when you look at the loss of life in this particular case and the tragedy associated with it, that verdict is never going to make them whole. never will. but i have some confidence based upon what happened that our system does work. and it works fairly. for seven years, a group of bank robbers flaunted their expertise in front of security cameras and law enforcement could do little more than watch and marvel. they left no forensic evidence behind and always got away before police arrived. but how they stood, what they said, and the clothes they wore all told a story, one that could be deciphered by forensic science. ♪ calabash, north carolina, is a

quiet fishing town located just over the state line from myrtle beach, south carolina. >> to sum it up, it's a perfect place to live, quiet, the best seafood in the world, and that's how calabash was known. >> in september of 1991, in broad daylight, two masked men with handguns walked into one of the local banks. a teller pushed the silent alarm, but the robbers got away with $40,000 before police arrived. >> the closest police station was our county complex, which is about 25 to 30 miles away. >> the bank was equipped with surveillance cameras that used 35-millimeter film. >> in most instances, we have bank surveillance videotapes, which don't give us a lot of quality and don't allow us the opportunity to enhance the photos. >> the pictures showed a well-organized crime. >> some individuals go in banks with no gloves, no mask, and no plan. those are the easiest ones to

catch. the folks that are well planned, well orchestrated, prove to be the most difficult challenge in law enforcement. >> the man entered the bank just after an armored truck made its daily delivery of cash from the federal reserve bank. >> they didn't walk around the bank, like nervous or anything, and they had a getaway car waiting, and they were watching the getaway car the whole time. they could see it through the door. >> the high-resolution pictures gave investigators a good look at the getaway car, driven most likely by a third accomplice. >> we were able to determine it was a camaro. we were able to determine the year of the vehicle, certain packages that came with the vehicle that were not standard. >> but without the license plate number, it would be difficult to find the car. with so few clues, the robbery went unsolved until one year later. it happened again, at the very same bank. >> we have a bank robbery in progress. >> it was turning our quiet

town, known for its seafood, into a quiet town known for its bank robberies. >> a bank employee recognized them. >> she recognized the voice, the way they stood, the same directives. she was positive the same people were robbing her over and over again. in fact, the statement she made was "deja vu." >> one of the robbers is about 5'8" and nearly 300 pounds. he was fairly distinct. they got identified that way, as being the same people. >> hurry up! >> the robbers warned the tellers not to throw dye packs in the money bags. dye packs are rigged to explode later, leaving a permanent dye on the bills. >> one of the news crews had come down. it sort of made me mad. that reporter stood in the middle of the street in calabash and made the comment, if you want to rob a bank, calabash is the place to come and do it. >> over the next several years, these same men robbed other

banks in the area. the getaway cars were stolen and abandoned miles away. >> they were not making a lot of mistakes. they were going in, they were getting what they needed to get and they got out of the bank. >> we had no hairs, we had no fibers, we had no confessions, we had no money. we had very few bits of real physical evidence. in a city and you need a last what to dominute hotel?stranded a priceline tonight only deal! stuck out on the range? nowhere to rest your beard? choose from thousands of hand-picked hotel deals at the very last minute. only on your phone. only from priceline. rubut then i got ap domain and built my website all at godaddy. now i look so professional, i just got my first customer who isn't related to me.

get a domain, website and email starting at $1/month all at godaddy. i've had moderate to severe plaque psoriasis most of my life. but that hasn't stopped me from modeling. my doctor told me about stelara® it helps keep my skin clearer. with only 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses... ...stelara® helps me be in season. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and increase your risk of infections. some serious infections require hospitalization. before starting stelara® your doctor should test for tuberculosis. stelara® may increase your risk of cancer. always tell your doctor if you have any sign of infection, have had cancer, or if you develop any new skin growths. do not take stelara® if you are allergic to stelara® or any of its ingredients. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems. these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. serious allergic reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you or anyone in your house needs or has recently received a vaccine. in a medical study, most stelara® patients saw at least 75% clearer skin and the majority were rated as cleared or minimal

at 12 weeks. stelara® helps keep my skin clearer. ask your doctor about stelara®.

over a four-year period, there were six bank robberies stretching from calabash, north carolina, down to myrtle beach, across the state line. each robbery lasted between two and five minutes, and none of the branches had armed security personnel. >> very meticulous, very structured. very organized, in, out, and gone. and you're in a rural area. i think you have to be both lucky and good. >> and the crimes were becoming increasingly violent. >> get your head down! >> one, usually the obese robber in this case, went behind the teller's counter and threatened to kill him, and the other one rounded up any customers or

other bank employees, sometimes forced them into one office or forced them onto the ground. >> in one particular bank robbery, a warning shot was fired at a bank manager. we had several instances where tellers were struck, were dragged, were beaten, were threatened. >> in one instance, when an employee hesitated in opening the bank vault, it almost cost her her life. >> she was shaking so badly, she couldn't do the combination. that individual cocked the weapon against her head and said, "this is your last chance. you open the vault or you're dead." >> investigators tried to predict where and when the robbers would strike again, but they never imagined what would happen next. the robbers returned to calabash and hit the same bank for the third time. it turned out to be their biggest heist to date.

