Father and son assist crack unsolved 1969 financial institution theft

The boy watched as his father, John Okay. Elliott, sat within the kitchen one afternoon in 1970, misplaced in thought.
“Can you pass the mashed potatoes?” Peter J. Elliott requested his father, a U.S. marshal in Cleveland, Ohio, who was eager about the person who had pulled off one of many greatest financial institution robberies within the metropolis’s historical past.
“When am I going to get Ted Conrad?” John Elliott requested his son, a yr after Theodore Conrad had walked off with $215,000 in money, the equal of about $1.6 million at present.
On Friday, greater than 50 years after the heist, Peter Elliott, now a U.S. marshal himself, had a solution for his father.
The U.S. Marshals Service introduced that it had discovered Conrad after investigators pursued a lead and found that he had been dwelling beneath the fictional title Thomas Randele in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, about 16 miles north of Boston, till his loss of life from lung most cancers in May.

Investigators had chased leads throughout the nation, to California, Hawaii, Texas and Oregon, in quest of their fugitive. Conrad was featured on a number of true-crime reveals, together with “America’s Most Wanted” and “Unsolved Mysteries.”
Investigators realized that after the theft, Conrad fled to Washington, D.C., after which to Los Angeles, and ultimately went to Massachusetts in 1970, the place he established deep roots together with his spouse and daughter. There, he was a golf professional, labored at a luxurious automobile dealership for 40 years and loved watching “NCIS” and different legislation enforcement reveals on tv, Elliott mentioned.
Conrad was properly appreciated in his neighborhood by law enforcement officials and different legislation enforcement officers.
“That’s probably why, you know, we didn’t catch up with him in the past — because he was a law-abiding citizen, and we didn’t have any fingerprints on file,” Elliott mentioned.
On his deathbed, Conrad instructed his household the reality, Elliott mentioned. He instructed them his actual title and what he had completed July 11, 1969.
It was a Friday, and he went to work on the Society National Bank in Cleveland, the place he was a financial institution teller. At the tip of the day, he stuffed cash from the vault right into a paper bag and left.
By Monday morning, as his co-workers opened the vault and questioned the place their colleague was, Conrad had a two-day head begin on the authorities.

Some of the main points of the theft, such because the denomination of the payments and the way Conrad was capable of stroll out with out being observed, weren’t instantly accessible. But Elliott mentioned there was not a lot safety on the financial institution, the place workers weren’t even fingerprinted.
A yr earlier than, Conrad had been obsessive about “The Thomas Crown Affair,” a 1968 Steve McQueen movie by which a bored billionaire robs a financial institution to amuse himself. Conrad had instructed mates that he deliberate to rob a financial institution, bragging about how straightforward it could be, the U.S. Marshals Service mentioned.
“He was a darer, so to speak,” Elliott mentioned. “After seeing that movie, I believe he thought, ‘Hey, what if I do this and get away with this?’ I really think it was a challenge for him to be able to do it.”
Years later, authorities would retrieve a letter that Conrad wrote in 1969 to his girlfriend. In it, he confessed to the crime and expressed remorse for committing it.
After Conrad confessed this yr, his household didn’t contact the authorities, Elliott mentioned. Only after authorities noticed an obituary for Thomas Randele, 73, did they start to piece collectively proof, which had been largely gathered by Elliott’s father many years in the past.
Elliott mentioned the Randele household wouldn’t be charged for failing to reveal Conrad’s confession to the authorities. Conrad had been indicted, and there’s no statute of limitations on financial institution theft, so he would have nonetheless been arrested if the authorities had discovered him, Elliott mentioned.
He declined to share what led investigators to the obituary. But as soon as they noticed it, they discovered info that mirrored that of Conrad’s real life. Conrad’s actual beginning date was July 10, 1949. In the obituary, the beginning date listed was July 10, 1947.

The second clue was his mother and father’ names. They had been virtually precisely the identical within the obituary. The obituary additionally included his precise alma mater, New England College, and birthplace, Denver.
“When people lie, they lie close to home,” Elliott mentioned.
Then, the ultimate clue that pieced all of it collectively: a signature from a school utility, which was first discovered by Elliott’s father, which was just like one which authorities discovered on a chapter court docket doc in 2014, scribbled with the title Thomas Randele.
That was all Elliott wanted. He traveled to Lynnfield, knocked on the door and was greeted by Conrad’s household, who had been shocked to see the officers.
“I feel bad for them because of a father-husband that they really never knew who he was, and also, you know, they are living under a fictitious name,” Elliott mentioned.
Kathy Randele, Conrad’s widow, mentioned in an interview Saturday that “we’re still mourning his loss, and he was a wonderful dad and a fabulous father.” She declined additional remark.
The final time Elliott and his father talked in regards to the financial institution theft case was in March 2020, when John Elliott was in hospice.
Peter Elliott wished to cheer him up, so he reached for his iPad and performed “Lake Erie’s Coldest Cases,” a documentary collection that featured an episode on the case and confirmed his father being interviewed.

“Hey, look, you’re on TV,” Elliott instructed his father, who smiled.
John Elliott died a number of days later.
Perhaps quickly, Peter Elliott mentioned, he’ll watch “The Thomas Crown Affair,” see Steve McQueen attempt to get away with it, and consider his father.