The staff of the John Deere Employees Credit Union in Waterloo, Iowa, one-hundred thirty miles northeast of Des Moines, signed a commemorative book for Layton Stump on the afternoon of July 21, 1983. The office manager was leaving to take a similar position in Birmingham, Alabama. Most of the notes were brief words of well-wishes, but the message left by one worker struck Layton as somewhat odd.

Thirty-six-year-old branch manager Steve Hadley had written “Layton, going from the known to the unknown will be an uneasy but exciting feeling after so many years. Leaving is hard, giving up so much. But like the poets said, leave not with a whimper, but with a BANG! – Steve.” The final line, a paraphrasing of the end of T. S. Eliot’s 1925 poem “Hollow Men,” was probably directed to Hadley himself more than to Layton.

The following day, over $1.1 million was determined missing from the credit union’s vault. Camera footage showed trusted employee Steve Hadley loading the money into three large white cardboard boxes and carrying them out of the building; before departing with the third box, he smiled into the camera and waved.

The money with which Hadley had absconded was untraceable, and authorities could not trace his trail until five years later, as a pioneering television program proved to be his Waterloo.

Steve Hadley

Steve Hadley had worked for the John Deere Employees Credit Union for ten years. He normally managed the company’s Waterloo northeast branch, but he had volunteered to work at the main office while the head teller was on vacation. As the acting head teller, he had access to the facility’s vaults and was in charge of ordering the cash reserve for the upcoming payday.

Hadley was uptight throughout the day, and he became particularly distressed when the money was not delivered when scheduled. When the couriers finally arrived at approximately 4:00 p.m., he insisted on signing for the money, counting it, and putting it in the vault.

Putting His Plan In Motion

At about 4:20 p.m., teller Vickie Ehlers entered the vault to inform Hadley of a problem with the pneumatic tube at her drive-up window. As she did so, she saw him doing paperwork and noticed the money was stacked on a counter next to the vault; she thought this unusual but presumed it was his way of counting the cash.

Hadley was irritated about being interrupted, but he took care of the malfunctioning tube.

Vickie Ehlers 

When teller Alice Waterman entered the vault approximately an hour later, she saw no money on the counter and presumed it was in the vault. As she saw Hadley appearing to work on the balance sheet, she thought it odd that he did not have many numbers written down. She asked if he was having problems with the totals; he assured her he was not.  Alice then retrieved an item from another vault. Had she gone into the next set of vaults, she would have seen that they were devoid of money.

After the credit union closed at 5:30, the tellers tallied their day’s totals. One found she was off by approximately $6,200. As she and Alice tried to find the error, they noticed Hadley’s hauling three large boxes out the back door to the parking lot behind the credit union.

Alice Waterman 

Another teller, Carolyn Clausman, opened the door for the appreciative Hadley. He told her and the other tellers the boxes were filled with supplies for his branch’s office. Because he had transported office materials between the two branches on previous occasions, no one questioned him, even though these boxes were noticeably larger than the ones he had normally used.

Carolyn Clausman

Hadley’s wife Kathy had driven him to work that morning. He had told her he had to go an overnight business trip that evening and would take a cab to the airport.

The following morning, Kathy was awakened by a phone call from her husband. He told her to look for a letter under his t-shirts in their bedroom dresser. Before Kathy could get any more information from him, he hung up.

The letter read in part: “Kathy, This is a very difficult letter to write. But I couldn’t let you find out from someone else first. If I call you to read this letter, it means I have successfully left the state with around $1 million from the credit union. I started to fantasize about how easy it would be to get so much money. It has become a game to come up with ideas about how to do it and cover my trail. I don’t expect you to understand what is compelling me to do something this drastic.”

Another passage read “Kathy, I’ve been a failure about being a man, a husband, and a father at home. Plus, the rumor is each of the managers will take a part of the position I wanted. That leaves me dead-ended after ten years of hard work. At least I got even. I’m really sorry about the publicity you and the kids will have to endure, but I’m afraid I’m losing my sanity. I’m sorry I took this way out, but I haven’t had any experience at being a man lately. Steve.”

In addition to being angered over not getting a work promotion (Layton Stump’s position), and no longer wanting to accept his responsibilities as a husband and father, Hadley, though expressing love for Kathy throughout much of the letter, said he was upset about being “dominated” by her.

Hadley said he planned to fly to New York.

Hadley Had Had Enough

Kathy told her father, Jim Youngblut, of the letter. He immediately phoned Layton Stump, who rushed to the building. Upon opening the main vault, he found it empty.

An audit determined $1,136,000 missing, principally in denominations of $20, $50, and $100 bills. (In several newspapers articles, the amount is listed as $1,128,000 or $1,186,000.)

