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Indy Police Say They Have ‘Interstate Bank Mart Bandit’
The Associated Press
VINCENNES, Ind. (AP) -- The man who came to be dubbed the Interstate Bank Mart Bandit hit his targets with efficient speed, obtaining cash and leaving in less than a minute and making his getaways on freeways within moments.
Authorities say they believe that man is David Brankle, 47, whom Indiana State Police arrested in Vincennes on Wednesday. Investigators had thought he was responsible for 39 robberies at grocery store bank branches since April 2002 in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri and Tennessee. However, he gave a statement confessing to approximately 50 robberies in those states as well as Illinois, police have said.
“We are still trying to unravel the web of what he’s done,” FBI agent Wendy Osborne told The Indianapolis Star for a story Sunday. “We’ve literally spent hours and hours with him and have much more interviewing to do. He is cooperating with our agents and police.”
In all the robberies, Brankle stole an estimated $200,000, she said.
Brankle was being held Sunday at the Knox County Jail in Vincennes on $500,000 bond. So far, he is charged on five counts of robbery from Louisville, Ky.
The FBI has described the Interstate Bank Mart Bandit as a fast worker who hit bank branches located near highways for easy access and quick getaways. Sometimes he would rob more than one bank in a day.
In Indiana, the robber also is suspected of hitting banks in Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, South Bend, Michigan City and Lafayette. Authorities said he usually picked banks along Interstates 65, 69 or 465 or the Indiana Toll Road.
He may have robbed more than 10 banks in Cincinnati, the Star reported.
Osborne said Brankle, who is 5 feet, 6 inches tall, usually faked having a gun and threatened violence if he wasn’t given money. FBI agents believe he had an accomplice.
“There was usually someone who drove the getaway car,” Osborne said.
Brankle had lived with a woman and the boy in a modest home in Vincennes since last summer. Just before his capture Wednesday, he was driving a BMW automobile with his 5-year-old son as a passenger. He apparently spotted a state police cruiser, pulled into a YMCA parking lot and then tried to escape on foot. He ran about 250 yards before being captured.
Brankle’s wife, who was in the YMCA exercising at the time, picked up the couple’s son, state police Sgt. Todd Ringle said.