Newport Beach : Police Say Drug Link Led to ‘Fish Hat’ Suspect

The man identified as Orange County’s “Fish Hat Bandit” is a convicted bank robber who was paroled from federal prison in 1985, officials said Thursday.

Kenneth James Killeen, 38, of Garden Grove, suspected of robbing a record 42 banks in a dozen Orange County cities since December, 1986, was arrested Wednesday in the parking lot of a Santa Ana golf course, where he had been watching a tournament, police said. He was held without bail Thursday at a federal prison in San Pedro.

Police said Killeen is also wanted in a bank robbery in Long Beach.

“He was No.1 on the hit parade,” Garden Grove Sgt. Ken Whitley said Thursday. “He has the record for the most bank robberies in Orange County history. Everybody from down south to up north was looking for this guy.”

According to an FBI spokesman in Los Angeles, the “Fish Hat Bandit” averaged $500 to $1,000 in each robbery. The man would always wait in line, present a teller with a note saying he had a gun and leave with the money, police said. No one ever saw a gun, but each time the suspect wore a cloth hat similar to a fly fisherman’s cap.

Police said Killeen robbed to support a heroin and cocaine habit. At the time of his arrest, needles and a syringe were found in his car, police said.

Leads developed from a narcotics arrest in spring 1986 by Garden Grove detectives gave police the first name of the suspect and the information that he liked to play golf at the Riverview Golf Course in Santa Ana.

Newport Beach detectives had just come from a meeting with Garden Grove police when they saw Killeen at the golf course and noticed that he matched the description of the man sought.