Layton Stump

John Deere Employees Credit Union Manager

Between 4:30 and 5:35 p.m., the vault camera recorded a clear picture of Steve Hadley putting the money into the three large boxes, as opposed to the vault, and then carrying the boxes out of the credit union’s back door to a parking lot.

The FBI became involved in the investigation of the theft because the John Deere Employees Credit Union was federally insured by the National Credit Union Association. They determined Hadley had planned the theft.

After arriving at work on the morning of July 21, Hadley was found to have ordered $911,000 in cash. It was a Friday, the day of the week when the most money was ordered because it was the day company employees were paid, but the amount ordered was still far greater than what was generally ordered.

Hadley then made two phone calls, one to Waterloo’s Colwell’s Auto-Mart to reserve a rental car, and the other to book an evening flight to Los Angeles. In both instances, he used the name Robert J. Johnson.

Over his lunch break, Hadley picked up the rental car and then drove to a local department store where he purchased two large wheeled Samsonite suitcases and a chestnut brown wig. Upon returning to work, he was found to have tampered with one of the computerized balance sheets, throwing off the cash accounting system for the day, and to have concocted a fake balance sheet.

After hauling the three boxes into his rental car parked behind the credit union and saying goodbye to his coworkers, Hadley, under the name Mitchell Fitz, checked into a Waterloo motel where he is believed to have transported his pilfered loot into the two suitcases; once filled, each would have weighed approximately seventy-five pounds. He then drove to Waterloo Municipal Airport, from where he took a 7:30 Midstate Airlines flight to Chicago, not New York, as he had said in his letter to Kathy.

The rental car was later found in the airport’s short-term parking lot. Inside, police found the wig, two $10,000 currency wrappers, four of Hadley’s identification cards, a K-Mart sack with a receipt and an empty wig box labeled “Coquette 6 chestnut brown”, an Ardan store receipt for the two suitcases, a third suitcase bearing his initials “SRH,” eighteen keys on a ring, a car rental agreement, and a Waterloo airport parking claim check. Both K-Mart and the Ardan store were located in the Crossroads shopping complex in southeast Waterloo, less than three miles from the Credit Union office.

From Chicago, investigators were unable to track Hadley.

Over the following few months, Hadley periodically called Kathy to inquire about her and their children, and his parents, Corwin and Thelma; he never provided any suggestion of his whereabouts. He also mailed his kids several gifts, many of which were postmarked from Colorado. The calls and mailings were reported to police, but they could not trace them to a specific location.

In that same time period, Hadley had also phoned William Dion, one of the FBI Special Agent’s involved in tracking him. The fugitive talked of surrendering, but he ultimately did not do so.  Within the year, all contact from the fugitive ceased.

In November 1983, four months after her husband fled, Kathy Hadley was granted a divorce and awarded custody of their children, eleven-year-old Jennifer, seven-year-old Michael, and one-year-old Christopher. She also received the couple’s home, its furnishings, and the rest of their personal property.

Hadley stayed hidden for nearly five years before being located on April 25, 1988, in part from publicity generated by Unsolved Mysteries preparing to air a segment on him. He was living in Friendswood, Texas, a bedroom community of southern Houston, under the name Richard Glenn Finley, found to be the name of a deceased two-day-old Houston infant born in February 1947, near Hadley’s birthdate. He had obtained a driver’s license using that name on August 23, 1983, one month after fleeing.

 

Hadley Hauled In

As Richard Finley, Hadley had obtained a private pilot’s license from Houston’s Aero Academy and had married his flight instructor, Roxy Alden, in April 1984, nine months after the theft. He had told her he was originally from Minnesota and had made substantial money in investment banking.

Roxy was born in Mason City, Iowa, and was raised near Klemme, a small rural town one-hundred-five miles northwest of Waterloo, but she had not lived in the Hawkeye State for many years and was not familiar with the theft. Several months after getting married, the newlyweds had flown to Klemme so Roxy’s parents, Eldridge and Gladys, could meet their new son-in-law. They also were evidently not familiar with the case or did not recognize their daughter’s new beau as the thief.

Roxy Alden

Shortly after tying the knot, the couple purchased a house in Friendswood. Neighbors said the man they knew as Rick Finley was friendly and sociable, and, ironically, was active in the neighborhood crime watch program as he had donated a couple of dirt bikes to the local police so that they could patrol the nearby park. While appreciative, they soon grew suspicious of the new resident.

Finley’s two flashy cars, a Ferrari and an Alfa Romeo, stood out in the modest neighborhood. Suspicions grew even larger after police found he had no apparent source of income and had paid cash for both vehicles, $61,000 and $34,000 respectively, and had written a check for his $70,000 home

Acquaintances said the new man in the neighborhood said he had hurt his back, implying he was living off disability, but he was living an active lifestyle, often seen jogging and biking, and he had taken several ski trips to Colorado. In all of these activities, he showed no signs of any physical discomfort.

