U.S. man reveals he was infamous Cleveland bank robber on his death bed
CTV
For the past 50 years, Thomas Randele was a fugitive wanted in one of the largest bank robberies in Cleveland's history, living in Boston under a new name he created six months after the heist in the summer of 1969.
They gathered to say goodbye to a guy they called one of the nicest people they'd ever known -- a devoted family man who gushed about his daughter, a golfer who never bent the rules, a friend to so many that a line stretched outside the funeral home a week later.
By the time of their final visit last May at Randele's house in suburban Boston, the cancer in his lungs had taken away his voice. So they all left without knowing that their friend they'd spent countless hours swapping stories with never told them his biggest secret of all.
For the past 50 years, he was a fugitive wanted in one of the largest bank robberies in Cleveland's history, living in Boston under a new name he created six months after the heist in the summer of 1969. Not even his wife or daughter knew until he told them in what authorities described as a deathbed confession.
How he was able to leave behind one family and create a new life -- while evading a father and son from the U.S. Marshals Service who never gave up their hunt -- is just now being pieced together.
