Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Elizabeth Dunt.
Speaker 2: I got a question for you, my friend. Yes, sir,
Speaker 2: do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: So you want to know if I know what's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I'm asking you, do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: I know it's ridiculous. I knew that you would know
Speaker 3: what dependable that way. Air fresheners in cars, I think
Speaker 3: to excess are completely ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And quite offensive.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go out on a limb and say
Speaker 3: at all I don't like any air freshener in a car. Ah, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: I just rolled down the windows and it's so bad,
Speaker 3: and then clean the car if it's so bad.
Speaker 2: Although, have you ever smelled that new car scent that
Speaker 2: they spray in It smells like new car scent.
Speaker 3: It's crazy rolling down the windows and getting rid of
Speaker 3: that new car set. I just wanted to smell like nothing.
Speaker 2: I was just impressed with with what New Jersey could do.
Speaker 3: That is pretty impressive. So you've gotten into a car
Speaker 3: where it's like oppressive. Yes, the air fresheners, Yes, sometimes
Speaker 3: it is dangling from the rear view. There are all
Speaker 3: these companies that make like fancy ones now, like they
Speaker 3: have the fabreeze that you stick in the events. I
Speaker 3: got into an uber not too long ago where every
Speaker 3: event had.
Speaker 2: Like two oh wow, yes I have seen that.
Speaker 3: It was like how many fish have you got? Have
Speaker 3: you got it in this car that you're trying to cover?
Speaker 3: But they have like you know, wooden ones and things
Speaker 3: that dangle and decorative, yeah, and so carved. If you
Speaker 3: were going to use one, what what would you want
Speaker 3: your car to smell like? Your car could smell like anything.
Speaker 2: Okay, this will sound gross to you, but probably the
Speaker 2: Pacific Ocean, the beach that smell of like seaweed, salt water.
Speaker 2: It's not a pleasant smell, but I would like that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: just like you know, the drying seaweed is it has
Speaker 2: to be there, sure, but that's what gives it the
Speaker 2: real like the base now the bottom exactly, and then
Speaker 2: wafting above that are all the various salt water spray
Speaker 2: and and they you know, maybe like the hint of
Speaker 2: like I don't know, bird poop whatever it is that
Speaker 2: also is in the air.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I thank you for asking. Oh right, yes,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I feel like one of my favorite
Speaker 3: scents is like citrus blossom, like a lime.
Speaker 2: Blossh yeah, you do like lime bloss.
Speaker 3: That's one thing. I don't want my car to smell
Speaker 3: like you know where I'm going with it.
Speaker 2: No, I do not, No, I do not pretending I do.
Speaker 3: Not something too small weet, like for example, Cadbury mini eggs.
Speaker 3: What the hell like chocolate? Those Easter eggs. Anyway, there's
Speaker 3: a company in the UK Carfume. They do these air
Speaker 3: freshener things and they you know whatever, they parfume, Carfume.
Speaker 3: They have many scents there, you know, sustainable mood enhancing
Speaker 3: back seat Yeah, sure, like under boob one of them.
Speaker 3: And so No, they have many chalk eggs not c
Speaker 3: H A l K, but c H O C like chocolate.
Speaker 3: You can you can buy for eight hounds ninety five.
Speaker 3: You can buy the carfume, which is like a weird
Speaker 3: dangling wooden thing, and then you can give me it
Speaker 3: refills the drops for almost ten quid. You can bundle
Speaker 3: it for cream eggs, no, like the little the little
Speaker 3: ones that look like speckled eggs, not the cream eggs
Speaker 3: like the little hardshell sure, yeah, and they have that
Speaker 3: very particular sweet chocolate with like candy, and.
Speaker 2: Yes, I do it on purpose. Yes, why am I asking.
Speaker 3: For the rest of days? Yeah? So that's ridiculous. And
Speaker 3: that came to us from Jimmy Dunn Man listener who
Speaker 3: got to us through Instagram. Thanks Jimmy, so thank you Jimmy.
Speaker 3: There you go. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: That is ridiculous certified. Now do you I got a
Speaker 2: callback for you?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Do you know you remember how I told you the
Speaker 2: story of Frank als friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the name sounds familiar.
Speaker 2: Flying bank robber.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, he just kept stealing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he kept he escaped prison, he kept stealing planes
Speaker 2: all around America and Canada, and then he kept robbing
Speaker 2: banks until he took a plane and he ran into
Speaker 2: a cow on a runway in Mexico and that ended
Speaker 2: his life as a bank robber. Baltimore, Yes, the Baltimore.
Speaker 3: He was at a boarding house or.
Speaker 2: Something, Yes, exactly. Good man was there, you were there,
Speaker 2: You're you feel it? Now? Do you also remember how
Speaker 2: I said that cat's his criminal nickname. It shouldn't have
Speaker 2: been the flying bank robber. That's too many syllables. It
Speaker 2: should have been the flying bandit boom right pop now
Speaker 2: It turns out someone already had used that g norm
Speaker 2: to crime. That nickname was taken Elizabeth two years earlier.
Speaker 3: Oh so that's why he didn't get called the Flying Bandit.
Speaker 2: By a Canadian. Oh I know you never see that.
Speaker 2: So today I have for you the story of Ken Leishman,
Speaker 2: known as the Flying Bandit. This is Ridiculous Crime, a
Speaker 2: podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's
Speaker 2: always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yes, Elizabeth, darn.
Speaker 2: My dude, Ken Leishman, right, folk hero of Canada. I'd
Speaker 2: never heard of this cat. It just happened. I was like,
Speaker 2: I was like, is there a flying Bandit? Why was
Speaker 2: it that name taking boom. Turns out there was this guy,
Speaker 2: Robinhood of the Great White North right now in his heyday.
Speaker 2: What turns out one to be one of our favorite times.
Speaker 2: He was a mid century bandit, mid century of the
Speaker 2: last century. Now dude was born June twentieth, nineteen thirty one.
Speaker 2: He gets popped out in this town called Holland in Manitoba,
Speaker 2: enters life. Unfortunately, as we constantly kind of point out
Speaker 2: for people in the mid century, born into the depression,
Speaker 2: so oftentimes their childhoods are rough, right, His definitely, he
Speaker 2: was basically born into a storm of unceasing winds. It's
Speaker 2: just he gets blown from home to home, wind whipped
Speaker 2: through foster care, pulled from one home because of excessive abuse.
Speaker 2: Oh dear, Yeah, his childhood far from idyllic, right you too?
Speaker 2: Like the anti beaver Cleaver. Now, somehow though throughout this,
Speaker 2: this childhood of chaotic upbringing and so forth, by all accounts,
Speaker 2: he emerges this handsome, charming, sometimes called dashing, well dressed,
Speaker 2: abundantly stylish young man. Amazing resilience this kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the stylish part particularly well, Yeah, I mean he.
Speaker 2: Was known to wear like a distinctive.
Speaker 3: Mustache overcame distinctively.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like think like imagine like a Canadian Clark
Speaker 2: Gable of the nineteen forties, but like kind of like
Speaker 2: more of a square head and like a one of
Speaker 2: a British mustache, like a British commando kind of guy.
Speaker 4: Right, Like, I think, what's what's the cat Austin power
Speaker 4: shower is what's Mike Myers? I think Mike Myers would
Speaker 4: have loved to have played him, just as a straight
Speaker 4: British character. But even though he's in Canada, I was
Speaker 4: just from Canada anyway. The guy had like very much
Speaker 4: a British mustache in Canada, ornamental to his quick and
Speaker 4: beaming smile. This is my point, Elizabeth A ken Leishman.
Speaker 4: This guy he's also whip smart. Now I said that
Speaker 4: for you because you always say men are never described
Speaker 4: as whip smart, only women are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh she's just whip smart.
Speaker 2: Well, this guy, Elizabeth, he's smart.
Speaker 3: Thank you for leveling the plane.
Speaker 2: I wanted that one.
Speaker 3: If you're interested in a real looker, does he smile?
Speaker 3: Does he go get her?
