From Cheerleader to Ringleader?

Captain of the Rowland High School cheerleading squad, honor student and senior class “teacher’s pet”: Who would have imagined Elizabeth Hernandez Maddex charged with robbing a bank?

Not Amy Heinlein, who’s known Liz since junior high and thinks “temporary insanity” is the only viable explanation if what the FBI charges is true: that her best friend, in a dark ski mask, held up a Bank of America branch in Fullerton.

Not her dad, who coached her all those years at softball, nor the mom who made all her formal gowns--and matching earrings--for school dances.

Maddex herself seems stunned. Sitting handcuffed in the U.S. Marshal’s Santa Ana holding cell after pleading not guilty to a felony, she speaks not of her alleged crime but of her character.

“My mom always said, ‘If you want something done right, do it yourself,’ ” Maddex says. “Now, I’m gonna miss out on a lot.”

That a young woman with promise would, as authorities allege, jeopardize her future by robbing a bank is only part of the mystery. Because if the charges are true, Elizabeth Hernandez Maddex, 19, was not risking just her own life.

She was almost seven months pregnant when she and her teenage husband and a friend allegedly stole $15,000 from the BofA.

Witnesses said two masked men pointed guns at people and screamed out commands; an unarmed, masked female, who seemed to know her way around the branch, demanded specific keys to mini-vaults.

Maddex, whose baby is due May 26, will not discuss the crimes for which a federal grand jury indicted her and for which she will go on trial in July.

Authorities say that upon her arrest Feb. 28, Maddex confessed to the robbery at the branch where she had been a teller until her firing last year. A police report quotes her as saying that, as a teller, she herself was robbed at the branch, was familiar with what robbers do “and how many of them get away.” Witnesses to the robbery, though, could not identify her or her co-defendants.

Her lawyer says that police detained his client at gunpoint without advising Maddex of her rights, and that information gained as a result of that “interrogation” should be dismissed.

Maddex was released from custody March 25 after her parents secured her $50,000 bail with their house.

Her husband, Kiefer Kristian Jacob Maddex, 18, and Larry Thomas Stratton Jr., 27, a self-employed scuba instructor and surfer, await trial in federal custody.

Kiefer was a year behind Elizabeth at Rowland High, but they didn’t fall in love, she says, until 20 months ago when they found themselves in the same psychology class at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. They then lurched into adulthood in the wrong order, conceiving a child as teenagers without incomes to support the life they wanted.

“We were struggling,” Maddex says of herself and her husband during an interview at her parents’ West Covina home.

“We wanted a better life for ourselves. I think we wanted to grow up too fast. Kiefer’s very proud, not wanting to take handouts too lightly. . . . We wanted to be able to say, ‘We got our daughter this; we bought our daughter this. . . .’ ”

“And you couldn’t afford it,” her mother interjects.

“We wanted to live the American Dream, at 18 and 19,” Maddex says with a sigh.

They kept lists of their mounting debts and chores. Between sink scouring and baby shower invites, the FBI says, one “to-do” list found in their apartment wastebasket also included reminders to borrow a gun and “buy ski masks.”

*

Here in the world capital of bank robberies--1,126 last year in Southern California--only about 5% of robbers are female. FBI agents who have investigated such robberies for a generation here do not recall ever hearing of a pregnant bank robber, says Special Agent Tim White.

Fullerton Police Department reports and the FBI’s criminal complaint lay out the events investigators attribute to a cast of four arrestees: Kiefer and Elizabeth Maddex, Stratton and his girlfriend, Shawnarie Lynn Mills, 21, of Garden Grove.

According to witnesses, three masked intruders entered the BofA on Orangethorpe Avenue just before 10 a.m. Monday, Feb. 24.

One gunman stood by the door, counting out time. The second pointed a revolver in the face of a teller. “Don’t push the alarm or I’ll kill you!” he yelled to the teller and other bank personnel.

Nobody realized that the third robber was female until she spoke, revealing also that she knew her way around the branch.

Employees noticed that the robbers took no cash from teller drawers. Not even open ones. They assumed the robbers knew to avoid “bait” money that contains exploding dye.

Dressed in a black ski mask that completely covered her face, and a sweatshirt with a hood that shrouded her head, the female displayed no gun. She barked orders.

“She was jumping up and down, she seemed very hostile, like the guy with her,” one teller said.

She impressed workers and customers alike as being, in the words of one, “the brains” behind the robbery.

“Where’s the . . . COW key?!” she demanded, referring to the term bank workers use for a “cash on wheels” mini-vault.

Sources say it held about $100,000 that day, but two keys were needed to open it. Witnesses told police that the robbers managed to get only one key right.

The trio of robbers soon bolted.

As they ran through the parking lot, one of the men dropped a trail of cash bundles before the robbers scrambled into their getaway car, witnesses said. The female robber was behind the wheel.

Twenty-three witnesses were interviewed by authorities. None were able to give police identifying descriptions of the robbers.

But the fact that the female robber threw around bank-branch lingo narrowed the field of potential suspects. Fullerton Police Det. Linda King asked employees if a former staffer fit the female robber’s general description. One teller came up with “Liz.”

A BofA security vice president told police that Elizabeth Hernandez had been fired in 1996 under suspicion of embezzlement. (Neither she nor her attorney would comment on the accusation.)

A witness outside the bank caught three digits of a possible getaway car. Two digits matched the plate of a car that bank records showed belonged to Elizabeth Hernandez.

Within an hour, a motorcycle officer spotted a similar car boarding the Riverside Freeway and pulled it over.

At gunpoint, Elizabeth was ordered out of the car and questioned about her whereabouts that morning, her name, address and where she was headed. “Disneyland,” she told police. She was to meet her husband and two friends--Mills and Stratton, as it turns out--at a Denny’s across from the Magic Kingdom.

