Wife lives quiet life with 'Grandad Bandit' suspect
Source: Agencies |
August 14, 2010, Saturday
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PATSY Mara doesn't doubt the man the FBI calls the "Granddad Bandit," suspected in a string of bank robberies across the United States, is her husband. The 61-year-old schoolteacher, however, still has trouble reconciling the image of a holdup man who snatched money from more than two dozen banks with the gentle, loving husband she married just a year ago.
Michael Mara, 52, was arrested on Wednesday after police and FBI agents acting on a tip surrounded their modest home in Baton Rouge. He surrendered peacefully after a nearly six-hour standoff.
"Did my husband who I was married to do that? Of course not. Did Michael Mara, the guy who walked out this door with police do it? Yes," Patsy Mara said in an interview with The Associated Press in the home she shared with the man she thought once worked as a paramedic and most recently for the US government's Federal Emergency Management Agency on disaster recovery.
Michael Mara wore his uniform, with the crisp white shirt and badge of a paramedic, on the couple's wedding day in June 2009. Now Patsy isn't sure if he ever was an emergency worker, or if he helped on the September 11 cleanup as he claimed.
She doesn't doubt, though, that it's him in the surveillance photos the FBI says show him robbing banks around the country.
The Michael Mara she knew was smart and kindhearted, loved trips to New Orleans' French Quarter and liked bologna sandwiches and macaroni-and-cheese dinners.
She said she knows nothing about the crimes he's accused of, beyond what she's now seen in TV newscasts.
Michael Mara is suspected of robbing 25 banks in 13 states, dating to a December 2008 holdup of SunTrust Bank in downtown Richmond, Virginia, authorities said.
In the robberies, the suspect waited patiently in line and handed the teller a note demanding a specific amount of money. Sometimes, he made gestures indicating he had a weapon, although agents said there was no indication he ever used one.
Shortly after they married, she said her husband claimed to get a job for FEMA, working on disaster recovery. He traveled constantly, up to four or five weeks at a time, but she said he described trips to places that made sense for work, sites of floods or other disasters.
"If he was an actor, he would have gotten an Academy Award for his performance," Patsy Mara said.
She never saw gobs of cash, and the FBI hasn't said how much money the bandit was able to grab, but she said her husband kept a locked file cabinet that the FBI searched for evidence.
Michael Mara, 52, was arrested on Wednesday after police and FBI agents acting on a tip surrounded their modest home in Baton Rouge. He surrendered peacefully after a nearly six-hour standoff.
"Did my husband who I was married to do that? Of course not. Did Michael Mara, the guy who walked out this door with police do it? Yes," Patsy Mara said in an interview with The Associated Press in the home she shared with the man she thought once worked as a paramedic and most recently for the US government's Federal Emergency Management Agency on disaster recovery.
Michael Mara wore his uniform, with the crisp white shirt and badge of a paramedic, on the couple's wedding day in June 2009. Now Patsy isn't sure if he ever was an emergency worker, or if he helped on the September 11 cleanup as he claimed.
She doesn't doubt, though, that it's him in the surveillance photos the FBI says show him robbing banks around the country.
The Michael Mara she knew was smart and kindhearted, loved trips to New Orleans' French Quarter and liked bologna sandwiches and macaroni-and-cheese dinners.
She said she knows nothing about the crimes he's accused of, beyond what she's now seen in TV newscasts.
Michael Mara is suspected of robbing 25 banks in 13 states, dating to a December 2008 holdup of SunTrust Bank in downtown Richmond, Virginia, authorities said.
In the robberies, the suspect waited patiently in line and handed the teller a note demanding a specific amount of money. Sometimes, he made gestures indicating he had a weapon, although agents said there was no indication he ever used one.
Shortly after they married, she said her husband claimed to get a job for FEMA, working on disaster recovery. He traveled constantly, up to four or five weeks at a time, but she said he described trips to places that made sense for work, sites of floods or other disasters.
"If he was an actor, he would have gotten an Academy Award for his performance," Patsy Mara said.
She never saw gobs of cash, and the FBI hasn't said how much money the bandit was able to grab, but she said her husband kept a locked file cabinet that the FBI searched for evidence.
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