OH - Theodore J Conrad, 20, 1969 Cleveland Bank Heist Fugitive, lived as Thomas Randele until 2021

[Seattle1]

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news...-heist-fugitive-theodore-john-conrad-and-215k

Feb 10, 2017

He is not as fast afoot as he was when he first began looking for the Clevelander who admitted he robbed a bank vault, but 48 years later, J.K. "Pete" Elliott is like a cat chasing a mouse.

He is relentless in his search for a fugitive who walked into his job in a Cleveland bank vault, quietly walked out with $215,000 and disappeared.

[..]

The story of Conrad is filled intrigue because his was an "inside" job. Two years out of Lakewood High School, Conrad garnered a job working in the vault of the old Society National Bank (now Key Bank) on Cleveland's Public Square.

It was right after the 1969 bank heist Elliott got the assignment to track down Conrad. At age 80, the retired Elliott will not give up. "That warrant is mine," he said emphatically as he sat in the office of the U.S. Marshal for Northern Ohio. "The warrant doesn't belong to anyone else, and I want to see him apprehended," said Elliott.

[..]

If Conrad is still alive, he would 68. For years, the only photographs the marshals had was of Conrad as a Lakewood High School Class of 1967 teenager or as a man of 20. However, in recent days, the marshals have generated an age-progression picture of what they think Conrad looks like today. Add to that, a years-old clue that a Cleveland area couple thinks they might have sighted him in Honolulu, HI.

"We think he could be there," said Siler. So authorities are pushing the age-progression picture in that community, hoping someone in Hawaii would recognize the man.

Conrad has admitted he committed the robbery. There were two letters he sent to his then-girlfriend telling her what he had done. The letters were postmarked in 1969 from Washington, D.C. and Southern California. After that, the thin trail went cold. He had a lot of money to make his getaway and live in hiding. The $215,000 in 1969 would equal $1.3 million today.

 

[Seattle1]

Bank teller who vanished with $215,000 in cash 52 years ago tracked down to a Boston suburb but dead | Daily Mail Online

Nov 12, 2021

• At the age of 20, Theodore John Conrad walked into his job at the Society National Bank on Public Square in Cleveland where he worked as a bank teller
• He had been obsessed with the film The Thomas Crown Affair which details a brazen robbery and he vowed to pull off something similar at the bank
• He left his job on a Friday in July 1969 with $215,000 in cash in the form of 1,500 $100 bills, 1,200 $50s and 250 $20s
• He was never seen again but authorities pursued the case for 52 years
• Conrad changed his name, lifestyle and the details of his past - he had a family, became a local golf pro and sold luxury cars in a small town north of Boston
• U.S. Marshall's finally tracked him down within the last week but Conrad had died in May at the age of 71 from lung cancer

A man who worked as a bank teller in Cleveland and robbed his employer of $215,000 52 years ago has finally been unmasked by US Marshals - six months after he died.

Theodore John Conrad died at the age of 71 in a north Boston suburb in May of this year, having turned his hand to selling luxury cars as a career, and later ending up broke. His wife Kathy and daughter Ashley only found out their father's secret during his final days, as he succumbed to cancer.

Conrad successfully pulled off one of the biggest bank robberies in Cleveland, Ohio history making off with what would now be the equivalent of more than $1.7 million in today's money.

[..]

He walked out with $215,000 in cash in a paper bag on a Friday evening and disappeared with 1,500 $100 bills, 1,200 $50s and 250 $20s.

The robbery was only discovered after Conrad, who was 20 at the time, didn't show up for work the following Monday.

When the bank checked their fault, they found the cash together with their employee to be missing having had two full days to make a clean getaway.

The stunning theft sparked a news frenzy, and competing claims of where Conrad had disappeared to, with Paris, California and Hawaii among the suspected destinations.

Co-workers that Conrad had worked alongside told authorities how he had become obsessed with the 1968 Steve McQueen film The Thomas Crown Affair.

The movie tells the story of the titular fictional billionaire, who steals just for fun. Conrad had seen it more than a half dozen times even bragging to his friends about how easy it would be to take money from the bank, and that he planned to do something similar.

[..]

The case remained cold until this past week when United States Marshals from Cleveland, Ohio travelled to Boston, Massachusetts and positively identified Thomas Randele of Lynnfield, Massachusetts as the fictitious name of Theodore J. Conrad.

