The Flying Bandit. Bringing Down Canada's Most Dangerous Armed Bandit

256 Pages·2014·3.74 MB·English

by  Robert Knuckle

The Flying Bandit
Bringing Down Canada’s Most Daring Armed
Robber
Robert Knuckle
with Ed Arnold
GENERAL STORE PUBLISHING HOUSE INC.
499 O’Brien Road, Renfrew, Ontario, Canada K7V 3Z3
Telephone [phone] or 1.800.465.6072
http://www.gsph.com
ISBN 978-1-896182-60-7 (pbk.) 978-1-77123-8274 (EPUB)
978-1-77123-8281 (MOBI)
978-1-77123-8298 (WEB).pdf Copyright © Robert Knuckle, Ed Arnold 2015
Cover design by Taragraphics Layout by Derek McEwen
Published in Canada.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other
reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), One
Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E5.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Knuckle, Robert, 1935; Arnold, Ed, 1952 - The flying bandit:
bringing down Canada’s most daring armed robber ISBN 1-896182-60-7
1. Galvan, Gilbert. 2. Criminals—Canada––Biography. 3. Jewel thieves––Canada—Biography. 4. Bank
robberies—Canada. I. Title.
HV6653.G34K58 1996 364.1’552’092 C96-990072-4
Second Printing February 2003
Third Printing December 2013
For Cathy Harrison of Windsor
CONTENTS
Foreword
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1 London
CHAPTER 2 Pembroke
CHAPTER 3 Crossing the Line
CHAPTER 4 Janice
CHAPTER 5 Commitment
CHAPTER 6 Ottawa
CHAPTER 7 The Playmate
CHAPTER 8 The Vicious Circle
CHAPTER 9 The Cops
CHAPTER 10 The Rough Rider
CHAPTER 11 Flying High
CHAPTER 12 The Big Vancouver
CHAPTER 13 Cafe
CHAPTER 14 Rolling Over
CHAPTER 15 Closing In
CHAPTER 16 The End of the Runway
CHAPTER 17 Negotiations
CHAPTER 18 Epilogue
Update
About the Author
FOREWORD
T
his book was written by Robert Knuckle, based in part on the research of Ed
Arnold, the managing editor of the Peterborough Examiner.
Arnold, who has won six Canadian Press awards, has been with the
Examiner for twenty-five years. In 1988 he broke the story of Galvan’s exploits
and capture and dubbed him the Flying Bandit. Intending to write a book,
Arnold spent two years interviewing Galvan and many others involved in the
story. He stopped work on the project in 1993.
In 1995, after Robert Knuckle decided to write a book about the Flying
Bandit, he was denied visiting rights to Galvan by the warden of the maximum
security Oxford Correctional Institute in Wisconsin, and Arnold agreed to allow
him to use his notes. Knuckle broadened the research base of the project by
corresponding with Galvan and holding extensive interviews with most of the
other principals.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
M
any thanks to the following who assisted in the research or aided in the
production of this book: Gord Carruth and Nicole Gagnon of Hull; Phil and
Roberta Drouillard of Ottawa; Cathy and Grant Harrison of Windsor; Elizabeth
Knuckle of Dundas; John and Lorna Plunkett of Ennismore; Don and Carol
Mahar of Ottawa; Bill and Doreen Mahoney of London; Rosemary Kenopic of
Burnstown; The Honourable Mr. Justice Gordon Thomson and Carol Thomson
of Windsor; Terry and Val Knuckle of Peterborough; Det. Sgt. Bob Whitsitt,
Det. Paul Legault and Det. Sgt. Jeff Dupuis of the OPP; the Dundas Public
Library; the Hamilton Public Library; McMaster University Library.
Thanks to all of the principals in the story who shared their experiences so
willingly and so honestly.
Thanks also to Tim Gordon the publisher who assigned me the project and to
Stephanie Walsh of the Peterborough Examiner for getting me started.
Special thanks and sincere appreciation to my editor John Stevens for his
insight, knowledge and skills. His help was invaluable.
CHAPTER 1
London
I
t was just before noon. The Royal Bank was crowded. June Smith, a senior
sales officer at the bank, looked up to see a man in a baseball cap stepping
behind the service counter. June got up from her desk to tell him that customers
were not allowed to be back there. There was no reason for her to be alarmed,
she just figured he had made a mistake and didn’t know where he was going.
As June stepped towards him he said, “Sit down and don’t move!”
She was about to argue with him but when she saw the gun in his hand she
sat down. Realizing a robbery was taking place, her heart began to pound. No
one else seemed to be aware of what was happening. June didn’t know what to
do. She was afraid to move and didn’t want to scream; if she screamed it might
cause the gunman to panic and she didn’t know what he would do then. She sat
motionless, watching helplessly as he walked directly to the door of the central
cash cage.
Three tellers were standing in front of the door waiting to make transactions.
One of these women was Colleen Banks. She was an experienced bank teller and
had seen the stranger coming but she didn’t quite know what to make of it. He
simply walked around the west end of the counter and came directly towards the
cage with a quick, steady step.
“What’s he doing back here?” she thought to herself.
“Stand back and don’t move!” he said to the three women outside the cage.
They saw his gun right away.
All of them were frightened. They moved closer together and cautiously
backed away from the cage door. They tried to move in a calm, deliberate
manner that would not upset him.
“Open the door!” he said to twenty-six-year-old Debbie Cook who was
working inside the cage. She stared into the face of the strange looking man in a
red nylon jacket. His hair was reddish blond and stringy; it hung below his ears
and over his collar. A heavy blond moustache spread to the corners of his mouth
