Armored cars are some of the most expensive vehicles to manufacture and with good reason. They are used to transport large sums of money and are thus often the targets of robberies. The great monetary cost of bullet-proofing an automobile is done to protect the guards and to deter robberies. Yet, for all the money armored car companies spend on measures to deter thefts, they are largely still susceptible when the culprit is one of their own.

The daughter of a Seneca Indian father and Italian mother, twenty-one-year-old Heather Tallchief had been a respected volunteer nurse in San Francisco. She had plans to go to school to become a full-fledged nurse, but in the spring of 1993 those plans suddenly, and surprisingly, changed. Heather quit her job and her studies, saying she simply needed a change. She took a job with the Loomis Armored Car Company in Las Vegas. Company officials found nothing in her background indicating she was a risk.

Many people come to Las Vegas hoping to win money at casinos. Heather Tallchief, instead, took the money earmarked for delivery to the casinos. She stole approximately $3.1 million from the Loomis Armored Car Company . . . and she did it without wielding a weapon.

Heather Tallchief

On Friday, October 1, 1993, Heather and her two partners, Steve Marshall and Scott Stewart, stopped to refill the ATMs at several Las Vegas casinos. Their truck was carrying more cash than usual in preparation for the busy weekend.

The final stop was at an ATM near the side entrance of the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino.

Circus Circus Hotel and Casino

Standard procedure dictated that Heather drive the van around the casino and pick up the men once they placed the money into the ATMs and exited the building.

Five minutes passed . . . then ten . . . then twenty. Heather’s fellow drivers thought she may have become stuck in traffic; after half-an-hour, they feared she had been involved in an accident or that the vehicle had been hijacked.

No Heather

The Loomis drivers reported the situation to their superiors, who contacted the police. All of the above possibilities were dismissed as traffic was light, no accidents had been reported, and the casino’s security camera showed no signs of anything unusual. Heather was seen driving the armored car from the casino; she was alone and did not appear to be under any duress.

Authorities concluded Heather Tallchief deliberately absconded with over $3.1 million. They also concluded she had not orchestrated the gargantuan robbery on her own. They were right on both counts.

Tallchief the Thief

In searching Heather’s apartment, investigators found fingerprints matched to those of forty-eight-year-old paroled convict Roberto Solis, twenty-seven years her senior.

In 1969, Solis had been convicted of killing, ironically, a Loomis armored car guard during an unsuccessful robbery. While in prison, he authored several books and poems under the pen name Pancho Aguila. Several prominent writers and poets wrote on his behalf to the parole board, saying he had a wonderful talent and that they considered him reformed. The board apparently concurred as Solis was granted a release in 1992.

Roberto Solis

Tallchief and Solis are believed to have corresponded through letters while he was imprisoned and to have first met in a San Francisco bar in early 1993. A relationship developed and, shortly thereafter, Tallchief unexpectedly quit her nursing job. It is believed she moved to Las Vegas at Solis’s urging and that he encouraged her to take a job with the Loomis Armored Car Company for one reason: to rob it.

The FBI determined that two hours after Tallchief left the Circus Circus Casino on October 1, she and Solis arrived at Las Vegas’s McCarran Airport, having chartered a private jet to Denver. They were disguised as an elderly couple, with the woman in a wheelchair.

The FBI believes it would have taken eight-to-ten suitcases to transport all of the $3.1 million; the couple carried only three suitcases, likely meaning the rest of the money was shipped elsewhere.

Three days later, the FBI confirmed Solis and Tallchief had flown to Denver. From there the duo was tracked to Miami where agents found a postal drop containing two forged passports to Suriname. The FBI, however, believes the South American country was not the couple’s destination and that the documents were intended to be found in an attempt to deceive them.

Fly in Disguise

Two weeks later, the Loomis armored car was found in a building only a few blocks from the Circus Circus Casino. Inside the warehouse were shipping supplies for the pilfered loot.

Solis was found to have rented the facility where he set up a phony business called Steel Reinforcement Inc. The ruse purported to reinforce vehicles and armored cars, so people would not question the presence of the Loomis van.

