The Flying Bandit

by Robert Knuckle

  When his mother met and married a wealthy businessman his life at home should have improved, but it didn’t. If anything, things got worse. His new stepfather was a heavy-handed alcoholic. When he couldn’t get Gilbert to conform, he beat him unmercifully. Many times he was left bruised and bleeding.

  Delores soon had enough of her second husband and decided to leave him. One day she just disappeared. The problem for Gilbert was that she didn’t take the children with her. She abandoned them, left them at the mercy of her abusive husband. Three weeks after leaving, this strange and unpredictable woman returned and “kidnapped” the children away from her husband. Her intentions might have been good, but it didn’t take her long to realize that she had neither the financial resources nor the physical stamina to raise her own kids. She split the family up and gave the children away.

  Gilbert’s half brother was returned to Gilbert Sr. in Milwaukee. His oldest sister went to live with an aunt and uncle. His younger brother and three of his younger sisters were taken over by Children’s Welfare and sent to foster homes. When the four of them were waiting outside the courtroom to be made wards of the state their mother appeared in the hallway. The children hadn’t seen her in months and joyously ran to hug and kiss her. She talked to them for a little while then told them she was going downstairs for a minute to get them all a soda pop. None of them saw their mother again for years. The mark of that deceit was burned deeply into their memories.

  The only child in the family who was not placed in a home was young Gilbert. He was eleven and his behaviour was so incorrigible he was deemed unfit for a foster home. Consequently, he was shipped off to a military school in San Marcos, Texas. As soon as he arrived he started looking for ways to get out. Every minute he spent there, he hated. The only two qualities he developed at San Marcos were a keen knowledge of guns and an even sharper distaste for authority. After two jarring years of bucking the school’s discipline, Gilbert was expelled for flooding the dining hall with a fire hose. In a rage against authority, he had locked the doors to the dining hall and wouldn’t let anyone in until there was a thick layer of water flooding the room. When he was expelled from San Marcos, he was fourteen years old.

  Much to his surprise, Gilbert was placed in a foster home back in Illinois. For the first time in his life he was in a stable home. His foster father was a state highway patrolman who treated Gilbert well and did his best to put some structure in his life. But Gilbert was simply beyond discipline and control. In desperation, the family sent him to a boys school for a while then brought him back home for almost a year. At the age of seventeen, Gilbert, seeking independence, left that home permanently.

  From the moment he was on his own his life wavered between odd jobs and petty crimes varying from shoplifting to stealing items from cars.

  Gilbert’s first major offence occurred when he was nineteen. He and another teenager attempted to crack a safe in a store in a shopping mall. After midnight they climbed up on the roof of the store and took about three hours to cut their way through the ceiling. Once they got inside the store they moved the safe to the back of the building where they wouldn’t be seen and worked on it for an hour with a drill and a hacksaw. But they couldn’t get it open. They tried to put it in the trunk of their car but realized they couldn’t lift it that high. Eventually they found a moving dolly in the store and struggled mightily to load the safe on it. Their idea was to take the safe out of the store and hide it so they could work on it somewhere else without any interference. They pushed the dolly to a small bridge that crossed over a railway track. When they were halfway across the bridge they heard a train coming. Gilbert got the brilliant idea that they should push the safe over the bridge’s railing and let it hit the train so it would bust open.

  Gilbert’s partner agreed, and with much effort, they got the safe over the side and let it go. Unfortunately it fell directly into the space between two of the moving railway cars and became wedged there. Gilbert and his partner could only stand and watch as the train disappeared around the bend and kept rolling to Minnesota with the safe jammed on board. Then they began to laugh.

  But it wasn’t long before Gilbert got much more serious about his work. When he did, he became a one-man crime wave in several small communities north of Chicago. In one year he was charged with possession of marijuana, two counts of armed robbery, obstructing police and disorderly conduct. While some of these major charges were waiting to be tried he went out to Idaho and was convicted of a third armed robbery in Boise. For this he was sentenced to 120 days definite to ten years indefinite. Although he only served four months in prison, by the time he got out soft drugs had become an integral part of his life.

