True Crime Vault: A Family Affair

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Speaker 1 This is the 2020 True Crime Vault.

Speaker 4 Your father says, I have a plan to rob a bank.

Speaker 5 Shouldn't your first reaction be, are you crazy?

Speaker 6 I asked my dad, Are you the devil here to tempt me? And he said, yeah, probably.

Speaker 7 I remember thinking, is this this normal?

Speaker 4 Does everybody do this?

Speaker 10 The three of them. A family affair.

Speaker 2 He had recruited his own children to be his accomplices.

Speaker 10 And they're yelling and screaming and scaring the daylights out of everybody in the bank. Give us all your money.

Speaker 11 In just moments, they're out.

Speaker 7 I mean,

Speaker 3 duh.

Speaker 4 How long does three people think that they can just rob banks for it? You know, it doesn't last forever.

Speaker 13 You got your kids involved in this, and you're asking them to do time for you.

Speaker 11 Who would want their own child ever arrested, much less doing hard time behind bars?

Speaker 16 They'll do fine.

Speaker 10 This guy possesses an addict's brain and a sociopath's soul.

Speaker 11 You may think that Scott Kat manipulated and used his own children

Speaker 11 to rob banks.

Speaker 11 But it doesn't end there.

Speaker 2 On October 1st, 2012,

Speaker 2 in Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston,

Speaker 2 it was a pleasant afternoon,

Speaker 2 1.50 p.m.

Speaker 10 It's a little bit quiet on this particular Monday.

Speaker 10 Not a lot going on at all.

Speaker 11 You know that lazy feeling you get after you have lunch and everything gets kind of quiet and subdued?

Speaker 11 That was exactly the atmosphere in First Community Credit Union.

Speaker 21 There were seven people inside the bank.

Speaker 22 All employees. Yes, sir.

Speaker 2 And a Silver Ford Focus drove down a street called Cinco Ranch Boulevard toward First Community Credit Union. And the car stopped near the bank, and out come two men.

Speaker 23 What we're seeing here is the two suspects have arrived on the scene.

Speaker 11 And they have on orange vests like construction workers or street crossing guards often wear.

Speaker 24 The first thing that stood out to me were the bright orange construction vests they had on. And I thought to myself for a split second, what are they here to fix?

Speaker 2 One man has a painter's mask on his face. Another man is wearing a fake mustache.
They're wearing blue latex gloves.

Speaker 11 One of them is brandishing a gun.

Speaker 2 This is a bank robbery. Give me all your money.
Hands up. This is a robbery.

Speaker 23 The older suspect, he takes control of the room. He's got the weapon.
Immediately, the younger suspect hops to the teller counter.

Speaker 21 When he jumps the counter, that's a takeover robbery.

Speaker 2 One of the men rushes toward a teller and says, Give me everything you've got. I've got bills to pay.

Speaker 25 What goes through a banker's mind when a robbery happens?

Speaker 27 Fear.

Speaker 24 Just to do what they say. Give them what they need.
They have guns.

Speaker 23 One of the tellers actually is able to slip a pack of bait money into the bag.

Speaker 2 This is money with the serial numbers recorded, so the cops are able to trace it.

Speaker 23 It was pretty brave on her part.

Speaker 24 One of them jumped the counter, one of them rounded up everybody in the office.

Speaker 23 You can see that he goes directly for the bank manager.

Speaker 23 She's in charge. She's the one that's going to have access to the safe.
She becomes instantly aware that there's a robbery taking place. She activates her asylum alarm.

Speaker 11 Several of the tellers were actually still on their lunch break back in the break room.

Speaker 17 Were you having lunch? What were you doing on the break?

Speaker 24 I was sitting in there. I was heating up some food.
I was talking on the phone. One of my other coworkers was in there.
She had just come in to have her lunch.

Speaker 11 They didn't even realize anything was happening until they see a blinking alarm going off.

Speaker 24 And I just kind of stopped and I looked up. And I told the person on the phone, I was like, I've got to go.

Speaker 23 They get everybody together in the safe room.

Speaker 23 And they order them to open the safe.

Speaker 24 The only thing that tripped them up, they were so flustered, they couldn't get the combos right to open the safe fast enough.

Speaker 27 Do you remember the thoughts that went into your mind as soon as you realized that this is real, this is happening?

Speaker 24 To be honest with you, I wanted to go out because I didn't know what was happening. My heart was racing, I felt a pit in my stomach, I felt scared for my coworkers.

Speaker 23 They asked somebody where the back door is.

Speaker 23 Head straight to the back door,

Speaker 23 out the back of the building. Little did they know that they passed right by the break room where these other two employees are monitoring the situation.

Speaker 24 Like a bolt of lightning, ran right past the break room, out this back door. As soon as they busted through that door, the alarm sounded.

Speaker 24 So this door right here is the back door of the bank and this is where they busted out the door that moment it hit me.

Speaker 33 They just robbed us.

Speaker 24 It took everything I had to remember, oh my god, look out the window and look for them. So these blinds, I did like this real quick.

Speaker 24 They literally walked down the sidewalk fast as they could until they got to the curb and then they stopped and they just kind of casually walked to the car.

Speaker 21 Bank employees just inside here saw them heading down the alley and one of them said she saw them get into a silver car.

Speaker 13 Which was the car parked over here.

Speaker 23 And this is the first time we get the description of a silver vehicle.

Speaker 2 And they're gone.

Speaker 24 What seemed like 30 minutes was, I believe they were in and out in less than three minutes. Because they knew exactly what they were doing.
They had done this before.

Speaker 2 And a successful bank robbery is completed.

Speaker 35 When you heard that this bank had been robbed, were you at all surprised?

Speaker 21 I was because we'd had a previous bank robbery here about six months prior and I was thinking, well, that guy's in jail. Who's robbing it now?

Speaker 37 That detective and other Texas lawmen I interviewed for this story had one question.

Speaker 38 Who were these guys brazen enough to knock off a bank in the middle of the afternoon during bank hours?

Speaker 33 And investigators immediately try to find eyewitnesses, noticing that there's a chiropractor who works right next door.

Speaker 10 He had noticed two men wearing contractor reflector vests as if they were simply taking a break.

Speaker 39 They were sitting right there next to my back door. Look against the wall.
Yeah, they were actually, can I, yeah, they were actually

Speaker 42 right here.

Speaker 39 And that's unusual for anybody to be sitting here in the middle of the day.

Speaker 43 So I said, you know, hey, how you guys doing?

Speaker 39 And they said, fine. And I told the little guy, I said, nice mustache.
And he kind of giggled a little bit.

Speaker 26 Could you tell that the mustache was fake?

Speaker 42 Oh, it was fake.

Speaker 22 Oh, you could tell.

Speaker 39 And then the FBI actually came back, and they're the ones who told me that those were the guys who robbed the bank.

Speaker 26 A closer look at the older bank robber reveals that he's got a walkie-talkie.

Speaker 23 Because of the walkie-talkie, we believe that there is someone on the outside of the bank giving them a hand.

Speaker 25 So they had those trash bags.

Speaker 32 How much money did they actually get put in there?

Speaker 21 A little over $29,000. It's a pretty good haul.
I've had bank robberies where they've had $3,000 or $4,000 total.

Speaker 11 Can you imagine what what these employees went through?

Speaker 13 Oh my goodness.

Speaker 46 I mean, you start walking into a bank with a weapon and you start pointing that at people and ordering them to cough up the money. I mean, that can change your life forever.

Speaker 37 The sheriff's detectives are about to make a series of really jaw-dropping discoveries about these robbers.

Speaker 36 For one thing, this isn't the only bank they've robbed.

Speaker 23 There was a robbery robbery with similar MO at the Comerica Bank.

Speaker 37 And another thing, those robbers, one older, one a little bit younger, the way they work so well together, almost like they were family.

Speaker 23 That was noticed by all of the employees there that there was something special about that relationship. They could have been father and son.

Speaker 37 The quest to identify the people who robbed the bank in Katy, Texas, the robbers with the family resemblance, sparks curiosity even among the most seasoned detectives.

Speaker 23 Our only thought was, you know, we've got to find out what this story is.

Speaker 37 It'll eventually lead from the Lone Star State all the way to the Pacific Northwest and back in time to when a man named Scott Catt met Beth Worrell.

Speaker 2 Scott and Beth grew up 40 miles south of Portland in a picturesque town called McMinnville. Beth was a champion swimmer.
Scott played on the football team.

Speaker 29 She came home and told us that she'd met this wonderful blonde, handsome cowboy.

Speaker 15 Beth was all very, very loving.

Speaker 48 Good mommy.

Speaker 34 Terrific mother.

Speaker 20 She kept him sane.

Speaker 49 She knew how to bring him back from some of his crazy times.

Speaker 10 They lived in a nice house with four bedrooms. They had two beautiful children.
Life was good.

Speaker 49 And then she got sick.

Speaker 29 She went for a regular mammogram

Speaker 29 and

Speaker 29 she called me.

Speaker 29 and said they want to do some more tests.

