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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Death Themes Decorate Dead Robber’s Room Brother Blames Bank Teller For Robbery, Suicide

A 19-year-old bank robber who killed himself slept on a handmade wooden coffin in the basement of a rental home he shared with his bank teller friend.

FBI agents who searched the pair’s home near NorthTown spotted the coffin and rope nooses hanging from the ceiling of the bedroom of John Wayne Carter.

“There also were numerous knives and a clothed skeleton, with a gun strapped on, propped up in the corner,” said FBI supervisor Jeffrey John.

“It was kind of a weird scene in that bedroom,” John said Friday.

Carter lived in the house at 32 E. Rockwell with Anthony B. Maze, 20, a teller at First Interstate branch at 2910 E. 30th. Two young women also live in the house where the foursome shared expenses.

The son of a federal prosecutor in Guam, Maze is in jail on charges of bank embezzlement and theft. A court hearing will be held next week.

“People have fascinations with different things,” said Maze’s girlfriend, Erin Robinson, 20.

“Just because he had a fascination with knives and skulls doesn’t mean he was weird or anything,” she said, shivering on the front steps of the home.

She wouldn’t show visitors Carter’s bedroom.

“John didn’t want any of us going in there, ever, and he sure wouldn’t want it all over the newspaper after he’s dead,” she said.

In a scheme that FBI agents say was hatched by the two young men, Carter robbed the bank’s drive-through window where Maze was working on Wednesday afternoon.

After speeding away, Carter shot himself in the head just a few blocks away as police attempted to arrest him.

Maze told bank officials and the FBI that $4,635 was stolen in the holdup. But police and FBI agents only found $2,635 in Carter’s pickup.

They assume Maze embezzled the money and somehow removed the $2,000. Bank managers were preparing to fire him for absences on the day the robbery occurred.

“This was not a result of my little brother’s design,” said Jarrod Carter, 25, a bio-mechanics doctoral student at the University of Washington.

He learned of his brother’s death as he was about to start fall semester finals at the Seattle university.

Back in Spokane, Jarrod Carter looked at a newspaper photo of a smirking Maze and said: “He has no remorse whatsoever that my little brother killed himself to save” him (Maze).

“I believe in my heart that my little brother was coerced into this,” Jarrod Carter said. “In the last frightened moments of his life, he must have thought he had no other recourse.”

Jarrod Carter said his brother liked to build and collect knives, and talked about a career in that field. He smoked marijuana “and we talked to him about getting away from that,” the surviving brother said.

Agents learned Friday that Maze was delinquent for two months’ rent and paid approximately $1,000 in cash to his landlord.

“We still don’t know what happened to the rest of the money,” FBI agent John said.

The FBI supervisor said agents found drug paraphernalia, including marijuana smoking devices and cocaine residue, during their search of the home.

They seized a BB gun, which looks like an assault-style handgun, that was strapped to the waist of the partially clothed skeleton.

Landlord Jim Lynass was stunned when told what was in Carter’s basement bedroom. “Good gosh, no, I had no idea that kind of stuff is in there,” he said.

He said Maze and his girlfriend, Robinson, moved into the house and signed a six-month lease for $435 a month on Oct. 1.

Carter attended Mead High School, but dropped out shortly after the start of his senior year in 1994. He enrolled in an alternative high school in March but didn’t graduate.

“There was something going on with him,” said assistant principal John Van Haalen.

He recalled that Carter was “fairly quiet” and usually wore black clothing and a black leather jacket. He was told not to wear his black boots, with large spikes attached, to high school.

The vice principal said Carter had attendance problems which improved with help from a student support group.

“We see those kinds of problems in kids who don’t have high self-esteem,” Van Haalen said.

Robinson said she has dated Maze and described Carter “as the best friend I ever had.” She met him in junior high and the two remained friends.

“He was always there to listen any time you wanted to talk to him,” Robinson said.

She cried softly when talking about Carter’s German Shepherd-mix, Brandy. “He asked me to take care of her if anything ever happened to him.”

Funeral services for Carter will be at 1 p.m. Monday at Riplinger’s.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo