The Havelock Bank Robbery was a 1961 armed robbery of bank bonds plus $230,000 cash from the Toronto-Dominion Bank branch in Havelock, Ontario. The five robbers were arrested; one died in custody and the other four were found guilty. The money was never found.

Background

31 August 1961 was the pay day of three local mining companies, and therefore a day in which the Havelock branch of Toronto-Dominion Bank would have more money than usual.

Robbery

During the early morning of 31 August, four men entered the basement window of the Toronto-Dominion Bank in the small town of Havelock, Ontario, while another waited in the get-away car. The assailants waited for staff to arrive, and once they did at 9:15am, the armed robbers politely demanded bank worker William Lindup to open the safe and put the contents into a duffel bag, fleeing minutes later with $230,000 of cash plus bank bonds. The five robbers were armed with revolvers and an M1 carbine semi-automatic rifle. As they waited, the neighbouring butcher spotted their

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vehicle, felt it was suspicious and noted down the license plate. The robbers fled the scene in their vehicle, their escape was initially blocked by a

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

. Police chased them along rural roads on the

Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the anc ...

, and again their escape was delayed when a car with a punctured tire blocked a single-lane road. After hitting a rock and abandoning their vehicles, the robbers exchanged gunfire with the police and escaped into the wilderness east of the

Crowe River The Crowe River is a river in the counties of Haliburton, Hastings, Northumberland and Peterborough in southern Ontario, Canada. It is in the Lake Ontario drainage basin and is a tributary of the Trent River. Course The river begins at Paudash ...

. The Ontario Provincial Police launched a search of the area, involving 75 officers, and captured the suspects on 3 and 4 September near Ontario Highway 62. Yvon Lalonde and one other robber were spotted on 3 September by lumber mill operator Martin Murphy, and Lalonde was arrested by police hours later. On 4 September, three suspects were found by Frederick Andrews of Stirling, one of many civilians who were helping the police with the search. Police constable John Martin then arrested three men, before they were taken to Millbridge. They were initially held in Peterborough County jail, later transferring them to Whitby jail. One of the robbers died of a heart attack while in custody. The remaining four were found guilty after nine days of trial starting in January 1962. As of 2014, The Royal Canadian Mint stated that none of the money was found in circulation. According to ''The Toronto Star'', the robbery "was considered one of the biggest bank robberies in Canadian history." Despite two years of planning, the series of delays in their escape resulted in them becoming known as the "bad luck bank robbers".

Robbers

All five robbers, known as the Red Hood Gang, were French-Canadians from Montreal, Quebec. Jean Claude Lalonde, Yvon Lalone, Roger Poirier, and Roger Martel were found guilty, Hermyle Lalonde died before the trial.

In popular culture

The robbery was the subject of the 2006 book ''

Bad Luck Bank Robbers ''Bad Luck Bank Robbers'' is a 2006 book by Canadian historian Grace Barker about the Havelock Bank Robbery. The book documents the robbery, the police chase, the escape, the search and capture of the five robbers, and their trail. It inspired a ...

'', by Grace Barker, and a 2014 play produced by the

4th Line Theatre The 4th Line Theatre is a Canadian theatre company located near the small town of Millbrook, Ontario in the township of Cavan Monaghan that is dedicated to producing and developing original Canadian theatre, from small-town stories to broad nationa ...

also called ''Bad Luck Bank Robbers.'' The play was written by Alex Poch-Goldin and directed by Kim Blackwell. The township of Wollaston, Ontario, changed the name of the street where the robbers abandoned their vehicle to ''Bank Robbers Lane''.

References

External links