Date of Birth: August 7, 1968 Links: Manage all your favorite fandoms in one place! LOS ANGELES, March 25 -- Los Angeles police say they are searching for a woman believed to be married to one of the bank robbers killed during a furious gunbattle with police last month in North Hollywood. Matasareanu, 27, and Phillips, 31, were believed to have pulled off a number of earlier bank heists in the area. Makeup Department Production Management Second Unit Director or Assistant Director Art Department Sound Department Special Effects by Visual Effects by Stunts Camera and Electrical Department Casting Department Costume and Wardrobe Department Editorial Department Location Management Music Department Script and Continuity Department On the morning of the robbery, officials believe they took phenobarbital to help control their nerves. Phillips had taken on a lifestyle of quiet paranoia, living under aliases, multiple identities, driver's licences, at least five SSN's, and in the infancy of cellular telephones it was believed that he had stuck to the old and tested pager for remote contact method, although that may not have been the whole truth as we shall later discover. Matasareanu, he said, lacked the intelligence and daring to lead the pairs enterprise. James Zboravan, then a rookie, recalls the North Hollywood shootout. The gunmen in "Heat" had nothing on these two. Map showing the location of the sites tied to Larry and Emil. ---. Matasareanu and his wife and young son were living with Nicolescu and running a home-care service for the mentally disabled. We have pea shooters compared to what these guys have.". Glendale again forwarded their suspicions to both the FBI and LAPD RHD (Robbery Homicide Division). He was driving down the road with his wife and John Chase, an accomplice, in the car, along with several weapons, when he passed a car of FBI agents going the other way. Location: Los Angeles, California It would appear that the Coroner's office somehow missed, or perhaps under instruction chose not to include this quite obvious wound. Jeanette Federico, Larry's widow, had seen the shootout on the news. She may have dyed her hair blonde. LaChasse will join Los Angeles and federal officials today at the North Hollywood police station for a 20th anniversary tribute in honor those who stopped the North Hollywood bank bandits. The North Hollywood shootout was a confrontation between two heavily armed and armored bank robbers, Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mtsreanu, and members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California, United States on February 28, 1997. "After everything was over, I saw the bullet holes in my kiosk, and my arms started to swell," Haro, now retired and in ill health, told the Daily News a decade ago. Let me explain. His left ankle had been broken by gunfire, as had his left knee, and like Phillips he had a large chunk of flesh (measured at some six inches long) chewed out of his wrist/forearm by gunfire, blinded in the right eye, with multiple gunshot wounds to his buttocks, hips and thighs it would be totalled that he was carrying twenty nine different wounds. A sunny, scorching afternoon brought Marie Joseph and her neighbors to Lafayette Park -- four kids and a few . 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out AZ Movies. Despite earlier reports that a third suspect may have been involved in Friday's attempted robbery, McBride said investigators now believe that Matasareanu and Phillips were the only assailants in that incident, as well as the two other robberies. Ben Smith, the agent who wrote him a new policy just a month before the North Hollywood robbery, was struck by his animosity toward what he called the system.. Hed say, Hey Pop, ever ride in a Jaguar? . On paper he appeared to have an upwardly mobile business, allegedly with seven employees and retaining government contracts according to the paperwork Matasareanu filled out. . Saturday 1st March 1997 would be nicknamed 'The day of the locust'. The bank was expected. Across Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Jose Haro had hit the floor in his locksmith kiosk, where Zboravan and three other police officers took cover. Please do not message us and ask for them as refusal often offends). Matasareanu v. Daryl Gates, et al Federal Civil Lawsuit California Central District Court , Case No. The clock ticked relentlessly. Emil Matasareanu and Larry Phillips were scum, but the only difference between them and the cops is that the government pays the cops. Today would be a day of searches, secondary searches and seized vehicles. Investigators said today (Tuesday) they are looking for Jeanette Theresa Federico, who is believed to be the wife of Larry Phillips Jr. Phillips was killed along with Emil Matasareanu after they robbed a Bank of America branch Feb. 28. He just said to me that he wanted to die. Matasareanu, 