Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / The Kenora Bank Robbery - Paul Higgins

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The Kenora Bank Robbery - Paul Higgins · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: On a cold afternoon in May nineteen seventy three, a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: quiet town in northwestern Ontario became the stage for one
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: of the most shocking crimes in Canadian history. A masked
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: stranger walked into a bank carrying guns, explosives, and a
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: plan that would end in fire, chaos, and death, all
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: while being broadcast live and people watched from the streets.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: More than fifty years later, we still know exactly what
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: happened that day, but what we do not know is
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: who the man was who said it all in motion.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: This is the story of the Canora bank robber.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: The following podcast material intended more mature audience listener discretion.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: It is almost twenty twenty six. Christmas has passed and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: we are in that time where nothing absolutely matters whatsoever,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: not the calories or anything.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those it's like what just a few days? Really,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: you know that you get of that pretty much and
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: then boom. Then you have to have every single goal
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: you ever wanted in your life set for twenty twenty six.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you better start now otherwise you're lazy. Yes, Sutton.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. You're definitely not, but that seems to
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: be the expectation. Yeah, don't listen to it. You're amazing
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: just the way you are. You do, Yeah, you do.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: You If you want to be a little healthier, be
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: a little healthier, you want to be a little more active,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: be a little more active. If you want to spend
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: more time at home in your pjs, spend more fucking
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: time at home in your pjs.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah that sounds nice, right. Why am I not wearing
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: pjs right now?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I kind of them. My jeans are not, but they
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: are stretchy. But I am wearing just a comfy hoodie,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: so that's okay.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: We actually have to talk about this. So when I
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: come home, like I don't wear pajamas per se, but
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: it's like, you know, sweatpants or like stretchy yoga pants
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: and like a nice sweater, crew neck or whatever, like
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: comfy clothes. Ben doesn't do that. He always has his
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: fucking jeans on, and I would lose my mind. There's
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: just no way. But there's no way I could live
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: life like that.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: They're like a stretchy denim though, So it's not that bad.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: It's not just like the stiff No, it's weird. It's weird.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: You drink black coffee, you wear jeans as comfy clothes like,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: it's just nah, I'm.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: A redneck, that's why.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: That's why genes to me, I don't think would ever
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: be like a comfy pant. But maybe I just don't
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: have the right genes.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: You need to be a specific kind of person to
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: understand and appreciate the comfortability of genes.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Well, maybe you need to try on
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: some Lululemon a line pants maybe and tell me what
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: you think.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Because what I do when I come home, I may
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: not put on some Lululemon or some sweatpants or something
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: company like that, but I do take my belt off. Yeah,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and sometimes I even just unbutton my genes and that's.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Nice taking the belt off. This is probably TMI, maybe,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: but it's kind of maybe equivalent to like taking your
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: braw off.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Probably be like a little bit of a deep breath,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Definitely, something that's tight and constricting just loosens you.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Know what's not tight and constricting though hatreon.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I like, is there going to be able to be
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: a segway from all?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Definitely Hatreon is not tightened constricting because you get extra things,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: you get more, you get the behind the scenes and
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: an exclusive episode that will be coming out tomorrow. And
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: we have some amazing people who signed up like Michelle O'Donnell,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Jojo Austin, Gregory Kirie, and Sarah Kent. So thank you
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: so much for those amazing people who are not being
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: constricted by the regular episodes only released on a regular
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: schedule here, but are also getting the extra good good.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, tomorrow is an extra drop, an extra episode
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: dropped on there, so it is pretty exciting.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Though it might be a little later in the day.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: This one's a late, a little later in the day
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: because I'm a little bit in that holiday mood and
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: try trying to get back into my work schedule is
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a little difficult.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: It is tough this time of year to kind of feel,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: you know, super motivated, and then you're also have a
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: little bit more obligations with like friends and stuff. So yeah,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: you can get behind you.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: But it will be coming out tomorrow and they will
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: get that access.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well this one, I'm intrigued. I think we
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: need to dive right in.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: You're intrigued, what about it intrigues you. The fact that
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: it's a Canadian one.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Oh I miss that.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I sent me intro. It's from Ontario. It's a quote.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: A quiet town in northwestern Ontario became the stage for
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: one of the most shocking crimes in Canadian history. Okay,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: that's what I said in the intro quote unquote.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I must not have been listening at that point.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: You must not have been listening to Do you want
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: me to just read the intro again?
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: No? No, no, I do really like Canadian cases too,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: So this is extra bonness. That's great. I would have
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: heard it eventually, or when we would have stopped because
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: we needed to do something, I'd be like, where does
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: this take place?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Probably, well, I will sell you. I will tell you this.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I've got a little like I'm starting to implement, like
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: a little intro here where I'm trying to set the
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: scene for the entirety of the story. And what I
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: have here is the very first sentence with the locations
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you would have caught up right away.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, So with that, let me set the scene. And
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I'm going to start with Canora, Ontario, which is location.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And it was a kind of place where afternoons kind
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: of meld together pretty easy. It was a small city
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: near the Manitoba border, surrounded by lakes and trees, where
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: big news usually meant the weather warnings that would come out,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: or maybe a highway closure or something like that. But
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: on Thursday May tenth, nineteen seventy three, well, it was
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: a little different. The day itself didn't really feel special
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: at all. It was a cool, gray and dreary spring
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: afternoon where people moved a little slower and kept their
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: heads down, as if the weather directly correlated to their motions.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Just after three pm, Main Street South looked the way
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: it always did. Shops were open, cars passed through, and
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: people were at work. Kids were in fact Stone School,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: with radios humming in offices and storefronts, going about their day.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: But across the street from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: a local radio station carried on with its regular programming,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: unaware that they were about to see something pretty interesting. Now.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Nothing suggested that within minutes, this quiet stretch of down
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: town would become the most infamous location in the city's history.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Inside the Bank, it was busy as usual. Tellers worked
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: their stations, managers handled calls, and money moved across counters
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: in the ordinary and rather unremarkable fashion that it always had.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: There were no alarms ringing or no shouting of people,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: and no sense that anything was about to go wrong.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: But that is when a man walked through the front doors,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and he was unlike anyone the bank had ever seen before.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: He wasn't in a hurry or running or shouting. He
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: was masked and he looked like anything but just another
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: customer stepping out of the cold. Within moments, that calm
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: was completely gone, and the routine of the afternoon while
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: it cracked wide open as Canora, was then pulled into
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: something it had never experienced before. It was something that
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: would unfold in real time in front of hundreds of
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: witnesses and leave behind questions that still haven't been answered today,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: more than fifty years later. And with that, I think
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: we can get into our story a little more. Do
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: you have any questions, any thoughts?
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Where did this take place? Just kidding?
