(StraightNews.org) – A Boston man dying from lung cancer shocked his family when he confessed that he had changed his name after stealing from a previous employer. Tom Randele told his 35-year-old daughter that his real name is Ted Conrad, and when she researched the name online, she found out that he worked with Society National Bank in Cleveland, Ohio, in the 1960s until he walked out with a grocery bag containing $219,000 and was never seen again.
Then 20 years old, Conrad fled Ohio for Washington, DC, and became one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives. Deputy US Marshall Pete Elliott said, “He covered his trail really well. It’s really unbelievable that he lived the way he did for so many years. He was so good at it.”
Claiming to friends that his money came from an insurance settlement, Mr. Conrad built a new life in Washington; he secured work as a car salesman, obtained a driving license under his new name, married, and successfully hid his true identity and criminal past for over 50 years. His original family believed he had stolen the money for the mafia, who subsequently murdered him.
Conrad was an accomplished golfer who played in Florida and was encouraged to turn pro. His daughter said, “He told me he did not pursue turning pro because he did not want to travel the country, but he could not have been a professional golfer because of the exposure it would have brought him.”
Deathbed confessions are not uncommon, and many have revealed astonishing stories. “Michael Anderson” from Tennessee suffered a stroke in 2009 and believed he was going to die, so he told a nurse he was, in fact, James Brewer and was wanted for shooting a neighbor 30 years earlier. He survived the stroke and was jailed for murder.
The most prolonged period between a crime and confession involved a British man hiding in Canada who, when dying, confessed to a killing 69 years earlier.
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