The Time Bandits of Southern California

Less than two weeks later, on March 22, four masked men stormed into the Westime watch store in Malibu, squirting pepper spray into the store manager's eyes. “I thought at that moment that I was going to be shot,” he'd recall, “and that I'd never see my kids again.” The foursome grabbed at least $1.4 million in Franck Mullers, Hublots, Omegas, Breitlings, and Audemars Piguets (one of which was worth $250,000) and fled. By this point, data from the suspects' cell phones was beginning to yield results: Stanley Ford's phone had pinged off towers near three jewelry stores around the time each was being robbed. And Stearman could see that all of the suspects talked to one another a lot on the days a robbery went down. Meanwhile, he had gotten authorization to put “pole cams” on telephone poles outside of some suspects' residences, so he could watch them come and go.