HALTOM, CITY, Texas -- Neighbors of an alleged 'mom and pop' bank robbery team accused of striking 14 small-town banks refused to believe their friends were crooks.
'I can't believe it,' said Liz Fleming. 'You could knock me over with a feather.'
Lawrence Edward Byrom, 55, and his wife Alice Hart Byrom, 35, were held in the Tarrant County Jail today, accused in 14 robberies in small north Texas towns during a 13-year period.
The Byroms were arraigned Saturday on federal charges of conspiring to commit bank robbery and bond was set at $100,000 for Byrom. His wife was held in lieu of $50,000 bond.
'They seemed like real nice, quiet people. They never had anything wild going on over there, just kids playing in the yard and him and her working in the yard,' said Ron Heeren, who lives in a trailer home next to the Byroms.
'They're a normal family.'
During arraignment Byrom told U.S. Magistrate Alex McGlinchey, 'I was the ramrod of the whole show.'
The Byroms face other federal bank robbery charges and state charges. If convicted on all counts, they could be sentenced to more than 180 years.
Federal documents allege the Byroms took $572,592 in 14 robberies between 1970 and 1983.
Officials have described the Byroms as a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde because their technique resembled that of the notorious robbers active in the same north Texas area 50 years ago.
The Byroms, who have three teenage sons, own a nine-acre ranch near Haltom City, where they operated a trucking business.
At his arraignment, Byrom described himself as a truck driver who had not held a job in two years. He also said he had a third-grade education and had trouble reading and writing.
His wife said she had quit school in the sixth grade.
Byrom was in Texas prisons from 1950 to 1964 for armed robbery convictions in Dallas and Fort Worth, said federal prosecutor R.H. Wallace. Mrs. Byrom has no police record.
Their arrest followed a monthlong investigation that began when a state Department of Public Safety investigator noticed a black off-road vehicle which fit the description of the get-away car used in one of the robberies.
Investigator David L. Dunaway traced the vehicle's license tag to the Byroms. The FBI and two state agencies placed the family's home under surveillance and monitored the couple's movements, at one time using a helicopter.
