Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of I Heart Radio. Hey Dave, Um,
Speaker 1: did you see the note from Zaren? Uh? No, it was.
Speaker 1: It was nailed to the front desk here at Ridiculous
Speaker 1: Crime h Q when I came in today and it says,
Speaker 1: quote and I quote, Hey, rude, dudes, I had to
Speaker 1: blow town for a minute. Need to take some care
Speaker 1: of some stuff. How do I, guys put this? It's
Speaker 1: for a quote investigation? Alright, bet, do not call the
Speaker 1: Flying Squad. I'm renting a car with Kelly Slater and
Speaker 1: Marshawn Lynch and we're going and then the rest of
Speaker 1: the papers torn off. So that's it. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what that means. So that's ridiculous. Um, right, do
Speaker 1: you have a ridiculous crime that you want to tell
Speaker 1: me about? I mean, we're here, you know I always
Speaker 1: travel with uh with a whole list of ridiculous crimes.
Speaker 1: But um, hang on, it's on this piece of paper
Speaker 1: that I was using to play mash. So let me
Speaker 1: just unfolded here, perfect let's see. No, not that one.
Speaker 1: Definitely not that one. Okay, here we go. How about
Speaker 1: the story of a college kid turned bank robber who
Speaker 1: was inspired to commit his crime by a Steve McQueen
Speaker 1: movie and gets away with it for fifty years, only
Speaker 1: to confess on his deathbed. WHOA, yes, give it to me.
Speaker 1: This is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous
Speaker 1: capers and cons. It's always murder free and one hondo
Speaker 1: p ridiculous. I'm ze Oh wait no, I'm Dave Kustin,
Speaker 1: and with me in this imaginary blanket for it is
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dutton, along with our interns. Hey interns, hey interns.
Speaker 1: We do not know where Zarin is. Uh So I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna take this and I'll try not to let
Speaker 1: you down. I have faith in you. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you about a nineteen year old
Speaker 1: community college student in the late nineteen sixties, his name
Speaker 1: Theodore Conrad Teddy. Teddy walks out of a bank in
Speaker 1: Ohio on July eleven, nine sixty nine, in broad daylight
Speaker 1: with over two hundred thousand dollars of the bank's cash.
Speaker 1: So that's the equivalent of one point seven million dollars today.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Wait, just walks out of a bank.
Speaker 1: He walks out, He's got it in a brown paper bag.
Speaker 1: Uh And that's kind of all he's got on him,
Speaker 1: and it's not that he slipped out without anyone seeing him.
Speaker 1: He actually waves as the security guard. Security guard waves back.
Speaker 1: They share a smile on his way out. Wow, okay,
Speaker 1: so he's nineteen. He's nineteen. He just pulls off the caper. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he's got his his bag of cash. He goes
Speaker 1: back to his apartment. He waves to his landlady. He
Speaker 1: calls his girlfriend and apparently tells her he's going to
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania to attend a concert. Well, he's got the cash
Speaker 1: for it, I guess, Yeah, he's Uh, he's ready to go.
Speaker 1: So he hops in a taxi from there, heads to
Speaker 1: the airport and like disappears for the rest of his
Speaker 1: long life. Kid, Yeah, that's it, um, And almost immediately
Speaker 1: everyone knows who did it too. In fact, he gets
Speaker 1: indicted by a grand jury just two months after the robbery,
Speaker 1: but by then it's too late. They have no idea
Speaker 1: where he is, and he's in the wind. Really did
Speaker 1: they ever? They find him? They find him because, as
Speaker 1: I said in the intro, he he confessed at the
Speaker 1: very end. Oh my god. But it's not until after
Speaker 1: he's dead that they actually track him down. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it's really like a complete disappearance. He never talked to
Speaker 1: his friends and family again. Um, he lives to seventy
Speaker 1: two or seventy three something like that. Wow, we've talked
Speaker 1: before about guys who can't seem to like hide out.
Speaker 1: This guy is the antithesis he had. He hit out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he got it done. Like as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, he basically fulfills Zaren's three elements of
Speaker 1: the crime. Right, He's gonna be so bummed's I know
Speaker 1: this is kind of made for him. Right. So, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, the only reason we know about what happened
Speaker 1: to Teddy is because he confesses. He confesses to his
Speaker 1: wife on his deathbed. Um, but it's not for lack
Speaker 1: of trying. There's this marshal who dedicates his entire life
Speaker 1: to sniffing Teddy out. Marshall's name was John Elliott. And
Speaker 1: when he's done and ready to retire from the Marshals,
Speaker 1: his son, Peter Elliott, also a marshal, picks up the thread.
Speaker 1: It's like a total family blood feud. Yeah yeah. And
Speaker 1: of John's son Peter, And one the articles about Teddy's
Speaker 1: death is quoted and I quote, We'd be at dinner
Speaker 1: and he would say, past the mashed potatoes, and what
Speaker 1: do you think ted Conrad is? His whole life is
Speaker 1: like this, like his dad is just absolutely like filling
Speaker 1: out the crossword puzzle sitting there and like every word
Speaker 1: is Theodore Theodore, Theodore Theodore. Oh my god. And to
Speaker 1: make the story even weirder, the Marshal John Elliott even
Speaker 1: knows Teddy Conrad by sight, Like didn't witness this the crime,
Speaker 1: but it was just small town connection. So like his name,
Speaker 1: he knows his what he looks like, he knows his name,
Speaker 1: he knows what he looks like. How did he rob
Speaker 1: the bank? Are you going to tell me that? Later?
Speaker 1: I will tell you. Yeah, we'll get but yeah, so uh,
Speaker 1: Elliott and Teddy share the same doctor. The Marshal used
Speaker 1: to go to the same ice cream parlor where Teddy
Speaker 1: works before his bank job, So like we really knew
Speaker 1: each other, knew each other. Yeah, a lot, a lot
Speaker 1: of cross paths. He died in one, and by now
Speaker 1: it is known how he did it, which is even
Speaker 1: more ridiculous than you know so far, Um, the marshals
Speaker 1: know why he did it, which is I think even
Speaker 1: more ridiculous than that. And we also know where he
Speaker 1: ended up for the bulk of his life after the
Speaker 1: Big Highest. But even knowing all that, there's still a
Speaker 1: ton of unanswered questions that I couldn't find any answers to.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm so excited for this. So let
Speaker 1: me set the stage a little bit before I tell
Speaker 1: you about our nineteen year old criminal mastermind and what
Speaker 1: his crime looked like. We're now, Remember we're in July
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty nine, and I would say the country
Speaker 1: had a lot on its mind, right, Like we've talked
Speaker 1: about the Summer of Love several times on this show
Speaker 1: and traced various crimes and events, um. But until I
Speaker 1: dug in for the research on this, it didn't really
Speaker 1: all connect up in my mind that this is all
Speaker 1: happening all at the same time, like in the same
Speaker 1: three months span, basically, right, Can you name just a
Speaker 1: couple of things that we're going on in nine? Summer
Speaker 1: of sixty summer? Yeah, in the six when the first
Speaker 1: beautifully saying about the original sixty I bought it at
Speaker 1: the five and dime? Uh wood stock right with stock
Speaker 1: happened that summer? Um moon landing? Yes, right, and then
Speaker 1: the reason then when I say moon Landing, it makes
Speaker 1: me think of Summer of Soul, that Quest Love documentary.
