Speaker 1: Campsite Media.
Speaker 2: In the summer of nineteen fifty nine, Roger was free
Speaker 2: as a bird, well free as a bird on parole.
Speaker 2: He was out of the Kingston Penitentiary. He was living
Speaker 2: in his parents' home in Cornwall, Ontario, and he was
Speaker 2: determined to not just pull his weight, but to help
Speaker 2: his parents with their financial woes. His dad's cancer was
Speaker 2: getting worse and his mortgage and hospital payments were falling behind,
Speaker 2: so Roger decided that he was going to help out
Speaker 2: in the only way he knew how, which is why
Speaker 2: a few weeks later, he found himself five hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty five miles away from home in Fredericton, New Brunswick,
Speaker 2: behind bars again. But Roger wasn't too concerned to be here.
Speaker 2: Being hind bars in the literal sense was sort of
Speaker 2: best case scenario, because the thing about bars is you
Speaker 2: can cut through them. From iHeart podcasts and Campsite Media,
Speaker 2: I'm Sam Mullens and this is Go Boy, Episode three,
Speaker 2: Legend of the jail Breaking bank Robbery. When Roger was
Speaker 2: first brought to the Fredericton County Jail, the guard search
Speaker 2: had failed to discover two very important items that he
Speaker 2: always tried to have on his person no matter what.
Speaker 2: Number one, the soul of his right boot contained a
Speaker 2: hacksaw blade, and number two, the soul of his left
Speaker 2: boot also contained a hacksaw blade.
Speaker 1: I got this hat that pattin bars all the time.
Speaker 1: I cut so many right in my life, So I
Speaker 1: went to county jail and handed paptain bars. I always
Speaker 1: got actual ways hidden in his soul by shot.
Speaker 2: When Rogers set out to help his dad get some money,
Speaker 2: he didn't expect to be cutting bars in a prison
Speaker 2: cell two provinces over less than a month later. But
Speaker 2: there was a score he'd heard about in his hometown.
Speaker 2: There was a rumor that at a nearby Cornwall general
Speaker 2: store there was a safe chalk full of the owner's savings.
Speaker 2: So the plan was simple enough. Typically with these kind
Speaker 2: of scores, he'd physically remove the safe and take it
Speaker 2: away to a private barn or garage somewhere so that
Speaker 2: he could blow towards his way in. But when he
Speaker 2: was in the act, something went sideways and the place
Speaker 2: was surrounded by police before he even got the thing outside.
Speaker 2: How bitter he must have felt that on his very
Speaker 2: first foray into the robbing arts as a graduate of KP.
Speaker 2: He couldn't even get a safe from a general store.
Speaker 2: How hopeless it must have felt to know that he'd
Speaker 2: be back behind bars again for likely a much longer stint.
Speaker 2: This time, it was game over right, Not so fast,
Speaker 2: as the Ontario Provincial Police were leading him to a
Speaker 2: cell in the Cornwall police station, Roger suddenly broke free,
Speaker 2: and still handcuffed, dove headfirst through a window, falling two stories.
Speaker 2: He disappeared before anyone with a badge could even figure
Speaker 2: out which way he went. And from there it was
Speaker 2: a summer to remember. He stole a car and drove
Speaker 2: two provinces over to Fredericton in Atlantic Canada, where he
Speaker 2: spent most of the summer working at a carnival. When
Speaker 2: the carnival gig was over, he stole another car and
Speaker 2: headed to Montreal, where he immediately got into a high
Speaker 2: speed chase with the police, was arrested and sent back
Speaker 2: here to Fredericton, the city he stole the car from,
Speaker 2: and he was booked into the county jail where he
Speaker 2: was awaiting his trial. Roger didn't like awaiting anything, so
Speaker 2: he started cutting the bars right away. When they arrested him.
Speaker 2: He gave them a bogus name and claimed to have
Speaker 2: never been in trouble with the law before, But he
Speaker 2: knew it was only a matter of time before they
Speaker 2: figured out who they had a kid that was a
Speaker 2: bona fide go boy, so he had to work fast.