Speaker 20 I remember going from crying to laughing laughing to crying to talking about going wig shopping to it's all going to be okay.

Speaker 50 You have a two-year-old and a five-year-old and

Speaker 20 I mean I think we were really positive that it was going to be just a bump in the road and that wasn't the case.

Speaker 15 She didn't live long after that.

Speaker 15 It just went rampant through her.

Speaker 6 Do you have any memories from your mother?

Speaker 41 Just one when she was sick.

Speaker 52 I just remember her being carried down on a stretcher, bright orange. It was the brightest orange I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 41 That's it. Just that one memory.

Speaker 53 That's all I remember.

Speaker 54 Doesn't sound like so much fun. No, no.

Speaker 52 But I still have that image of her in my head.

Speaker 41 I can still see her.

Speaker 52 You know, even if she was on a stretcher, I could still see her

Speaker 55 face, which is cool.

Speaker 33 In the years after Beth died, Scott goes to pieces.

Speaker 36 He begins drinking.

Speaker 58 He's doing drugs.

Speaker 33 He falls into a depression.

Speaker 2 He does let alcohol get a hold of him. He turns to cocaine.
He begins to slide and lose his footing.

Speaker 26 But somehow, despite his life falling apart, he manages to hide it all from the kids.

Speaker 10 To his credit, Scott picks up where Beth left off. He's playing the role of mother and father and doing a very fine job of it.

Speaker 52 My dad was right there for everything.

Speaker 16 It was always just us three.

Speaker 10 He cooked for them. He cooked lavish meals for them.
He was the president of their swim club.

Speaker 52 We go before school, we go after school, swim meets on the weekends.

Speaker 59 I mean, it consumed our life, but we loved it.

Speaker 52 We were part of a team.

Speaker 52 It was our swim family, and my brother was always there, and he was my favorite person in the world, and he still is.

Speaker 17 We were very close.

Speaker 6 My sister is the only consistent thing I've had in my whole life, and

Speaker 6 I'm the only consistent thing that she's had too. I can just look at her and know what's on her mind, what she's worried about.

Speaker 10 Despite the fact that outwardly it seems like a solid cat family foundation, the fact is there were cracks.

Speaker 49 His persona outside the house was dad of the year,

Speaker 49 volunteer of the year. He said all the right things, he did all the right things, he took his kids to church.

Speaker 20 And then once he was home and he was alone, I think the real Scott came out.

Speaker 6 There wasn't really a disciplinarian. I mean, there was no one there hounding us to do homework or keep up our grades.
Did you guys start drinking in the house?

Speaker 54 How old were you when that started?

Speaker 53 High school.

Speaker 15 And then he told me he got his dream job in Texas.

Speaker 2 A Texas recruiter calls him and says there's an engineering job with the Houston area oil company.

Speaker 29 So many bad memories here. He wanted to get away from it.
It would be a fresh start for everybody.

Speaker 26 And no matter how good Scott's jobs are, it always feels like the family is just a little bit short of money.

Speaker 32 And so Scott goes to his son Hayden with this insanely outlandish idea.

Speaker 38 Hey, we're going to rob banks together.

Speaker 23 He says, I made a decision that this is what I want to do.

Speaker 23 I want to rob banks for a living.

Speaker 6 When he approached me and said, would you be willing to do something to get some money more illegal than selling drugs? And I said, yes.

Speaker 4 Your father says, I have a plan to rob a bank.

Speaker 13 Shouldn't your first reaction be, are you crazy?

Speaker 6 Looking back on it, I can't believe that wasn't my first reaction.

Speaker 61 Why did you go along with it so easily?

Speaker 6 I had a real struggle and a real internal struggle. I knew it was wrong, but I was really motivated by the money.

Speaker 26 Now it's bad enough that Scott asks his own son, Hayden, to commit this felony with him, but then he ups the ante.

Speaker 64 He used Hayden to convince Abby to going along with the plan to rob banks.

Speaker 45 How did you react?

Speaker 9 Well, the way that

Speaker 52 he presented it to me was like, we need you in order to be successful

Speaker 9 and

Speaker 42 then it was just like okay you know why do they need you well so that they didn't have to drive did you have any hesitation about this really there was no question I was gonna do it there was no questions I had no questions they told me they needed me so I did it

Speaker 2 and the way Scott explained it to me was that he didn't see this as a chance to teach his kids about crime. It was a chance to teach his kids about self-esteem.

Speaker 27 And this is how the Cat family decides to start robbing banks together.

Speaker 26 Hayden and Scott, they're going to be the stick-up men inside the bank. Abby is going to be the getaway driver.

Speaker 45 Simple plan.

Speaker 65 What could possibly go wrong, right?

Speaker 6 The morning of the first bank, I asked my dad, you know, are you the devil here to tempt me? And his answer is what really scared me.

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Speaker 28 Terms apply.

Speaker 42 In Katy, Texas, just outside Houston, Scott Cat has recruited his two kids, Abby and Hayden, to join him in the family business.

Speaker 26 Robbing banks.

Speaker 2 A father who was a structural engineer, 50 years old, his 20-year-old son, and his 18-year-old daughter, both of whom looked like classic American kids.

Speaker 2 And somehow he had recruited his own children to be his accomplices. No one had ever thought of that before.

Speaker 23 This is the only one I've heard of.

Speaker 23 Well, it's the only one I've worked.

Speaker 2 When Scott first came to Texas, he called Hayden and said, I love Texas. There's a bank on every corner.
These are big banks. They're beautiful banks.
There are banks after banks after bank.

Speaker 33 Scott will later tell the reporter that this is his way of motivating his kids.

Speaker 2 Needed to do something where they would get a reward and feel good about themselves. And so somehow, Scott thought,

Speaker 2 if I teach them how to rob banks with me, they'll feel this sense of accomplishment they can't get in high school.

Speaker 26 And for their first family outing, they choose the Comerica Bank.

Speaker 11 Picture this.

Speaker 11 A Thursday morning in August 2012. A strip mall.
It's got it all. It's got the donut shop.
It's got the radio shack. It's got the wedding dress shop.

Speaker 11 And it has a bank, a Co-America bank, wedged in with all of the other businesses.

Speaker 26 Now, the getaway driver is Abby, and she's just recently gotten her license, barely knew how to drive stick.

Speaker 57 Now, this is something they definitely don't teach you in Driver Z.

Speaker 77 How long did it take you to drive from your house to the bank?

Speaker 22 Oh, a minute.

Speaker 52 Two blocks away.

Speaker 27 You robbed a bank two blocks away from your own house.

Speaker 27 Does your dad do like a mental checklist for everybody? Like remind everybody what their jobs are going to be?

Speaker 30 You know, like, okay, well, drop us off here and then, you know, we're going to walk here and then, you know, pull around back and you pick us up here.

Speaker 10 The doors fly open.

Speaker 10 In comes two armed bank robbers. They both have pistols.
They're both wearing white painters' overalls. They've got white latex gloves.

Speaker 10 And they're yelling and screaming and scaring the daylights out of everybody in the bank. Give us all your money.

Speaker 6 She walked in first and said,

Speaker 6 nobody move or put your hands up or I really don't even know. He was kind of like the muscle with the gun and I was the money guy making sure I got all the money.

Speaker 23 They demand money from the tellers and from the safe.

Speaker 6 Robbing somebody at gunpoint was not something I would think I would be capable of. But when I opened the door to that greed,

Speaker 6 it wasn't an issue anymore. And in fact, I was probably willing to do more than that.

Speaker 38 Were people scared?

Speaker 19 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 That's been one of the hardest things to deal with is the look of fear on some of those people's faces.

Speaker 6 I was actually shaking so bad that the employees grabbed the bag and started throwing money in for me.

Speaker 23 The employees at the Comerica Bank also noticed that at least one of them was wearing a walkie-talkie. These employees actually heard communication coming across on that walkie-talkie.

Speaker 2 The tellers hear a female voice coming out of Scott's walkie-talkie, counting down the time. 30 seconds, one minute, minute 30, two minutes.
Because at the three minute mark, they had to go.

Speaker 2 That was Scott's rule.

Speaker 59 That was probably like the most nerve-wracking part of it was just like, just come out, you know, just get out of there.

Speaker 9 Because my dad kept, well, hold on. And it's like, hold on for what?

Speaker 9 What do you mean, hold on?

Speaker 10 Now, they're ready to hightail it out of there. But guess what? The back door is locked.
They can't get out.

Speaker 23 And this was a very tense moment. They went to run out the back door and ran right into it because it was locked.

Speaker 2 And they have to get a teller to unlock it for them.

Speaker 11 High drama. was not as carefully planned as we thought.

Speaker 36 Did you just drive right back home, the two blocks home?

Speaker 30 Yeah, I did.

Speaker 52 It was a stick shift and I could barely like do the stick.

Speaker 7 You know, when you take off, you got to make sure you take off without killing it.

Speaker 3 And I was like,

Speaker 2 they walked away with $70,000, which is a huge awe in the bank robbery business. Most bank robbers are lucky to get away with $2,000 or $3,000.

