Where Is Stony Newsom? Reconstructing the Life of America’s Most Elusive Bank Robber 30 Years Later

She disappeared into Mexico after Los Angeles’ most infamous robbery. We pieced together the life she built after the headlines stopped.

(Screenshot, “Set It Off”)

By all accounts, 1996 was a terrible year for Lida “Stony” Newsom. While the death of her parents in a car accident four years prior was no doubt the worst experience of her life to that point, the events of 1996, well, it’s the stuff Hollywood makes movies about.

Ahem.

In a year—a few months actually—with scant few high points, the lows are said to have inspired the 2002 song, “Get Low,” by Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz featuring the Ying Yang Twins.

The year started out well. Stony’s little brother Stevie was a January graduate of his high school with plans to attend UCLA, making him the realized hopes and dreams of not only his family, but of the Acorn Projects, where he and his sister both spent time. Family and friends gathered for his graduation party, which became the catalyst that set off a string of events that made Job from the Bible say, “Damn.”

Shortly after breaking the news that not only did he not get a scholarship to UCLA, but he wasn’t even accepted, Stevie was killed by the police in a shootout tied to a bank robbery committed by people from Acorn, including Larenz, a Los Angeles gangster who, a few years prior, killed the boyfriend of Stony’s cousin, Ronnie, as they prepared to drive cross country to Atlanta to start a new life (and see FreakNik with their own eyes). Because Larenz was insane, he had Stevie get the infamous AP (for Acorn Projects) haircut; police mistook Stevie for a bank robber and shot him as he tried to lay the champagne bottle he’d been gifted for graduating high school on the ground. Stony held him in her arms, though by that point, he was long gone.

So far, Stony had lost her parents and her brother, and save for her circle of homegirls, really had nothing left to live for until she met Keith Weston at a bank she was casing. Keith, after the death of her brother, represented a small window of joy and escape, but it would be short-lived.