Fugitive Bank Robber Makes Deathbed Confession

A Massachusetts woman is opening up about her father's secret past. 

Thomas Randele, battling lung cancer and on his deathbed, revealed to Ashley Randele that he was not who she, or their family, thought he was. It turns out he was a fugitive bank robber named Theodore Conrad, who had spent more than half a century on the run, according to WMTV. 

Conrad, at age 20, stole $215,000 from an Ohio bank, assumed a new identity as Thomas Randele, and went on to live in Massachusetts as a car salesman. He became a devoted family man.

Conrad made his confessed in 2021 while watching an episode of "NCIS" with his wife and his daughter, who shared the story with CNN. 

"And he looked over at us and really calmly said, 'Ladies, just in case it ever comes up, I had to change my name when I moved here. The authorities are probably still looking for me. I don't want to talk about it. But just so you know in case it comes up, you're not blindsided.' And then we went back to 'NCIS,'" she said, according to WMTV. 

The next day, Ashley Randele asked him for more details.

"If his name wasn't Tom Randele, I deserved to know my father's name and that I deserved to know my name. And he finally said that he would tell me as long as I promised not to look into it. And that's when he told me that his name was Ted Conrad," she said.

"I obviously did not listen to him, and I did look into it. And that night at about 2:30 in the morning alone in my childhood bedroom, I looked up Ted Conrad and then put in the word 'missing,' figuring it's been 50 years. Somebody might be looking for him. And that's when I saw the headline like 'Vault Teller Heist.'

"And I was absolutely floored. Like, could not have been more shocked. I think I said out loud just to the room, 'Oh my gosh. My life is a Lifetime movie.'"

Officials reported that his bank robbery was influenced by the classic film "The Thomas Crown Affair," released in 1968, which depicts a millionaire businessman stealing from a bank as a form of amusement.

Throughout Conrad's time on the run, his story became the subject of episodes of "America's Most Wanted" and "Unsolved Mysteries."

Conrad's wife and daughter planned to talk to the authorities a year after his death in March 2021. But in November of that year, U.S. Marshals showed up at their door, asking questions about the case. They were told they wouldn't be charged.

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