Speaker 36 I assume you'd never seen so much money in one place in your life.

Speaker 53 No.

Speaker 8 It was quite overwhelming.

Speaker 6 The cash in your hand totally changed my mindset, my thinking. All it did was feed the greed.
All I wanted was some more now.

Speaker 38 So you were willing to rob again?

Speaker 17 I was, yeah.

Speaker 22 Now you think that most people after a major score like this would lay low for a while, get off the radar, not make any extravagant purchases.

Speaker 74 That's not the cat family.

Speaker 46 They used that money to purchase vehicles with it. And then there was some partying going on.

Speaker 42 What kind of vehicles?

Speaker 46 I believe they have a motorcycle and they have a Tahoe and they have a Ford Focus, things like that.

Speaker 9 I went and I got my nails done.

Speaker 41 I remember that.

Speaker 30 And I just drove around and did my thing.

Speaker 41 That was kind of my thing.

Speaker 7 And I definitely looked at my dad differently after that though, that's for sure.

Speaker 9 I remember thinking like, is this normal?

Speaker 12 Like, does everybody do this?

Speaker 6 Shopping, cars, partying, really nothing to show for it.

Speaker 26 Was there anything left over?

Speaker 42 I don't believe so.

Speaker 46 They didn't manage their money well because two months later, you need to rob another bank.

Speaker 46 How long could you last?

Speaker 12 The $70,000.

Speaker 23 The problem

Speaker 23 for them wasn't so much the pre-planning. It was the post-planning

Speaker 23 that was the problem for them.

Speaker 45 And are you thinking to yourself,

Speaker 8 what is happening here?

Speaker 52 It was kind of like a dream.

Speaker 30 It was kind of unreal.

Speaker 2 And soon they realized the money was gone.

Speaker 26 Within just two months, the Cat family is already running out of money and they begin plotting their next heist.

Speaker 33 But this this time, their luck runs out even faster than their cash.

Speaker 52 They were trying to take shots of alcohol, and they couldn't even get the alcohol down because they were so nervous. I'm like,

Speaker 9 this is not,

Speaker 12 we need to just not.

Speaker 7 My dad, very much. No, we have to.
We have to. We have no money.
We have to.

Speaker 11 After the Comerica bank robbery, the robbers walked off with $70,000.

Speaker 11 And in no time at all, it was all gone.

Speaker 10 So imagine you're a father who has just pulled off a bank heist using your two children. You might say to yourself, wow, what did they just do there?

Speaker 10 You'd think maybe that's what Scott would have thought. Oh, but no.

Speaker 2 He had no inclination to keep his kids out of it. He thought they were a great team.

Speaker 11 So they start looking around and what do they see? They lock in on the First Community Credit Union.

Speaker 33 Why this particular bank? Well, there are a number of reasons, but one of them is the bushes right in front of the bank that block the view from the street.

Speaker 26 So after you robbed the first bank, your job was to go scope out the second bank.

Speaker 51 What was that like?

Speaker 7 I was very nervous to do that because I felt like everybody knew what I did.

Speaker 12 Everybody could feel why I was in there, could feel my vibe. And that was super scary and nerve-wracking.

Speaker 83 When any of us walk in a bank to cash a check, whatever, we're caught on camera.

Speaker 69 Surveillance cameras actually capture Abby on her stealth reconnaissance mission of this bank.

Speaker 11 Let me tell you, She is not opening an account.

Speaker 2 It's Abby Kat doing a little recon before the robbery.

Speaker 6 We wanted to know some of the details going into it, I guess, about how we were going to enter and how we were going to exit.

Speaker 10 And when she gets back, she, her brother, and her father sit down and essentially draw up maps to use as a guide for once they get inside the bank.

Speaker 38 Now, the next step in the planning is to change their disguises.

Speaker 58 They swap out those white painter overalls that they used in that first robbery for something else.

Speaker 6 Some reflective orange vests, some mustaches, glasses, hats. They were doing some construction in the area and that was

Speaker 6 our disguise, I guess, to maybe walk around and mill about a bank without drawing too much suspicion.

Speaker 10 So it seems a safe bet would be to purchase those contractors' reflective vests. So Abby and Hayden go to the Home Depot.

Speaker 26 And you chose Home Depot because?

Speaker 6 Proximity to our house.

Speaker 27 And you didn't think that someone could trace that?

Speaker 6 I didn't think there would be anyone following up behind us.

Speaker 2 And like Scott did on the first robbery, he had Hayden, the night before the second robbery, go out, steal some license plates from a car in a adjoining parking lot, tape them to the license plates in the car they were going to use to hide the real license plates, but to be able to rip them off as soon as they could when the robbery was over.

Speaker 26 Now it's the day of the robbery, October 1st, 2012, and as they prepare to leave the house, Abby says her gang is not exactly brimming with confidence.

Speaker 52 They were trying to take shots of alcohol and they couldn't even get the alcohol down because they were so nervous. And I'm like,

Speaker 9 this is not...

Speaker 12 We need to just not.

Speaker 7 My dad very much. No, we have to.
We have to. We have no money.
We have to.

Speaker 9 Were you scared?

Speaker 9 Yes, I was scared.

Speaker 12 It was just something you just like wanted to be over with.

Speaker 5 Do you remember feeling nervous?

Speaker 6 You know, I remember feeling nervous and anxious, a lot of adrenaline.

Speaker 42 Did you announce it was a robbery?

Speaker 58 We did.

Speaker 6 We would shout something or yell something initially. It's definitely not like the movies, or at least that ours wasn't like that.

Speaker 5 Were people scared?

Speaker 6 Absolutely. I remember a few people's face still.
Total shock.

Speaker 18 Terror?

Speaker 6 Yeah, they were scared, terrified.

Speaker 46 Hayden jumped behind the counter and then asked for the money to come out of the different hills.

Speaker 46 Scott was able to get the employees huddled into the bank vault and they removed some money out of the bank vault as well.

Speaker 11 In just moment they come in, in, they've gotten the money, they're out.

Speaker 10 They head out of the credit union and of course Abby is ready and waiting.

Speaker 16 My dad is just like, go, go, you know.

Speaker 27 And he was saying, don't go too fast, right? Oh, yeah. He did not want you to speed.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 52 By the time we got on the highway, he was fine. He just, he relaxed a little bit and we drove home.

Speaker 45 You guys went home.

Speaker 74 You had a pile of cash in the house.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 38 Sure, you could keep doing this, right?

Speaker 42 You didn't get caught.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 11 In their minds, they made a clean getaway. Little did they know how many things they did wrong.

Speaker 2 They thought they had pulled off another perfect crime until they got home and realized that one of the license plates that had been taped on had fallen off somewhere.

Speaker 10 It was found in the alley laying next to a dumpster right where Abby had been parked.

Speaker 46 The license plate had Scott's fingerprints on it.

Speaker 26 Why did you just screw the new plates on?

Speaker 8 That was for

Speaker 40 being able to remove them quickly.

Speaker 27 So smart, but not smart enough. Sure.

Speaker 2 Then the second mistake they made was in the planning.

Speaker 11 They had no idea that bank employees were still having their lunch in the break room.

Speaker 11 And as they were watching the closed circuit TV, they were actually writing down a description of the bank robbers.

Speaker 33 But the biggest clue of all is something that a very astute police detective spots as he's going over that surveillance tape.

Speaker 26 I mean, it's so small that you wonder that anybody noticed it at all.

Speaker 10 He's looking at those reflective contractor jackets and he notices, well, they look like somebody just took them right out of the package because they have nice creases in them.

Speaker 11 What did that mean?

Speaker 46 That they were just purchased and we were able to isolate those vests at Home Depot.

Speaker 44 The purchase of those vests were made with Scott's Debit MasterCard and it wasn't a stretch to get him identified after that.

Speaker 2 Then they looked at the Home Depot security video of the purchase made and they saw that it wasn't a Scott Cat.

Speaker 2 It was a young man and a young woman.

Speaker 10 But they don't know who those two people are on the surveillance tape. Now we use the modern day tools that cops like to use and one of them is social media.
Cops look for Scott Cat on Facebook.

Speaker 2 And on Facebook they saw Scott Cat's photo with his two children, Hayden and Abby, who looked exactly like the two purchasing the orange vests.

Speaker 2 Suddenly, Detective Martin had the entire cat family sort of at bay.

Speaker 33 Did you think that that would be the thing of everything that gave you guys up?

Speaker 36 Not even a little bit.

Speaker 2 They go back and look at more video and they find Scott Cat buying Painter's mask. So at that point, they've got it all.

Speaker 43 A man and his two children are now in custody tonight, accused of robbing.

Speaker 58 It wasn't until they took the cats into custody that the police really realized how horrible a father Scott really was.

Speaker 86 Abby called and she was yelling at me.

Speaker 15 I'm in jail and I need $10,000 to get me out of here.

Speaker 14 Get me out of here right now.

Speaker 86 And I said, you have to get that money from your father.

Speaker 15 She says, he's the reason I'm in jail.