Speaker 2: The Fredericton County Jail was just a small operation with
Speaker 2: a handful of holding cells, a boutique purgatory for those
Speaker 2: on their way to much larger prison, or the gallows,
Speaker 2: which were still a thing. Cutting bars is a lot
Speaker 2: more complicated than you'd think. It's more of an art form,
Speaker 2: one that Roger eventually became a master of and would
Speaker 2: talk about often. You need to choose the right ones,
Speaker 2: learn how to evaluate which section of the welding looks
Speaker 2: the weakest, the quietest, and figure out which direction one
Speaker 2: should saw.
Speaker 1: And don't cut the bar in an angle, because you've
Speaker 1: got to keep putting the back and take us a
Speaker 1: week to cut you all day.
Speaker 2: Trying to cut a prison bar with a hacksaw blade
Speaker 2: is a lot like trying to cut the strings of
Speaker 2: a violin with a spoon. It can make an awful
Speaker 2: amount of racket and take a long time to get through.
Speaker 2: Its bar. And at the end of a successful night
Speaker 2: of sawing, you of course need to hide your work.
Speaker 2: It's not like you can throw up a construction cone
Speaker 2: and walk off the job. You need to find something
Speaker 2: to hold the bar perfectly in place.
Speaker 1: I take the bar I grew from the library books,
Speaker 1: and some scotch tape from the library books and soap
Speaker 1: and all that, and I take the bar in place.
Speaker 2: The shave soap would be the glue, and then he'd
Speaker 2: take a small strip of tape off the spine of
Speaker 2: the library book and finish it off with a coat
Speaker 2: of shoe polish for color.
Speaker 1: So when using the seam scotch tape for a week now,
Speaker 1: it's starting to let out.
Speaker 2: The time in between the first cut of the first
Speaker 2: bar and the final cut of the final bar is
Speaker 2: an extremely stressful time. Every time a guard would walk by,
Speaker 2: Roger's entire being would clench.
Speaker 1: Then like the garden com walk down this hall pass
Speaker 1: all the cells go into the washington and come by
Speaker 1: the steel barrier of ent into the hanggun room, and
Speaker 1: you give the barrier shake And every time he'd shake
Speaker 1: that game my heart just a bus stop that gate along.
Speaker 2: And if it wasn't the guards fraying his nerves, there
Speaker 2: was the bar cutter's other greatest foe, gravity.
Speaker 3: And it's heartbreaking when you work on a bar for
Speaker 3: a week, and at three o'clock in the morning, while
Speaker 3: you're waiting to wake up in the morning to work
Speaker 3: on it and more, it falls down in the middle
Speaker 3: of the night.
Speaker 2: Back in the Frederickton County jail, Roger had made some
Speaker 2: real headway. He only had one or two bars to
Speaker 2: go before he could fit all the way through, and
Speaker 2: he was determined to get the hell out of here
Speaker 2: so that he could get back to the mission at
Speaker 2: hand and find a way to score some cash to
Speaker 2: help out his folks. Everything was going according to plan
Speaker 2: until one of the guards work in the graveyard shift
Speaker 2: must have heard roger sigh. They slammed the door open
Speaker 2: suddenly at three am and caught him blade in hand.
Speaker 2: The guards wrestled him out of his cell and put
Speaker 2: him into a different, more secure one. Roger still had
Speaker 2: the other hacksaw blade taped to his foot, but the
Speaker 2: joke was on him because in the new drum they
Speaker 2: threw him in, there wasn't a bar to cut, just
Speaker 2: four cinderblock walls with a solid door. The next day,
Speaker 2: the guards added a series of extra locking mechanisms to
Speaker 2: the other side of his door, confirming to Roger that
Speaker 2: his time was up. They had finally figured out his
Speaker 2: real name and thus his reputation. And this is where
Speaker 2: things got weird. Picture Roger in this new coffin like cell,
Speaker 2: sulking about this considerable setback, just feeling lower than ever,
Speaker 2: waiting for them to transport him to his next slice
Speaker 2: of hell. When he hears it, someone was tapping on
Speaker 2: the side wall of his cell. When he stood up
Speaker 2: to investigate, he heard that the taps were moving in
Speaker 2: a pattern. They begin in the back corner and move
Speaker 2: slowly to the front of his cell. He started following
Speaker 2: the percussive sound as it moved, when he discovered that
Speaker 2: he was being led to a tiny hole in the
Speaker 2: wall about knee height that was stuffed with toilet paper.
