30 years after bank murders, first responder recalls being `a wreck for a while.`
June 05--EAST ALLEN TOWNSHIP -- The first two victims, a man and a woman, were under a table in the bank's reception area, kneeling, facedown. The woman had her palms on the floor.
James Cavallo, captain of the Bath Ambulance Corps, reached down to check for a pulse. The woman, Hazel Evans, was dead. Cavallo turned his attention to the man. He was alive, though Cavallo could see a bullet wound on the man's arm and he was worried it had gone through his chest.
As Cavallo reached out, the man, Thomas Marchetto, slapped at his hands, flailing.
"He started swinging violently at me," Cavallo remembers. "I found out later that he thought that the robbers were coming back. So he was afraid that I was one of them, I assume."
The "D-Day Bank Massacre," as it was called in a book written by Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, was the bloodiest bank robbery in Lehigh Valley history. On June 6, 1986, Martin Appel and Stanley Hertzog entered the First National Bank of Bath in East Allen Township and started shooting. The plan was to leave no witnesses. In about four minutes, they killed three, wounded two and fled with a little more than $2,200.
In the 30 years since, bank robberies have declined, according to FBI statistics. The bank Appel and Hertzog robbed may have had more in common with the ones Bonnie and Clyde hit in the 1930s than today's banks, which are heavily surveilled, designed to thwart holdups and store a lot less cash than in the past.
Between 2003, when the FBI began issuing statistics specific to bank robberies, and 2013, the number of bank robberies dropped by 23 percent. And the number continues to drop, declining by about 30 percent between 2013 and 2015, the FBI statistics show.
Even the modus operandi of the East Allen robbers has become outdated.
"We see less bank takeovers, where two or more people go in and force people to the floor, that sort of thing," said Robert McCrie, a professor of security management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who has studied bank robberies for decades.
No doubt it would have been harder for Appel and Hertzog to carry out the same crime today.
Banks now employ more effective security measures, manage their cash better and have procedures and devices in place to thwart robberies, said John Hall, a spokesman for the American Banking Association.
"Banks have bait money, digital cameras and other measures and criminals generally know this," he said. "Banks do an incredible job of helping law enforcement catch bank robbers, so they know they will get caught."
More importantly, said Jim Caliendo, chief operating officer for PW Campbell, a firm specializing in bank design and construction, technology has reduced the need for people to visit banks. With so many choosing online banking, he said, consumer visits have dropped by about 40 percent in the last six months alone. Fewer people in banks give would-be-robbers the impression that there is less money to be had, he said.
Security also comes in the way banks operate now, Caliendo said. Branches, for example, are getting smaller and more intimate. And a lot of banks have clerks working in small pods instead of at counters. It may be counterintuitive but the more personal approach is a deterrent. A potential robber can't wait anonymously in line anymore, Caliendo said. Robbers can't even enter without coming face-to-face with a smiling employee, he noted, because tellers and clerks greet everyone who comes into the bank.
"When robbers case the bank, they are deterred. They say, 'These people are coming out and meeting me and I can't have that,' " he said.
Too often, banks focus on systems that protect cash or help identify robbers, said Kevin Mullins, founder and former CEO of All Clear, a bank security alarm system. He thinks banks should devote about 5 percent of their budgets to protecting employees, customers and assets.
Mullins highlighted some of the new technology banks are using to deter or catch robbers, such as "man-traps," or "weapons gates."
A man-trap involves bulletproof glass doors that control the entrance to the bank. The inner door won't open until the outer door closes. This can be combined with a type of metal detector that identifies large pieces of metal the size of a handgun, or even a large knife. If this weapons gate detects a large piece of metal, the inner door won't unlock. In some cases, Mullins said, the outer door also locks, trapping the would-be robber until police arrive.
Another new tool that many banks haven't incorporated, Mullins said, is a smartphone alarm, which can be effective in thwarting a "morning glory" robbery, which is when robbers attempt a takeover before the start of business. Many banks choose not to install such security because they don't always see the "return on investment," he said.
An employee opening the bank can activate an app on a smartphone and keep their thumb on the screen until they've made sure no one is hiding in the bank. Keying in a code sends an "all-clear" signal to the other employees. But if something goes wrong, such as someone trying to force them inside the bank, all the employee has to do is take his or her thumb off the screen and a silent alarm is activated.
As the technology has improved, though, it has opened the door to a new type of stealing. While the number of bank robberies has decreased, cases of cyber thefts have exploded. According to the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center, banks and credit unions were hit with 71 data breaches in 2015, affecting more than 408,000 customers. In 2014, the center identified just 38 data breaches at financial institutions.
"Banks are still the ultimate target but the path is not through the front door," said bank cyber security expert Albert Goldson, a former Homeland Security officer who advises banks on cyber terrorism. "The path to riches for the 21st-century bank robber is through identity theft."
McCrie agreed but said it's not as if traditional bank robbers laid down their guns and became hackers.