 

[Seattle1]

I'm so intrigued by this story and hope anybody that knew the true TJC will speak up about his early life!

At only 20 years old and to pull this off, he probably broke off with his biological family.

From his Obit (under his fictitious name Thomas Randele), he even has fake parents!

Thomas Randele Obituary - Lynnfield, Massachusetts - McDonald Funeral Home

 

[Seattle1]

Mystery solved: Theodore Conrad vanished after robbing Cleveland bank where he worked in 1969; marshals traced him to Boston suburb

11/13/21

Theodore Conrad, just 20, had pulled off one of the biggest bank heists in Cleveland history. His disappearance became one of the city’s greatest mysteries.

Federal agents from across the country tried to track down the graduate of Lakewood High School, class of 1967. Some believed he had bolted for the beaches of California, hoping to ride waves and escape Cleveland winters. Others thought he had settled in Europe. The missing cash, adjusted for inflation, would be worth about $1.7 million today.


On Friday, U.S. Marshal Peter Elliott said his office solved the mystery his father, John, had investigated decades ago: Theodore Conrad died in a suburb north of Boston in May. He was 71.

He had changed his name, and became known to many as Thomas Randele. He also changed his lifestyle and the details of his past.

He had a family, became a local golf pro and sold luxury cars. He was a fixture in a small town. The stolen money didn’t last, as he had struggled financially in recent years, records show.

In his final days, as lung cancer drained him, he admitted to his lifelong secret.

“Oh my God, I always wondered what had happened to him,” said William O’Donnell, a classmate who shared an apartment in Lakewood with Conrad for less than a year.

“We weren’t real close. I had moved to Arizona before this all had happened, and my mother would send me news clippings about it. The FBI even came to my work and talked to me. But I didn’t know anything. I thought that a young kid with that kind of money would be in Europe.”

Instead, Peter Elliott said, Conrad quietly settled into suburban Boston without a trace of his past.

“He covered his trail really well,” Elliott said. “It’s really unbelievable that he lived the way he did for so many years. He was so good at it.”

A quiet life in Cleveland

Theodore Conrad’s years in Cleveland were unassuming. He was born in Denver, the son of a Navy officer who moved his family around the country. When Edward and Ruthabeth Conrad divorced in 1958, their son Ted settled in Lakewood with his mother and sister, according to the marshals’ files. His mother remarried, and the family lived on Bonnieview Avenue on the city’s West Side.

After graduating from Lakewood High, he went off to New England College, where his father taught political science. He became freshman class president. But after his first semester, he was back in Cleveland. He later attended classes at Cuyahoga Community College.

In January 1969, he went to work at Society National Bank on Public Square. The job required Conrad to work in the bank vault. When tellers and branches needed more cash, Conrad packaged and delivered it. He had access to hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, records show.

“To all appearances, Conrad was that All-American boy whose character was not questioned and seemed to be a model of responsibility during a turbulent time,” says a summary report of investigators’ notes that was compiled by marshals.

The report suggests there was another side of Conrad. He was secretly enthralled with deception.

He shoplifted to prove that he could do it, according to the marshals’ report. He also became consumed with the 1968 film “The Thomas Crown Affair,” the Steve McQueen movie about a bank executive who pulled off a $2.6 million bank heist.

Conrad began mimicking McQueen’s character and his high-end lifestyle. He drove an MG sports car, drank expensive gin and showed off at golf and billiards, the marshals’ report and published reports say.

[..]

On Friday, July 11, 1969, with his supervisor away having surgery, Conrad called a friend and said he was planning on robbing the bank that day, according to published reports and the marshals’ report. The friend didn’t believe him.

Conrad had lunch that day with his best friend, Russell Metcalf.

“I had no idea,” Metcalf said Friday. “He always said the security was lax. He said it wouldn’t be hard.”

[..]

He left his apartment on Clifton Boulevard and grabbed a cab to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. By 8:30 p.m., he was gone.

The chase

Cont at the link...

 

[Seattle1]

One of the country's most wanted fugitives identified after more than 50 years

Conrad's case was featured on "America's Most Wanted" and "Unsolved Mysteries." Investigators searched for leads across the country. The case remained cold for 52 years, until this past week.

Investigators said they were able to match documents from Conrad in the 1960s with documents from Randele, who in 2014 filed for bankruptcy. The Marshals Service this week identified Conrad and Randele as the same person.

