One envelope said ROBBERY in red. The other was for the cash. As bank paperwork goes, it was brief. [1] [5]
It was Tuesday morning, August 12, 2003, at the First American Bank on South 14th Street in Abilene. The teller asked the man at her window if he was joking. According to federal prosecutors, he told her to hurry or she’d get hurt. She asked again. Jim Lewis’s account in GQ describes her turning to another teller, who told her to give him the money. [1] [3] [18]
She filled the second envelope. Along with the bills from the drawer, Lewis reported, she put in some marked money the bank could identify later. She triggered the silent alarm as he left. He walked out with $1,999. [1] [18]
The man was J. L. Hunter Rountree. People who knew him called him Red. He was ninety-one. He got into a white Buick. Inside the bank the alarm was silent. Outside, the car was in plain view. [1] [2]
Tungd31, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Location photograph for context.
The people who saw him leave
You can find the branch in the city directory Abilene put out that spring. It was at 3409 South 14th. Down the street, the same directory lists La Popular Bakery Quick Stop and a Mrs. Baird’s thrift store. If you’d been running errands on South 14th that morning, you could have done a fair bit without changing streets. [4]
Rountree had looked over the bank the evening before, he later told Lewis. He’d brought tape to cover his license plate. Traffic was heavier the next morning than he’d expected, and he said he couldn’t find a spot to put the tape on without being seen. He parked near the bank with the plate visible. [18]
When the white Buick pulled out, a bank employee and some customers got the plate number, according to the Associated Press’s account of the plea. That was the detail officers could check while the car was still on the road. They traced the number to an address in Goldthwaite, southeast of Abilene. It was where Rountree had gone to live near relatives after getting out of prison in Florida. [1] [2] [3] [17]
Photographer uncredited · Chambers and Anderson, 1903 · Collection of The Grace Museum, Museum Purchase · via Taylor County Historical Commission · Image source · U.S. public domain · published 1903 · Historic Lawn context.
The road toward Goldthwaite
State troopers and Taylor County deputies stopped the Buick near Lawn, south of Abilene. The arrest form pins it down to U.S. 84 at FM 614. In the space for the time, the form says 10:50 a.m. In the boxes for the car, it lists a white 1996 Buick Regal. Officers could check those details with the car right in front of them. The cash was still on Rountree, Abilene police Sgt. Mike Perry told the Associated Press. [2] [3] [17]
The form follows him a little farther. Police took him to the station, where it says he gave a verbal confession, then to the Taylor County jail. The document gives the morning a clear ending. It takes longer to explain why an address in Goldthwaite belonged to a man who’d already been caught robbing banks in two other states. [2] [17]
Woodlot, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Location photograph for context.
Before the white Buick
The car was part of getting settled. According to the Houston Chronicle, Rountree’s nephew Buddy had helped him get the Buick and set him up in a mobile home. Rountree told Lewis he’d talked about buying a piece of land in Goldthwaite and staying there. After Florida, there was a place to go and family close by. [3] [18]
That was a smaller life than the one he’d made in Houston. He’d worked in the oil fields and built a company that made equipment to stabilize offshore drilling rigs. After he sold the company, he tried retirement, then borrowed money to buy a shipyard in Corpus Christi. In the account he gave Lewis, the ships cost more to build than they fetched. Rountree said he could have kept making his payments. The bank called the loan, and he blamed it for his bankruptcy. [3] [18]
When he talked about what he’d lost, he also talked about Fay. They’d been married about fifty years when she died in 1986. He told Lewis he’d put business aside to spend her last year with her. In a Florida prison interview years later, he remembered withdrawing from friends after she died. When reporters asked about the robberies, that was where Rountree went back to. It was more than a decade before he was arrested at a bank in Mississippi. [2] [3] [18]
In December 1998, a week before he turned eighty-seven, Rountree held up a bank in Biloxi, Mississippi. A customer at the drive-through called police, according to the Chronicle. He was arrested within minutes and got three years’ probation. In October 1999 he tried a NationsBank in Pensacola. Two customers followed him out and caught him in the parking lot. This time he got three years in prison. He was released in 2002 and went to Goldthwaite. [1] [2] [3] [7]
Asked in prison what he might do when he got out, Rountree told the Orlando Sentinel he might rob another bank if he needed the money. He talked about getting even with banks. In a later Associated Press interview, he talked about how good he felt after walking out with the cash. Those explanations tell you what he was willing to say about himself. They leave his choice of a particular bank on South 14th Street open. [1] [6] [7] [18]
Billy Hathorn, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Location photograph for context.
