For teen, bank robbery was a way out of town

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WATERVILLE – At age 17, Nathanael Blevins didn’t like being a preacher’s son. He didn’t like small town life and he didn’t like going to Christian school.

So, like many teen-agers, Blevins rebelled. But he did more than just stay out late or disobey his parents.

Blevins decided to rob banks, and he went about it methodically.

He read books about criminals: “The Great Train Robbery,” about an aristocratic Englishman’s attempt to steal gold bullion; “Stopwatch Gang,” about Canadian bank robbers, and “Where the Money Was,” by Willie Sutton, the best-known bank robber of his era. He searched the Internet for more information.

All the research nearly paid off.

In October, Blevins robbed a bank, took a bus to Boston and flew to Canada. But the international adventure ended with his arrest outside Toronto.

Back in Maine, Assistant District Attorney James Mitchell wants to have Blevins, who has since turned 18, tried as an adult. He said the crimes showed planning and maturity beyond the teen’s years.

His father acknowledged that his son committed a serious crime but said the teen is no criminal mastermind. Instead, the Rev. Roy Blevins described Nathanael as an immature dreamer who was snapped out of his fantasy world when he was arrested at his brother’s apartment in Canada.

“The kid is not a bad kid. I’ve been in the ministry long enough. I know what a bad kid is. Unfortunately, he’s been given to a lot of dreaming,” said Blevins, pastor of the Church of the Open Bible in Athens.

The decision whether young Blevins should be tried as an adult or a juvenile rests with a judge in Waterville District Court. The hearing resumes Wednesday after two days of testimony earlier this month.

Defense attorney Thomas Tilton declined to comment because he views the case as a juvenile matter. Nathanael could not be reached at the Northern Maine Juvenile Detention center where he is being held in Charleston.

But interviews with the prosecutor, a police detective and Nathanael’s father paint a picture of a teen who found that being a preacher’s son wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He lived in Maine, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ontario, Canada. His father admits he was strict and that his son didn’t like Christian school.

The teen grew tired of the lifestyle and the snowbound town of Athens, population 908. He resolved to make a change.

The teen’s first scheme involved calling in a bomb threat to a bank on Sept. 25, police said. He said a bomb in the building would go off unless money was put in a trash bin.

That plan came from his research, but it came to naught. So he took another page out of the criminal playbook, police said.

Less than two weeks later, he walked into the Gardiner Savings Institution, handed the lone teller a note demanding money and walked out with nearly $6,000 in cash. He had a BB pistol but left it outside because his research revealed that armed robbery carried a stiffer penalty, Mitchell said.

Nathanael then went to a department store, where he pulled off his black pullover jacket and baseball cap, Mitchell said. He walked past the police station before taking a cab to the bus station.

The bus took him to Boston, where he got a $200-a-night room. The next morning, he paid $450 for a flight to Toronto.

He was a bright kid, but he had never traveled alone, much less ridden on an airplane or a bus, his father said.

Blevins was surprised at how expensive things were and wrote himself a note: “Next time, buy ticket ahead of time,” Mitchell said.

Later, he sent a cryptic e-mail to his parents: “Hello, this is Dr. Richard Kimble. Planning on spending winter in Florida due to a large influx in my cash flow.” The note was signed, “William Sutton.”

The “Dr. Kimble” referred to the character in “The Fugitive” and “William Sutton” was a reference to the infamous bank robber, Mitchell said.

In Canada, where he once had lived, the teen sought more modest accommodations and went about enlisting a friend to rob more banks, Mitchell said. The friend balked and the teen moved in with an older brother.

Nathanael already was casing banks in the area when a fugitive squad burst into the apartment and arrested him, the prosecutor said.

Being arrested and tossed into jail snapped the boy back to reality, his father said. The elder Blevins went to Canada and saw his son with stitches on his forehead, scars on his arms and “fear in his eyes.”

“What happened to him was probably a good thing because it sobered him up about his life,” Roy Blevins said.

It’s tough being a preacher’s kid, and it’s not surprising that a teen-ager would act out, the minister said. The teen-ager’s three older brothers all acted out at some point, but not by robbing banks, he said.

Mitchell is less sympathetic.

He views Nathanael Blevins as a smart teen-ager with a verbal IQ score of 127 who went about his plans for a criminal life in a methodical way. The crime spree would have continued if he had not been arrested, Mitchell said.

“This was not an act of rebellion. There was nothing impulsive about this. This was a long, drawn-out plan,” the prosecutor said.

It was an easy decision to attempt to have the boy treated as an adult, Mitchell said. That’s because the maximum penalty for him if convicted as a juvenile would be staying at the Maine Youth Center until he turns 21.

It’s another page from the criminal playbook, Mitchell said. If you’re caught, then you give up and try to work the system, he said.

Roy Blevins said he hopes the judge allows the boy to be treated as the immature teen-ager he believes his son is.

He noted that his son robbed the bank not knowing the bus schedule or the flight schedule at Boston’s Logan Airport. He went to his former hometown in Canada. Those are signs of an immature boy, not an adult criminal.

“We’re not out of touch with reality here. We do know that what he did was very serious,” said Blevins. “Our prayer is that somewhere we’ll find mercy.”

“He doesn’t fit the profile of your average bank robber, I will say that,” said Waterville Police Detective Charles Rumsey.

Nonetheless, Rumsey and Mitchell said the teen was smarter than many adult criminals and must be held accountable for his actions.