Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Master Thief’s Ultimate Playbook: How to Steal Anything, Anywhere
Mon, 28 Apr 2025
Tommy shares his life story that lead him to become a bank robber.Tommy's Channel https://www.youtube.com/@TheLifeBoat/featuredFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrimeDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [email protected] you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69
Chapter 1: What led Tommy to become a bank robber?
And it was a good bank. There was more than one band of cash that went up, so I had 20 grand. So I drive away, and I'm maybe a minute, half a minute from the rent-a-car. I'm gonna dump this, and I'm gonna get out of town, and I'm good. I look in the rearview mirror, and the lights, man, I got lit up, and my foot's doing this number, right?
It's going back and forth between the gas pedal and the brake. I'm like, you know what, man? It's been a decent run. Eventually, everybody gets caught, right? Pull the Durango over to the side of the road. So I've got three strips of double-sided tape that are just shining like hell on the top of my head. On the front seat of the car is a microwave oven, right? Makes perfect sense.
And where the keys should be is a screwdriver about that long. And he looks at me and he goes, do you know why I'm pulling you over? And I go, nope, I'm trying to work that out. Your gas capsules.
know in this heat you're probably losing about a gallon an hour he's like for real you might want to get out and close that so i cranked this thing down i said thank you he goes have a great day turned around right and i drove off hey this is matt cox and i am here with captain tommy he is a youtuber he runs the youtube channel the lifeboat i think he will correct me if i'm wrong
And he has an extremely interesting true crime story. So check out the interview. I appreciate you, you know, coming on the channel and telling me your story. You just kind of, you know, we just had a kind of a rundown. And I know we have we have Tyler in common.
uh my booking agent does he book guests for you or is he just booking you he does not he just reached out to me um i think uh probably through um uh the aaron channel over there on growing up in scientology i've been doing a lot over there with them and those two have a a common bond so it's funny somebody said in the comment section the other day because i always say you know because to me it's like start at the beginning like where were you born you know i'm saying
but I had a guy in the, uh, in the comment section the other day, say, said, um, if Matt Cox was interviewing Jesus Christ, he'd start with, tell me where you were born.
You know, it's a pretty decent comment. And, and I have watched enough of your, uh, enough of your stuff to know that that was coming. I grew up in new England. Um, I was born in, uh, in the state of Vermont, small state. And, uh, I had really an idyllic childhood, man. I grew up Norman Rockwell, like really small New England town and just did a lot of skiing, a lot of sports.
My parents stayed married till the very end. Yeah, man, I really am one of those guys that if you look at, you don't go, well, it's pretty obvious why this dude ended up in prison, right? Like everybody else in my family sort of took a different direction. But I did took a lot of pain medication from the ski injuries. Yeah. I did a lot of backflips on skis, things like that.
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Chapter 2: How did Tommy's childhood and injuries influence his path?
How many times did you meet a guy and say, you know, you robbed, how much did you get? Do you ever hear anybody tell you a hundred grand?
I mean, everybody, it's always like, you know, they're like the average bank robber gets like 3,500 bucks and you'll meet a guy who got, you know, he got 5,000 one time, 15,000 one time, you know, 35,000, you know, 2000, you know what I'm saying? Like, like it's, it's never what, it's never more than an average of maybe 10 or $15,000.
No, it really isn't. And 15, 15 was always, um, literally like that was my threshold. If I, if I hit 15, I thought that was really a good bank. I'm stoked. Right. That's, that's pretty much going to get me through. Um, I started liquidating everything. You know what I mean? I didn't, I didn't keep the same lifestyle I had. I started getting rid of cars. I started getting rid of watches.
I have a watch fetish. Like you wouldn't believe. And, uh, but I got, I thinned down and, and, uh, I became a professional bike robber. Like that's what I did, you know? And, and, and it very much became a living.
And they got to a point where you got rid of, I don't understand what you say. You got rid of a bunch of stuff. Like you're now making money. Why are you getting rid of stuff?
No, I see. I have a 30, I have a $30,000 a month. Not when I stopped my public speaking. Right. So I, I'm going to have to do two banks just to cover that. And then I got to get and then I got to take care of dope. So I started paring down to the bare necessities. You know, one one nice watch. I started driving a Honda. Right. I got rid of two Porsches.