they walked out of the bank with $175,000. but this time, there was a witness outside. >> i had to kind of take a double take to make sure i was seeing what i thought i saw. and then i realized it was a bank robbery in process. >> king saw two men run from the bank and get into a green car, driven by a third man. king wrote down the license plate number, then did something law enforcement officers discourage. he followed them. the chase reached speeds of 80 miles per hour. at one point, the robbers stopped their car, turned around, and confronted him. >> they were sitting in the intersection, stopped, aimed back in my direction, and one of the guys was out of the car with a gun. and so, i just laid over in the seat and just kicked it, kicked

the gas and just shot by them as fast as i could. >> he still had the license plate number, which identified the car as stolen. it was later found abandoned in the same area as the other getaway cars, along a deserted road in south carolina. >> we told him how brave and how not brave it was. we're tickled to death that he helped us, but we didn't want him to get hurt. and luckily, he didn't. >> i don't think what i did was anything close to heroic. i just think it was, it was a civic duty, almost, to try to help catch these guys. >> the robbers didn't strike again until almost a year later, this time in myrtle beach, about 20 miles away. they always seemed to be one step ahead of law enforcement, and investigators were beginning to understand why. it was something they saw in a surveillance picture. >> for prosecutors and cops that work in bank robberies, not many

robbers wear holsters, okay? and this guy wore a police-type holster on his belt to carry his gun, which was quite distinct. >> and it was clear that the two men inside the bank knew how to handle a weapon. >> this wasn't the first time this individual had ever picked up a gun, and we felt like there was some training involved and planning involved in these robberies. >> there was also something strange about the way one of the robbers stood. >> the old weaver stance, which was a type of a stance that you're trained to do in police work, back in the late '80s and '90s. and he just had a manner in which he held his gun in his hand that was unusual. it's hard to describe. >> we thought there was a high possibility that it was somebody that had maybe gone through some kind of law enforcement training or even military training. >> investigators now knew how the robbers were getting away with the crimes.

police now believe that the men robbing banks throughout north and south carolina were somehow involved in law enforcement. over a six-year period, they had gotten away with close to $500,000. their favorite target was the small town of calabash. at the time, the nearest police station was a 20-minute drive away.

they robbed the same bank three times. >> i think that they had nerve to go into these banks, on more than one occasion, but also to stay inside the banks as long as they stayed in. >> why the individuals chose north carolina national bank three times, we do not know. but we do know that apparently, they did this because they had been successful. and i think with each robbery, it became easier and easier and they became more confident. >> the robbers' next target was a bank right up the street. a customer at the drive-through window witnessed the robbery. he also noticed a third man in a pickup truck who appeared to be the lookout, and he wrote down the license plate number. when the robbers drove away in a red suv, the customer followed them.

>> that individual followed both of those vehicles along a route that in one of the previous bank robberies another witness had followed the getaway vehicle, and they both took exactly the same route. >> the bank customer eventually lost the robbers, but the license plate number turned out to be an enormous break. the truck belonged to alvin bellamy, a landscaper who lived in rural south carolina. the fbi went to the bellamys' home. neither alvin nor the truck were there, but alvin's wife was. >> she proceeded to tell us where he was, that he was with his brothers, claude bellamy and larry bellamy. so, that is the first time we come up with three names. >> around 1:00 a.m., a car approached the bellamy home, but it wasn't alvin. it was alvin's brother, larry, who was a lieutenant with the myrtle beach police department. >> they gave me the name of

lieutenant larry bellamy, and my initial reaction was, they've made a bad mistake. there's no possible way that they've got the right person or that they should even be looking at this particular person. >> larry vehemently denied any involvement in the robberies. alvin came home a short time later in the truck identified as the lookout vehicle. the fbi found $116 in brand-new bills in alvin's wallet. >> fresh, crisp 5s and 1s. i started writing down the serial numbers to the $1 and $5 bills. >> there was basically one of those ploys that you use. >> i told him that i was going to take them back to the bank and compare it with the stolen money from the bank. he got very agitated, got very upset, demanding he'd never seen that money before. >> the next morning, investigators went to the third brother's home nearby.