Speaker 2: He's getting out a lot of mocksy this kid, he's
Speaker 2: he was. If you're interested in, like a numerical qualification
Speaker 2: of his intelligence, because I know you always liked that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, is quantified intelligence. His IQ was one
Speaker 2: forty six. Is that good? I think so it qualifies
Speaker 2: him for mens, I believe.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know anyway, it sounds lone, but then
Speaker 3: again I think I'm for like twenty eight.
Speaker 2: This guy is a non violent criminal, which I also
Speaker 2: thought you would like. I like that, right, He just
Speaker 2: he took things that didn't belong to him right throughout
Speaker 2: his criminal career. He had a reputation, as I said,
Speaker 2: as a Canadian folk hero. Well, I found one Canadian historian,
Speaker 2: this cat Christian Cassidy. They wrote about Ken Leishman and
Speaker 2: I quote, it wasn't a murder. People weren't hurt. I
Speaker 2: think that was one of the things that helped make
Speaker 2: him a bit of a folk hero. He was sticking
Speaker 2: it to the man. He wasn't holding up little old
Speaker 2: ladies or beating people up or stealing their money.
Speaker 3: H right, So was he robbing from like banks and
Speaker 3: corporations or well?
Speaker 2: Okay, well here, well now that giving you a little
Speaker 2: sense of who he was when he looks like Let's
Speaker 2: get into his life in the moving parts. Okay, Ken
Speaker 2: marries his sweetheart at the age of eighteen some sorts
Speaker 2: of say, seventeen. I'm going with eighteen anyway. Her name
Speaker 2: Elva Shields. Okay, Elva love that now VLVA.
Speaker 3: Oh it's pretty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the female Elvis. So she was older
Speaker 2: than him by two years. There's a true young love
Speaker 2: but also a lasting love because despite all the criminality,
Speaker 2: she stands by her man. Anyway, now that he's married Ken,
Speaker 2: he knows he needs to get a job, so in
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen fifty, he got a job as
Speaker 2: a traveling mechanic. He traveled all across Manitoba repairs agricultural
Speaker 2: equipment like we straw cutters right now. To give his
Speaker 2: wife and soon to be young family a happy home,
Speaker 2: he wants to give them more than selling wheat straw
Speaker 2: cutters will allow, so Ken starts criming. In fact, he
Speaker 2: furnished their first home with stuff he stole from warehouses
Speaker 2: around the area. Nice, and I don't mean small things, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: He stole a fridge and a stove right out from
Speaker 2: the Westinghouse building, just like we'll just take this right
Speaker 2: out the back. He also stole a sofa or is
Speaker 2: the Canadians called it a chesterfield. He stole a matching
Speaker 2: dinette set and chairs from a warehouse. From a different warehouse,
Speaker 2: he stole a kitchen set and a bed. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: also he stole small things he liked. He stole a radio,
Speaker 2: because what happy home in nineteen fifty candidate doesn't have
Speaker 2: a radio right neath the crystal set. So, by the way,
Speaker 2: all this stealing that was done in one month, in
Speaker 2: one February nineteen fifty, he just rack it up, rack
Speaker 2: it up. Right. In March he went back. He was
Speaker 2: trying to steal even more items to fill out their
Speaker 2: new happy home. Ken made the classic criminal mistake, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: You know what he did. He got greedy every time.
Speaker 2: He also got lazy, because you see, he tried to
Speaker 2: have stolen items delivered directly to his home. Stop, he
Speaker 2: selected items from the warehouse, then he posed as a
Speaker 2: buyer from a business, and he had basically phoned ahead
Speaker 2: to the transportation company, has them come to the warehouse
Speaker 2: to pick up his goods, and then he you know,
Speaker 2: delivered to my house, right, and so the plan would
Speaker 2: have worked perfectly. It's like a late night delivery. He's
Speaker 2: only a couple of people at the warehouse don't really
Speaker 2: questioned it, except there was a nosy dispatchers like, I
Speaker 2: don't recognize this, This doesn't seem right. So what do
Speaker 2: they do? They call the cops?
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, the man just needs anette.
Speaker 2: Set Ken gets caught, busted, arrested, tried, convicted, and jailed
Speaker 2: Elizabeth nine month.
Speaker 3: See that's the He's got a young family.
Speaker 2: And now he's an ex con. As soon as he
Speaker 2: gets out, but he's only nine months.
Speaker 3: They don't have the Potter familias in.
Speaker 2: Exactly young family.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Three months later he gets released, though he doesn't have
Speaker 2: to do the full nine Canada. They like good behavior,
Speaker 2: we'll let you out early. So Ken gets out of jail.
Speaker 2: Now he needs to find a new way to support
Speaker 2: his still growing family, so he chooses to do what Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Go on the street and narrow house.
Speaker 2: So far he's been like, you know, going selling wheat
Speaker 2: straw cutters. What does he do next? He chooses to
Speaker 2: learn to fly. He's like, I need to get more
Speaker 2: dimensions with their exactly cheap. No, no, not at all,
Speaker 2: But somehow he manages to do this. And now he
Speaker 2: goes to work as a traveling mechanic again. This time
Speaker 2: he's a good at it because he can expand his
Speaker 2: reach with the plane. Right, So he's going to distant
Speaker 2: rural community fixing their agricultural equipment.
Speaker 3: Great idea newgate care super well.
Speaker 2: Right, So now Kenny's able to buy a nice home
Speaker 2: for his family this kids, you know, he buys a
Speaker 2: new car. Now he's buying new clothes for him, the wife,
Speaker 2: the kids. Right, life's good also Ken, he buys himself
Speaker 2: a plane he got himself. Nineteen fifty two, he buys
Speaker 2: himself an aranka A E R O n C A
Speaker 2: ironka Okay, or maybe I'm pronouncing that wrong. Anyway, Picture
Speaker 2: a small plane with the wing over the cabin, like
Speaker 2: you know, like just a flat wing. And then there's
Speaker 2: a little plane like the kind of people like will
Speaker 2: jump out of.
Speaker 3: For I am so slow. I just had to like you,
Speaker 3: you did the hand movement, and then I had to
Speaker 3: puzzle it. I told you like a twenty.
Speaker 2: Eight IQ, I mean, sure, you got like a forty one.
Speaker 2: So now that he owns is planned right. He can
Speaker 2: make extra cash. Elizabeths he can fly people around. Other
Speaker 2: people need to get placed, so he's like, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: like a taxi in the sky. So he becomes a
Speaker 2: charter flight company. Boom. Family now moves again. You get
Speaker 2: a bigger house. This pattern holds true for six years
Speaker 2: between nineteen fifty nineteen fifty six. The family's moving every
Speaker 2: single year, sometimes because it was good. Sometimes it goes
Speaker 2: say he was in prison, but either way, they were
Speaker 2: moving every year for six years.
Speaker 3: The goal is to not have to move. That's when
Speaker 3: you've made it keep true, to keep moving.
Speaker 2: So Kenzie's he's looking for this luxurious life. Right, He's
Speaker 2: almost there. He's got things going with the charter, he's
Speaker 2: goings flying around doing agricultural mechanics stuff. Right, then life
Speaker 2: throws ken a speed bump. Yeah, the company's working for
Speaker 2: as a traveling mechanic closes up shop. That's fine, though,
Speaker 2: ken he's good here. He's like, okay, well I'll just
Speaker 2: I'll sell cookware. So now he starts flying to distant
Speaker 2: places and selling them cookware. Oh, I say, yeah, they basically,
Speaker 2: you know, as they said, fly to remote locations. And
Speaker 2: he's like a door to door salesman, but with a plane.
Speaker 3: And they need that. You need that out there.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, this job it doesn't last too long either, right,
Speaker 2: Apparently you can't sell cookware by plane and really keep
Speaker 2: a company afloat. Yeah, this is like a desperate act,
Speaker 2: I think at the end.
Speaker 3: So what you're saying is he hit a little turbulent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the company closes shops as well. November nineteen fifty.
Speaker 3: Sevens let that one go. You didn't even acknowledge that
Speaker 3: I gave you like a CSI Miami.
Speaker 2: Oh I could have I was going to put the
Speaker 2: sunglasses on, but I got You.
Speaker 3: Know, it's like anyway, I'm sorry anyway, So Ken, my man.
