While the failed bank robbery and the fake bombs were enough to make anyone anxious and fearful, Yussman soon realized that the ordeal was far from over. Because of the strange circumstances of the kidnapping and subsequent robbery plan, police suspected that Yussman was behind the plot.
Yussman later explained in a victim's impact statement, per the Hartford Courant, that he was immediately treated like a suspect by the police.
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"I was considered a person of interest almost immediately and my life was picked apart. I was never treated as a victim and my reputation has been permanently damaged," he wrote.
But, when similar credit union robbery plots occurred in other parts of the country, investigators then realized that there was a link between them, and that Yussman was not to blame.
Several employees of credit unions were kidnapped, and their families were held hostage after Yussman. However, when the victims were asked to explain who attacked them, they all had differing descriptions. The assailants never left behind DNA evidence either.
They also stole the cars that they would use in the kidnappings. They would subsequently burn them to get rid of evidence.
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After victim Brooke Lyons was forced to rob the credit union she worked at in Tennessee in 2015, police learned that the stolen car used in the incident was on the run. The kidnappers hadn't burned it, and authorities soon began to look for it.
Eventually, the car was located and, Michael Benanti and Brian Witham were apprehended by authorities. The two were convicted bank robbers who had met in prison in the '90s.
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Interestingly, Benanti was the founder of Prisoner Assistant Inc, a company that helped criminals reform and get work after getting out of prison.
Upon further investigation, police learned that the men would do intense surveillance on their victims' homes, and they would stake them out. They often hid in trees on their victims' properties for days at a time.
They used masks and would change their appearance so victims would give disparate descriptions of their attackers.
Police also found the rental cabin the men had been staying in at the time when they were apprehended. There was a treasure trove of information linking them to the various robberies, including the masks, wigs, weapons, and lists of information used.
Benanti was given four consecutive life sentences in prison, plus 155 years. Witham was sentenced to 42 years in prison.
Dateline airs on Fridays at 9 p.m. on NBC.