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, man, well it took place.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Actually, I'm not gonna lie. I haven't heard of Well,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: I've obviously heard of Ontario, but I haven't heard of
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: this city, Canora.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit of a smaller place for sure.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we're good though, Yeah, I'm I'm ready.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into it. In nineteen seventy three, Canora
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: was still very much a small city pretending to be
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: bigger than it was. The population sat around roughly eleven
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: thousand people, and most everyone either knew each other or
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: knew of each other. It was a working town with mills, boats,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: and some tourism in the warmer months. It was also
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: a place where a serious crime was rare enough to
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: be talked about four years later when it happened. Now
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: downtown Canora revolved around its main Street South, which was
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a compact stretch of road where businesses sat shoulder to
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: shoulder and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was right
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: in the middle of it.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: All.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Across the street stood the local AM radio station. Its
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: second floor window overlooked the sidewalks and the bank's front doors.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Nearby were restaurants, department stores, hotels, and bars, you know,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: places filled with people. On Honestly, any normal weekday afternoon,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: it was a busy hub and that layout would turn
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: into a very strong matter for the story, more than
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: anyone realized. Because Kenora wasn't built for an event like
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: what was about to happen. I mean, no place really
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: is not for crowd control or not for a hostage situation,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and it certainly wasn't ready for something like a bomb
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: threat playing out in front of hundreds of spectators. And
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: by the time anyone realized how bad this could get,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the street, well, it was already filling up. It was
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: just a regular Thursday afternoon at first, but soon this
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: day began turning into a public spectacle, one that nearly
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: ten percent of the entire town's population would end up
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: watching first hand. Okay, and the man who'd set it
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: all in motion while he'd already been lurking in Canora
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: for weeks, the first trace of him in Canora appeared
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: more than two weeks before the explosion that would come.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: On April twenty third, nineteen seventy three, a man checked
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: into the swankiest hotel in town, the Kenrica Hotel. It
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: was a solid brick building on Main Street that catered
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to traveling workers, salesmen, and the occasional tourists. He signed
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the registry under the name Paul Higgins and listed his
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: address as four three five Glen Drive, Toronto. He arrived
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: with a yellow steamer trunk in tow. It was large
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: and heavy enough that the taxi driver who brought him
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: to the hotel had to help him carry it inside,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and painted on it clearly on the lid was p Higgins,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: clearly standing for Paul Higgins. Now. The man didn't talk much.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: When he did, it was very brief at best. The
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: taxi driver later said he thought he heard a foreign
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: accent in his tone, possibly French, maybe even German when
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: he spoke, but the man didn't say enough to really
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: be sure. The hotel staff noticed something too. He wasn't
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: rude or dismissing, but he wasn't exactly friendly either. He
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: simply just kind of kept to himself. Now. Physically he
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: was pretty standard to those around him. He was a
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Caucasian male, somewhere between forty and fifty years old, average height,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: average build, with brown hair and reddish brown beard. He
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: dressed pretty plainly, like someone who didn't particularly care about fashion,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you know, more about being practical. All in all, he
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: was the kind of man you might notice once and
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: then forget moments later. At the time, there was no
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: reason to remember this man. Canora saw strangers pass through
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: all the time, whether they were truck drivers, seasonal workers,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: or men heading west or men headed east and you know,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: with intention to not really stay long here. Paul Higgins,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, looked just like another one
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: of them. Now, over the next few days, the unremarkable
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Paul Higgins became a familiar presence around the downtown Canora.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: I was waiting for that unremarkable word. Yeah, why, because
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know, that's it's such an interesting way to
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: describe people, someone who just you know, you you notice
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: once and then they're gone out of your mind or whatever.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: How about you describe that as to people sometimes? And
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just I was like, he's gonna
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: I'm surprised he hasn't said unremarkable.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Should I stop saying unremarkable on the podcast? No?
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: No, okay, But I do have one question already, was
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: didn't the hotel staff or the people know why this
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: guy was there or was he kind of just a tourist.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think they really asked why he was just
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: staying there just there. No, they didn't ask like, oh,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: are you staying here as tourism or work? It was
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: just he booked a room and that was that, okay,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And outside of that he was pretty unremarkable.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Unremarkable, that's true.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: He was now being as unremarkable as he was. He
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: then proceeded to move through the town quietly. He walked
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: main street, drifted past shop windows, and lingered near local businesses,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: including the bank, not long enough to really draw suspicion
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: or attention, though those who interacted with him described him
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: as you know, the same thing again and again. He
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: gave short answers, made a little eye contact, and didn't
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: engage in small talk. If spoken to, he replied in brief,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: clipped sentences, sometimes just a word or two. A few
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: people thought they heard of European accent, and they're possibly
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: German in his voice. Others, well, they weren't too sure
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: at all. At a town restaurant, downtown, staff began to
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: notice patterns. Higgins came in at the same time every
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: single morning, always sat at the same seat, and always
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: positioned himself so we face inward rather than outwards to
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the street. He ordered the same meal to the point
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: that you know, whether the waitress or the server would
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: come up and ask the usual the regular, and he
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: would say yes, So it was the same day after
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: day without any variation. Before eating, he would wipe down utensils, carefully,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: rearrange condiment size and height going in order, and reset
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the table as if someone were almost meant to join him.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: But then when his meal came, he'd proceed to eat alone.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: To people watching, it felt a little off, not threatening,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: just a little unnerving, like watching someone rehearse something you
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: didn't quite understand. By now, multiple people had clocked the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: same details. The brownish red beard, average height and build,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Vedora style hat that he wore, quiet and rupt demeanor.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Now a very key detail came out on April twenty fifth,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: when the man calling himself Paul Higgins checked out of
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the hotel that he was staying in and appeared to
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: leave Canora altogether. Hotel staff later told police that Higgins
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: said he was heading west by bus towards Winnipeg, a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: very believable explanation. In a town accustomed to transient and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: short term stays and workers passing by. Nothing about his
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: departure seemed unusual. Guests left town every single day. Higgins
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: simply became one of the many more names to cross
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: off the registry, except he didn't take everything with him
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and his name coming off the registry. Well, it stayed
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: because instead of clearing out his room, Higgins asked the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: hotel to store his yellow steamer trunk, the same one
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that was stenciled with P. Higgins in bold lettering. Now
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: he paid for the continued use and storage of his
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: hotel room in advance, offering no explanation beyond a casual
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: assurance that he would be back. Then walked out of
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the hotel and vanished.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: And I imagine that's kind of considered a bit odd.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I mean a little bit. But who are they to question?
