Mr. Schiff: Hi, welcome to "FBI 100, A Closer Look." I'm Neal Schiff of the Bureau's Office of Public Affairs along with FBI Historian Dr. John Fox. John, the FBI’s Top Ten list officially is called the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Sometimes men and women are on the list for months and years. But there was one bad guy up for just two hours?
Dr. Fox: "Yes Neal. In 1969, Billy Austin Bryant was sought for the murder of two FBI agents.”
Mr. Schiff: Fill us in on Bryant?
Dr. Fox: "Bryant was a noted violent criminal who had been incarcerated in a local Washington, DC, jail and escaped. Pretty soon after his escape, he committed a bank robbery and because he’d been identified, we were in the area and looking for him very soon after. We realized that he might be hiding out at his wife’s place, because it was nearby. And so a couple of agents went to look for him.”
Mr. Schiff: So there was quick work by the Washington Field Office in finding Bryant?
Dr. Fox: "Yes. Both the Washington Field Office and the Washington Police were involved in the search and in fact Bryant was captured very soon after shooting two of our agents, Edwin Woodruff and Anthony Palmisano.”
Mr. Schiff: My understanding is that Bryant was put on the list late in the afternoon and it was very early evening that eventually he was in custody, unfortunately after the slaying of two FBI agents?
Dr. Fox: "Apparently a Washington Police Officer was searching an area where Bryant was thought to be and heard some noise in a garage and found Bryant hiding there. It had only been, as you said Neal, about two hours after he had put on the list.”
Mr. Schiff: Hundreds of fugitives have been on the FBI’s Top Ten list. Check ‘em out on the Internet at www.fbi.gov. From the FBI’s Public Affairs office, along with Bureau Historian Dr. John Fox, I'm Neal Schiff with "FBI 100, A Closer Look."
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