I started to make myself look a lot less flashy. I started to, you know, if you don't have a job and it's pretty obvious you don't have a job, you're not you're not leaving your house ever. And, you know, you got a 9-11 job. and you're, you're middle-aged, you know, depending on where you live, that can, that can draw a decent amount of heat. Um, but I said, I, so I had sold off most of that.
I got my nut really low and I got to a point where if I could do one bank a month, I was good. Um, I was doing more than one a month, uh, pretty consistently. Um, I was, uh, And I was just one of those guys that was looking for an angle at all times. I got very, very lucky for a period of time where I was doing one of these reverse shell merger deals that I was telling you about.
And I ended up in Moscow. And a waiter refused to take one of the new $100 bills. He was like, we don't know what this is. It was brand new. I said, no problem. I said, they're changing the $100. I'll just give you one of the old ones. There weren't a lot in the wallet at that point anyway. They were kind of rare. But this dude was in an absolute panic. He said, so wait a sec.
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Chapter 3: What were Tommy's early experiences with crime?
Chapter 4: How did Tommy plan his bank robberies?
They started staking me out, hoping to catch me selling drugs. They found me buying a bunch of drugs. They didn't see me doing anything remotely like that. And what ended up happening is crazy as crap. They pinch a dude for bank robbery. Same kid, right? The guy that got caught with the 10 bag does a bank robbery, gets pinched. And they told him straight out.
I swear to God, they sat in a room and said to this kid, you tell us that Tommy helped you plan this bank robbery, right? We'll get you a deal, and this whole thing will be over. Because they brought me in, and they started showing me all of these pictures. And I'm sitting there with my attorney, and I'm looking at pictures as they're putting them out. I'm like, all of these people are me.
That's what you're saying, right? And none of them look like me, right? First of all, it was different heights, different weights. I never did the sunglasses and the hat, but I always had on a prosthetic beak. It doesn't take much to buy a decent makeup kit, right? And I never looked the same. And when it came time to get right down to it, they had not, right?
But they had the willingness to spend the rest of their life trying to make sure that somebody believed that I was the person in every one of those photos. And I was really careful. Like, honestly, I consider myself... Maybe a little bit smarter than the next bank robber. For instance, if I went out of town to rob a bank, I left my cell phone at my house. My homeboy would not come with me.
I told you. My getaway driver didn't do banks, but he would go to my house. He would phone my kid, talk to him on the phone for 25 minutes, send some text messages, do stuff so that I'm at my house. You look at any kind of favorite trail, I am at my house.
And at the time I could basically fly all over the country as my brother, which probably wasn't the kindest thing to do, but we are almost identical. Like for, for years we were assumed to be twins. So yeah, I, I, I kind of considered myself a little bit, a little bit smarter. But the attorney that, that I ended up with was a, An older woman. And she was lovely. She's a very nice woman.
But she wasn't showing up. And you know the frustration when you're in jail and you call your attorney and they say, yeah, I'm going to come up and I'm going to see you.
Right.
And they never do. And it's the most hollow feeling in the world because you feel like your world is going to end and there's nobody that's going to help you no matter how many phone calls. So I start screaming. And they had sent me two paralegals. And I said, you know, this is my life, man. I don't want to talk to somebody that just got out of a – month course.
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Chapter 5: What unusual methods did Tommy use during his robberies?
So a long time goes by where I don't see the guy in visiting. I figure maybe they pull him. And then she comes down one day and there he is. And she sat down and said, just don't do anything stupid today, please. Don't do anything dumb. And I said... You know, if, if an alarm goes off, it's because this dude said something really stupid because I'm, you know, I'm a pretty, pretty laid back guy.
And, uh, yeah, he's, uh, he's stripping me out and we're going through the same thing and he hadn't said anything stupid. And I thought maybe it wouldn't talk to him. Right. And he goes, oh man, he goes, and I'll tell you what, man, he goes, my clock's three times the size of yours. She's going to be a lot happier. And I went, oh, you're not looking at this right, brother.
Sort of gave like I was tugging on my jump. And as the dude looks down, I hopped up and I got him. I mean, right on the point of the chin. And I've been in a lot of fistfights. Right. It was absolutely the best punch I've ever thrown in my life. And it just I got him right here. And this dude went like this. And then he fell this way.
