Scenes from the armed robbery of the Xerox Federal Credit Union.Photo:U.S. Attorney’s Office
U.S. Attorney’s Office
The takedown was masterful.
For 13 years, authorities had searched for the elusive gunman who walked into the Xerox Federal Credit Union on the corporation’s sprawling upstate N.Y., campus on Aug. 12, 2003, wearing women’s sunglasses and an ill-fitting wig, and shot two people before absconding with $10,000 in cash.
Doud survived. Raymond Batzel, of Rochester, 51, did not — and how his case was solved is the subject of next Monday’s episode ofPeople Magazine Investigates:Titled “Mahhunt,” the episode airs Sept. 25 at 9/8c on ID and streams on Max. (An exclusive clip is shown below.)
Raymond Batzel with daughters Carrie (left) and Shannon (right).Courtesy Batzel Family
Courtesy Batzel Family
No one will ever know what really happened in that fatal moment, “but the kicker part of this is that my dad was hard of hearing on his left side,” Raymond’s oldest daughter, Shannon Batzel, tells PEOPLE. “So he probably didn’t hear him say, ‘Get down.’ It infuriates me.”
Xerox Credit Union Robber.FBI
As employees and customers screamed, the gunman jumped into his car and in a flash, was “in the wind,” says retired FBI Special Agent Peter Ahearn. “He disappeared into thin air.”
At the time, Shannon and her younger sister, Carrie, then 15 and 13, were in California visiting their aunt, uncle and cousins when they learned their father had been killed.
“My body was just moving on autopilot," says Shannon. “I knew things had changed forever.”
But no one knew that the brutal murder that ended her father’s life would become a complicated investigation riddled with fits and starts that took more than a decade to solve.
Immediately after the shooting, authorities launched a massive manhunt but were unable to find any sign of the gunman. All they had were grainy photographs of a man wearing a mish-mash of a disguise including a fake FBI raid jacket and a U.S. Marshals badge and folded-up umbrella he left at the credit union.
Xerox Bank Robber.FBI
“But we didn’t know who it belonged to,” says Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Gregory.
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Knowing Wilbern was a solid lead, investigators dug deeper into his past. They learned he’d been convicted of a 1980 bank robbery and for the illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun in 1987.
Down on his luck and earning only $3,000 a year, the single father also needed money to help pay for his son’s pricey private school.
With so much adding up about Wilbern, investigators needed to get a sample of his DNA.
“But,” says Fleitman, “we didn’t know where he was.”
Investigators didn’t need to look very long. Three weeks after the press conference, Wilbern called the FBI, claiming he’d been the victim of an eviction scam.
“The timing, it was almost unbelievable with him calling in and then him being in town to come in for an interview in person,” says Fleitman.
Catching a Killer
Under the guise of hiring Wilbern as a paid source, Fleitman and Jasie invited him to the FBI office, hoping he would leave a DNA sample on the bottle of water they offered him.
When he drank from the bottle, they were elated — until Wilbern let his one-year-old son he’d brought to the meeting take a sip from it.
The lab didn’t want to use that sample, so they had to start anew.
“Seth says, ‘What if we have him put the documents in an envelope and then seal the envelope?’" Jasie recalls.
Wilbern came to the office, signed the documents and licked the envelope, sending it to the lab for testing.
Richard Wilbern.
“I knew it was going to be a match,” says Jasie.
It was. The DNA from the envelope matched the DNA found on the umbrella the gunman carried into the credit union the day of the shooting.
On Sept. 27, 2016, they brought Wilbern back to the office and made the stunning arrest. On Nov. 8, 2019, after a five-week trial, Wilbern was convicted of murder and robbery.
Fleitman and Jasie say they were happy they were able to get justice for the family. “There are no words to describe how good it felt to help that family get some closure on this part of their life,” Fleitman says.
On Sept. 22, 2020, Wilbern was sentenced to life in prison.
Shannon, her family, and Raymond’s mother and brothers and sisters were pleased with the sentence, but still miss the man who always made them smile.
“He loved his Buffalo Bills and he loved the Rhino soccer team,” says Raymond’s older sister, Diana Batzel Powers. “He would even schedule everything around these games.”
As for Raymond’s wife, Sharon, a former nurse, and his three children, the conviction doesn’t make up for all the milestones and moments they missed with him.
Raymond and Sharon Batzel.courtesy Batzel family
courtesy Batzel family
Carrie, now a realtor, is married with two children. Shannon, a married stay-at-home mom, has two sons and a stepdaughter. Their stepbrother, Jeremy Thomas, Raymond’s son from a previous marriage, lives in Colorado.
“I think about my father every day as my kids play,” says Shannon. “I can see my dad throwing them all up in the air and playing with them and being the best grandpa that he could be.
“It hits you. My son, Jackson, he got my dad’s blue eyes and his blonde hair. It reminds me a lot of my father."
“It took a while,” she says, “but we finally got justice.”
People Magazine Investigates: Manhuntairs Sept. 25 at 9/8c on ID and streams on Max.
source: people.com