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I guess that's a lot of money.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: It is. He's paying in advance for a hotel room
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: for a week or so that he's not going to
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: be staying in, and to store his trunk. I mean, sure,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: why not. They don't have to clean, maintain, or try
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and resell the room. They're getting the income. Sure, why
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: not go on your way to win a peg, like
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you say, by boss, and we'll see you when you're back.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it makes sense for them for sure.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly So for the next several days, Paul Higgins didn't
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: seem to be around. He was simply gone. There was
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: no confirmed sightings, no records placing him firmly in Winnipeg
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: even or anywhere else. If you met someone acquired materials,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: maybe or maybe finalized his intentions during that window, it
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: happened very quietly and without any witness's presence. Even when
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: police later tried to reconstruct his movements, the trail ended
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: almost as soon as it began. Then, on May fifth,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, Paul Higgins made his way back to Kenora.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: He checked into the same hotel again under the same name,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: using the same fake Toronto address, and reclaimed the steamer
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: trunk he had left behind. This time, he didn't drift
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: through town like a visitor killing time, though. His movements
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: seemed quieter and very much so more deliberate than they
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: were before. He walked Main Street like he did, but
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: he lingered a little longer near storefronts, passing banks without
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: going inside, And like before, he didn't strike up those conversations.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: He didn't ask questions. He just simply seemed to watch.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Those who remembered him from April well. They said something
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: different seemed to be there, something felt changed. He seemed
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: more focus and less distracted. Possibly by routine. Now inside
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: his hotel room, Paul Higgins also spent long st of
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: time alone. When he came out from there, well, there
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what he
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: was going to go do. Sometimes he would disappear for hours.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: No one saw him with friends or acquaintances, no one
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: saw him carrying large packages, and no one heard arguments
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: or laughter or raised voices through the walls. He was
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: moving like a shadow whose presence in Canora grew larger
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and larger without anyone really seeming to notice. By the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: second week of May, Paul Higgins' attention narrowed. Several people
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: later recalled in hindsight seeing him pause outside banks, including
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce on Main Street South.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: He reportedly stopped, simply looked, and then moved on, without
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: any outward signs of urgency or even visible anxiety. Nothing
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: about him or his motions suggested the violence that was
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: about to unfold. The afternoon of Thursday May tenth, nineteen
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: seventy three started just like any other typical day in Canora.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: It was mid afternoon, around two forty five pm, the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: kind of slow stretch between lunch and closing time, when
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the main street felt almost sleepy. People moved in and
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: out of shops, cars idled along the curb and inside
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce on Main Street South,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: staff were finishing the routine transactions, unaware they were only
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: minutes away from experiencing an infamous and historical moment for
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the town. And that's when the doors opened and a
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: man stepped inside wearing a black belaklava mask, its fabrics
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: stretched tight over his face, with crude openings cut for
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: his mouth and nose and eyes. He was carrying a
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: large bag. He was armed, and he moved with an
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: unsettling calm that didn't match the situation he was about
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to create.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: That would be such an alarming site working pretty much anywhere,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: especially at a bank.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I at a bank, it paints almost immediately the intentions
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: behind an individual. Yeah, and you know the scene that's
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: about to play out. I mean, but yes, any situation scary.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: But we've grown accustomed to what a bank robber looks like.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And the second you catch that out of your peripheral
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: being in a bank, you know.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Immediately, Yeah, that it's just daunting.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Really now, witnesses and later police reports would confirm that
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: he carried both a rifle and a pistol with him,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: along with a shoulder bag or a flight bag some
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: would call it, and another duffel bag as well in.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Tow so very prepared, very prepared.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: But when he stepped in, he didn't shout, he didn't
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: take his gun and fire a warning shot to gather attention.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: In fact, he didn't even draw attention to himself other
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: than the way he looked. He simply walked directly towards
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the bank manager's office and took a seat in the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: chair across from his desk. Al Reid was the bank manager,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and as he sat down next to al Reed or
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: across from him, he placed a large Duffel bag on
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the floor beside him, and then he made a demand
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that instantly set this robbery apart from every other one
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Canora or any other place in Canada has ever seen before,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: because he specifically told the manager called the police.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: He told the manager to call the police.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: He did.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: I was not expecting that.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think the manager was either.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: No, well, the manager was probably also shitting himself.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Probably it is a very high likelihood.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Of that, Yeah, because that's scariest shit definitely now.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: When al Reed had this situation upon him, he hesitated,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and the robber made it clear he wasn't bluffing. He
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: pulled out his pistol and pointed it at him from
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: across the down demanding he called the police. Oh I
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: don't like that, so read quickly obliged and dialed as instructed.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: The call went through and as soon as the line
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: was connected directly to Canora's Chief of Police, Webb Angstrom.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: The message he sent was simple, there's a robbery in progress,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and the man inside was prepared to escalate the situation
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: if his demands were not going to be met. The
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: mass man then took control of the space with an
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: unsettling calm. He ordered customers and most staff to leave
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the building, one group at a time, keeping only what
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: he needed inside. By the time the doors were locked
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: once again, the bank felt very hollow and painfully small.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Only a handful of people remained inside, including the bank robber,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the manager a'l Reed, and at least one police officer
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: who had cautiously entered for early negotiations so he was
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: tie to the outside. The robber began directing them to
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: gather cash from the teller's drawers and stuffing them into
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the duffel bag that he had brought with him. Then
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: he showed them what was in a second bag, the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: shoulder bag that was hanging from his body. Inside was
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: a homemade explosive device with six sticks of dynamite bound
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: together with tape and wired to a crude trigger mechanism.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: The robber calmly explained that it was all live explosives,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: and to make the point unmistakably clear, he lifted a
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: trigger and placed it between his teeth, biting down on it.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: The device was rigged with something that is called a
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: dead man's switch. You have to hold the switch down,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: think like a button, holding the button down to maintain
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: a connection. And so long as that happens, so long
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: as that connection is maintained. How long is this? So
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: long as the switch, sure, the button however you want
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: to look at it is held down, then that means
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the explosive will not detonate. But if he lets go
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: of this switch, release boom the bomb triggers.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, jeez, this is really setting the scene of just
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: what it would feel like in there.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, and the reason they call it a dead man's
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: switch is because if he loses consciousness, if he's shot,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: if he is killed, if someone tries to take it
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: away from him, or if he releases the trigger or
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: switch for any reason whatsoever, for example, if he dies,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: the bomb detonates.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, I didn't go there for some reason, but
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: that does make sense.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: One wrong move could kill every single person in this yeah. Now.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Read later said that the man didn't appear frantic or intoxicated.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: He spoke very clearly, He gave instructions without shouting, and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: yet there was an unmistakable sense that he didn't care
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: how this ended, as long as it ended on his terms,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: which is a very terrifying situation, to say the least. Next,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the robber demanded access to the vault in the bank,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and Reid told him that he couldn't open it without
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: an external code. The man well, He responded by threatening
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: to let go of the switch and building up if
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: he didn't get that code, so face with the reality
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: of the device in front of him, the code was
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: soon obtained and the vault was opened. Cash was then
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: beginning to be transferred from the vault into additional bags,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: until the robber could barely carry any more. By then,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the floor was cluttered with money filled in duffel bags,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: and the tension made the bank inside suffocating. Outside meanwhile,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: police negotiators were running out of options. The man had
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: everything he'd been asking for except for one final demand
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: safe passage out of the bank, and had to help
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: them escape. As police were trying to figure out how
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: to deal with the situation, things outside were becoming uncontrollable.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: You see, as I mentioned, directly across from the main
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: street sat a local AM radio station.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Mm HMM with a great view exactly, and.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: As police cruisers were arriving and officers began blocking traffic,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the station's news staff realized something serious was unfolding outside,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and they went live almost immediately. The robbery was being
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: broadcast in real time to the entire region. As broadcasters
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: were literally leaning out their window to report everything they saw.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: They didn't have anyone reporting back to them, no third person,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: no van running to site. They were simply there. They
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: wanted the story shirt, but they also intended to deliver caution.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Listeners were told to stay away from downtown to clear
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the area and let police do their jobs. However, the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: effect was the exact opposite, because we know humans, We
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: know how people react. In a town where nothing like
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: this ever happened, word of a bank robbery spread like wildfire,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and people left work, parents pulled their kids out of school,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: drivers abandoned their cars blocks away and walked in. Also,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: they can get a first hand look at what was
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: going on. Within minutes, then tens of minutes, hundreds of
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: people flooded main street. By later estimates, nearly a thousand
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: spectators were present. Roughly ten percent of Kenora's entire population
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: at that time were gathered within eyesight of the bank.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: That seems like a complete disaster in the making.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Though, definitely, But this is that kind of herd mentality
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I want to go see. Humans are like this for
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: whatever reason.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I guess. But do they not realize that there was
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: also like a danger for them to be there?
