Culprit Of Historic Cleveland Bank Heist Finally ID'd After 52 Years

Federal authorities have finally identified one of America’s most wanted fugitives. The breakthrough in the cold case comes more than five decades after the crime, hailed as one of the biggest bank robberies in Cleveland history.

Theodore John Conrad — or Theodore “Ted” Conrad — pulled it off on Friday, July 11, 1969. Conrad walked into his job as a bank teller at Society National Bank, located at 127 Public Square, and stole $215,000 at the end of the day. That’s equivalent to more than $1.7 million today, according to a press release from the U.S. Marshals Service on Friday (November 12). Officials note that the bank didn’t realize anything was wrong until the following Monday morning (July 14, 1969), when Conrad didn’t show up for work.

The U.S. Marshals Service explains that Conrad “became obsessed” with “The Thomas Crown Affair,” a Steve McQueen film that premiered in 1968. The movie is about a “debonair, adventuresome bank executive believes he has pulled off the perfect multi-million dollar heist, only to match wits with a sexy insurance investigator who will do anything to get her man,” its synopsis reads on IMDb. After his obsession with the movie began, Conrad “bragged to his friends about how easy it would be to take money from the bank and even told them he planned to do so,” according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

In the past five decades, America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries have featured Conrad as investigators chased leads nationwide. Finally, U.S. Marshals received a tip from Cleveland that took them to Boston, Massachusetts, where they identified Lynnfield man Thomas Randele as Conrad. “He had been living an unassuming life in the Boston suburb since 1970. Ironically, he moved to Boston near the location where the original ‘Thomas Crown Affair’ movie was filmed,” the release states. Randele died of lung cancer in May of 2021. He was 71.

Peter J. Elliott, United States Marshal for Northern Ohio, said in a statement:

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