CRIMEWATCH: FBI Task Force Hits Austin

The FBI'S Violent Crimes Task Force in Austin is looking to expand but size is just one aspect the new FBI Assisant Special Agent in Charge for the Austin area wants to change.

In his first one-on-one interview, Royce Curtin's says he wants more local and state law enforcement involvement in the task force because pooling resources is crucial.

"They have different levels of investigative talent, they have different liason contacts, they have different source bases and they also have different databases," said Curtin.

Curtin also says Austin and surrounding communities will soon be seeing a lot more of the FBI.

"We want to help them understand one, that we're here, two, that we're working with our federal, state, and local partners in unison very successfully and that the success of the FBI and all of the law enforcement agencies is really firmly premised and predicated on the community contacting us and providing us information," Curtin said.

The focus of the task force is clear after local law enforcement identified significant violent crime problems in Austin. It includes bank robbers, extortions, kidnappings, and other fugitives.

There are several cases the task force is working, including a female bank robber who held up a Wells Branch Credit Union in June. And in August, someone robbed the Velocity Credit Union off Braker Lane.

And remember the Ponytail Bandit ? Morgan Hoke was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in 2008 after she admitted robbing three banks, in three states, including the Wachovia on Mesa Drive, here in Austin.

She was arrested in Thailand about 7 months later. But her husband, Stuart Romine is still an international fugitive. He's accused of robbing the same Wachovia in Austin, and two banks in the Houston area. The Ponytail Bandit was one of the first cases for the task force.

The latest success, the Rockabilly Bandit or Robert Graham was sentenced to 46 years in prison after several armed robberies in the Austin area and Arizona.

"Here's a gentleman who had a tremendous disguise, here's a man who got more and more aggressive and more and more violent with each bank robbery," said Special Agent Dennis May. May also says it was the diligence of a task force member that lead to cracking this case.

"It was one of our task force officers going through computer searches, financial records, that saw a connection to Arizona," May added.

Special agent May is also the one who developed www.Bandittracker.com , a website that tracks all the bank robbers in Texas. It's so successful, other cities out of state have started their own version.

Besides bank robberies, the task force works international kidnapping cases. May says 8-year-old, Saxon Kawar was kidnapped July 2009 from her Round Rock home by her father and taken out of the country to Jordan.

Task force members also work homicide cases. The body of Round Rock man, John Blattner, was discovered between Taylor and Granger in April 2009. Investigators say it didn't take long to discover that Blattner's ex-wife and her current husband, Jennifer and Charles Bowen, killed Blattner. Both are charged with capital murder.

But the task force won't investigate just any violent crime. May says they take the more complex cases. Ones that are time consuming and need extra attention.

Special Agent in Charge Curtin recognizes during slower economic times, local law enforcement agencies may not want to give up manpower to join the task force. But Curtin says it's a move that can only help.

"Instead of them assigning resources to investigate something in their jurisdication, we may be able to bring their folks on aboard, give them expanded intelligence so they have a better understanding of what's going on right there in their own backyard," Curtin said.

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