Who was Scott Scurlock? How a ‘Point Break’-loving bandit masterminded bank robbery spree
Spoiler alert!: We're not trying to steal the experience of watching "How to Rob a Bank" from you. Enter this story — with details and spoilers from the Netflix documentary — at your own risk.
Scott Scurlock was born on March 5, 1955 to a minister and his wife, a teacher of kids with learning disabilities. Nearly 42 years later, on Thanksgiving Day 1996, Scurlock took his last breaths in a stranger’s camper as law enforcement officers swarmed its perimeter, hoping to catch the elusive Seattle bank robber for years. They dubbed the thief “Hollywood” for his use of disguises during stickups.
Netflix’s latest true-crime documentary, “How to Rob a Bank,” revisits Scurlock’s heists with interviews from his accomplices and those bent on catching the thief. The film also explores the internal struggle that plagued the adrenaline junkie, who lived in a towering three-story treehouse with a captivating view of Mount Rainier. Videos in the film show the eccentric Scurlock testing out a homemade zipline and parading around in the buff.
“My mind is like an undisciplined child that has gone wild,” Scurlock wrote in his journal. He also documented how committing the robberies changed him: “I feel transformed in an eerie, magical way … I feel like a different person.”
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From a young age, Scott Scurlock ‘loved doing daring things’
Suzanne Scurlock remembers her brother as someone who “was never going to be controlled, and he wanted to be free.” She describes him as “an adrenaline junkie" who "loved doing daring things.”
Scurlock learned to pick locks as a kid. At 15, he boosted a vehicle from a daycare center with a friend and took a joyride to the beach.
“He grew up and didn’t outgrow the behavior that we had as kids or adolescents,” Suzanne says. “He just sort of refined it and kept right on going.”
Scott Scurlock is expelled for making crystal meth
Scurlock enrolled at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Although he dreamed of becoming a doctor, the school expelled him when it discovered he was using a campus lab to make crystal methamphetamine.
Scurlock continued cooking meth until he became concerned for his safety and exited the drug game. Desperate to make money, he had a lightbulb moment thanks to “Point Break,” the 1991 thriller in which undercover FBI Agent Johnny Utah, played by Keanu Reeves, befriends a crew of adventure-seeking bank robbers led by Bodhi (Patrick Swayze).
“What he liked about ‘Point Break,’” says Scurlock’s bank-heist accomplice Steve Meyers, “was the individualism of Bodhi and his fearlessness toward life, whether it was robbing banks or whether it was surfing on wild waves.”
How did Scott Scurlock, aka ‘Hollywood,’ pull off his bank heists?
On June 25, 1992, an inexperienced Scurlock and his friend, Mark Biggins, entered a Seattle bank for their first robbery, wearing masks of former presidents like those in “Point Break.” When they returned to their getaway , Biggins says he declared, “I am never doing that again!”
Scurlock replied, “Are you sure? Let’s go do another one. Right now.”
But Biggins was so shaken up, he left town, so Scurlock recruited Meyers. “He said, ‘Man, this is the easiest thing,’” Meyers remembers. “'It’s like taking candy from kids. There’s millions to be made in this.'”
Meyers, an artist, replaced the masks with prosthetic noses, chins and cheeks. He monitored local banks, noting when deliveries of money arrived and when the police patrolled. But each haul never totaled more then $10,000. That’s when Meyers said they needed to target vaults to justify the risk. On Nov. 19, 1992, they walked away with $252,000 from a bank’s vault.
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How did ‘Hollywood’ bank robber get caught?
The robberies began to weigh on Scurlock, says his friend, Alban “Snoopy” Pfisterer: “Scott started to get stressed,” he remembers. “He was no longer the casual, happy-go-lucky person.”
“He started drinking more and more and more to subdue the anxieties,” says Meyers. But his partner in crime longed for “one final act” before walking away. To pull off their last heist, they enlisted help from Biggins.
On November 27, 1996, the night before Thanksgiving, Scurlock and Biggins entered Seafirst Bank’s Lake City neighborhood branch. A teller, who says he was trained specifically for a “Hollywood” robbery, tripped an alarm at his register and another at the vault.
With $1.08 million in cash, Scurlock and Biggins made their way to the van, where Meyers waited behind the wheel. Scurlock and Biggins furiously searched through the bills for a pair of trackers that would signal police to their location. They discarded one but couldn't find the another, which led law enforcement right to them.
How did Scott Scurlock die?
Law enforcement and the robbers traded gunfire. Meyers was shot in the arm and a bullet pierced Biggins’ stomach. Scurlock exited the van and abandoned his friends, who police arrested and took to the hospital. There, Meyers gave FBI agent Shawn Johnson Scurlock's name.
Scurlock sought refuge in a stranger's backyard camper on Thanksgiving Day. When police closed in, he shot himself.
From 1992 to 1996, Scurlock and his accomplices pulled off 19 confirmed heists, according to the documentary, pulling in more than $2.3 million. The FBI and Washington Secretary of State report differing numbers.
Meyers and Biggins each received a 21-year sentence for their involvement.
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