Fugitive Nabbed in $2 Million Armored Car Heist

A suspect in a $2 million armored car heist in Dallas two years ago was arrested Sunday in a small town in central Texas, the FBI announced.

Donald Ray Williams, 53, was captured in Rosebud, 35 miles south of Waco.

The 2007 armored car robbery was believed to be the biggest in Dallas history.

A tip from a "most wanted" ad posted on several electronic billboards along Interstate 30 in Arlington and Grand Prairie led  to San Antonio, where investigators learned Williams had stayed until "very recently," said FBI agent Mark White.

On Saturday, agents "missed him by hours," White said.

Agents recovered $28,000 in a house where he had been staying.

"He left in a hurry," White said. It was unclear how he may have been tipped off.

The FBI then announced publicly Williams was believed to be in the San Antonio area, splashed his photo in the local news media, and promoted a $45,000 reward. Further tips led to a residence in Rosebud, White said.

White said he did not know if agents found any more money at the time Williams was arrested.

Williams and another man, Freddy Lee Foots, were charged with robbing $1,977,952 from a Loomis armored car outside Compass Bank on Abrams Road on Sept. 5, 2007.

Foots was convicted and sentenced in June 2008 to more than 29 years in federal prison. He was arrested a week after the heist following a high-speed chase in a Mercedes. Less than half the stolen $2 million was recovered.

Williams also bought an expensive car after the robbery but ditched it to keep a lower profile, White said.

Both men had already served years in prison after they were convicted of robbing a Dallas bank in 1981 and of an armored car robbery in Dallas in 1988 that was almost identical to the one in 2007, the FBI said. The armored car in each case was owned by Loomis.

After the 1988 robbery, they were arrested after going on a shopping spree at Nieman Marcus, White said.

Williams warned agents at that time that if he ever got out of prison, he would rob another armored car, the FBI said.

"Sure enough, he did," White said.

The original tip that Williams was in San Antonio came "within several hours" of the February advertisement, which was the first time the FBI in Dallas had used a billboard to advertise a fugitive, White said.

"We're batting a thousand percent," White said. "It worked out really well for us."