The plea in Lubbock
In October, Rountree stood before U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings in Lubbock. He had a cane and wore a headset to hear the judge. When Cummings asked for his plea, he first said he was not guilty. The judge repeated it back to him. Rountree corrected himself and pleaded guilty. The amount in the Associated Press’s plea coverage was $1,999. The initial figure police had given reporters had been rounded to about $2,000. [1] [2]
By the time Cummings sentenced him on January 23, 2004, Rountree was ninety-two. He got 151 months in federal prison, twelve years and seven months. [5] [8] [15]
KTrimble, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Location photograph for context.
The record he left
On October 12, 2004, Rountree died at the federal prison medical center in Springfield, Missouri. A prison spokesman said he was buried near the facility. Years later, the makers of This Is Not a Robbery interviewed people who’d known him and used audio he’d recorded near the end of his life. He’d had a lot of years to talk about, and by then people wanted to hear what he made of them. [7] [10] [11]
The people at the bank had a much shorter stretch of time to work with. The teller got the cash into the envelope and set off the alarm. Outside, a bank employee and customers paid attention long enough to get the plate. There’s a place on the booking form for the year, make and color of the car. There’s a place for the time. When you get to 10:50, you’re looking at what those few minutes of attention made possible. [1] [2] [17] [18]
Case brief
Abilene, Texas · 2003
- Recorded outcome
- Rountree pleaded guilty to the August 2003 Abilene bank robbery. He received a 151-month federal sentence on January 23, 2004, and died in federal custody that October.
Key moments
Case photographs
- Red Rountree’s booking portrait
The portrait was published alongside the police booking form after the 2003 robbery.
Booking photograph at source · The Smoking Gun - The Abilene Police Department booking form
The original form records the Buick, the highway stop, the verbal confession and the transfer to county jail.
Booking record at source · Abilene Police Department, via The Smoking Gun - South 14th and Willis in 1968
Lloyd Jones photographed the River Oaks Shopping Center and the Bank of Commerce. The image shows the neighborhood decades before Rountree’s case.
Archival aerial photograph at source · The Portal to Texas History - The former bank address today
Look for the image labeled 3409 S 14th St in the River Oaks Shopping Center listing. It is a later view of the address.
Property photographs at source · LoopNet property listing
Look closer · 8 visuals
Abilene and the places Rountree passed through
Explore photographs of the towns, courthouse and federal medical center in the story. The case photographs section links to Rountree’s booking portrait and the police record.
Abilene from above
A 2015 view of Abilene from the Enterprise Building.
Read the evidence notes
This panorama puts the city in view. The robbery happened at a branch on South 14th Street.
Location photograph for context.
Source 4 ↗ · Flofor15, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 4.0
Cypress Street in 2004
Downtown Abilene from the 500 block of Cypress Street in July 2004.
Read the evidence notes
This is a near-contemporary photograph of downtown. South 14th was a separate commercial corridor.
Location photograph for context.
Source 4 ↗ · Tungd31, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 3.0
Downtown Biloxi
Howard Avenue at Lameuse Street in downtown Biloxi, photographed in 2011.
Read the evidence notes
Biloxi was the setting of Rountree’s 1998 SouthTrust Bank robbery. The exact branch is outside the scope of this image.
Location photograph for context.
Source 2 ↗ · Source 7 ↗ · Woodlot, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 3.0
Palafox Street in Pensacola
Palafox Street in downtown Pensacola, Florida, in August 2008.
Read the evidence notes
Rountree’s 1999 robbery took place in Pensacola. This photograph shows the city’s setting.
Location photograph for context.
Source 1 ↗ · Source 7 ↗ · Infrogmation of New Orleans, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 3.0
Goldthwaite, where the plate led
Mills County Courthouse in Goldthwaite, photographed in September 2020.
Read the evidence notes
The plate led investigators to Goldthwaite, where Rountree lived near relatives. The courthouse is a landmark in the town.
Location photograph for context.
Source 2 ↗ · Source 16 ↗ · Aualliso, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 4.0
The older community at Lawn
A photograph of early Lawn published in Our Homes and Country Illustrated in 1903.
