon rob nex one. Things
are moving fast, and Ryan Docherty was starting to process
the position he put his siblings in. My brother. You know,
it's just driven by a loyalty towards family that you've
never seen or experience before. You know, my brother, when
(30:53):
they say that I would die for them, he literally
means that, like he would shove me out of the
way for a bullet. Like my brother would do anything
for me. And then, uh, he wasn't made for this,
like the Grace and I were. He never had a
criminal record before. This was a really good person. And
I really ruined my brother's life and never ruined my
(31:14):
sister's life. And it's just hard to live with. You know,
it's a double edged sword. You get away, but for
how long I'll do crazy things? But like, my nerves
aren't good. I mean, just because you're scared of something
doesn't mean you don't do it. When you rob a bank,
it's kind of impersonal. Right, I'm I'm robbing an entity.
I'm not robbing you, right, I'm not robbing an individual
(31:37):
having a running shoot out with the police. It's like
eleven and then you know, robbing a bank it's probably
like a night. And then riding a motorcycle on one
tire a hundred forty hours, like I said it and
a half, you know, how to kind of put it
in the perspective. Yeah, so I was scared to go
rob that bank, absolutely, But did I have a choice.
Not that I could see more on that next time.
(32:00):
The Dougherty Gang is executive produced by Stephanie lie Deecker
and me Courtney Armstrong, along with Beth Greenwald, Seaun McEwen,
and Joseph Morgan. Editing and sound design is by Jeff Tis,
mixing by Peter Neah. Additional producing by Chris Graves and
Jeff Shane. The Docertor Gang is a production of I
Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from My
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
(32:23):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
My mom was a world of contradictions. She would pet
your head and tell you how well behaved and talented
you were. She didn't like to be sassed. She couldn't
stand us screaming in the car or running from her
in the grocery store. The things she hated most was
causing a scene. She felt like outsiders were judging her
for having bad children. Looking back, I can see why
(00:24):
she was so nuts. She had five children in eight years.
Her obstetrician had warned her several times that her body
wasn't going to withstand much more damage. He was right.
She could never have children again. So you see, we
almost killed my mom by just being born. Welcome to
The Dougherty Gang, a production of I Heart Radio and
(00:46):
Katie Studios episode four Less than Perfectly Obedient. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
a crime producer at Katie Studios with Stephanie Ladecker. We've
been working with producer Beth Greenwald on The Dockerty Gang
for months now. The three siblings have agreed to tell
their story for the very first time, each from separate prisons.
Lee Grace Dockerty is at Federal Correction Institute Aliceville in Alabama.
(01:09):
Ryan is in the United States Penitentiary Tucson in Arizona,
and Dylan is at the Federal Corrections Institute in Bennettsville
in South Carolina. This call was from the Federal prison.
When you have that amount of a journaline going through you,
you're not sure how to act because it's not something
that's happening every single day. You know, we don't we
don't have that type of interaction, So everything was happening
(01:33):
very staff. The Doughertys had zero chance of flying under
the radar after a high speed chase in which they
shot at a Pascal County sheriff deputy with an AK
forty seven. Here's older brother Dylan. I feel like I'm
having a heart attack for about four hours after that
morning they're troubled. Began in Florida, when officials say twenty
nine year old Lee, one year old Ryan, and twenty
(01:54):
six year old Dylan led police in a high speed chase,
then opened fire, got a way after shooting out the
police car is tired. Sheriff Chris Naco, the sheriff of
Pascal County, shares his thoughts on the start of the
Dougherty Gangs crime spree. It's ironic and law of force.
And we tell people, if you're going to commit a crime,
just commit one crime. If you commit two crimes, you're
(02:15):
way more likely to get caught. Because the fact that
he had cut an ankle bracelet off, we would have
never probably been notified at the time, and had they
just driven down the streets at a normal speed, they
would have blended in with everybody else crying why would
you speed in the middle of town? Did you see
the cops before that? I think we could have made
a different decision. We could have gone a different way
(02:38):
and the police would never have gotten behind us, and
we would have just had continued our merry way, so
he would have been able to get on if that
was their intentions, to get out of state of Florida
very easily. But you know, when you're speeding down, you're
committing now two offenses, one cutting off to the ankle bracelet,
but you are, you know, speeding, It just starts multiplying.
(02:59):
So at that point, you know, it wasn't the fact
that he had cut off his ankle bracelet. Nobody was notified.
