Decades-Long Fugitive in 1988 Armored Car Heist Identified After Death

John Anthony Quinn, the 48-year-old vice president and general manager of Federal Protection Services Inc. in Riviera Beach, Florida, allegedly walked out of the company's vault on April 9, 1988, with $1.3 million in untraceable cash and was never seen again under his real name. Nearly four decades later, the FBI identified him not through an arrest, but through a fingerprint match performed after he died of natural causes in North Carolina.

The cold case, described as nearly 40 years old, had been featured on both *Unsolved Mysteries* and *America's Most Wanted*. The announcement came on March 24, 2026, closing one of the longest-running vault theft cases in Palm Beach County history.

Quinn went by a string of aliases over the decades, including Dale Calvin Cluckey, Dale Clucke, Jack Quinn, and James Sullivan, and died under the name Jim Klein. The FBI Miami Office confirmed that the deceased man known as Jim Klein was, in fact, their longtime fugitive. The FBI Laboratory Latent Prints Unit positively identified Quinn from a fingerprint card.

In 1986, Quinn had become the vice president and general manager of Federal Protection Services Inc. in Riviera Beach, a company that provided security, armored cars, and armed guards to banks and other financial institutions. He had personally designed the dual-combination security system for their safe and was the only employee entrusted with knowing both parts of the combination. That insider knowledge made the theft both possible and nearly impossible to detect in real time.

Authorities had to wait until 5 a.m. Monday, when the timer Quinn had set expired and the safe could be opened. Officials determined $1.3 million was missing, in $100, $50, $20, and $10 bills, enough to fill a large suitcase. That same amount today would be worth more than $2.7 million.

Quinn was wanted as a federal fugitive for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and by the state of Florida for first-degree grand theft. Despite national television exposure on two of the most-watched true crime franchises of the era, he managed to elude investigators entirely, cycling through aliases and eventually dying in North Carolina with no official record linking him to the 1988 theft.

The identification resulted from collaboration between the FBI Miami Office, the FBI Charlotte field office, FBI laboratory analysts, and local police departments. FBI Special Agent James Cavanaugh, a lead investigator on the original case, had noted that "the trail for Quinn stops at Palm Beach International Airport" and that "indications are that he did not take a plane." That trail stayed cold for the better part of 38 years.

As a direct result of Quinn's actions, Federal Protection Services was forced to sell off its armored truck division, and his wife Pauline and their son Michael were left with almost no money and had to move back to Maryland to live with relatives. The stolen cash has never been recovered.