How to unlock all Heist Crew Members in Single Player

This guide will tell you exactly how and when to find all the special heist crew members. There has been alot of confusion as to when the random events trigger to get all the members unlocked. I spent less than 15 minutes in-game to unlock all the members on my playthrough. Read the guide and remember the key missions for easy unlocks.

Unlockable Heist Crew members

There are four special crew members you can unlock (in order of appearance):

• Rickie Lukens
  
• Patrick McReary
  
• Taliana Martinez
  
• Chef

They are very easy to get if you know exactly when to go looking for them.

There are three points in the story when you need to stop doing missions and go unlock the members which are:

• First point is right after you finish "Friend Request"
  
• The second one is right after you first gain control of Trevor
  
• Third one is after finishing "Blitz Play" mission.

Getting ready for unlocking Lukens and McReary

Play the missions until you get to play as Michael.

Very early in the game Michael will make a phone call to his old friend Lester.

Go make a save game before getting your first Lester mission (Blue L on the map).

This mission is called "Friend Request". After saving your game, go on and finish the mission.
When finished - Do not progress your story or start any new missions until you have unlocked Lukens and McReary.

Rickie Lukens

You have just finished "Friend Request". Keep on playing as Michael, hop on a car and keep on driving with no destination. You should get a call from Rickie Lukens within 10 minutes. (For me it took literally 2 minutes). Answer the phone and this will unlock Rickie.

Right after getting the phone call from Rickie I switched to Franklin. And within 3minutes I was able to trigger the random event for Patrick McReary.

Continue reading below..

Patrick McReary

Random event: Getaway driver
This random event occurs near Franklin's home.

Right after getting Rickie Lukens with Michael, I switched to Franklin and drove to the spot where the event occurs. The event wasn't happening. I drove off the area a few blocks away and returned after waiting maybe a minute. The event was then on going and I finished it less than 5 minutes after getting Rickie Lukens.

What to do in the Getaway driver event:
- Drive to the location shown below (I will upload an image later, for now please refer to a youtube video below)
- You will see two guys robbing the pharmacy.
- Get a four seated car and be a getaway driver for the robbers.
- Follow the instructions given by the mission and complete it.
- You have now unlocked Patrick McReary.

Important note!
One of the gunmen is Patrick and if you kill them you lose the chance to use him in heists.

Here is a very good video I found on youtube for McReary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrrprjYu37Y
This video claims that you need to be there at night, but there are multiple videos on youtube where people get this event during the day.

Taliana Martinez

Random event: Crash Rescue
Taliana Martinez is only available AFTER the jewel heist.

When you gain access to Trevor for the first time you instantly start a mission to mess with the local bikers. Finish the mission with the bikers. Once finished go to the freeway and find a fast car. With the fast car drive to the location below and the Crash Rescue event should be happening.

Location:
Drive to the very north of the map and locate the area shown in the image below.


Be careful not to drive over her! She is hurt laying on the ground and blends very well in the surroundings. Image below (taken from the GTA V Book).


You will see a blue dot on your radar. Taliana has crashed her vehicle and she will be laying on the ground next to a burning car. Pull over and walk near her to trigger the mission. Then you need to go as fast as possible to the next waypoint. (if it takes too long she will die). If you arrive in time you will unlock Taliana for heists!

On ign.com it says that:
"Depending on the vehicle you use to drive to her safehouse, Taliana's life isn't infinite! If you drive a slow vehicle, she will die of her wounds before you reach the Safehouse, so choose a fast car! Eventually, she WILL respawn again but not for a long while."

Chef

Chef isn't really needed for the best heist reward IF you've had Patrick McReary from the first heist and onward. They have the same cut percentage, but if you've had Patrick since the jewel heist he will have better stats than Chef.

After Patrick, Chef is the next best option for heists. You will unlock Chef right after the quest Blitz Play mission. More details on Blitz Play below:

This is a mission where Franklin, Michael and Trevor are forced by the FIB to rob an armored car. This mission is like a heist where you need to make preparation missions for it. You are required to steal a trash truck, a tow truck and get masks and suits for the robbery.

Right after finishing Blitz Play switch to Trevor and drive around. Soon you will receive a text message from Chef and you will unlock him. For me this happened within a minute after finishing Blitz Play.

Why won't a random event trigger?

I have only once successfully unlocked all the heist crew members and I have explained how to do it very detailed in this guide.

If you try to get any of these heist crew members later in the game I do not know if it's possible.

You might be able to trigger the random events later in the game, but I was never able to get all the four without doing exactly as I wrote in this guide.

Hopefully you are reading this guide right when starting the game as they are easy to unlock with this method. Good luck with your adventure!

Final words

If you have anything to add to this guide, please leave a comment. Also if you disagree on something please leave a comment so we can improve the guide. Any more information are most welcome!

Please also keep in mind that you may be able to get the unlocks later in the game than I stated, but this was a 100% working method for me.

[spels47]

is there a way to check if packie died in the background, like if i drove by and it started the event without me noticing and just carried on, and then like he died or something? ive been doing all the tricks people are mentioning here but cant get packie to spawn, been trying for well over an hour and frankly is considering starting a fresh save for the chance to see if that works, but dont really want to replay the hours ive spent just to get him back either.

[✪ godzilla]

for taliana, just use trevor and you'll unlock her even if you're faaar into the campaign.

[Poo-Kazoo]

I was able to to get packie (as franklin) after doing the third mission; Repossession (Franklin mission), and doing the strangers and freaks; pulling favors (first tow mission for tonya) after completing pulling favors, driving back to franklins house i passed by the pills pharmacy and it triggered the packie mission. I got packie unlocked before doing “Chop” mission or unlocking michael

[StillSkrilla]

Just a heads up, I had already done *spoiler alert* The Submarine heist and am pretty far with the bureau and was still able to get Packie with michael at the spot on my first try, as well as Taliana, which are really the only two random events you ACTUALLY have, the other two come with the story....So when you do it isn't necessary to GET them...it is helpful to have them earlier for certain reasons though! You can get them whenever!

[Watcher956]

You can get Patrick and Taliana in their areas i will just say if they are not showing up drive away serveral times and they will show up after a few tries it worked for me

[SneedYourself_12]

If you're struggling to get Packie McReary, go to the Maze Bank Arena and from there drive slowly by the location where they spawn and this should trigger the random event.

[Daddy_deaths]

I was able to unlock Patrick McReary after the mission The Long Stretch. I was just driving around and helped them

[DMH2693]

After I finish friend request mission, I automatically get call from Amanda about her at the store and getting caught by cops. Do I do that mission and it won't affect getting heist members?

[el pequeno]

can confirm you can get at least taliana and packie macreary at ALL points in the game, at least i got them just before the big score setup

[Master Anon]

oh, yeah - new players immediately know the full content of the game and know very well what kinda guide to look up right at the start of the game and NOT after they learn u can get special heist crew and start wondering if its already too late to try to fix it and go back to collecting those special events