Unveiling the Final Confession: Her Father's Dark Secret Revealed
Unveiling a hidden truth on his deathbed, her father's shocking confession as a fugitive who stole $215,000 from an Ohio bank unravels a captivating tale of deception and intrigue Now, she embarks on a quest for answers, only to be confronted by unexpected visitors: US Marshals
Thomas Randele was on his deathbed, battling lung cancer and harboring a long-held secret.
After undergoing his first round of chemotherapy in March 2021, he beckoned his daughter to his side in suburban Boston to reveal the shocking truth - he was a fugitive who had been on the run for over 50 years. Back when he was 20, he had committed a bank robbery in Ohio, making off with $215,000. And as it turned out, his true identity was not Thomas Randele, but Theodore Conrad.
Urging his daughter not to investigate the case, he was shocked when Ashley Randele couldn't sleep after this startling revelation. So, like anyone curious would, she searched for "Ted Conrad missing" and came across an article about a vault teller robbing a bank. Recognizing her father, she was stunned to find hundreds of articles about him.
Every time she clicked, she watched her father's dark past unravel before her. In Lynnfield, Massachusetts, Thomas Randele was a car salesman and a golf pro at the country club. He adored his wife and only child, doting on his daughter and attending her soccer games in khaki pants and fast cars. In an unexpected turn of events, he also contributed to local police charities and spent hours engrossed in crime shows like "NCIS," according to his daughter.
In Cleveland, he was known as Ted Conrad, a skilled bank robber who had pulled off one of the biggest heists in Ohio history, equivalent to $1.7 million today, at a young age. Inspired by "The Thomas Crown Affair," he became a wanted criminal, with his face appearing on wanted posters and on TV shows like "Americas Most Wanted" and "Unsolved Mysteries." Two US marshals in Cleveland, a father-and-son duo, were determined to capture him.
"I informed him that I had researched about him and found countless articles. They are still searching for him, in case he's unaware. We need to tell Mom," shared 38-year-old Ashley Randele, who has created a new podcast exploring her father's identity and the motivations behind his bank robbery.
A day later, Ashley revealed to CNN that she had pulled her mother Kathy aside and disclosed the information.
Her dad was obsessed with a Steve McQueen movie about a bank heist
"She was skimming through the online articles, and she just kept exclaiming, Oh my God! Oh, my God!, for like 10 minutes," Ashley Randele said. (Kathy Randele declined to comment to CNN.) "She'd known him for the better part of 40 years, and to learn this massive secret—I can't imagine how traumatizing that was for her."
For fifty years, investigators were baffled by Conrad's disappearance. It was likened to the 1971 case of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked a plane, parachuted with $200,000 in cash, and disappeared into the vast wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, never to be found.
Conrad's heist was reminiscent of a movie plot. On July 11, 1969, as he arrived for his shift as a teller at Society National Bank in Cleveland, it was his birthday weekend. To celebrate, he purchased a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes during his break. At the close of the day, he quietly packed $215,000 into a paper bag in the vault and walked away from his old life.
The bank didn't discover the robbery until Monday, giving him a two-day head start.
Conrad sent two heartfelt letters to his then-girlfriend from Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, expressing his deep love and longing for her. However, soon after, the case went cold as authorities could find no traces of him.
Theodore "Ted" Conrad was an unassuming bank teller when he strolled out of an Ohio bank with more than $200,000.
Ross Anthony Willis/Fairfax Media/Getty Images
Following his disappearance, Apollo 11 successfully landed the first humans on the moon the week after. The historic mission dominated the headlines, pushing the mysterious bank robber in Cleveland out of the spotlight. Despite this, investigators continued to pursue leads, receiving alleged sightings in multiple states, including California, Hawaii, Texas, and Oregon. However, all leads turned out to be false, leading to frustration among federal officials. In an effort to generate new leads, the case was highlighted on true-crime shows such as "America's Most Wanted."
Formerly known as Ted Conrad, he was now starting over as Randele in Massachusetts. Interestingly, he decided to make his new home in a suburb north of Boston, the very city where his beloved movie was based and shot.
According to authorities, Conrad was fixated on "The Thomas Crown Affair," the 1968 film starring Steve McQueen as a charismatic millionaire who robs a Boston bank for the thrill of it. (The movie was later remade in the 1990s with Pierce Brosnan.) His acquaintances in Ohio revealed that he had watched the movie multiple times prior to the robbery.
He even boasted about landing a job as a vault teller without having to give his fingerprints, and confidently discussed the ease of stealing money from the bank, according to investigators.
Ashley Randele thinks her father was so enamored with the movie that he chose his new first name, Thomas, as a nod to its main character.
She admitted that her dad didn't exactly behave like someone in hiding. He drove her to school every day and picked her up on his days off. Sometimes, he even joined her school trips as a chaperone.
