The FBI is the most sophisticated law enforcement agency in the world, pursuing the most dangerous criminals. When a depraved murderer escapes from prison, he actually butchered the body, put it in bags, and threw it in the Delta. The bureau mobilizes. The goal is to eventually go from five days behind him, to two days behind him, to two hours behind him, to catch him.
“The man is definitely a sick individual. I can’t even call him a human being. This is one time I slept with a gun right next to my pillow.”
March 22nd, 1991. A man walks into the Winslow branch of the Valley National Bank and asks to speak with manager Stan Egan. The man tells Egan that he’d like to apply for a $25,000 loan to build a house, but Egan’s not so sure about the deal.
“I just had an uneasy feeling about what he was talking about, because he wasn’t real clear on what he wanted to do.”
Egan senses something is off, but starts to fill out some paperwork.
“You know what, I’m going to have to get…”
Suddenly, the man makes a startling move, and he reached in under his shirt.
“My first thought was, ‘Man, don’t come up shooting.'”
Well, he brought the 9 mm, aimed it at me, and said, “We don’t need to go any further. I want $25,000.”
“No, no. I need $25,000.”
“Don’t call the police. I don’t mind going out in a blaze of glory, and you’ll be the first one to go.”
A teller can see what’s happening inside Egan’s office and trips a silent alarm. Detective Elmer Hassie of the Winslow Police Department gets the call. The detective races to the bank alone. Inside, Stan Egan is trying to stall the menacing robber.
“I told him that I didn’t have any money at my desk, I’d have to get someone to get it. So I went to the door of my office and I asked my secretary to come in, told her that I needed $25,000.”
The tellers scrambled to gather $25,000 in cash.
“I had a blue zippered bank bag that I gave him, and put the money in there, put the money underneath his jacket, and he says, ‘You’re going with me.'”
By now, Detective Hassie has arrived on the scene and can see Egan being held hostage. Detective Hassie has only a split second to decide what to do.
“I was totally nervous. Like I say, I was afraid; that was the first man in my life I would ever have to shoot.”
Stan Egan has no idea that the detective is hiding outside.
“When I got to the door, I just stopped. I pushed the door open, and as he walked by me, Detective Hassie grabbed him, pushed him against the wall there by the sign that you can see.”
The detective cuffs the robber and takes control of the volatile situation.
“At that point, I reached around, I found a gun in his waistband, and pulled it from his waistband.”
Detective Hassie disarmed him, put the gun on the ground, handed me the money bag, which I handed back to a customer that was right behind me. While we locked the doors, after that, everybody could relax. Detective Hassie books the robber into the Winslow jail. He’s identified as 32-year-old Danny Ray Horning. Police do a little digging and find out Horning spent part of his childhood in Winslow, the son of a minister, but he’s no choir boy and has a history of tangling with the Winslow PD.
“He’d been arrested here at one time, but apparently after he left here and became an adult, he considered himself a professional bank robber. So he’d come back to Winslow on a vendetta to get even with Winslow for arresting him several years prior.”
Further investigation reveals that Horning is wanted in several states. The list of his felonies is shocking.
“Several other police departments started notifying us that there were outstanding warrants on Danny Ray Horning. In Salt Lake City, Horning is wanted for bank robbery. In Idaho, he’s wanted for the theft of a pickup truck. But that’s not all; Horning’s record includes one conviction for molesting his daughter. He is also a suspect in a particularly gruesome murder in Sacramento. They had an open murder case where he had actually butchered the body and put it in bags and threw it in the Delta.”
In May 1991, Danny Ray Horning is tried for the Valley National Bank robbery. The judge decides to lock him up and throw away the key.
“Danny Ray Horning was convicted in Arizona on four felony counts, and he was sentenced to four life terms—four 25-year terms to run concurrent—because he was not going to get out of the state penitentiary.”
The sentence infuriates Horning.
“Danny Ray was very arrogant. He felt that he was better than everyone else; everything that he wanted, he took.”
Horning makes it clear that he has no intention of spending his life behind bars. During his sentencing, Mr. Horning, with his arrogant ways, stated to the judge that he didn’t care if he gave him a thousand years, he’d be out in a year. Horning keeps his word. On May 12th, 1992, less than a year into his sentence, he busts out of the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence in broad daylight. Using a stolen employee uniform and a fake ID, Horning impersonates a medical worker and walks out of the prison. Alarm bells sound. Department of Corrections Officer Kenny Vance is one of the first to arrive on scene.
“Our security measures are very good, but when we do have an escape, this is what we respond with. We bring in hound teams from all over the state.”
Vance and other DOC officers gather what’s left of Horning’s belongings.