Speaker 2 On the morning of November 9th, just after sunrise, members of the Sheriff's Department show up at the Katz apartment to arrest Scott, Hayden, and Abby.

Speaker 2 They have no idea that Scott and Hayden were planning to do a robbery that very day, and they were just waiting for Abby to show up in the getaway car.

Speaker 23 Shortly after that, Scott comes walking out of the apartment and detectives were able to take him into custody.

Speaker 37 It's been about a month since the first community bank heist.

Speaker 10 They say you're being arrested for bank robbery and Scott looks at the cops and says, which one?

Speaker 46 We then went inside the apartment, arrested Hayden without incident.

Speaker 6 All of a sudden our door gets kicked in, and you're surrounded by police officers, guns, weapons. My world came crashing down at that point.

Speaker 87 What a wild story this is.

Speaker 84 A 50-year-old Scott Katz behind bars awaiting trial.

Speaker 77 What is it like to see your son associated with that?

Speaker 3 Horrible. How can I wrap my brain around this?

Speaker 29 It was so unbelievable. And all I could think of was I was glad their mother was gone

Speaker 29 so that she didn't have to see this.

Speaker 83 The police get a search warrant and they go to their residence and they were absolutely shocked based on what they found.

Speaker 23 We found some bank straps. A bank strap is a little paper strap that wraps around a certain quantity of money.

Speaker 2 Apparently, they just would pull cash out of those bank straps and when the cash was gone, they didn't throw the bank straps away.

Speaker 10 They find no cash. $100,000? There's nothing, no cash.

Speaker 2 Incredibly, they also found a crumpled sheet of paper, which was the script that Scott had written out for Hayden to say when he came into the bank robberies.

Speaker 10 It says, This is a bank robbery. All we want is the money: 20s, 50s, 100s.
No alarms, die-packs, or GPS.

Speaker 3 Or

Speaker 67 you,

Speaker 10 family, and co-workers will be hurt.

Speaker 26 But now, as they're bringing Scott and Hayden in for questioning, they want them to be able to help them answer the biggest mystery of all. Why would Scott enlist his own kids to rob banks with him?

Speaker 88 You're going to figure out.

Speaker 72 I'm going to be forthright, okay? I'm going to be forthright.

Speaker 63 We began talking with Scott in such a way where we were just having a conversation with him.

Speaker 47 Was there some things that you did without the kids and then that led up and then the kids got involved?

Speaker 88 I'll give him the whole thing. I swear.

Speaker 72 I'll give you the whole thing.

Speaker 27 How much did he tell the officers?

Speaker 42 He spilled the beans.

Speaker 46 He waived his right to counsel and he just told investigators exactly what happened.

Speaker 88 I

Speaker 63 always thought that

Speaker 88 a bank was federally insured. I thought that if there is a bank robbery, we're told to just give the money and get the guy out of there.
So in my mind, I thought, pfft, that's kind of,

Speaker 88 you know, an easy pick.

Speaker 88 I guess in my mind, I thought that it was, you know, no victims.

Speaker 85 It seems Scott didn't recognize the legal magnitude of bank robbery.

Speaker 79 This was all kind of casual.

Speaker 85 Aggravated robbery in the state of Texas is a big deal.

Speaker 88 You gotta help me understand. How did you broach this topic with

Speaker 88 the kids?

Speaker 88 Well, I think you have to go way back to the very beginning when their mother passed away. You've got to understand it was just the three of us.
You know, it kind of segregated us.

Speaker 88 You know, it kind of made it so that he really couldn't get close to us.

Speaker 29 He had manipulated them to think he was the only person that could take care of them, and they would do anything for him.

Speaker 90 Going through that kind of very segregated kind of grieving puts them more at risk to future manipulations from that individual who now controls them psychologically, physically, financially.

Speaker 88 Tell me how that first

Speaker 88 time went down. You know,

Speaker 88 you sat them around the dinner table and said, let's go rob the bank or I guess

Speaker 88 it wasn't around the dinner table, but it was, you know, it was a little

Speaker 88 Friday night

Speaker 88 gathering, you know, just sitting around watching movies or something.

Speaker 88 I really don't remember the details of all that. I mean, how it happened.

Speaker 63 Scott's own words were that he was completely responsible for manipulating his children.

Speaker 88 It was all my manipulation of

Speaker 88 the two of them and her. I mean, I did this whole

Speaker 88 spiel about, you know, how easy it was going to be and how we didn't have to worry about it.

Speaker 10 These poor kids need him so badly that they choose wrong instead of right, not so much because they're evildoers, but because they loved their father. And he took advantage of that unconditional love.

Speaker 10 He doesn't know anything about unconditional love. He loves Scott Kat.

Speaker 46 Scott was the first one that we interviewed.

Speaker 46 And then we interviewed Hayden.

Speaker 91 Okay.

Speaker 92 Hayden, before we start.

Speaker 83 When Hayden was initially approached by law enforcement, he said he didn't want to talk to them.

Speaker 92 And have you talked talked to your father?

Speaker 93 Yeah.

Speaker 94 Then did your father give you any advice?

Speaker 92 Just to cooperate.

Speaker 83 But after having a conversation with his father, Scott, he then decided to tell them the truth. It's a great example of how much control Scott has over Hayden.

Speaker 92 Is anybody forcing you to do this? No. You're doing this on your own?

Speaker 95 Yes.

Speaker 92 Because you want to cooperate. Is that right?

Speaker 91 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 69 How did it feel to confess?

Speaker 6 To be honest with you, I was still full of some pride. I was still full of some arrogance.

Speaker 26 Oh, so you felt good about it because you were bragging.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 37 Not surprising he feels that way. Remember, Scott told him bank robbing would boost his self-esteem.

Speaker 92 So he approaches you about this and then tell me how did it progress from there?

Speaker 97 Well,

Speaker 47 you know...

Speaker 92 I was scared. You know, I was really scared at first.

Speaker 10 It's so heartbreaking when when you think about it. The point here is that Hayden does what daddy says.

Speaker 96 He definitely,

Speaker 96 as far as like what to look for in a bank, he,

Speaker 92 you know, I mean, told me, you know, what to look for and stuff. Fear was our biggest tool, I think.

Speaker 92 So y'all would have to use, just use fear?

Speaker 80 It would help y'all?

Speaker 60 Yeah.

Speaker 98 I mean, that's all I needed, but one of them, there was a girl that was, you know, she thought she was going to die. And, you know, we felt bad about that.

Speaker 27 You know, like, no, no, no, honey, we're just here for the money.

Speaker 76 You can see this in that grainy surveillance video.

Speaker 22 The absolute horror and terror that's all over their faces.

Speaker 19 You can only imagine what kind of fear they must have felt.

Speaker 11 You may think that Scott Kapp manipulated and used his own children to rob banks,

Speaker 11 but it doesn't end there.

Speaker 2 Scott confessed, Hayden confessed. And then Abby was brought into the interrogation room.

Speaker 96 You know, he's always been there for me. He's been the only person that I have.

Speaker 95 So it was just like,

Speaker 96 okay, almost, you know.

Speaker 10 If you thought a parent manipulating their children into robbing banks was bad, well, wait till you see what happens now that they've been caught.

Speaker 99 It started with a phone call in the early hours of the morning.

Speaker 100 What is the address to your emergency?

Speaker 99 A terrified woman tells the operator she's been kidnapped, assaulted, and that she's trapped in a room with her attacker.

Speaker 2 He's fallen asleep.

Speaker 99 So she quietly and ever so carefully finds his phone and calls for help.

Speaker 51 Is there any way you can get out of the building? I don't know without waking him. I'm scared.

Speaker 99 This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland into a crime scene.

Speaker 64 We've got something big going on here.

Speaker 101 The first thing you hit my mind is a monster.

Speaker 99 A new series from ABC Audio and 2020, The Hand in the Window. Out now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 102 Coming to Disney Plus and Hulu.

Speaker 87 Cassidy, get us home.

Speaker 5 Jonas, brother, you got it.

Speaker 70 It'll be the best Jonas Christmas ever.

Speaker 62 Can't wait to see you guys.

Speaker 71 We love you.

Speaker 70 If they can only make it home.

Speaker 79 What's going on? Our tour plane burned? No.

Speaker 2 We cannot miss Christmas.

Speaker 87 Nothing can stop us from getting home now.

Speaker 18 Only

Speaker 18 you won't be alone this trip.

Speaker 52 You lost all three of your passports?

Speaker 87 It's Christmas. Anything can happen, right?

Speaker 102 A very Jonas Christmas movie now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu with a TVPGDL.

Speaker 50 You hear of bank robberies every day.

Speaker 2 The geezer bandits.

Speaker 17 Barbie bandits.

Speaker 11 And there are a dime a dozen.

Speaker 14 But it is very rare that you hear of a father reeling in his own children to rob banks with him.

Speaker 43 A man and his two children accused of robbing banks.

Speaker 2 The made-for-great headlines. The family affair, all in the family.
The family that robs together stays together.

