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