  Through 1978, Gilbert, who had moved back to the Milwaukee area, was convicted of four counts of burglary for which he was sentenced to a total of eight years. He was paroled on January 30, 1981, and three weeks later, was convicted of robbing a savings and loan in Denver, Colorado. For this, he was given another eight years to be served in the Federal Correctional Institute at Oxford, Wisconsin. Strangely enough, this sentence was to run concurrent with the time remaining from his previous sentences.

  Prison officials and parole officers at Oxford described Gilbert as being intelligent, charming and friendly. They also identified him as having a personality disorder that labelled him a sociopath, a person who has a deficit of morals and conscience and, consequently, has little concern for the welfare of others.

  The term sociopath is synonymous with the out-dated term psychopath and has itself evolved to the more gentle diagnostic phrase “antisocial personality.” No matter what the condition is called, it is classified as a psychopathy that is considered to be a personality disorder. Being a sociopath, however, does not interfere with a person’s ability to think logically. There is no delusional thinking, no confusion between the real world and the imaginary. As a result, sociopaths seldom end up in hospitals. Like Gilbert Galvan, they land in prison.

  A sociopath is an egotistical schemer who will do anything to avoid detection. Gilbert’s history of behaviour problems, his school difficulties, his drug abuse, criminal activity, deception and manipulation are all classic symptoms of this disorder.

  His parole officer, Kathy King, believed that Gilbert thrived on the thrill of committing crimes. He loved the pleasure and excitement that crime provided. He used crime as an intellectual exercise, a competition for his intelligence. Gilbert loved the challenge of planning a crime and he took great pleasure in carrying it out and not getting caught. King felt Galvan wanted to turn his life around and could see he was trying, but with neither family nor straight friends to rely on, he didn’t have enough support to accomplish that.

  While Gilbert was imprisoned at Oxford he enrolled in some college courses with the intention of working towards a university degree. Gilbert convinced the prison authorities that drugs were a big part of his problem. In September 1982 he was paroled to a halfway house in Wisconsin that was a rehabilitation center for drug users. While he was there he continued to try and get himself straightened out. He enrolled in a political science course at the University of Wisconsin and was talking about becoming a lawyer.

  Hazel Socha, an older woman who worked at the university, had a reputation for taking in town strays. She took a liking to Gilbert and sponsored him so that he could come and live at her house as a boarder. Gilbert fit in there very well. He did all kinds of maintenance work around the house, cutting the grass, painting and doing repairs. Hazel loved him right from the start, and it wasn’t long before the other boarders in the house liked him too. Most of them were oddballs or social misfits and Gilbert was empathetic and understanding with them.

  Gilbert’s only drawback was his moodiness. When he was in a good mood he had a cheerful, positive presence. However, he also had his down swings where he became very quiet and morose. At those times he could be difficult to get along with and the others found it was best to stay out of his way. Overall, the people in
the house were very understanding. To them, he was a fun-loving kid who sometimes let his problems get him down.

  While he was going to school Gilbert was working part time as a bartender. One night the owner of the bar gave him a big black Newfoundland dog to keep as a pet. Gilbert loved animals and was happy to have the dog but he wondered if Mrs. Socha would allow such a big animal to be kept in her house. He was pleasantly surprised when she said it would be all right.

  Although Gilbert appeared to be coping adequately with his life at Mrs. Socha’s, in reality, things were beginning to close in on him. He had too much on his plate. He was struggling with his university courses and he felt frustrated that he would never amount to anything as a bartender. Mrs. Socha became concerned when she saw that he was hanging around with some of his old friends who were drug users. She was also disturbed when she found out that he had been caught stealing two books from the university book store.