Speaker 2: He finds himself unemployed nineteen fifty to seven. Now at
Speaker 2: this point he saddled with financial responsibilities a little bit,
Speaker 2: not just his growing family. He's a Canadian, so he
Speaker 2: also has a fishing lotch and this fishing lodge is
Speaker 2: going to close, and you need money to keep his
Speaker 2: fishing lodge going.
Speaker 3: So he holds a break dancing contest for the center.
Speaker 2: If he had a good idea, that might have been
Speaker 2: on the list. But no, he's unemployed, needs a fishing
Speaker 2: lodge saved. But he starts criming again next month.
Speaker 3: You know how you do you sell the fishing line? What?
Speaker 2: No, No, he's trying to keep that going. You know,
Speaker 2: how would that help? Anyway? December nineteen fifty seven, Ken,
Speaker 2: he flew down on a commercial airline or from Winnipeg
Speaker 2: down to Toronto. Once he's there, he rented a car.
Speaker 2: He checked in at a luxury hotel in downtown Toronto.
Speaker 2: Next day he went shopping, bought himself some new clothes.
Speaker 2: Then he went and he robbed a bank.
Speaker 3: Oh good, it was like, look I have no money,
Speaker 3: so I'm going to blow it on my outfit. I'm
Speaker 3: going to go do some crime which has hit or miss,
Speaker 3: you know, like, had he done a lot of research
Speaker 3: into this bank?
Speaker 2: This was his first bank job. Yes, I want to guess, bro,
Speaker 2: he's a smart guy on this. If I told you
Speaker 2: I'm smart, this kid can smart. So he had dreamed
Speaker 2: it up a bunch. He thought, how am I going
Speaker 2: to do this? I can't go in and just be like, Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take over the bank. You know, He's not
Speaker 2: that kind.
Speaker 3: Of He's a guy.
Speaker 2: He is right. So he comes up with a really
Speaker 2: solid plan. I think you actually be tickled by it.
Speaker 2: But first let's take a break and then we'll come
Speaker 2: back and I will tell you how Ken gets into
Speaker 2: the real bank jobs. All right, Elizabeth, we're back. You
Speaker 2: ready to get criming?
Speaker 5: Hi?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Hi?
Speaker 2: By the way, Hi, So Ken, my man is the
Speaker 2: Canadian robin hood. He's about a robin and steeling. He's
Speaker 2: got a mustache, he's got himself a clean outfit. He's
Speaker 2: got the mustache waxed and ratty, and he's uh, you know,
Speaker 2: feeling good, feeling ready to start becoming a real hardcore.
Speaker 3: Criminal, super tight underpants.
Speaker 2: So he walks into the Toronto Dominion Bank. This is
Speaker 2: in downtown Toronto. He pretends to be a mister Gehar.
Speaker 2: That's g ai R, mister Gahre, mister Garrett. This is
Speaker 2: a businessman from Buffalo. That's what he tells everybody. I'm
Speaker 2: mister Garrett Buffalo. So he's also a friend of the manager,
Speaker 2: that's what he tells people. He tells the bank staff
Speaker 2: this and he's like, I have come to speak with
Speaker 2: the manager about a bank loan. You were old friends.
Speaker 2: So he gets escorted to the manager's office. The door
Speaker 2: is closed behind him because they're two old friends, so
Speaker 2: they assume they'll want to discreetly do their business, right,
Speaker 2: So sin as the Buffalo businessman is in the office
Speaker 2: and he the two men are alone, he whips out
Speaker 2: a handgun. Oh yeah, he mister Gere tells the bank
Speaker 2: manager to write out a check to him for the
Speaker 2: sum of ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Checked me exactly, Yeah, because that's just that well, there's
Speaker 3: no way to stop payment on that pipe.
Speaker 2: Old you're not going to see this.
Speaker 3: Well, he probably just will walk it around.
Speaker 2: Okay, you did see that part coming Okay, yeah, he
Speaker 2: got exactly that. So meanwhile Ken is Garret. He chats
Speaker 2: with the banker. He's asking him questions though Elizabeth though
Speaker 2: learning about personal details from this guy. And then he
Speaker 2: forces the bank manager to go out with him to
Speaker 2: a teller and have the teller cash the check.
Speaker 3: Is it a personal check of personal check?
Speaker 2: But I don't know it could be written on the banks,
Speaker 2: you know, sock, I don't know if it's a personal
Speaker 2: check from the bank manager.
Speaker 3: Okay, so it's from his account.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The bank manager does this. He walks out to the
Speaker 2: bank teller and then is mister ghare you know. He's like,
Speaker 2: once this is successful, the check is cash, mister Gere
Speaker 2: invites his old friend to come have a drink with
Speaker 2: him in front of the teller. He's like, oh yes.
Speaker 2: He's casually mentioning the names of the bank manager's family
Speaker 2: or friends, and he mentioned earlier in the questioning. So
Speaker 2: that's all part of his ruse right now. The bank
Speaker 2: manager decides to play it smooth. He's you know, he
Speaker 2: doesn't he's Canadian. He doesn't want anyone get hurt. He's like,
Speaker 2: we can take care of this, hey, you know, don't
Speaker 2: worry about it. Now he goes out, mister gere, he goes,
Speaker 2: he walks out with out of the bank with him.
Speaker 2: He escorts him over to Ken's getaway rental car. Now
Speaker 2: Ken's like, you know, he's also Canadian. So he's like, hey,
Speaker 2: merry Christmas. Hey have a good one, and then he
Speaker 2: wishes him. He's like, also tell your family Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2: So it's gonna be a cold one, right, So Ken
Speaker 2: drives away in his getaway rental car and then he
Speaker 2: goes right back to the airport. He flies home to
Speaker 2: Manitoba his family. They assume he must have been on
Speaker 2: one of his long remote runs. I don't ask any questions. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the eyewitness accounts from this bank job, Elizabeth, they all
Speaker 2: spoke of this guy Ken and his not They didn't
Speaker 2: call him Ken, mister Gare. They talk about his smooth behavior,
Speaker 2: how he was so dignified, stylish guy. Did you see
Speaker 2: his mustache? Right, They're all just he was so dapper,
Speaker 2: so genteel. The press is loving this, They're like final,
Speaker 2: they got something to write about. They nickname him the
Speaker 2: Gentleman bandit. Oh that's his first one. Now, I guess
Speaker 2: the money from this first bank job, it didn't last long.
Speaker 2: Or maybe he had ten gees. Yeah, but maybe he
Speaker 2: had more than his fishing lodge to save. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Whatever it is. Ken was back at it. March sixteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight. He flew back down to Toronto once
Speaker 2: again to rob a bank. And I guess he hadn't
Speaker 2: learned from the warehouse jobs that you don't and get
Speaker 2: greedy and do the exact same thing. Anyway, he walks
Speaker 2: into the CIBC bank in Toronto. He tried nearly the
Speaker 2: same routine, except when he was escorted into the bank
Speaker 2: manager's office and he tried to hold run the whole
Speaker 2: I need a bank loan scheme and I'm from Buffalo
Speaker 2: or whatever. Yeah, he pulls his gun and Ken runs
Speaker 2: into trouble this time when he flashes his piece, the
Speaker 2: bank manager's like, what's that for, son? I don't know, Well,
Speaker 2: what are you trying to pull there?
Speaker 3: Eh?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 2: The bank manager he's unflappable. He gets like Canadian mad
Speaker 2: and he's like, now we're gonna We're not gonna do
Speaker 2: any of that, mister. And he comes at Ken right
Speaker 2: in a kind and dignified way. And it would be
Speaker 2: like he's ready for like a real good natured booty
Speaker 2: whooping right now. This this bank manager, he as I
Speaker 2: told you, he's come alive. He's Canadian mad. The gentleman
Speaker 2: banned it. He panics. He's like, oh, I didn't expect this,
Speaker 2: So Ken, I told you he doesn't want to use violence,
Speaker 2: although he has the gun. He runs out of the office, right,
Speaker 2: he's terrified, he did Canadian bank man after Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 2: not at all. So, like I said, he's running. He
Speaker 2: tries to run out. Now somebody sees him running out
Speaker 2: of the bank manager's office. A female customer. She throws
Speaker 2: a leg out trips him. Yeah, okay, I figured you did.
