- Michelle Renee had dynamite strapped to her back and was held hostage with her daughter Breea in a terrifying home invasion
- The masked intruders demanded bank manager Renee rob her bank to save her daughter’s life
- Renee stole over $500K in cash before helping the police to catch the criminals
- After battling PTSD Renee wrote a book ‘Held Hostage’ which was made into a film of the explosive ordeal
Michelle Renee loved nothing more than being a mum.
For years she worked tirelessly to move up the career ladder at a local bank, first as a teller, then a sales manager, so she could better provide for her daughter, Breea.
By 2000, Michelle, then 35, had been promoted to bank manager. Not only was it a stable income for the single mum, but it meant she could be home more with Breea, seven.
One night in November that year, Breea turned to her mum. ‘There’s somebody outside the window,’ she said.
Alarmed, Michelle peered out, but could only see darkness. It must have been a figment of her daughter’s imagination, she reasoned.
The following night, the pair were snuggled on the lounge together watching TV, when an almighty crash came from their back door around 8pm.
Horrifyingly, three masked men burst in with their guns raised.
‘Are you going to kill my mummy?’ Breea wept. ‘Are you going to kill me?’
Grabbing Michelle by the hair, they threw her to the floor and roughly bound her hands behind her back.
When Michelle finally looked up, she saw Breea also had her hands and feet taped together.
‘Are you going to kill my mummy?’ Breea wept. ‘Are you going to kill me?’
‘Not if your mummy does everything we tell her to,’ one of the men replied.
READ MORE:HOUSE OF TERROR – I WAS HELD HOSTAGE FOR 10 YEARS
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For hours the intruders played mind games with Michelle and Breea, plunging the house into darkness by turning off all the lights.
‘We’ve been following you for weeks,’ they tormented Michelle.
‘We know you’re branch manager of a bank. We know everything about you.’
Suddenly it became clear why they’d targeted her.
They wanted Michelle to break into her own bank and make away with as much money as possible.
Michelle shuddered. She was no criminal.
But she knew the people she was dealing with weren’t to be messed with.
‘You’re going to rob the bank for us or we will kill you… and your daughter will be first,’ the intruders had threatened.
When she asked to use the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of the eyes of the ringleader, who went by the alias of ‘Money One’.
Michelle recognised him as a customer she’d served the day before. He’d come into the branch with his partner talking about opening an account.
Could the woman he’d been talking to on a walkie-talkie, known as ‘Money Two’, be the same person?
When Michelle’s flatmate Kimbra arrived home, the intruders bound her arms and legs as well. As hours ticked by, Michelle wondered whether it’d be the last night she’d spend with her daughter.
Finally at 6am the next day, the ringleader told Michelle it was go-time.
READ MORE: MAN WHO ROBBED BANK TO AVOID WIFE SENTENCE TO HOUSE ARREST
‘Get up… time to get ready for work,’ he ordered.
Terrifyingly, the kidnappers strapped rods of dynamite on Michelle’s, Kimbra’s and even tiny Breea’s backs.
‘One false move,,,You’ll disintegrate – your daughter will go first.’
Showing Michelle a detonation device, they warned her not to deviate from the plan.
‘One false move, I push this button,’ the kidnapper warned her. ‘You’ll disintegrate – your daughter will go first.’
Then the intruders instructed Michelle to say goodbye to Breea.
‘You’re everything I ever dreamed of in a daughter,’ Michelle cried. ‘I love you so much.’
‘Be brave, Mummy,’ Breea replied, before she and Kimbra were taken to another room.
Michelle was bundled into her Jeep, and forced to drive to the bank.
Sitting straight as an arrow, she was terrified that even leaning back into her seat would cause the bomb to detonate.
Once inside the bank, she had just five minutes to get into the vault and stuff a duffel bag to the brim, if she had any chance of seeing her daughter alive again.
Escaping with $548,000, Michelle handed the bag over to the ringleader who was waiting in her Jeep. Taking the cash, he told her where to drop him off and warned, ‘Go straight home… Don’t call the cops.’
Rushing home, Michelle didn’t know what she’d be met with.
Would she find more intruders waiting? Would her daughter be in one piece?
Thankfully both Breea and Kimbra were alive and well, albeit incredibly shaken up.
The trio ran over to their neighbours, who called police.
When the bomb squad arrived they discovered the dynamite still strapped to Michelle’s back was fake. The intruders had used red broomstick handles taped together to fool the doting mum.
Recounting the 14-hour ordeal to police, Michelle was sure she could identify the ringleader. She directed them to the business card he’d given to her the day prior, in her desk at work.
Incredibly it had his real name, address and phone number on it.
The FBI discovered Christopher Butler was a criminal with a history of robbing banks.
He lived with his fiancée Lisa Ramirez, who Michelle identified as the woman who visited the bank with Butler, and also recognised her as the female voice on the walkie-talkie.
Ten days later the pair were arrested in their car, where police discovered a black duffel bag, black gloves, a ski mask, a doorbell detonator and money straps.
At the couple’s home detectives found more broom handles, and red paint used for the fake dynamite. A fingerprint on one of the spray cans belonged to Butler.
Realising the game was up, Ramirez admitted she was involved, and that she was the voice on the walkie-talkie. The other kidnappers, Christopher Huggins and Robert Ortiz were also arrested.
In June 2002, Butler and Ramirez faced court.
Butler denied everything and even claimed Michelle had masterminded the robbery. Astonishingly, he suggested the two of them had previously had an affair, and Michelle had recruited him for the bank robbery at a supermarket.
Butler’s defence picked apart Michelle’s financial history, her sex life and even her maternal instincts, querying why she’d return home to endanger her daughter if she still had dynamite stuck to her back.
After deliberating for five days, the jury found Christopher Steven Butler guilty of conspiracy to commit kidnapping for robbery and kidnapping for ransom of Breea and Kimbra, but not Michelle. Lisa Ramirez was acquitted despite admitting her involvement to police.
Butler was initially sentenced to three life sentences plus 64 years. He appealed, and in 2005 he was re-sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus 52 years, after the conspiracy charge was dropped.
Christopher Huggins and Robert Ortiz faced a separate trial that year, where they were sentenced to three life sentences plus 32 years for their role in the crime.
After years battling PTSD, Michelle penned a book about their experience, Held Hostage, which was made into a movie.
In January 2020, Butler, eligible for parole under California sentencing laws, finally recanted his testimony, admitting he and Michelle never knew each other.
‘There was never, ever a chance I would have been involved in anything like this,’ Michelle told CBS.
‘I could breathe… finally, after all these years.’
All three men have since been released on parole.
Michelle, now 59, has a podcast, Soul Wide Open, to help others heal from their own experiences, and in January 2025, she qualified as a trauma healing practitioner.
We can’t go back and change the past, but we can change how it lives in us, she recently shared on Instagram.
Making peace with what’s behind us isn’t about forgetting, it’s about loosening its grip so we can finally breathe, heal and move forward.