and hid his upper lip.
“Hurry up and open the door!” he said again in a deep voice.
When Debbie saw he had a gun in his left hand she let him in immediately.
The man handed her a white canvas bag about two feet long with two small red
maple leaf flags on it and two black straps at the top. He was standing so close to
her she could see he had brown eyes and a ruddy complexion with freckles.
“Put all the money in there!”
While Debbie began emptying the money out of one of the cash trays into
the bag other tellers became aware that an unfamiliar man was in the central
cage. They could see that he wasn’t dressed like a banker and they couldn’t
understand what he was doing in there. Debbie seemed to be working with him,
handing him things. She would go away from him and then come back. Still,
they knew that no one should be in there with her; that was definitely against
bank policy. They looked at each other, unsure what to do.
Clients in the lineups also saw the man go into the cage but thought little of
it. An eighteen-year-old at the front of the line saw the man go into the cage. He
wondered why but it didn’t cause him any great concern. Even when he saw the
three tellers standing frozen outside the cage with fearful expressions on their
faces, it didn’t faze him. However, when he watched Debbie Cook emptying
money trays into the man’s canvas bag, he was astounded that a robbery was
happening in front of his very eyes.
Daina Brown, a clerk, was working at her desk west of the cage. She too saw
the tellers frozen in fear outside the cage and Debbie emptying a money tray into
the man’s sack. It was obvious that the man was robbing the bank. Suspecting he
had a gun, she knew it was too dangerous to move so she began to jot down the
robber’s description on the back of a withdrawal slip. She noted that he wore a
black and white baseball cap, white denim pants and a red, lightweight jacket.
He was white, in his early thirties, about 5’8” to 5’10”, medium build,
approximately 160 pounds.
“Set the time locks!” the gunman said to Debbie Cook.
“They’re set at two minutes,” she replied.
Colleen Banks knew it was important for everyone to stay calm. She quietly
told Debbie to set the combination for the time locks so they would open. Seeing
the faces of the two younger tellers beside her contorted in fright, Colleen told
them, “It’s OK, just don’t move.” With fear in their eyes, the two women nodded
carefully.
Debbie set one of the time locks to open while the robber dumped the cash
out of two unlocked drawers into his long white bag. While he was busy doing
that, Fred Turner, a customer, was standing at the east end of the service counter.
One of the tellers who stood frozen in front of the central cage caught Fred’s eye
and mouthed the words, “It’s a hold up.” Fred immediately backed away from
the counter and eased his way out the front door of the bank. Fighting the urge to
run, he walked into the Kwik Kopy nearby. Without explaining anything to the
manager he picked up the phone and, with shaking hands, dialed 911. He told
the operator there was a holdup in progress at the Royal Bank, 380 Wellington
Road. The operator relayed the information to the police department, noting the
time of the call: 12:02 p.m.
While Turner was phoning the police, the gunman was busy cleaning out the
cash cage.
“Open this,” he said to Debbie, pointing his weapon to another drawer.
Debbie moved quickly to comply. As she did, he went to the other end of the
cash cage and commanded, “Open these drawers!”
As Debbie unlocked each cash drawer he took the money and dumped it into
the bag.
“Open that,” he said, motioning with his head to the safe. Debbie felt sick
inside. She knew she couldn’t get the safe open and was afraid to tell him that
because it might infuriate him. So she didn’t say anything but shrugged her
shoulders and turned her palms up to indicate she couldn’t do it. When the thief
saw her gestures and the desperate look on her face he didn’t get angry. He was
well aware that the safe was on a much longer time lock and knew she was
telling the truth.
“Don’t worry, no one’s going to hurt you,” he assured her in an almost
pleasant voice. Then he looked around and, in a whisper said, “Get out of the
way!” He walked by Debbie, went out of the cage, past the tellers, around the
counter and out the back door of the bank into the shopping mall that connected
the bank with the Holiday Inn. Debbie saw him begin to remove his baseball cap
as he went through the door. As soon as he was out of the bank Daina Brown
rushed to the door and locked it shut behind him. There was an audible sigh of
relief from almost everyone in the bank. Some of the tellers broke into tears.
The robbery had taken ninety seconds. The police arrived in force thirty
seconds after it was over. Thousands of dollars had been stolen. Detectives and
uniformed personnel began to scour the nearby shops, bars and businesses in an
effort to find the fugitive. One of the first policemen to arrive on the scene was
officer Rod Trevors of the London B & E squad. He spotted a twenty-five-year-
old man crossing Wellington Road who fit the description of the bank robber.
Trevors saw that he was carrying a red sweatshirt wrapped in a jean jacket so he
stopped him. He asked for identification and determined the man’s name was
Bradley Brown from London. When Trevors found that Bradley had a sizeable
quantity of cash on him, he arrested him. The suspect explained that he had
cashed two cheques at the Money Mart just an hour ago. Trevors told Brown