Speaker 2: I knew you'd love that detail. So Ken stumbles, goes down,
Speaker 2: hits the bank floor hard, skitters across it right, scrambles
Speaker 2: back up to his feet. He tries to flee again,
Speaker 2: but this time a bank teller is like hopped over
Speaker 2: the counter and runs and chases him, gets them right
Speaker 2: at the door, tackles them. They go knock down onto
Speaker 2: the sidewalk. Right. This guy hits them like a linebacker
Speaker 2: in Canadian football, just.
Speaker 3: Wraps up takes him down.
Speaker 2: Not at all. So now, that he's on the sidewalk
Speaker 2: just outside of the bank. A minister who's walking by,
Speaker 2: he gets involved. He goes over and he kicks the
Speaker 2: gun out of Ken's hand.
Speaker 3: Right, So they're all just as Jesus would have done.
Speaker 2: Canadian teamwork. Right, nobody's really hurting anybody. They're all just
Speaker 2: disarming him, wrapping him up.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: So then now the linebacker bank teller, he sits on
Speaker 2: Ken until the police arrive.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then Ken's arrested, convicted, sentenced to twelve years
Speaker 2: in prison. Oh that's rough.
Speaker 3: And if I'm the wife back home, I'm putting the
Speaker 3: for sale sign right out in front of the lodge.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: Thanks to his string of two robberies, one successful, one unsuccessful,
Speaker 2: but because he flew to both of them, Ken's given
Speaker 2: a new nickname by the Canadian press.
Speaker 3: The Flying Band is.
Speaker 2: Now if you believe it. His wife, Elva, barely blinked.
Speaker 2: She stood by our man. She's like Tammy, whyet Elizabeth? Yeah,
Speaker 2: she's like stand by man now, Elva. She tells the
Speaker 2: newspaper men to come around asking questions. She says, I
Speaker 2: will never pry into his affairs. She added that Ken
Speaker 2: was quote a perfect husband and a father and just
Speaker 2: a wonderful guy.
Speaker 3: I will never pry into his affairs. Honey, I got
Speaker 3: news for you.
Speaker 2: You need to get that crowbar.
Speaker 3: Also your affairs now, and.
Speaker 2: The children one hundred percent of your problem now exactly
Speaker 2: So to keep their family in diapers and food, Elva
Speaker 2: opened a little shop and she starts like slanging, I
Speaker 2: don't know, like Campbell's.
Speaker 3: And that's the way to make.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's biden her time. Well, Ken does his twelve
Speaker 2: year bid now thankfully the young family. Ken gets released early.
Speaker 2: Now cars as soon as he's free, what does he do?
Speaker 2: Elizabeth buys a plane. He goes right back to criming.
Speaker 2: Only he goes and crimes bigger. He gets ready to
Speaker 2: pull off one of the most epic gold jobs ever
Speaker 2: pulled in Canada.
Speaker 3: Well, see, there's part of me that thinks, like, you know,
Speaker 3: if you have, if you've done that time, it's really
Speaker 3: really hard to get gainful employment.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you know that going out, And.
Speaker 3: So there's also there's like this competing thing of like,
Speaker 3: you know, they have impulse control issues. They want to
Speaker 3: do the crime because it's exciting or it's all they know.
Speaker 3: But then on top of that is that overlay of like,
Speaker 3: you're not gonna be able to get a job because
Speaker 3: of you know, people discriminate against those with criminal records.
Speaker 2: Then you put like a bunch of them together and
Speaker 2: they're all talking about their plans what they're gonna do
Speaker 2: when they get out. A lot of the plans are like,
Speaker 2: you know what, it would be a great job to
Speaker 2: pull off. How would you do that. He's a smart guy,
Speaker 2: he's gonna like the challenge.
Speaker 3: And you can't really faults his owners too, because if
Speaker 3: they're like, I've been burned by hiring someone you know
Speaker 3: who's recently been released from incarceration, and so yeah, you
Speaker 3: know that happens quite a bit, and so it's just
Speaker 3: a bad situational around.
Speaker 2: It burns on both ends, Elizabeth, It really does. Ken.
Speaker 3: He spent his time in coming out.
Speaker 2: Ah yes, the good ty food. So Ken. He's sitting
Speaker 2: there in prison, this Canadian prison. He's racking up ideas
Speaker 2: and finally he settles on one and he develops it
Speaker 2: from every possible angle, The Flying Bandit. Right when he
Speaker 2: gets out, he's like, Okay, I have got the job right.
Speaker 2: But he only has to do three and a half
Speaker 2: years of his twelve years, so he's still a young man,
Speaker 2: plenty of opportunities. He gets released for good behavior, so
Speaker 2: he was able to work two fronts. He's scheming in
Speaker 2: his head, but meanwhile he's cheating on the outside. It smiles, right.
Speaker 2: He gets considered a model prisoner once again. His gentlemanly
Speaker 2: nature distinguishes him and in prison that actually benefits in
Speaker 2: by comparison. So he's released December twenty first, nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 2: just in time for Christmas. Hey, Wharton, tell your f
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas. Yah, I'll see you guys later the world.
Speaker 3: Just like man. He is so whip smart.
Speaker 2: Once he's out free again, ken, they told you he's
Speaker 2: gonna start crying. But first he tries to return to
Speaker 2: the straight life. Maybe he can make a go of it,
Speaker 2: who knows. He went home to Elva and the Young family.
Speaker 2: He gets a job. He starts selling cookware again door
Speaker 2: to door, but once again after flying to a remote location.
Speaker 2: They call it a fly in sales, right, so he's
Speaker 2: doing fly in sales. This lasted for.
Speaker 3: A while, slang in Dutch ovens completely.
Speaker 2: The Young family continue to grow. He and Elva they
Speaker 2: would continue. They have seven kids, stop it. Seven kids.
Speaker 3: No, come on now, dude, he does not.
Speaker 2: Seven kids is extra expensive too, That's what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: because I don't have.
Speaker 5: It.
Speaker 3: It's one thing if like, oh, we have these kids,
Speaker 3: and then I'm trying to make ends meet, and I
Speaker 3: turned to crime. Huh, well stop having the kids. Keep
Speaker 3: your expenses.
Speaker 2: Down, Elizabeth. Making kids is fun. I don't know to
Speaker 2: tell you. So anyways goes. I gotta pay for these
Speaker 2: seven kids and all the fun we had, honey. And
Speaker 2: then he's like, I got an IDEA gold plane, a
Speaker 2: gold plane. Yeah, now, like a literal plane made out
Speaker 2: of gold. I know how you're picturing, Like King Mike
Speaker 2: has touched a plane gold gold transport plane.
Speaker 3: You see the plane that transports gold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a gold plane, you know, like it's.
Speaker 3: The old plane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go, But how you put the emphasis
Speaker 2: on it. Anyway, there's gold mines up in like in Ontario.
Speaker 2: The gold from the mines. It gets flown down south
Speaker 2: to Winnipeg on these small transport planes, gold planes operated
Speaker 2: by this company trans Air. Right now. Once they're the
Speaker 2: gold bullyon that's a kka gold bricks, gold ingots, and
Speaker 2: gold coins all labeled under the term gold.
Speaker 3: Buwllyond in hot water and it makes gold soup.
Speaker 2: It's excellent, some onion celery, it's amazing. Gold would be
Speaker 2: transferred by the way to an air crew from Air Canada.
Speaker 2: So it goes from trans air to Air Canada. Okay
Speaker 2: a right, So that crew from Air Canada, they would
Speaker 2: load the gold bricks onto flights bound to the Royal
Speaker 2: Canadian Mint in the capitol, Ottawa, Okay right. So for
Speaker 2: weeks Ken surveiled the Winnipeg Inner National Airport. He clocks
Speaker 2: the schedule of all the gold planes coming in and
Speaker 2: out from the Red Lake mines. He imagined how he
Speaker 2: can get his hands on that gold. How do I
Speaker 2: pry in there? What will work? Eventually he figures out
Speaker 2: the exact ideal time to rob the gold planes. He's
Speaker 2: got his window down. He determines he'll need four men
Speaker 2: to make his plan work to pay off. Right, So
Speaker 2: he plans a job, like I said, back when he
Speaker 2: was into this place called Stony Mountain Prison. So he's like, okay,
Speaker 2: I knew a guy back there, and this guy was Harry,
Speaker 2: back when he was a lawyer from Winnipeg. And well
Speaker 2: he becomes the financial backer for the scheme and in
Speaker 2: charge of fencing the stolen gold. So he goes he's smart.
