The return of the fugitive

Keith Morrison Correspondent • Profile

Dylan Eaton lives a life that might seem to some like a fairy tale. He’s a happy 11-year-old living on the other side of the world, in a place known for its storybook windmills and beautiful canals. But like many boys his age, Dylan dreams of being someplace else.

Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: If you could live anywhere you wanted to live in the world, where would you go?

Dylan Eaton: America.

Morrison: Really.

Dylan Eaton: Yeah. It’s like more stuff happens there. It’s more exciting.

But Dylan’s own story is so exciting—it is difficult to believe. But although he has never been, America is where Dylan’s story begins.

The story Dylan’s mother and stepfather told him late last year was a fantastic one, far different from what he’d always been told. Dylan learned he is not who he thought he was—and that his mother isn’t either—and was hiding a secret past wilder than even a young boy could imagine. 

Morrison: How did they tell you?

Dylan Eaton: They brought it up like time by time they told me a little.

Morrison:  What did you think about it?

Dylan Eaton: First I was a little bit shocked. But then when I knew the whole story, I knew my mom was innocent.

FREE VIDEO Dylan’s story In an exclusive interview, Keith Morrison learns the rest of the story from the two people who know it best -- the woman who lived it, and the child who now knows the secret of his life. Dateline NBC

Innocent? Of what? Dylan was confused and shocked, as were so many other people who had known his mother for years. To all of them, she was Donna Marie Eaton, a doting mother who worked in a small hotel in the Netherlands. Meredith Kirkwood was one of her closest friends.

Meredith Kirkwood: I know her as a fabulous mother to Dylan, who’s just great. You know, and she always put him before herself.

Ellen Dworkin worked with Donna for six years, thought the world of the cheerful chambermaid who took such pride in her work and her little boy.

Ellen Dworkin: She was a good friend. And a very gregarious, very open.

Then, after a moment, she adds…

Dworkin: I guess there was a mystery about her that I was always curious about.

But no one would have guessed that the real Donna, the doting mother, hard-working chambermaid, and good friend was actually a prominent name on an FBI most wanted list.

Kirkwood: I was just kind of completely shocked. I mean it  took your breath away for a minute. You were just like, ‘No, that can’t be. That’s not the right person.’

The story they would hear made no sense. It begins in Las Vegas, before Dylan was born. Back then, in the early ‘90s, Las Vegas was going through a kind of identity crisis. It was the family friendly phase.

But on one sunny, clear, quiet morning on the strip, what was about to happen was a dark version of the Vegas fantasy.

It was over before most gamblers were even awake.

A perfect crime: In broad daylight, it pulled off by a mysterious woman.

What would unfold was a story of sex, magic, money and murder that made the movies look tame.

The heist
The tale begins on October 1, 1993, a Friday. Courier Scott Stewart and a partner jumped into the back of a Loomis armored truck loaded with weekend cash for casino ATMs.

Morrison: How much money was in the back of that truck?

Scott Stewart, then-Loomis courier: Approximately 3.1 million.  It was a large size van, full size van. It filled from about a third of the way from the front of the vehicle all the way to the back.

With them was a relatively new driver — a 5 foot 10 inch beauty named Heather Tallchief. 

Keith Morrison: Do you remember anything unusual about that particular day?

Stewart: The shoes that she was wearing, they weren’t the normal shoe that she would wear to work. She would wear more of a rugged work boot-type thing because she knew she was either gonna be on her feet all day or driving all day. And that particular morning, she had a dressier shoe on. At the time, we just thought maybe she was going out to dinner or something after work and needed to get changed quick.

It was about 8:00 a.m. when the armored van driven by the woman in the dress shoes pulled up to the Circus Circus, the first of the Friday stops. It was chockfull of cash to keep ATMs going over the weekend.

Stewart: Fridays were normally our busiest day because obviously we’re preparing the casinos along the Strip for the busy tourist weekend.

Morrison: So there would be more money?

Stewart: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Stewart and his partner picked up the first of the money bags and walked out of the truck into the casino. Heather’s job was to pick them up about 20 minutes later.

Stewart: It was basically like a point A to point B type where we would start at one ATM and just work our way through until we got to the last one. And at that last one was the exit to where Heather was supposed to pick us up.

Morrison: So you got to the end of that run?

Stewart: Got to the end of the run and no truck.