Nobody probably would have been notified immediately. What got them,
you know, having wind or pulling behind him was the
fact that they were speeding. We were each in a
in our different version of escape. You know. It was
like when you have nowhere to go. I mean, you
feel like you're cornered. There's no way back. I think
(03:22):
that was probably one of the scariest moments of being
on the road, is knowing that there's no way you
could ever return to where you're from. You know, you
can never go back to Tampa, you can never go
back to Orlando. It's just, you know, you're completely alienated
from the place where you grew up. And I think
as we're driving farther and farther north, there was a
(03:44):
sense of relief that kind of settled in the car,
you know. And I just kept looking at Ryan like,
you're damn good driver, because I know I couldn't have
done that. You know, either I would erecked or killed myself,
killed somebody else. But he really wasn't reacting. I think
away that, you Knowlan and I were reacting. I was
reacting very erratically. I was like, you know, holy sh it,
(04:07):
what are we gonna do? How we just ran from
the cops? What the hell. Here's how Ryan described the
shootout last episode. The goal is always either just not
alcohol on the radiator, because you might have three to
five minutes flat out with one of those Crown Vics
before it overneath fast shot at you from about forty
or left away, and they caught about forty rounds right
(04:28):
above the driver's side. Dire apologize for shooting at him.
It was between him and my freedom and it was
in no way personal. Here's the Docty Gang movie writer
producer director Sean McEwen speaking with Beth All. My understanding
of that came through the police reports, uh and what
the news had eventually covered, and then that fed into
(04:50):
the opportunity that I had to sit down with each
of you know, Lead Grace, Ryan and Dylan in person
and talk to them. So when I first met them,
which now I'm thinking is really been about eight years ago,
you know, I'm sitting there with Dylan and you know,
looking at him eyeball to eyeball. He's obviously in prison
and I was out of visitation. You know, when he
recounts the story and you know, so compelling but fascinating,
(05:13):
I think thinks to valliums is you know, flash forward
two years later, as Ryan's telling the story now in
a way, it's his way of trying to protect his siblings,
like essentially him now saying, well, no, I was the
one who was shooting at the Coppins up for Hills.
I was the one who leaned out the window. Yet
he was the one driving. So listen, I know he
(05:34):
keeps mentioning and everyone around him said he was a
great driver. But that's like something out of a not
even a movie, like out of a cartoon or something.
To think you could be flying around a hundred miles
an hour down the streets and up hills and leaned
out the windows shooting perfectly at a cops tire. Um.
I think what's so fascinating about that is even to
this day, they're still trying anything they can to protect
(05:57):
the other one, even if it means jeopard i using
their own freedom or safety. And I think that again
speaks volumes. Ryan is able to protect them. I guess
the circumstances of Florida are different for each one. So
Ryan being able to do that is because he already
accepted a deal. Um, That's how I understand it. Again,
I don't you know, I'm not wanting to obviously get
(06:19):
anybody in trouble. But how I'm understanding it is is
that you know, Ryan still was up on various charges
and still has certain legal dynamics of dealing with and
because of that, I think he was like, look, I'm
already taking the fall for some things. Um, yes, it
will make my situation that much more challenging, that much
more worse. But again I'd rather, you know, let let
(06:39):
it all right on me to hopefully, you know, ease
up on my my siblings here and makes better for them,
And they always seem to be willing to do that.
This is a family, and these are kids that aren't
going to turn on each other. They would rather take
the fall tenfold than have anything happened to the other one.
Dylan talks to Beth, saying he is actually the one
(07:00):
to pull the trigger. The truth comes down to what
actually happened ten years ago. Were you the one for
the shots or was it Ryan? Sometimes when Ryan talked
about it, it sounded like he had done it. No,
he did. He did. He was driving the car. You know,
when you're driving on in forty it's kind of hard
to shoot. So you know, I did all the student
I which I can say that they know that they
(07:21):
had the video. UM, I've said it before, and you
know what I mean is what it is. I can't
change the past. Here's Ryan followed by Lee Grace. You know,
it just got to a point when we were driving
and we were like, man, what you know what? Essentially
like what are we doing? Because the original plan is
kind of food bar So you've got to kind of
roll with it. After that initial shape and you realize
(07:42):
you're you've gotten away from the cops, there's a euphorical
relief like you're like, oh, okay, we're good. We're saying
we don't have to run anymore, we can just drive normally. Well,
the docertees went along their journey feeling they had no
choice but to continue. Law enforcement had a pretty different interpretation.