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Well, they kind of are aware of that. There's some
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: interviews and stuff that I saw online where people are
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: poking their heads around a building, aware that they have
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: an armed robber, you know, robbing the bank in progress.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: But they're like, well, what are the odds of my
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: head down the block getting shot? You know, it's such
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a small target. What they didn't know, Like they're standing
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: shoulder to shoulder, Some are climbing on cars or storefronts,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: whatever they need to do to get a view, and
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: many well they had no idea what they were really
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: watching is the problem. They knew there was a robbery,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: they knew there was an armed robber, but the dynamite
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: only the police knew that.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: They didn't know that part.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: No one knew that part. Police officers tried to establish
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: a perimeter in hopes of keeping the scene safe, but
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: they were just simply overwhelmed with everything that was going on.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Canora wasn't equipped for out control in this scale, especially
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: not for a live hostage situation involving explosives, because that's
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: exactly what this is.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Well, and they probably didn't even have enough police officers
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: exactly either.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Definitely, and there's no unified command structure. There's no trained
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: hostage negotiation team either. You say that they don't have
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: enough people on the force, you're right, But they're not
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: trained for this either, which is another massive part of it.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: So they have nothing to fall back on. They have
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: no training for something like this, and it was well officers,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: to be fair, they did the best they could. They improvised.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: They reacted minute by minute as the situation evolved, and
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: they did pretty good, so credit to them where credit
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: is due. Now above the crowd, helicopters also circled as
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: radios crackled, while officers shouted instructions to the crowd and
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: spectators will honestly ignored them. They continue to do their best,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and as a standoff dragged on, one demand from inside
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the bank became unavoidable. The robber wanted his getaway to
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and vehicle. He didn't want to flee on foot. He
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: wanted a police controlled escape. A truck waiting outside is
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: what he wanted, and he wanted someone behind the wheel
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to help him leave town. It was a very audacious
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: request because anyone sent inside that getaway vehicle would be
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: stepping into a confined space with an armed man who's
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: wearing explosives. A single mistake could detonate the bomb and
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: spell death. But that is when Constable Dawn Millard stepped forward.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Millard was a local officer, not part of any specialized
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: unit or anything, but that didn't stop him from volunteering
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: to reduce suspicion on who he may be or intentions
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: he might have. He changed out of his uniform and
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: into civilian clothes, and a city owned pickup truck was
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: positioned outside the bank, double parked on Main Street where
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: everyone could see it. Constable Millard then into the CIBC bank. Inside.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: The scene was tense, but the robber was calm and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: clearly in control of the situation. He's still had his weapons,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the bomb was still armed and strapped into the bag,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and the dead man's switch was described as a wired
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: clothes pin and at the time it was either clenched
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: between his teeth or kept immediately in his hand, depending
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: on the situation. He'd take it out and put it
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: back and forth, right ensuring that he was holding it
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the entire time.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: He does have control at some point to like make
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: it so that he can undo that button and the
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: thing not explode.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Though definitely he would have to like reach into his
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: bag and like flow an additional switch.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, I see, because I was like, how does that
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: even work?
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, there would be a fail safe switch for sure,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: So he has to maintain that dead man's switch, get
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: into the bomb, disarm it, and then he can let go. Okay,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: But if anyone, I mean, if anyone tries to a
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: fuck with the bomb.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: All he has to do is like boom right, yeah,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: frig So.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: It takes a fraction of a second for him to
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: make that bomb go boom h. So we have Constable
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Millard stepping in into the bank and he's also there
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: to do exactly what he was told. The order that
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: he was given was simple, help carry the money. Duffel
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: bags had been filled with cash tens of thousands of
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: dollars by nineteen seventy three standards at They were there
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: now sitting here, and Millard's instructed to take the bags
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and lead the way out of the bank towards the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: truck for the robber. Now, at that moment, Millard became
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: a literal shield to a walking bomb, and he volunteered for.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: This, no kidding, yeah he did.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Shortly before four pm, the front door of the CIBC
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: bank opened up. Constable Don Millard merged first, carrying a
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: very heavy Duffel bag filled with cash. He was dressed
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: as a civilian, moving slowly following the instructions exactly as
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: they'd been given to him. Inside the bank, the sidewalk
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: in street in front of the building were packed with
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: curious onlookers, hundreds of them, in fact, many standing just
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: feet away from the unfolding scene. Moments later, the robber
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: stepped out behind him, carrying an additional bag of money,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: along with the shoulder bag that held the explosive device
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and the dead man's switch placed between his clenched teeth.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Millard walked ahead towards the waiting pickup truck parked on
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the curb. The robber followed closely behind him, staying within
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: only a few steps. Hundreds of eyes fixed on the
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: two men crossing the short stretch of pavement as it
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: almost played out in real time slow motion in front
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: of them. All for nearly ninety minutes, the robbery had
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: been contained inside the bank. Now people saw it all firsthand.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Millard reached the truck and slowed, waiting for the robber.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: The robber then stepped off the curb and into an
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: open space between them, and in that moment, beside the
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: truck on Main Street South, a single rifle shot rang
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: out through the air. It was a police sniper, Sergeant
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Bob Lataine of the Canora Police. He fired from a
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: nearby position, and the bullet found its mark and struck
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: the robber and less than a second after the shot,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the explosive device detonated.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, was this supposed to be? Was that planned?
