Adventure and money woes led 92-year-old to a life of crime

SPUR, Texas -- "Red" Rountree shuffled into the bank and surveyed the teller windows.

He handed two manila envelopes to the teller. On the first, in red marker, was written "ROBBERY." The second envelope, he told her, was for the money.

"Are you kidding?" the teller asked the bespectacled man with nearly translucent skin and wrinkled, knotted hands.

"Hurry up and put the money in the envelope or you'll get hurt," Rountree told her.

As the teller complied, Rountree became the oldest known bank robber in U.S. history. He was 91.

'I feel good'

Sitting in a wheelchair now at the Dickens County Correctional Center, Rountree coaxes memories from a brain fogged by age. He's 92 and is serving a 12-year sentence, the equivalent of life for someone his age.

He can't remember when he decided to rob the First American Bank in Abilene. Or even what he planned to do with the loot -- $1,999. But he does have one answer.

"You want to know why I rob banks?" Rountree said. "It's fun. I feel good, awful good. I feel good for sometimes days, for sometimes hours."

It was one last adventure for a man who'd had others years ago.

He once made millions as a businessman, once had a family.

But time has a way of erasing things, and if you stick around long enough, the world you know can disappear.

That's what happened to "Red" Rountree.

Good times and bad

As he tells it, J.L. Hunter Rountree was born Dec. 16, 1911, in the family farmhouse near Brownsville, Texas. He married in the 1930s, and together with his wife, Faye, Rountree owned a small boat-building and shipyard business, Corpus Christi Marine.

In 1965 he took out a bank loan for a business deal, but says the bank called the note early.

The incident forced him into bankruptcy. He eventually recovered, making more than a million dollars with a new business.

But he always resented banks.

Then at age 75, Faye was diagnosed with lung cancer. She died in October 1986.

By age 83 Rountree had burned through his money and found himself broke, on Social Security, and living in a trailer in Alabama.

Truthfully, he says he can't remember when he came up with the idea to rob a bank.

"I guess I was just mad at them for what they had done to me with my business," he said.

Whatever the prompt, on Dec. 9, 1998, a week before his 87th birthday, Rountree entered the SouthTrust Bank in Biloxi, Miss. and told the teller to give him money.

But as the old man was making his getaway, someone followed him and he was arrested within minutes. He was eventually given three years' probation, fined $260 and told to leave Mississippi.

The rules of robbery

In jail awaiting sentencing he met a man who knew how to rob banks -- successfully. During hours of conversations, the man taught him "the rules" of bank robbery.

Less than a year later, Rountree walked in to a NationsBank in Pensacola, Fla. He looked for the youngest teller, gave her a note with the word "robbery" written in red ink, and handed her a black bag.

She stuffed the bag with $8,000.

But before he could get out of the bank, she screamed: "We've been robbed!"

Two customers chased Rountree as he headed across the parking lot to his idling truck.

He was convicted and sentenced to three years. At age 87, he became the oldest inmate in the Florida prison system.

Rountree hated prison. There were too many rules and bad food. When he got out in 2002, he said he never wanted to go back. Prison officials gave him a bus ticket to Texas. Rountree called his nephew in Goldthwaite.

The Rountrees found a large travel trailer for their uncle to live in, and set it up near a hill that overlooked the town and the plains. Later, the nephew helped Rountree buy a used car.

"Buddy, I'm going to spend the rest of my life in Goldthwaite," Rountree said to his nephew.

Instead, two months later, he got into his car and drove more than 100 miles to the bank in Abilene.

No regrets

Sitting at the correctional center, Rountree made no excuse for the Abilene robbery. He even told authorities within minutes of his arrest that he was guilty.

"I know I'm going to die in here. That's OK," he said. "I've led a good life and I have no regrets."

Although Rountree is appealing his sentence, he says he's not sure he wants to get out.

"What would I do at my age? Rob another bank?" he said, laughing.