After his confession, she began to understand certain things. Her father, who had been clean-shaven when he was younger, now always wore a beard and hardly ever removed his baseball hat in public.
"He never ventured beyond the borders of the country," Ashley shared. She recounted a time when she and her mother pleaded with him to join them on a trip to France, but he declined, citing his lack of interest in international travel.
"He believed that there were plenty of fascinating sights to see right here in the United States. He felt no need to explore beyond its borders," added Randele.
She realizes now that his false identity meant he had no passport.
She began searching for answers about her fathers shadowy past
The Randele family was thrown into chaos by his confession.
Ashley and her mother had knowledge that her dad's life was limited to only a few months. With this in mind, they made the conscious choice to keep his secret from the authorities. She explained that the last thing she wanted was for her father, who was 71 and ailing, to be taken to prison.
"The first thing Mom and I said to him was, We love you so much. And finding this out does not change that we love you. But we do need to talk about it," she said.
Photos, a driver's license, the original warrant and other items from Conrad's 1969 robbery are shown on December 16, 2021, at the Carl B. Stokes U.S. Courthouse in Cleveland.
Ken Blaze/AP
At the time, I couldn't bring myself to be mad at him because it didn't seem fair. I was focused on extracting as much information from him as I could, just desperate to know... It wasn't until after he passed away that I allowed myself to feel angry. Ashley Randele revealed that she had once promised her father that she would keep her last name even after getting married, so that it wouldn't die with him.
After his confession, she questioned whether the name she had was still truly hers. "It was difficult to hear that my name isn't really mine. It's on my birth certificate, it is a legitimate name. But his name was a lie," she mused. "I briefly considered changing my name."
After her father's confession, he passed away in May 2021.
Randele explores her journey of taking care of her terminally ill father and coming to terms with the shock of discovering the truth about their family's hidden secrets in her latest podcast, "Smoke Screen: My Fugitive Dad."
The woman from suburban Boston, who works in retail and customer service, suspected that her father's audacious robbery was motivated by more than just his love for a movie. As a result, she took it upon herself to seek out answers. After some time, she successfully located some of her father's old friends and girlfriends, who shared anecdotes about him and assisted her in piecing together his past.
Conducting the podcast has brought forth some insights and enabled her to process her grief. It has also started the journey of reconciling the seemingly contradictory personality of her father as a discreet bank robber in Ohio with the devoted husband and father she knew in Massachusetts. For instance, her dad's acquaintances shared that he was proficient in French, which was shocking as she struggled with French assignments as a child, and he never offered to help.
"I desired to unveil the truth about my father. I also aimed to understand Ted Conrad, the bank robber, and Tom Randele, my father," she shared with CNN. "I wanted to find the common ground between them."
After her dads death, US Marshals showed up at her door
Ashley Randele said she and her mother made a pact to spend one year grieving the man theyd lost before sharing his secret with investigators.
She mentioned that they had planned to alert the police in June 2022, but they were preempted by federal authorities. The Randeles were unexpectedly visited by US Marshals in November 2021 at their home in Lynnfield. Ashley Randele stated that the marshals assured her and her mother that they would not be charged.
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How father-son duo helped solve 1969 bank heist mystery
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CNN
After Randele's death in May, investigators received a major lead in the case when someone sent his obituary to a crime reporter in Ohio, along with a note suggesting that the deceased man was likely Conrad, as per Ashley Randele's statement. The obituary listed her father's date of birth as July 10, 1947, the same birthday as Conrad's but two years older, according to US Marshal Pete Elliott, who also noted that Conrads' parents' names were listed in the obituary, with Randele added to the end.
Investigators started digging and discovered a 2014 bankruptcy filing by Randele at a Boston federal court. It was determined that the handwriting on a 1967 college application filled out by Conrad matched that on the filing, according to Elliott.
They subsequently traveled from Cleveland to Lynnfield to verify Conrad's identity. Elliott, whose father John Elliott had dedicated much of his law enforcement career to finding Conrad before his passing in 2020, was among the investigators.
As a US marshal in Ohio, the younger Elliott finally uncovered the answers that had eluded his father for decades. Describing the case in a podcast, Elliott referred to it as "an elegantly simple but infinitely complex" mystery.
He expressed frustration that his father had spent years pursuing false leads across the country, causing him to miss important moments like his son's baseball games. Furthermore, Elliott was angered by the fact that Conrad had stolen money that would have taken his father many years to earn as a federal officer.
Conrad was sometimes seen as a Robin Hood by some, but to my dad, he was just a thief," he stated. However, the events of November 2021 offered a sense of finality. When Elliott, a federal marshal from Ohio, showed up at their door and identified himself, Ashley Randele believed her reaction spoke volumes to the investigators.
"I think you know why were here," she said Elliott told her.