Speaker 86 Oh, son, if i didn't know better i'd say that was you the family stole thousands of dollars abby cat drove the getaway vehicle people were fascinated with breaking bags

Speaker 90 I think they kind of see some of the same thing with this particular story.

Speaker 2 How did such an ordinary-looking, normal family turn into bank robbers waving pistols and driving getaway cars?

Speaker 13 And you're asking them to do time for you.

Speaker 32 It says it right here.

Speaker 5 Where do you get the?

Speaker 88 I talked myself into robbing banks. I'll just, yeah, I'll just rob banks.

Speaker 88 I'm probably better at that anyway.

Speaker 83 Investigators were very pleased, obviously, when Scott started talking about the robberies in Texas. But they were totally taken back when he started talking about robberies in another state.

Speaker 59 Now detectives have those bank straps they found on the floor of Scott's apartment and some of them come from Oregon.

Speaker 23 So now detectives are suspicious that, well, maybe Scott robbed banks there too.

Speaker 88 Okay, I'm just trying to think about

Speaker 88 the first one.

Speaker 46 We had a big chalkboard in there and he was writing on this chalkboard.

Speaker 89 First federal savings alone.

Speaker 46 Bank robbery one in Oregon.

Speaker 47 Number two was another one.

Speaker 98 It was in McMinnville.

Speaker 46 Bank robbery two.

Speaker 47 Number three

Speaker 46 was in Portland.

Speaker 42 Wow. Why would he volunteer that?

Speaker 41 I don't know.

Speaker 46 Maybe he had a guilty heart.

Speaker 83 I think that's all about it's going to help him. And his mind is going to come clean and he's going to end up with less of a sentence.

Speaker 89 And then that one, same thing, some sort of cover with a painter's mask, a hat,

Speaker 89 sunglasses. The painter's mask thing is pretty consistent.
It was with me because of of my goatee.

Speaker 85 Not only is he confessing to the crimes that they're aware of, but he's now confessing to others that they didn't even know about.

Speaker 11 Starting off, believe it or not, in the same bank for Scott Katz's dad retired.

Speaker 2 The newspaper printed a classic grainy photo of the robber standing in front of the teller.

Speaker 2 And Scott's mother saw it in the newspaper.

Speaker 86 And I said, oh, son, if I didn't know better, I'd say that was you.

Speaker 86 And he grabbed the paper from me and he looked at that.

Speaker 15 I remember so vividly and he said,

Speaker 15 yeah, it does kind of.

Speaker 86 And that was it. No more conversation.

Speaker 19 And you had no idea that he was doing this in Oregon and then that he was doing this in Texas.

Speaker 8 I swear to God.

Speaker 88 I got lucky on that one.

Speaker 61 If I'm surprised about anything, it's the fact that he was able to remain undetected.

Speaker 64 We would think that someone in his hometown would have known him.

Speaker 88 His first five were in Oregon. How many of those

Speaker 94 did either Hayden or Abby know about?

Speaker 88 Nothing.

Speaker 38 And now Abby's about to learn everything also.

Speaker 33 Scott Kat leaves the interrogation room and the next person in is Abby.

Speaker 25 She's also under arrest and the first thing she sees in that interrogation room is this whiteboard with the list of all the banks that her father robbed in Oregon.

Speaker 30 I saw on the whiteboard that he had wrote out some things but I'm sure it was more than that.

Speaker 2 It struck her the enormity of what her father had done and what he had persuaded her to be a part of.

Speaker 96 You know, he's always been there for me. He's been the only person that I have, so it was just like,

Speaker 96 okay, almost, you know.

Speaker 2 And even then, she says to the investigators, he's my dad, and I love him.

Speaker 97 I mean, how's your dad?

Speaker 97 I didn't know him until today. I mean, he's a pretty good guy other than what he got mixed up in here.

Speaker 97 Good father.

Speaker 97 So, I mean, a pretty normal and happy childhood.

Speaker 96 Normal, everyday kind of family, I guess.

Speaker 10 Despite the horrendous things that a parent can do to to a child, in so many circumstances, that child will still find a reason to believe in that parent and to make an excuse for that parent no matter what.

Speaker 96 I've trusted it my whole life and I just continue on to do so.

Speaker 95 In the position that I was put in, it was more like,

Speaker 98 why?

Speaker 95 I have to do it to protect my family.

Speaker 97 That if you didn't help them, then they would do it themselves and get arrested.

Speaker 96 Exactly.

Speaker 83 If there is a victim in a group of bad guys, she would be a victim.

Speaker 63 He didn't approach her initially.

Speaker 64 He used Hayden to convince Abby to go along with the plan to rob Banks.

Speaker 92 What exactly did they ask you to do to help?

Speaker 98 Just drive. Okay.
Drive. When you say drive, I mean like...
Like, get away, drive.

Speaker 96 The getaway car? Yeah.

Speaker 97 Did they ask you to do anything else?

Speaker 96 No, never. And no.
Not once.

Speaker 10 She's being made to believe, ah, it's nothing. You're just driving the car, kiddo.

Speaker 95 You just

Speaker 95 said it. I mean,

Speaker 34 we need a getaway driver to drive.

Speaker 96 Because we're going to rob a bank.

Speaker 91 Yeah.

Speaker 10 But what anyone knows who follows crime and justice is that you could just be the passenger in a getaway car and still be equally responsible to anyone who's inside that bank.

Speaker 65 Did it seem like Abby was comfortable in her role as getaway driver?

Speaker 17 Absolutely not.

Speaker 6 I know that it was only the influence of me and my father that pushed Abby to that.

Speaker 46 I don't think anybody in their right mind would really understand how you get your children involved. I mean getting your two children involved in robbing banks with firearms.

Speaker 98 But it made you feel better when they told you the gals were banks.

Speaker 91 Um yeah.

Speaker 95 I mean of course just knowing that you don't get hurt.

Speaker 92 Until they told you they weren't real, you thought they were real, right?

Speaker 91 Yeah.

Speaker 36 Did you ever think that your dad would get hurt, or Hayden would get hurt, or they might hurt someone during this?

Speaker 3 Honestly, no.

Speaker 30 No, I don't think they would hurt anyone, and I don't think anyone would hurt them, but that's not true.

Speaker 47 But

Speaker 97 it shouldn't come as a big surprise for you that you're going to have some legal consequences.

Speaker 96 No, no, it's not. No, I don't.
I understand that.

Speaker 69 Now, both of these kids are facing big trouble and big prison sentences.

Speaker 45 At the same time, Scott is starting to scheme.

Speaker 65 He's trying to get them to do more time so that he can do less time.

Speaker 5 Why don't you read something for me? This is your letter to Abby, by the way.

Speaker 5 Where did you get this?

Speaker 26 Now they're only indicted for their second robbery in Texas that heist at the first community credit union. How many sins must I confess?

Speaker 33 And they're facing five to 99 years in prison.

Speaker 85 Texas, like most states, has an accomplished liability law. If you intended to be part of the robbery, you can be charged with the exact same crime as the person who was at the center of it.

Speaker 74 Now these are kids from a middle-class family, and now they're in this Texas jail. Hayden and Abby's lives are already completely changed.

Speaker 6 I never thought about jail or any of the repercussions from walking to the bank. This has been life-shattering for me.

Speaker 41 And I feel like now I've lost my mom and now I've lost my dad because

Speaker 9 most parents don't do that so.

Speaker 4 No, parents are supposed to keep you away from trouble.

Speaker 41 Yeah, that's hard to

Speaker 41 deal with and to grasp on to.

Speaker 37 It's 2013 and I sit down with Scott Katt for a series of interviews for 2020 while he's awaiting trial.

Speaker 22 Scott?

Speaker 63 A little more to your right, just a little more.

Speaker 22 Everybody good?

Speaker 26 What I'm struggling with is how your kids got involved, how they are sitting in jail right now.

Speaker 57 Is that a mistake?

Speaker 32 Is that an error in judgment? Or is that just...

Speaker 61 What is that?

Speaker 3 It's all of the above.

Speaker 104 You know, it's probably an error in judgment on all of us,

Speaker 2 especially my partner.

Speaker 90 You're sacrificing your children for your own needs.

Speaker 90 So are we looking at some sort of a narcissistic personality, antisocial personality, borderline personality, maybe a combination of all of those things?

Speaker 2 When I went to interview them, Scott said, I would only rob banks for my family.

Speaker 10 He wants you to believe that everything he does is in the interest of the entire family unit. That is really a bunch of baloney.

Speaker 10 This was in his blood. This guy possesses an addict's brain and a sociopath's soul.

Speaker 45 What would your mother have said about all of this?

Speaker 6 It probably never would have happened if my mother was here.

Speaker 32 What would Beth say, your first wife?

Speaker 25 What would she say about you dragging your kids into, as you said, your sex?

Speaker 8 I can't even imagine.

Speaker 8 Can't even imagine.

Speaker 31 I'm just, I'm really ashamed.

Speaker 85 You would expect that a father who's convinced his kids to join in a bank robbery would, after they get caught, say, look, I'll take the heat.

Speaker 85 And that's how he starts.