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Was that supposed to happen?
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: It was planned. Yes, we'll get into the details of
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: that too, because there's a lot of questions around why
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: and was that the right call? All that sort of stuff.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, like shit is Millard? Okay? Like I have questions.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you, don't worry. When this went off,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the blast tore through the front of the street with
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: tremendous force. Witnesses described a deafening explosion followed by a
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: shockwave that shattered windows for nearly half a block in
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: both directions. Glass blew from storefronts and debris was thrown
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: high into the air. But most horrifically of all were
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: the pieces of the bank robber's body that were propelled
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: across the street into nearby buildings, some reaching second story heights.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Oh his flesh, bones, organs, blood, all of it rained
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: down onto the street as he was violently torn into
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: countless pieces.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Oh well, that's unfortunate. Holy crap.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: The force of the explosion not only ripped the man apart,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: but it also sent burning fragments of smoke rolling through
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: the downtown Core. Loose bills from the Duffel bags were
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: blown upwards and outwards, scattering money across the roadway and
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: sidewalks as they flowed in the turbulent air like confetti.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Constable Don Millard, who was only steps away from the explosion,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: was knocked to the ground by the force of the blast.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Although injured, he was partially shielded by the heavy Duffel
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: bag of cash he had been carrying, but in the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: immediate aftermath, Millard believed he had suffered catastrophic injuries to
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: his abdomen. He was seen kneeling on the pavement clutching
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: his stomach, holding what appeared to be his bowels spilling out,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and as officers rushed to him, they realized the tissue
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and blood he was holding onto did not belong to him.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Oh oh, okay, that is really gross.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Millard was rushed to the hospital and treated for
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: his injuries, which included permanent hearing loss and damage, and
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: he thankfully survived and later left policing, but eventually became
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: a firefighter and Constable Millard badass of the day for
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: volunteering to go into that position and then even after
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the fact, to still go into a position of firefighting
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: and helping people. That man is one hundred and ten
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: percent a fucking hero.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I don't know. I have mixed feelings about
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: this right now though, because I don't know, I'll just
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: keep listening to the story. Because he was really really
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: put at risk. But I mean, I guess maybe he
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: knew that fully.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: He knew that he stepped into that role knowing what
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: he was stepping into.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Holy okay, well that's incredible.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: They needed someone to be a getaway driver. They knew
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: the risk, and they didn't know how they were going
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: to solve this, and he stepped up and I'll fucking
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, gosh, that is like a point zero one
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: percent of people that would probably do that to that extent.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, badass of the day for sure.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Now the robber did not survive. On the other hand,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: if it's not obvious enough already, he did not survive
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the explosion. It killed him instantaneously. One moment he was there,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and then the next he was there and there and
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: over there.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: You don't say, I do say.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to laugh harder at that.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: I wrote, And when I wrote drink so I held it,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: and I was like, this is the worst time to
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: take it. If you didn't know he's good. Holy shit, really.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the being and then he was there, and
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: then the next he was there, there and there. I
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: was giggling to myself writing that.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: And then he bare the visuals there, babe, okay, And
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: there was quite some visuals. Someone was literally holding his bowels.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, well I don't know if it was bowels specifically
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: per se. Yeah, but he was holding chunks in what appeared.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: To be, yeah, chunks of his body.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: He was holding some a very visceral image. Let's say
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that matter now. Panic swept through the crowd that had
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: gathered along Main Street. People screamed, they ran for cover,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and tried to make sense of what they had just witnessed.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Police officers moved quickly to push civilians back and secure
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: the scene, though control was difficult in all of the
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: chaos that followed, They again did their best, but despite
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: the devastation, authorities later confirmed that nearly all of the
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: more than one hundred thousand dollars total in cash was recovered.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Whoa police issued a public appeal asking anyone who had
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: picked up any of the money from the street to
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: return it, and most did.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Damn.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: There is footage online from this incident. As I mentioned,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: it was broadcast live, and you can see crowds filling
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the street in the aftermath, with people picking up handfuls
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: of cash in amongst the blood and tissue that covered
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the street.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's actually interesting because you think that you would
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: just be so traumatized and so like, what the fuck
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: just happened? I literally watched someone explode and in front of
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: my eyes, oh shit, there's money, and then you just
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: start grabbing money, Like.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's quintessential depiction of human greed.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, I guess that is. I think I feel as
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: a person sitting here thinking that I would just be
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: so stunned and shocked that I wouldn't be grabbing money.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: But who knows? Who knows? Right, you're not in that situation.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Once the street was secured and the injured
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: were taken away, investigators were left with an immediate and
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: deeply frustrating problem because they had no idea who this
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: robber was. The man had worn a mask during the robbery,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: and the explosion had destroyed almost all of his body.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: There was no face to identify, no dental records to
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: go through, and no documents that gave a real name.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: What police did recover came from what was left of him.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: His pockets well, they found in there a brown leather wallet.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Inside was one hundred and seventy six dollars in cash Canadian,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: two handcuff keys, and a receipt from the hotel he
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: stayed at, the Kenrica Hotel. That receipt became the first
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: solid lead. It placed this man in Kenora days earlier
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and gave investigators a starting point outside the bank itself.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: His clothes were carefully documented. He wore a green and
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: brown checkered fedora, a brown and white checkered jacket, brown gloves,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: and size ten Chippewa bush boots with thick Insuls witnesses
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: who had seen him in town before the robbery well,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: they immediately recognized the description. Several confirmed it matched the
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: quiet man they noticed downtown In the days leading up
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: to May tenth. Police also began collecting statements from bank staffs, officers,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: radio reporters and civilians, all who had beat in the
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: crowd and watching this unfold. Now. Despite the violence of
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: the explosion, investigators were able to recover fingerprints from pieces
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: of what remained of the robber's hand. Those prints were
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: later circulated widely through Canadian and international law enforcement databases,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: but unfortunately, no matches ever came back. So, with no
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: identification from the body and no known missing person immediately
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: matching the description either, attention shifted away from the bank
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: and towards the hotel that was named on that receipt.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: If the man had stayed in Kenoa long enough to
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: plan this robbery, police believed he must have left something behind,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: so armed with the receipts that was recovered, police went
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: straight to the front desk of that hotel, and staff
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: recognized the name Paul Higgins, and that he had stayed
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: there twice in the weeks leading up to the robbery,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: first in April and then again in May fifth, with
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: that week in between. He'd been quiet, paid in advance
