Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Bank Robber Comes Clean on Robbing Armored Truck, Banks & More
Wed, 19 Mar 2025
Dean Wilkinson Shares his life story & how he turned his life around.Please visit Dean's social media:YouTube: https://youtube.com/@DeanWilkinson-mr8ld?si=riaB7c4mh2-7Is1DTikTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@deanwilk7?_t=ZP-8ui1gs28m10&_r=1Get 50% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout.Deans Links https://www.instagram.com/after.life.in.prison.podcast/https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Impressions-Dean-Wilkinson/dp/1477680675?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaa1czLaqoShH5LzBC2ZbYhjtuZL6sfKvdOyAtnNpKdhj-r7XFP4IVBs4jo_aem_USEzP2Qu12qEj1XOF2pbjwDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [email protected] you extra clips and behind the scenes content?Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime 📧Sign up to my newsletter to learn about Real Estate, Credit, and Growing a Youtube Channel: https://mattcoxcourses.com/news 🏦Raising & Building Credit Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/credit 📸Growing a YouTube Channel Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/yt🏠Make money with Real Estate Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/reFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69
Chapter 1: What led Dean Wilkinson to a life of crime?
Bet this girl was messing with this armored car guy. He'd go to the bathroom. She'd take pictures of the trip tickets. So you look for the best location to whack the armored car. But you need money to operate. So we hit the bank. I would hop over the counter and take all the money out of the bottom drawers. No dye packs, no alarms. Nobody gets hurt. Shut up and give me the money.
Usually you can hit like three towels. We'd average around 50 grand. My earliest memory that I think my interaction with crime and violence, which may or may not have set me on that path, is somebody in my family made a mistake, did something wrong to somebody. I don't know the story, but I know this. At like two in the morning, around 1974, I was seven, I think.
And someone threw a Molotov cocktail through our window. All right. Yeah, it makes me nuts even thinking about it now. So, you know, we barely survived this. Somebody tried to erase my whole family, all right? But somebody was awake. My mother was coming home from somewhere, seeing the smoke. We just got lucky. I went tumbling down the stairs. Two of my brothers jumped off third floor windows.
My other brother jumped off the second floor roof. And... I didn't really quite understand. I remember somebody picked me up and carried me. It could have been a fireman. And I remember as he's carrying me, I look over and, uh, the flames are shooting so far out the house. They're looking at the, uh, high power lines. All right. And it was so bad. It burnt down the house next door.
The firefighters had to run over there and get those people out. And I got the article somewhere. I went and got it. And so, uh, we moved to another side of a province near on the South side. Right. And, uh, A couple years later, they found this guy dead, drowning. What happened to him, I do not know. It was just a kid. My mother's dead now.
I know she rubbed shoulders with a lot of wise guys and stuff. Did it have anything to do with it? No. Is it a good sound for the story? Yeah, of course. But I don't know what happened. I know they found that prick dead. I remember them celebrating when I came home from school one day. I'm like, what's going on? He's dead. That bastard's gone. You know, something like that.
No, I didn't really know. My mother had no nurturing skills at all. She had a rough life. I don't hold it against her, but she didn't. I really didn't have a mother or a father. But for a brief time after the fire, let me say this. Now, I'm really putting stuff out there, but it's no secret around here. My mother became a lesbian. She was dating a rich lesbian.
That rich lesbian got us to a nice house. Then one of my brothers started robbing the neighborhood. Yeah. And we had a Jewish feeling. It was like a Jewish area. Even the street left out when it was Jewish, Kiplum Street. It's off the Elmwood Avenue section. I got to tell you this story because it's interesting.
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Chapter 2: What childhood experiences shaped Dean's path?
So one day the cops raided our house, a bunch of stolen stuff from the neighborhoods in our garage. The Jewish people, they put together something. They put together a petition. I didn't understand what was going on then. I knew later when I got older. The neighborhood petitioner gets the hell out of the neighborhood. And I laugh now, but damn.