Speaker 2: When he dug the paper plug out, he got down
Speaker 2: on all fours to peer through when he saw staring
Speaker 2: back at him but two feet away, a very pretty eye,
Speaker 2: the eye of a young woman halfway through a six
Speaker 2: month sentence in the cell beside his She said her
Speaker 2: name was Ninni excitedly. Roger gestured for her to step
Speaker 2: back so he could have a look at her. Roger
Speaker 2: describes meeting Ninny in his book as read here by
Speaker 2: an actor.
Speaker 4: By midnight we were fast friends, and things got informal,
Speaker 4: to the point where she would strip down to her
Speaker 4: bra and panties and roll around teasingly on her bunk.
Speaker 4: The thought that I would be returning to the penitentiary
Speaker 4: still a virgin troubled me very much, and that thought
Speaker 4: inflamed the passion in me for a girl. When she
Speaker 4: smiled wickedly and arched her back, I'd clowt the plaster
Speaker 4: and break out and sweat. If you want me, Roger,
Speaker 4: she'd murmur, silkily, why don't you find a way to
Speaker 4: come over and visit me.
Speaker 2: Ninni obviously didn't know that she was talking to the
Speaker 2: one man who could accomplish just that. Roger and Ninni
Speaker 2: hatched the most naive of plans. She slid him a
Speaker 2: butter knife that she'd hidden from the guards, and he
Speaker 2: was to use it to chisel through the wall so
Speaker 2: that he could cut the bars in her cell, and
Speaker 2: then they could run away together. Roger worked frantically desperately
Speaker 2: in the way only a virgin young man could. He
Speaker 2: got the first cinderblock out of the wall.
Speaker 4: I became so obsessed with my little project that I
Speaker 4: had very little inclination for small talk, and Ninni was
Speaker 4: beginning to pass. To keep her spirits up, I would
Speaker 4: fill her mind with happy thoughts about what we would
Speaker 4: do together after we escaped. But the excitement started wearing thin,
Speaker 4: and the dire consequences dawned dark and threatening.
Speaker 2: Roger was only a few hours from getting all the
Speaker 2: way through when suddenly he heard the unmistakable sound of
Speaker 2: her cell door swinging open. Roger froze and pressed his
Speaker 2: ear to the hole, just in time to hear his
Speaker 2: dear Ninny's voice shout. And he has a hack saw
Speaker 2: blade too. He staggered to the center of the cell,
Speaker 2: his face buried in his hands, disbelieving what he'd just heard.
Speaker 4: Out in the corridor, there was a wild stampede of
Speaker 4: confused activity and hysterical yelling as the sheriff and his
Speaker 4: powerful trustees started fumbling with the locks.
Speaker 2: And this is where you need to understand something about
Speaker 2: Roger Karan. When he is totally cooked, when he is cornered,
Speaker 2: it is never over. As the three guards prepared to
Speaker 2: open the door, they had no idea what was waiting
Speaker 2: for them on the other side an explosion. When the
Speaker 2: door swung open, the guards didn't know what hit them.
Speaker 2: Roger came at them ferociously, fists swinging.
Speaker 4: My assault was so fierce and unexpected, I momentarily had
Speaker 4: the edge. As I struggled to my feet, Roger saw
Speaker 4: a stairwell and leapt down them a flight at a time.
Speaker 4: With the guards in hot pursuit, he ran into an office,
Speaker 4: and most people would have hidden, would have realized that
Speaker 4: they were cornered and had no choice but to come
Speaker 4: out with their hands up.
