The FBI says Cecil Stephen Haire is the notorious Limping Bandit who robbed at least 23 banks across the Southeast over the past three years.
Friends, however, know the 51-year-old Coffee County man as Steve: a devoted husband, a good Samaritan, a fun-loving golf buddy and a tenderhearted animal lover who cared for an old toothless stray dog.
Mr. Haire lived an extremely modest lifestyle in a small mobile home in Douglas. Active in a local church, Mr. Haire is the last person friends said they would suspect of stealing thousands of dollars from banks in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Alabama.
"It pretty much was devastating to us," said Jeff Lindsey, a family friend and co-owner of JDI Sports Inc. in Douglas where Mr. Haire has worked for two years.
"Steve's a good person. ... This whole thing is just unbelievable," Mr. Lindsey said. "You could count on him for anything. It didn't matter if you were a stranger, he'd help you."
Although convicted in a bank robbery 23 years ago, Mr. Haire apparently led a law-abiding life in Coffee County, local police said.
"I'd never even heard of him until they (the FBI) said he was the Limping Bandit," county Sheriff Jerry Pope said.
Mr. Haire remains jailed without bail in Charleston, S.C., on a state charge of armed bank robbery after a July 17 robbery in Mount Pleasant, S.C.
Aided by a quick-thinking witness, police arrested the robber and recovered the bank money and a handgun about 40 minutes after the holdup.
The FBI then identified Mr. Haire as the Limping Bandit, who earned that nickname because he hurriedly limped from banks after robberies.
Mr. Haire, who limps from childhood polio, incriminated himself in a written statement after his arrest, police said in a July 18 bail hearing.
Chief Deputy Lee J. Sweat of the Appling County Sheriff's Office remembers Mr. Haire. Chief Sweat was a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent when he arrested Mr. Haire in 1986 after a Chatham County bank robbery.
"He was sort of a non descript guy even back then," Chief Sweat said.
Mr. Haire, a Baxley native, got out of prison in 1993 after serving almost seven years of a 20-year sentence in the case, records showed. Mr. Haire later did time in federal prison - though details weren't available as to why - before being released July 19, 2001, according to U.S. Bureau of Prisons records.
The FBI is working with local authorities in the four states to determine whether state or federal charges will be filed in each of the robberies, said Special Agent Michael Haas, the bureau's senior supervisor in Charleston.
Either way, Mr. Haire's past conviction likely will weigh heavily against him.
Rick Currie, the president of the District Attorneys' Association of Georgia, said life without parole is the only sentence possible if a person with a prior armed robbery conviction is convicted of another one.
AN APPARENT DOUBLE LIFE
Cecil Stephen Haire is accused of robbing 12 banks in South Carolina, five in North Florida and three each in South Georgia and Alabama. All were a few hours drive from Douglas.
The robbery spree began June 5, 2006, at a BB&T bank in Tifton before ending a week ago about 300 miles away at the Mount Pleasant bank, FBI agents said.
The heists did have a pattern. The robber, possibly armed with a BB gun, was discreet. He robbed just one teller in such a low-key manner that other bank employees often didn't notice him. The gunman generally got just a few thousand dollars in each holdup, authorities said.
- Morris News Service
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