  The climax came in April 1983 when Mrs. Socha was away on a week’s vacation. Gilbert received a phone call from one of his younger sisters who said that she had laid charges against Gilbert Sr. for sexually molesting her children. Young Gilbert was enraged because he knew his father had done this kind of thing before and he had warned him never to do it again. Gilbert was so enraged that he wanted to kill his father. He got a gun from one of his associates and went down to the bar where he worked to say goodbye to his friends. He didn’t care that leaving the state would violate his parole and, once again, make him a wanted man. He went looking for his father.

  When Mrs. Socha came back she found the Newfoundland dog still there but Gilbert was gone. So was her car and several cheques belonging to the boarders worth close to $1,000. A relative of Gilbert’s returned her car a week later. Mrs. Socha and her tenants never saw Galvan again.

  Gilbert didn’t find his father, and in June he landed broke in Las Vegas. While trying to make ends meet he was arrested for two counts of safe burglary. Because he was carrying false identification, he was charged as Vincent James Mears.

  Since Vincent James Mears was only known to the Nevada courts as a first time offender, Galvan pleaded guilty and was given the lenient sentence of six months probation. If the Las Vegas authorities had known who Galvan really was, his parole would have been revoked and he would have been sent back to Oxford, Wisconsin to finish the time owing on his eight-year sentence.

  Realizing this was too close for comfort, Galvan got out of Nevada fast, before anyone could find out who he really was. He was determined to go back east but knew it was wise for him to stay out of Wisconsin and Illinois. After due consideration, he decided his next stop would be in Michigan.

  There was one outstanding personal quality about Gilbert Galvan: He had a wonderful way with the women. His sexual appeal was based on more than his baby-face good looks. Gilbert had an affable charm that made him fun to be around, and when he wanted to connect with a woman, he could convert his smile and amiable personality into irresistable seductiveness.

  Only days after moving to Michigan he met a young hospital worker named Tammy Chamberlain. A few days after their first meeting, they were living together. Tammy knew him as Butch, and to her, everything about him seemed fine. Their relationship was quiet and cosy. She didn’t realize that, for Gilbert, big trouble was not very far away. This time it came in Three Rivers, Michigan, a small town 140 miles west of Detroit.

  Unbeknown to Tammy, her boyfriend Butch had been bilking Western Union offices in the area for the last few weeks. Everything had gone smoothly for him so far. On May 12 he decided to hit Talbot’s Stationery Store and Western Union Depot in Three Rivers. Posing as a man named John Moskal, he called Talbot’s card shop the day before to discuss a money transfer that his father would be wiring to him from Toledo, Ohio. That same day he also called Talbot’s Store posing as a Western Union official and advised the owner, Bill Talbot, that the company computers would be going down the next day. Consequently, he said, transfer verifications would have to be done by telephone with a district supervisor who could be reached at the number Gilbert gave him. The phone number was that of a telephone booth located just outside Three Rivers.

  The plan was for Gilbert’s female accomplice to take the call in the phone booth and make the verification. Talbot would then hand over a draft for $4,500.00 which Gilbert would immediately cash in a local bank. Then he would get out of town.

  The problem was, the Western Union Offices had been alerted to the scam that Galvan had been running. When Gilbert phoned Talbot’s store about the computers going down, it sounded suspicious to Bill Talbot and he contacted the local police.

  The next day, when Gilbert went into the card shop, there were three police officers posing as employees and customers waiting for him. All of them were armed. Gilbert asked to use the phone and, talking loudly, pretended to speak with the police to show the store owner he was familiar with them. In fact, he was talking to his female accomplice in the phone booth, making sure she was ready at her post.

  When he was finished with his phone call he turned to the clerk behind the counter and said, “Hi, I’m John Moskal. I was supposed to have some money wired here today.”

  That was all Constable Earl Stark needed to hear. He walked up behind Gilbert and pressed his gun into his back. He showed his badge and said, “I’m a police officer and you’re under arrest.”