Randele had moved to Lynnfield, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb, in 1970, near where the McQueen movie he obsessed over was filmed. He lived an unassuming life, the Marshals Service said. He was 71 when he died in May. No other details about his life were included in the Marshals Service announcement.

_________________

ETA: Seems it was TJC's financial trouble that closed the circle -- Bankruptcy got him caught!

 

[Coppertop15]

I'd love to know what happened to the money. It doesn't seem that he worked that tremendously hard to cover his tracks, just saying.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

Wow! How did I never hear about this before?

I called my mom this morning and turns out my brother had just called her. She worked at Society Bank back then, and she knew Ted Conrad, but only to say hello, they were in different departments on different floors. She remembers when all this went down though, for sure.

Oddly enough, years later she met the Elliots. When Pete Sr. found out she'd worked at Society at the same time as Conrad she remembers him asking her about him, but unfortunately she didn't have any useful insights. She does remember he was very passionate about this case. He probably hoped Conrad would eventually try to sneak home to see family or friends. But it seems like he really just threw himself into his new life. Wild, you wonder if he ever regretted it or not.

 

[Seattle1]

Wow! How did I never hear about this before?

I called my mom this morning and turns out my brother had just called her. She worked at Society Bank back then, and she knew Ted Conrad, but only to say hello, they were in different departments on different floors. She remembers when all this went down though, for sure.

Oddly enough, years later she met the Elliots. When Pete Sr. found out she'd worked at Society at the same time as Conrad she remembers him asking her about him, but unfortunately she didn't have any useful insights. She does remember he was very passionate about this case. He probably hoped Conrad would eventually try to sneak home to see family or friends. But it seems like he really just threw himself into his new life. Wild, you wonder if he ever regretted it or not.

@Irish_Eyes -- you're post made my day and to read that your mom worked at Society Bank when this happened is just WOW!

I imagine this guy at the time as an immature, Steve McQueen-obsessed movie fan that pranked the bank. I've also read he did this on his 20th birthday and the Boston area he eventually moved to was very near where the 1968 movie was filmed (The Thomas Crown Affair). Seems to me that he expected to eventually get caught.

In discussing this case with others, it brought up another question about the statute of limitations for bank robbery and other than Mr. Elliott's own very personal dedication to this crime, why the US Marshalls Office pursued it for more than 50 years.

 

[al66pine]

@Seattle1 Thx for opening thread. So intriguing.
I wondered if J.K. "Pete" Elliott, LEO originally assigned to case lived to learn of the (deceased) perp being located. Your Feb 2017 link said the LEO was 80 y/o then. Such dedication, searching for the culprit.

From DM article of this month, a quote from his dau:
"'This is a case I know all too well. My father, John K. Elliott, was a dedicated career Deputy United States Marshal in Cleveland from 1969 until his retirement in 1990. My father took an interest in this case early because Conrad lived and worked near us in the late 1960s,' said Elliott.
'My father never stopped searching for Conrad and always wanted closure up until his death in 2020. We were able to match some of the documents that my father uncovered from Conrad's college days in the 1960s with documents from Randele that led to his identification.
'I hope my father is resting a little easier today knowing his investigation and his United States Marshals Service brought closure to this decades-long mystery. Everything in real life doesn't always end like in the movies.' bbm

 

[Seattle1]

@Seattle1 Thx for opening thread. So intriguing.
I wonder if J.K. "Pete" Elliott, LEO originally assigned to case lived to learn of the (deceased) perp being located. Your Feb 2017 link said the LEO was 80 y/o then. Such dedication, searching for the culprit.

From DM article of this month, a quote from his dau:
"'This is a case I know all too well. My father, John K. Elliott, was a dedicated career Deputy United States Marshal in Cleveland from 1969 until his retirement in 1990. My father took an interest in this case early because Conrad lived and worked near us in the late 1960s,' said Elliott.
'My father never stopped searching for Conrad and always wanted closure up until his death in 2020. We were able to match some of the documents that my father uncovered from Conrad's college days in the 1960s with documents from Randele that led to his identification.
'I hope my father is resting a little easier today knowing his investigation and his United States Marshals Service brought closure to this decades-long mystery. Everything in real life doesn't always end like in the movies.' bbm

Sadly, Mr. Elliott passed in 2020 but his son carried on to close the case albeit a year later.