And back to the west side we went, a block away from where the house fire happened. Oh, I forgot to leave, I left this part out. My grandmother, my foster grandmother, a nice Irish woman, maybe O'Donnell, was really the only one who raised us. So I was 10 by the time we got to Clancy Street on the west side. She died. That's it. It was over. I had nobody looking out for me.
No one paying attention. I didn't go to school. I started running the streets. I'm 10. You know, I'm surviving on my own, basically. I mean, you could eat at the house. Because me and my brothers lived on the third floor. We had no running water or heat up there. The second floor was where my foster grandfather and my sister, my mother, would occasionally stay. You know, that was weird.
That was a house, so to speak, the third floor. It reminded me of an old Western hotel. I mean, you're watching a Wild West movie, right? With a bunch of old raggedy, rickety doors. The house was sold. It had the kerosene... brass things in the wall when they used to light it for light before electricity. All right. This house was condemned and they tore it down. But that's where it began for me.
When I embraced the streets, I was in like the fifth grade. There was a lounge in my neighborhood. I didn't go there. But anyway, let me back it up. So I was 10. I was going to middle school. But because we were poor, you know, poor in those days, in the early 80s and 70s, a little different when they say poor now. Now they tell you they're poor with Jordans on.
You know, I had to rip sneakers to dirty clothes and the kids would laugh at me. And I didn't tolerate that. It had a reaction on me. I responded. With violence. You know, fist fight, smash a guy with something, the bottle. I say a guy, but I was a kid. But I learned the wrong way, obviously, how to get respect. But we know now it's false respect. When they're using violence to shut people up.
I had to shut them kids up. I couldn't walk into school, they're snickering by my back. And what a feeling that left me. I didn't understand any of that. But I used a little bit of violence and I got respect. People would shut their mouth now when I walked by. But that was fair. It wasn't real respect, of course. Yeah. And, you know, I was doing the things kids are doing in the cities.
By 11, you know, we'd grab beer off the beer truck when it was unloading into the bar, copper off another van, maybe it's unable to do something, stealing car batteries, car radios. Then I graduated to the hubcaps and eventually the whole car. So by 13, you could say is when I really entered the life of crime. I had a couple of brothers that were pimps. They pimped girls, all right?
So I grew up around a lot of hookers. I wake up in bed, I got a hooker taking a break from the street, you know? I'm a little kid. Hey, cut it out, Dean. Get off me, you know? I was just a little kid, but they were like older sisters to me, all right? I grew up around a lot of hookers and hustlers. So on our third floor was a neighborhood hangout, Crab Games. Dope fiends in another room.
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Chapter 3: How did Dean's early criminal activities begin?
uh i was going to the juvenile training school which uh i think i went at 13 for the first time but i just could not stand being in the cage so every time i got a chance i escaped i escaped like four times now i don't make a look like this big grand escape these are like minimum security type levels you have to wait to get out of maximum security but it's still the main thing is if you could make it from cranston all the way back to providence on foot and beat the cranston police
That was like, people would bet on you. I'll bet you $10 you don't make it. I made it every time through the city to my city. That was the thing. Hiding behind trees, under cars, climbing, you know, all kind of nonsense to make it home. But each time I escaped, I'd come back with a felony attached. The first time, I think it was a B&E storm car. Next time, second time, something else.
Third time was an armed robbery. I was graduating. I'd go to what they called the YCC. That was the real prison for juveniles, Youth Correctional Center. But I'm going to tell you what happened. This is what I believe. This is interesting. On my third escape, what I was doing, I hated the door. I was a very internal kid and quiet. And I went to a lot with the staff there.
I was just driving my stolen car up to the training school. leaving drugs at certain spots for guys. Anybody want to leave? One day I'm sitting in the car. I got like a .38 on me. The staff was walking by me looking at me. I'm like, that's right, you motherfucker. Right. Anybody want to do something now? I was something wrong with me. Because they hurt my brother.
There's a lot of reasons why I did that that I can't really put together. I needed to snub my nose at a dory and I did. But those pricks got even. I'm going to tell you what they did to me.