Roberto’s Ruse

The leads on the whereabouts of Roberto Solis and Heather Tallchief were few. As the years passed, many believed Solis may have killed his partner in crime. Then, out of the blue, came an unexpected, but welcome, surprise.

In September 2005, nearly a dozen years after absconding with over $3 million, Heather Tallchief walked into the United States Marshall’s Las Vegas office and turned herself in, saying she was tired of life on the lam.

Tallchief told investigators that Solis had orchestrated the robbery, telling her what specific streets to use in driving from the casino to the rented warehouse. She claimed she did not know of his plans until the day of the heist, and that he had brainwashed her into committing the crime and threatened to kill her if she refused.

Tallchief confirmed she drove the Loomis van to the rented warehouse where she and Solis packed the pilfered loot into boxes, which Solis shipped the bulk of to Florida.  She then also confirmed that they then flew, incognito, to Denver and then to Florida. From there, they went to the Caribbean before going overseas, settling in Amsterdam, Holland, to live off their stolen riches, which, she says, Solis completely controlled.

In Amsterdam, the couple had son, Dylan, in 1995. Two months later, Tallchief says she took him and said so long to Solis after realizing he had little interest in being a father. She claims she left without taking any of the money from the heist and that she lived in Europe for most of the following decade.

At the time of her surrender, Tallchief was living in Amsterdam, working as a hotel maid. She was using the name Donna Eaton and she had recently become engaged. Tallchief said her fiancé, Robert Wallace, agreed to care for then-ten-year-old Dylan while she dealt with her legal issues.

Tallchief Talks

Heather Tallchief was charged with nine felony counts, including bank larceny, bank fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy, and possession of a fraudulent passport. On March 30, 2006, she was sentenced to five years and three months in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $3 million in restitution.

She was paroled on June 1, 2010, after serving five years. She remained under federal supervision for the following five years.

Sentence Served

Upon completing her probation, Tallchief settled in America and returned to working in healthcare, the field she had originally intended as a career, before meeting Roberto Solis.

Now a Free Woman

Unlike his former girlfriend and partner-in-crime, Roberto Solis has not returned to face the music. He is still at large thirty years after the robbery. Tallchief claims she has not seen Solis since 1995 and has no information regarding his subsequent or current whereabouts.

None of the money from the 1993 Loomis heist engineered by Solis and carried out by Tallchief has been recovered.

Roberto Still Roams

Most robbery cases have a statute of limitations, but I found no mention of such a statute with regard to this case.

Roberto Solis is still listed as a wanted fugitive.

Solis Still Sought

Roberto Ignacio Solis is of Nicaraguan nationality and has a dark complexion. When last seen in 1993 he stood five-feet-ten-inches tall and weighed approximately one-hundred-fifty pounds. He is likely heavier today. He had brown eyes and naturally curly brown hair which he often died black. Solis had a tattoo on his right forearm reading “Esta Vid Loca” (“This Crazy Life”) and another tattoo near his groin area.

Solis often wore an eye patch because he suffered from exophthalmos, causing the eyes to bulge out and appear bug-eyed. The disease has likely worsened as he has aged. If he has not had surgery, his sensitivity to light has likely increased and he probably now wears glasses and/or colored contact lenses.

Distinctive Eyes

Solis was a writer of some repute, particularly of poetry. He often wrote under the name Pancho Aguilar.

Other aliases used by Solis are; James R. Bell, Anthony Jerold Cantu, Miguel Angel Dominguez, Julio G. Franko, Reginal Mendez, Joseph Anthony Panura, Roberto Sanchez, Julius Gabriel Sauve, and Roberto Ignacio Zelaya.

Roberto Solis would now be seventy-eight-years-old. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please contact the Las Vegas, Nevada, Police Department at 702-828-3111 or the Las Vegas FBI office at 702-385-1281.

SOURCES:

• America’s Most Wanted
• Dateline NBC
• FBI
• The Independent
• Las Vegas Review-Journal
• Murderpedia
• New York Times
• Unsolved Mysteries