Speaker 2: But that's not Roger's style. At the instant of the
Speaker 2: guards burst into the office, Roger dove headlong through a window,
Speaker 2: hit the ground, and limped away, with a guard shouting
Speaker 2: at him through the open window. Roger made his way
Speaker 2: to the highway, where he hitched a ride bound for
Speaker 2: the US Board. The painful part about being on the
Speaker 2: run that summer was that Roger knew the one place
Speaker 2: he couldn't go was the place he wanted to be
Speaker 2: the most home. Roger would call his dad on the
Speaker 2: phone in the middle of the night to tell him
Speaker 2: that he was okay. Since he last saw his father,
Speaker 2: he'd been pursued by police in three provinces, had stolen
Speaker 2: two cars, and had escaped custody twice. It had been
Speaker 2: less than a month. Roger was surprised that his dad
Speaker 2: never told him to turn himself in, perhaps because he
Speaker 2: still had that bootlegger spirit in him. Roger thumbed a
Speaker 2: ride from some teenagers who took him to the main
Speaker 2: border where he crossed undetected, and he thought he was
Speaker 2: home free. But then in one of those this could
Speaker 2: only happen to Roger Strokes of profound bad luck, one
Speaker 2: of the guards from the very prison he just escaped from,
Speaker 2: was on a road trip with his family when who
Speaker 2: should he pass hitchhiking on the main highway but the
Speaker 2: young man the rest of the country was looking for.
Speaker 2: He immediately called it in and Roger was picked up
Speaker 2: by the highway patrolman, delivered to the RCMP, or, as
Speaker 2: Roger called him, the Horseman, and before he knew it,
Speaker 2: he was back in maximum security with a fresh two
Speaker 2: and a half years to serve. Summer was over, Roger
Speaker 2: was sent to serve his time in a new Brunswick
Speaker 2: prison called Dorchester. Up until this point, when Roger entered
Speaker 2: a new institution, he would lay low at first and
Speaker 2: suss things out for a time. But he decided that
Speaker 2: he was going to things a little different this time.
Speaker 2: This time, he decided he was going to check's notes,
Speaker 2: fight everyone.
Speaker 3: You could fight with your best friend and be best
Speaker 3: friend at one guy in the next time you just
Speaker 3: looked back to fighting. We could be fighting as like
Speaker 3: at Jungle.
Speaker 2: The toughest guys in prison, three guys in one day.
Speaker 2: It didn't matter. He just wanted to throw his hands.
Speaker 2: He needed to.
Speaker 4: My fists would act like demented playmates, with mind and
Speaker 4: temper of their own. It was as if all the
Speaker 4: hate and frustration of being a born loser had seeped
Speaker 4: down into my fists. Sick at heart being pushed around,
Speaker 4: I lashed out viciously at anything that was cool to me.
Speaker 2: Roger got into so many fights in Dorchester that they
Speaker 2: had to move him to another province, to Saint Vincent
Speaker 2: de Paul in Quebec, where his fists picked up right
Speaker 2: where they left off. And it was during this toxic
Speaker 2: time that Roger got a left her from his sister
Speaker 2: Sue from back home, sharing the unfortunate news that their
Speaker 2: father had passed away, and it was too much for
Speaker 2: Roger to process, so he snapped. When my father died
Speaker 2: when I was in prison, I was in the cell.
Speaker 2: I went berserk. He destroyed every possession he had, and
Speaker 2: by the time he was done, even his own body
Speaker 2: had been smashed to pieces. The last bit of hope
Speaker 2: he'd held on to was gone.
Speaker 5: That Roger was devastated when my father passed away. He
Speaker 5: was inside because I remember writing to the warden. You know,
Speaker 5: it was worth a shot to see if he could
Speaker 5: attend the funeral, and that was not granted. But I
Speaker 5: did try, you know, hoping maybe you know that that
Speaker 5: might be a closure for Roger whatever. But he did
Speaker 5: not get to see that. I don't think that was
Speaker 5: easy for him.
Speaker 2: Roger's final months at Saint Vincent were spent not in
Speaker 2: a rage, but in quiet reflection, turning over an inescapable
Speaker 2: thought he had failed his father. He wasn't there for
Speaker 2: him when he died, and he certainly hadn't been there
Speaker 2: to help out with the bills like he said he
Speaker 2: would to help keep his father comfortable at the end.
Speaker 2: Roger was never guided by any faith or ideology, but
Speaker 2: one animating force that he did hold on to was
Speaker 2: that one day he was going to make his father proud.