Here's the active sheriff Naco. But when you have an
(08:03):
incident where there's numerous people in a vehicle, they're shooting
at law enforcement. Um, and then it starts didding up
that he cut the ankle bracelet. Those are patterns that
kind of don't fit in the normal flow. Here's executive
producer Joseph Morgan, a forensic scientist and criminal justice expert.
They sealed their fate at that moment time, because when
(08:25):
someone pulls a weapon with intent to fire in the
direction of police officer, you're challenging not just that police officer,
but all of the other law enforcement agencies that are
about to descend upon you, because they cannot have a
group of people run around buck wild, up and down
the road. The Doughertees cross country Spree was initiated when
(08:49):
twenty one year old Ryan went to court to face
felony charges of sending a minor harmful information and loadingless
of his conduct, sending sexually inappropriate text to a miner
is unarguedly deplorable. It was also one more thing and
a string of bad actions and situations Ryan got himself in.
Going back to his complicated childhood. Here he is talking
about growing up followed by his mother, Barbara Bell. My
(09:12):
mom tried really hard, and she really loved all of
us kids. Like that's not ever anything that's a singled
doubt in my mind ever any any day of the week.
And none of her kids have got the doubt that ever.
But you know, on the flip side of that, man,
like you know, she she came up short to Marius
and she came through stronger than was necessary and others
(09:34):
so like you know. And then on the same side
of that, I think, I sit and I think to
myself and Mike, at least she was present. I'm almost there.
Like she worked a lot, she slept a lot, she
was tired from working doubles back to back to back
to back, working her fucking eyes to the phone, you know,
to provide for us. I thought they would be better
off with a single mother that worked and demonstrated independence
(09:56):
and encouraged them to be independent, rather than a stay
at home, have nothing, go nowhere mother meeting them at
the bus stop with an apron on and a tray
full of brownies. Now, maybe in retrospect, I would have
been better off to wear the apron and baked the brownies.
Dylan lived a much different life than Lee, Grace and Ryan.
When he was younger, his father Doc and mom Barbara
(10:18):
thought Dylan would have more opportunities by going to live
with his aunt Susanne and uncle Glen in Kentucky. Dylan
could not read in third grade, and at that point
he had already spent a lot of summers in Kentucky
with extended family and was very happy and kept very
busy and out of trouble up there, and so um
(10:39):
at the point where I realized Dylan could not read,
DOC and I both felt that education was extremely important.
And he went up to live out of out of state.
And at that point he missed his brothers and sisters
and they missed him, but they kept in touch over
the phone and occasional letter. My brother was raised by
my aunt and uncle, that was their kid. He had
(11:00):
a different upbringing and me. He learned a different skill set,
and we grew up together until I was about seven
or eight when I moved to Kentucky with my aunt
uncle who later at top three and um my dad
sent me up there. I think partly because I had
a d and also because my an uncle had substantially
more money. I don't know, because he's living on a
(11:23):
farm would be good for me. And I remember my
dad telling me, you know, he said, you know, pay
attention and learned everything in I probably would have tried
harder to keep them all together. However, I couldn't have
dreamed of a better upbringing than Dylan was receiving where
he was living at his new home. Therefore, I thought
I was doing the right thing. John and Ivon Clinton
(11:44):
lived next door to Glenn and Suzanne Stanley. I mean
both of them were great people. It's not hard to
get along with, or not not argumentative or anything like that.
I mean very nurturing. I'd say both of them were,
even with Glenn's army career and everything that's for nurturing people.