Can I ask you a question real quick?
How old were you? At that time, this is between 14. I was 14 with three escapes. I did a whole year, and I escaped when I was 16. And this is where the real trouble began. And this is what they did to me. When I was 14, calling up to the training school, stubbing my nose at them, it took me a while to pick this apart to realize what happened.
Because really, all right, so anyway, I escaped for the fourth time. By this time, my aggression was getting more. My anger was growing. And I started doing armed robberies around my state. Stealing cars, driving around powder around my neck. I thought I was fucking John Dillinger. I was reading a lot of Dillinger books and probably had an impact. I mean, I don't know. You got to do something.
Something will shape you. I was being shaped by these books and these films. It's the only best thing I could think of. What would make me do this, commit this type of behavior? Also, like, from feeling like a nobody. Because when you're in a little prison like that, I'm watching all these kids get visits. Their families bringing them stuff.
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Chapter 4: What was Dean's experience during his first prison term?
Well, you got really lucky there, huh?
No. So I said, yes, I'm winning this guy's cell block. He had a different name, first of all. So when he came in, the SEALs at the front, what do you call them? You come in the front there. You first come in. Sallieport? Not the Sallieport. We come in when you get to the committing room, right? And they're asking me, you know, Dias is saying the guy's name.
No, I thought they were talking about an inmate. I know, right? I was a kid. I'm looking around. I'm in prison now, right? So... The guy, they busted my balls a little bit. I got a couple of beefs. They put the handcuffs up. I was a little kid. Nobody really wanted to beat up a little kid. I'm 118 pounds. I'm about 5'3". It was around Christmas time, 82. I tried to escape on time.
This is going on in the intake. There was a mob guy in my vent. It was Christmas time. They're busting our balls, playing Christmas music over the speaker. I tried to break. I was so small. I could fit through that narrow window. It's all different now. They put bars up and everything because in fences back there was no fences. They just figured no man could fit up.
They didn't anticipate a little skinny kid. Right. Almost got out of there. But anyway, I had a little bit of ball busting, but not what you would think for shooting a CO's father, right? And on the day, you know, some time went on. I was there for nine months. I ended up catching like 65 years all concurrent with 10. 10 to serve, 10 suspended for all these different robberies.
That was a lot of time considered in those days. Catch 10 years at 16. Everybody was like, oh, my God. Of course, they just throw that, you know, like it's nothing. But on the day I left, I'll never forget. I was leaving the maximum security. And everybody's looking at it like, don't worry, kid. Your punishment is going to Max for security. Anyway.
Now, I also had a brother in prison at the time, a little older than me. He was in the high security for stabbing somebody at Max already. So I went to the guy. I said, listen. I appreciate how you maintain. Whatever I said to him, you know, all considering everything that happened. I did say that to the guy and he shook my hand.
Because he looked at it like, ah, it's just a punk kid lost in the streets or whatever, you know? I think that's how, I can't speak for him, but I think he summed it up like that. And I acknowledged that I was a punk kid in the street. Because prison has a way of maturing you real quick. You learn real fast in prison how to behave and conduct yourself, right? Or else.
And so I can remember being in segregation at the intake cellar, right? I'm 16. I got no fight. I'm in the hole. Now, when you're in the hole there at that time, you can see maximum security and a little bit of high security. I can see my brother in the yard off the distance because they've got this big compound. It's different here.
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Chapter 5: What were the circumstances around Dean's bank robberies?
And so I practice like that. And so anyway, I finally go. All you hear is good. I walked through the gate. I was 17. I remember the guard. He lets me in. You got one last gate to go to like the shot cage before you go in. He said, how old are you? I'm like, 17. He says, good luck in there, kid. Slams the door, right? And back then, we had street clothes, right? A lot of guys had street clothes.
