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