  Gilbert kept calm. His eyes searched for an escape route. He spotted a woman standing near the front door. Seeing where he was looking, the customer standing beside Gilbert drew his gun and said, “Don’t try anything. That woman is a police officer and I’m Sergeant Baker.”

  Gilbert replied, “Don’t worry, I’m not armed. I’m not that type.”

  The police put the handcuffs on him and led him out to a waiting police car. When they searched Gilbert’s car, an American Motors Hornet, they found a magazine with a series of Western Union draft numbers on it. In the glove compartment they found a number of driver’s licences, social insurance cards and photocopies of birth certificates for John Moskal, Dale Swanson Jr. and Gilbert William Galvan Jr.

  When the Three Rivers Police ran these names through the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) they discovered that John Moskal had been a recent murder victim in Detroit. Dale Swanson Jr. was also the name of a deceased person. The police knew that phoney documents like these were the hallmark of bunko artists and con men. They were very easy to obtain. All a crook had to do was take the name of a dead person from the newspaper obituaries, wait for the death to “cool,” then go to a county clerk’s office to get a photocopy of the person’s birth certificate. Once he had that, it was easy to obtain a social insurance number and have a car licence renewed under that name.

  When the police entered Gilbert Galvan Jr.’s name into the LEIN system, they hit the jackpot. Police departments from three states were looking for a Wisconsin State parolee named Gilbert William Galvan Jr. who was operating under the assumed names of Moskal, Swanson and Shane Collins. Fingerprints corroborated their belief that Mr. Galvan was their man.

  The police also wanted to talk to Tammy Chamberlain who was registered as the owner of the Hornet that Galvan was driving. When they confronted her she claimed she had no idea that Gilbert was a crook. She told the police that she thought Gilbert was a guy named Dale Swanson. His nickname was Butch and that’s all she ever called him. She said she hadn’t been living with him long enough to really check things out. Tammy claimed she knew nothing about the Western Union scams and certainly had nothing to do with them. If what she claimed was true, Galvan’s relationship with Tammy foreshadowed the type of imposture he would establish with his future wife.

  Gilbert was held without bail in the St. Joseph’s County Penal Institute at Centreville, Michigan. The small jail was used for holding prisoners awaiting trial or for imprisoning convicts who were serving sentences shorter than three months. On his way into the prison, Gilbert assessed it carefully. The outdated structure resembl
ed a one-storey high school building surrounded by a simple chain link fence. Although a new wing had been added to one end of the prison, the building and grounds were not well maintained. The driveway and parking lot were unpaved, the grass was long and ragged. Inside, the place was dirty and in need of painting and repairs. Broken light bulbs hung overhead.

  Galvan realized he had a better chance of escaping from this jail than from a state penitentiary. His plan was to delay his transfer from there as long as he could so he could get to know the place and figure a way out. On December 27 he pleaded guilty to the charge of larceny by conversion and the court ordered a pre-sentence report. Gilbert knew he had only a short time to work out the details of his escape. He started by writing cryptic letters to several friends on the outside who owed him favours. The letters seemed harmless enough to the censors at the jail but carried hidden meanings and directions.

  In May Gilbert got his chance. During most hours of the day prisoners could leave their cells and go to a new recreation area where they could play pool. There were two locked doors between the recreation room and the jail’s dispatcher’s station. Galvan noticed that the dispatcher had a special interest in one of the female employees who worked elsewhere in the prison. The dispatcher sometimes left his station for up to half an hour at a time.

  On one of these occasions Galvan found that the lock on the inner door hadn’t been properly turned. He opened that door and, using a pool cue with a paper clip fastened on its end, snared the keys at the dispatcher’s station and pulled them through the bars. This allowed him to open the outside door. To give him some time before an alarm was raised he piled books under a blanket on his bed, making it appear he was sleeping there. He asked the other inmates not to follow him. If more than one went they’d all be caught, he declared. Then, while the other prisoners watched, he simply unlocked the outside door and headed down the hallway. Moments later, he exited the building by an unlocked side door used by jail employees.