John F. Burns contributed reporting from London. Lisa Schwartz contributed research.
Thứ Tư, 15 tháng 2, 2012
British Robbery Suspect Edward Maher Arrested in Missouri
The couple had been married two months, and now Lee King was telling her that his father, a balding local cable technician, was actually an international fugitive who had staged one of England’s most infamous bank heists. A few weeks later, on Dec. 28, all doubts vanished. That night, she said her father-in-law appeared at the newlyweds’ home, grabbed her arm and, leaning in to fix his eyes on hers, warned her to keep quiet. “I know you know,” she said he told her in his native British accent. “I will kill you. I will bloody kill you.” A day earlier, Ms. King, who recounted these conversations in an interview, had been shocked to discover that her husband’s claims might in fact be true. Sitting at a computer with two friends — who confirmed her account — she discovered an article about a famous 1993 robbery in England with a picture of the suspect, an armored car driver who made off with the equivalent of $1.5 million and disappeared with his wife and infant son, Lee, into the United States. The man in the photo, identified as Edward Maher, was younger and thinner, with a full head of dark hair, but he was unmistakably her father-in-law, whom she knew as Michael. After almost 20 years as a wanted man in England, the suspect the British tabloids called “Fast Eddie” saw his restless run from the law come to an unexpected end last week, his tale of international intrigue emerging in startling contrast to his ordinary life in this mostly rural corner of southwest Missouri. In a few frenetic days the case was cracked, nearly botched, then brought to an unlikely close. Mr. Maher, who had prepared to flee after being accidentally tipped off about the investigation by a police officer, agreed to be taken into custody and acknowledged his real identity, according to court documents. The distance between his worlds was brought into sharp relief when the Ozark police tried to notify their British counterparts, only to discover that their phone plan did not allow overseas dialing. After years of tight-lipped caution, Mr. Maher, 56, was brought down by his talkative son, the 22-year-old Mr. King, who told his wife, she said, that he had been trained to lie as a child to protect the family. Despite that, several people say, Mr. King repeatedly shared his most carefully guarded secret, one so unbelievable that for years no one took him at his word. That changed on Feb. 6 when Ms. King, increasingly terrified of her husband as well as his father, tipped off the local police about the family. In an interview Mr. King denied his wife’s version of events, saying he learned about his family’s past only last week when his parents showed him his real birth certificate. That, he said, is how he learned his real last name was Brett, his mother’s last name, and not — as is tattooed on both his and his wife’s wrists — King. But in the hours after learning that his father’s secret had been revealed, Mr. King sent his wife a barrage of irate text messages accusing her of telling the police, “things only you know.” In one of the messages, which she shared to support her story, he lamented his own role in exposing his father. “It’s my fault,” he wrote. The crime was as carefully executed as the escape. On Jan. 22, 1993, the authorities say, Mr. Maher disappeared along with an armored car he was driving for Securicor. It was found abandoned a half mile from Lloyds Bank in Felixstowe, on England’s east coast, emptied of £1 million in bills and coins. His wife and 3-year-old son had already left for the United States. The money was never found. Once in the country the family moved constantly, Mr. King said, with stops in New Hampshire, Colorado, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
