11/23/2025
He stole $215,000 in 1969 and vanished. For 52 years, he was your neighbor—a polite car salesman. Then he died, and the truth came out.
This is the story of Theodore Conrad, the man who pulled off one of the longest successful disappearances in American criminal history—not by fleeing to a foreign country or living in the shadows, but by hiding in plain sight as an ordinary suburban dad.
July 11, 1969. Cleveland, Ohio. Society National Bank.
A hot summer Friday.
Twenty-year-old Theodore "Ted" Conrad was a bank teller—not a manager, not security, just a teller. Clean-cut. Polite. The kind of employee who showed up on time and did his job without making waves.
But Ted had been watching. Learning. Noticing things.
He noticed that on Friday afternoons, the bank vault held large amounts of cash for weekend withdrawals. He noticed that security was relatively lax—this was 1969, before sophisticated alarm systems and cameras everywhere. He noticed that if someone took money on a Friday afternoon, it wouldn't be discovered until Monday morning.
A whole weekend to disappear.
Ted had been fascinated by a movie released the year before: "The Thomas Crown Affair," starring Steve McQueen as a wealthy businessman who robs a bank not for money, but for the thrill of proving he can.
Ted told friends he could do the same thing. They laughed.
He wasn't joking.
On Friday, July 11, 1969, Ted Conrad walked into Society National Bank for his regular shift.
At the end of the day, he walked out carrying a paper bag.
Inside: $215,000 in cash (worth approximately $1.8 million today).
He didn't run. He didn't draw attention. He just walked out like it was any other Friday, got in his car, and drove away.
No one noticed. Not that day. Not that weekend.
Monday, July 14, 1969. The bank opened for business.
Someone went to the vault for cash and realized $215,000 was missing.
Panic. Immediate inventory. The money was definitely gone.
They checked logs, reviewed who had access, questioned employees. That's when someone asked: "Where's Ted Conrad?"
Ted hadn't shown up for work. His apartment was empty. His belongings were gone. He'd left almost nothing—no forwarding address, no note, no trail.
He had simply vanished.
The FBI was called immediately. The U.S. Marshals Service got involved. Ted Conrad's photo went out on wanted posters. Investigators chased leads across the country.
The trail went cold almost instantly.
For months, then years, investigators pursued tips that led nowhere. They checked border crossings. Interviewed friends and family repeatedly. Followed every possible lead.
Ted Conrad's parents insisted they had no idea where he was. His friends said the same. If anyone knew, they weren't talking.
The case stayed open, but as years turned into decades, it faded. The wanted posters yellowed. Investigators moved on. The file remained open, but everyone assumed Ted Conrad was either dead or living overseas under a fake identity.
They were half right.
Meanwhile, in the suburbs of Boston, a man named Thomas Randele was living a perfectly ordinary life.
He worked as a car salesman—first in luxury cars, later in regular dealerships. He was good at it. Friendly. Professional. The kind of guy who remembered your name and asked about your kids.
In the 1980s, he married. He and his wife had a daughter. They lived in Lynnfield, Massachusetts—a quiet suburban town where people knew their neighbors and life was unremarkable.
Tom Randele was unremarkable. Pleasantly so.
He played golf. He paid his taxes. He never got in trouble—not even a speeding ticket. He was private but not suspiciously so. He had friends but kept parts of his past vague.
When people asked about his background, he'd mention growing up in different places. The details were fuzzy, but not alarmingly so. Lots of people don't love talking about their past.
For 52 years, Thomas Randele lived this life.
Worked. Raised his daughter. Grew old with his wife. Attended community events. Became just another face in suburban Massachusetts.
No one suspected a thing.
Not his wife. Not his daughter. Not his coworkers. Not his neighbors.
Thomas Randele was exactly who he appeared to be: a normal guy.
Except he wasn't.
In 2021, Thomas Randele was diagnosed with lung cancer. At 71 years old, he knew he was dying.
And according to investigators, sometime near the end—either just before his death or shortly after—his family learned the truth.
Thomas Randele wasn't Thomas Randele.
He was Theodore Conrad. The bank teller who had walked out of a Cleveland bank with $215,000 in 1969 and vanished into thin air.
Randele died in May 2021.
In November 2021, the U.S. Marshals Service made an announcement that shocked the true crime community:
They had solved a 52-year-old cold case. Ted Conrad had been found—posthumously.
Investigators had never completely given up. Over the decades, the case was occasionally revisited with new technology, new databases, new methods.
After Randele's death, authorities compared old documents Ted Conrad had filled out in the 1960s with records from "Thomas Randele" starting in the 1970s.
Handwriting analysis. Signature comparisons. Social Security records.
Everything matched.
The polite car salesman in Massachusetts. The man who'd raised a family and never gotten in trouble. The guy who played golf and sold cars.
He was Ted Conrad.
He'd been living 700 miles from Cleveland the entire time. Not in a foreign country. Not in hiding.
Just... living.
So what happened to the $215,000?
No one knows for sure. Investigators believe Ted spent it gradually over the years—nothing flashy, nothing that would draw attention. Just living expenses while he established his new identity as Thomas Randele.
By all accounts, Randele lived a middle-class life. He wasn't wealthy. He didn't live extravagantly. He worked a regular job for decades.
The money was likely gone within a few years, used to fund his disappearance and new start.
After that, he just lived normally.
Here's the strange part: Ted Conrad was never prosecuted.
Why? Because he was dead.
The statute of limitations for the theft itself had long expired. But even if it hadn't, you can't prosecute a dead man.
Ted Conrad lived his entire adult life as Thomas Randele. He died of natural causes. The case is closed—not with an arrest or trial, but simply with confirmation: We found him. He's dead. Case closed.
This is where the story gets philosophically complicated.
Ted Conrad committed a serious crime. He stole over $200,000 (nearly $2 million in today's money). The bank lost money. His coworkers were investigated and put under suspicion.
But after he disappeared, Ted Conrad became Thomas Randele.
And Thomas Randele was, by all accounts, a good person.
He worked hard. Paid taxes. Raised a family. Never committed another crime. Was kind to his neighbors. Lived a quiet, law-abiding life for over 50 years.
So who was he, really?
A criminal who escaped justice? Or a young man who made one terrible decision at 20, then spent the rest of his life living honestly under a different name?
There's no easy answer.
Now imagine being Thomas Randele's wife or daughter.
Your husband. Your father. The man you thought you knew completely.
He wasn't who he said he was. His entire identity was a lie. His past was fabricated. Every story he told about his childhood, his family, his early life—invented.
And yet: he was genuinely a good husband and father. The life you lived with him was real, even if his name and background weren't.
How do you reconcile that?
The family has remained mostly private since the revelation. They've given few interviews.
Who can blame them?
Ted Conrad's story doesn't have a clean moral. It's not a tale of crime and punishment. It's something messier and more human:
A 20-year-old kid who idolized a movie character pulled off a real heist. Then he spent 52 years looking over his shoulder, living under a false name, never able to fully be himself.
Was it worth it? Did he sleep well at night? Did he regret it?
We'll never know. He took those answers to his grave.
What we do know is this: for more than half a century, Theodore Conrad proved that sometimes the best hiding place is right out in the open.
July 11, 1969: A 20-year-old bank teller walked out with $215,000.
He disappeared completely.
He became someone else.
He lived a normal life for 52 years.
He died quietly in 2021.
And the truth died with him—until the Marshals put the pieces together.
The perfect crime isn't the one where you take the most money.
It's the one where you vanish so completely that even when they find you, it's too late.
Ted Conrad pulled it off.
He lived free. Died free.
And left everyone else wondering: Was it worth it?