And you know how everything in prison is just built like so you can't break it. So this is the toilet and that little piece of metal that goes between the two toilets. He hit his face on and it just split him. And, uh, I went over to the window, right. And not the guard came over and I was like, I think your boy's going to need some assistance. You know what I mean?
Like all the blood's getting bigger and. They beat me like a pinata. Like my my my prison life changed dramatically in five seconds. I spent the next three hours, you know, the little cages that you get stuck in, like the Cyrus, the virus cage in Conair, those little itty bitty cages. OK, well, they had one of those in the lieutenant's office.
They cuffed my hands above the bars on the top like this for three hours. I cannot begin to tell you what that is like. I mean, I cannot begin to tell you when they took the cuffs off, my hands just went. I mean, he said, put your hands through the food chuck. I got to lock you up. I could not get my arms. I'm like, I'm moving, brother. You're going to have to reach in here.
My arms have been above my head for three freaking hours. And I got sent to Lewisburg, man. I got sent to the SMU, the special management unit at Lewisburg, which was, I mean, hell on earth. I don't know if you know anybody that's been through the SMU, but that broke me, man. Like absolutely broke me.
So Lewisburg, Pennsylvania was one of the three prisons that they built when Alcatraz got shut down, right? So they built Leavenworth, Lompoc, or one of four, Atlanta and Lewisburg. And Lewisburg was the gangster yard. That's where every famous mobster that ever went to prison went. And all of them ended up on J Block second floor. So when you see like Goodfellas, And he's in there cooking.
That's J Block second floor in Lewisburg. And I happen to be on J Block second floor in Lewisburg. But I was on a lockdown unit. So we were locked down 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You get out one hour a day, five days a week for rec. And you're in a cage. And the white boys have a policy that you have to go to rec. 365 days a year. So freezing rain, whatever you're doing, it just sucked.
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Chapter 6: What were the consequences of Tommy's criminal activities?
Because if if if you're if you're not, you know, if you if you give somebody your word and you don't come through, you're going to fight like it's guaranteed. And the person isn't going to show up. Queens of Marksbury rules instead. And this one, he's going to come at you with a lock and a sock. Right. And doing this number coming in. And every time that thing hits you, you're taking six stitches.
And the level of violence that that exists in there. It's really funny that you said, you know, I'm a bit of a narcissist, right? I don't think that there's anybody that ends up in prison. doesn't have a bit of them, right? Some of us a little more so than others. And I think sometimes it may be commensurate with IQ for real.
I think a lot of times that the cast that you meet in prison who just seem happy as hell to be in there, dumb as a brick, right? That literally they're just, they're happy to play spades and slap the cards down as loud as they possibly can. And you know, this is their retirement plan. This is literally where they're going to be spending their golden years.
yeah um i think i was pretty much in the same place as you were uh but i i remember very distinctly and this is so funny because my brother was laughing about it i was at a party once years ago and there were some people uh razzing us back in the day people you could get away with that right you could really tear people apart these days no one allows that to happen but everybody was kind of tearing me down for being a bit of a degenerate drug addict and a
And one of my friends there said, you know what? They just haven't invented it yet. But someday they're just going to start paying people for being who they are. And when that happens, Tommy's going to make a fortune. And I remember it like it was yesterday because I remember I said it to my brother and he's like, how freaking prescient was that?
Like that was that was 35 years ago that this cat was like, someday they're just going to pay people for being, you know, their own personality. And you're going to do just fine. Um, unfortunately I had to spend a little time with the joint.
Listen, I'm going to tell you something. So, you know, the one thing prison definitely taught me was being, to be very honest and, and, and, you know, because, you know, like, let's say borrowing from somebody, you know, or something like that. And I'll give you a story.
Like, you'll understand it that most people, when we were standing in the room and it happened, everybody was looking at me like, are you insane? I was working at the gym. And, you know, they give you your bad bag lunch when you leave the halfway house in the morning. They give you a little bag with like a with like either a peanut butter and jelly or like a bologna sandwich.
And you get maybe a bag of chips and little packet of drink mix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your little Kool-Aid packet. And so I go. And so one day and I've been there, whatever, a month, two months, and I'm just eating my lunch every day and and I can't leave. You know, I can't leave the halfway house really.
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