Billy Kirkpatrick, from
Hovland,
Minnesota, and Ray Bowman, from
Kansas City,
Missouri, were two criminals from the
Midwest known as the
Trenchcoat Robbers, who performed robberies across the United States from the 1970s to the 1990s. In the 1970s, they stole
disco records from record stores, and then in the 1980s they started robbing banks at gunpoint. From then until February 1997, they stole $3.5 million in 26 heists across the country. Because they wore
trench coats during their robberies, the two were named the Trenchcoat Robbers by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had very little information on the culprits. In 1997, Kirkpatrick was 57 and Bowman was 53. Starting in January 1997, the two staked out the
Seafirst Bank branch of
Lakewood, Washington. They stayed at a hotel in
Kent, and took time to blend in with the locals, eating at high-end restaurants and attending a piano recital at the
University of Washington. They cased the bank, finding out the vault was "packed with an extraordinary amount of cash" to cover an upcoming payday of soldiers at
Fort Lewis, and devised a getaway route. == Robbery ==