It was a typical slow weekday morning, shortly after opening, and Jamie Nickerson and her colleagues at Veritex Community Bank took advantage of it to get caught up on some work when shouts rang out: “Give me all your [expletive] money!”
Nickerson, 40, stopped what she was doing and turned to see two men with bandanas covering their faces repeating their demand. One of them held a bag open while the other aimed a handgun at her. Before she could react, the gunman shot her.
The bullet smashed through her left femur and she dropped to the floor. All she remembers is stabbing, unbearable pain, and then more shots – “pop pop pop pop.”
Glenda Smith, another teller, was shot three times. One bullet ripped into her left thigh, breaking her femur; another struck her in the hip, shattering her pelvis. The last one tore into her right leg.
Brenda Gonzalez, sitting at a receptionist desk, was hit twice. The bullets shattered her elbow and fractured her ribs and vertebrae. She would lose her right kidney, and the other one was left severely damaged, according to court records.
Even the bag man couldn’t believe it.
“Then the next thing you know, pow, pow, pow,” Desmond Wells, 26, told detectives after his arrest. “I see the surprised look on their faces and I’m like, dang.”
Wells and the shooter, Blake Taylor, 25, ran out without getting any money. They would be captured a short time later, not far from the bank.
“In my 20 years working here…I cannot recall another instance where we had three of our tellers gunned down who were in such a helpless state,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Cole said during a court hearing in the case.
Nickerson’s account as told to The Dallas Morning News, along with court records and transcripts, provide chilling new details of how the botched robbery of a Fort Worth bank on July 19, 2018 forever changed the lives of the three women and their two assailants.
U.S. District Judge John McBryde sentenced Taylor to 45 years in federal prison in February. That is in addition to any prison time he gets for several unrelated state criminal cases pending against him, the judge ruled. His lawyer declined to comment.
Wells was found incompetent to stand trial and remains in federal custody. Prison officials recently asked to keep him for another 120 days for matters related to his “mental status,” court records show. His lawyer could not be reached.
Taylor said during his sentencing that he “panicked” and had not intended to shoot anyone. “I never handled a firearm before,” he said.
‘In and out job’
Such unprovoked violence during bank robberies is extremely rare, law enforcement experts say.
James Ellis, a former FBI agent, said inexperienced criminals can easily lose it and start firing, especially if they haven’t received firearms training. “Ninety percent of them are scared to death,” said Ellis, who worked on the Dallas FBI’s violent crimes squad for 29 years.
Ellis said it appears that perhaps someone moved, and Taylor had “bad trigger control” and started shooting in a “full blown” panic.
In most cases, robbers hand notes to the tellers demanding money and then walk out with whatever cash they’re given. Professional criminals, Ellis said, will often burst in with guns drawn and use fear in a takeover-style heist to get as much money as possible. But either way, there’s no reason to shoot anyone who’s not a threat, he said.
“They’re trained to give you the money,” Ellis said about tellers. “It shouldn’t be a battle. You’ll get your money.”
Wells lived near Taylor in Fort Worth and the pair knew each other “since childhood,” court records show.
Taylor grew up in a home with a father who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and “the lingering effects of Agent Orange from his service in Vietnam,” his lawyer, Michael Lehmann, said during his sentencing hearing.
Taylor’s criminal behavior began when he was 15, court records show, and he’d only been out of jail or prison for “short periods of time” since 2009. His criminal history includes burglary, assault with bodily injury, and indecent exposure. He also has a pending charge in Tarrant County state court of selling cocaine, records show.
Wells has convictions for unlawfully carrying weapons, trespassing, assault with bodily injury, and selling cocaine, court records show.
Wells told investigators it was Taylor’s idea to rob the Veritex bank on Merrick Street.
“He said, ‘All you gotta do is just hold the bag, hold the bag, you stay in front of me,’” Wells told detectives. “It was an in-and-out job.”
