SAMMAMISH, Wash. — A joint investigative team of FBI and ATF agents spent hours Tuesday searching a well-built underground bunker discovered in a thickly-wooded area near East Lake Sammamish.
The Seattle office of the FBI said the cache’s location in challenging terrain was discovered through the investigation of 46-year-old Bradley Steven Robinett, a convicted bank robber who escaped his supervised release in August 2009.
"We followed those clues much like one would follow a treasure hunt put together by children. We knew to look for a certain type of tree, a certain type of ravine," said Special Agent Ayn Dietrich-Williams, FBI spokeswoman.
Click here to see raw video of the bunker.
According to Washington’s Western District of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Robinett was arrested in Hillsboro, Oregon, in June 2014 after being on the run for nearly five years.
According to court filings, Robinett was convicted of bank robbery, and in 2004 was sentenced to seven years in prison. In August, 2009, he was released from a federal prison in Arizona and put on a bus to Seattle with the requirement that he report to a halfway house within 48 hours.
Robinett never reported to the halfway house and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
In September, 2009, police on Bainbridge Island attempted to stop a car that led them on a high speed chase.
Police said Robinett was driving the car, but he abandoned it and was able to elude officers.
Authorities said inside the car officers found a Glock 9 mm pistol and a ballistic vest that had been stolen from the Seattle Police Department several years earlier.
Before he was arrested last June, law enforcement said the last time they saw Robinett was in November, 2009, when Washington State Patrol detectives encountered him driving a stolen car at a Park and Ride facility in Bellevue.
Police say Robinett attempted to ram a WSP vehicle before fleeing, and though the trooper driving the vehicle managed to avoid a crash, Robinett was able to escape. The trooper Robinett tried to run down was at the bunker today.
“It's nice to have some resolution. It's nice to have some loose ends tied up,” said Detective Sgt. Jeff Maijala.
The vehicle Robinett was driving was reported stolen in Oregon, which led to his arrest.
On Jan. 29, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Seattle to escape, being a felon in possession of a firearm and interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle. He faces more than 12 years in prison when he is sentenced in May.
The former Marine also managed to escape police in 2011 by stealing a kayak and paddling into Puget Sound.
Neighbors who live in a nearby East Lake Sammamish condominium complex were very surprised to hear that Robinett, while featured as a dangerous fugitive on the show “America’s Most Wanted,” was likely sneaking through the condo’s parking lot to his hidden bunker in the woods for years.
"I'm sure I've walked right by (the bunker)," neighbor Jake Lasody said.
“The thing is, I've walked up that hill and walked all around, I’ve walked my dog up in there and I’ve never ever seen a thing. (An FBI agent) said the bunker was literally fifteen steps over the hill which is literally two minutes from my doorstep, which I can't believe!"
The FBI took the extraordinary step of showing the bunker to the public because agents want people to be on the lookout for similar bunkers or caches around the state that might belong to Robinett or other criminals.
“We continue our investigation on the serial murderer Israel Keys and we know that he hid caches throughout Washington State.
Some of these caches can be big as the 8-by-10 bunker related to Israel Keys or someone else. It could be as small as a bunker just buried a few feet underground,” Dietrich-Williams said.
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