Speaker 2: One day he was going to clean up his act
Speaker 2: and turn into the man his father believed he could become.
Speaker 2: But now he'd never have the chance. And with this
Speaker 2: devastating realization came in a lusive bit of clarity. When
Speaker 2: he got out this time, there truly be nothing to
Speaker 2: hold him back now. When he got out of Saint Vincent,
Speaker 2: Roger said.
Speaker 4: I no longer have any intentions of going straight about
Speaker 4: my release.
Speaker 3: I have wasted all those years I kept saying to myself,
Speaker 3: I can get that one big score. I'll prove to
Speaker 3: them that they're wrong.
Speaker 2: Roger was paroled in nineteen sixty two, and he was
Speaker 2: hungry to make a name for himself. This wasn't going
Speaker 2: to be like the other times he'd been let out. No,
Speaker 2: this time he had a plan, and he knew exactly
Speaker 2: where he wanted to go.
Speaker 3: America.
Speaker 5: France and Britain have influenced the growth of Montreal, capital
Speaker 5: of Canada's Quebec province.
Speaker 2: In the nineteen sixties, Montreal was the place to be
Speaker 2: if you wanted to be a thief, and not a
Speaker 2: small time thief. Montreal was where you went to become
Speaker 2: a bank robber. So the plan for Roger was this,
Speaker 2: build a solid bank robber crew and start hitting banks.
Speaker 3: I must admit when I first got out, I used
Speaker 3: to look at things like some guys look at girls
Speaker 3: and miniskirvis.
Speaker 2: There were so many bank robberies happening in Montreal that
Speaker 2: the police let it be known that there would be
Speaker 2: serious consequences to anyone they caught pulling a job, that
Speaker 2: they were going to show up shooting if they had to.
Speaker 2: But that didn't seem to deter Roger in his gang.
Speaker 2: The only thing that did seem to stop them was
Speaker 2: if the bank they pulled up to was already in
Speaker 2: the process of being robbed by another crew.
Speaker 3: And I've nearly walked thanks. I'm trying to to went
Speaker 3: to all that's a good good day. We pulled up
Speaker 3: to a bank and bank arbor Tres running out and
Speaker 3: he said, oh, Dan, you're here first.
Speaker 2: No. Roger was grateful that he'd been accepted into a
Speaker 2: group of professionals like this. Things were going well at work,
Speaker 2: and would you believe it that, in between robberies Roger
Speaker 2: managed to finally fall in love. Denise was the sister
Speaker 2: of one of the guys on his crew, a single
Speaker 2: mother and cocktail waitress who was a little older than Roger.
Speaker 2: She got a kick out of him right away. He
Speaker 2: was rough around the edges in the way most ex
Speaker 2: cons are, but he was also surprisingly chivalrous, gentle, and funny.
Speaker 2: While he had experienced more things than other twenty some things,
Speaker 2: it was clear that he was delayed in other areas,
Speaker 2: and she loved seeing how hard he'd blush when she
Speaker 2: flirted with him.
Speaker 4: Roger wrote, it took me twenty three years to finally
Speaker 4: lose my virginity, and when it did happen, it was
Speaker 4: as wonderful and fulfilling as the literature on the subject
Speaker 4: had prepared me to experience.
Speaker 2: After their first night together, Roger showed up the next
Speaker 2: day at Denise's with a bunch of boxes and announced
Speaker 2: that he was moving in.
Speaker 4: I moved in with all my belongings, accepting the responsibility
Speaker 4: of caring for loving both her and her daughter, Diane,
Speaker 4: who was at boarding school.
Speaker 2: You see, Roger never half ascidly does anything it seems
Speaker 2: like Denise coming into Roger's life when she did change things.
Speaker 2: Whereas before he walked into these banks, they were knocking
Speaker 2: off like he was invincible, he suddenly had something to lose.
Speaker 2: And I guess it was only through this first hit
Speaker 2: of romantic love that he finally grasped how risky and
Speaker 2: unsustainable this life he was living was, and if he
Speaker 2: kept going like this, it was only a matter of
Speaker 2: time before he got pinched or worse shot.