Had Maddex not felt fearful and, with guns pointed at her, as if she were under arrest, she might not have divulged such information, says her attorney, William Dougherty, a former assistant U.S. attorney. He argues that charges should be dismissed because they are based on evidence gained from a “detained” client who was not read her Miranda rights.

While being questioned by police in the backseat of a squad car, a witness who saw the fleeing robbers was driven by to make a possible identification. The witness could not and Maddex was released.

Four days later, on Friday, Feb. 28, Fullerton police officers arrived with a search warrant at the Maddex’s apartment, where Kiefer was alone.

Among items found there, the FBI says in its criminal complaint, was a to-do list. Between chores such as “scrub sinks and toilets” and “shower invitations” were “find escape route” and a gun reference, “borrow gat.”

Kiefer was arrested on the spot. Elizabeth was arrested as she returned from lunch to her El Monte work site: Wells Fargo Bank’s 24-hour customer service hive. She worked full time as an “express teller,” mostly helping people by phone. (Her husband worked part time there doing data entry.)

Before she arrived at the Fullerton police station, officers allege, Elizabeth confessed. Once there, they say, she spilled the details from start to finish.

Police say that when told of this, Kiefer waived his right to have an attorney present and gave his version of events.

According to police reports, the couple told detectives that the $3,780 balance of their share was buried in their tiny apartment yard. Police found it in a hole under the air conditioner.

Both Maddexes implicated co-defendant Stratton. Kiefer told them that it was Stratton’s idea to count off time inside the bank and to not attempt entry to a vault. They were ideas, Kiefer said, that Stratton got from the Patrick Swayze-Keanu Reeves surfer-bank robber movie “Point Break.”

*

Police found Stratton and Mills at the Newport Beach Inn, a roadside motel, and arrested them on suspicion of bank robbery.

In their room, according to police reports, were receipts, more to-do lists and bill tallies. Under the heading “To Get,” “Bomb parts” and “wig!” were listed in what police believe to be Stratton’s notebook. A list in Mills’ day planner showed payments planned for a car, insurance, parent loan, health club, beauty school tuition and “boob job--$4,000.”

Stratton was mum, but Mills answered police questions, allegedly admitting her role in the planning but not the execution of the robbery. Federal charges were not filed against Mills because there was no evidence she was in the bank during the robbery, says Jim Spertus, the assistant U.S. attorney taking the case to trial.

Police found Stratton’s 1978 Jeep outside the home of Mills’ family, and say they found bank keys inside the vehicle: one marked ATM, another marked COW.

Mills and the Maddexes offered the following account, according to police reports:

Elizabeth sprang the robbery idea “several months ago.” She asked Mills if she wanted in on it, and Mills said she refused. Some time later, the couple approached Stratton, who they claim agreed to participate.

Eleven days before the robbery, the four allegedly made two failed attempts to rob the bank--but in both cases left before demanding money.

The would-be robbers regrouped and decided, according to police reports, that they needed to better take command of the bank lobby, as had the “Point Break” robbers--who wore masks of U.S. presidents Carter, Nixon, Reagan and Johnson. The movie robbers were usually in and out in 90 seconds, never blowing time trying to get into a vault.

On the Saturday before the BofA holdup, the foursome scouted locations, Mills and the Maddexes told police. They checked the branch layout, watched security guards, picked where they would park and split up after the holdup.

A drawing that police say they found in the driver door panel of Elizabeth’s car sketches out the rendezvous at Denny’s. Written alongside the drawing, “I love you! I love you!”

*

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Gary L. Taylor declined to dismiss the robbery charge against Elizabeth Maddex.

The judge did allow a delay of the trial proceedings to allow for the birth of the Maddex child. A status conference on the case is set before Taylor on June 9.

Kiefer Maddex, his wife says, sees no benefit in being interviewed for this story.

“He is embarrassed, as we all are. We just cannot understand what drove them to this,” Elizabeth’s father says.

Last August, Elizabeth learned she was pregnant and in November, she and Kiefer married.

On the Friday before the Monday morning BofA robbery, the newlyweds were down to $69 in their checking account with some big bills overdue, according to copies of a checkbook registry and other receipts and documents seized by Fullerton police.

In the hours and days after the BofA holdup, Mills told police that she and Stratton had gone shopping, spending about $1,000. The Maddexes made several hefty bill payments. Receipts from their apartment show purchases of clothes from Old Navy, and maternity undergarments and nursing bras at Sears. A discount coupon was used for a haircut that cost $9.95.

With her Breck-girl hair and his “baby face” (as one police report described him), the Maddexes look like a couple bound for a prom. During their first court appearance, shackled side by side, the teens smooched and leaned on each other’s shoulders.

But prosecutors say that the BofA robbery was an elaborately planned crime by people who persisted when at first they did not succeed. And Elizabeth, they allege, was the mastermind.

“This particular defendant planned the bank robbery. . . . Certainly she did not have any concern for her[self] or her infant,” assistant U.S. Atty. Linda Oprian told a judge in arguing that Elizabeth remain in custody. “This was a violent offense.”

If convicted, the Maddexes and Stratton could be sentenced to as much as eight years in prison; a minimum of 3 1/2.

“If you take away what’s most important to me--my husband, my child, my family--that’s just too much for me,” Elizabeth says of the prospect she could be sent to federal prison.

“I don’t know what I did wrong to deserve this.”

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Among the Evidence

In a wastebasket in the apartment of Elizabeth Hernandez Maddex and her husband, Kiefer Kristian Jacob Maddex, the FBI found a “to-do” list of chores that included such things as:

* Scrub sinks and toilets

* Find escape route

* Shower invitations

* Borrow gat [a gun reference]

* Buy ski masks