So I worked out with my street clothes. The joint was nuts, right? Very few guys. It was a little skeleton crew. I walk in. The first thing I see is an older black dude in a car. He's like a nut. He's like, meh. I said, oh, really? I go near the first cell. It's like a closet. You had those metal mop ringers back then. He's like a nut. He's looking at me. I'm like, what? No God.
And then they have what they call a crossover, which all the cells open. Guys can come in and run all around, run rampant to every cell block. Back then, it was like that. And so some guys come to draw new. But anyway, he told me, this is a nut. Don't worry about it. I'll never forget them walking through the cell block. They were my cell block.
These group of guys, you know, white guys, probably Providence guys, and they're looking. And I got street clothes. I said, hey, kid, what are you doing here? You from the visit? They thought I was in a visit. It was my visit and somehow got to the prison. I said, no, I'm in here. You're in here. Jesus Christ. Look at this kid. So I was like this little, everybody's looking at me, right?
You know, so these guys, well, back then we didn't have gangs in there. We got them now, but we had crews and our neighborhoods would sit together. You had a chair. No one would touch your chair. Other guys didn't have any. They'd have to stand up and eat. I kid you not. Oh, wait till you were done. It was weird. But you sit with this table.
I sat with the West End guys, which included Federal Hill, all the mob guys. West End was a tough little part of town. So I had some of the best guys around. But, so they're going to look out for me. But you've got to be able to stand up for yourself. Nobody's going to help you, right? And, of course, I've told the story before.
My first interaction in the air with a guy, I worked in a print shop, all right? I had a few fights in between, but now I'm in maximum security. You've got to step your game up, right? I'm a hairless little boy. Let's face it. So, you know, there's predators looking in the wings. You know, they see if you got any back and stuff like that. But also, it's small.
So I knew a lot of the old times, black and white. I grew up in the West Side where there's blacks and whites, right? And I knew a lot of old times. There was a very few Spanish back then. There was like five Spanish guys in the old prison back then, right? But this big, scarred up guy, the typical. You could put him in the background scene of a prison movie, right? Get that look.
And it had like a little break room. I go in here, I make a coffee, I open the door, there's a milk, I grab it, I use it, I put it in the coffee, right? Hey, using my fucking milk? I didn't tell you you can use my fucking milk. I said, what the fuck you talking about, Joey? Smushes me in the fucking face, right? I got no weapon on me, I learned my lesson. Big guy, I can't take it with my hands.
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Chapter 6: How did Dean's interactions with law enforcement evolve?
It's a weird thing, man, becoming that guy, right? It's fucking... I'm so far removed from that now, I can't believe it. I didn't give a fuck. Because I was so fucked up and so lost, I had nobody. I was robbing guys in the can to survive. I just didn't give a fuck, right? There was some concern, but anyway, they were trying to get me to rat. We know you didn't do it alone. Fuck you, fuck you.
I go to high security. I'm in this fucking cell. They got a regular cell block. Then they got one behind the hospital where they really isolated. You can't see nobody or nothing. There's no window or nothing. It's against the law. They actually had to put a fucking skylight in. That's like the back room they call it. There's like four cells. They just want to isolate you from everybody.
You might as well be in fucking Russia. You know what's going on in the world, right? All I know is I got a fucking body. I'm thinking of walking back and forth. Me and my thoughts. They can't even shut the light off. They keep the light on 24-7. Fuck your eyes up. It was a fucking mess, right? That night they came to read me what they call a booking or a ticket in some prisons they call it.
Freaking guy was alive. Fucking asshole. Somebody die. I thought I had a fucking body, right? I was half worried. What I think now that I wasn't even that concerned. Like, I don't know. I was embraced. I know people like that I know guys that killed guys in prison And they didn't care They cared more about how it came out The respect part It was so fucking stupid, ain't it?
But that was my first real problem in prison And all on revenge I couldn't let things go And it was so nuts back then When I went to parole a couple years later So we see you have a stabbing on her What happened? I swear to God I said, listen I was 16, you put me in the Dental Alliance. And they said, nope, fair enough. You can't do that now, but prisons were so out of control back then.
