The high school-age teenagers graduated from burglaries and drive-by shootings to a cold-blooded bank robbery murder.
Iâm investigative reporter Robert Riggs here with former U.S.prosecutor Bill Johnston with another story from inside the crime scene tape.
I covered this deadly bank robbery. And Bill sent the robbers to prison, some of them for the cold-blooded execution of an elderly lady known as Miss Ruby.
This is a True Crime Reporter Confidential.
Every week for 42-years Ruby Parker paid a visit to the Hopewell cemetery to tend to the graves of her parents and late husband.
The 82-year old retired nurse was affectionately known as âMiss Rubyâ around the small central Texas town of Normangee population 600. She was known as a good Samaritan and worked in the hospice program at her Methodist Church.
The ranching community was established in 1907 on the Old San Antonio Road as a stop on the railroad. When the Houston and Texas Railway was being built between Houston and Dallas, the railroad barons placed a town every 8 miles on the line.
Popular among deer hunters, a sign at the city limits welcomes visitors to the âDeerest Place in Texas.â Spelled d-e-e-r-e-s-t.
The Normangee State Bank was a social institution as well as a financial institution.
At teller windows, townfolk swapped gossip and speculated about the prospects of the high school football team, the Panthers.
The town water tower next door to the bank proclaimed Normangee was the Home of the Panthers.
On Friday night most of the town would gather under the giant floodlights at Panther Stadium.
Life here as it did in rural towns across Texas revolved around high school football. Thus, the Texas-born term, âFriday Night Lightsâ.
But I digress.
The serenity was about to end.
A dozen teenage members of a Houston gang called VCV, Vatos Con Volars converged on the Hopewell Cemetary in three cars to finalize their plan to rob the Normangee State Bank.
Until now, the predominately Hispanic gang had been involved in burglaries and drive-by-shootings.
They drove 100 miles North of Houston to graduate to a higher level of violence.
It was 8:15 in the morning. They found The Normangee State Bank was closed. They rendezvous at the Hopewell cemetery to discuss their plans. They went back to the bank. It was still closed.
Frustrated they decided to buy beer at a convenience store.
One of the gang members urged them to rob the store and kill everyone inside so there would be no witnesses.
His fellow gang members wouldnât go along with the idea. They wanted the loot from the bank.
Back to the cemetery, they donned ski masks, bandannas, gloves, and bulletproof vests.
But their plan quickly fell apart. Confusion reigned. Half of the gang burst inside the bank.
The others panicked and sped away in two cars, leaving behind a small Honda Accord.
It was a takeover-style bank robbery like the epidemic that was sweeping California at the time, especially Los Angeles which had become known as the bank robbery capital of the world.
They put a gun to the head of the bankâs vice president. They yelled that they would blow everyoneâs heads off if they didnât get down on the floor.
They took $170,000 in cash.
When they fled, the six gunmen were forced to pile inside the compact car.
So two of them had to ride in the trunk.
As they made their getaway, they wildly shot up the town as they speed down main street headed back to the cemetery.
About that timeMiss Ruby was pulling into it for her weekly visit to plant flowers around her loved one's graves.
The gang rolled in behind her in need of a bigger getaway car.
They shot her through the carâs window. Pulled her out. Drove over her body. She layed dead not far from her husbandâs grave.
Meanwhile, the county sheriff stopped two of the gang members. They jumped him. Took his gun and pistol-whipped him with it.
They blasted their way through a roadblock wounding a Texas state trooper in the shoulder with the sheriffâs stolen sidearm.
After a chase, troopers and deputies arrested the shooters.
FBI agents arrested some of the other robbers while they were in class at a Houston high school.
And they nabbed a 19-year old female member of the gang getting off a bus in Memphis.
It was a senseless murder of an elderly beloved woman that shocked Texas.
Ruby Parker would have probably handed them the keys to her car if they had just asked.
