Víctor Manuel Gerena
| Victor Manuel Gerena | |
|---|---|
| File:Genera.jpg | |
| FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive | |
| Description | |
| Born | June 24, 1958 |
| Status | |
| Added | May 14, 1984 |
| Number | 386 |
| Currently a Top Ten Fugitive | |
Victor Manuel Gerena (born June 24, 1958) is a New York native of Puerto Rican descent who is linked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with the armed robbery of a Wells Fargo bank, in connection with the Los Macheteros group. On May 14, 1984, he became the 386th Fugitive listed by the FBI on the Ten Most Wanted list. He is still at large, and now the record holder for the second longest time spent by any fugitive on the list since its inception in 1950 (surpassed only by Donald Eugene Webb). Gerena is known to have lived in Cuba; his exact whereabouts and fate in that island are unknown.
Early life
Gerena and his family, composed of his mother, four brothers and one sister, moved to Hartford, Connecticut, when Gerena was very young. He enjoyed wrestling, winning many tournaments; he also played Football. Gerena also proved extremely popular among girls in his high school. He was a good student, serving on the student council and was recommended to Trinity College.
Gerena met Marion Delaney, a then clerk for the House of Representatives, who became his friend and tutor. Delaney inspired Gerena to attend her alma mater, the Annhurst College, a typically female-only college that had faced harsh economic times and was by then accepting male students. There were 200 women at Annhurst and only 25 men.
Gerena was met with dislike by the college's superiors, all Catholic nuns who accepted, but apparently did not like, the men on campus. Gerena returned home and got together with an old friend and they had one daughter.
Gerena then left his girlfriend to date another friend, Pamela Anderson. They married, he joined the Army and had two daughters. Gerena disliked the Army life, and he promptly left the military service, divorcing Anderson soon after.
Gerena then became a security guard at a Wells Fargo branch in West Hartford, Connecticut, the same branch he would later help rob.
Bank heist
In Puerto Rico, Machetero leaders Filiberto Ojeda Rios and Juan Segarra Palmer had heard of Gerena; Gerena's mother's background as a pro-independence advocate and his dislike of life in the Army made him, in Ojeda Rios' and Segarra Palmer's eyes, a candidate to become a member of Los Macheteros. They flew to Hartford and convinced the fame starved Gerena to help them with their cause by participating in the heist.
On September 12, 1983, Gerena dropped off his new girlfriend at City Hall, where she was to get a marriage license for the couple. He went to work, and spent the rest of the day with co-workers James McKeon and Timothy Girard. At some point, Gerena took off McKeon's gun, handcuffed and tied up his two co-workers, and then injected them with an unknown substance in order to further disable them. He put $7 million dollars in the trunk of a car, then left with the money. At an unknown point, Gerena transferred to another vehicle and disappeared. Gerena may have been left with $2 million dollars for himself.
Fugitive trail
According to FBI investigations, Gerena was transported to Mexico, where he boarded a Cubana de Aviacion jet at Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City, arriving at Jose Marti International Airport in Havana.
Years later, a Gerena relative would accompany journalist Edmund Mahoney to Cuba to try to find his whereabouts, but they did not succeed in finding him. Mahoney published a story in 1999 named Chasing Gerena.
Many theories abound about Gerena's fate, most of them revolve around Cuban President Fidel Castro. It is said that Gerena could be living in Cuba after fleeing the United States.