Glynn was a marine and he had an extraordinary experience
(12:06):
in Vietnam where his all of his unit basically was
killed except for him, and he had to play dad
for I don't know, like twenty four hours. It's I've
read the story of its incredible. So he was a
he was a gentle person, but he also had a
tough side. I mean I would have trusted him to
raise my children. Living on a farm with it was
an interesting childhood and I called my parents, you know,
(12:26):
it's my aunt and my uncle put there with my
mom and dad. The whole thing really for me, I
had two moms that did love me, and both of
them had their own individual impacts on my life and
its developed to who I am and then I'll had
to fathers. It had a big impact on my life
where I've got all my core character and beliefs from
the president. They were great. I think he had a
(12:49):
good balance one now that I've had teenagers, I don't
say that he was necessarily completely out of control. And
at one time he missed the bus and so one
time they had him walked to school and maybe he
didn't go. I think there's some story like that, but
it was it's almost like a humorous story, like later
on humorist, like you know, this is the things we
went through or whatever. But um, as far as I know,
(13:11):
I mean, there wasn't any serious things. There was just
teenage stuff. And obviously he didn't throw trauma losing his
dad and obviously that's gonna make life difficult. We're going
to take a quick break here. We'll be back in
a moment. Mom Barbara recounts her husband Doc's death and
(13:38):
the impact on their children. When his father was dying,
and I see you at Central Florida Regional Hospital in Stanford,
where by the way, he had excellent care. Uh. Dylan
was escorted to his bedside and Doc ask him, please
please look after your younger brother. The hardest thing I
ever had to do in my life was to tell
my children that their father had died, that he had
(14:00):
breathing and that he had passed away and that they
would not see him again, even the kids that weren't
they weren't his nieces and nephews. That everybody called him
huncle dog everywhere. But that was just our family. Our
atmosphere in our home was, you know, what was having fun.
We were always said, you know, run and you know,
the rains were very loose. But yeah, I think he's
would be way different. Obviously if my father hadn't passed away.
(14:21):
I don't think it was permanent at the time. I
don't think he wants to do with like perman I
think it may have been in his mind I was
going to go up there and live for two or three,
you know years or something, and not what happened. You know,
he died and I wasn't able to move back. Then.
He was not legally adopted up there until after Doc died.
And after Doc died, I said, this is the best
thing I could possibly do for my son is to
(14:42):
allow him to be adopted. And so we was. We
still kept in touch. We were all in the same family,
but it was different. Dylan has a very strong draw
to all his siblings, and I think this was hard
on Dylan, and once he became an adult, he kept
in very close touch with his sisters and his younger
(15:03):
brother and sister. Once Doc passed away, I knew I
couldn't handle five kids, especially with two teenage girls who
were already less than perfectly obedient. As is not unusual
at all, Lee Grace and Ryan were growing up under
far different circumstances. My mom is just the academy of
you know, mommy diarist, So you just had to catch her,
you know, on a good day. After Doc died. It
(15:27):
was like night and day. Before Doc died, those kids
were pretty much well behaved and no problems. But after
he died, I will admit I lost control of the kids.
The oldest was fourteen, the youngest was seven. The younger
ones were still good, but the teenagers did not do
everything I asked them to do. Here's Lee Grace speaking
(15:49):
with producer Beth Greenwald. My mom's number one rule for
us children was, if you of an adult is speaking
to her, do not contradict what she is saying, because
she wants to be in control of the narrative. You know,
she wants to be in charge and kids are not
to back cross their parents because it looks trashy. What
was the punishment for talking back? You know, it was
(16:09):
different for each child because my mom was very last
with Ryan, and you have to look at what type
of child he was. He was a very smiley, very
easy going, soft spoken. He was a real sweetheart. So
my mom she didn't really have to put her hands
on Ryan like the older children. So I think when
(16:30):
my mom looked at him, maybe she's all something of
my father in him, you know, maybe that's why she
didn't hit him as much. You know, the one time
that I did fight my mom, I ended up in
juvenile you know, I was in j DC, So you know,
I knew that was wrong to hit my mom. Why
did I hit my mom? Because I felt like she
deserved it, and it was really something I'm not proud of.
(16:52):
But I think everything in your path you have to
own it. You have to say I did this. I
did this for a reason. It might not be a
great reason, but you did it. Did you tell my
mom would lose her temper she fold her tongue in half,
that she would bite it and then you would know, crap,
she's lost her cool? Get away from her. But when
we live on a big farm, go away from her
for like an hour or two, and she's fine again.