Botched
Nickerson hadn’t been at the bank for a month when Taylor and Wells appeared at the door.
Originally from Brownwood, in Central Texas, she moved to Tarrant County in the fall of 2017 to be closer to her eldest son, now 20, who was attending college. Her two other sons are 7 and 12. In Brownwood, she worked at a local bank. Veritex took it over and she asked to be transferred to a Fort Worth branch.
In her interview with The News, Nickerson said she’d been in the vault, working on overnight deposits, when she heard the shouting. Her first thought was, “this has to be a joke.” She took a few steps toward the young men. Taylor opened fire at close range just as she was planning to head for her money drawer. “He shot me immediately.”
As the firing continued, Nickerson said she “scooted” across the floor for cover. With her adrenaline flowing, she wasn’t even aware of how much blood she was losing.
Gonzalez, who is in her 20s, knelt down in a defensive posture and was still shot, she said.
“I thought he wasn’t going to leave until we were all dead,” Nickerson said. “I thought I was going to die.”
She kept wondering if she’d done something to provoke them. A video of the shooting later confirmed she hadn’t.
“I wish he would have just let me give him the money and then they would have left,” Nickerson said.
Wells later told investigators he was confused when he heard the gunfire.
“Then I saw the first lady fall and I was like, ‘Hell no,’ ” Wells said. “I’m like, ‘Damn… I don’t even know if he’s gonna kill me or not.’ ”
It didn’t take long for police to arrest Taylor and Wells.
A witness who saw them run out of the bank wearing blue latex gloves thought it suspicious and took a photograph of the 2017 Fiat 500X they used to escape.
About 45 minutes later, police found the Fiat parked next to the home of Taylor’s mother, just a mile and a half from the bank. Officers arrested Taylor at the door. They soon found the Glock 9 mm handgun he used inside the house. Taylor admitted to the shooting, saying he and Wells tried to rob the bank because “they were broke,” court records show.
Taylor pleaded guilty in November 2018 to attempted bank robbery and discharging a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence. Lehmann called his client’s crime a “botched amateurish effort,” during the sentencing.
Aftermath
Nickerson said she will always have a metal rod in her leg.
She had to use a walker for months after her surgery. Even after physical therapy, her knees still ache when she climbs the three flights of stairs to get to her apartment. She must stretch the muscles in her injured leg often. She can’t run, jump or engage in other such activities.
“They took that from me,” she said.
Although her wounds have healed, Nickerson says she still suffers from psychological trauma from the incident that transformed her from an outgoing and trusting person to someone who is wary of people and always on edge; someone with posttraumatic stress disorder and terrible anxiety.
“I’m a nervous wreck all the time. I don’t trust anybody,” said Nickerson, who hopes to work again soon. “I always think something bad is going to happen.”
She doesn’t like to be around people or to go places. For a long time, she had nightmares and was unable to sleep. She still locks her car door as soon as she gets in. The anger has faded. No bitterness remains. But Nickerson feels Taylor did not express true remorse at his sentencing. She says she wanted to confront him but was too terrified.
Gonzalez did just that. She stood up and described her ordeal to the judge during the hearing, saying she’s still “incredibly afraid because of what happened to me.”
“In less than 10 seconds, he destroyed my life, attempted to kill me,” Gonzalez told the judge. “I’m half an inch close to going on dialysis for the rest of my life.”
She said she suffers from chronic back pain and post-traumatic stress disorder. Gonzalez also said she was in a coma in the hospital, where she spent almost a month.
“Now, exercising or simply walking on a daily basis becomes a huge ordeal,” she said. “The depression, because of the lack of understanding on how this actually happened to me, has been greater than the pain my body has suffered.”
Joy Offner spoke on behalf of Smith, her sister, who was unable to attend the sentencing. Smith’s life has been “torn upside down,” her sister said. She walks with a cane and is “scared every time she hears a loud noise,” Offner said.
“Not only is she crippled physically but mentally, really bad,” she said.