Speaker 1: So those concerts were going on totally. That's June through August.
Speaker 1: Right in the middle, you also have the Beatles Get
Speaker 1: Back makes Number one, Okay, Stonewall Riots, so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah right, Give Piece a Chance also came out, and
Speaker 1: John and Yoko end up in the hospital after a
Speaker 1: bad car wreck. July eight, U. S. Troops are withdrawing
Speaker 1: from Vietnam. Oh yeah. And then also in music, You've
Speaker 1: got the Rolling Stones released honky Tonk Woman, Dave the
Speaker 1: Bowie releases Space on it E July eleven, the same weekend,
Speaker 1: you're kidding, Oh my god. Yeah. So then like July
Speaker 1: thirt Russia launches there on Man Rocket to the Moon.
Speaker 1: It's just like goes on and on going on. The
Speaker 1: first death of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Um, oh,
Speaker 1: you're kidding. Was that summer? Yeah, it was was July.
Speaker 1: U you moved to the July. Muhammad Ali is convicted
Speaker 1: of avoiding the draft, which you know later his conviction
Speaker 1: movie Overturned. Right July next dang day, Teddy Kennedy pleads
Speaker 1: guilty to leaving the scene at chap a quickic that
Speaker 1: killed Barry Joe Popette. Wait, this is like, this is
Speaker 1: so tumultuous. Isn't this amazing? I'm understanding like that, Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Um. Then you have Hurricane Camille, which is
Speaker 1: a Category five hurricane that kills more than two and
Speaker 1: fifty people in Mississippi and Louisiana. We can't Here's This
Speaker 1: is something that I think about a lot, is that
Speaker 1: everyone always feels like they're in the end times exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, if there's the Yates poems second coming, that
Speaker 1: basic you know, helps us understand that that we always
Speaker 1: feel like we're in the spin out part of things.
Speaker 1: But people have been feeling that for a very long time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I know I felt that at times in
Speaker 1: sixteen and times and was like, oh, this is just
Speaker 1: especially with Twitter, you just see like more and more
Speaker 1: and more things happening. Oh yeah, And and I mean
Speaker 1: I would think that with with the power of all
Speaker 1: these things and we only I only got through a
Speaker 1: small fraction of all the stuff around the world that's
Speaker 1: going on, that you would read it in the paper.
Speaker 1: I mean like that some things would get like a
Speaker 1: little postage stamp, but still you would have that view
Speaker 1: of all these things. Yeah, we've talked about people who
Speaker 1: have robbed banks before. I would say more than a
Speaker 1: few of them. Quite a few. We've got are no Funke,
Speaker 1: We've got redond fied hatt and garden folks Attila. Do
Speaker 1: you have a a? Do you have a third favorite bank? Crop?
Speaker 1: Right that we've covered? Who is my third favorite? I
Speaker 1: don't know? Uh? Did he robbed banks? Like I said?
Speaker 1: He wrote he robbed the trains only minor? Yeah, robbed
Speaker 1: banks because it was like, you know, bank property. I
Speaker 1: like it, and he had the whole like he invented
Speaker 1: stick them up right, Oh yeah, totally. So put your
Speaker 1: hands in the air, I wave them just like you
Speaker 1: don't care. Man. But they didn't know what that looked
Speaker 1: like back then. They're like, well what he did? What if?
Speaker 1: They were like hey he And then it was lost
Speaker 1: to history and then it was part of spiritus moondy
Speaker 1: and then we all collectively came back around to it
Speaker 1: without knowing are you going rebel yell? I mean like
Speaker 1: it's in all these books, like yeah, they waived them
Speaker 1: like they just don't care and trying to reconstruct. That's
Speaker 1: what happened. You gotta admit it is a wily crew,
Speaker 1: and a pretty diverse crew of of that we've covered.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's like I don't think there's
Speaker 1: a stable and consistent profile across all of them. So
Speaker 1: like they've been bank robbers in every era. But I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if you send an invitation and got them
Speaker 1: all together for an annual meeting, like what that would
Speaker 1: look like if they would get along, like a reunion, yeah,
Speaker 1: or like they've got business to do every year, like
Speaker 1: they got to vote on the Proxy s convention, like
Speaker 1: a bank robbers convention. I'll go to that. I would
Speaker 1: say that a lot of days in a minimum security
Speaker 1: prisoner bank robbers fair, very fair. So when we look
Speaker 1: at Teddy his mom, famous concert violinist who had grown
Speaker 1: up in Deadwood, Deadwood, Deadwood, Yeah, yeah, which kind of
Speaker 1: like tells you how close together things are in history
Speaker 1: that we think are very far apart. Right, But I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously I hold on, so this isn't the sixties, so yeah,
Speaker 1: she's not like she's not like Calamity Jane. Don't know
Speaker 1: it was still around, but it wasn't. Yeah, because they
Speaker 1: got married in like the forties. Maybe what a place
Speaker 1: to be born and grow up. Yeah right, pretty cool. Um,
Speaker 1: and his dad is a decorated naval officer. Okay, so
Speaker 1: it just like a straightforward all American Yeah, yeah, like
Speaker 1: major dad, like Gerald McCraney. I'm thinking his dad was
Speaker 1: Gerald McCraney. Yeah. And it's you know, it's hard to
Speaker 1: know through newspapers what people's private lives were like back then,
Speaker 1: so who knows if he was a happy kid or not.
Speaker 1: But in later interviews, his friends say, you know, he
Speaker 1: was quiet, he was articulate. Everyone says he was nice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It sounds like yeah, but something must have happened in
Speaker 1: the transition to college, because the one thing we do
Speaker 1: know is after less than a year at this place
Speaker 1: called New England College, which was a small school that
Speaker 1: had started like not too long before, and he was
Speaker 1: elected class president in his first semester. M hum. He
Speaker 1: was there for for just less than a year, and
Speaker 1: then he transfers to Cuyahoga Community College back home in Ohio.
Speaker 1: So hard to get's hard to go off to school?
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, I mean, or maybe it was. Here's
Speaker 1: another fact that maybe this is why his dad was
Speaker 1: a professor at New England College. Okay, I can maybe
Speaker 1: understand a little bit more why he bailed out. Do
Speaker 1: you think like it was just like dad like, well,
Speaker 1: it's like a small college. I've never I'm not familiar
Speaker 1: with it. Um. It sounds kind of generic New England College,
Speaker 1: like Hudson University on the Law and Order franchise. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you go across from you know, where was
Speaker 1: the Ohio? You said? Yeah, so then he goes to
Speaker 1: generic New England his dad. Yeah, i'd get out of
Speaker 1: it too, dude. So well, here's what I want to do.
Speaker 1: I'm giving you the pen. Yeah, I want you to
Speaker 1: tell me why he chose to transfer. Oh okay, So
Speaker 1: he signs up for a class and finds out it's
Speaker 1: his dad's class. Now, how about this, he doesn't know
Speaker 1: his dad as a professor. Now, okay, let's say he knows.