 

[Filly]

Wow @Irish_Eyes that's wild your mom worked there then.

@Seattle1 my ex-husband texted me about this. He is fascinated by heists. The text read how disappointed he was he got caught.

It is intriguing. Right? Where'd the money go? It's crazy how easy it was.

Thanks for sharing this thread.

 

[al66pine]

Sadly, Mr. Elliott passed in 2020 but his son carried on to close the case albeit a year later.

Thank you for correction re son Peter, rather than dau.

My fingers went rogue or coulda been my brain.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

So the statute of limitations applies to charging someone. They obviously charged him back at the time since they had a warrant and he was on the Most Wanted list at one point. That means the statute of limitations is tolled for the time that you are a fugitive from justice, because it's not the law that is delaying the clock by not charging you, it's you that is delaying it by not answering your charges.

And yes, I'm happy for Pete Sr. and Jr. that they can close the book on this one now. Such a nice family, honestly, although I wouldn't want to be the one on the opposite side of the law from either Pete . Pete Sr. was actually one of the first Marshals doing WITSEC, if I'm not mistaken. Not that anybody knew that at the time. But if you ever watch the movie "To Kill The Irishman" about the mob and Danny Green, I think that's how it got going in this area, needing to hide those witnesses.

 

[Seattle1]

So the statute of limitations applies to charging someone. They obviously charged him back at the time since they had a warrant and he was on the Most Wanted list at one point. That means the statute of limitations is tolled for the time that you are a fugitive from justice, because it's not the law that is delaying the clock by not charging you, it's you that is delaying it by not answering your charges.

And yes, I'm happy for Pete Sr. and Jr. that they can close the book on this one now. Such a nice family, honestly, although I wouldn't want to be the one on the opposite side of the law from either Pete . Pete Sr. was actually one of the first Marshals doing WITSEC, if I'm not mistaken. Not that anybody knew that at the time. But if you ever watch the movie "To Kill The Irishman" about the mob and Danny Green, I think that's how it got going in this area, needing to hide those witnesses.

Thanks! I read the book 15+ years ago - by Rick Porrello, I think.

ETA: Maybe somebody will do a movie about Mr. Elliott and how he dedicated his career to trying to solve the bank heist. I loved the reference to "pass the potatoes, and where the hell is Conrad"...

 

[jgfitzge]

OK, this came out of left field to me as a Bostonian. I am wondering if one of the major reasons he had financial trouble in recent years was he could not apply for Social Security under any stolen number that he had. In addition, This is not to be critical, but I’m just wondering if all those years why the focus was not on the Boston area to look for Conrad. Maybe they did. His father was a professor and it looks like Ted went to school at New England College which is just over the border in New Hampshire. Plus, the Thomas Crown affair was filmed in the very town that he was living in with another identity.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

I do wonder if Boston/Greater New England wasn't one of the first places they looked. But it seems like he bounced around for a few years, maybe seasoning his new identity before settling in there.

 

[dotr]

Dec 29 2021 rbbm.
Man who stole $215,000 from Cleveland bank told no one, stayed on lam for 52 years

Authorities say Theodore John Conrad showed up for work as a bank teller in Cleveland and reportedly stole US$215,000, stuffed it into a paper bag and vanished in July 1969, and he stole the equivalent of US$1.7 million today in one of the biggest bank robberies in the city. (Ross Anthony Willis/Fairfax Media/Getty Images/CNN)

''In the early days after Randele's identity was revealed, his friends couldn't believe it. But now looking back, there are a few things that make sense.


How he always had a beard. The photos of him wearing dark sunglasses on the golf course. His reluctance to talk about where he grew up or his extended family.


“You know all the years I knew Tommy, I never heard him mention a sister or a mother or a brother or a father. Everything was kind of generalized,” Healy said.


“You could never pry anything from him,” said Brad Anthony, another close friend. “I figured maybe he had a bad childhood and he didn't want to talk about it.”

Still, he said it's almost impossible to believe. “It just seems so out of character for the Tom I knew,” he said.

All of his friends agreed that what happened long ago hasn't changed how they feel about him.''

