Cops Robbed a Bank in 1983 — 34 Years Later, a Mechanic Makes a Shocking Discovery | HO!!!!

DETROIT, MI — In the early spring of 2017, Calvin Ricks, a Detroit mechanic, set out to repave the floor of a derelict garage he’d just purchased for scrap. He expected rust, rot, and the slow work of reclamation. What he found instead would unravel a secret buried for decades—a secret that would finally answer one of Detroit’s most perplexing unsolved crimes: the notorious 1983 First Dominion Bank robbery.

The story begins not with a gunshot or a siren, but with the dull, persistent pounding of a jackhammer against cracked concrete. Beneath the warped floor of a forgotten industrial hanger, Calvin unearthed a rusted steel hatch—sealed, unmarked, and untouched for over thirty years. What lay below would force the city to confront the darkest corners of its own history.

An Accidental Discovery

Ricks, 45, had purchased the abandoned salvage yard in Detroit’s Eastern Industrial Belt with practical intentions. The buildings were collapsing, the land blighted, but the scrap value was high. The centerpiece of the property was a battered steel-frame hanger, its floor buckled by years of frost and neglect. Calvin intended to repave and install new equipment, so he started breaking up the concrete, section by section.

On the third day, a slab near the northwest corner gave way, revealing the hidden hatch. The hinges, fused by rust, took a crowbar and mallet to open. Below was a narrow concrete shaft and a bolted metal ladder, descending into darkness. Expecting perhaps an old utility bunker, Calvin grabbed his flashlight and climbed down.

He found himself in a small, reinforced chamber—no windows, no ventilation, no lights. The air was thick with dust, but the contents were unmistakably deliberate: military duffel bags, crates sealed with padlocks, and a shelf lined with boxes and tools. Most chilling of all, there were authentic Detroit Police Department uniforms from the 1980s, decommissioned police radios, and two firearms—one a corroded semi-automatic pistol, the other a sawed-off shotgun, both tagged with faded evidence markers.

On a shelf, Calvin found a plastic tube containing rolled-up blueprints. When he opened them, he saw the unmistakable floor plan of a bank—vault schematics, emergency exits, and handwritten notations in the margins. The name stamped at the bottom: First Dominion Bank.

The Forgotten Crime

The First Dominion Bank heist of late 1983 was, at the time, the most sophisticated robbery in Detroit history. The vault was emptied in a nine-minute window—no alarms triggered, no witnesses present, no forced entry. The only clue was a series of technical malfunctions: the alarm system, fully functional days prior, had inexplicably gone offline; surveillance tapes were missing; and a false bomb threat across town had diverted police patrols at the critical moment.

Internal investigators suspected an inside job. But despite months of inquiry, no suspects were ever charged. The case went cold, and the city moved on.

A Crime Scene Reborn

Within hours of Calvin’s discovery, Detroit police and then federal agents had cordoned off the yard as a crime scene. Forensic teams descended into the chamber, cataloguing every item. The tools, specialists soon determined, were not for auto repair—they were custom-fabricated breaching devices, designed to silently defeat the specific locks used in 1980s bank vaults. The uniforms, radios, and firearms were all authentic, their serial numbers traceable to police inventory from the era.

The blueprints were the smoking gun. They matched archived city records for the First Dominion Bank’s original layout, down to the vault measurements and staff access routes. The notations—timed arrows, door clearances, margin notes—revealed an intimate knowledge of both the building’s structure and its security routines.

The Trail to Corruption

As investigators pieced together the evidence, a pattern emerged. The tools and blueprints weren’t just relics—they were proof of meticulous planning by someone with access, authority, and technical expertise. Attention quickly turned to the Detroit Police Department’s own ranks during the early 1980s, specifically a now-defunct tactical unit that had both the skills and the opportunity.

Serial numbers on the radios and uniform insignia led to a shortlist of former officers. One name appeared again and again: Stanley Picket, a senior officer who had overseen the initial response to the 1983 robbery. Picket had retired suddenly six months after the case stalled, then reinvented himself as a respected civic leader in Detroit.

Further investigation revealed that Picket had signed off on several questionable conclusions in the original case: the decision not to pursue internal suspects, the unexplained surveillance failure, and the closure of leads pointing to insider involvement.

Untangling the Conspiracy

As the evidence mounted, federal agents reopened the cold case. They traced the ownership history of the garage itself—a maze of shell companies, nominee agents, and suspicious property transfers dating back to 1985. The chamber, investigators concluded, had been constructed ahead of time as a staging ground for the heist and then sealed off, its existence erased from public records.

Other names surfaced in the investigation: Ronald Beck, a communications technician who had access to police radio and alarm systems; James “Jim” Mallerie, an operations coordinator who vanished from public records in the late 1980s; and Leon Trenton, a breaching specialist who resurfaced in Arizona under an alias. Beck died in 1996, but Trenton was tracked down and arrested in Tucson after fingerprint evidence from the chamber matched his old service file.

Financial records revealed a complex laundering operation: shell companies, pawn shops, and auto repair businesses used to funnel and clean the stolen money. Properties changed hands in quick succession, often at inflated prices. The proceeds of the robbery, investigators concluded, had been hidden in plain sight for decades.

The Evidence That Broke the Case

The most damning evidence against Picket came from the blueprints themselves. Forensic handwriting analysts matched the margin notes to samples from Picket’s personnel files. A partial fingerprint recovered from one of the tool cases matched his service record. Even Picket’s original alibi—attendance at a city event the night of the robbery—collapsed under scrutiny, as records showed he had canceled at the last minute via a handwritten note matching the blueprint annotations.

Confronted with the evidence, Picket refused to cooperate. He denied everything, called the investigation a political attack, and hired a high-profile criminal defense attorney. Before he could be charged, Picket suffered a massive stroke and died in hospital five days later, taking the full truth with him to the grave.

A City Confronts Its Past

With Picket dead and Beck confirmed deceased, only Trenton faced trial. He was convicted in federal court of conspiracy, money laundering, and use of false identity. The final suspect, Jim Mallerie, remains missing to this day. His last trace was an abandoned car found in Ohio in 1988.

The revelations sent shockwaves through Detroit. Picket’s name was quietly removed from city memorials and civic awards. The police department made no public comment. For residents who remembered the original heist, the sense of closure was incomplete—justice, delayed and only partly delivered.

The Man Who Broke the Silence

Through it all, Calvin Ricks, the mechanic whose jackhammer had cracked open the city’s oldest secret, declined interviews and offers to profit from the story. Instead, he worked with the city to convert the salvage yard into a vocational training center for at-risk youth. The underground chamber was sealed forever, buried beneath a new concrete slab, its past locked away.

Epilogue: Secrets Don’t Stay Buried

The First Dominion Bank robbery was once considered the perfect crime—a mystery no one could solve, a secret hidden by time and the silence of those entrusted to protect. But in Detroit, as in every city, the truth has a way of resurfacing.

Sometimes all it takes is a jackhammer, a cracked floor, and someone willing to look beneath the surface.