ep. 21--FLORISSANT -- In a small living room with the shades drawn tight against the outside world, the girls struggled to imagine their father as a bank robber.

Not just any bank robber, but a fabled thief known as the "Boonie Hat Bandit," named for the military-style hat he sometimes wore. He is accused of stealing at least $100,000 from 12 area banks over the past year without so much as a weapon or a threat.

The two girls could not see it. Not their dad. Not the shy guy, the single parent who sacrificed so much for them, his twin 17-year-old daughters. He slept on the couch so they could have their own bedrooms. He made sure they attended private school, paying their way even when times were tough. They were his girls. Elise, the studious one who played the flute in the school orchestra. Marissa, the artistic one with dyed blond hair and a slightly harder edge, whose voice goes soft and sweet when talking to her dad.

But if Donald Keith Giammanco did it, perhaps his girls could imagine why, even as they could not comprehend what it meant for them.

"His life was us. We were all he had," said Elise, sitting with one leg tucked under her on the couch where her dad slept.

"His whole life was about making us happy," Marissa said.

"We recognize it, too," said Elise, aware the teenage years are not easy for any parent. "I hope he knows that."

It was Friday afternoon, not even a full day since their dad had been arrested, since he called from jail to say he loved them, since the girls' delicate world tumbled from its orderly place, like a glass figurine sent shattering to the floor -- for the second time in their young lives.

In the darkened room, the girls, on their own now, tried to figure out what to do.

A LONG NIGHT

They saw him last in the predawn Thursday, no hint of what was to come.

He knocked on Marissa's door. Time for school. Marissa claimed she was sick. He didn't buy it.

At 6:30 a.m., the girls left for Nerinx Hall, an all-girls Catholic school in Webster Groves. Seniors now, they had been going to Nerinx Hall since they were freshmen. Their dad used to drive them. He was usually late picking them up because, as a day trader of stocks, he waited until the markets closed. But this summer Elise bought a used car. The girls could drive themselves.

According to police, as the school day ended and the girls headed home, the 44-year-old Giammanco robbed a Commerce Bank in Fenton -- his 12th and final one. Bank employees described the robber and the blue Mercury Grand Marquis he fled in. Police spotted the car. After a short chase, Giammanco was arrested. Police described him as "relieved." They do not believe anyone else was involved. They said he confessed to a robbery spree that struck banks from St. Peters and Maryland Heights to Fenton.

It would be hours before the girls learned anything was wrong.

The house was empty when they arrived home from school. They tried calling their dad's cell phone. No answer. Marissa went to a nearby park. Elise headed to her part-time job at a Banana Republic. When Elise came home about 10:30 p.m. and their father was still not there, they thought it was a little unusual. Maybe their dad was with his girlfriend.

Just after midnight, there was a knock at the door. The family's black Labrador, Lucky, barked. Elise opened the door to find detectives with the St. Louis County Police crime scene unit. They needed to search the house. They told Elise her dad was fine, he was not in any danger, that he was being held by police, but they could say nothing else. Their father wanted to tell the girls what was going on.

The girls did not know what to think. The detectives spent more than an hour opening drawers and climbing into a crawl space, finally departing with the family's computer and a pile of clothes.

"A detective came and asked me, 'Have you seen your father with lots of money?' And I was like, 'Really? No. Look around'," said Elise, gesturing at the modest surroundings.

They waited for their father to call. Marissa fell asleep holding the phone. At 7:14 a.m., Marissa was jolted awake. It was Dad.

The first thing he asked her: Are you guys planning to go to school today?

No, Dad, Marissa told him.

Have your grandma call the school to explain your absence, he told her.

I love you, he said. I love you guys. I adore you guys. I promise to call again.

And then he was gone.

Marissa could tell he had been crying.

MANY QUESTIONS

The morning passed in a blur. Another visit from detectives to search the garage. Their dad's sister stopped by. The girls learned from family why their dad was in jail. At the same time, police held a news conference to announce the capture of the Boonie Hat Bandit.

"Dad can't rob a bank," Elise said. "He doesn't have the guts to rob a bank."

"He's shy. He's conservative," Marissa said.

"Not very conservative," Elise said.

"But conservative," Marissa said.

The girls talked on the phone with their half sister, Ellen Litton, who lives two hours away in Gasconade County. The girls, frantic, tried to figure out what this meant for them. Would they finish school? They loved their school. But it cost $9,300 a year. Would they have to get full-time jobs? Who would pay the rent? The electric bill? What about their cell phones? College? Elise had been focused on colleges in the Pacific Northwest, hoping to get a scholarship. Marissa planned to join the Navy ROTC to pay for her education.

"They are thinking their whole lives are over," Litton, 29, said shortly after talking with her half sisters.

Litton could not believe her stepfather would rob banks. It was not in him. "But if he did do it, he did it for the girls to go to college," she said. "But I don't think he did it."

Back in Florissant, the girls' cell phones began to ring. First with family. Then with teachers and a school counselor. The girls were relieved when a Nerinx Hall administrator said they could expect to finish their senior year there. Friends called. Everyone was telling the girls they loved them. They kept asking if the girls were OK.

It reminded Elise and Marissa of what happened with their mother.

THE ONLY PARENT

When they were 12, Giammanco and the girls' mother divorced. Their father got custody. Their mother got orders for drug treatment, according to the divorce file. Their mother's regular visits became less and less regular until they maybe saw her around the holidays.

The girls don't talk much about her now.

"He's the only parent in our lives," Elise said.

And now he is in jail.

"I see it as my support columns getting knocked out," said Elise, her eyes looking in the direction of the TV they were afraid to turn on, worried what they might see.

"I just think we've learned to be independent," her sister continued.

"Lean on each other," Elise said.

After the divorce, Giammanco stopped working as a printer, something he had done for years, Litton said. He wanted to be home for the girls. He started trading stocks on his computer. It became his full-time job.

Elise recalled a school project she did on the stock market. Her dad explained everything to her -- how stocks are bought and sold, what an option is, how commodities are moved.

But Giammanco apparently struggled with stock trading. When he filed for bankruptcy in September 2007, Giammanco listed $130,000 in assets and $173,000 in debts. Two online stock trading accounts held just $20, bankruptcy documents show. His checking account was down to $50.

Two months later, the Boonie Hat Bandit struck for the first time, at a bank in St. Charles.

The bandit's eighth and ninth robberies occurred on a single day in May.

Not a week later, unable to pay his mortgage, Giammanco sold the family's house in Florissant and moved to a rental house across town.

The girls said they knew money was tight. They didn't get an allowance. The only extravagance in their father's life was his Rams football season tickets. But their father always came through -- not just with money, but he showed up at Elise's orchestral performances and the girls' school fundraisers. He cleaned the house. He played tennis with them, the racquets and balls still sitting by the door.

They never doubted him. He was their dad.

"I'm a kid," Elise said.

ON THEIR OWN

The afternoon light was fading. TV news trucks camped outside. Neighbors were saying they were surprised. The shades remained closed. The girls' cell phones rang and rang. But the home phone, the one their father called on, was silent.

Elise stood up and straightened her black dress. The quiet and the waiting were getting to her. She walked over to the turntable and played a record. She selected "All You Need is Love" by the Beatles.

She moved around the room. Marissa put away a vacuum cleaner she had used to clean dirt tracked in by detectives.

The girls were not sure what they were going to do. Marissa planned to start looking for a job. The girls were on their own, something their dad never wanted for them.

The girls had to get moving.