Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Heist episodes 1 and 2, "Sex Magick Money Murder Parts 1 & 2."
The first two episodes of Netflix's new true-crime series Heist profile the case of Heather Tallchief and Roberto Solis, who masterminded a cunning armored car robbery in Las Vegas that made Danny Ocean look like a rank amateur. However, while the episode offered an informed analysis of Tallchief and Solis' history together and how Tallchief evaded authorities for over a decade before turning herself in, there are some parts of the story that the series did not touch upon.
Tallchief was a hospice nurse, who became entranced by the charismatic Solis; a convicted murderer and armored car robber who had secured an early parole from prison in 1992 after writing several acclaimed volumes of poetry. The two moved to Las Vegas, where Tallchief (at Solis' urging) took a job as an armored car driver with Loomis Armored Inc, who serviced many of the casinos in Las Vegas. After several weeks on the job, Tallchief drove off with a truck full of approximately $3 million in crisp, unmarked bills on October 1, 1993, leaving behind the co-workers who were reloading the ATMs at the Circus Circus casino. Tallchief and Solis shipped the money to be picked up later, before making their escape from Las Vegas in a chartered plane, disguised as an elderly woman and her doctor. The two pulled off one of the most infamous heists in Las Vegas history and evaded one of the most extensive manhunts in American law enforcement history and a media blitz — which included profiles on Unsolved Mysteries and America's Most Wanted.
Tallchief and Solis continued to live together for several years and had a son together, but Tallchief left after she became convinced that there was no longer any hint of romance between them and that Solis had no interest in being a father. Tallchief fled to the Netherlands using a fake passport and lived in Amsterdam with her son for the better part of a decade, before returning to the United States in 2005 to turn herself in and secure legal citizenship for her son. Since that time, Tallchief has served her sentence and gone on to reenter the nursing profession under an assumed name, but Robert Solis is still at large and most of the money they stole was never recovered. Here is everything that Heist didn't cover regarding the case of Heather Tallchief and Roberto Solis.
Heist Leaves Out Heather Tallchief's Employment History
One of the segments in Heist portrayed Heather Tallchief as something of a bimbo, who was only hired by Loomis Armored Inc, because of her looks and because the company was desperate to diversify its workforce to meet new standards by recruiting more women. Two of Tallchief's former co-workers, identified only as Scott and Steve, spoke of her being a terrible driver, who accidentally backed a truck into Scott at one point and had trouble noticing stop signs. The reenactment tied to this segment showed Tallchief dancing in the driver's seat while listening to the radio, only to hurriedly slam on the breaks and run into something.
While Tallchief spoke of only having her driver's license for a couple of months at that point and not knowing her way around Las Vegas very well, her employment records from before the heist tell an entirely different story than the one related by Steve and Scott. Tallchief proved reliable enough in her short time with Loomis Armored Inc, to be promoted from casino house runs (a low-risk duty involving transporting easily traceable cash to the local casinos) to the much more dangerous cash machine runs. Also, while Tallchief may have been a striking woman, most of her coworkers in written accounts at the time of the heist noted her professional dress sense, with unfashionable glasses and her hair always tied back; a description at odds with Scott and Steve's description of a woman who played upon her looks to enthrall their district manager into hiring her.
Hiest Leaves out Heather Tallchief's Skills With Firearms
There is another notable aspect of Heather Tallchief's employment record at Loomis Armored Inc, that indicates she was far more than the naïve novice that Heist depicts her as: she aced a firing range test which the company required of all employees who wished to carry a firearm while on duty. Tallchief took the test within the first few weeks of her employment with Loomis and stunned her coworkers by earning record scores on the test. This was part of what paved the way for her fast promotion from house runs to cash machine runs. Presumably, her training with firearms was another aspect of Solis' grooming her into his perfect partner during their time together before the heist, as Tallchief spoke in the second episode of Heist about their purchasing "a substantial amount of firearms" afterwards and Solis training her in the use of an AK-47.
Heather Tallchief Left A Goodbye Letter Behind For Her Mother
The first episode of Heist described Heather Tallchief's troubled childhood and how she was left in the custody of her father after her mother moved to California when she was a toddler. This was the last that Heist mentioned Tallchief's mother, suggesting that they did not have any contact afterward. In truth, Tallchief exchanged letters with her mother throughout her childhood, but the two did not have a traditional loving mother-daughter relationship. Tallchief lamented this fact in a letter she wrote but did not mail, leaving it in the Las Vegas apartment that she shared with Richard Solis to be found after the heist. The letter said that Tallchief was doubtful she would ever see her mother again, but she assured her mother that she shouldn't worry about her because "we have never been true friends."
Heather Tallchief Was Officially The FBI's "Most Wanted Woman In America"
Both episodes of Heist detailing the case of Heather Tallchief and Roberto Solis went into detail describing the intensive manhunt that sought to capture the two robbers, but they failed to note that Heather Tallchief was notable in one historic respect. Four years after Tallchief disappeared, she rose to the #3 position on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. At that time, Tallchief was the most highly ranked female felon to have ever been placed on the list since it was first established in 1950. While this is hardly a proud accomplishment likely to top a list of feminist achievements, it does indicate the intensity with which the FBI was searching for Tallchief at the time.