The man behind four Bend bank robberies over the last year is probably a local, and will most likely continue robbing banks until he is caught.

So says former bank robber Troy Evans.

Convicted in 1992 for holding up five banks in Colorado and surrounding states over six months, Evans served more than seven years in a federal prison. Upon his release he began a new life, putting his own experiences and an estimated 300 interviews with convicted bank robbers to use as a motivational speaker and security consultant to financial institutions.

Reached by phone Friday at his home in Arizona, Evans said the man believed to have robbed the Home Federal Bank in downtown Bend on Thursday and in July, and the Bank of the Cascades branch on U.S. Highway 97 near Wal-Mart in April and in December 2011 is following a somewhat unusual pattern for a serial bank robber. He said most prefer to travel — as did he — hitting banks in a variety of communities to avoid drawing attention to themselves in their hometown.

“When I would go into a town, I wouldn’t rob four banks over a period,” he said.

“I would rob one or two, and never go into that town again.”

The motivation underlying bank robbery is straightforward, Evans said — the potential rewards are high when weighed against the risk.

While law enforcement agencies rarely disclose the amount of money netted during a bank robbery, Evans said it’s typically between $2,000 and $4,000. A more experienced bank robber who takes the time to study bank procedures can get even more by hitting the bank at the right time.

By contrast, an armed robbery at a liquor store might net just a few hundred dollars, Evans said, with a real risk that an employee, possibly armed, will refuse to comply with a robber’s demands. Bank tellers are trained to offer no resistance, he said, and will often not put a money-staining dye pack in a robber’s bag if they suspect it could cause a problem.

“They’re trained to do what they ask,” Evans said. “The last thing they want is them to get out in the parking lot and a dye pack goes off, and they come back in with a gun very upset and you’ve got a hostage situation.”

Close to 95 percent of bank robbers are eventually caught, Evans said, and in 70-80 percent of those cases, it’s the robber’s own lack of discretion that leads to their capture. As a result, rewards like the $5,000 offered for the suspect in Bend’s string of robberies are highly effective, he said.

“The bottom line is it’s just human nature. People get away with these things, and after a while, they’re just dying to tell somebody,” Evans said. “Those are the ones that usually get caught pretty quickly.”

Bank robbers who keep quiet usually see more success, Evans said, but are often unable to conceal the otherwise-unexplainable improvement in their finances. Evans said he managed to keep his mouth shut about his criminal exploits, but was eventually turned in by an ex-girlfriend who recalled seeing him with a large pile of cash on his kitchen counter.

Hitting the same two banks repeatedly suggests the suspect may have found something about them that makes them easier targets, whether it’s their staff, money-handling procedures or their location.

Evans said that during his bank robbery career, he looked for banks that allowed for multiple escape routes within three to five minutes of exiting the bank. Recalling his last visit to Bend about five years ago, Evans said the Bank of the Cascades proximity to the Bend Parkway provides ample escape options for a robber with a vehicle, while Home Federal Bank’s downtown location allows a robber to blend in with the crowd.

The Bend suspect almost certainly visited both bank locations before deciding to rob them, Evans said. When he was robbing banks, Evans would sometimes scout a location by sitting down with a loan officer for a long chat about taking out a loan.

In the event the suspect is not a Central Oregon resident, Evans said he likely lives close enough to Bend that he’s developed some familiarity with local banks and potential escape routes.

“Every institution is cased to some extent,” he said. “I guarantee this individual doesn’t come into Bend, Oregon, pick the first financial institution he sees, and robs that financial institution.”

Bank robbery has a glamorous reputation compared to other crimes, but the robbers are rarely “John Dillinger types,” Evans said — despite the money they make robbing banks, most bank robbers live a fairly depressing life.

“That’s not really what it’s about for these people,” he said. “They’re strung out on drugs, they’ve got a gambling debt to pay, they’ve got a house that’s about to be foreclosed on. It’s an act of desperation.”

Success can breed overconfidence for a bank robber, Evans said, and so long as they believe they can’t get caught, they’ll keep going.

“Very, very few make a decision that, ‘You know what, Lady Luck is going to run out on me, I’ve gotten away with four of these’ — and who knows if he’s done others in other places,” Evans said. “It’s not like one day they turn off the switch and say ‘I’m not going to do this anymore.’”

The search continues

Bend Police and the FBI are continuing their investigation into the robbery Thursday of Home Federal Bank, conducting interviews with potential eyewitnesses in the area surrounding the downtown bank branch.

Lt. Chris Carney said police are trying to locate any footage from surveillance cameras that may have captured an image of the suspect outside the bank. A still image from the bank’s surveillance system was released Friday, showing the suspect in a grey sweatshirt pulled down low over his forehead, with a black bandanna or other piece of cloth over his chin and mouth.

Carney said police have drawn no conclusions as to whether the suspect is from Central Oregon or elsewhere. But police are considering putting up a billboard with images of the suspect and the $5,000 reward to encourage anyone who might know him to come forward.

“If it’s a local person, I would think you could recognize him from the pictures we’ve seen from all of the previous robberies,” he said.

— Scott Hammers, The Bulletin