Speaker 3: So I burst into I remember running in the bank
Speaker 3: and he looked kind of empty, and I'm saying, stick
Speaker 3: him up, arroy lyon the floor. All of a sudden
Speaker 3: a half a dozen big policemen popped up and behind
Speaker 3: the town of both group vets and sheet and got
Speaker 3: into shotguns. He said, do stick them up, and I
Speaker 3: said no, no, no, I gotta go.
Speaker 1: Soon as he said you stick him up, I was
Speaker 1: about take feet off the groundling the ringstrake through the
Speaker 1: lake glass window.
Speaker 2: By this point, jumping through a window was almost a
Speaker 2: normal occurrence in Roger's life. What was new was the
Speaker 2: bullets whizzing past his head.
Speaker 3: Running down the street, the machine guns, shotgun bullets, Everything's
Speaker 3: winding around by years ago.
Speaker 2: It was only when Roger made it back to the
Speaker 2: getaway car that he realized he had badly injured himself
Speaker 2: on the broken glass and was bleeding everywhere. Making matters
Speaker 2: worse was that his crew had a rule, if the
Speaker 2: first bank doesn't work, we hit a different one before
Speaker 2: calling it a day, even if you're bleeding out in
Speaker 2: the back seat.
Speaker 3: We pulled up to our secondary bank about two miles away,
Speaker 3: and getting behind the car, I'm all gloody, we're going
Speaker 3: all He ran.
Speaker 1: To inspect the banks, big banks, boom boot without being weight.
Speaker 1: He zoomed the way.
Speaker 3: He took me to it. N behind the world doctor.
Speaker 2: The underworld doctor had his work cut out for him
Speaker 2: that day.
Speaker 3: He's putting all these meadow plants, about one hundred and
Speaker 3: baggy meadow plants, always said on the skin to get
Speaker 3: you know, is that kind environment?
Speaker 2: With all these close calls with the Montreal police, a
Speaker 2: sense of anxiety was creeping into Roger and his gang's psyche.
Speaker 2: The city was getting too hot, even for a crew
Speaker 2: as skilled as theirs.
Speaker 4: The jug patrols were so well organized that it was
Speaker 4: suicide to remain inside of a bank for longer than
Speaker 4: ninety seconds with a countdown restriction on each heyst. The
Speaker 4: take was small whatever was in the teller's cages, and
Speaker 4: so the ambition of the gang I joined up with
Speaker 4: was to hit that one big score.
Speaker 2: Roger and his crew got to thinking that instead of
Speaker 2: making off with all these small scores from the tellers,
Speaker 2: what if they instead made plans for something really big.
Speaker 4: I was living in bliss with Denise when our gang
Speaker 4: was offered that one big score. We'd all dreamed of.
Speaker 4: An ex con in the city of Saint John in
Speaker 4: New Brunswick set he had a score that was worth
Speaker 4: almost a quarter of a million dollars and wanted to
Speaker 4: know if we were interested. So we immediately set out
Speaker 4: by plane to check it out personally.
Speaker 2: By no means was it going to be an easy tank.
Speaker 2: It was a job where everything would have to go
Speaker 2: perfectly on account of the geography of the place. The
Speaker 2: city of Saint John, New Brunswick is surrounded by water,
Speaker 2: the Atlantic Ocean in the Bay of Fundia on one
Speaker 2: side and a treacherous river on the other. The only
Speaker 2: way to get back to where their hideouts would be
Speaker 2: was via bridge. So more so than any job in
Speaker 2: the past, They needed to be one hundred percent positive
Speaker 2: when they took control of the bank that no one
Speaker 2: pushed the silent alarm. The police station was only a
Speaker 2: few blocks away, and Roger's crew came to understand that
Speaker 2: the police could close the bridge in just a minute
Speaker 2: or so, thus trapping them. It was risky, but the
Speaker 2: thing that set this job apart from every other one
Speaker 2: that they pulled was that they weren't just going to
Speaker 2: empty the safe. Every second Thursday between eleven and eleven
Speaker 2: twenty five am, an armored truck with just two armed
Speaker 2: guards would deliver one hundred ten thousand dollars cash to
Speaker 2: the branch, making the job in irresistible two four. So
Speaker 2: the plan was this, secure the bank without the alarm,
Speaker 2: empty the vault, wait for the armored truck to arrive,
Speaker 2: disarm the shotgun guard at the moment he walks in,
Speaker 2: empty the truck, and high tail it over the bridge,
Speaker 2: where the five of them would be split up in
Speaker 2: separate hideouts while things cooled down. After that, they could
Speaker 2: head back to Quebec victorious and chop up the score
Speaker 2: of their dreams.