Speaker 1: He goes in his dad's class and his dad is
Speaker 1: just like, you know, just harping on him and in
Speaker 1: embarrassing him. So he's like I'm out here, or his
Speaker 1: dad's trying to help him really hard, and he transferred
Speaker 1: to a community college because he was failing. That's probably
Speaker 1: more likely thing there. But yeah, either way, he got
Speaker 1: out of town. Something happened. Yeah, So he gets back
Speaker 1: to Ohio. He hooks up with a steady girlfriend, Kathleen Einhouse,
Speaker 1: and he gets a job as a teller at Society
Speaker 1: National Bank. M M curious. Yeah, and right now it's
Speaker 1: early okay. I was going to ask you when that was. Okay,
Speaker 1: So he goes back. He's working, he's going to the
Speaker 1: community college, working as a teller. Okay. And there's one
Speaker 1: thing that we know catches his eye in this time period,
Speaker 1: which is the Steve McQueen movie, The Thomas Crown Affair. Uhha,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen it? I have? I have great movie, awesome,
Speaker 1: really beautiful movie too. According to an interview with his
Speaker 1: friend at the time, this guy Russell Metcalf who will
Speaker 1: visit with later you, um, he must have watched Teddy.
Speaker 1: Must have watched that movie at least six times. Well,
Speaker 1: and in those days, that means he went to the
Speaker 1: theater six times. It wasn't like, oh I always had
Speaker 1: it on at the house type thing. Yeah. Well, I
Speaker 1: like to thank he got there for like the mattinee
Speaker 1: and he's like, ah, this was amazing. Walks out, walks
Speaker 1: back in, he just sits there. Now, he doesn't walk out.
Speaker 1: He hides under the seat, like on the sticky floor.
Speaker 1: So that's at least three viewings. And then he goes
Speaker 1: home and he's like, uh, you know that was good.
Speaker 1: You know what would really hit the spot right now,
Speaker 1: Thomas Crown Affair one please be so he you know,
Speaker 1: just zones out in this movie. He comes back and
Speaker 1: he starts to brag to his friends that he could
Speaker 1: pull off something like the elaborate bank robbery in the movie.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not really that hard at all. So
Speaker 1: the next thing he does is he wants to show off,
Speaker 1: to show his friends that he's like, you know, big
Speaker 1: and bad and Steve a queenish. So he shoplifts a
Speaker 1: deck of cards. Nothing's says, I'm cool like Steve McQueen,
Speaker 1: like shoplifting all those movies Steve McQueen is in or
Speaker 1: he's like and all the shoplifting he did in those movies.
Speaker 1: The best Steve McQueen movie was called The Five Finger Discount. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like, I guess that's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that impresses young well off twenty year olds. They're like,
Speaker 1: he had no fear, like, oh yeah, he had no fear.
Speaker 1: He did it to impress his quote unquote friends. He
Speaker 1: seems like a nice kid, though, and it's not entirely
Speaker 1: clear to them what he means when he keeps saying like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I could rob a bank. Um, I think
Speaker 1: I think they should take him literally. I mean, you know, hindsight,
Speaker 1: let's take a break, maybe dream about relieving a large
Speaker 1: financial institution of a tiny fraction of its holdings. I
Speaker 1: always do. And when we come back, I will tell you, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: about how and why young Teddy Conrad broke himself off
Speaker 1: something good and where he went from there. I can't wait. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back, Hey Dave, Hey Elizabeth. Let me give you
Speaker 1: a little bit of details on the Thomas Crown affair
Speaker 1: so that folks listening, if they haven't seen it, will
Speaker 1: get a sense of, first of all, how amazing this
Speaker 1: movie is, but also how it relates to this crime.
Speaker 1: U and uh. And just to be clear, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the original nine one, not the remake reboots starting
Speaker 1: Pierce Brosn In which Mary may not be good. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I've never seen that one. Yeah, I've never
Speaker 1: seen it. I also, I don't believe we're talking about
Speaker 1: another Steve McQueen movie, Twelve Years of Sleeve, nor the
Speaker 1: Five Finger Discount Steve McQueen. So Thomas Crown affair. It's
Speaker 1: about an already rich bank executive who pulls off a
Speaker 1: really well planned bank heist on his own bank, basically
Speaker 1: for the love of the sport. The bank exactly is
Speaker 1: played by Steve McQueen, who comes across in the big
Speaker 1: screen and this and other movies as pretty much the
Speaker 1: coolest guy on the planet ever. Totally, totally, and there
Speaker 1: are a couple of interesting things about the movie that
Speaker 1: I'd like to draw folks attention to. First, there's a
Speaker 1: famous scene where insurance investigator Vicky Anderson played by the
Speaker 1: incredible Fade Dunaway, asked Tom Crown why he's planning a
Speaker 1: second big heist to hit the same bank, you know,
Speaker 1: the one that employs him. This is his reply, it's
Speaker 1: not the money. It's not the money, it's me. It's
Speaker 1: me and the system, the system, you know. And then
Speaker 1: he trails off and we don't know, like what he
Speaker 1: really means. What does his answer mean to you? I
Speaker 1: think that you know this idea. It's me in the system.
Speaker 1: He's part of the system, but he doesn't feel part
Speaker 1: of the system. And you know that that was my
Speaker 1: That's how I took it that. It's just like he
Speaker 1: knows he's a part of it, but he also wants
Speaker 1: to stick it to that system, and he can afford to,
Speaker 1: so why not. Yeah, it's like I don't know, like
Speaker 1: he's a board rich dude, and and maybe, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe this is stretching. I don't know that maybe he
Speaker 1: wants to prove that he's free from the bureaucracy that
Speaker 1: was suddenly creeping into everyone's lives. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and like maybe his job had changed and now he's
Speaker 1: you know, has to actually report things to the FBI
Speaker 1: or something. Um. Because you know that that is starting
Speaker 1: to pop up as a theme in culture, in movies
Speaker 1: and TV and in everyday life. And there are lots
Speaker 1: of movies from that period where you can see the
Speaker 1: same desire, like the one I think of his Easy Writer.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a good that's a good example. Same year,
Speaker 1: and it's that like I want to break free from
Speaker 1: society and culture and being civilized or you know something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, yeah, they just they want to get loosted.
Speaker 1: Another thing I want to draw everyone's attention to is
Speaker 1: the morality play in this movie. So you know, if
Speaker 1: you're like me, expected the cops to be relentless and
Speaker 1: maybe crooked like some Serpico action, Yeah exactly. Um, and
Speaker 1: especially you've got this like main character struggling against the system. Um.
Speaker 1: But in this movie, the cops are totally by the book.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you remember, like while they
Speaker 1: do pursue Thomas Crown, it kind of feels like they
Speaker 1: don't expect they're going to close the case. They're just
Speaker 1: kind of going through the motions. Yeah. Um. And on
Speaker 1: the other hand, as soon as the insurance folks arrive
Speaker 1: on the scene, they're the ones who want you to
Speaker 1: know they're relentless and they will use their power anyway
Speaker 1: they want. Oh yeah, yeah, there's money involved. There's money involved,
Speaker 1: and it's their money. Yeah. And apparently what they say
Speaker 1: and that as as they first show up, is any
Speaker 1: insurance agents who closed the case also get a solid
Speaker 1: percentage of whatever they recover in their own pocket. Right.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the the long history of private police,
Speaker 1: private security, pinkertons all that, where they're they're mercenaries and
Speaker 1: they just want the money. Yeah, commission um and they
Speaker 1: pretty quickly do break the law um too. During the
Speaker 1: course of the investigation, they track down one of the
Speaker 1: people Thomas Crown used to take down the bank, even
Speaker 1: though he went to great pains to make sure nobody
Speaker 1: knew each other. They take this guy who's just like
Speaker 1: some guy. They kickap his child to lure him out
Speaker 1: of hiding, and then they shake him down for whatever
Speaker 1: information they get from Like they hold his kid hostage
Speaker 1: and they're like, if you don't tell us what we
Speaker 1: want to know, like, we're gonna hurt your kid. So
Speaker 1: so in the movie. You don't see that in enough movies.
