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A fugitive turns herself in after 12 years
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Heather Tallchief: I was instructed to. I was under strict orders and I carried them out.
And so here was the crux of Heather’s story— the one thing she wants the world to believe: He made her do it, and bewitched her with his spiritualism, and forced her to act.
Heather Tallchief: He was extraordinarily devout in his beliefs. He was really, really sincere and faithful and pious, if you will.
She wanted to be like him, she said, wanted him to be proud of her.
Heather Tallchief: I was in awe, if you will of him. And I loved being a part of this belief system and this world.
And every day, before she went to work, she says he played videotapes for her..
Heather Tallchief: A man’s voice came in. And then the tape would go into a colorful swirl. And the voice would count from ten to one. Then I’d wake up. The tape would be finished. I believe he manipulated and influenced my mind for his own means. That’s how this evolved.
Heather says he was using the tapes to hypnotize her.
Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: But did they instruct you to do anything in particular? The tape?
Heather Tallchief: No. But when you’re not consciously aware, anything could be suggested to you.
Keith Morrison: You have no idea what was suggested to you when you were watching those tapes, though, do you?
Heather Tallchief: I basically don’t remember anything other than the countdown and waking up.
And so, on October 1, 1993, it happened.
Heather Tallchief: I woke up one morning and he had some instructions for me. And I was to drive my vehicle from Circus-Circus to a place that he had mapped out on a little bit of paper, and he made me memorize it.
She must drive the truck loaded with its $3 million dollars out of the parking lot, said her instructions, drive down the street, and there, she’d see a sign.
Heather Tallchief: “Armored car servicing.” And I would drive my van into it. And he was there waiting.
It was the warehouse Solis had rented.
Heather Tallchief: He told me, get out the cab. I got out the cab. The first thing he asked for was for my gun. I gave him the gun.
She says he told her to hurry up, get the money out of the truck.
Heather Tallchief: And he said it a little bit differently than that. “Hurry the f*** up.” And, you know, “get a move on.” I could see he was in a panic. I did what I was told and I hurried up, especially as he had my gun.
Then, she says, he barked at her: to change her clothes, put on a grey wig, colored contact lenses.
Heather Tallchief: He opened up the trunk of his car and he pulled out a wheelchair. “I want you to sit in this now.” He ordered me to be sick. Pretend like you’re an old lady and be sick and do it now and hurry up. And they wheeled me over to a small plane and they helped me get into it.
Morrison: While all of this was going on, how did you feel?
Heather Tallchief: I think I was absolutely devoid of feeling.
It hadn’t yet hit her, she says, the gravity of her crime. Heather Tallchief had committed armed robbery and now crossed state lines. It was a federal case now. But she says she had no idea.
Heather Tallchief: It just didn’t register—the magnitude. I wasn’t thinking about money, I was thinking, “Holy sh**! What am I doing in this plane?” I’m thinking, “Oh my god, this guy’s a maniac. Nuts. He’s evil.”
Morrison: But up until that moment, you had never had that thought about him, had you?
Heather Tallchief: No. Up until that moment, I absolutely worshiped him. I would have given my life for him.
Morrison: What did you or he or both of you do with the money? Cause you didn’t take it with you on the little plane, did you?
Heather Tallchief: No. He put them into brown cardboard boxes. Very big. The kind you would use for moving.
Moving boxes, crammed with stolen cash, which were shipped to a secret location to be retrieved later.
Heather Tallchief: I was following strict orders and I was doing them faithfully. It was very mechanical, very druid-like.
Morrison: Surely you were aware of the fact that you had just lifted a whole bunch of money from somebody and that you were in a heap of trouble.
Heather Tallchief: Yes. So what do you do?
Morrison: What do you do?
Heather Tallchief: Well, you certainly don’t holler and make yourself noticeable.
Morrison: What would have happened if you had hollered, “Hey, police, I’ve just been forced to do something I didn’t want to do and now I’m scared.”
Heather Tallchief: I was told that the authorities would shoot me dead on the spot. And the only way I could have a chance of surviving was to listen to him and follow his instructions.
And so they flew from Las Vegas to Denver, but there her story is interrupted by her attorney, Bob Axelrod.
Bob Axelrod, Heather Tallchief’s attorney: There’s a little time span of a couple of months there that I need to use in other ways that I just can’t allow her to talk about at this moment.
What we can say is that soon, both Solis and Heather were in Amsterdam, living off the stolen money, which she says he controlled.
...And then about a year later, a turning point: Heather discovered she was pregnant with Roberto’s child, and never felt so trapped in her life.
Heather Tallchief: I almost felt like I don’t feel like I want to live anymore. I got to get away, ‘cause I wanted to have the opportunity to at least have this child.
And so, Heather tells us, two months after the baby was born, she fled.
Heather Tallchief: As soon as I could I took my opportunity and I walked away.
Morrison: Were you afraid he’d try to find you?
Heather Tallchief: Yeah.
Morrison: Did he?
Heather Tallchief: No.
Morrison: Did he look?
Heather Tallchief: I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since then.
She says she only took pocket money and some jewelry with her. Two years after the so-called perfect crime, she had a baby, no job, no money, no name.
And so she compromised herself.
Heather Tallchief: You’re going to do instinctually what you have as a mother and that is to go out there and do what you need to do.
Morrison: How’d you feel about that?
Heather Tallchief: Indifferent. It was a job like anything else. So there you go.
Then, she says, she managed to get a job as a hotel chambermaid, under an assumed name, she used a fake accent, so she wouldn’t sound American.
Morrison: Would you recommend the lifestyle to anybody?
Heather Tallchief: Only to a fool. No. I’m not proud of this. This is not a great thing to do, to become a fugitive, to run away, to lose your family, to lose contact with every single person you’ve ever known and loved.
And that, of course, is the real reason Heather Tallchief has come to see us, the reason her lawyer arranged this secret meeting:
After all these years, she has decided it’s time. She is going to stop running and she is going to turn herself in.
Morrison: Couldn’t you have just continued your life on the lam for the rest of your life? Rather successfully?
Heather Tallchief: Oh yes.
Morrison: Well, why not?
Heather Tallchief: Because you get very tired of running. This is not a life, because I have been assuming something else that’s not my life. If you’re living in a prison mentally, then what is a box, a room, restricted privileges? It’s nothing compared to what I’ve already been through. I’m truly feel like I’m setting myself free.
Which begs the question, how did this fugitive get back into the U.S.? Her lawyer will only tell us she arrived by plane.
And returning meant leaving her now 10-year-old son behind, in Amsterdam, with the man Heather says has become her real partner in life, and the only father figure her son has known.
Morrison: Why have you decided to do this?
Heather Tallchief: Well, it’s the right thing to do. I also have a little boy I’m thinking about. I’m doing this for him. I feel that by turning myself in and surrendering, I can give him a better life, one that he deserves.
Morrison: He doesn’t have a real name right now?
Heather Tallchief: No, he doesn’t.
Morrison: Doesn’t have a country.
Heather Tallchief: He doesn’t exist basically.
And so the decision was made. There was no turning back now. Heather will return to Las Vegas to surrender, and we were there to see it happen.
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