(17:13):
It's like anybody. There's no like real abuse that occurred,
nothing more than whatever happened with other kids in the
eighties and nineties. You know, I never saw my siblings
get abused. Never. Never, Like if you get spat, if
you get whipped. I don't see that as abused, as
long as you have your emotions in check when you
do it. My relationship with my mom deteriorated, so I
(17:33):
didn't have a real close relationship. Um. You know, no
matter how close we were, we still had a lot
of you know, animosity, a lot of anger. The way
that his death affected my children, Lee, Grace, my oldest,
my beautiful little China doll, she more or less blocked
it out. She never grieved till over a year after
(17:56):
he had been gone. She called mother good night. There
was something funny in her voice, and I went in
the living room and sat down with her and we
went through a photo album together, and that was the
first she cried after Doc died. She did not handle
it well. I think that we need counseling. I think
that we need somebody to sit down with us in
(18:17):
a private room and go back to our childhood, our
young adulthood and to see where all this trauma and
this you know, this family dynamic that makes you do
something that brings you to prison. Here again, Sean McEwan,
and the Grace has been open about this, and you
(18:37):
know she had her drug use problems, and it's almost
like this sense of like, man, she could have used
help and not jail, Like do any feeling on just
that subject. I'm so sorry for my daughter because she's
a different person now, a very kind, caring, loving person.
And all my kids will always be my kids, and
I love them very much, and I'm very proud of
(18:59):
them for holding up as well as they have under
extremely dire circumstances. It would be the greatest hope for
their futures from where you're sitting. Who did Doc used
to say, hoping one hand and ship in the other
and see which one fills up first. I have hope
that my children will continue to be strong and courageous
(19:20):
and good people no matter where they are. That's not
a hope, that's a that's a reality. Okay, They're gonna
be strong they're gonna be brave, they're gonna be good
people wherever they are. All the times I was just underwater,
just drowning, just I had nothing going on in my life,
you know, I was just going down that rabbit hole
of drugs and pills and just my own insecurities and
(19:44):
my anxiety. You know, one hall or text message from Dylan,
and I would just realize, Hey, he's gonna come get me,
and I'm gonna be okay, you know. So I didn't
have a lot of worry because I knew at the
end of the day, if I called Dylan and told him, Hey,
this is what's happening, I knew Dylan was gonna draw
what he was doing and saved me, you know. And
that's important when you have a sibling like that, you
(20:04):
know that you cannot go under a certain line. Here's Joseph,
you know. Even her brother, you know, years later, had
to bring her back to what they referred to as
the farm and help her dry out. Can you imagine,
you know, And it's hard for a lot of folks
to image and that you've got an older sister whom
you're a door and you love and you're bound to
you've been through a lot, You've been through a lot
(20:25):
of loss, and you see her kind of spinning you
off like a top off its axis. I can't speak
to this as a lifelong death investigator. That's all I
did for a living, working with a corner of New
Orleans of the Emmy in Atlanta. I've described death from
the four. It's like the slabby drunk at a party
(20:46):
that will never leave your life. Death is always there.
It has a residue that sticks to you. I moved
out and after id and then with my stepdad got cancer,
my parents kind of asked me to move back home
because my mom needed a lot of help. My stepdad, uh,
you know, he died when I was twenty four. It
was weird. And I lost my real dad when I
(21:07):
was twelve, and then he died twelve years later when
I was twenty four. And uh, my aunt mom has
since remarried, and she's been married for several years now,
and she lives in Virginia and the Canada River Valley
with her new houseband, which which I like. He's a
nice guy and takes takes care of her. And you know,
I can't ask for anything more than the son McEwan
discusses how Dylan tried to help Brian and Lee Grace
(21:29):
get back on track. I think that you know from
my discussions with Dylan that he always spelt a sense
of guilt in that here he got to go live
with me at and uncles, you know, where they were
raising horses and doing the whole farthing thing and all
that kind of great stuff, and here they were kind
of left in a situation that was challenging to say
the least, and in doing so, I think when he
(21:49):
did eventually come back into a live and make his
way back down to Florida, uh, in his you know,
late late teams to early twenties, um, he did always
steal the sense of response, stability and maybe guilt and
regret that he got to go away. So, you know,
keeping them safe was, you know, seemed to be always
a motivation for him. So when he comes back into
(22:10):
the picture and he sees that limes in this kind
of situation where you know, Lion's gotten into trouble with
the law and is going to potentially violate his probation,
and he sent back for far too many years to
mention and the graces I mean to be blunt is,
you know, stripping in a strip club down in Cocoa Beach, Florida,
and you know, getting in trouble with a long people
and using drugs and all that stuff. And he saw
(22:30):
that their lives were kind of a mess, and I
think in a way, he saw this opportunity to protect
them finally, to kind of round them up and keep
them safe and obviously making a lot of very distinct
decisions and doing so that impacted their lives and probably
not the right decision. And I say that very facetiously,
but he did that nonetheless. So that was a big
(22:53):
part of that. Also, my brother has always been there
to kind of bail me out, and even to his
own gentriment. You know, he just has that in him.