30, a Romanian emigre, and his alleged accomplice, Larry Eugene Phillips, 26, died in a gunfight Friday after a botched Bank of America holdup. At 9.16am, after months of preparation, the pair entered the North Hollywood Bank of America branch. Phillips walked down Archwood Street, continuing his gunbattle with police. Second, both LAPD and LAFD commissions confirm that an investigation into why Matasareanu did not receive timely aid had been opened on the behest of the LAPD Command. Larry was like a clone of me. "LAPD shined that day," said Lantz, who has had three knee surgeries. Matasareanu's final house (2015). Quite how they magically came up with this address is beyond our capability to dig out, and remains somewhat suspicious to us to this day. "If you look at the civilians who were injured, the policemen who were injured, the cars that were destroyed, it was amazing that nobody died. At 9am the fully clothed body of Larry Eugene Phillips Jr was removed from the five hundred berth cold storage area and bought into the examination room. (Yes, we have photographs from the autopsy undressing room, and no, we will not let them become public. You must fight on. Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Matasareanu shot at everything in their path - including police, bystanders, and a news helicopter - in an attempt to get away. But authorities are investigating whether the gunmen in Friday's incident had funneled money from a pair of earlier robberies - which netted at least $1.3 million - to subversive paramilitary or criminal organizations. She would later pose next to the bullet ridden passenger door of Sgt Haynes' cruiser. It's not a macho thing. Emil Dechebal Matasareanu, 30, and Larry Eugene Phillips Jr., 26, were arrested in October 1993 after a routine traffic stop in Glendale, Calif., led to the discovery of a cache of weapons and . He also gave his father $500 in cash, and would later mail him an additional $400. Sources disclosed that the FBI, even before Friday's incident, had been looking into the possibility that the two extraordinarily lucrative bank robberies in the San Fernando Valley last May were the work of an organized group with connections to political or terroristic groups. The centre of the chest of his T-shirt bore a ragged hole, a reminder to anyone who looked of just how close Officer Richard Zielinksi's shot could have come to ending Friday's chaos. Whilst the media were asking such a public question it must be understood that out of the public eye the question also continued to be raised. A search of Nicolescu's Sinaloa Ave property, Valerie's Villa, was conducted and only a small box was removed by police, which they declined to comment about what it contained. For 44 thunderous minutes, they marched through a neighborhood under siege, spraying stores, homes and cars with 1,100 armor-piercing bullets, wounding 11 police officers and six bystanders. The Herman Cook murder back in 1995, also at the Winnetka branch was a folder that was pulled and tentatively attributed to them, and whilst never publically laid at their feet the intimation was made that they were being looked at for that crime. When Emil had left DeVry University in 1987 with his electrical engineering degree in hand he had gone straight to building a business. It was the younger of the robbers, Larry Eugene Phillips, 26, whose calculating and ruthless personality dominated the lopsided partnership, luring Romanian-born Emil Matasareanu, 30, into the fatal Feb. 28 showdown, Phillips half brother said. Perhaps inspired by the epic shootout scene in the 1995 film "Heat," they were . . The gun battle lasted 44 minutes. They were making off with cash when police arrived and the gunfight erupted. An engineer by training and a political dissident who had been jailed, he pushed the boy in school. His business was going sour. Both men left the bank and took aim at the surrounding officers. "After North Hollywood, this was the most significant event that involved the most change to not only the LAPD, but police departments throughout the world.". As Los Angeles read the column inches over their morning coffee, Dr Susan L. Selser and five RHD detectives stood in an examination room at North Mission Road, the home of the Coroner's office. She was charged with custodial interference as a result of an incident that had occurred in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dressed in new Nikes and with the ever present Rolex on his wrist and a wallet full of cash he appeared affluent and content. Matasareanu's credit checks kicked back his mother's house as a last known residence (although he had resided at three other properties at least since moving out). He dismissed as a motive the financial problems of Matasareanu, whose immigrant mother--a defector from the Romanian state orchestra--saw her state board-and-care license revoked because of alleged patient neglect and fire violations and who had been dogged by tax liens in recent years. He said, All you guys are alike, the system is all screwed up, Smith said. Emil wasnt even planning on getting married, and he did it because Larry said to, the brother said. She may have dyed her hair blonde. With that both women parted ways, and to this day appear to have never crossed paths again. 