Speaker 2: He gets both sides. I need money to pay for it.
Speaker 2: I need to get rid of it to cash it
Speaker 2: out for money. We always talk about it. They don't
Speaker 2: make a plan for how you're gonna get rid of it.
Speaker 2: You steal. It's very true part of his plan from
Speaker 2: the get go. Now, this lawyer, he wasn't in prison
Speaker 2: because he was like a bad lawyer. He's still a lawyer.
Speaker 2: He was actually just a law student who was going
Speaker 2: around helping the inmates. So he meets him. He's like,
Speaker 2: I like that guy. I wanna see I think he's
Speaker 2: a kind of hanky right this yeah, yeah, he flips
Speaker 2: them right. So the other guy, now he needs two
Speaker 2: hard men, just like but Canadian hard men. He gets,
Speaker 2: uh so they're very tall, exactly, rugged, broad chested. So
Speaker 2: John Barry, that's a hard man. He's a he's a
Speaker 2: professional crook. Then he also gets this guy, Richard Greenco
Speaker 2: Rick Rick Greenco. He's a fellow hard man.
Speaker 3: I thought you're gonna say, Richard Grico.
Speaker 2: No, No, he could not get him. He was not available,
Speaker 2: said he was doing some show down South. That's terrible anyway.
Speaker 2: Ken's drinking buddies. That's these guys, that's their quality.
Speaker 3: He hires his drinking Yeah, but.
Speaker 2: Hard men, drinking buddies, those drinking buddies he has.
Speaker 3: It's always a bad idea to bring in more people
Speaker 3: because it's more mouths to speak. Sure, but at the
Speaker 3: same time, it's not like he was a raging success before.
Speaker 3: So people as she wants.
Speaker 2: So Rick, he brings in his brother, Paul Greenco, and
Speaker 2: he's gonna act as their face men. In this case,
Speaker 2: he'll be in charge of watching for the large gold shipment.
Speaker 2: So he's gonna pose as a as a salesman of gold.
Speaker 2: He wants to find out when a large shipment's gonna
Speaker 2: come in.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Barry and then Grinco's so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Richard and Paul Granco and John Berry now Rick
Speaker 2: and John Berry, they will be in charge of grabbing
Speaker 2: the gold like they are. They're they're they're the hard men, right.
Speaker 2: So this wasn't gonna as they said, wasn't gonna be
Speaker 2: a smashing grab job, not gonna be a break in
Speaker 2: the plan was the two hard men would be handed
Speaker 2: the gold. Oh, just handed right over to them. Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: here you go take this goal.
Speaker 3: I see what's gonna happen. They're gonna dress like Air
Speaker 3: Canada employees. We're so whip smart for a lady host.
Speaker 2: That lady host whip smart kitting. Now to pull this off,
Speaker 2: this means is you'd guessed disguise it. So the men
Speaker 2: they get white wintertime coveralls that match the ones worn
Speaker 2: by the Air Canada crew. Then they doctor up the
Speaker 2: stencil for the Air Canada logo. Next, now they need
Speaker 2: proper paperwork, and so they're gonna need to manifest way bills.
Speaker 2: Can finesse that by stealing some actual way bills from
Speaker 2: the Air Canada. Heels are the Winnipeg Airport. How did
Speaker 2: he pull off that move? Well, he's super smooth, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: He did almost next to nothing. He just waited until
Speaker 2: the Canadian crew took lunch. Then the Air Canada, the
Speaker 2: people of the crew, they left the desk unattended. Yoick.
Speaker 2: Now he had fish away bills they were so they
Speaker 2: weren't suspicious. So anyway, a plane from the Red Lake
Speaker 2: Gold Mines. They flew into Winnipeg Airport on March first,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty six. Can and his crew were all ready
Speaker 2: and set Paul the lookout. He's posing as a salesman,
Speaker 2: as he told you, interested in buying a lot of gold.
Speaker 2: So he's like, oh, there's an extra large gold shipman
Speaker 2: coming in. They told me it's aboard this plane. He
Speaker 2: tells them. When it's gonna land, time to strike. Rick
Speaker 2: Granco and John Berry. They get dawled up in their
Speaker 2: fake Air Canada wintertime coveralls. Next they go on they
Speaker 2: steal an Air Canada truck possibly a van source to
Speaker 2: say both. Anyway, they stole that from the motor pool.
Speaker 2: They drive that stolen truck or van right across the tarmac.
Speaker 2: They are the two hard men in their Air Canada coveralls.
Speaker 2: They meet the trans Air gold plane. They informed the
Speaker 2: trans Air staff that they're there too. There's a been
Speaker 2: a change in the scheduled transfer right. But typically Air
Speaker 2: Canada they would take possession of the gold right and
Speaker 2: then they would transfer it out on a scheduled flight.
Speaker 2: Everybody knew it. It was all set, but due to the
Speaker 2: size of this particular gold shipment, the hard Men explained
Speaker 2: that Air Canada wanted to get it out as soon
Speaker 2: as possible, so they want to transfer it and they
Speaker 2: have it lined up for a charter flight. It was
Speaker 2: six hundred pounds of gold.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's multiple bo Jackson.
Speaker 2: Yes, multiple, Like it's at least I think two and
Speaker 2: a third bowl Jackson. Now their story was suspicious, but
Speaker 2: what could that trans air aircrew say? I mean, they're like, well,
Speaker 2: the two hard men, they have wintertime Air Canada coveralls on.
Speaker 2: They're driving a legit Air Canada truck or possibly van.
Speaker 2: They also have legit paperwork. They have the way bills
Speaker 2: from Air Canada. Right, it's snowy and cold, and who
Speaker 2: wants to stand around on a tarmac questioning paperwork? So
Speaker 2: hinky as it all may have seen Transair staffs like
Speaker 2: here you go. They hand over the gold shipment. They
Speaker 2: load the gold onto the Air Canada truck. The two
Speaker 2: hard men drive off right off to the tarmac and
Speaker 2: they disappear. Rick Green Coow and John Barry successfully drove
Speaker 2: the Air Canada van out of the airport. Then a
Speaker 2: bilometer or so away, they meet up with a second
Speaker 2: vehicle driven by Ken Leishman. The Flying Man had done it.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Coincidentally, or rather ironically, considering his name, he chose
Speaker 2: not to fly away with his six hundred pounds of
Speaker 2: stolen gold. The plan was to drive it away, so
Speaker 2: he dropped off the hard men and then he drove
Speaker 2: the gold bullyon over to the home of the lawyer,
Speaker 2: Harry Backlan Right, he let himself in since Backlhan was
Speaker 2: away on vacation. He planned to hide the gold in
Speaker 2: the lawyer's freezer. At this point, that wasn't the original plan.
Speaker 2: The original plan was much better. Originally, Ken planned to
Speaker 2: hide the stolen gold in a farm field. The farm
Speaker 2: belonged to Ken's uncle. Was gonna be super easy, but
Speaker 2: then a blizzard comes in, so now they can't dig,
Speaker 2: they can't even drive. Also, Kent's gotta worry. He's got
Speaker 2: all these fears and worries. He suddenly fears creep up
Speaker 2: about the Mounties, the Royal Canadian Announted Police. They're gonna
Speaker 2: have set up a roadblock so all over the place.
Speaker 3: He's not gonna want to.
Speaker 2: Drive too much. So he just drives over to the
Speaker 2: lawyer's house and then he audibles. Right, He's like, okay,
Speaker 2: we need to sit tight. Where they're going to leave
Speaker 2: the gold hidden somewhere that no one would look. The
Speaker 2: lawyer's deep freeze.
Speaker 3: That's pretty good. That's great. So what's your ridiculous take?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, he yeah, he drives over to the
Speaker 2: lawyer's house. He's supposed to be away on vacations I
Speaker 2: told you, which he was, but his mother was there.
