(NewsNation) — In some of his final words, dying father and husband Thomas Randele told loved ones a secret more than half a century in the making — he was a fugitive bank robber wanted by the FBI. Now, after hearing her dad’s deathbed confession, Randele’s daughter is telling his real story.
In 1969, Theodore John Conrad pulled off one of the biggest bank robberies in the history of Cleveland, Ohio. At the time, Conrad was a 20-year-old bank teller at the Society National Bank. Near the end of his shift, investigators say he walked out with a paper bag containing $215,000, which now equates to more than $1.7 million. Then, he was never seen again.
Conrad started a new life in Lynnfield, Massachusetts under a new name: Thomas Randele.
Ashley Randele didn’t know Conrad as a former bank teller on the run. She knew him as her devoted father and a pillar of the Lynnfield community, where he sold luxury cars for years.
“He was a very calm, nonchalant guy, not somebody who was ever looking over his shoulder,” Ashley told NewsNation host Dan Abrams.
In hindsight, authorities think Conrad starting his new life in Lynnfield may not have been a coincidence since it was close to where the 1968 “The Thomas Crown Affair” movie was filmed. According to investigators, a year before the bank robbery, Conrad had become obsessed with the film starring Steve McQueen.
It wasn’t until he was on his deathbed in 2021 that Ashley learned the truth about her dad. She said her father was watching “NCIS” when he mentioned the yearslong search for him.
“I mean, it’s shocking, right? I don’t think anyone ever expects their father to sort of nonchalantly say, ‘Ladies, just in case something comes up after I pass, I just want you to know that when I moved here, I changed my name. The authorities might still be looking for me,’” Ashley said.
She said since her dad casually went back to watching TV, it seemed like a joke at first.
“Until I very quickly realized that he was not joking,” Ashley said.
When her dad came clean, she looked up the name Theodore Conrad. When her father’s story checked out, her heart dropped.
“I looked him up. Shocked is an understatement,” Ashley told Abrams, later adding: “It was crazy and also a little scary.”
Months after her father died of lung cancer in May 2021, U.S. marshals knocked on her family’s door to crack the case.
“The knock on the door — terrifying,” Ashley remembered.
But she said authorities immediately put her at ease and there was never talk of potentially trying to charge her or her mother.
“Finding out that your father or your husband is a fugitive when he’s dying, I can’t imagine anybody in that moment saying, ‘Well, the right thing to do is call the authorities.’ You know, the right thing to do is to take care of your family and make sure their last weeks are comfortable,” Ashley said.
Now, Ashley has created an investigative podcast series called “Smoke Screen: My Fugitive Dad” to share her father’s story in depth.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.