Carl Gugasian

Carl Gugasian (born October 12, 1947) is an American prisoner who served a 17-year sentence for robbery, known as "The Friday Night Bank Robber". He is perhaps the most prolific of such criminals in US history, having robbed more than 50 banks over a 30-year period for a total of more than $2 million.

Early life

Gugasian was born October 12, 1947 in Germany. At the age of 15, he was shot while attempting to rob a candy store and was sent to the State Youth Facility in Camp Hill for eighteen months. On his release in 1964, he did not attempt to live a normal life; rather, he took deliberate steps to continue with a life of crime and to excel in it. This decision was, in all likelihood, the result of a misunderstanding. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Ray Carr remarks, "He didn’t know that juvenile records get expunged. He thought he’d never be able to get a real job." However, he did enjoy the art of ballroom dancing and even did it a few times a week.

In 1971, he was studying for a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Villanova University when he enrolled in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, a college-based military recruitment program designed to produce officers for the US Armed Forces. Following graduation, he served in the US Army at Fort Bragg and received special-forces and tactical weapons training. Following his stint in the military, he returned to college, earning a master's degree in systems analysis from the University of Pennsylvania, followed by doctoral work in statistics and probabilities at Pennsylvania State University. After his graduation, Gugasian began to plan out mock robberies in his spare time. On eight separate occasions, he was planning to commit his first bank robbery; however, he repeatedly backed down before entering the bank. Eventually, he committed his first offense using a stolen car as his getaway.

Bank robberies

Gugasian is notable for the meticulous way in which he planned and executed his robberies. He would begin by scouting for a bank in a particular location by studying topographical and street maps in the library, searching specifically for banks in small towns, close to wooded areas, on the other side of which was a road with easy access to a freeway. He would further narrow the search by selecting banks with late closing times in the autumn and winter months, so that the darkness would cover his escape. He would then create a cache to stash any evidence connecting him to the crime (including the money) immediately after the robbery. He would later return to retrieve the stuff once the "heat" was off in a few days. Once a location was selected, he would observe the bank from the cover of the woods for several days, noting the habits of the employees, then on a Friday night, a few minutes before closing time, he would strike, under the assumption that his timing would both minimize the number of customers at the bank while maximizing the amount of available cash to steal.

For the robbery itself he would don a gruesome face mask, typically resembling a character from a horror film, that he had modified in order to make it look as threatening as possible and also to fit his face snugly so as to hide the color of his skin. He would then dress in bulky clothes in order to hide his true build and, brandishing a pistol, he would burst into the bank moving quickly and crab-like so as to make assessments of his height and build difficult to ascertain. Once he reached the counter, he would vault it in a standing jump, landing on the other side with a loud crash, terrifying the staff and customers, then he would stuff as much money as he could find into his bag and leave quickly, the entire process taking less than two minutes.

Once outside the bank, he would run into the well-scouted woods, where a dirt bike was waiting, stash the evidence in his cache, then ride the bike a few miles through the woods to an anonymous-looking panel van waiting on the other side. He would load the bike into the back of the van and drive onto the freeway in order to complete his escape, ensuring that he would be miles away from the scene of the crime before the police would be able to get any fix on his getaway route.

Gugasian did resort to violence at least one time in his long career of robbing banks. He shot a bank manager in the abdomen upon entering the bank after the startled manager reacted to Gugasian by leaning his body forward toward him. The bank manager later recovered from his gunshot wound.

Capture and incarceration

In the end, despite his meticulous planning and execution, it was a simple case of bad luck that led the police to Gugasian's home. He had hidden all the details and equipment for his robberies, his maps, face masks, survival rations, weapons and ammunition in a concrete drainage pipe, sealed inside individual PVC pipes, which were found by two young teenage boys who were playing in the woods near their home in Radnor, Pennsylvania. This find enabled police to construct a more accurate profile and, after questioning local residents, they had a list of names, which eventually led to Gugasian's arrest in 2002.

Once arrested, Gugasian proved to be just as meticulous in providing help to the police in closing the book on all his unsolved crimes as he had been in robbing the banks, which resulted in a reduction of his initial 115-year sentence down to seventeen years. He was serving his time at the Federal Correctional Institution at Fairton, New Jersey, where he teaches calculus to other inmates. The Federal Bureau of Prisons website states Carl Gugasian was released on May 5th, 2017 at age 69 years old. CARL GUGASIAN Register Number: 56053-066 Age: 70 Race: White Sex: Male Released On: 05/05/2017 https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/

On July 26, 2007, Gugasian became the suspect in an unsolved bank robbery that had occurred in Susquehanna Township, Pennsylvania, more than 26 years earlier. At the time of that robbery, Sergeant Robert "Bo" McCallister had responded to the bank's alarm and confronted the robber at the scene, who then fled. McCallister gave chase, but was shot and seriously injured and the robber managed to escape. Lt. Richard Pastucka visited Gugasian at the prison where he was being held and questioned him about the crime, but a confession was not forthcoming.

External links

• The Professional: America’s Greatest Bank Robber - article from Stuff magazine