Speaker 2: She decided to house sit in the nice house. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Ken had to quickly come up with a cover story
Speaker 2: where he has all these boxes that have to go
Speaker 2: into the lawyer's basement. He's like, oh, these are filled
Speaker 2: with frozen moostakes, your son ordered. She's like, okay, come
Speaker 2: on in. She lets them. Man Ken's able to stash
Speaker 2: the gold in the lawyer's deep freeze. I thought you'd
Speaker 2: liked that.
Speaker 3: The mom wasn't like, oh, break me off one on
Speaker 3: your way down there.
Speaker 2: No, no, they were deck two frozen for I gas. Anyway.
Speaker 2: Another part of the original plan that was that they
Speaker 2: would all sit on they told you on the stolen
Speaker 2: gold wait a few years, then attempt to fence it
Speaker 2: once the heat was off. Yeah, they'd move the gold
Speaker 2: to buyers overseas. There was a problem with that plan.
Speaker 2: The two hard men they we want to get paid
Speaker 2: right now, of course, the right, So Ken he has
Speaker 2: to up the timetable. Now the new plan, Ken's going
Speaker 2: to go overseas. He's going to show prospective buyers what
Speaker 2: they had stolen, and then they'll all make all their
Speaker 2: problems go away because they'll buy all six hundred pounds
Speaker 2: the gold and will go great.
Speaker 3: What's going to happen.
Speaker 2: We'll be back and I'll tell you what happened to
Speaker 2: the six hundred pounds of gold and our Canadian Robin hood.
Speaker 2: All right, Elizabeth, Okay, so where were we? That's right,
Speaker 2: Harry Beckland's basement. Yes, we got the frozen moose steaks
Speaker 2: that are not real but are actually gold.
Speaker 3: Bullyard, very very heavy steaks.
Speaker 2: So and they need to take The new plan is
Speaker 2: to take some gold overseas so they can sell it
Speaker 2: right away, even though the heat is still on. So
Speaker 2: what do they do? The h is fully oh so Ken.
Speaker 2: He grabs a hacksaw, he saws off a chunk of
Speaker 2: gold for one of the gold bars. Then his new
Speaker 2: pop plan is he will go and board a train
Speaker 2: headed to Vancouver, where he will board a flight to
Speaker 2: Hong Kong, because you know that's where there's a big
Speaker 2: black market for this type of stuff. Meanwhile, the lawyer,
Speaker 2: Harry Becklin. He returned home from his vacation, and he
Speaker 2: gets worried that his wife might find all this gold
Speaker 2: hidden amongst the frozen moostakes that actually are in the
Speaker 2: deep freezer. I forgot to tell you that he actually
Speaker 2: does have legitimate frozen moose stakes. So he takes the
Speaker 2: gold out from the deep freeze and he buries it
Speaker 2: in his backyard. Oh there's another tiny problem with all
Speaker 2: of this. I forgot the CRU's newly improvised plan right
Speaker 2: to sell the gold. Ken didn't have a passport. He
Speaker 2: can't travel on a passport. So yeah, yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 2: he's going to use the lawyer's passport. Just say I'm
Speaker 2: Harry back. Yeah, yeah, that's the plan. So Ken linked
Speaker 2: up with the lawyer. He takes the lawyer's passport. He
Speaker 2: gets on a train to Vancouver. Boom, he takes off
Speaker 2: with a sowd off chunk of sample goals. This is
Speaker 2: the plan working perfect right now, and Ken arrives in Vancouver.
Speaker 2: He wastes no time, Elizabeth. He headed right over to
Speaker 2: the airport. While he waited for his flight, he heard
Speaker 2: his name get called over the airport.
Speaker 3: P a is His name was Ken Leishman.
Speaker 2: He's like, that ain't good. That spooked him. So what
Speaker 2: did he do? He gets up and he goes and
Speaker 2: he ditches a hunk of gold that has on him. Right,
Speaker 2: He's like, dump sit somewhere in the trash. Nobody ever
Speaker 2: finds it.
Speaker 3: Odd, No, just disappeared quiet about it.
Speaker 2: He was in the trash, yeah, exactly. So anyway, he
Speaker 2: tries to play it cool. He's like, who's Ken Leishman.
Speaker 2: I don't know, n Yeah. So that fails though, because
Speaker 2: there's a full detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Speaker 2: at the airport. I like to picture them up on
Speaker 2: horseback walking through with the red jackets. Anyway, so they
Speaker 2: eventually find him and the inspector from the Mountains in
Speaker 2: charge of this airport arrest. His name was Superintendent Gordon Perry.
Speaker 2: That's like the most Canadian named ever Canadian, Gordon Perry, right.
Speaker 2: So anyway, Inspector Gordon, he said the plan was good,
Speaker 2: what he did afterward, and the people he associated with
Speaker 2: were not up to his character. He should have done better.
Speaker 5: Eh.
Speaker 2: So while Ken was stuck on his two day train
Speaker 2: trip from Winnipeg to Vancouver, the cops had been on
Speaker 2: the case. Yeah, right, by the way, can we just
Speaker 2: talk for a moment about how dope would be on
Speaker 2: a two day train trip to go across Canada.
Speaker 3: I've always wanted to do that trans Canadian rail trip.
Speaker 2: That would am amazing. We got to come up their
Speaker 2: excuse to do that.
Speaker 3: We could record special episodes from the train.
Speaker 2: There you go and do all all a ridiculous crime
Speaker 2: on the train and just cover it live.
Speaker 3: Well, the first the Tuesday episode is us talking about
Speaker 3: great train robbery, and then Thursday Thursday is us doing
Speaker 3: a train robbery, and then the next.
Speaker 2: Week from prisons. Hopefully we'll be on the LAMB for
Speaker 2: at least.
Speaker 3: This very special rerun while we're gonna get bailed out.
Speaker 2: Anyway, back to the mountains. Okay, they've been working on
Speaker 2: this case for two days despite the blizzard. I told
Speaker 2: you about the obscured tire tracks and you know whatever.
Speaker 2: The investigators found the abandoned Air Canada cargo van. Yep.
Speaker 2: To their luck, forensics were able to lift a fingerprint
Speaker 2: on one of the men.
Speaker 3: Listen, it is cold out there. Yeh yeah, what are
Speaker 3: the leaving fingerprints? Where are you going?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 3: Just for the war?
Speaker 2: Your finger sums. Anyway, the Mounties they find Ken's get
Speaker 2: away car too. He had abandoned somewhere where they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: it's over here, eh. So he'd also left behind a notepad,
Speaker 2: although he'd torn out the notes. The police used that
Speaker 2: old pencil truck. Yeah, I figured you like this, right,
Speaker 2: sister bon rightly shaded that paper and boom emerges one word,
Speaker 2: that word Backland.
Speaker 3: Oh, he's like back then, with like the little hearts around it.
Speaker 3: And he was like one, get the gold too, drive
Speaker 3: it to Backland's house at and then the address and
Speaker 3: like little directions.
Speaker 2: So the next morning, the Mountain's paid a visit Backland,
Speaker 2: but not at home at his office. Really's dignified, right,
Speaker 2: But you know what, rather than me's telling you about it,
Speaker 2: talking about Elizabeth, I'd like you to close your eyes,
Speaker 2: I'd like you to picture it. It's March nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: and you are in Manitoba, Canada. Specifically, you were in
Speaker 2: a law of this, typing up a letter. You are
Speaker 2: the newly hired secretary of a young lawyer.
Speaker 3: I'm lipsmart.
Speaker 2: Can't get a much better job since you're in Canada
Speaker 2: on the lamb. That's right, you are a successful gem
Speaker 2: thief who's been working the Eastern Seaboard posing as a
Speaker 2: psychic medium, Madame Regina corn Tower. Now after you had
Speaker 2: an escape. You had to escape a botched gem job
Speaker 2: in Manhattan. You snuck over the border into Canada. Now
Speaker 2: you're working for this young lawyer. It's the perfect gig.
Speaker 2: Who whatever suspect you, you're just nice little Regina Cornthawer
Speaker 2: from Calgary. Now you know, I'd love to tell you
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 5: Eh.
Speaker 2: You try your accent, but it doesn't always see anyway.