Speaker 5 If you were offered a deal where you had to spend 25, 30, 40 years in prison, In exchange for both of your kids going free, would you take it?

Speaker 104 For them going free?

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 58 What about life in prison?

Speaker 8 Sure.

Speaker 85 But as time goes on, he starts talking to them about what they can do to help him.

Speaker 26 And even though all three of them are locked up in the Fort Bend County jail, they're all in separate cell blocks, and the only way they can communicate is by handwritten letters.

Speaker 58 Now at this point, Abby's lawyer gives us letters that Scott sent his kids.

Speaker 57 Now, apparently, he was trying to encourage his kids to do hard time so that he can do less of it.

Speaker 37 A month later, Scott, how are you? I speak to Scott again. This time, I'm allowed to be face-to-face.

Speaker 53 All right, we're all in.

Speaker 5 Why don't you read something for me?

Speaker 5 This is your letter to Abby, by the way.

Speaker 5 Where did you get this?

Speaker 81 We wrote this to Abby.

Speaker 32 As long as you, Abby, are ready to do some time, I think it will better my chances, I hope. Here, you aren't asking her essentially to do time for you.

Speaker 104 Yeah, I was trying to manipulate. I'm trying to get something for you.

Speaker 31 For you.

Speaker 104 I'm trying to get everybody something that they can live with.

Speaker 13 You told me that you would be willing to spend life in prison in order that your kids do not spend time in prison.

Speaker 13 You got your kids involved in this, and you're asking them to do time for you.

Speaker 32 It says it right here.

Speaker 13 I do believe that you doing prison time will be good for me, and I know that wasn't an easy choice for you.

Speaker 104 And that's what she said to me in the previous letter, that she was willing to do that.

Speaker 13 Wouldn't most parents say, I will take the entire blame here.

Speaker 104 I would love to, but they have so much evidence on everybody that what

Speaker 104 are we supposed to do?

Speaker 69 Again, it seems like Scott is manipulating his kids and us.

Speaker 56 He encourages Abby to talk more about his addiction and his dual life.

Speaker 33 Why does he do that?

Speaker 45 To gain sympathy.

Speaker 13 You tell your daughter.

Speaker 10 So if and when you do your interview, exaggerate about me, tell them I led a dual life involving drugs alcohol and women and we connect with them a little haha it was a joke i was joking around everything that he was doing and telling them was all for the sake of himself for his own image

Speaker 103 he has done research on what would make them have a better story to sell so being a drug addict

Speaker 90 Being an alcoholic.

Speaker 103 Your audience would look at that and excuse it and and maybe feel sorry for him.

Speaker 13 You clearly told your kids to manipulate us,

Speaker 13 just like you were manipulating them.

Speaker 104 I wanted to get some sort of

Speaker 104 wow, some sort of

Speaker 104 movement on my case.

Speaker 104 I was going to do anything to get that.

Speaker 86 I'm just so angry about what this dad did to his children.

Speaker 11 Angry as I am at Scott Cat, there was a moment I broke down in tears. And that is when, against all the rules, the sheriff allowed Hayden and Abby to see each other.

Speaker 87 The serial bank robber who disturbingly recruited his own son and daughter to help him during a string of holdups has learned his fate.

Speaker 85 Scott would have almost certainly been convicted at trial. He was facing up to 99 years.

Speaker 11 He would have been convicted on all counts and got got a maximum sentence.

Speaker 50 He did a very smart thing taking a plea deal.

Speaker 92 But how do you plead for the offense?

Speaker 94 Are you pleading guilty freely involuntarily?

Speaker 94 I hereby find you guilty of the offense of aggravated robbery, which is a first-degree felony.

Speaker 84 Ronald Scott Catt took a deal to avoid trial and the potential of life in prison. He was sentenced to 24 years behind bars.

Speaker 61 After the sentencing, a reporter asks Scott about the impact that his actions have had on his kids, and he seems to get genuinely emotional.

Speaker 89 They're pretty strong.

Speaker 93 They'll be fine. It won't be easy for them, but they've worked hard.

Speaker 102 They know how to do it.

Speaker 10 Hayden Kat took his own plea deal and was sentenced to 10 years behind bars.

Speaker 4 What do you expect prison life to be like?

Speaker 8 Hell.

Speaker 6 As close close to hell on earth as you can go.

Speaker 10 Abby took a plea deal for five years behind bars.

Speaker 63 How do you plead for the offense?

Speaker 19 Five years for an aggravated robbery conviction is a good deal for her.

Speaker 51 It's clear that prosecutors and the judge believed she was the least culpable of the three.

Speaker 6 It breaks my heart that ultimately I'm the one that sent my sister to prison.

Speaker 77 Do you think that you two can be close again after this?

Speaker 6 Oh, this will never come between me and my sister.

Speaker 45 And she forgives you?

Speaker 6 I haven't asked her to forgive me.

Speaker 40 I think that

Speaker 6 the possibility that she might not is too scary a thought for me to think about.

Speaker 54 If your father were right here, Hayden, what would you say to him?

Speaker 6 You know, I'd tell him that I forgive him

Speaker 6 and that I don't want him to carry this burden around with him for the rest of his life.

Speaker 65 And his sister tells me she feels the same way.

Speaker 45 It is what your dad did to you. Is that forgivable?

Speaker 41 I've forgiven him.

Speaker 42 You've forgiven him.

Speaker 18 I have to forgive him.

Speaker 52 And so I can start to live a normal life.

Speaker 9 I don't want hate, anger, and any of that in my heart.

Speaker 26 Now the three of them, father, son, and daughter, are in the same jail, but they're separated.

Speaker 38 And for Abby, who tells me that her brother is her best friend and her soulmate, being separated from Hayden is devastating.

Speaker 16 I think we both hate to see each other in this situation.

Speaker 8 And there's just nothing we can do for each other.

Speaker 41 You know, I just

Speaker 40 feel like I can't help him, and I

Speaker 48 can't comfort him, and

Speaker 53 that makes me sad.

Speaker 45 Okay, I want to show you something.

Speaker 13 So as we're sitting there interviewing Abby, we've got a surprise for her.

Speaker 13 Okay.

Speaker 58 So.

Speaker 18 Boom.

Speaker 35 Just boom it.

Speaker 27 So you may notice something's happening.

Speaker 41 Yeah.

Speaker 69 Sheriff Troynells makes this unprecedented gesture.

Speaker 35 He's allowing Abby and Hayden to meet.

Speaker 45 This just doesn't happen.

Speaker 81 So

Speaker 4 with the help of the sheriffs,

Speaker 8 we asked if we might be able to

Speaker 4 bring Hayden in here for you to see him.

Speaker 50 If you're okay with that.

Speaker 50 I thought you might like that.

Speaker 6 So they're going right out and he's going to sit here.

Speaker 31 Look at that smile.

Speaker 45 How long has it been since you've seen him? Um

Speaker 41 since I've talked to him a year.

Speaker 26 Jailhouse rules are strict.

Speaker 76 Hayden is brought in shackled hands and feet and the rules say no touching.

Speaker 74 But Hayden and Abby just can't seem to help themselves.

Speaker 3 Abby.

Speaker 6 Are you doing okay?

Speaker 18 Yes. Okay.

Speaker 40 I'm just happy to see you.

Speaker 6 Yeah, me too. Happy, I'm sorry, okay?

Speaker 8 I don't blame you for anything.

Speaker 40 Just know that I love you forever.

Speaker 48 I love you too. I don't blame you for anything.

Speaker 8 Nothing.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 40 I don't want you to know that. Okay.

Speaker 41 We can see the future now, at least.

Speaker 53 Yeah.

Speaker 43 And it's going to be okay.

Speaker 40 And we'll get to be normal brother and sister again.

Speaker 8 Right.

Speaker 53 I love you.

Speaker 41 I love you too. Can I give him a hug?

Speaker 40 No, I can't hug you. No? No.

Speaker 6 It's gonna be a long time until I see you.

Speaker 41 I know.

Speaker 53 Oh, God.

Speaker 6 I know I can take care of myself, so I just worry about you, Abby.

Speaker 8 I'm fine. Okay.

Speaker 77 And then we get the sign from the sheriff.

Speaker 42 They can hug.

Speaker 40 You guys want to give each other a hug?

Speaker 43 The sheriff says it's okay.

Speaker 8 Really?

Speaker 33 It could be 10 years before they see each other again. And if you listen closely, that's the sound our mics pick up of their hearts beating.

Speaker 10 When I heard that heartbeat, I said to myself, please, please somehow let them move ahead and break the chains of that father and live to have happy lives.

Speaker 53 That'll be okay.

Speaker 40 I know.

Speaker 40 It's just going to be a couple of years until I I see

Speaker 40 it.

Speaker 46 When they asked me, is it okay for Abigail to hug her brother Hayden, I felt, why not? She needed that. They were kind of desperate souls there at that point in time.

Speaker 40 I don't want you to go.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 53 Thank you for the hug. I needed it.

Speaker 17 I know.

Speaker 6 All right, we're gonna have to come back.

