Bald Eagle, Shootist, Kidnap-Robber : Serial Bandits: Each Has His Own Style

Orange County’s most prolific bank robber still at large is a slightly built, bespectacled and distinctive desperado who has been dubbed the Bald Eagle.

Suspected of robbing 16 Southland banks, including 12 in Orange County, since Jan. 4, the Bald Eagle always comes dressed in running shoes, jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, according to FBI Special Agent David Heinle.

He wears thick wire-rim glasses, carries a briefcase and, on occasion, impatiently reaches over the counter to grab money out of the cash drawer, Heinle said. The suspect has been seen driving away in a brown compact with the license 619 SND.

Heinle called the Bald Eagle an example of the One-on-One Quiet Robber, who hands tellers a note reading, “Give me all of your large bills,” then coolly walks away, as if he had just made a routine deposit instead of a large illegal withdrawal.

A less prevalent, but more dramatic type lets everyone know that a robbery is taking place. Such a bank robber recently active in southern Orange County is suspected in 16 holdups in Southern California and Texas, including one in Laguna Niguel and two in Mission Viejo, the latest occurring March 4.

The bandit, dubbed the Shootist, fires one round into the ceiling upon entering a bank. He orders everyone onto the floor and jumps onto the counter, demanding money from each teller. Unlike Bald Eagle, Shootist wears a disguise; the FBI does not yet have a good photo of him.

Rarest and most frightening, say authorities, is the criminal who abducts a bank employee, threatening violence unless that employee helps in the robbery. Ralph Stephen Gambin, 42, is being sought for a series of hostage holdups around the country, including last August’s kidnaping and bank robbery in Buena Park, during which two gunmen in wigs strapped what they said were explosives around a teller’s waist before escaping with $80,000.

Gambin has been charged in the Buena Park case and is a suspect in five other similar bank robberies in Torrance and San Francisco, and in Florida. Those robberies have netted almost $1 million since April, 1988.

Gambin, a former California Interscholastic Federation wrestling champ at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, served a long sentence in federal prison from 1973 to 1988 for armed bank robbery and shooting two U.S. marshals before he was paroled. He is believed to be traveling with Julieta Flores Marquez, 46, a disbarred San Antonio attorney who is charged with harboring a fugitive and is a suspect in the Buena Park holdup.

Since May 12, when Gambin allegedly robbed a bank near San Francisco, the California Bankers Assn. has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to his capture.