Speaker 2: This morning, you're feeling a little nervous because why there's
Speaker 2: police at the door. You can see them through the
Speaker 2: smoke glass panel of the door to the law office.
Speaker 2: You see the hand of the law rap on the glass.
Speaker 2: The door shakes in the frame. You see the gold
Speaker 2: of the law man's badge. You get up your chair, squeaks,
Speaker 2: your heels click clack cross that linoleum floor. You open
Speaker 2: the door, praying that this isn't the moment you feared
Speaker 2: for months would come. Nope, but cop greets you with
Speaker 2: a smile. He's a detective, he says, his name is
Speaker 2: Detective Sergeant Dunmall and he asks you if your boss,
Speaker 2: Harry Backlan is in. You say to yourself, oh he
Speaker 2: is now. Detectives say oh goody, and he steps inside
Speaker 2: the office, walks past you, knocks on the door to
Speaker 2: Backlan's office. Come in, is the reply, now, Backland, he's
Speaker 2: assuming it's probably you with coffee or the morning's news.
Speaker 2: Door sleeps open. His face falls when he sees it's
Speaker 2: not you, it's what is you? But it's also detective
Speaker 2: Sergeant Dunball. He is smiling. The detective introduces himself. Backland
Speaker 2: stands up to greet him. The two men shake hands.
Speaker 2: Nice you know, friendly Canadians. Backland's cools a cucumber in
Speaker 2: a bowl of hot sauce. Shout out mci. Now. He
Speaker 2: asks what the detective is there for. He offers him
Speaker 2: a seat in the chair opposite his desk. The detective,
Speaker 2: you're standing there watching this. The detective accepts the offer.
Speaker 2: As he moves to sit down, he spies a briefcase
Speaker 2: beside Backland's desk. The detective he trusts his instincts. He
Speaker 2: kicks the briefcase just gently. The briefcase is heavy. It
Speaker 2: doesn't move. It's weighted down with something real heavy the
Speaker 2: detective bends over all Harry Backland and you can do
Speaker 2: or watch together as the detective opens the unlocked briefcase
Speaker 2: and boom, what does he see? A sowd off stolen
Speaker 2: gold bar shining back at him.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a difficult probable cause right there.
Speaker 2: Harry Backlan says, nothing. You gasped at the sight of
Speaker 2: the gold. The detective chuckles to himself, and then he says, now,
Speaker 2: counselor you know what this means, don't you? You're going
Speaker 2: to jail? Oh you bet you eh. Now, after this, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: the detective went over to the lawyer's house with a
Speaker 2: bunch of other cops. Say, what do you think they
Speaker 2: founded Harry Backland's place?
Speaker 3: Mistakes?
Speaker 2: Yes, they did find and in the deep freeze below
Speaker 2: that they found a small pile of gold that Harry
Speaker 2: tried to I guess hide from the others. Old Harry
Speaker 2: couldn't help himself. But that wasn't all. The mounties kept
Speaker 2: searching and they found all the other gold bars and
Speaker 2: bullion and ingots and so forth that were in the
Speaker 2: back of the Backland house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hidden under fresh fallen snow.
Speaker 2: Now, when he heard about how his lawyer was the
Speaker 2: one who was caught with the hunk of sawd off
Speaker 2: gold in his brief case, which ultimately led the police
Speaker 2: to the rest of the main stat What do you
Speaker 2: the Ken was thinking. He was flabbergasted the lawyer had
Speaker 2: kept the gold on him in his briefcase. Ken, that
Speaker 2: was his actually pretty much his quote. But you were there,
Speaker 2: you saw the downfall I did now, I mean, who
Speaker 2: would ever write anyway? As Ken Leishman said quote, the
Speaker 2: plan was that he would return that piece to the freezer.
Speaker 2: It was stupid. So their successful Air Canada gold robbery,
Speaker 2: mind you, was the largest gold heist in Canadian history
Speaker 2: up to that point. Ken gets arrested, sent to Headlingly
Speaker 2: Jail to await trial. While there, he convinced some other
Speaker 2: inmates we shouldn't be in here, so we should be
Speaker 2: good for this. We should leave guys, and so they did.
Speaker 2: They busted out. So this time his plan works perfectly.
Speaker 2: These guys listen, I don't know. September one, nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: Ken and three inmates overpower a guard, steal his keys,
Speaker 2: bust out. Once they get free, they make a quick
Speaker 2: getaway and a stolen Chevy. Nice choice boy. Now that
Speaker 2: the escape convicts had wheels, they lee over to nearby Steinbach, Manitoba.
Speaker 2: Now the prison escapes, big news. Right leads to the
Speaker 2: largest manhunt in Manitoba history. They're cops everywhere. They're shutting
Speaker 2: down to all the major highways, the roads. There's roadblocks everywhere. Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: these guys need to get off the road. Luckily they're
Speaker 2: with the flying bandit.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: So he has a plan for this. He springs into action.
Speaker 2: He drives them over to an airport, right onto the tarmac.
Speaker 2: They steal a plane. Then they fly their freedom in
Speaker 2: another country. What country is that?
Speaker 6: Hey?
Speaker 2: Big hey, hey, Now Candy flies himself and the jailbird
Speaker 2: crew across the border. They land and where Gary, Indiana? Ohys,
Speaker 2: but this is not the Gary you would picture. This
Speaker 2: is not urban downtown Gary. This is the farms surrounding.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Obviously he can't land at an airport, Elizabeth, so Ken
Speaker 2: landed the plane in a farmer's field. So after he
Speaker 2: safely crash landed with the three fellow convicts, and then
Speaker 2: this worried farmer comes running out to see if the
Speaker 2: men are okay. He's always had engine troubles, Yeah, Ken's
Speaker 2: genteel nature once again wins the day. The concerned farmer
Speaker 2: looks past the three obvious convicts and says, like, yes,
Speaker 2: you fellows might need a ride to town. He gives
Speaker 2: them a ride to town. So once they're in Gary proper,
Speaker 2: how they can get up to some real trouble newly
Speaker 2: free Canadians. What do they do?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: I mean, are they still in their prison garb?
Speaker 2: You know, what's a good question. I'm thinking they probably
Speaker 2: took clothing from maybe the scarecrow. I don't know, only
Speaker 2: enough for one.
Speaker 3: So I don't know what they get to Gary, Indiana.
Speaker 2: They have to get clothing at some point.
Speaker 3: I don't know where they get they get clothing.
Speaker 2: So now they're wearing like the latest.
Speaker 3: Duds of Now what you got to get out of
Speaker 3: that town?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Nope, they go to a bar, they ordered drinks
Speaker 2: and they toast their freedom. Meanwhile, keep in mind, this
Speaker 2: is a huge man hunt, right, so they are all
Speaker 2: sorts of TV news reports. TVs are always in bars,
Speaker 2: so they're on the news in the bar, right, but
Speaker 2: they when I first noticed them. But still there's constant
Speaker 2: updates every hour on the hour about this daring escape
Speaker 2: from the Canadian jail being on the lookout, you know,
Speaker 2: wanted men anyway, sitting in the bar and Gary, Indiana,
Speaker 2: the four recently freed inmates. They of course call attention
Speaker 2: to themselves in the dumbest way possible. As they're getting drunk,
Speaker 2: they start getting loud, but they're also dropping Canadian money
Speaker 2: in America. No, you're kidding we Oh yeah, it didn't
Speaker 2: take long for someone to put two and two together
Speaker 2: and not the count of four. They phoned the cops.
Speaker 2: So now the cops show up in all four convicts.