Speaker 1: You really don't. But it's like, you know, it says
Speaker 1: something to me about also, like this other force that's emerging,
Speaker 1: this kind of like you know, companies can can be
Speaker 1: much more threatening than even the cops can be. Like
Speaker 1: maybe it's like a creeping fear people are starting to have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that, Yeah, you're seeing expanding corporization things at
Speaker 1: that time. Makes sense. So, like I said, like I
Speaker 1: think this is kind of a peek into the psyche
Speaker 1: of the time and the growing power of the FBI
Speaker 1: and other dark, unseen bureaucracies. Well, and this is what's
Speaker 1: this is what's driving Teddy right, Like he's watched this
Speaker 1: movie six times now. You said, yeah, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he's like under its sway at this he's
Speaker 1: just feeling it. He's like, yeah, yeah, like I also,
Speaker 1: And maybe you know, after leaving school, he was feeling
Speaker 1: a little bit like an outcast. Um, maybe he should
Speaker 1: have watched Easy Rider because then he wanted just that
Speaker 1: he'd be a whole lot cooler. But right now he's like,
Speaker 1: it's me and the system. Baby, Yeah, that's it. So
Speaker 1: in addition to Teddy's friends saying he loved this movie,
Speaker 1: they said he sort of embodied the Thomas Crown character
Speaker 1: for a while. And they say he was like drinking
Speaker 1: expensive gin's, driving fancy sports cars, like showing off on
Speaker 1: the golf course. Wait, really, trouble picture. I like to
Speaker 1: think he also died his hair blonde and brought an
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollar three piece suit and a watch. Fob
Speaker 1: year old is twenty year old, like drinking you know, Scotch,
Speaker 1: playing golf in Ohio. He's like impressing all of his
Speaker 1: friends with his knowledge of like he's also yeah, he's
Speaker 1: impressing him also by shoplifting a deck of cards. Make
Speaker 1: those make sense? Is he then like like in the movie,
Speaker 1: he's driving like exotic dune buggies on picturesque beaches like Ohio.
Speaker 1: He flies on ultra light to the bank in Ohio
Speaker 1: and then frogs with his glamorous co star. He was very,
Speaker 1: very meticulous in his his mimicry. And it's nineteen sixty nine, baby,
Speaker 1: so is he also hosting naked fondue parts? Who is
Speaker 1: to say? And we know he's got a job at
Speaker 1: a bank, right, we know he managed to steal a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of money, but we don't know what happened
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, I'm desperate to know how he wound
Speaker 1: up strolling out with a bag of a paper bag
Speaker 1: of cash. Okay, then what I would like you to do?
Speaker 1: It's closed your eyes as close. I want you to
Speaker 1: picture it. M hmm. You're in a completely deadened, soundless,
Speaker 1: empty room. Nothing is happening, nothing will happen. Just relax
Speaker 1: and breathe. I have now removed the burden of me
Speaker 1: having to do sound design for a picture at segment. Yes,
Speaker 1: I win. That was alright, cool, alright, done, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, thanks for joining us. Check that one off.
Speaker 1: Okay next time, Okay, frill though, frial though, picture for
Speaker 1: real free. Alright, we're there. It's a Friday, it's noon time.
Speaker 1: It's July nine. You are a twenty year old works
Speaker 1: at a small time hardware store. It's your friend Teddy's birthday,
Speaker 1: and you're sharing your lunch break to celebrate. You and
Speaker 1: Teddy are at a boot in a chrome laden diner,
Speaker 1: choking down hot dogs. Maybe you're sucking down chili dogs.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. You're choking on a hot dog. Uh.
Speaker 1: Black girl sweeting some fries uh, and you're sucking down
Speaker 1: a black cow, which is the chocolate shape made with vanilla.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know what what impression you
Speaker 1: have of me. This is not a this is not
Speaker 1: a parallel nine, This is real nineteen. You're looking over
Speaker 1: a Teddy. His hair is slipped back, he has on
Speaker 1: suspenders with a gun holster over a black turtleneck. His
Speaker 1: transformation to Steve McQueen is nearly complete. Between slurps, Teddy
Speaker 1: stirs the shake, shoots you a furtive glance, and says
Speaker 1: to doos the day. At first, you're like, why are
Speaker 1: you talking like that? And you have no idea what
Speaker 1: he's talking about. But then he puts his finger to
Speaker 1: his nose and you remember, oh wow. You say, oh wow,
Speaker 1: oh wow again, oh wow. Thank you. After you both
Speaker 1: finish up and pay, you accompanied Teddy to the package
Speaker 1: door in the corner. You stand behind him as he
Speaker 1: buys a fifth of Crown Royal and a carton of smokes.
Speaker 1: He grabs a bag of funns for you. You look hungry.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah. The cashier is handing him the booze and
Speaker 1: smokes on that trail, not the cashier the product. Oh.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is going on in? I lost you?
Speaker 1: So he asked for a bag or a bag as
Speaker 1: it sounds in midwaister needs. The cashier hands him a
Speaker 1: small paper bag, the bigger one. It's my birthday, Teddy
Speaker 1: says to the teller, gonna have a real big night.
Speaker 1: His voice just cracked like he couldn't keep doing the
Speaker 1: husky thing. I need a big birthday bag. I'm a
Speaker 1: big boy. Now. Birthday boys get a birthday bag. Um.
Speaker 1: So you and Teddy partway is outside the package store,
Speaker 1: him with his big birthday bag. I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: sit behind a dumpster and eat the Fians like a
Speaker 1: raccoon and wipe their hands on your pants. Uh. So
Speaker 1: you head back to your job at the hardware place.
Speaker 1: Your mind is racing with what's about to play out.
Speaker 1: You're thinking like today's the day? Yeah, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: So Teddy heads back to Society National Bank, where you
Speaker 1: remember he works as a teller along with his partner
Speaker 1: pen uh I. Was way up the front steps he
Speaker 1: sees the security guard Mike, Mike with ice running through
Speaker 1: his veins. Teddy hoists the paper bag, pulls the neck
Speaker 1: of the crown bottle out, and then the top of
Speaker 1: the smokes carten. He's got a big grin on his
Speaker 1: face as he shouts to the security guard, it's my birthday,
Speaker 1: Gonna have a real big night. Oh god. It's a
Speaker 1: line he had practiced at home for hours in front
Speaker 1: of the mirror. No. Mike smiles back and says, okay, kid,
Speaker 1: do it up birthday and take care of yourself. Mike
Speaker 1: feels so bad for Teddy all the time, because like
Speaker 1: this is the third time this month that he's come
Speaker 1: up and said it's my birthday. And to have a
Speaker 1: big night. Don't you pity me, Teddy. You don't know
Speaker 1: it's my birthday. I haven't have a big night. Just me, me,
Speaker 1: a bottle of Crown Royal and a curtain of smokes.
Speaker 1: Enjoy it, Me and Parlain, Funkadelic and the Royal Craft.
