FORT SMITH — A Sebastian County man who was arrested Sunday after police found a gun and $166,000 in his backpack is suspected in the robberies of two Missouri banks last year.
Robert Bruce Knepper, 45, who lives on Bear Hollow Road south of Fort Smith, is charged in federal court in Springfield, Mo., with tworobberies in which the total haul was nearly $500,000, according to an arrest affidavit.
The backpack, which was found behind the Red Lobster restaurant in east Fort Smith on Sunday, had several lodging and vehicle rental receipts that led police to Knepper at the Comfort Inn in Fort Smith, according to the affidavit.
Knepper appeared Fridaybefore U.S. Magistrate Judge James Marschewski in Fort Smith, where he waived identity and detention hearings, said Deborah Groom, assistant U.S. attorney. Knepper was ordered into the custody of U.S. marshals to be returned to Missouri, she said.
Groom said extradition proceedings are not required to transfer a person wanted on a federal warrant fromstate to state.
The affidavit by Patrick Thomas, a Kansas City-based FBI special agent, states that Knepper is suspected in the robberies of Liberty Bank in Springfield, on March 29 and Great Southern Bank in Joplin, Mo., on Sept. 16.
At Liberty Bank, the robber told bankers he was not leaving “without millions,” according to the af-fidavit. He threatened bank employees, saying he had been in the military and had killed people for several years.
He also said he had pancreatic cancer and only three months to live and that he didn’t care what happened, the affidavit states.
The bank manager gave the robber $80,000 from the bank vault, according to the affidavit. The man put the money in a green, rolling suitcase, took the bank manager’s car keys and drove away in the car. It was found abandoned about a mile from the bank.
Bank employees told investigators the robber wore a white bandage that covered his nose and had noticeable bruising below both eyes. He also had a black goatee that looked fake or dyed, Thomas’ affidavit stated.
In the Great Southern Bank robbery, a man entered the bank about 5 p.m., produced a gun and climbed over the counter, the affidavit states. He ordered bank employees to the floor and ordered that the vault be opened.
Bank employees said the robber had bandages covering his nose and fingertips and appeared to have black eyes. The man told a teller he was dying and that the money he was stealing was his life insurance, the aff idavit states.
He got $404,350 from the vault. He collected the tellers’ driver’s licenses and threatened to seek them out if they didn’t wait 30 minutes before setting off the alarm, according to the affidavit.
Fort Smith police received a tip Tuesday that Knepper was involved in the Springfield bank robbery, then requested surveillance photos from the Joplin robbery.
The affidavit states that Fort Smith police showed those photos to Knepper’s wife, Tami Knepper, who identif ied her husband and the clothes he was wearing.
Fort Smith police Sgt. Daniel Grubbs said the Kneppers have lived on Bear Hollow Road for about a year and that Tami Knepper told police she knew nothing about her husband’s activities.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/19/2011