![]() He put on a black stocking mask before leaving the bank with Milliard. The nearest major centre is Winnipeg, 130 miles west. Every road out of town leads to a dead end in the bush except the Trans-Canada Highway. Reid doesn’t think the man had any clear-cut plan. The manager relayed the order by telephone to Engstrom, who was watching from a store across the street.Įngstrom arranged for a truck owned by the town and told Milliard to drive it because he was in plainclothes and might not be recognized as a policeman. When the robber had all the money the bags would hold - Reid would say only that it was more than $10,000 - he ordered a pick-up truck driver. The robber let a dozen members of the bank staff leave, but made Corporal John Lechkun stay with him and Reid to help stuff the money into the duffle bag and smaller bags he carried inside it along with a rifle. “He seemed rational, but he didn’t seem to have any real plan.” “I tried to talk to him, about where he came from and so on, bit I didn’t get any answers,” Reid said. Police hope to identify him through fingerprints from a forearm they found 50 feet from the bank- one of the biggest fragments left after the bomb splattered blood two storeys high. He had a full, reddish beard and wore a pink plaid bush jacket. He said the man seemed to be about 50 and about 5 feet, 8 inches tall. My main concern was that he kept those sticks tightly in his mouth, or in his fingers when he tool the thing out to give us orders.” “He didn’t seem hopped up or anything,” Reid said later. ![]() He threatened to “blow everybody up if I have any problems.” Six officers arrived, and the robber showed how his dynamite belt would work. Obeying instructions, the manager called the police chief. “If you want money, I’ll give you money,” he said. closing hour and said simply: “I want money.” Unless they were pinched in his teeth or lingering at one end, two metal contacts connected to wires would trigger the blast.Īl Reid, manager of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce branch, said the man entered his office 10 minutes before the 3 p.m. The robber had even let them smell the dynamite and shown them the detonator he had made of two sticks with a spring in the middle. Police cruisers kept them from entering the block where the bank is situated, but more were still driving toward the scene when the dynamite went off. Spectators were drawn to the scene by descriptions of the 80-minute drama from a radio station across from the bank. “It was a very difficultly decision, but I’m sure they did the right thing under the circumstances,” he said in an interview. Davidson said local and provincial police must have been afraid the dynamite would go off as the truck drove past the bystanders in his quiet little town of 2,100 near the Ontario-Manitoba border. ![]() One of the men told The Star it had been “prearranged” that Milliard would protect his back with the bag and try to dive for cover if he got a chance, but Engstrom insisted he had given no orders to shoot. ![]() Webb Engstrom refused to say who fired the shot. He was only five steps ahead of the human bomb, but part of the blast was absorbed by a duffle bag stuffed with stolen money which the constable was carrying to a getaway truck. Further tests are needed to determine whether he will hear again. Officials at Lake of the Woods District Hospital said Milliard, 30, suffered a concussion as well as multiple cuts. ![]()
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