1997 North Hollywood Shootout Autopsy report on Larry Phillips Jr. & Emil Matasareanu. Wednesday dawned and the investigation continued apace, gathering new information on both men. Eleven officers were wounded, but none killed. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. LOS ANGELES - The parents of a bandit gunned down by police during a botched bank robbery say that their son had an "attitude problem" and that his brazen assault was "like suicide. Last Updated September 7, 2016 at 6:56 AM EDT (6 years ago) Request Update Get E-Mail Alerts Entries (337) Calendar Events Related (0) Over $1.5million was still missing, both women knew they would have to face the authorities soon enough, to disclose what they each knew of their husband's activities and what they knew of the missing volume of Bank of America's cash. The M.O seemed to match, and so this became another 'maybe'. "He told Emil not to marry an American woman," the brother said. And I'll never forget that sound. Emil is a nobody, and there is no content here anyway. As the officers call for backup, Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu begin firing automatic weapons. 304 East Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. Ar fi scpat cu zile dac era transportat urgent la spital, ns poliia american l-a lsat dinadins s sngereze pn moare. He started rambling. In Phillips case his residence would not be identified until some weeks later when his wife, Jeanette Federico, finally surrendered herself in Colorado. In August, Matasareanu split up with his wife after having a seizure, Nicolescu said. He recalled the detective saying of the AK-47 nightmare, "I served in Vietnam. Various subtleties were evident to the keen eye though; bushes around the bank appear to have mysteriously been cut back and removed. On Friday two men clad in ski masks and neck-to-ankle Kevlar armor stormed a Bank of America branch in the Los Angeles suburb of North Hollywood, toting an arsenal of guns. 2009-2021 Bears in the Beehive. On Friday two men clad in ski masks and neck-to-ankle Kevlar armor stormed a Bank of America in the Los Angeles suburb of North Hollywood toting an arsenal of guns and firing with impunity. Sr would give the detectives a few leads to go on but ultimately he gave up nothing extraordinarily revealing about his son. Beretta 92F, det vapen som anvndes av Phillips. Mr. Matasareanu's mother, Valerie Nicolescu, said he first had trouble with the law after officials shut a care center for the mentally disabled that he ran with her. Eleven officers and six civilians were injured before the two suspects were killed in a gunfight. Jeanette would wait a little longer, her situation was a little more complex, but Monday March 3rd was the last day she paid rent on the Anaheim property. They said they were headed to a popular San Gabriel Mountains shooting area called Kentucky for target practice. "More than one, more than one,'" responded a frantic officer recorded on audiotape. Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu opened fire on cops and bystanders after robbing a Bank of America in North Hollywood. "I can't forget that day," said Kazanchyan, now 49. The bullets then whizzed through Mr. Jiffy's Pizza, narrowly missing a driver before bouncing off a warming oven. Celebrity. Not the image nor the actions of a serious business owner. The robbers were armed with. But the North Hollywood robbery was to be their biggest yet. Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Matasareanu shot at everything in their path including police, bystanders, and a news helicopter in an attempt to get away. And he quoted from Barry Minkow, the whiz-kid founder of ZZZZ Best Co., later convicted of fraud, on the thrill of grabbing a handful of $100 bills and heading out for the day in his Ferrari to spend them. "The way they struck and the way they handled their weapons, one would have to expect that they got some training somewhere," said Los Angeles Police Cmdr. The cash was never found. His failure to disclose that conviction on a 1990 application disqualified him from obtaining a California real estate license, records show. Postulation on whom he may have been searching for could go on forever, we happen to believe although it is not provable that it was for his half brother Denis Franks and Sharon Santos, the mother of his two sons. Both women appear to have had motives to delay such a meeting, but we shall explore that more as the aftermath progresses. Katrina Law as Kate. New York City Gestopo units exicuted a black man for taking out his billfold to show ID. Outside of the hive of activity that was the investigation into these two men, back in the public realm the previous day's chaos was on everybody's lips. The interior of the Bank of America branch the Monday morning after the shootout. But most police officers remained calm, despite ineffective weapons, faulty radios and a command post relocated four times. "For eight months, I didn't sleep during the night.". On February 28, 1997, at 9:15 AM, Emil Dechebal Matasareanu and Larry Eugene Phillips, Junior, walked into a Bank of America in Van Nuys, California, not far from the Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. studios. 