TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION FOR ACCUSED CRIME NOVELIST

TORONTO -- A trial making headlines throughout Canada has all the elements
of an action novel -- a reformed convict gone bad again robs a bank and
shoots it out with police.

But this time, the man convicted of attempted murder is the novelist.

Stephen Reid, once on the FBI's most wanted list, was back in court 12 years
after being paroled, leaving Canadians wondering why the critically
acclaimed author would return to criminal ways.

Reid, 49, was found guilty Wednesday of trying to kill a police corporal
during a shootout after Reid and an accomplice robbed a Victoria, British
Columbia, bank on June 9.

He was acquitted of three other attempted murder charges, but convicted by
Justice Alan Filmer of discharging a firearm with intent to prevent arrest
and dangerous use of a firearm. Reid also had pleaded guilty to two other
charges from the robbery, and faces a possible life sentence.

Reid was a member of the Stopwatch Gang, a Canadian trio that two decades
ago stole millions in scores of robberies across the United States. Sent to
prison, he wrote a novel called Jackrabbit Parole about a gang of escaped
convicts that sets off on a crime spree.

The book became a best seller after its release in 1986 and helped Reid
start a new life. Poet and author Susan Musgrave, who helped edit the book,
married him in prison in 1987, shortly before he was paroled.

After Reid's release from prison, the couple moved to Vancouver Island,
where they had a daughter and Reid enjoyed a kind of celebrity status as a
board member of PEN Canada, a writer's group. He even portrayed a security
guard in the film Four Days, about a bank robbery.

But as Reid testified Wednesday, drug addiction dating back to his teens
returned to take over his life. He blew his money on heroin and cocaine, he
said, and pulled off the bank heist in a desperate bid for cash.

Musgrave told the Toronto Star newspaper this week she feared he was going
to overdose on heroin and cocaine the night before the botched robbery in
June.

"He was incoherent," she said of a phone conversation with Reid. "I said, 'I
don't think you should come home, Stephen. I just can't take anymore.' "

Reid didn't come home, and the next day, he and an accomplice robbed a
Victoria bank of $60,000. The escape plan fizzled and Reid ended up in a
five-hour standoff with police before his capture in an apartment where he
was hiding.

The attempted murder charges involve the shootout, in which Reid and police
officers exchanged gunfire in the streets. Reid contends he never intended
to shoot anyone, but police and witnesses who testified at his trial Tuesday
said otherwise.

Reid "took a shot at me with the shotgun; I believe it was pointed toward my
head," policeman Eric Ooms testified.

Reid pleaded guilty to robbery and unlawful confinement of an elderly couple
whose apartment he barged into during the botched getaway.

Defense lawyer Dennis Murray said Reid was likely to get a stiff sentence,
probably a prison term "in double digits," when Filmer announces the penalty
later this month. Musgrave also said she expected Reid to do "serious time."