The Michelle Renee kidnapping case began on the night of November 21, 2000, when three armed men broke into a San Diego County home, strapped a bank manager, her seven-year-old daughter, and their roommate with fake dynamite, and forced the mother to rob her own branch the next morning of $360,000. All four people involved in the plot were later convicted. As of March 2025, all four have been granted parole, and the ringleader has admitted under oath that his trial testimony accusing Renee of masterminding the crime was a lie.
The Night of November 21, 2000
Michelle Renee, then 35, was at home with her daughter Breea and a roommate named Kimbra when three masked gunmen forced their way in. The intruders bound all three with duct tape and taped what looked like sticks of dynamite to their bodies, telling them the devices could be detonated from up to ten miles away. The hostages were held for about 14 hours.
The next morning, the ringleader hid in the back of Renee’s car and made her drive to the bank branch she managed. Breea was locked in a closet at the house. Renee was told her daughter would be killed if she did not comply. When the branch opened at 9 a.m., she walked in, emptied the vault, and left with a duffel bag holding $360,000. She drove the money back to the kidnappers and then ran inside to find Breea still in the closet, unharmed. The men fled with the cash.
FBI agents, San Diego County Sheriff’s deputies, and a bomb squad later examined the explosives strapped to the victims and found they were painted broomstick handles taped together, with a doorbell wired in as the supposed detonator.
How the Kidnappers Were Caught
The break came from Renee. She recognized the ringleader, Christopher Butler, because he had come into her branch earlier on the day of the invasion posing as a customer and had left behind a business card. When the FBI ran his name, he turned out to be a convicted felon with a history of bank robberies, reportedly eleven prior heists.
Ten days after the robbery, Butler and his fiancée, Lisa Ramirez, were arrested during a traffic stop. In the trunk, investigators found the black bag used to carry the stolen cash, homemade ski masks, gloves, red spray paint and broom-handle pieces matching the fake dynamite, Renee’s credit cards, and money straps from the bank.
Two other accomplices were identified. Christopher Huggins was arrested on December 1, 2000, with $93,000 of the stolen money recovered from him. Robert Ortiz, who had held a gun to Breea during the ordeal, was arrested three months later in Wisconsin with $32,000 in his possession. Both men gave full confessions.
Ramirez also spoke to investigators. She admitted she was the female voice on the walkie-talkie the kidnappers used, going by the code name “Money Two,” and she took credit for the idea of using fake dynamite to terrify the victims. She also told investigators, falsely, that Renee had been a willing participant.
The Trials and an Attack on the Victim
Butler and Ramirez were tried together in June 2002 in San Diego County Superior Court. A pretrial ruling shaped the case against Ramirez: the judge excluded her recorded confession because it also implicated her co-defendant Butler, and the prosecution was left to rely on circumstantial and physical evidence for her.
The defense strategy for both defendants was to attack Renee. Ramirez’s attorney, Herb Weston, later described his approach as an effort to “beat the hell out of the victim.” Defense lawyers portrayed Renee as financially desperate, questioned her sex life and her fitness as a mother, and suggested she had faked the kidnapping to steal from the bank. Butler took the stand and testified that he and Renee had been having an affair, that they had met in a grocery store, and that she had recruited him to pull off the robbery.
Renee denied all of it. The lead prosecutor, Tom Manning of the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, told jurors she was entirely a victim and later said he had concluded early in the investigation that she was “not involved in this” after observing her relationship with her daughter. Renee later said she felt like she “was treated like I was the criminal.”
After five days of deliberation, the jury convicted Butler of the bank robbery and of kidnapping Breea and Kimbra. Jurors deadlocked 9-3 on the charge of kidnapping Renee herself. Butler received multiple life sentences. Ramirez was acquitted on all counts.
Huggins and Ortiz were tried separately. Their attorneys pushed a variation of the same theory, arguing that Renee, her roommate, and Butler had staged the home invasion as a “charade” so Renee could sue her employer. The jury rejected it. Both men were convicted and sentenced to three consecutive life terms with the possibility of parole, plus 32 years. On appeal, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, affirmed the convictions but vacated parts of the sentences on grounds tied to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Blakely v. Washington, and the case was remanded for resentencing. Butler’s sentence was also later adjusted; a conspiracy charge was dropped, and he was resentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Butler’s Twenty-Year Lie and His Recantation
Butler’s trial testimony that Renee was his lover and accomplice hung over her reputation for nearly two decades. At a January 2020 parole hearing, prosecutor Tom Manning questioned Butler directly about those claims. Butler recanted under oath, admitting he and Renee had never had a relationship and that the story of her involvement had been fabricated.
He was denied parole at that hearing, and again at a later one, before being granted parole on December 20, 2024. At the 2024 hearing, Butler described a childhood of abuse and abandonment that he said led to his criminal career, and he again acknowledged the smear campaign against Renee had been a lie. The board classified him as a “youth offender” under California law because he was 25 at the time of his last robbery.
Renee argued against release. She told the board she had forgiven Butler but did not believe he had done enough “deep work” to show genuine remorse after perpetuating lies about her for more than twenty years. She called the decision “semi-horrifying” and questioned whether someone who had lied for two decades could be trusted to make safe decisions. “Sorry isn’t good enough,” she said. She and Breea told the board the crime had “stole a seven-year-old’s childhood.”
Where the Four Are Now
All four convicted participants have been granted parole:
- Robert Ortiz was granted parole in January 2021.
- Christopher Butler was granted parole on December 20, 2024, subject to a 180-day review by the California Governor.
- Christopher Huggins was granted parole on March 13, 2025, at his initial parole suitability hearing before the California Board of Parole Hearings.
- Lisa Ramirez was acquitted at trial in 2002 and was not sentenced.
Michelle and Breea Renee After the Case
Renee turned her experience into a career as an author, speaker, and trauma-recovery advocate. Her first book, Held Hostage: The True Story of a Mother and Daughter’s Kidnapping, drew on FBI reports and case files and was adapted into a Lifetime television movie of the same name starring Julie Benz, with Renee serving as co-writer and associate producer.1michelle-renee.com. Books Her second memoir, Nine Days: Living With My Soul Wide Open After Violent Trauma, was published in June 2023 and describes, among other things, a visit in which she and Breea confronted one of their kidnappers at San Quentin State Prison. The book has been optioned for development as a three-part documentary series.2michelle-renee.com. Michelle Renee – Author, Speaker, Advocate
The case drew renewed national attention through a 48 Hours episode on CBS and Paramount Plus that covered the crime, the trial, Butler’s recantation, and the parole proceedings.3CBS News. Michelle Renee Forced to Rob Bank to Save Daughter’s Life