Steven Aitken bought a new vehicle that helped him hide in plain sight during a string of bank robberies, police say.
By LEANORA MINAI
Published September 11, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - A dark green Plymouth van was Steven Aitken's key to freedom.
He paid cash for the 1996 Grand Voyager in November, two months before the first bank robbery. He bought insurance and got the registration in the name of a man whose wallet he found, police said.
"It was a safe vehicle to drive around because it was totally legal," said St. Petersburg detective James Shakas. "It wasn't being sought after."
Aitken, accused of robbing seven banks in Pinellas County, would steal a car during a test drive, go straight to a bank and abandon the car where he left the van, police said.
The crime wave began after Aitken failed a drug test for his probation last November.
Aitken couldn't face the prospect of eight more years in prison, he told detectives Wednesday. So Aitken quit a $1,100 monthly job fixing sprinklers, hanging fans and mowing grass. He never went to another sex offender therapy session. He vanished from his downtown St. Petersburg efficiency.
Over two weeks in November, Aitken stole and forged numerous checks, pocketing $16,324, court records show. The first bank robberies were on Jan. 14, six minutes apart.
"He didn't want to go back to jail, so he went off on a tear," said Shakas, who interviewed Aitken in the Pinellas County Jail.
Aitken, 36, was arrested Monday after a woman he befriended in Daytona Beach recognized his face on America's Most Wanted.
"I just needed the money to live," Aitken told investigators Wednesday.
Aitken now faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
During his three-hour interview with investigators, Aitken was intent on clearing his name for kidnapping a St. Petersburg boy and fondling himself in front of the youth, detectives said. Aitken spent 10 years in prison and was released in 2000.
"In his mind," said Pinellas sheriff's Cpl. Paul Martin, who also interviewed Aitken, "he can't get away from his past. Legally, it doesn't matter, but in his mind, that's what matters. He can't let that go."
Martin said Aitken told him he skipped from motel to motel and drove the 163 miles to Daytona Beach in the Plymouth van to avoid police.
"He'd hit and run," said Shakas, the St. Petersburg detective.
But sometimes, Aitken stuck close to home.
"Sometimes, I was too mentally exhausted. I would go get a motel room," Aitken told detectives.
When Aitken ran out of money, "I'd have to psych myself up" for the next bank robbery, he told detectives.
Police declined to say how much Aitken got from all of the bank robberies. During one heist, however, he left with $8,600, court records show. Police recovered $1,500 from the Plymouth van after Aitken's arrest Monday, possibly the remaining cash from his last hit Aug. 13.
"The reason it was so successful is he wasn't using the fictitious identity for financial gain," Martin said of the van. "He was stealing an identity so he would have a safe background."
Aitken also made his first court appearance Wednesday before Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Dee Anna Farnell. She asked Aitken if he had an attorney.
Aitken said he hasn't contacted his attorney because he hasn't made a telephone call from jail. Someone from Daytona Beach was supposed to call the attorney for him, Aitken told the judge.
Farnell asked Aitken if he could afford a private attorney.
"No," Aitken said. "I don't have any money right now."