He's he's a fighter. He's gonna fight for his family,
he's gonna fight for people that he loves. And once
you're a friend of Dylan, he will never leave you behind,
no matter how bad or treacherous. I've never seen Dylan
falter never, no matter what it is. You know, when
(23:16):
we were on the road, something bad would happen. I said,
oh my god, I'm so you know, what's gonna happen
in Asia, he'd say, just calm down, I'm here. We're
gonna take care of this as a team. You know. No,
Dylan's big thing is no man left behind. He's not
gonna leave a straggler. He does not drop his teammates.
He's gonna pull you out of that burning building. I
don't care if your bar, your body is charged to
(23:37):
a Chris, He's still gonna save you. Dylan was loyal,
hard working, and had a clean record, despite what the
media was saying. The sheriff here in Pascoe County says
all three siblings have a criminal record, and the siblings
all have a troubled past, including drug possession, battery, and burglary.
Mom Barbara speaks up in defensive her son. He had
a misdemeanor marijuana charge for an empty baggy that may
(24:00):
or may not have contained an herb that is now
legal in seventeen state. So that was his big criminal record.
Twenty six years old, Eve's never a trouble a day
in his life. A really fine, hard working, good person.
I've never been to jail. I was twenty three. I
was actually taking Ryan to turn himself into jail. That's
hard to believe. Isn't it. My brother actually had an
(24:21):
active warrant and that's why we he was over there
to to to go to jail and get that. We
get that taken care of. When I got arrested, I
went to jail for an empty plastic bag, I believe
it or not. It probably had like residue. There was
no shaking. It was just like the crystal, like the
actual the th HC. They arresting for possession of marijuana.
That's what that was. What it was like I said,
(24:42):
it was an empty plastic bag. Was later expunged off
my record. You know, I don't litter, so if the
bag was still in the car, let's stop here for
another quick break. We'll be back in a moment. Lee
(25:06):
Grace talks about their decision to make the next choice
on their journey, and then, um, as we got to
the north part of seventy five, you know, you're realizing
that you got away, but how far are you going
to get with very little cash flow? Once that money
is gone, you know, you need money for gas, you
need money for food, and traveling very expensive. So I
(25:31):
felt like at that point, you know, once we got
over the state line, it was kind of one of
those situations like we're just looking at each other like, well,
I guess it's I guess we're gonna have to do this,
And I think, um, you know, as you know, you're
a group dynamic and you have an incident happening, you
(25:52):
make it away from that incident. It kind of gives
you a feeling that you know you're invincible. You can't
get caught because if you it, if they really wanted
to catch you, or if they could catch you, they
would already cost you. So it gives you that you
fork freedom to kind of do something else. And I
think that's you know, that's where you get. You get
(26:13):
caught up, that's where you get you make your mistakes.
It's because you allow yourself show us enough for what
elp to hang yourself because you realize, well, it really
wasn't that hard. My brother was a good driver, you know,
our fumer held up pretty well and we didn't get caught.
So maybe we can just keep going down this road
and you know, get away with it. So you know,
(26:35):
it's a double edged forward. You get away, but for
how long? Here again is on the whole idea of
robbing banks was still on the fly. And this is
how this was expressed to me, was that as they
were on the run, one bad situation led to another,
and then all of a sudden they faced with the
fact that they get in the shootout with a cop
(26:56):
and then it's like, man, how are we going to
make this happen to get out of the country. I'm
not trying to romanticize this, but this all came through
the sieve of watching movies. It's like, you know, banks, well,
banks are ensured it's the government's money. In a way,
we're not. We're not taking from people, you know, it's
the system that did us wrong. That was their perception
(27:17):
and misperception. So we'll go in and we'll take from
the banks, because hey, that's fair, and then we'll use
that money to finance ourselves and get It's kind of
like the you know, came from the rich, give to
the poor kind of thing, because they kind of looked
at hey, we're the poor. I know it sounds funny
and comical, but that's kind of how they looked at it. Hey,
we deserve this, So that's that's what they did. At
(27:39):
the time of their crime spree, they were all doing
very well. They were all three working. They were all
three in a stable family and home life. Everything was
going going so well. We knew that, you know, these
three had to be smart enough not to use credit cards.
