Mother who was forced to rob the bank she managed after kidnappers strapped fake dynamite on her

• A woman was made to rob the bank she was managing after being kidnapped and having fake dynamite strapped to her and her daughter’s bodies
• Michelle Renee, her seven-year-old daughter Breea, and a roommate were held captive for 14 hours in November 2000 by three masked intruders in their home
• The trio had been casing the bank for months and threatened to detonate explosives if she did not comply, forcing her to take $360,000 from bank’s vault

A California woman who was made to rob the bank she was managing after kidnappers strapped dynamite to her and her daughter has revealed how she ultimately helped police to solve the case, despite the suspect trying to accuse her of planning the heist.

It was 2000 when Michelle Renee, a San Diego bank manager was forced to steal $360,000 from he Bank of America branch in Vista.

Three robbers had been casing the branch in the months prior to the robbery and knew where Renee, her seven-year-old daughter Breea and a roommate lived.  

On one evening in November, the three were held hostage for 14 hours and bound with duct tape after the masked intruders stormed into their home, before strapping sticks of dynamite on them all.

‘Are you gonna kill my mommy? Are you gonna kill me?’ Breea, the little girl, asked the kidnappers. 

‘No, not if your mommy does everything that we tell her to do,’ one of the men replied.

They warned Renee that they would detonate the explosives if she didn’t comply and take the money from the bank’s vault for them.

Renee told CBS’s 48 Hours that the kidnappers managed to exert a psychological control over her, saying ‘we know everything about you.’ 

They explained clearly to her why they had chosen her and how they had followed Renee for months. 

‘You’re gonna rob the bank for us, or you will die, your daughter will go first,’ they threatened. 

They told Renee said that if she made one false move, they would be able to detonate the dynamite within a 10-mile radius. 

Once the bank opened at 9am, Renee went in as usual as if going to work and then walked out with a duffel bag filled with the cash. 

Following the robbery, Renee raced home to find her daughter hiding in a closet. 

‘I didn’t know if Breea’s gonna be there,’ Renee says she recalled thinking. ‘I don’t know if she’s gonna be alive when I get there.’ 

The police bomb squad determined that the explosive device that was still strapped to Breea’s back was a fake and was made up from just two wooden broomstick handles cut up, painted and taped together to look like dynamite.

Renee then set about helping the police. She told investigators how she recognized one of the kidnappers’ eyes after he posed as a customer while earlier casing the bank. 

‘My brain was going, “Oh my gosh, don’t let him know that you know,”‘ Renee said. 

In what became a schoolboy error Butler had left his real business card at the bank containing his name and phone number. It ultimately became a key piece of  evidence in the case.

The suspect, Christopher Butler, had a history of bank robberies and was placed under surveillance. 

Ten days later, he was arrested during a traffic stop along with his fiancée Lisa Ramirez, who police believed also had helped to plan the robbery with him. 

Investigators found physical evidence tying them to the crime which included a BB gun, ski masks with cutout eye holes, Renee’s credit cards, and money straps from the cash taken from the bank. 

At Butler’s home, investigators also found ‘all the ingredients to make the fake bomb’ together with the colored paint used for the fake dynamite sticks. 

During his trial, Butler and Ramirez claimed that Renee was in on the heist and subsequent kidnapping.

Butler even claimed Renee had masterminded the entire robbery and he claimed that the two of them had previously had an affair – all complete lies.

It led to defense lawyers relentlessly attacking her credibility on the witness stand.

‘They were trying to paint me as somebody that was irresponsible, Renee told CBS News. ‘A selfish, terrible mother… that… would do anything for money,’ she explained.

Twenty years later, in 2020, Butler finally recanted his testimony during a parole hearing and admitted that Renee had absolutely no involvement in the kidnapping. 

‘There was never, ever a chance…that I would…have been involved in anything like this,’ Renee said. ‘In a weird…way, I could breathe…I could exhale, finally, after all these years.’

For Renee, a cloud of suspicion that had hung over her for decades, was finally lifted.