"These are two separate crimes happening alongside each other. It's a dichotomy of people robbing banks, risking years in prison for a meager payoff compared to people who are able to siphon off thousands with a computer, with little chance of being apprehended," he said.
Interestingly, while bank robberies have declined, deaths in robberies haven't followed the same course. Since 2003, they have wavered between 10 to 20 a year -- more than double to quadruple the number McCrie recorded in 1986 when the East Allen bank was robbed.
During that time, bank robberies involving hostages have ranged from 36 cases in 2003 to 52 cases in 2008 to 20 cases in 2015.
In his research, McCrie found only four bank employees were killed in robberies in 1986 -- and three of those were at First National Bank of Bath.
Shell-shocked
It was apparent that Martin Appel planned the robbery at First National Bank of Bath with maximum chaos in mind. A military enthusiast who'd gone AWOL from a West German military base six years earlier, he even picked the date -- the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy -- for its symbolism.
Appel, then 28, and Hertzog, then 29, stormed into the bank at Route 329 and Airport Road at 11:13 a.m.
The men didn't demand money or hand the women notes, they just started shooting.
The robbery took less than four minutes. Most of the stolen money was in a 50-pound bag of coins. The robbers left $16,000 in the cash drawers behind.
Cavallo and his ambulance crew were the first medical staff to reach the bank and parked at the end of the driveway waiting for police to tell them it was safe to go inside.
After a few minutes an officer came out and waved them in, saying he counted five victims.
"He was visibly shaken. I'd never seen him like that before," said Cavallo, who knew the officer. "I was a little nervous about going in."
When he finished tending to the victims on the floor, Cavallo stood up. He saw a man in the doorway and froze.
"He was an employee, but I didn't know that at the time," Cavallo said.
Cavallo, fearing one of the robbers had returned, yelled at the man, "Who are you, who are you?" Then he realized the man was one of several bank employees who fled the shooting through a rear door and was just then returning.
"Where are the others?" Cavallo shouted at the man, who pointed at the teller cages.
Two more dead women were on the floor behind the teller counter: Jane Hartman and Janice Confer.
"The position they were in was almost like, 'Look at me, I'm not looking at you, I'm hiding, I'm not a threat to you, there's no reason to shoot me.' " Cavallo said. "But they shot them anyway."
In her office, bank manager Marcia Hauser had been shot in the temple, but survived.
Appel and Hertzog were captured at a roadblock on Indian Trail Road, not far from Appel's mobile home in Moore Township. A witness outside the bank had given state police a description of the getaway vehicle and a partial license plate number.
Hertzog, now 58, is serving three consecutive life sentences. Appel, who acted as his own attorney at his murder trial, was sentenced to death. But a federal court later overturned his conviction, finding that he did not get proper representation. In 2002, he pleaded guilty and, at 57, is serving life in prison with no chance of parole.
The First National Bank of Bath changed hands several times after merging with Meridian Bank in 1993. The building now sits vacant, a ghostly presence atop a small hill along Route 329 overlooking a strip mall and acres of farmland.
A sign out front still offers a "home equity loan sale." Cobwebs stretch across the corners of the drive-through. Inside, on the counter, a sign reminds the tellers, "know your endorser."
While the inside of the building has the dust of a decade of vacancy, the investment firm that owns the property still keeps the grass mowed and the shrubs trimmed.
On a warm May morning, Cavallo, now deputy police chief in Moore Township, returned to the scene of the crime, memories of the fear he felt tending to shell-shocked bank employees and customers still fresh in his mind.
"I was a wreck for a while," he said. "But then I slowly got over it. Once they got caught that helped a little bit."
In a strange twist of fate, his son would join the ranks of the bank robbers, years after the tragedy in East Allen. In 2007, James Cavallo Jr., then 28 -- the same age Appel was that fateful day -- pleaded guilty to robbing a bank in Hanover Township, Northampton County, 4 miles from the former First National Bank.
Cavallo Jr. handed a teller at the Susquehanna Patriot Bank a note that stated he had a gun, though no weapon was shown. He made off with about $6,000.
Investigators had no clues, but a few days after the robbery, Cavallo saw surveillance pictures, and he knew.
"It's a sinking feeling, it's a helpless feeling," Cavallo said of realizing his son had robbed a bank. "I knew what I had to do, he already stepped over the line. Maybe next time he gets shot or next time maybe he shoots somebody."
Cavallo went to the detective investigating the bank robbery and turned in his son.
Cavallo Jr. was paroled after two years in prison.
Cavallo said that he knows that bank robberies -- even ones that don't end as violently as the one D-Day massacre -- strike fear in the hearts of police officers and other first responders.
After the 1986 robbery, he and other officers were offered counseling, but most refused help. Post-traumatic stress wasn't taken seriously back then, he said.
"I know there are some others who it affected a lot worse than me," Cavallo said. "A lot. By the grace of God, I got through it."
lmason@mcall.com
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