(28:00):
Would then it start up following more in line up
there death breats. They're willing to do anything over You
had to believe that they were going to have to
get cash somewhere. Mainly it's like, yo, what do you
do in order to get more money? What do you
do in order to get some fake papers? What do
you do in order to get somebody to kind of
usher you across the border? What's the issues with security
with going across the border? You know what? What's there's
(28:20):
a million questions and a lot of them you don't
have answers to, and it causes trepidation and you're just
you're not sure what it is that you want to do.
It's it's a vacillation. It's not a big old indecisiveness.
You're not really sure what it is that you should do,
and it's you know, it's just most of it's just
based out of fear. I can say I'm not ashamed
(28:42):
of it, man, I was afraid. That situation made me
brave and made me scared. Dylan was blinded by love
and loyalty for his little brother. It was taking him
in a completely different direction from the clean life he'd
been living, and he was about to commit a federal crime.
We weren't already committed after dimity appealing floor, so to speak.
We were really committed after that. I mean, it was
(29:03):
just like, you know, I don't think the actually like
a number, like like, oh, this is how much money
we need per state. I know Mexico's exchange rates pretty good,
but it's not that good pretty At that point, we
were already committed. That's not you know. I thought, somehow
my had that it would be a good idea to
rob some banks and leave the United States. The dopertees
(29:26):
knew they had little chance of successfully robbing a bank
in Florida. They'd have a better chance in a surrounding state.
We're going to rob a certain bank that was in Florida.
But when we got caught speeding there and we banged
it out with them in the street, it was a
bad idea to stay in Florida, and when you cross
state lines to confuses them until it gets to a
point where it's federal and then certain states automatically they
(29:48):
don't like cooperating with another one another. You would think
that there'd be some interage andcy cooperation there, and there's
really not. They really don't like each other, like they
don't want help from one they don't want to ask
for help. And then like Florida gets piste off is
we make them look stupid, and then the whole United
States is not at Florida, like, Yo, not only did
you born and breathe these fucking kids that are psychotic,
but you let them out of your sight throw into
(30:11):
that certest bank there like eleven in the morning and
stuff like that. I literally just got my heart back
in my resting heart, me to you know, fifty eight
pieces a minute. And I was like, all right, let's
rob a bank now. It was just like that's where
the money is, that is where we're gonna go get it.
Boom boom boom. As far as how we picked a bank,
you know, in a in a Walmart parking lot. You
know they had multiple exits and you know entrances and
there was no cops in the parking lot. You know
(30:32):
that the action is therey all the like strategical planning
that went into it. We looked at one bank and
there was there was a completly right across street. I
was like, well, we're not gon rob nex one. Things
are moving fast, and Ryan Docherty was starting to process
the position he put his siblings in. My brother. You know,
it's just driven by a loyalty towards family that you've
never seen or experience before. You know, my brother, when
(30:53):
they say that I would die for them, he literally
means that, like he would shove me out of the
way for a bullet. Like my brother would do anything
for me. And then, uh, he wasn't made for this,
like the Grace and I were. He never had a
criminal record before. This was a really good person. And
I really ruined my brother's life and never ruined my
(31:14):
sister's life. And it's just hard to live with. You know,
it's a double edged sword. You get away, but for
how long I'll do crazy things? But like, my nerves
aren't good. I mean, just because you're scared of something
doesn't mean you don't do it. When you rob a bank,
it's kind of impersonal. Right, I'm I'm robbing an entity.
I'm not robbing you, right, I'm not robbing an individual
(31:37):
having a running shoot out with the police. It's like
eleven and then you know, robbing a bank it's probably
like a night. And then riding a motorcycle on one
tire a hundred forty hours, like I said it and
a half, you know, how to kind of put it
in the perspective. Yeah, so I was scared to go
rob that bank, absolutely, But did I have a choice.
Not that I could see more on that next time.
(32:00):
The Dougherty Gang is executive produced by Stephanie lie Deecker
and me Courtney Armstrong, along with Beth Greenwald, Seaun McEwen,
and Joseph Morgan. Editing and sound design is by Jeff Tis,
mixing by Peter Neah. Additional producing by Chris Graves and
Jeff Shane. The Docertor Gang is a production of I
Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from My
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
(32:23):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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