Speaker 53 All right, happy, be strong, guys.

Speaker 40 I love you. Happy, I love you too.
I'll see you soon.

Speaker 8 Okay, bye.

Speaker 65 Allowing them to touch and hug that way

Speaker 90 I felt was in many ways the beginning of some sort of a healing there is a life thread between those two kids and even between the two kids and their father still

Speaker 11 you know how a lot of people see a program on television and they go oh that's so sad and then they forget about it

Speaker 9 That's not what happened.

Speaker 26 Turns out a 2020 viewer who actually works at the jailhouse saw the program.

Speaker 56 Tonight, on 2020, the unbelievable story of a father who turned his own kids into hardcore criminals saw Abby and decided to open up her heart and her house to her, taking her in after her sentence was up.

Speaker 34 Abby, this is your new house.

Speaker 22 Fairy tale ending, right?

Speaker 22 Not quite.

Speaker 11 Let me tell you something about the prison system.

Speaker 11 You do not want to end up in a Texas prison.

Speaker 11 The temperatures go up over 100. When they say hard time, they mean hard time.

Speaker 26 After their sentencing, Scott and Hayden are shipped off to a Texas state prison. And Abby was almost sent to state prison as well.

Speaker 11 But then, in a real act of mercy, Fort Bend County Sheriff Nels did something pretty incredible. He arranged for Abby to stay in the local jail.

Speaker 46 I just feel that she's more of a victim in this and I'm going to do my part to try to help see her become a productive member of society.

Speaker 10 So this was a really good break for Abby Kat not not to have to go to state prison and deal with hardened criminals.

Speaker 46 We had her enrolled in the GED program. She was learning how to sew.

Speaker 46 We were doing everything we could to set her up for success. It takes a little bit of time too to learn this, doesn't it?

Speaker 11 Yes, but I learned very fast. And we get a lot done in here.

Speaker 10 I don't think it's every day that you see a sheriff intervene and say, listen, have some mercy here.

Speaker 46 Can I check your work?

Speaker 46 to go out on a limb for a double bank robber that never happens so here's a a second chance another opportunity for you and i think so

Speaker 33 so uh make me proud while you're here

Speaker 22 all right all right very well thank you

Speaker 100 I've been here for just over two and a half years.

Speaker 52 Since the last time you saw me, a lot has changed.

Speaker 12 Emotionally, I'm doing a little bit better and I have become a better and stronger person in here.

Speaker 83 Abby apparently had no visitors while she was in jail.

Speaker 83 But her aunt and grandmother traveled from Oregon to the jail in Texas to visit Abby and that's the first time they have seen her in three years.

Speaker 78 It was so emotional seeing Abby.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 78 I had so much hope for her and all I could do was just give her a big hug and tell her how much we loved her. Oh, I love you.

Speaker 26 But this visit is also a cause for celebration because Abby learns that she got parole and that means she's going to be released in just a few months.

Speaker 20 Do you know how lucky you are?

Speaker 34 Yes. Okay.

Speaker 46 You've been given an opportunity here that many others don't ever get to start a new life.

Speaker 74 Abby's new life on the outside is going to start with a woman she met on the inside, a volunteer sewing teacher named Susie Gregory.

Speaker 34 See how you?

Speaker 83 Now Susie Gregory is a married mother of two grown sons and she watches the original 2020 piece. I believe he feels remorse but he's still going to have my best interest through all of this.

Speaker 83 Becomes very emotional about it and she was open enough to try to give Abby a second chance.

Speaker 34 We watched the 2020 show and I said this is just wrong. She should not be in jail for this and I just felt like God put me in that sewing room for Abby.

Speaker 34 I couldn't balance robbing banks, driving a getaway car, with the sweet little girl in the jail. They didn't equate.
There's something wrong with that equation.

Speaker 34 I said, how would you feel if I would find some in our church that would be willing to take take you in when you got out? She said, well, could I meet them first?

Speaker 34 And I said, well, I was kind of thinking about Steve and I. And she said, oh, I would love that.

Speaker 18 Thank you.

Speaker 41 You know.

Speaker 10 It's pretty extraordinary that a volunteer sewing teacher at the county jail finds it in her heart to open her home to Abby. gives you hope about the human race.

Speaker 46 To put herself out there to try to help Abigail, just incredible. Not anyone would just do that.
It's an amazing story.

Speaker 46 Abigail Kat will be released today and it's an exciting time for her.

Speaker 41 So this is a big day.

Speaker 40 A new beginning.

Speaker 60 Go ahead.

Speaker 8 Well,

Speaker 8 two years and ten months.

Speaker 46 I walked her out of the facility and told her, you have a second chance. I believe I even told her not to let me down.
I put myself out there for her, like several other people did as well.

Speaker 46 I gave her my phone number, said, Abby, call me anytime.

Speaker 43 I feel great. I'm ready to go.

Speaker 59 It was the first day of the rest of her life.

Speaker 78 She had people who really cared about her. She had a plan to go to college.

Speaker 78 She really wanted to do the right thing.

Speaker 50 So, who are you calling now?

Speaker 3 Everybody, everybody.

Speaker 34 Time to go home.

Speaker 83 The idea that Susie took her in, there's a certain risk with that.

Speaker 3 Yay, we're home.

Speaker 30 Finally.

Speaker 34 Abby, this is your new house.

Speaker 3 And here's your room.

Speaker 12 Make yourself at home.

Speaker 83 It's not uncommon for people like Abby to get out of jail and in a short period of time, stumble.

Speaker 78 Abby did well after being released from jail. And then I think her demons started to creep in.

Speaker 11 Abby's future looked so bright.

Speaker 11 It didn't work out that way at all. And I put the blame squarely at her father, Scott Katz's feet.

Speaker 6 In your wildest dreams, did you think that within a year you'd be back in doing time?

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 17 Audiences and top critics are celebrating.

Speaker 62 Rental Family is the perfect feel-good movie of the year.

Speaker 8 What do you need me for? We need a talking white guy.

Speaker 62 Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser delivers a masterful performance.

Speaker 6 This girl needs a father.

Speaker 18 I hate you.

Speaker 63 She hates me. It's worth being a parent.
Yes.

Speaker 62 In this tender and funny film about the importance of connection.

Speaker 8 This is amazing.

Speaker 31 It's cool, but it's fake.

Speaker 70 Sometimes it's okay to pretend.

Speaker 62 Rental Family, now playing Molney in theaters. Ready to PG13, may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Speaker 101 An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaker 49 Mom Talk started as a sisterhood, and that's gone to flames. New secrets and lies are coming out.

Speaker 24 This is going to be catastrophic.

Speaker 45 We're biting for our marriages, and the girls are just putting us through hell.

Speaker 49 They make everything about themselves.

Speaker 12 I can't.

Speaker 24 Hopefully, this doesn't end in a bloodbath.

Speaker 101 Watch the Hulu original, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers.

Speaker 79 Terms apply.

Speaker 36 It's been years since I've last seen Abby. And, you know, the last time we saw her, we thought that things were looking up.
Well, it didn't turn out that way.

Speaker 100 The last time we saw Abby, she was walking into a loving home.

Speaker 11 with everything mapped out for her to start all over again.

Speaker 26 Take me back to 2015.

Speaker 54 What was it like living with Susie?

Speaker 12 It was amazing in some areas.

Speaker 52 In other areas, it was so different.

Speaker 42 What was different about it?

Speaker 52 Some of kind of some of the rules and...

Speaker 42 She just came from jail.

Speaker 32 Could any rules be any worse than in jail?

Speaker 9 Right, but I didn't want any rules.

Speaker 34 Our number one requirement was that she attend church on Sunday morning. We said school night, you really need to be in by 10 o'clock because you're going to have to get some homework done.

Speaker 34 On the weekends, you need to be home by midnight.

Speaker 8 Those were our rules.

Speaker 34 And she just started not coming home at all at night or coming home at two or three in the morning.

Speaker 7 My problem was that the only people that I knew were the people I had met in that, in the jail.

Speaker 52 I'm bored. I need someone to hang out with.

Speaker 7 And slowly that kind of takes you down the wrong path.

Speaker 36 Where did this wrong path lead you?

Speaker 9 You know, maybe there was a little drugs involved here and there. Just ripping and running.

Speaker 34 After Abby was not coming home for several days on end, we told her we would change the locks if she didn't come home. She didn't.
So we changed the locks.

Speaker 86 I would say in the end, I just left.

Speaker 34 It was really hard.

Speaker 34 I really considered Abby to be the daughter of my heart. We let her see a family that cared for each other, that didn't rob banks.

Speaker 34 But

Speaker 34 it just seems like the the more I reflect on it, I feel like she just wasn't ready for it.

Speaker 90 People think leaving prison, hallelujah, you're out, you're free, it's a new life, but people don't understand that's a whole different set of challenges trying to reintegrate back into society.

Speaker 10 Abby ends up in Laredo, Texas. She gets a job driving a pilot car for wide loads.

Speaker 2 Laredo is a border town 150 miles south of San Antonio. Thousands upon thousands of trucks go by there every day.

