The Story of the Handsome Guy Bandit Was Made for Hollywood*

Milam says he fired "a warning shot" and crouched behind a nearby wall. He listened as the officer revved his engine and raced back downhill toward him. When the vehicle sounded close, he claims, he walked right out in front of it. The men were no more than a few feet apart.

"He knows that if I had wanted to hurt him at that moment, I could have," Milam says. "I chose not to hurt him." (Minnix didn't respond to interview requests; Richardson police spokesman Kevin Perlich is skeptical of Milam's account: "I don't know if I'd give much credibility to someone in that regard. That's something that's only in his mind.")

Surveillance footage of Milam in his mask at American National Bank and Bank of America.

Surveillance footage of Milam in his mask at American National Bank and Bank of America.

Details

Email the author at anna.merlan@dallasobserver.com.

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More About

• Brendon Milam
• Bill Richardson (Politician)
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Robbery
• Crime

Minnix threw the car in reverse, Milam says, so much so that the car was smoking and bouncing as it rocketed backwards. He could see the officer leaning at an extreme angle as he drove, arched over so his head was near the passenger's seat. He fired toward the radiator of the car; three bullets hit the windshield and the driver's side door. Milam bolted.

Milam says he ran behind the strip mall and through an industrial park, then hurtled toward a concrete wall separating it from a residential area. Still holding the money and the gun, he clambered over the wall and ran into a field, where he stripped off his outer layers of clothing. He hastily hid the gun, the money and his car keys underneath some leaves, then started to run back through the neighborhood. He slowed to a casual, steady jogging pace, to match the running gear he was now wearing. People rushed outside to see where the sound of gunfire had come from.

"Did you hear that?" a guy in his yard called to Milam.

"I heard it," he replied, and kept jogging.

Milam says he ran nearly four miles, all the way back to the new Richardson house. The police lost track of him. But court records show that they quickly discovered his jacket, pants, handgun, two plastic bags filled with $30,210 and "a full-face latex" mask behind a house on Spring Tree Circle, about 500 feet from where they'd seen him last. They also found the keys to a silver 2009 Volkswagen Jetta, which they discovered in a parking lot near the bank. When they ran the registration, Milam's name came back, along with his address in Richardson. Officers went straight there.

Milam knew the police weren't far behind. He pounded on the front door and Jamie opened it, shocked to see her husband back and on foot.

"We're gonna go to Austin," he told her. "And we're gonna take Brendon's car."

"What?"

"It's a change of plans. A surprise."

They drove to a hotel in the Cedar Park area, where he told Jamie to pay cash and not to show the clerk her I.D. (Milam maintains that Jamie had no inkling of the robberies until after his arrest, and the FBI agrees.)

The next morning, he says, he crept down to the lobby and checked the news online. His face was everywhere. He went back upstairs and told Jamie to call her family to come get her. She was still sobbing in the hotel room when he left.

He pointed Brendon's car toward Florida. He drove for days, he says, his cell phone off and the battery out so he couldn't be traced. He says without elaboration that he "had something to take care of in Florida." After that he planned to flee to Belize.

But at the last minute he decided instead to head back west, to Arizona, for what he thought might be the last chance in a while to see his son. On the interstate in rural Jackson County, Mississippi, a cop's lights started flashing behind him. The officer had watched Milam follow someone too close on the highway. Running the car's plates triggered an immediate hit: attempted capital murder of a police officer.

Milam says the cop pulled him over in a rest area, where he stopped obediently. Then he started to think about his son. He sat stock-still for a moment, then edged the car forward, even as the cop climbed out of his vehicle and started toward him. (The feds' version of events makes no mention of Milam's dramatic timing.) Finally, Milam decided he at least had to talk to the boy. He sped onto the highway. The cop and his sirens followed.

Ignoring the noise, Milam put the battery in his phone and dialed. There was no answer. He left a message, which he doesn't remember but says must have been "pretty intense." Brendon called back, sounding confused.

"You're about to find out a bunch of stuff about your father that you never knew," Milam told him. "I'm sorry I failed you."

His son asked about the sirens in the background.

"To be honest with you, buddy, I got about 40 cop cars driving behind me on the highway," Milam replied, glancing in the rearview mirror. He stayed on the phone with Brendon for a while. Footage from a police dash cam shows him repeatedly swerving around the spike strips in the road. (That footage eventually made its way onto World's Wildest Police Videos).