Read the evidence notes
The county history distinguishes the original community from the one that grew by the railroad. The 2003 booking form specifies a highway junction.
Historic Lawn context.
Source 13 ↗ · Source 17 ↗ · Photographer uncredited · Chambers and Anderson, 1903 · Collection of The Grace Museum, Museum Purchase · via Taylor County Historical Commission · Image source · U.S. public domain · published 1903
The federal courthouse in Lubbock
The George Mahon Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Lubbock, photographed in April 2009.
Read the evidence notes
The Abilene robbery case reached federal court in Lubbock. This exterior photograph shows the court building six years after the plea.
Location photograph for context.
Source 1 ↗ · Source 9 ↗ · Billy Hathorn, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 3.0
The federal medical center in Springfield
An October 2003 aerial photograph of the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri.
Read the evidence notes
A spokesman for this facility confirmed Rountree died there in October 2004. The photograph was taken a year earlier.
Location photograph for context.
Source 7 ↗ · Source 10 ↗ · KTrimble, Wikimedia Commons · Image source · CC BY-SA 3.0
★ Key evidence used in a conviction · ✓ Exclusion or reversal · ◇ Disputed evidence · ⊘ Excluded at retrial · ◆ Identity / investigative finding, not a conviction. A symbol does not mean one item proved the whole case.
Follow the locations
Put the story on the map.
Follow the dated entries, then select an event to find its regional setting. Shared-location pins open a group of events. Evidence symbols identify important findings and their limitations.
Open the map in its own window ↗Sources & further reading
- Associated Press · Rountree’s guilty pleaBetsy Blaney’s account of the Lubbock plea hearing, the amount, the teller’s encounter and the plate lead. The article reports the Thursday hearing.
- Associated Press · Rountree’s arrestApproximate time of the bank robbery, plate traced to Goldthwaite, stop at Lawn and Rountree’s earlier history.
- Houston Chronicle · Ex-inmate, 91, facing another stint in prisonJim Henderson’s contemporaneous report identifies 14th Street and U.S. 84 and discusses Rountree’s Texas business and family background.
- May 2003 Abilene city directory · Banks and bakeriesLists the First American Bank branch at 3409 South 14th Street and other businesses on the street. Digitized by The Portal to Texas History.
- Reuters · Jail for Texas bank robber, 92Confirms the 151-month sentence, cash amount, threat, unarmed robbery and plate lead.
- Associated Press · Rountree’s Spur jail interviewContemporary AP profile archived by Texas Tech University. Includes Rountree’s own explanations and the earlier robberies.
- Associated Press · Rountree dies in federal custodySpringfield federal prison spokesman confirms October 12 death and burial near the facility. Prior convictions and Florida release are summarized.
- CBS News · Rountree’s federal sentenceReports Friday sentencing in Lubbock and confirms plea, Abilene amount, prior dispositions and the prosecutors’ account.
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas · LubbockIdentifies the George Mahon Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Lubbock.
- Federal Bureau of Prisons · MCFP SpringfieldIdentifies the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri.
- Andrew Lauren Productions · This Is Not a RobberyThe producers describe the interviews and audio recording used for the documentary.
- The Washington Post · Rountree’s Abilene arrest and portraitNational coverage from August 2003 and a source-linked news photograph of Rountree in police custody.
- Taylor County Historical Commission · LawnPlaces Lawn at the U.S. 84 and FM 604 junction and describes its move toward the railroad. Credits the 1903 photograph used for historical context.
- Lloyd Jones · Aerial photograph of South 14th and WillisIdentifies the River Oaks Shopping Center and the separate Bank of Commerce. Linked at The Portal to Texas History.
- Guinness World Records · Rountree’s convictionConfirms the date of the Abilene robbery, January 23 sentence and term of 151 months.
- Texas Historical Commission · Mills County CourthouseGoldthwaite setting and historic courthouse.
- Abilene Police Department · Arrest booking formScan of the actual APD form. Records 10:50 a.m., U.S. 84 and FM 614, the white Buick, the reported verbal confession and the transfer to county jail.
- Jim Lewis, GQ · The 91-Year-Old Bank RobberInterview with Rountree about his business, family, Goldthwaite and the bank. The report’s route differs from the booking form, which is used for the arrest location.
Editorial review: 2026-11-12 · 1138 words