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: and drawed little attention beyond the fact that he kept
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: mostly to himself. Now, his room was still registered in
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: this name. When officers entered it, they treated the space
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: as potentially dangerous, given that what had just happened downtown.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: There was no telling what Higgins had left behind and
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: whether it was safe or not. In that room.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: That makes sense.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Actually now, inside the room there were personal effects such
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: as clothing, food items, radios, reading material, and evidence that
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: he had spent long periods alone. Inside. Investigators also found
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: cigar remnants and packaging of old port Dutch prints and
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: turo savannas. But the most important item wasn't the room itself.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: It was the steamer trunk that he'd left behind, the
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: yellow one that had his name printed on it. He'd
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: left this yere during that unexplained absence in late April.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: The trunk had been stored by hotel staff at his request,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: clearly marked with his name, and after the robbery, police
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: located it and immediately suspected that it could be rigged
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: with explosives, so rather than risk opening it, authorities called
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the Armed Forces demo unit. The trunk was safely removed
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: from the hotel, transported to a secure location, and deliberately
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: destroyed with explosives.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Oh so they didn't even take the chance of opening this.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: They did not. Whatever was inside, be it documents, tools, correspondence,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: evidence clues to this real identity of this Paul Higgins,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: while it was now completely destroyed and lost.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Oh I don't like that because I want to know
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: what the hell was in there.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: That is a very large point of contention for this
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: story is why is destroying that case? And like, honestly,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: at the time, to them, the decision made sense. Safety
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: came first, especially after a bomb had just killed a
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: man injured an officer in the middle of town too, right,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: But in the years that followed that destruction of a trunk,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: while it took on a different weight.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I just okay, I just have to comment about something,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: because that's so weird that they're like being so safe
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: with this trunk when I feel like almost prior to
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: it didn't seem like what was going down was super safe.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Because I'm shocked that no one else also exploded or
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: got seriously injured in that little Shenanigan's.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, but how is that the police's fault? How did
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: they not handle it appropriately to consider people's safety. They
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: were overwhelmed by numbers in the public. You had a
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: AM station there that was broadcasting it against the police's
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: will or wishes.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, they were really put in a position that wasn't
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: great for them. Yes, And I guess I'm kind of
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: envisioning that people were closer and stuff than maybe they
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: actually were, because this person just exploded. He exploded and
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: no one else around got really injured. So I am
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: probably envisioning that things were a little bit more compact
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: than they were.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Well, people weren't like right next to him, people I
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: think like half a block, Like you could probably throw
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: a rock and hit the robber from where people were standing.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Some people were standing, not all of them were like that,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: But you.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Know, I don't know, I just yeah, I guess for
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: that explosion explosive to go off downtown seems like scary.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: And but then here they're not opening this trunk for safety,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: like I don't know, I mean, my head's just maybe
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: at a weird place.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: But well, the police are doing everything they could to
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: keep each scenario as safe as possible. That's what you
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: have to consider. You have someone who brought a live
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: explosive downtown, You have people all around you don't know
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: when this explosive could potentially go off, and you are
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: forced to deal with it in the middle of this
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: crowd of people downtown, on the most busiest street, in
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: front of a bank, with civilians and officers nearby. You
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: are forced to deal with that situation. If police could
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: simply safely remove him and take him away like they
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: did the trunk. I'm sure they would have, but they couldn't.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: I think nowadays though, that there's means of you know,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: you maybe use like a bot or something and you
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: would open that trunk.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Definitely, there's different means today. Sure, this is nineteen seventy three,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: certainly a different era now. By the time the hotel
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: room was cleared and the trunk was eliminated, police had
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: learned plenty about what Paul Higgins did in Canora, but
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: almost nothing about who he actually was. The name he
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: used led nowhere, the Toronto address he provided didn't exist,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: and within weeks of the explosion, attention turned from the
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: crime itself to how it had been handled. In June
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, a coroner's inquest was convened in Canora
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: to examine two central issues, the death of the robber
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and the actions of police during that standoff. And this
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: is where it comes to that question of how police
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: handle the situation and the safety of it. The focus
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: quickly narrowed to the moment that ended everything, the decision
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: by police marksman to fire as the robber exited the bank,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: to shoot him. Testimony laid out a picture of a
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: very chaotic scene. There was no hostage negotiation unit, no
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: established command structure. Officers were operating under intense pressure, surrounded
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: by a crowd that had grown into hundreds, possibly even
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: more than a thousand. The presence of explosives and a
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: dead man's switch specifically raised the stakes far beyond a
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: very typical robbery. Constable Don Millard, who had volunteered to
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: act as the getaway driver, testified about his role inside
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the bank and his belief that the situation was deteriorating.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: He described confusion, a lack of clear direction, and a
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: very real possibility that he would be killed if the
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: robber reached that truck and attempted to escape. The officer
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: who fired the shot, Sergeant Bob Lataine, did not deny
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: pulling the trigger. His reasoning for his actions were very direct.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: He believed that Millard's life and possibly many others, were
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: in very immediate danger if the robber made it to
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the vehicle. Latage believed the bomb could be detonated deliberately
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: or even accidentally in a crowded area, instead killing far more,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and the jury ultimately ultimately agreed when he shot, was
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: the safest time to take him out.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, it was the most controlled option that they had
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: at that moment.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Okay, give it a couple seconds more. He's going
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: to be right next to a civilian or an officer.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: You know, Millard is going to be right next to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: him in that vehicle. As that vehicle leaves, who's to
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: say it's not going to drive by people? And then
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: he could purposely let it go, Say he gets out
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: of town, then what we don't know where he's going
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: to go and what's going to happen with Millard. This
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: is the only moment this guy was somewhat alone. Millard
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: was steps away from him. Any second longer and he
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: have been right beside him and there would have been
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: another casualty.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: So did Millard know that they were going to shoot that.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: He didn't know that they were going to shoot him.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think they knew that.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: He knew no, Okay, no, So he really didn't know
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: what was about to go down, like if he was
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: going to be driving off with this guy or not.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: And all he knew was that they needed to do
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: something before getting in that vehicle. That's all all of
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: them knew is that he could not get to that vehicle.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Jeez okay.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Now, the coroner's jury ruled that Sergeant Latagne was justified
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: in firing his weapon, and formally they commended the police