 

[jgfitzge]

OK, I am not being snarky but… I really question how hard the Marshall services were looking for this Ted Conrad over the years. Let’s whiteboard this,

Conrad was obsessed with the Steve McQueen movie, the Thomas Crown affair, which took place in the greater Boston area

He went to school at New England College near the New Hampshire Massachusetts border

His father once taught at this same, New England college.

Over the years according to a Globe article once or twice he cryptically mentioned that he was from Denver. According to Conrad’s early life he was born in Denver.

Like the character in the Thomas Crown affair movie he loved high end cars.

The movie was filmed in the town that Conrad settled in and lived for over 40 years.

OK, based on the foregoing you would think they would put 100% of their efforts into looking in this area, maybe look for a male of a certain age, settled in Lynnfield in the 70s, mentioned being born in Denver, worked at a luxury car dealership, etc.,,

 

[Rush4087]

In every article I’ve read about this case it seems that LE and msm are pushing a narrative that “you can’t outrun the long arm of the law” and that eventually “LE always gets its man” with “good old fashioned police work”. Yet the real story seems to be that this guy managed to successfully rob a bank, avoid capture, change identities, and then live out a quiet, humble, respectable, and happy life in NE suburbia for 52 years.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to glorify criminals, and I’m not trying to bash LE and msm (wait… !). But we’re missing a big part of the story here, without which it’s not really a story. LE and msm should tell us what really happened. What brought them to the family’s door? How (and why) was he identified/found from an obit- written 7 months before they knocked. I’m thinking a relative or friend may have dropped a dime, when no one could any longer get hurt (plus, a book!).

If LE is going to be given credit by msm for having “solved” the crime, I think it’s only fair that LE or msm tell us exactly HOW they did it: how was the identification made? Why did it take 52 years to make the identification?

Otherwise, in my opinion, it’s not really news (more like clickbait). The headlines don’t match the contents of story. Either there is info missing from LE or from msm accounts, or LE didn’t successfully identify and find somebody (not in time for it to matter anyway). After all, there are millions of unsolved crimes like this one where the perp will not be identified until after he’s passed. The perp was not caught. He got away.

Maybe somebody close to Randele or a buddy wanted the limelight for 15 mins and called in a tip -again, once it no longer mattered.

Why can’t the story just be the story that it is - without LE and msm trying to take credit for heroism - for something they can’t take credit for, despite all the bluster: “that’s my warrant there!” I’ll see this man in jail if it’s that last thing I do! Okay, okay…

It doesn’t make sense that LE “solved” the crime completely (or identified the perp who was living under a different name) simply by comparing handwriting samples of different names from records 50 years ago with bankruptcy docs from 2014 (that was 7 years ago).

Even if you add in the commonalities found in the May ‘21 obituary (which would’ve been a needle in a hay stack to find anyway - how they think to look there?) it leaves a lot to be explained.

Just wish somebody in LE - or some brave journalist in msm - would actually tell us what really happened. Who knows, it might make a fascinating story. Otherwise there’s really is not much of a story here at all, -when there could be. All the important stuff has been left out.

Just tell the truth (for once). Might be an interesting read

All jmo

 

[dotr]

Dec. 29, 2021
On his deathbed, man confesses to family that he was bank robber on the run for 50 years

Photos, a driver's license, the original warrant and other items from a 1969 robbery involving Ted Conrad are shown on Dec. 16, 2021 at the Carl B. Stokes U.S. Courthouse in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Ken Blaze)AP

''By The Associated Press
Just before Thomas Randele died, his wife of nearly 40 years asked his golfing buddies and his co-workers from the dealerships where he sold cars to come by their home.

They gathered to say goodbye to a guy they called one of the nicest people they’d ever known — a devoted family man who gushed about his daughter, a golfer who never bent the rules, a friend to so many that a line stretched outside the funeral home a week later.

By the time of their final visit last May at Randele’s house in suburban Boston, the cancer in his lungs had taken away his voice. So they all left without knowing that their friend they’d spent countless hours swapping stories with never told them his biggest secret of all.

For the past 50 years, he was a fugitive wanted in one of the largest bank robberies in Cleveland’s history, living in Boston under a new name he created six months after the heist in the summer of 1969. Not even his wife or daughter knew until he told them in what authorities described as a deathbed confession.''

In this photo provided by Bob Van Wert, Tom Randele, whose real name according to authorities is Ted Conrad, tends to golf clubs, in September 2012, in Ayer, Mass. (Bob Van Wert via AP)AP