340 37 37 comments Best Add a Comment mafoo 10 yr. ago But most were from .38 revolvers or 9 mm pistols pitted against an arsenal of high-capacity AK-47s and automatic rifles. Remnants of Emil's previous past-times. 10 years ago, Fall River's Lafayette Park pool was the scene of a horrific drowning. The business had never taken off in any form, stories of Matasareanu schlepping his accounting software for budget prices whilst dressed in flip flops and baggy sweat pants have been given to us first hand. Phillips plan, he said, was to have so much money he could spend $100 bills by the handful. Records show that young Phillips went on to leave a dizzying web of aliases and nonexistent addresses in an apparent effort to deflect anyone looking for him. One such tale recounted but unsubstantiated (and never likely to be substantiated either) speaks of Larry and Denis shooting each other whilst wearing body armour, a continuation of their childhood 'tests of manhood' that had been inflicted upon them by their grandfather and uncles. . He was born under an alias, the brother said. Larry didnt like the way American women always talked back.. In recent years he lived with her on and off in her Glendale apartment, neighbors there said, but she moved into a rest home and died in 1994, having cut all contact with her nine brothers and sisters. Sign in to add some. One party was a serving police officer at the scene of Phillips body; the other was a family member who visited Phillips body at North Mission Road. He faced business and personal difficulties that came to a head in recent months. In 1995 Matasareanu and his mother borrowed heavily on their home, and soon after that Valerie Nicolescus license was suspended by the state Department of Social services over accusations that two developmentally disabled clients were improperly left at a hospital. Mid-morning and LAPD executed a search warrant on the Matasareanu's business address. Saturday gave way into Sunday and the newspaper columns were understandably still full of this story, as people unfolded the Times and the Daily news over their breakfast they would be greeted with vivid photographs taken by Gene Blevins, Mike Meadows, Carolyn Cole and various other photographers. The 2026 N. Sinaloa address was Emil's mother's house at the time. When the robbers emerged, they were confronted by officers and tried to shoot their way clear with superior firepower. According to the Coroner's report Phillips had nineteen firearms related wounds, inflicted by eleven separate gunshot strikes. In that case, Matasareanu and Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. served less than four months in jail after striking case a plea bargain that cut a conspiracy and weapons case to a handful of misdemeanors. The windows shattered. An in-depth discussion on this issue, which needs to be finally understood and eradicated from this event can be found on our 'Myths' page here. The house was, at the time, the largest on the street and it was to be Emil's final home. Details: Jeanette Federico is the wife of serial bank robber Larry Phillips Jr.. She would stay in the house for roughly another two weeks, when Larry never came home that Friday her intuition was proven correct, and when his name and Glendale arrest photo was finally broadcast across the airwaves the reality was hammered home. A worker patches up bullet holes on the north side of the bank. He spoke of Jr's visit late the previous year, arriving in a black Town Car and taking him and his two daughters out to a local steak house for dinner. Larry didnt bring anybody into his inner circle unless he had a plan for him, he said. The utterly bizarre attempted takeover of the armoured car on Fallbrook Avenue in 1996 was another 'maybe' file. Larry Eugene Phillips Sr., 48, who still lives in Denver, said in an interview with The Times on Sunday that Larry is the way he is because of my lifestyle. After the bodies were removed under SWAT escort to the Coroner's office at North Mission Road, detectives would attempt to contact both men's families, with varying degrees of success. Characteristics: Caucasian female with brown hair and brown eyes. West Harriet