Groom-to-be may be trading vows for long sentence
The robbery seemed like it had gone down without a hitch, police said. The alleged thief, Heath Bumpous, had managed to steal thousands of dollars, drive off in broad daylight and pay the venue where his wedding was set to take place the next day. All he needed to do was buy the ring.
Then, the 36-year-old got a text from his fiancée.
“Did you just rob a bank?” she asked on Friday, according to the sheriff in Trinity County, about 100 miles north of Houston.
As it turns out, police say he had, before leaving his disguise on the side of the road and turning himself in last Friday — in a case that’s the latest viral instance of errant grooms charged with crimes on the eve of their wedding days.
It’s unclear whether Bumpous had planned his heist in advance or committed it in the spur of the moment, Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace said. But in a video on Facebook, he recounted how the man ended up in handcuffs the day before he was set to walk down the aisle.
Wallace said that Bumpous had lost his job heading up EMS services in nearby Houston County about nine months ago. Ahead of his wedding ceremony, the alleged thief had told his fiancée that all the expenses — the flowers, the wooden venue deep in the piney woods and especially the $3,200 ring she wanted — had been taken care of.
But he still had thousands to pay off, and the big day was getting close.
So on Friday, Bumpous allegedly drove across the county line into Groveton. At around 11:30 a.m., police said, he strolled through the entrance to the Citizens State Bank. Without a mask or any other kind of disguise, Bumpous demanded that the two bank tellers empty their drawers, threatening that he had a gun.
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” he told the staff, according to an affidavit.
Bumpous allegedly walked out of the bank with more than $7,000 in cash stuffed into gray Walmart bags. As local schools were placed on lockdown, police said, Bumpous made his escape, driving away on forest and dirt roads out of town.
His first stop was about 20 miles north at the Cochino Lodge near Kennard, where he was due to be married the next day. Bumpous handed the staff $2,600 in mostly $20 bills, the affidavit said, before leaving the lakeside wedding venue to go purchase a ring for the Saturday celebration.
“He basically stated that he was getting married tomorrow,” Wallace said in the video, “so he didn’t have enough money for a wedding ring that he wanted to buy and he needed to pay for the wedding venue.”
At some point during his drive, Bumpous had taken off his clothes — a black hat with matching T-shirt and pants — and dumped them on the side of the road. But that wasn’t enough to disguise himself. In the meantime, the sheriff ’s office had released a photo of the man that was captured on security camera footage and asked the public for help identifying the suspect.
At least one person instantly recognized the unmasked robber: his wife-to-be, who texted him saying she had seen his face circulating around social media, the sheriff said. Her name has not been made public
At first, Bumpous denied he was the man in the photo. but his fiancée persuaded him to turn himself in.
So instead of going ring shopping, Bumpous drove to the Houston County Courthouse, where he confessed to the crime and was arrested about two hours after the alleged robbery. Police said they later found a loaded .380caliber pistol in his car, according to the affidavit.
Wallace said the alleged thief was cooperative and quiet.
“Hey, I’m caught. I did it,” Bumpous told him, the sheriff said. “It was stupid, and here I am.”
Bumpous, who was charged with robbery, was being held on a $300,000 bond. Plans for the wedding, which did not happen as scheduled on Saturday, have yet to be determined, the sheriff said.