Speaker 1: But Teddy's guinea. He lightly vaults up the rest of
Speaker 1: the steps and heads back to his station at the
Speaker 1: bank's birthday. Now, Teddy wasn't just any teller working front
Speaker 1: of house. Teddy was a vault teller. What that means
Speaker 1: is he and his colleague pen are alone with all
Speaker 1: the money pretty much all day. Yeah, they fulfill orders
Speaker 1: to the customer facing tellers, got it. So they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, dream of green backs. They're just they and
Speaker 1: they stand there surrounded by it all day in a
Speaker 1: big vault. Yeah, and like you know, I'm sure they've
Speaker 1: done at least one Scrooge mid up dip. Right. I
Speaker 1: was just going to say, they're like dito it? Okay.
Speaker 1: So now it's around three pm. It's been quiet at
Speaker 1: the bank. There's nothing going on because everyone's glued to
Speaker 1: their sets at home waiting for news from NASA about
Speaker 1: the moon. Mission. Oh yeah, yeah yeah. So Teddy says
Speaker 1: to to Pen, why don't you knock off early? I
Speaker 1: got this, I'll close up for the both of us.
Speaker 1: His coworker scurries off, and that's kind of it. Clock
Speaker 1: hits closing time. Teddy grabs as many cheddar stacks as
Speaker 1: we'll fit in his outside bag with the smokes and
Speaker 1: the liquor, which ends up being something like two thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and he leaves a cloud of dust as he hits
Speaker 1: for the door. So it's like a big grocery back.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. It's a birthday back, happy birthday.
Speaker 1: Like they probably handed him a bag that covered the
Speaker 1: the flask and he's like no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 1: And then they handed him a bag that covered the
Speaker 1: smokes and he's like no, no, no, no no, no no.
Speaker 1: He You know what, Like, I think every school had
Speaker 1: a kid who their parents would occasionally send them send
Speaker 1: them to school with their lunch in a giant grocery
Speaker 1: size bag. Do you ever have that? Like I I
Speaker 1: never struck out that way because if we didn't have
Speaker 1: lunch bags or like a lunch box or whatever, my
Speaker 1: grandma would put them in those blue New York Times
Speaker 1: newspaper from morning do Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, he's got
Speaker 1: like a big old lunch up in there. I always
Speaker 1: think of the big ones as like the John Bender
Speaker 1: Doo bitch bags from Breakfast. Yes. Yes, the prop master
Speaker 1: did such a good job with that thing, like it
Speaker 1: looked like it was Oh yeah, yeah, So that's kind
Speaker 1: of what I'm imagining him carrying here. So you know,
Speaker 1: as we know, on the steps, he runs into Mike
Speaker 1: the security ard again. He waves, Mike waves back, and
Speaker 1: he's gone. So my question to you is, does Mike
Speaker 1: shout something like very nineteen sixty nine back at this
Speaker 1: time he like throws he throws up a piece symbol.
Speaker 1: Would that be like keep on trucking? Yeah, he was,
Speaker 1: And he's wearing platform shoes and billbo trucking and then
Speaker 1: just rainbows fly out from him and then stars appear
Speaker 1: all illustrated in this. Yeah, this is just this whole
Speaker 1: thing is just a dream. Hey kid, you drop some
Speaker 1: And instead of me and Joe Green giving him his uniform,
Speaker 1: the security guard gives him his uniform. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: it was. So what does Teddy do next? Where too?
Speaker 1: But Teddy heads to the giant, brutalist federal building in
Speaker 1: Boston that houses the region's Social Security administration. So Teddy
Speaker 1: walks in and he says something like, hey, i'd like
Speaker 1: to sob security card and stuff. It's my birthday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's my birthday. And see this bag um just being
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine. They're like, of course, my good man
Speaker 1: will type it up right now, what is your name?
Speaker 1: But you know what, like they ironically they have the
Speaker 1: same computer system. Now that that's right. Uh, So Teddy
Speaker 1: gives Thomas Randell as his name and Patsy's age by
Speaker 1: two years. And if he's a new person, he could
Speaker 1: just walk in and be like, I need a Social
Speaker 1: Security card. It's my birthday. I'm Teddy, And as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell, that's it. Like he didn't like
Speaker 1: do the whole thing of like let me find a
Speaker 1: dead person. It was just like, um, Thomas Randell, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't find that name until Teddy pops up. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try it and I'll do like bodycam footage
Speaker 1: and we'll see how that goes. So I go into
Speaker 1: the Social Security building about it's me. I thought you
Speaker 1: were saying you're going to give the name bodycam footage
Speaker 1: as your name, yeah, man, and my new name. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go into the Social Security office and like I
Speaker 1: need a Social Security card. My name is bodycam footage
Speaker 1: and you're like, ma'am, this is an Arby's um. So
Speaker 1: let's let's just like stop and think about this for
Speaker 1: a second. Does this sound like the movie Thomas Crown
Speaker 1: Affair at all? No? No, no, no it doesn't. I
Speaker 1: mean only in the sense that, like he got away
Speaker 1: with the bank robbery of his own bank. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's that it sounds like because he said his name
Speaker 1: was Thomas on the new card, and I wonder where
Speaker 1: Randell came from? Is that, like I have no idea,
Speaker 1: Like he he had a prophecy that there was gonna
Speaker 1: be a football player named Antoine Randall l and then
Speaker 1: he was like there is uh so we're not sure
Speaker 1: how long Teddy now Thomas roams around. There are some
Speaker 1: leads along the way for Marshall John Elliott, some spottings
Speaker 1: in Hawaii and elsewhere that may or might not have
Speaker 1: been real, But eventually we do know. He settles for
Speaker 1: good in the town of Lynnfield, Massachusetts, and the newspaper
Speaker 1: stories from around his death make a big deal out
Speaker 1: of how he decides to live so close to where
Speaker 1: the Thomas Crown Affair took place and was films. But
Speaker 1: to me, I mean, yeah, it's close, but it's not
Speaker 1: back close Like no, not really. Most of the action
Speaker 1: of the film takes place in downtown Boston proper Um,
Speaker 1: and in Beacon Hill and in Cambridge Cemetery, which is
Speaker 1: in Cambridge, Cambridge. Yeah, exactly. Lynnfield is by the North
Speaker 1: Shore or North Shaw as you would say to you,
Speaker 1: there seventeen miles north of all that. Well, here's the thing,
Speaker 1: like he his crime really wasn't like the Thomas Crown affair.
Speaker 1: It was like t c A adjacent, So he's t
Speaker 1: c A adjacent in his relocation, like it's always it's
Speaker 1: like a bad cramp drawing version of everything. That's a
Speaker 1: good way to put it. Yeah, this is close enough,
Speaker 1: and you know, from what I could glean, he lives
Speaker 1: a pretty nice life. Over time, he becomes a local
Speaker 1: golf pro. He's giving lessons at the clubs around Boston.
Speaker 1: He's participating in regional tournaments, all things that you know
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen would do in a Steve McQueen movie. For sure,
Speaker 1: totally for work. Get ready for this. He becomes a
Speaker 1: luxury car salesman. Oh I got Mini Coopers for over
Speaker 1: forty years. No, no, not even anything as exotic as that.