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: for their actions under extraordinary circumstances. The findings effectively closed
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: any legal debate about the shooting itself, but the inquest
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: did not bring closure. With the inquest, one recommendation stood out.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: The jury urged that the investigation into the robbers identity
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: were to continue. His death had resolved the immediate threat, yes,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: but it had not answered the most basic question of all,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: who was he? And why did he choose Canora of
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: all places. So after the inquest ended, the case quietly
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: slipped out of the headlines, but it never truly left Canora.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: What remained of the robber's body was gathered, examined as
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: thoroughly as possible, and then it was buried in Canora's cemetery.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: There was no name to put on a headstone, not
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: even a false one. No family came forward to claim him,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: and in the end he was simply laid to rest
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: in an unmarked grave, recorded only in cemetery maps and
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: official paperwork. In the months and years that followed, people talked,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: witnesses replayed what they had seen. Radio staff remembered broadcasting
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: live as chaos unfolded right outside their window in the
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: streets below. Shop workers recalled the man in the fedora,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: who didn't talk much, who stared instead of browsing, who
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: didn't it seemed quite like anyone else. High school students
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: who had skipped class to watch the standoff grew older,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: still able to describe the moment that blast shook the streets.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Newspaper clippings were saved, photos were passed around, and the
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: story became part of the town's shared memory, retold whenever
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: someone asked about that bank robbery. The mystery, no matter
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: the gossip or time that passed, only grew. No missing
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: person report ever lined up cleanly with the man's description.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: No family arrived looking for any answers, No letters surfaced
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: explaining his motives. The name Paul Higgins simply remained what
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: it had always been, and alias with no past. As
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: decades passed and the case shifted from an active investigation
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: to something closer to folklore, Canora knew exactly what had
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: happened on May tenth, nineteen seventy three, but not who
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: had done it. Police did their best to try and
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: find the identity and continue to pursue the few avenues
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: that were still open to them. One of the first
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: was fingerprints. Despite the damage caused by the explosion, investigators
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: had managed to recover usable prints from what remained of
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: the robbers' hands. Those prints were circulated through Canadian law
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: enforcement databases and shared internationally as well. Now at the
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: time this was considered a very strong step forward, and
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, it is because if that man
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: had ever been arrested, employed in certain industries or cross
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: borders under his real name, there was a chance his
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: name would surface. However, it never did. As technology improved,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: the prints were revisited more than once. Each time, the
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: result was the same, there's no match found, and decades
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: later attention while it did turn to one possible suspect.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: In the early two thousands, investigators revisited the case with
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: fresh new eyes and new tools. A missing man from
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: British Columbia appeared to fit several elements of this pro
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: It was the right age, had reportedly worn very similar
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: clothing and abandoned his vehicle in Winnipeg not long before
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: the robbery, which could place him geographically close during the
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: critical window. For a brief moment, it seemed like the
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: mystery might have a crack, but police located the man's
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: brother and obtained a DNA sample for comparison against biological
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: matter preserved from the crime scene. The test came back negative,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: and to top it off, the missing man was later
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: confirmed to be alive and living in France, eliminating him
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: completely as a suspect. The dead end was a turning point.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: It reinforced just how fragile the remaining evidence had become
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: over the years. Physical items from the case that had
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: been lost, destroyed, or archived in ways that made re
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: examination extremely difficult. Some materials had been digitized, others could
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: no longer be located at all due to changes in
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: the police department over the years. What remained was a
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: very thin but persistent thread, the belief that the robber
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: had not come to Kenora, and possibly not even from
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Canada at all. Witnesses continued to describe that faint foreign accent,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: sometimes thought to be German or European, though no consensus
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: ever emerged. By the early two thousands, the case had
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: reached an uncomfortable status. It wasn't officially closed, but it
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't moving forward either, simply too old to feel urgent,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: but too unresolved to be forgotten. Now by the late
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: twenty tens, genetic genealogy had begun rewriting the rules of
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: cold cases. Investigators no longer needed a direct DNA match
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: to a known suspect. Instead, you know, distant relatives, sometimes
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: separated by generations, could be used to build a family
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: tree backwards, slowly narrowing down an unknown person to do
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: a name. Cases far older than Canoras had been solved
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: this way, so the obvious question followed, why could it
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: not be used here to solve it? Public pressure grew,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: especially after renewed media attention brought the case back into
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: the spotlight around its fiftieth anniversary. Journalists and former witnesses
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: began asking what evidence still existed and whether anything usable remained.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: But even if it was lost to time, one possibility
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: loomed larger than all others, the unmarked grave. If biological
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: material could be recovered from the remains, modern forensic techniques
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: might succeed where earlier efforts had failed. Teeth, bone or
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: even any other DNA trace could potentially be enough, but
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the answer turned out to be more complicated. During the
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: renewed review, it emerged that a DNA sample may already
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: exist preserved within Ontario's forensic systems. According to officials, they
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: actually had enough material preserved on file for comparison, meaning
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: disinterminent or the remains might not even be necessary at all. However,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: what wasn't clear and remains unresolved, is whether that sample
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: has been or will be run through modern genealogical databases.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Authorities have been very cautious, resources are finite, and law
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: enforcement have publicly stated that priority is given to cases
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: with living victims or surviving families seeking answers. In this case,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: not a single relative or potential relative has come forward,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: No one has claimed the body, no one has reported
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: a disappearance that needs a clean fitting to say maybe
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: this is my relative or long lost brother or who knows,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: And as a result, the case is sitting in a
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: kind of limbo. Technically open, potentially even scientifically solvable at
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: this point, but dependent on decisions to be made that
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: go beyond evidence alone.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: That's wild. So it's just very much so sitting on
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: the back burner. It is because there by the sounds
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: of it will always be another case that's kind of
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: more important most likely.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, what is clear is the mystery is no
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: longer unsolvable because like technology or time, right, the barriers
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: are now like very much so institutional and procedural rather
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: than scientific. So if the decision were made to pursue
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: it fully, the tools exist to put a name potentially
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: to the man who's buried in the cemetery, in this
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: unmarked grave. It's just a matter of if it's going
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: to happen. So whether that decision will ever come, well,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: it remains uncertain, though in my opinion, I do believe
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: we will see it happen. It's just a matter of time.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Whether the DNA actually leads anywhere or not is another
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: part of the story.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine finding out this is like your long lost
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: great uncle or some shit, eh, right.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: And so because of this possibility, for the first time
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: since nineteen seventy three, the question on everyone's mind isn't
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: can this be solved? It's instead will it be solved?