Speaker 2: Right they're in the bar, they're surrounded confronted by a
Speaker 2: bunch of armed police. Ken's like, I give up, So
Speaker 2: he's like, I'm cool with this. Two of the other
Speaker 2: guys they're hardened criminals, so they decide they're not going
Speaker 2: back inside and they're not going back to the big
Speaker 2: House Elizabeth. They just either are gonna blast their way
Speaker 2: out like it's the nineteen thirties. So they're getting a
Speaker 2: shootout with the cops. No one gets killed, no one
Speaker 2: gets hurt. Right now, you're seriously injured. But canon three,
Speaker 2: they all get captured, returned to the unfriendly confines of
Speaker 2: a Canadian prison. The authorities tacked on another seven years
Speaker 2: for the gold heist and the jail escape to his
Speaker 2: prior eight years prison sentence, and Ken was sent back
Speaker 2: to Stony Mountain Penitentiary AA. His second time at the
Speaker 2: prison was no different than his first time, Elizabeth because
Speaker 2: again model prisoner. Everybody likes Ken. Example, he ran the
Speaker 2: prison hockey league. He was a commissioner of the prison
Speaker 2: Hockey League, make sure the ice was all clean and
Speaker 2: allly that. He became integral to lives of prisoners and
Speaker 2: the prison warden. According to one remembrance, the guy said quote,
Speaker 2: he was well liked at Stony Mountain. The warden used
Speaker 2: to have him over for dinner. They had a Toastmaster's
Speaker 2: club in the prison and he was the president. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: Ken's kids. One of them recalled quote, if some guy
Speaker 2: was having a problem with his wife or girlfriend, Dad
Speaker 2: would write a romantic poem he could send.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's playing like lonely inside, yeah, Sarah no de Bergier,
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. So it was fellow prisoners they come to
Speaker 2: love this guy. They're like, it's flying bandit. He's all
Speaker 2: right man right. So Ken, like I said, charismatic still
Speaker 2: whips Smart so his wife, Elvia, she stands by her man.
Speaker 2: She visits him in prison all the time. Their love
Speaker 2: affair undiminished. Elizabeth through despite the seven kids. She's like,
Speaker 2: I can take this all right, it wasn't easy. We
Speaker 2: can all agree on that, right, Yeah, Ken gets lucky.
Speaker 2: Eventually he's let out after eight years of his fifteen
Speaker 2: year sentence. He immediately went and rejoined Elva in the family.
Speaker 2: They moved the family up to Red Lake, up near
Speaker 2: the gold mines, but not for more crime. I don't
Speaker 2: want you worrying. Elva's not gonna get like shafted again. Instead,
Speaker 2: it becomes an actual, factual member of the community.
Speaker 3: Really. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He worked as a bush pilot, used his talents to
Speaker 2: help others. Elva opened up another shop selling like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, candles and tea cozies. Again. Eventually the family
Speaker 2: has embraced They're welcomed as members of the community. Ken.
Speaker 2: He gets elected president of the Chamber of Commerce. Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: you are that's the main Like, that's the stripe down
Speaker 2: main Street. You cannot get more mainstream than that, right.
Speaker 2: Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Gordon Perry remember him, Yeah,
Speaker 2: He once summed up my man, Ken Leishman by saying
Speaker 2: that quote, he was living on the edge all the time.
Speaker 2: In my view, he had this Errol Flynn complex. He
Speaker 2: was a romantic type of guy, so hard to argue
Speaker 2: with that, right, the flying bat was anything. He was
Speaker 2: a romantic. He was a criminally romantic. He was romantic romantic.
Speaker 2: He was just a big heart.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: His wife, Elva, she said she'd once considered divorcing him,
Speaker 2: but she couldn't turn her back on She couldn't stop
Speaker 2: loving him. Theirs was a rare true love of fair,
Speaker 2: she told a curious reporter. And and I will quote
Speaker 2: she tried to explain why she'd stayed, because I know
Speaker 2: you're confused by this, why she couldn't quit her never
Speaker 2: ending love affair. And she said, and I quote. He
Speaker 2: was the man in my life. He was my everything.
Speaker 2: He got into problems and stuff, but oh he was
Speaker 2: really good. I wrote him every day. He wrote poems
Speaker 2: for me. He never sent a car without writing a
Speaker 2: verse in it.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 2: El So you know, big heart lorry right. And then
Speaker 2: Ken Leishman goes out as a true folk hero. I
Speaker 2: saved the best relaxed Okay, he was still flying working
Speaker 2: as a bush pilot. I told you that he starts
Speaker 2: working with the remote hospitals. He's bringing people patients into
Speaker 2: the city who need like life saving tradment. Unfortunately, December
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, Ken Leishman was on one of those
Speaker 2: life saving medflights. His plane goes down, dies in the crash,
Speaker 2: or so it's presumed. His body never found, just his wallet.
Speaker 2: He's forty eight years old at the time forty eight.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Authority is determined while he was never found, he was
Speaker 2: likely eaten by wolves.
Speaker 3: So oh goodness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that was very Canadian.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the way to God.
Speaker 2: That was a tough blow. You know, when you live
Speaker 2: by the wolf, you died by the wolf. I guess. Anyway,
Speaker 2: as she said at the time, it was a hard time.
Speaker 2: We were starting out again and Ken was doing so well.
Speaker 2: We're going to have a nice life. Now. I know
Speaker 2: this sounds crazy, right, but from nineteen fifty one to
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, when you know he had the plane crash,
Speaker 2: they had a really strong true love. So I know
Speaker 2: they made They raised and parented seven kids, or she
Speaker 2: parented seven kids and Kevin. Ken never hurt anyone, right,
Speaker 2: you know, and you're throwing the gold HEISTI I know,
Speaker 2: things get criminal, ridiculous, whatever, But Ken, he had a
Speaker 2: good life. Yeah, being at the gentleman outlaw, the Flying
Speaker 2: bandit Elva. Maybe not so much. The kids maybe not
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, maybe not.
Speaker 2: The wolf's digestion not so much. But whatever, it was
Speaker 2: every Ken he did have a nice life, right, what's
Speaker 2: a ridiculous takeaway, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Impulse control is always with impulse control. We know it is.
Speaker 3: It's sort of the root of a lot of problems.
Speaker 3: And particularly like you know, when I taught the prisons,
Speaker 3: like my students and I would talk about that about
Speaker 3: impulse control and how it manifests and how it got
Speaker 3: them there. Every single one of them was like, that's
Speaker 3: exactly you know why I'm here because I can't control
Speaker 3: an impulse.
Speaker 2: When the plank when they have what about when they
Speaker 2: have planning, like he was sitting in there in prison
Speaker 2: getting ready to do his gold heights. There's no impulse
Speaker 2: control there is there.
Speaker 3: There's yeah, the impulse to do the crime like he
Speaker 3: he is, he's a husband and a father and he
Speaker 3: has a family to to take care of or to
Speaker 3: help take care of to be a part of that unit.
Speaker 3: And he has this impulse to commit this crime in
Speaker 3: order to get the you know, the money that he wants,
Speaker 3: rather than to work hard and you know, do something
Speaker 3: that's not so fun, like you know most of us
Speaker 3: do in order to get paid and run our lives.
Speaker 3: He can't control that impulse. Like you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of people will think, you know, it would be really
Speaker 3: great rob a bank, and then you know, it's so
Speaker 3: easy to out and I could do it, and I
Speaker 3: can figure out all these things. And this guy's sitting
Speaker 3: in prison because he didn't do it right. You know
Speaker 3: what I can do, Trust, I could do this well.
Speaker 3: Suppress that impulse, you know, and that's not easy for
Speaker 3: a lot of people.
Speaker 2: I was speaking of it as much more in the moment,
Speaker 2: like you know, when you pull the gun, that type
Speaker 2: of impulse control, not the like long term six months later,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do.
Speaker 3: It long term impulse? Is that avery ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: No, I don't have one. There, you go, I didn't
Speaker 2: have I didn't expect you to ask, so I just
Speaker 2: didn't even think about it. I was like, my ridiculous
Speaker 2: takeaway Lizbeth is not gonna ask me. That's what it is.
Speaker 2: So hey, you in the mood for a talkback though?
Speaker 3: I love talkbacks.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, super.
Speaker 5: I love get Hi.
Speaker 6: This is Abby from Florida. I love this show and
Speaker 6: I just wanted to say in the Charlie Chaplin episode
Speaker 6: Zarn his accent sounded like his accent from mister Rochat.
Speaker 6: It sounded like doctor dufer Schmertz from Veneas and Ferb.
Speaker 6: I don't know if I was gonna get that reference,
Speaker 6: but yeah, it's awesome. Love the show, keep doing it.
Speaker 2: Hell on me, says Abby from Florida. I want to
Speaker 2: say thank you for the talk back. So there you go.
Speaker 2: That was nice. Anyway, that was just popped out, you know. Anyway,
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Speaker 2: Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced
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