Speaker 58 And that's where you met Ricardo Gonzalez, right?

Speaker 40 Yeah.

Speaker 58 A little eye roll there. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Why?

Speaker 52 Because I'm just gonna say he's just not a good person.

Speaker 83 When you look at Ricardo's rap sheet, which is really quite long, one after another arrests.

Speaker 58 He's got convictions for theft, aggravated robbery, terroristic threat of a family.

Speaker 30 We all hung out and partied. And

Speaker 53 can I ask what that means?

Speaker 60 Because I'm tired of age.

Speaker 28 I don't even know what that means anymore.

Speaker 30 Partied, you know, there's well, obviously, alcohol and maybe some cocaine and you know, some weed, stuff like that.

Speaker 52 Whatever. I don't have another choice.

Speaker 41 You know, that's kind of how I felt.

Speaker 52 Oh, I don't have another choice.

Speaker 11 We'll see where this goes.

Speaker 26 Where did it go?

Speaker 7 Jail.

Speaker 35 It's 1:30 a.m.

Speaker 57 in August 2016, and Abby goes with Ricardo Gonzalez to a Stripes gas station in Laredo.

Speaker 53 I was high, passed out.

Speaker 59 I had parked at the Stripes while he was going to put gas in the car and I ended up falling asleep right away.

Speaker 54 What happens?

Speaker 52 Next thing, I was woken up by the police knocking on my window.

Speaker 30 Pulled me out of the car and onto the ground and handcuffed me.

Speaker 12 So they say, do you realize that he's over here robbing people in the store?

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 12 they said,

Speaker 8 no, I didn't realize that. I'm sorry.

Speaker 37 She ends up in the car with a guy who allegedly holds somebody at gunpoint.

Speaker 11 Well, that's clearly a parole violation. Clearly, she's back in trouble again.
Come on.

Speaker 75 Wow.

Speaker 86 Deja vu.

Speaker 14 All over again.

Speaker 83 Ricardo pleads not guilty to aggravated robbery and his trial is scheduled this fall.

Speaker 10 Abby is never indicted for the holdup at the gas station. However, she has violated her parole.

Speaker 68 She had not been regularly reporting to her parole officer for the previous crime, and she gets held in this jail for over a year.

Speaker 4 When you're sitting in that jail in Laredo, Did you think about Sheriff Nels and, you know, you had promised him that you'd stay on track?

Speaker 28 Of course.

Speaker 36 Didn't that go through your mind?

Speaker 9 Of course. And not just him, but

Speaker 30 everybody that was involved.

Speaker 12 And myself, too.

Speaker 52 I was disappointed in myself, just as much as everybody else was disappointed in me. But it's always better to be in jail than it is to be dead.

Speaker 4 Did you ever think growing up that that's the kind of thing that you would say to yourself in your head?

Speaker 77 It's better to be in jail than being dead?

Speaker 9 Oh no,

Speaker 59 I would always say I would never go to jail.

Speaker 73 What happened was reality.

Speaker 90 It's not an easy fix, but going back to a behavior that is inappropriate is really just part of the long healing process.

Speaker 38 The person who has set all of this in motion, Scott Kat, declined to do another interview with us.

Speaker 57 But Abby says that she has visited him in prison and still forgives him.

Speaker 52 I think sometimes I blame myself.

Speaker 59 more than him.

Speaker 77 But he invited you to go on a bank heist.

Speaker 52 I know he loves me.

Speaker 52 I know he loves me as his daughter. So it's hard sometimes to really get what happened.

Speaker 42 How often do you think about your brother?

Speaker 59 Every day.

Speaker 8 Every day. Yeah.

Speaker 30 Both of them every day.

Speaker 9 I'm definitely waiting on them to get out.

Speaker 77 If you could send a message to Hayden, what would you say?

Speaker 30 I love you.

Speaker 6 Anything else?

Speaker 53 No, just I love you.

Speaker 41 Waiting on him to come home for sure.

Speaker 8 Waiting on Hayden to come home.

Speaker 8 I just want him to be okay when he gets out because I know how hard it was for me.

Speaker 59 Just worry about him because he's really got to be strong when he gets out.

Speaker 8 He has no idea. He has to be so strong.

Speaker 12 Life out here is just different from in there.

Speaker 26 Light after our interview with Abby, we got a chance to bring her together again with Sheriff Troy Nels, who tried tried so hard to help her after her first arrest.

Speaker 26 I want to have an opportunity to say a few things to her.

Speaker 8 Now turning into the small road that leads to this prison in the middle of looks like prairie land.

Speaker 27 It's been about six years since I last saw Hayden.

Speaker 2 He had just taken a plea deal for a 10-year prison sentence.

Speaker 77 And I'm here to see how he's doing behind bars.

Speaker 51 Aiden. Hey.

Speaker 64 Hey, how are you? Good. How you doing?

Speaker 51 Good. You're looking good.

Speaker 42 Thank you. Very tan?

Speaker 6 Been working outside. Feel good.
How's things?

Speaker 17 I'm great, actually.

Speaker 40 Really?

Speaker 26 Yes, sir. I mean, last time we spoke about almost six years ago,

Speaker 26 you said that you expected prison to to be as close to hell on earth as anything you can imagine.

Speaker 27 Doesn't seem like it's been that.

Speaker 8 Not at all.

Speaker 17 You know I came in here very lost, very broken.

Speaker 6 And here I found a piece that was missing. I found a faith, a faith in Christ.
I feel more free and I feel more alive in here. than I did out in the world.

Speaker 6 And I see now that I was basically the walking dead out there.

Speaker 58 You know, in many ways your father was with you but abandoned you.

Speaker 33 Still, the last time we spoke, you were pretty forgiving of him.

Speaker 13 Do you feel the same way now?

Speaker 40 I do.

Speaker 6 You know, I think that he did the best job with me and Abby that he could.

Speaker 8 He lost his way, that's for sure.

Speaker 36 Have you been in contact with him?

Speaker 6 Usually every week, due to our letters.

Speaker 51 What do you talk about?

Speaker 6 I think that he's found the same faith and redemption that I have here as well.

Speaker 41 Do you really think he's changed?

Speaker 40 I do.

Speaker 42 What about Abby?

Speaker 45 Have you kept up with your sister?

Speaker 6 You know, I don't hear from Abby as much as I would like to, but I love her so much. And I can't wait to show her what these six years have meant to me.

Speaker 27 Do you think that Abby can turn her life around?

Speaker 22 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 The best thing that we have right now is we're both young and we've learned huge life-shattering lessons at a young age. I really feel like it's put us ahead of our peers.

Speaker 19 You feel like you're ahead of your peers? Absolutely.

Speaker 6 So in the next three years, I'll be going home and I can't wait for it. I'm going to attack life with everything I got.

Speaker 61 As for Abby's future, there is big news in her life.

Speaker 76 She's now 25 years old and she went to work in a fish processing plant. There, she met her now boyfriend, Trenzel, and they're now expecting a baby.

Speaker 8 Look at that!

Speaker 8 It's amazing.

Speaker 40 Do we know the gender?

Speaker 52 The boy. I'm six and a half months pregnant currently with my first child.

Speaker 12 Everything changes once you find out you're pregnant, but you can't be selfish anymore, that's for sure.

Speaker 8 I think she's gonna be a very wonderful mother.

Speaker 3 Too easy, probably.

Speaker 59 I don't go to the store to buy myself things anymore.

Speaker 12 I go to the store to buy him things, and that feels so awesome.

Speaker 8 That's cool.

Speaker 37 We had a chance to reunite Abby with the sheriff who helped her years ago.

Speaker 60 Can I give you love?

Speaker 46 I just want to see a bright future for you.

Speaker 105 I just wanted to tell you, I thank you for everything that you have done here.

Speaker 60 Obviously, I let a lot of people down, and you know,

Speaker 105 I apologize to you if I thought it was embarrassing to you.

Speaker 8 I learned from it all, and I came out a stronger woman, and I thank you for believing in me then and believing in me now.

Speaker 38 Abby's aunt has invited Abby to live with her once her baby's born.

Speaker 45 You seem to have had so many chances, right?

Speaker 45 With Sheriff Nels, with Susie.

Speaker 4 What makes you think it's going to actually be different this time?

Speaker 41 My son and my relationship.

Speaker 41 Those are two things that I can't lose.

Speaker 53 So

Speaker 40 that's it.

Speaker 45 You're saying the stakes are too high this time?

Speaker 41 Yeah, I have too much.

Speaker 52 There's two people that need me.

Speaker 52 You start to put your life into perspective and like the person you are and the people you want to be around.

Speaker 30 And

Speaker 12 now we just have our son and he's going to be with us.

Speaker 52 And that's all we need.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. We hope you'll join us Friday night at 9 on ABC for all new broadcast episodes.
See you then.

Speaker 67 It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at Whitehouse Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

Speaker 51 I know there's going to be a twist, won't they? A massive twist.

Speaker 63 At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

Speaker 67 I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker.
Find it now in the In the Dark podcast feed.