It was almost understandable how kids got... Who doesn't understand that? Are you going to survive by violence? I mean, there was other times I had other issues. I had to make moves. I didn't want to go ramble on about every little incident. But of course, I had a lot of incidents of fucking 16. And eventually, I wasn't with my brother Millie the whole time on that bit.
I did five years until I was 21. And in that time... I got tight with some OC guys, you know, some wise guys. And so when I got out, that's the element I was around. There was a crew of us kids who were loyal to that one guy I told you about earlier. Now, we were just street kids. He's a made guy. He had like a private army of kids. That's how he was smart like that.
And then he had his own people. But he utilized us when he had to. And... I impressed him. He always took care of me, free lawyers. You know, of course, you're a kid. You think you're a big shot. You go to restaurants. I got my girl with me. Fucking all psyched up off that false bullshit, right? But at the time, it was working. And so...
I'm trying to think if that's... Oh, I ended up going back to prison. I ended up shooting the guy in front of my sister's house. He's related to my sister's boyfriend who had kids with my sister. I think he was smoking crack in the house or something. You got to get the fuck out of here. Fuck you. I beat him up for us. Shot him in the stomach. He didn't rat on me. I thought he was dead, right?
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Chapter 7: What led to Dean's eventual transformation?
Screaming, hollering in the street, bloody murder. I said, this fucking guy is dead. I was stupid. I was just a temper, right? I was a trigger-happy retard, I like to say. I hate to use that word, but that's how I was when I got out of the can. All that violence and anger and just transfer that right to the street.
I'm trying to impress the mob guys, and I was doing a good job at that for my behavior. Anyway, the kid, he's five, no problem. I said, don't ever come around here again. A month later, I show up with my friend. There he is, this fucking kid. Don't listen. Boom, boom, boom. He gets somebody, shoots him again. He got shot. Someone shot at him on December.
Somehow through the door, he only got hit in the leg, right? This time... Oh, he's still insane. It was the weirdest thing. It wasn't really bothering me over that, right? He's just some Spanish... That's what I looked at. Just some Spanish kid. I don't care. Cops are real racist back then. I didn't give a fuck about that kid. So one day, months later...
Now they're investigating me for another shooting at a witness or something. I forget what it was. Now the heat's on because they're regular people. I was out of control. That's all I can say. My friend was in the can, had a problem with witnesses. Somebody intimidated the witnesses with gunfire, blah, blah, blah. But now the cops are on me. What do they do?
They go, they can't do nothing about that. So now they want to grab me for the other shooting of the Spanish kid months earlier. So I give them a car accident one day. On my street. I didn't do it. The lady was wrong. And the kids come out. They're trying to jump me. I go through all this bullshit. The cops show up. Blah, blah, blah. I mean, cops leave. I mean, I'm about half hour late.
Oh, so a little while later, my sister's like, uh, She wants to go get her son. The father's kid. I'm going somewhere with this. The father of her kid's in the project somewhere. She don't want a kid in there. All right, let's go get him. Keep in mind, he's the kid I was in charge of shooting. He's the brother of this guy. I go to his house. They're all over there talking Spanish.
I got a pistol on me. I said, keep it up. I'll finish the job right now, right? You know, I'm nice and calm with that fucking shit. I'm better off when I'm shooting somebody. I got more anxiety in a line. If I'm walking in lines, that's how I was then. So anyway, basically it was a threat there. They called the cops. By the time I get home, right, detectives realize, I guess, they can utilize...
They can get this shooting to take me off the street while they're investigating the other shooting, if you get what I'm saying, if you follow me. I mean, you top star, I know. So anyway, I go home. So they surround the house, right? And they say, dude, we want to talk to you. Because remember, I had an accident a little while earlier.
He said, your license, we're going to check your license about the shooting. And I got the piss bomb behind everything. My license? Oh, maybe it's nothing. But I should have known because they were all around the house. They come and go, ooh, right? I'm like, what the fuck? They tricked me saying they wanted something to do with my license.
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