No truck... and no Heather Tallchief. Her job, in part, was to watch the couriers’ backs. Stewart and his partner waited, and waited, and began to worry.

Stewart: Is she okay? Did she get lost? But then you start thinking about, could she have possibly gotten in an accident?

Stewart and his partner, stranded at the casino, placed a worried call to the office.

Stewart: Another armored vehicle came to pick us up. And from that point, we just started doing a sweep for the vehicle. Given the technology of the time, there was no tracking, there was no GPS, basically all we had was a radio. So we were trying to do radio contact with her and there was nothing.

Morrison: Were you afraid she may have been kidnapped?

Stewart: Oh, absolutely. Anything could have been possible.

Police were called. Larry Duis was a sergeant back then.

Morrison: What did you think had happened to that truck when it was first reported to you?

Larry Duis, Former Las Vegas police sergeant: We had no idea. I was mystified and it was really a head shaker. What do you do with a truck?

And then the FBI got involved. Joseph Dushek was the case agent assigned.

Joseph Dushek, former FBI agent on the case: We asked them to pull the surveillance video for the Casino and saw that she was in the vehicle alone when it drove off. 

Morrison: Was that a eureka moment for you?

Dushek: That was, uh, pretty astounding.

Heather Tallchief and the armored van had vanished with $3 million neatly stacked in the back. It was now looking more like a robbery than an abduction— one of the largest armored vehicle heists in Las Vegas history.

Stewart: The reason why that truck was so special is because we had nothing but cash.

Morrison: So, if you’re gonna steal a truck, yours was the one to steal.

Stewart: Ours was the one to take.  She did it right.

Morrison: Did you think right off the bat somebody else had to be involved?

Dushek: It would be pretty hard for one person to come off with the whole plan and carry it off by themselves. 

Tallchief, and whoever was helping her, had simply vanished.

Then, a much-needed lead: a limousine driver in Colorado had picked up an unusual couple from the Denver airport. Dushek backtracked, checked for flights out of Vegas—there were 1,800 a day at the time—and found a pair of charter pilots who remembered a strange couple as well.

Then, a much-needed lead: a limousine driver in Colorado had picked up an unusual couple from the Denver airport. Dushek backtracked,  checked for flights out of Vegas. There were 1,800 a day at the time and he found a pair of charter pilots who remembered a strange couple as well.

Dushek: One of them recalled taking the couple from Las Vegas to Denver.

Morrison: Did he say anything about their demeanor or what they looked like?

Dushek:  He remembered that she appeared in a wheelchair as an elderly woman.  The male was like a doctor. They took only two small packages.

And then, a slip-up— perhaps the reason those charter pilots remembered that one couple:

Dushek: When they landed in Denver and got up to exit the plane and meet the chauffeur, I recall the pilot told our agents up in Denver, “A miracle has happened, she can get up and walk now.” 

Tallchief, disguised as an elderly woman, simply stood up and walked from the plane to the limousine and left the wheelchair behind.

But by the time the FBI agents discovered where the fugitives went once that plane landed, they were gone, again.

And then, finally, a break. Two weeks after the robbery, they found the armored van. it was stashed in a warehouse space rented by Heather’s boyfriend, who had told the manager he was in the business of repairing armored vehicles— a good cover story to ward off suspicion should anyone see an armored van drive in. Inside the van were more clues.

Dushek: Her clothing, a weapon, and boxes to mail things. And some of the money.  They didn’t take all of the money.

Morrison: How much did they leave behind?

Dushek: It was packages probably like a thousand dollars in a package and there were several of these things probably too bulky to ship.

Someone experienced had to be involved. Just who was that boyfriend?

Special agent Dushek got the name, and it rang all kinds of bells.  Heather’s boyfriend was Roberto Solis, a convicted murderer 27 years her senior was a man who knew how to disappear.

Morrison: What happens with a case like that? Do people just keep checking and checking and checking—but the trail goes cold? How does it work?

Dushek: The FBI kept it very active. We did everything we could to see if they would make a mistake and would suddenly pop up.

He took it hard, did Dushek, that one case he just couldn’t solve.

And he retired in 2001 without ever knowing why she did it. Was she used and then thrown away by a cold-blooded killer? And 12 years after the robbery, where are they? Who are they?

And what remarkable event was about to blow the case wide open?

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