Speaker 1: Volvos and land Rovers. Huh okay, So like the suburban set,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the reverse of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole thing of like hard men said that they
Speaker 1: are used car dealers. He does his crime and then
Speaker 1: says he's like and he's like adjacent. So he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm actually a luxury car new cars, So I heard
Speaker 1: something about car dealer. He does do a good job
Speaker 1: keeping a low profile. So the first mentioned anywhere on
Speaker 1: newspapers dot com, by the way, a fantastic source for
Speaker 1: anything you're looking for the greatest thing ever. I got
Speaker 1: so lost in there and uh and I will tell
Speaker 1: you in this episode just how amazing it is. Wait
Speaker 1: for it. Here's a hot tip for anyone interested in
Speaker 1: dabbling with newspapers dot com. Put in your home address,
Speaker 1: like your number and your the name of your street
Speaker 1: in the local paper and you'll find out, like history,
Speaker 1: everything that went down at your house. That's a great call.
Speaker 1: I didn't even think I'm a I'm a I'm a
Speaker 1: special investigator. What can I say? So the first time
Speaker 1: he pops on newspapers dot com is in in golf
Speaker 1: tournament results at Halifax Country Club in the Boston Globe.
Speaker 1: So like, what is that? Uh? Six six years? Yeah,
Speaker 1: six seven year or something like that. Um. And the
Speaker 1: only things I could find in the newspaper from that
Speaker 1: from this fifth year stretch were from his golf career.
Speaker 1: And the only photo I found was from the AP
Speaker 1: when he attended the US Open golf tourney. And I
Speaker 1: wonder if he was like, yeah, could you guys like
Speaker 1: not post that photo he's got like one hand over
Speaker 1: the side of his face or at that point it's
Speaker 1: been like forty seven years, or is he like what
Speaker 1: does he care? He's like, no one cares. Who knows
Speaker 1: who cares? Um? But there is one anomaly that I
Speaker 1: just can't figure out. I will tell you about it
Speaker 1: as soon as we come back from this year break cool,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth David. I'm not Zaren. I'm still not Zaren. I
Speaker 1: thank you for getting my name right though. Hey, I
Speaker 1: pay attention, and you know what, I'm going to ask
Speaker 1: you what your ridiculous takeaway is when this is all over, better.
Speaker 1: I better get cribbon on that. Uh. So we were
Speaker 1: talking about man at t C A adjacent c t
Speaker 1: C A adjacent. I keep getting the names crossed t
Speaker 1: c A adjacent Thomas Randell. I always want Thomas A
Speaker 1: Teddy a k A Teddy Conrad ak birthday boy. And
Speaker 1: we know, like you know, there are good life uh.
Speaker 1: And he was around for over fifty years golf pro
Speaker 1: slang and sweet Volvos before you were so rudely interrupted
Speaker 1: by ads. They were really good though. You have to
Speaker 1: admit that was a hot crop right there. Choice there's
Speaker 1: one piece of the story that I haven't been able
Speaker 1: to figure out, and I want your help figuring it out.
Speaker 1: You got it. So Thomas got married in Lynnfield to
Speaker 1: a woman named Kathy Mahan m h A n. Which
Speaker 1: would almost be like in Rhode Island, if someone said
Speaker 1: Kathy Mahon, you would think they were meant Kathy Maharn there,
Speaker 1: I would think if it's m and it might also
Speaker 1: be Mayhan. Oh, it could be yeah, Kathy Mayhan, Kathy Mayhem.
Speaker 1: That that's her actual name. Everybody Kathy Mayhem. Uh. They
Speaker 1: own a home, nothing crazy, pretty standard suburban Boston home,
Speaker 1: but in they filed for bankruptcy protection and I was
Speaker 1: able to look it up on PACER, which is you know,
Speaker 1: a place where you can find court uh court proceedings
Speaker 1: UM and bankruptcies are you know, public? You have to
Speaker 1: file stuff for people like me to find. So this
Speaker 1: was all public information. I'm just saying that I didn't
Speaker 1: go UM. If you did, I'd be so proud of you.
Speaker 1: So the court records show they had a ton of
Speaker 1: credit card debt, like hundred and sixty thou dollars and
Speaker 1: very few assets. They had a couple of economy cars, dad,
Speaker 1: some pretty standard jewelry, a second mortgage, nothing extravagant. So
Speaker 1: my question to you, Elizabeth Crime is where did all
Speaker 1: the money go? Well? Are you sure it was all
Speaker 1: credit card debt? Do you think they had medical debt?
Speaker 1: It didn't specify. I mean it did say it was
Speaker 1: revolving credit. I'll let you in on a little secret.
Speaker 1: In my past life, there was a time when I
Speaker 1: worked for a bankruptcy trustee and I used to have
Speaker 1: to go through the bankruptcy schedules that people would file
Speaker 1: and pull out all the pertinent information and you'd see,
Speaker 1: like you know, and then we'd get ready for what
Speaker 1: they call the m see the meeting of creditors, where
Speaker 1: the creditors would come and explain why they had to
Speaker 1: get their cash back. And really the only ones that
Speaker 1: would ever show up would be like Sears for Sears
Speaker 1: cards and they'd interview the person who's declaring bankruptcy and
Speaker 1: like where is that that toaster? Oven? I gave it
Speaker 1: away as a gift, um, but like, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: Don't both sleep on me. I'm imagining that scene, like
Speaker 1: I'm imagining someone from Sears and the Sears showing up.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It's it's a really bizarre thing that they do.
Speaker 1: But a lot of what I saw was medical debt,
Speaker 1: and so you know, people would wrack up credit cards
Speaker 1: and especially like you know, there was a time when
Speaker 1: it was way easier to get a bunch of credit
Speaker 1: cards and a fewer kind of consumer protections on them, um,
Speaker 1: and so you know, people like just spending like crazy
Speaker 1: on these store credit cards and regular credit cards. But
Speaker 1: then it was the medical debt that did it to
Speaker 1: people horrific. If it's not looking like it was from uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a medical provider on the bankruptcy listing stuff
Speaker 1: that you saw it probably isn't, but that's in my experience.
Speaker 1: What I saw is most people were declaring bankruptcy not
Speaker 1: because of bad spending habits or extravagant living or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like they'd get sick and there either didn't have insurance
Speaker 1: or their insurance wouldn't cover what happened, and they have
Speaker 1: like hundreds of thousand dollars of de Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that makes sense, Like I know even like yeah that today, um,
Speaker 1: people either like they have to set up go fund
Speaker 1: me is or like one big bad medical thing happens
Speaker 1: and you're just done. Yeah. So maybe like he had
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff and he put it onto cards.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I mean, um, the Marshall said
Speaker 1: there were still stacks of unpaid bills on their table
Speaker 1: after he died. It's really sad. So yeah, where did
Speaker 1: that money go? Because it was two d something that well,
Speaker 1: I mean the thing is if he's just kind of
Speaker 1: goofing around being a golf pro for a while, maybe
Speaker 1: he's not making money and you can see how I
Speaker 1: can see how you'd burn through it. My Yeah. My
Speaker 1: two theories were one when he was young, in those
Speaker 1: six years before he ended up in Lynnfield, like he
Speaker 1: basically blew it all and we'll never know about it,
Speaker 1: like had a really good time and then save just
Speaker 1: enough to buy the house. Or here's here's the here's
Speaker 1: the cliffhanger. What if he felt really bad about the
Speaker 1: crime and so he buried it and then like on
Speaker 1: his deathbed when he's confessing to his wife, he's also saying, oh,
Speaker 1: and here's where the money, here's where it is. That's
Speaker 1: a cooler version of this. I like that, um, or
Speaker 1: you know, he could have just thrown the trash. He
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, I feel terrible at having this.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna take this bag and shove it. That
Speaker 1: could be too. This guy's a loose candid Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: we don't know who who knows in this case? I
Speaker 1: do care, so I'm not gonna use your line. I care,
Speaker 1: but don't care. Um, so not to bring the house down.