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: The facts of this case are not in dispute. In
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen seventy three, a man arrived in
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Canora using the name Paul Higgins. He stayed at a
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: downtown hotel, moved quietly through the city, and by the
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: afternoon of May tenth, he walked into the Canadian Imperial
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Bank of Commerce on Main Street South, took money, attempted
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: to leave, but before he could escape, was shot and
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: the bomb detonated, killing him. Everything after that is what
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: makes this case last and endure because the man's identity
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: has never been confirmed. The name he used was false,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: the address he gave didn't exist. The steamer trunk that
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: may have held answers was destroyed for safety reasons. His
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: DNA still exists and could hold the key to solving
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: who he was, but its use remains undecided. The result
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: is a very rare kind of true crime story, one
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: where the crime itself is fully known, yet the person
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: at the center of it all remains a blank space
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: in history. The town of Canora remembers the noise, the smoke,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: the money, and the blood raining from the sky. It
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: remembers where people were standing and what they saw on
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: how that blast felt. What it doesn't remember, because it
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: never will know, is who the man really was, where
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: he came from, or what drove him to do what
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: he did that faithful day. More than fifty years later,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: he lies in that unmarked grave, identified only by a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: case number and a false name written on a hotel receipt.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: He left no explanation behind, only a trail of confirmed
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: events and unanswered questions. And until someone finally puts a
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: real name to the man who called himself Paul Higgins,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: the story of the Canora bank robbery will remain unfinished,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: with a dead man laying and waiting for his name
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: to one day be claimed. And that's the story of
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: the Canora bank robbery.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: Huh wow wow, Well, well, you know, I just had
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: a thought because I was thinking, this man didn't necessarily
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: like he could have been having this bomb, this detonator
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: or whatever in his teeth in his mouth without it
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: necessarily like it could have just been a prop to
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: scare people, right, but he legitly had it, Like, yeah,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: it would blast. It was very real, but no one
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: knew for sure, right.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's no way of knowing for sure. I
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: guess never No, it's a bomb threat until proven otherwise.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: So I'm almost surprised that he didn't just use it
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: as kind of like a scare tactic is where I'm
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: kind of getting at.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I see, well, no, it was definitely not a tactic.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: There are some residents in Canora who like it if
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: you go and watch some stuff online. They believe that
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: he intended to die that day. That There's one guy
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: I watch where he says he watched him step off
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: the curb and he could almost see this like he
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: was waiting for something to happen. I disagree. I don't
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: because you can see the footage of the moment he
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: steps off the curb, the moment he shot in the
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: boom everything. I don't see an expectation of him dying there.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: But I do see a man who if it doesn't
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: go his way, it's not going any other way than
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: how he wants it to.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: But I mean, that's not necessarily to say that that
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: person's wrong, because he did leave for a bit, right,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: So maybe he went in, like I don't know, was
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: finishing some unfinished business or something to be prepared to
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: you know, I might lose my life or whatever. Oh,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: and then come back and do this thing.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, Then that I got a question for you. Then
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: then why bring in a getaway driver? Why get him
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: to haul out a second bag of money. Why not
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: just give me the vehicle and I'll do it myself.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Expecting to blow up on your own or be shot
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: or taken down, why why create a very the limited window?
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Why not give a larger window for authorities? If you're
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: expecting to be taken down and go out with a boom,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: why would you not give him a larger opportunity. If
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: that's your expectation, you want to feed it, you want
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: it to happen. The opportunity police had was a window
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: he didn't intend to give them, right, which tells me
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: he did not intend to die. But if he was
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: going to die, then he's gonna fucking die, like you
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: know what I mean?
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: Uh huh, huh jeez. The fact that he had to
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: have been from a different country or something, because, like
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: you did mention a couple of times, people thought he
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: might have had a little bit of an uh accent
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: of sorts.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: Right, he may have, but he also didn't like to
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: talk a whole lot. Someone who's faking an accent could
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: probably not want to talk a whole lot. Huh, Just saying,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: where's that that part in the story, right? If he's
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: keeping to himself, it might be that he's hiding something.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: It might be that he's hiding his horrible fake accent.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: I guess. I'm just like, yeah, it's it's weird that
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: someone could get away with something to this extent, But
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: they probably didn't have like a photo per se of
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: him or anything to put up there for a relative
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: to see.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: No, No, they have sketches, composite sketches that were created,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: and then you of course have the descriptions and you
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: align that with you know, missing persons reports.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: Right, So, but that's another reason why I was like,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: maybe it's another country, because maybe someone missing in another
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: country wouldn't necessarily make their way, that wouldn't make their
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: way to Canada, you know, true to be able to see.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: True enough, though the descriptions everything it was sent international,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: like the fingerprint was also sent internationally and everything. It's
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: going to be harder to trace in other countries for sure,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: but there's at least a small opportunity that they tried
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: and they looked you know.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean, I know this happened, but just
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: because you don't know who did it in any way,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: it almost seems a little unbelievable.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Definitely, I truly think that we will find out within
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: the next ten years who he was. I definitely do
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: because we have the genetic genealogy. Now we have these databases,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: we have his DNA, we can compare it. It's just
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: a matter of when it's going to happen. There will
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: be a year eventually when someone is going to say
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: it's within our budget or we have the time, and
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: we have the time, Yes, someone, maybe it'll even be
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: who knows, a retired officer who's volunteering and saying, you
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: know what, you don't even need to pay me. I'm
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: going to go through this. All you need to do
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: is pay for the testing results that sort of stuff.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: But you don't need to pay me to go through
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: the time and do it. Yeah, so the time isn't there,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: it's just a matter of paying the lab.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It almost makes you feel like you're on the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: edge of your seat just waiting, you know, like this
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: could we could know who it was, but we can't
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: yet because we you know, we don't know when.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: And yes, like I say, I'm I'm confident within ten
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: years we will know who this is. But that also
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: begs the question just because the tests are going to
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: be done, Will we find the name?
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, maybe that family has never submitted anything
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: or something, right, it potential.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But anyways, I thought that was a pretty interesting
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: case and I wanted to cover that with you. So yeah,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: there you go. Literally, you got to watch this footage.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: It is horrific. It is black and white though, so
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: it's less jarring. There is a dog in the footage.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: I will tell you that that what gets hurt.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: No, there's a dog in one of the vehicles next
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: to where the explosion goes was off and the explosion
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: scares a dog and it hops out a window and
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: kind of runs down the street. But it's totally fine.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's got a little hearing issues, who knows, ears
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: are probably ringing, But other than that, it was completely fine.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think some people who were close
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: to probably do have hearing damage or something, right.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Probably most likely that wouldn't have been a loud boom.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: Damn.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: I do know that the robber had hearing damage. Afterwards,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: the realization on your.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: Face what I in And I was just like, well yeah,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: and then I was like what the shit? Then it
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: was like almost was it just a disappointment on my face?
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was a wait, really, oh my god, did
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: you really say that like that? What was on your face?
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: Oh? Boy? Well, well done. That was a very interesting episode.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: I'll give you that.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and thank you guys for being here too.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you. Happy New Year's almost. You may be
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: listening to this and then year. If you are, hopefully
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: you have a great new year. And if you're not,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: hopefully you have a great upcoming new year. Twenty twenty
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: six I think is going to be good. But the
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: thing is you have to make it good. I see
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of people reflecting on past years and it's like,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five suck, twenty twenty four suck, twenty twenty
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: three suck, Yeah, because you made it suck well.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it can be a mindset, for sure, so but
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: then sometimes people are down on their luck too, and
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: it does take some time to get out of it.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: Genuinely, Yeah, you're right, but for a consistent basis of
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: well that year sucked, well, that year sucked. You know what,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: If that's the case, make this year not suck. Do
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: your best, and we believe in you. You're amazing. Thank
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: you for being here. I'm not going to talk about
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: description stuff. That's that, and until next time, until twenty
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: twenty six, stay wicked,