Speaker 4: My dream at the time was to make just enough
Speaker 4: bread to invest in a health Gym, thus joining the
Speaker 4: land Lunchbucket Brigade and maybe even marrying Denise to complete
Speaker 4: the picture.
Speaker 2: Thursday morning, March first, nineteen sixty two, the bandits checked
Speaker 2: their weapons and went over the plan one final time.
Speaker 2: It had been decided that Roger, the only member of
Speaker 2: the crew who spoke without a French dialect, would be
Speaker 2: the one doing all the talking. They didn't want anyone
Speaker 2: to know that they were a Montreal gang. Roger pulled
Speaker 2: up at the downtown bank of Nova Scotia just before
Speaker 2: eleven am. He watched as the first two members of
Speaker 2: his crew went inside posing his customers, and moments later,
Speaker 2: Roger shifted a shotgun into his coat and got out
Speaker 2: of the car. Gripped with adrenaline, he stormed into the
Speaker 2: bank wearing a ski mask gun in hand.
Speaker 3: The next most danger spotted when you first out of
Speaker 3: the bank and you expect them to say put your
Speaker 3: hands up on then, oh I'll never win.
Speaker 1: You just black to be as it said exactly. That's
Speaker 1: how he secured macrones up and kill at least one
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 2: Two members of the crew got all the bank employees
Speaker 2: away from the alarm buttons and onto the floor Roger shouted,
Speaker 2: hold up, this is a hold up, then jumped on
Speaker 2: the counter and said to the tellers below, touch that
Speaker 2: alarm and I'll blow your feet off. With a bank
Speaker 2: secure and everyone in position, the crew took a small breath.
Speaker 2: The most important part was done. They took the manager
Speaker 2: to open the big safe in the rear and throw
Speaker 2: the cash into some pillowcases, while another member of the
Speaker 2: crew kept an eye out for the arrival of the
Speaker 2: truck and slickly took hostage anyone who unknowingly entered the bank.
Speaker 4: By eleven twenty am, two pillowcases were overflowing with money.
Speaker 4: As yet, there was also no sign of the armored truck,
Speaker 4: and we were all becoming increasingly anxious.
Speaker 2: About this time, an old lady in her seventies entered
Speaker 2: walking with a cane. She was thin and wore a
Speaker 2: flowery dress and gold spectacles. Upon seeing the crew, she exclaimed,
Speaker 2: oh my. As Roger came over to tell her that
Speaker 2: everything was going to be okay. He led her over
Speaker 2: to a chair in the manager's office, where he quickly
Speaker 2: pulled the telephone cord out of the wall and told
Speaker 2: her to sit tight. At eleven twenty eight am, the
Speaker 2: armored truck was now officially late, so in a panic,
Speaker 2: the gang started making preparations to get out of there
Speaker 2: while they still could. They began hurting what had become
Speaker 2: a sizeable crowd of hostages, about thirty people into the
Speaker 2: big vault so that they could lock them in quickly.