Speaker 1: But but the way he dies is through lung cancer.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty bad as it usually is. Uh, he
Speaker 1: was buying a cart in the smoke, so that time,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that was rude. And yeah I remember like
Speaker 1: he's been on the lamb for fifty years. No one
Speaker 1: has any clue that Thomas Randell is Teddy Conrad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the son Marshall Peter Elliott was quoted by the Cleveland
Speaker 1: Plain Dealer in two thousand and eight, so a while
Speaker 1: before they find him. One of the reasons I stayed
Speaker 1: after this guy is that some people thought he was
Speaker 1: some kind of a hero or Robin Hood. He's not.
Speaker 1: He was nothing but a thief, A young, smartass thief
Speaker 1: who managed to elude law enforcement for all these years.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we can bring him to justice soon. Oh and
Speaker 1: that's the sun who's carrying don Well, here's the thing
Speaker 1: that you did mention. He's on the lamb for fifty years. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's ridiculous to have him declare bankruptcy
Speaker 1: at that point, because that's fifty years is a long
Speaker 1: time to be riding on that cash. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it was gone pretty quickly, Okay. And I like your
Speaker 1: idea of that lost six years before he moves to Linfield. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't know, like other than that he
Speaker 1: was in Boston initially to get his to get a
Speaker 1: Social Security card. You know, he's just he's just you know,
Speaker 1: trapes and a rounds, spending his money on liquor and tarts.
Speaker 1: Maybe he fell into like a cult of some kind
Speaker 1: and donated a bunch of it to them. Yeah yeah uh.
Speaker 1: Or he found like some brotherhood of of Ganja or something. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's another possibility. Um. So. Peter's dad, Deputy Marshall John Elliott,
Speaker 1: did not live to see this case closed. He died
Speaker 1: um and according to the New York Post quote, he
Speaker 1: never stopped searching for Conrad and wanted closure until his death.
Speaker 1: So he was like cheering his son on from the side. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I know Peter was hitting the case real hard,
Speaker 1: in part because while I was doing my research on
Speaker 1: newspapers dot com, when I got to the original newspaper
Speaker 1: that printed the indictment in nine Elizabeth, guess what I
Speaker 1: found next to it? Oh my god what The article
Speaker 1: had already been clipped by a newspaper dot com user
Speaker 1: named Peter Elliott. The digital foot prints. This is the
Speaker 1: stuff we lived. Oh my god, you're walking in the
Speaker 1: footsteps of heroes. Who would you lose it if you
Speaker 1: were like looking for a story and you saw that
Speaker 1: they clipped something that you were looking at before you Oh,
Speaker 1: most definitely the person in the story. That's what I would,
Speaker 1: I would totally lose it. I thought, you're gonna go
Speaker 1: Anthony keytis Well that I really lose it if it
Speaker 1: was or if yeah, yeah, no it's for Shante. I
Speaker 1: mean that's when I would lose my mind. I feel
Speaker 1: like I didn't give enough of a beat here, Like
Speaker 1: how wild is that? That's yeah that you're what you're
Speaker 1: looking at this and you're watching that the son of
Speaker 1: the man in the article has has clipped it. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: And you also like to think like, oh, the marshals
Speaker 1: have their own like you know, badass databases and stuff. No,
Speaker 1: they also that was some home investigation stuff like that's
Speaker 1: like sitting at home on a Friday night, you know,
Speaker 1: deep and deep in your study of conspiracy string. So
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Yeah, so he got his closure. Let's get ours.
Speaker 1: There's a guy off off camera who's like, wrap it up.
Speaker 1: But I have so much good stuff it's so hard
Speaker 1: to know what to cut. I mentioned at the top
Speaker 1: that Teddy confessed to his wife as he lay dying
Speaker 1: he had made a ton of good friends, including some
Speaker 1: in law enforcement, which is brazen as hell, right, but
Speaker 1: his wife kept a secret until after he died. Good
Speaker 1: for her till death do us part legit His friends
Speaker 1: when they found out about all this, they were stunned.
Speaker 1: I think both the lung cancer and the bank robbery.
Speaker 1: They all thought the world of him, so they didn't
Speaker 1: even know that he had lung cancer. He yeah, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's secretive, secretive, proud guy. Yeah, a little sneaky squirrel.
Speaker 1: I pulled some of their recollections from a CBS news piece. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll just read you a couple of these. His former
Speaker 1: co workers at the dealership said they never heard Randall
Speaker 1: say a bad word about any buddy or raise his voice.
Speaker 1: They all said he was the best golfer they ever knew.
Speaker 1: Everyone wanted him on their side when there was a tournament. Uh.
Speaker 1: One of his co workers, Bob van Wert, said he
Speaker 1: wasn't much of a drinker and never put down any
Speaker 1: side bets while playing. I guess those are like the
Speaker 1: marks of of a like mean golf. You're a drunk
Speaker 1: and you're betting on the side. They remember kept it clean,
Speaker 1: he worked clean. Uh. They remembered he could always control
Speaker 1: his emotions and rarely got upset, even on the course
Speaker 1: where he had such a pretty swing that he once
Speaker 1: bested Hall of Fame golfer Johnny Miller at a charity event.
Speaker 1: His former boss remembered a pretty swing, he got a
Speaker 1: real pretty sing. And also Johnny Miller, not actor Johnny
Speaker 1: Lee Miller who has a pretty face, and not Johnny Miller.
Speaker 1: King is that king of the road. Uh, Roger Miller,
Speaker 1: Roger Roger. It's Roger Miller's brother. Matt Kaplan, who is
Speaker 1: his boss and managed two dealerships where he worked golf
Speaker 1: of them every Sunday morning for many years, called him
Speaker 1: the definition of a gentleman. Well, and I quote, the
Speaker 1: only way it makes sense is that at that age
Speaker 1: he was just a kid and it was a challenge
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Kaplan said, It's not like he became
Speaker 1: a professional bank robber that we know, right. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then he says, you know, the man was different from
Speaker 1: the kid, and and we just didn't think he was
Speaker 1: that kind of guy. Uh. Someone else said, you know,
Speaker 1: all the years I knew Tommy, I never heard him
Speaker 1: mention a sister or a mother, or a brother or
Speaker 1: a father. Everything was kind of generalized. He's like, yes,
Speaker 1: I love my family. And finally, when asked about the
Speaker 1: motive for the robbery. His friend Russell Metcalf, who we
Speaker 1: met in that coffee shop, said it wasn't about the money,
Speaker 1: So is that too cute? By half? It wasn't what
Speaker 1: what was it about? Russell? He said? He was like,
Speaker 1: I'm trying what he said. He said something like, you know,
Speaker 1: he did it for the thrill. Well, so that's the
Speaker 1: Thomas Crown part of it. I guess that it's not
Speaker 1: about the money. It's just for the action. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't seemed like he felt him in by society, right,
Speaker 1: it was just like I'm aboard you know what. Well,
Speaker 1: it was the part of Thomas Crown that's like, I'm
Speaker 1: a rich bank executive and I don't know how to
Speaker 1: have fun anymore. Yeah, but he's adjacent to that. So
Speaker 1: he's a young bank teller who doesn't know how he
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to have fun anymore. That's right. What
Speaker 1: you call it, t c A, it's the uh so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: instead of the bank executive, he's the bank teller exactly,
Speaker 1: just a little bit off. And instead of personal glasses,
Speaker 1: he's got ray band glasses. So this brings us to
Speaker 1: how the case was cracked. It's a little mysterious. There's
Speaker 1: still there's a little mystery here too. Shortly after Randell's
Speaker 1: obituary appeared in local paper Marshall, Peter Elliott got a
Speaker 1: tip that he should read this obituary because it might
Speaker 1: help him was something he's investigating. M Um, I was
Speaker 1: going to read the obituary here, but I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: We're gonna post it in the instagram. But I'll tell
Speaker 1: you it was the mostly true tale of Theodore Conrad. Uh.
