Helicopter pilot involved in 1984 bank heist dies in jail

PALO PINTO, Texas (AP) - Editor’s note, March 18, 2018: The Leesville Daily Leader was the first newspaper in the nation to report on the arrest of James Richard Little stemming from the February 1984 robbery of Leesville’s Merchant & Farmers Bank. Information from those original reports was used in this story in connection with Little’s recent death at age 73 in the Palo Pinto County Jail.

A decorated Vietnam War veteran infamous for helicopter-aided bank heists in the 1980s died March 13 in the Palo Pinto County Jail.

James Richard Little, 73, was arrested on Thursday, March 8 on suspicion of stabbing a motel clerk after trashing his room in Mineral Wells, Texas.

Little reportedly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his military service. Palo Pinto County jail officials speculated that this may have caused his rage and attack that week at the local Budget Host Inn.

Little’s attack left a member of the family that owns and operates the business with cuts to his hand and stab wounds to his abdomen. The victim was flown to a Fort Worth trauma center for a brief stay.

According to reports, Little threatened to kill the victim and his mother and cut off their heads. He came at the victim with a knife outside a room he had heavily damaged. There, Little cut and stabbed the man before police arrived.

During a short standoff, police attempted to talk Little out of the room. Eventually they saw an opportunity to force their way into the room overtaking Little and taking him into custody.

Little was taken to the county jail where he awaited formal charges and arraignment for Second-Degree Felony Assault with a Deadly Weapon. Before those charges could be made, Little died Tuesday night after eating dinner due to a “major medical episode,” Sheriff Brett McGuire told WFAA-TV.

A highly decorated helicopter gunship pilot during the Vietnam War, Little and four accomplices in February 1984 stole a helicopter in Galveston and used it to rob Leesville’s Merchant & Farmers Bank of $160,000. The men were dressed as police officers armed with machine guns and high-powered rifles.

The helicopter was later abandoned in an Oklahoma field, reports say.

The five men also committed airborne bank heists in Valley View, Texas, and Overton, Nevada.

According to court documents, Little’s attorney during trial for the robberies implored the court to “temper its judgment with the recognition that Mr. Little’s actions were the result of the inner struggle and despair of a man who has yet to make peace with himself and his past.”

As written by Howard Swindle in his book about Little, the system saw him as a “whacked-out Vietnam veteran, a cop-gone-bad who combined the expertise from both professions to hold up banks.”

Little was sentenced to 25 years.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Little was released from prison on July 25, 1994.

Three-time Pulitzer winner author-journalist Swindle tells in his book “Once a Hero” of a song called “The Ballad of the Leesville Five” about the the Merchant & Farmers Bank robbery. The song, written by a Shreveport man and recorded by his brother, reportedly included a rumor that the robbers missed by just a few hours an armored car containing $12 million in Army payroll cash.

A second helicopter robbery conducted by the same five men took place in July 1984 at Valley View National Bank, in Denton County, Texas, in which $163,000 was taken.

A later robbery by plane in Nevada led to their arrests when one of the suspects dropped a prescription bottle with his name on it, according to reports. They had also left behind a bag of their equipment. An ink pack and smoke bomb hidden in the bank bag with the loot went off inside the plane.

Swindle writes in his book that, while in the El Reno federal prison, Little planned to have his girlfriend, Linda Joyce Harris, of Mineral Wells, assist him in breaking out.

They planned for her to smuggle a submachine gun into the prison first, then she would hijack a helicopter.

He intended to “open fire on guard towers” when the helicopter arrived, and they would make an escape from there.

This plot was uncovered and Harris was arrested and charged for her role in the plot which included another inmate and his girlfriend.

Harris pleaded guilty to a Conspiracy to Aid Escape charge in October 1986.

Little served time in Leavenworth for the attempted prison break.

The four other men involved in the robberies were Russell R. Kelly, released on April 26, 1989; William J. Gross released on July 7, 1989; Russell E. Auzston, released on July 5, 1995; and Marvin A. Rodgers, released on Feb. 13, 2008.

Rodgers, an Anchorage gun dealer, is the only one of the five who refused to plead guilty.