Speaker 2: I ran over to the office, where the little old
Speaker 2: lady was sitting patiently, leaning forward on her cane. A
Speaker 2: few minutes earlier, I had a heated confrontation with one
Speaker 2: of my partners, who wanted me to lock her in
Speaker 2: the vault with the other hostages, something I flatly refused
Speaker 2: to do. I shouted in her hearing, aid, my friends
Speaker 2: want me to tie you up in the chain, but
Speaker 2: I won't do it if you promise not to yell
Speaker 2: for help or leave the office until the clock up
Speaker 2: there reaches twelve o'clock. Can I trust you? She promised
Speaker 2: that he could, and with that Roger and his gang
Speaker 2: were out of there. They peeled away in their getaway
Speaker 2: car and switched vehicles. A few blocks later, they fishtailed
Speaker 2: on the icy roads like winter demons, trying desperately to
Speaker 2: make it across the bridge in time. Did someone call
Speaker 2: it in yet? Did the manager have a way of
Speaker 2: opening the safe from the inside. Was Roger wrong to
Speaker 2: leave the old lady outside the vault? They wouldn't know
Speaker 2: until they made it to the bridge. Picture it. The
Speaker 2: roads were slick, and down the steep ledge the river
Speaker 2: would have been raging, matching their pace above it. Clutching
Speaker 2: their score, they kept turning round to look out the
Speaker 2: back window, praying that they'd slipped away undetected. One last turn,
Speaker 2: and there it was. There were no flashing lights awaiting
Speaker 2: them as they approached, so they tore across the bridge
Speaker 2: as if it were built for them and them alone,
Speaker 2: and they made it. All five men made it to
Speaker 2: their hideout safely. They didn't get to knock off the
Speaker 2: Brinks truck, but the job had gone as smoothly as
Speaker 2: they could have hoped for. Roger was set up for
Speaker 2: success in his flat. He had a fully stalked fridge,
Speaker 2: and for a man like him, laying low in a
Speaker 2: cozy apartment was nothing. But unbeknownst to him, a chain
Speaker 2: reaction was working its way to ward him. A nosy
Speaker 2: landlady had just heard on the radio that the crooks
Speaker 2: were believed to have been from Montreal, so she called
Speaker 2: the police and told them that she'd heard two men
Speaker 2: laughing and speaking French the night before about a bank.
Speaker 2: In short order, the police arrested those two, then arrested
Speaker 2: the guy whose name the flat was rented in, which
Speaker 2: eventually led them to Roger, who was asleep when the
Speaker 2: door was kicked in. After losing his trial, Roger appealed
Speaker 2: and lost that one too. He was sentenced to ten years,
Speaker 2: but then he escaped almost immediately, leaving two guards gagged
Speaker 2: and tied up behind him, only to be caught again,
Speaker 2: so they bumped the ten years to twelve years. Roger's
Speaker 2: life was like Groundhog Day, stealing prison escape, stealing prison escape.
Speaker 1: So I kept escaping from prison, and I ended up
Speaker 1: escaping in a period of twenty four years, more than
Speaker 1: any other prisoner in Canada.
Speaker 2: By the end of nineteen sixty two, Roger had escaped
Speaker 2: from prison so many times that no warden in the
Speaker 2: country wanted him, so the government had to figure out
Speaker 2: where to put him for the long haul, and there
Speaker 2: was really only one place where they wouldn't need to
Speaker 2: worry about him anymore. The worst place there was. Roger
Speaker 2: arrived at Kingston, penn with twelve years in front of him,
Speaker 2: but unbeknownst to him, this time would be different because
Speaker 2: a surprising new era in Roger's life was about to begin,
Speaker 2: and the thing that would put Roger on a whole
Speaker 2: new trajectory, the thing that was about to change his life,
Speaker 2: was a package of jelly beans. Seriously. Go Boy is
Speaker 2: a production from Campside Media in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you'll
Speaker 2: get your podcasts. Go Boy was written and hosted by
Speaker 2: me Sam Wellins. Our producer is Rob Lindsay of Paradox Pictures.
Speaker 2: Laine Rose is our senior producer. Sound design, mix and
Speaker 2: engineering by Garrett Tiedeman. Original music by Garrett Tiedeman. Fact
Speaker 2: checking by Michael kenyon Meyer. Selected archival clips are from
Speaker 2: CBC Licensing. The book Go Boy was written by Roger Koran.
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts executive producers are Lindsay Hoffman and Jennifer Bassett.
Speaker 2: Excerpts from Roger Koran's book Go Boy, read by Jamie Cavanaugh.
Speaker 2: Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam
Speaker 2: hoff and Matt cher A. Special thanks to our operations team,
Speaker 2: Doug Slaywyn Ashley Warren, Sabina Marra and Destiny Dingle. If
Speaker 2: you enjoyed Go Boy, please rate and review the show
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.