Two motorcycle gang members were arrested last week and charged in the bloody December 2001 assault on a cash-delivery truck at Dearborn FCU when the robbers shot one of the guards to death outside the credit union, then made off with $204,000.
Three others were already in custody for other crimes and will be charged with the credit union robbery, according to Terry Booth, special agent for the FBI. "The other two guys were reporting to work at the Ford Rouge Plant this morning when we nabbed them," said Booth.
The five suspects, all former members of an African-American Detroit gang known as the Blue Stone Motorcycle Club, were identified as: Timothy O'Reilly, 31, Norman Duncan, 35, Kevin Watson, 30, Earl Johnson, 34 and Archie Broom, 36. The group was also involved in at least two other armed robberies, including the June 2003 hold-up of an armored car delivering cash to Comerica Bank in which $170,000 was stolen, according to the FBI.
On the day of the credit union assault, the heavily armed suspects, wearing black clothing and hoods over their faces, stormed the Total Armored Services cash delivery truck in front of the credit union's branch at the Fairlane Town Center Mall around 4 a.m. While two armed guards were working to refill the ATMs in the parking lot and foyer, three hooded assailants, armed with shotguns, opened fire on the guards and the armored truck.
Police arrived at the scene to find two of the truck's guards had locked themselves in the steel encasement to keep the robbers out, while the third guard, 30-year-old Norman Stephens, a father of six, was dead on the ground outside the truck. Stephens had been carrying cash to the ATMs when he was shot three times by two of the suspects.
The investigation into the credit union heist had run into a dead-end until last August when the FBI received a letter from prison where O'Reilly was serving time for the Comerica robbery. An inmate at the Ryan Correctional Facility outside of Detroit told the FBI that O'Reilly had been bragging to other inmates about his role in the ATM heist at Dearborn FCU.
The source later provided information that O'Reilly, Duncan and Broom, all serving time for the Comerica hold-up, were involved in the credit union heist. In the Comerica heist, on June 19, 2003, the group attacked a Guardian Armored Security Services armored truck and exchanged fire with one of the guards before making off with $170,000 in cash from the truck.
How The Case Was Cracked
The FBI said the information provided by the source could only have been provided by people who were involved in the credit union heist. Among that information was that there were at least six robbers involved; that the robbers divided the $204,000 after the heist; and that the robbers shot Stephens and took his revolver.
O'Reilly also told the inmate that the robbers waited for the cash delivery in the credit union parking lot in a white U-Haul van, which was provided by Archie Bloom, who worked at U-Haul during the time. These facts were only known to law enforcement and were never disclosed to the public.