“Richard Finley’s” Friendswood, Texas Home

Further investigation found that three different birthplaces were listed on Richard Finley’s marriage, drivers, and pilot’s licenses. Largely because of the latter license, local police suspected he may be involved in drug trafficking. On several occasions, they sifted through his garbage, but found nothing indicating any sort of nefarious activity. On one occasion, he and Roxy caught them looking through their trash, but the officers convinced them it was part of an investigation into a former neighbor and that they were seeing if any current neighborhood residents were corresponding with him.

The Texas Department of Safety later became involved in the Richard Finley investigation, but they also failed to find anything suspicious.

Hadley Had Aroused Suspicions  

In preparation for his upcoming profile on Unsolved Mysteries, the FBI mailed wanted flyers of Steven Riley Hadley to law enforcement departments nationwide in April 1988. It was only then that Friendswood police learned the real identity of their mystery man.

The FBI had not suspected Hadley was in Texas; they believed he was in Colorado because that was from where he had mailed the gifts to his children. Hadley told them he had done during his and Roxy’s ski trips to the Rocky Mountain State.

The Publicity Pays Off

Hadley agreed to tell authorities his motivations for the theft, how he had orchestrated it, and of his path to nearly five years as a federal fugitive. He confirmed he had planned the robbery for months and echoed the sentiments he had conveyed in his bon voyage letter to Kathy, saying he was having problems at home and was angry with the credit union brass after again being passed over for a promotion.

After flying form Chicago to Los Angeles, Hadley then flew to Dallas under the name Mark Stone. One week later, he purchased a car and rented an apartment in Houston. In the Lone-Star State, he made a couple of mistakes that could have led to his demise.

In Dallas, he purchased a 1978 Triumph and automatically gave his named as “Hadley” when asked. The salesman, however, wrote it down as “Hatley.”

After obtaining his pilot’s license in Houston, he had, again without thinking, listed his actual birthplace of Eldora, Iowa.

Hadley’s Route To A New Life

Over time, Hadley began depositing the money, never more than in $5,000 increments, into several bank accounts under different names. He later funneled approximately $900,000 of his pilfered loot through Natrivina Trading Corporation, a dummy corporation in Panama which he had paid C.A. Jacquimins, an international financier he had met through Roxy, $15,000 to establish. This money was converted into stocks and bonds. He revealed another $30,000 was in the ADN International Branch in Miami under the corporation’s name.

Hadley had approximately $8,000 in a Houston savings and loan money market account. He and Roxy had a joint-checking account; only approximately $2,000 was in it when he was arrested.

Hadley Tells All . . . 

On June 10, 1988, Steve Hadley pled guilty to three felonies: two counts of interstate transportation of stolen goods and one count of making a false statement on a passport application. Under the plea agreement, charges of falsely obtaining a social security card and a pilot’s license were dropped.

On August 11, Hadley was sentenced to thirteen years in prison, ten years for the theft and three years for transporting the money across state lines. The sentences were to be served concurrently. He was also given five years’ probation, fined $5,000, and was ordered to make restitution to the John Deere Employees Credit Union and to pay taxes on the stolen money. It was also required that any book or movie royalties he may receive would go to repaying the interest on the stolen money.

The two-year sentence for obtaining a passport under a false name was suspended.

And Is Sentenced

Steve Hadley was initially incarcerated at the Federal Corrections Institution, a minimum security prison near La Tuna, Texas, twenty miles north of El Paso. Shortly after beginning his sentence, Roxy Alden filed for annulment of their marriage.

In 1990, Hadley was transferred to a federal prison camp in El Paso and then to the New Directions Halfway House in February 1992. He was paroled seven months later.

Following his release, Hadley married a woman named Elaine and resumed living in metropolitan Houston, settling in Spring, in the northern section of Texas’ largest city, forty-five miles north of Friendswood.

Articles state he eventually returned $875,000 of the $1,136,000 he had stolen.

Released

Sometime before his commission of the theft, Steve Hadley had attended a fraud seminar in which he had learned how identities and documents of deceased infants were often obtained. Following the theft, he searched the archives and found the records of a Richard Glenn Finley, who had died two days after he was born in Houston on February 12, 1947, near Hadley’s birthdate.

Applying the information he had learned in the seminar, Hadley obtained a copy of the baby’s birth certificate, a social security number, and a Texas driver’s license under that name, and thus began his new life as Richard Glenn Finley.

 Hadley Corrupted

SOURCES:

• Des Moines Register
• The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
• Houston Chronicle
• Houston Post
• Los Angeles Times
• Unsolved Mysteries
• Waterloo Courier
• UPI