2 Suspects in 13 Bank Heists Shot : Crime: The alleged ‘Bonnie and Clyde Bandits’ are captured in Downey and hospitalized.

A man and a woman who are suspected of robbing 10 banks in the last 16 months allegedly held up three more Tuesday before they were shot by sheriff’s deputies as they tried to flee through a quiet Downey neighborhood.

The suspects, Charles Wayne Brantley and Lena Mae Brantley, both 31 and from Las Vegas, were in stable condition at County-USC Medical Center, Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Wehner said. Their relationship was not immediately known, he said.

The two may have taken about $50,000 in 10 bank robberies in Southern California since November, 1988, FBI spokesman Fred Reagan said. Agents had dubbed the pair the “Bonnie and Clyde Bandits” because they are a couple and they use guns to threaten their victims, Reagan said.

Tuesday’s incident began at 9:45 a.m. with a robbery at a Bank of America branch in Downey, authorities said. A Union Bank in Norwalk was hit 25 minutes later. The couple then allegedly robbed a Bank of America branch in Santa Fe Springs at 11:27 a.m., Sheriff’s Deputy Hal Grant said.

A citizen followed the robbers, who fled in a black sedan from the last robbery, and used a walkie-talkie in his car to call his wife, who in turn alerted authorities, Deputy Detta Roberts said.

“He was relaying (information) as an officer would,” Roberts said.

Deputies spotted the car at the corner of Paramount Boulevard and Gallatin Road at 11:45 a.m.

The couple fled on foot down an alley between two rows of homes.

“The male suspect turned around and pointed a weapon at the deputies,” Roberts said. “The officers, in turn, did fire at the suspects.”

Lucille Anderson, a hospital laboratory worker, was in her living room when she heard four shots and deputies yelling in the alley behind her home.

“If I heard any more shots I was going to get on the floor,” she said. “I could hear them saying ‘Come out with your hands up.’ ”

A black satchel full of money was found in the alley, along with a handgun and some clothes that were cut off of the suspects by paramedics, Roberts said. Authorities did not immediately know how much money was in the case or how much had been taken from the three banks.

Deputies found what appeared to be a bomb in the suspects’ car. They destroyed it with a “disrupter,” a cannon-like device. It turned out to be an egg timer, a tape recorder and some cans strung together with duct tape and wires. Authorities said they did not know how the bogus bomb had been used.

The Bonnie and Clyde Bandits allegedly robbed their first bank on Nov. 7, 1988, a Home Federal Savings office in Montclair. Banks in West Covina, Pomona and Baldwin Park also have been targets.