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CHRIS ARAGON

Chris came from a privileged background—his mother, Marlene Aragon, worked in Hollywood as voice talent, and she’d recently enjoyed a run on ABC’s Saturday morning cartoon Challenge of the Superfriends, voicing Wonder Woman’s feline nemesis the Cheetah. But he also had romantic notions of crime and criminals; on the wall of his condo hung a poster of the cover art from the Waylon Jennings album Ladies Love Outlaws. He took Albert in, and the two embarked on a series of bold, and mostly botched, bank robberies in the resort towns dotting Colorado.

The first robbery, at the Aspen Savings and Loan, started off well enough: Chris, wearing a blue and white bandana over his mouth to conceal his braces, pulled an Army-issue .45 automatic on the bank manager as he unlocked the door in the morning. He and Albert forced the manager inside, where they found a cleaning woman hiding under one of the desks, phoning the police. They left in a hurry.

The second robbery, at the Pitkin County Bank and Trust, was over before it even began. Chris’s partner hid in a Dumpster by the back door, planning to jump out with his shotgun when the first employees came into work in the morning. The plan was aborted when Chris, watching from across the street, saw a garbage truck pull into the alley to empty the Dumpster.

The third robbery was better planned. On July 22, 1981, Chris and Albert visited Voit Chevrolet in Rifle and declared they wanted to test-drive a new Camaro. The luckless salesman insisted on going with them, and when they cleared the town limit, Chris steered to the side of the road, and Albert pulled the salesman from the car at gunpoint. They tied him up with rope, gagged him, and left him in a field before peeling away in the silver sports car.

The next day at 4:50 p.m., Chris drove the stolen Camaro up to the Valley Bank and Trust in Glenwood Springs, where the town locals parked the cash they earned from a flourishing tourist industry. Chris himself was a customer there. He waited outside behind the wheel of the car while Albert walked in wearing tinted sunglasses and toting a leather briefcase.