St and West Loma Alta Drive also in Altadena. Torossian points to the damage to the front of his house. in North Hollywood. Third, late in the day came another breakthrough. Jeri, his son Matthew with his wife Adriana, and his daughter Jamie. The entire country witnessed the raging gun battle that lasted half an hour, and left ten police officers and six civilians wounded. Shoot me in the head. . He had brain surgery months before his death and was estranged from a wife and two kids. He knew that every time I came in contact with police something bad happened.. The FBILA Bank Squad received information that Matasareanu had been a patron at a Northridge gun store, where he was well known for purchasing 7.62x39mm ammunition. With Michael Madsen, Ron Livingston, Ray Baker, Douglas Spain. It ended in a deadlocked jury, with the city ultimately agreeing to pay $50,000 in legal fees. Another time, the son showed up looking for his longtime girlfriend after learning that she had been through two evictions. As the day wore on various entities gave interviews to the media, amongst them was Sgt Haynes whose black and white had been the first target for Phillips, and Judy Cook; the widow of Herman Cook who was executed by an unknown gunman back in 1995. When invited to join in the 'game', Matasareanu apparently hurried left the property with the laughter of the brothers chasing him to the gate. Outside, LAPD Officer Bill Lantz was five days out of the police academy when he and his training officer cowered behind their cruiser in the intersection. Occupation: Unrevealed "It was like the movie 'Heat,' bullets spraying everywhere," recalled Lantz, now a corporal, while revisiting the scene. Unable to start the Jeep however, he soon finds himself engaged in a fresh . Those folk who wanted to come see the place where this event had happened, to poke their fingers in the bullet holes, hunt for stray casings and touch the places where these men had fallen. Lots more to come. At 2pm, Chief Willie Williams gave a press conference in the North lot of the Bank of America, his backdrop would be the hastily repaired wall and the remaining bullet ridden vehicles. The detectives who went to deliver the next of kin notification were met by his mother, whose anguished screams could be heard outside in the road when she was informed of her son's death. During the weekend of 1st/2nd March 1997, Cristina Matasareanu visited the house at Drake Ave; she wanted to speak with Jeanette, to find out what she should do. "He cannot handle it anymore," she said. We only knew what happened when we saw it on the news.". The home was closed for good when it failed to meet fire safety specifications. They were also believed to have robbed an armored car in June 1995; during that robbery, a guard was killed. Such information, authorities said, could indicate whether they acted alone or had accomplices. Records indicate that Matasareanu had occasional income as a computer software consultant but that his primary source of income was Dechebal Inc., the board-and-care home his mother operated in a Pasadena building they jointly owned. "There was no time to be scared. They gathered their automatic arsenal, including a Chinese-made AK-47 for Phillips, with a 70-round drum magazine, and a Bushmaster XM15 assault rifle for Matasareanu, with twin drums containing 100 rounds. Some of their arsenal was returned to the pair when Phillips probation ended in January 1996, with the notation that he had completed all conditions. ". In fact at the time of the North Hollywood debacle he had been living fifty miles south of the crime scene in Orange County. A total of 32 customers and 10 employees were present in the bank when the two men entered it. James Zboravan, then a rookie, recalls the North Hollywood shootout, North Hollywood shootout 20th anniversary - a look at the past and present, The home improvement store that served as our makeshift office during the North Hollywood shootout is still there, and so is the man who runs it, How the infamous North Hollywood shootout unfolded, LASD Detective Dies In Carson After Medical Emergency While Driving, Koreatown Intruder Throws Boiling Hot Water At Resident, Family Of Slain California Deputy Calls For Judge To Resign, Number Of LA Killings Falls In 2022 But Is High Compared To Pre-COVID, Memorial Service To Honor Riverside County Deputy Shot During Traffic Stop. They were both killed by head shots that bypassed their body armor. Mayo who had been moved to the property at the beginning of February, had allegedly been left alone, locked in a single dark room within the property for at least the previous week during which time she had had no access to her medicines or food. Although never charged with real estate fraud, a civil action later ended in a judgment ordering Phillips to pay nearly $140,000 in principal, interest and court costs to two title companies.