claude bellamy was a heavy-set man with a similar build to the man in the security pictures. he was also a former policeman. he also denied any involvement in the robberies, and investigators found no large sums of money in his home. but in his bedroom closet, investigators found a black and white check jacket. >> it happened to be the only garment hanging in that closet, which was interesting to me, why he would have this coat hanging separately in a room he didn't use, in a closet he didn't appear to use. >> the closet was sent to fbi expert david davies. he's a photographic technologist with 20 years' experience in garment identification. at first glance, davies knew he was dealing with a mass-produced product. >> you could have 10 million jackets that look like that. >> davies used computer enhancement software to improve

the quality of the bank's security photos. he then photographed a model wearing the jacket, standing the same way as the robber. shirts and jackets are manufactured differently, depending on the price and quality of the garment. in this case, the manufacturer aligned the breast pocket at a 45-degree angle. because of the pattern, all points of alignment at the seams happen at random. >> the more seams i can see and the more uniqueness that i can determine, in this case, the bank robber stood at the same place and basically turned around a couple times, and i had some outstanding views of various seams. >> and davies discovered the alignment of the pattern at all of those random points was identical.

in the surveillance pictures, davies noticed another distinctive mark, a discoloration in the fabric on the left sleeve. >> i saw a little light mark in what should have been a gray square. you're seeing the white threads that's below the dyed gray. >> he found the same anomaly, a tear in the material in the exact same spot on bellamy's jacket. >> i was absolutely sure that it was that jacket. >> so there's no doubt whatsoever? >> no doubt. >> the examination of the plaid shirt by the fbi was exceptional. we've never seen or heard of this before. this is a new process to us. >> what i couldn't tell was who the bank robber was. but what i could tell was, the jacket robbed the bank. >> investigators now had to prove that one of the bellamy brothers wore the jacket, and

they also wanted to find the money.

the fbi's photographic analyst determined that the jacket found in claude bellamy's home had been worn by one of the bank robbers. from the surveillance pictures,

it appeared to be larry bellamy. larry was a lieutenant in the myrtle beach police department. his supervisor, warren gall, recognized him in the pictures by the way he held his gun. >> i have been on the range numerous times with larry when we were qualifying for the police department. and i knew his stance, i knew his pose, and it was exact. >> larry's shooting stance was unique. it was a combination of two different styles taught at the police academy. >> larry had never really adjusted to the new stance and shot with a hybrid sort of stance, in between the old square-shouldered stance and the new weaver stance that was quite distinctive. and a number of these witnesses had been on the shooting range practicing with him for years and recognized that shooting stance. >> larry knew a great deal about bank robbery because he was a

crime scene specialist. >> he worked bank robberies as a crime scene officer. he took fingerprints, photographs. he communicated with bank tellers and employees and the fbi in the incidents that occurred in myrtle beach. >> he was aware of evidence. he was aware of what is looked for in terms of evidence at a crime scene. >> incredibly, larry bellamy helped investigate one of his own crimes. >> hindsight being 20/20, looking back at the day that we located his stolen car, i remember larry bellamy showing up on the scene, offering his assistance to us because he was a crime scene officer with the myrtle beach police department. >> larry's time sheets indicated he was not working when the robberies occurred. investigators also discovered an interesting clue in the way the getaway vehicles were abandoned. >> they were so successful for

so many years, that they just got sloppy, and towards the end, they started using their own cars to carry out the robberies. >> investigators found the red suv used at their last robbery at a safe house the brothers rented about 100 miles away in aberdeen, north carolina. by the time the fbi found it, everything else was gone. >> we never recovered the money from these bank robberies, and there was a total take of approximately $800,000. >> when you break down that amount of money, over that time frame, split maybe three ways, we felt that it would be easy to spend that type of money without a great deal of notice or even if they put it away, which to this day, we don't know. >> ironically, the bellamy brothers lived just across the highway from the robbers roost golf club. in 2000, they were arrested and charged with numerous counts of bank robbery.

they pleaded not guilty. but the forensic garment analysis was more than enough to satisfy the jury. >> most of the evidence they had was circumstantial. and this was the only forensic evidence that was basically a fingerprint that was very unique, that pointed to one of the bank robbers. >> all three were convicted. larry and claude were each sentenced to 50 years in the federal penitentiary. >> they were the men who had taken an oath to protect these people from violent criminal activity, and they're the very people preying upon them. and so we felt that there was a certain amount of culpability that went to those two that didn't go to alvin. >> alvin was sentenced to 15 years. >> and i think it was the shirt that an fbi investigator at the lab was able to identify that this is the exact shirt that was

worn in this robbery, and it matches identical to the surveillance film inside the bank. i think that that became the straw that broke the camel's back and broke the case. in just under an hour, greece's finance minister will meet again with e.u. counterparts to try and convince him that his country will deliver on reform promises. in the u.s. republican presidential candidate donald trump delivers a