Speaker 1: It listed his parents real names, had the dates off
Speaker 1: by two years, but otherwise it all squared. So Pierre
Speaker 1: Elliot's reading this bills go off in his head. He
Speaker 1: puts it all together, and in order to confirm, he
Speaker 1: pulled the records from the bankruptcy filings in and compared
Speaker 1: the signature to Teddy's college application. Whoa deep dive, it's
Speaker 1: a match. Yeah, things you can't find on newspapers dot com. Right,
Speaker 1: So he did some of his own leg work. Dang.
Speaker 1: So the only thing left to do was to follow
Speaker 1: up with Cathy Thomas's wife. She gets a knock on
Speaker 1: the door six months after his death. Thankfully, in this case,
Speaker 1: the Feds were merciful, okay, and she didn't get accessory
Speaker 1: after the fact. No, they confirmed the details with her.
Speaker 1: She's still in mourning and the FEDS decided to drop
Speaker 1: the charges against Randell's slash Conrad. They're like, yeah, what's
Speaker 1: he's dead? So I ask you, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 1: My ridiculous takeaway is that every criminal, because I like,
Speaker 1: we look at he has Thomas Crown affair, he's t
Speaker 1: c A adjacent and then Riddon Fight was Michael Man adjacent.
Speaker 1: I think every criminal should have some sort of filmography
Speaker 1: that they're a chase too, just a little off, make it,
Speaker 1: make it fun for us. And I also want to
Speaker 1: go to a bank robbers convention. It seems like it
Speaker 1: worked pretty well, right, like having a having a movie
Speaker 1: be your theme. Like, yeah, so so tell me, Dave,
Speaker 1: what's your ridiculous takeaway? Thank you for asking? No problem.
Speaker 1: I would say, it's interesting to me that he transforms
Speaker 1: from like would be cool dude, coolest dude into a
Speaker 1: local golf pro, luxury car dealer, kind of a herb.
Speaker 1: But well, I don't know a nice guy like you know,
Speaker 1: with all respect to his widow who still lives like
Speaker 1: he seems like a really good dude. Through and through,
Speaker 1: but style wise, you know, it's definitely not what he
Speaker 1: was imagining when he was imagining Steve McQueen. Yeah, very true.
Speaker 1: So my question is is that the price he pays
Speaker 1: for dreaming big and going after that dream to not
Speaker 1: be Steve McQueen. Well, like you get it, like you
Speaker 1: you did the crime, you got away with it, but
Speaker 1: you can't be Steve McQueen because Steve McQueen is deep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: only Steve McQueen, Steve McQueen or Steve McQueen the film
Speaker 1: director can be Steve Steve. That's right. There are but
Speaker 1: two and maybe the Faustian bargain is like you can
Speaker 1: do cool things, but you can't be cool. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to be kind of a nerd. Yeah, well, you
Speaker 1: can't just decide you're gonna do cool stuff and it'll
Speaker 1: make you cool. You just have to be cool, you know.
Speaker 1: It's Yeah, it's not a can't be that that constructed
Speaker 1: and yeah, in order to sad, you have to start
Speaker 1: gold exact to bring it back to has poseful and
Speaker 1: h The second ridiculous takeaway I have is and we've
Speaker 1: you know, there's this Bob Dylan lyric. We've discussed before
Speaker 1: offline from Absolutely Swee Marie off of Blonde and Blonde,
Speaker 1: which came out of nineteen sixty six, so Teddy could
Speaker 1: have heard it. The line is to live outside the law,
Speaker 1: you must be honest. Yep, exactly, And wherever his erin
Speaker 1: is again, I know he's kicking himself because this was
Speaker 1: like a part of his upbringing. Now, Bob Dylan was
Speaker 1: a legendary trickster, and it's hard to know so often
Speaker 1: whether his lyrics are profound or if they're totally empty
Speaker 1: of meaning, just sounding smart and deep but actually or
Speaker 1: that he played characters he played. He definitely played characters.
Speaker 1: But this one kind of sticks with you. I think,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it definitely does. So Elizabeth, in this story,
Speaker 1: do we have a one time criminal who went on
Speaker 1: to live an honest life outside the law and got
Speaker 1: it done? I would say yes, yeah, right, Like he
Speaker 1: left his old identity behind. He never spoke to his
Speaker 1: family again, he never told anyone anything meaningful about his past.
Speaker 1: It's like he followed the ten Crack commandments and good
Speaker 1: on you, Good on Teddy. And other than racking up
Speaker 1: massive consumer debts, he seems to have lived very much
Speaker 1: by the book. Yeah, and his past never caught up
Speaker 1: with him. So maybe that's good advice from old Bob exactly.
Speaker 1: I love it. Well, that's it from here. Finally, I
Speaker 1: am Zaren Burnett. Well kind of, you're Zarin Burnetta. Jason,
Speaker 1: I'm Elizabeth Dutton. I guess you're more Zaren Burnette than
Speaker 1: I am, but we're all. Everyone's got a little Zaren
Speaker 1: Burnette to them. You can find us all of us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Ridiculous Crime All one Word. We post
Speaker 1: photos from the goings on in the episode on Instagram Stories,
Speaker 1: and each episode gets a main grid post where you
Speaker 1: can read about it, tell us what you thought, and
Speaker 1: any lingering questions or theories. We also have a presence
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Ridiculous Crime all one Word. You can
Speaker 1: leave out the all one word part, which is how
Speaker 1: a lot of people have found out about the show.
Speaker 1: So not a verified account, though that's true, we're not.
Speaker 1: We're too bucks a month. Uh So, for as long
Speaker 1: as Twitter exists and as long as our posts aren't
Speaker 1: the prioritized, you can find it that way. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: can also email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. That's it for today. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 1: is usually hosted by Zarin Burnett and Elizabeth Dutton, and
Speaker 1: sometimes also by Dave Custon. It's produced and edited by
Speaker 1: luxury used car dealer Dave Custon. Research is by insurance
Speaker 1: company investigator Rissa Brown. The theme song is by local
Speaker 1: club golf pro Thomas Lee and social security administrator Travis Dutton.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Ben Chesterfield Bowland and No Parliaments with
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Speaker 1: Dequeous Crew. Ridiculous Crime is a production of I heart Radio.
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