“We recovered scent articles early on from his cell at the state prison in Florence, and they were bagged up and divided up for all the hound teams.”
Worried that Horning has escaped with a violent mission in mind, the DOC calls on the experts at tracking fugitives, the FBI. Phoenix-based Special Agent Keith Tolhurst takes the lead on the case. He has more than four years’ experience hunting down dangerous criminals and suspects. He knows where Horning might be headed.
“Everybody still goes back to their roots somehow. So if there’s people that they’ve dealt with in the past, there’s a good chance they’ll try to get back to them again.”
Hundreds of FBI agents, SWAT, and law enforcement mobilize across the state and begin the hunt for Danny Ray Horning. They suspect the fugitive is making a beeline back to Winslow to settle old scores.
“One of the things we thought that Horning was going to do after his escape was go back to Winslow, Arizona, where he had committed the bank robbery.”
“That’s good enough. That’s good.”
“That’s because in 1991, he sent a letter to the Winslow Police Department telling them that he would be out in a year and was coming back to see them, and that he blamed them, not the bank employees, for his lot in life.”
If the FBI is right, they may be able to capture Horning before he makes good on his threats. But if they’re wrong, there’s no telling what Horning could do.
“He’s the type of person that was committed, that he would be willing to die for what he wanted and had nothing to lose. So he was very dangerous because of those things.”
It’s been two days since Danny Ray Horning, a vengeful and vindictive bandit, broke out of a Florence, Arizona prison. Now the FBI is hot on his trail. Larry McCormack is the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s…
“Bolts into the woods, and the manhunt is on again. But this time, Agent Tolhurst and his team are right behind him.”
“We were out searching at the time we heard that happen, and we just got all our gear in the cars and started driving like crazy towards that exit. We got to that area within a few minutes. I still had good scent articles, I scented my dog, and into the forest we went.”
Agents set up a mobile command post near Horning’s car.
“As we were trying to figure out what we’re going to do first, there was one visible white light off to the west. And I asked some local law enforcement officers what that was, and they told me that was Sedona. And without doubt, I knew that’s where he was going.”
But the DPS officer tells Agent Tolhurst that it’s nearly impossible for Horning to run those 35 miles in the dark, that the terrain was too treacherous, canyons were too steep, and to do it at night would be virtually suicide. So we didn’t act on the light. With so much ground to cover, Agent Tolhurst calls for more dogs; he’s determined to wear Horning down.
“Our plan was to try to chase him. We were going to push him as far as we could with dog teams and try to chase him all night until we could catch up to him.”
At 10 p.m. in Sedona, an older couple notices a man behind their garage. He identifies himself as a lost hiker. The husband points him to the trail head, but his wife recognizes the man and ducks inside to call 911.
“A woman said that there was a very tired individual at her porch, trying to get some water out of the hose. Now Sedona is like 30 miles as a crow flies, but it’s through a valley over a mountain, and the debate in the command post was: how could he have gotten this far?”
Agent Tolhurst decides to hedge his bets.
“We decided to send a border patrol officer and a dog team to go out to see what they would find. But we continued our search as if that were not 100% verifiable.”
By now, even the dogs are impatient to find Horning. Suddenly, at 2 a.m., a bloodhound named Judy locates her target.
“Police, let me see your hands! Drop the weapon! Drop the weapon!”
Horning is lying under the patio deck, asleep. A satchel is lying nearby with a handgun.
“Give me your arms! Give me your arms!”
Officers rush in with guns drawn, but Horning is exhausted and, to everyone’s surprise, gives up without a fight.
“There wasn’t a whole lot left. He just wanted somebody to give him a place to rest, give him some water. The dog came up and licked him. He had nothing to say. He was done.”
After the most intense manhunt in Arizona history, the FBI finally has its man.
“It’s very rewarding, and there’s just a feeling of euphoria.”
“I like to prolong it.”
Danny Ray Horning is booked into the Coconino County Jail on July 5th, 1992. Days later, he’s transferred to the state prison in Florence, the very same one he escaped from 56 days earlier.
“We’re all glad it was over with. Nobody was injured, no civilians were injured. The populace wasn’t at risk anymore, and we got this guy back into custody.”
The state of Arizona extradites Horning to California, where he finally stands trial for the brutal murder of Sam McCulla two years earlier.
“And my brother, you know, believed in people having second chances, getting second chances. And what this got my brother was: we don’t have him anymore.”
On January 26th, 1995, Horning is sentenced to death by lethal injection. Today he sits on California’s death row.
“He is the scum of the earth. He’s evil; he’s sick. Anybody that can do what he did to my brother, to molest his child… he’s scum.”
