The Great Nanaimo Bank Robbery
Back in 2007 the Nanaimo Star ran a look-back piece on the city’s ‘Costco Caper’ robbery of Mar. 7, 1996.
This was a rather ingeniously planned heist of Loomis Armoured guards as they made a delivery of cash to Costco’s ATM machine. The lone robber escaped with seven cassettes of currency; the amount stolen has never been released to the public.
As of 2007 the file remained open, according to RCMP but now, 24 years later, it seems highly unlikely that this ‘cold case’ will be solved.
Not so Nanaimo’s great bank robbery of December 1924, one of the province’s all-time classic heists. In this remarkable case the bandits, all Americans and professional criminals, were soon identified and arrests began to follow.
But, as you’ll see next week, this audacious hold-up with its connections to notorious gangsters of the Roaring ‘20s remains one of the more outstanding cases in our criminal annals.
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Nanaimo Royal Bank Was Victim of Bandits
Five or Six Bandits Made Raid on Royal Bank Here and Secured Over $30,000
Such were the headlines of the Nanaimo Free Press for December 12, 1924.
But before I go any further I would point out that, while 30 grand may not sound much by today’s standards, it was the equivalent of almost 20 times that amount a century ago. In short, it was well worth the efforts of an organized and professional gang of thieves.
The first recorded bank robbery in Nanaimo history, it appears to have gone down smoothly if not perfectly after five or six armed robbers (rattled bank employees and witnesses weren’t sure as to the exact number) entered the Royal Bank at the corner of Bastion and Commercial Streets at 2:30 in the afternoon and scooped up an estimated $30-40,000. In those days, it should be noted, each teller kept substantial amounts of currency and coin in their drawers for regular transactions, unlike today’s banking policy of keeping only a minimum sum to hand.
Few had doubts that the gang had been anything but professionals because of the way they went about their work in a “methodical and finished manner” during the 25-odd minutes it took them to complete the job. Their timing was intentional, too: they obviously knew that the following day was payday for the area’s several coal mines, which were the Hub City’s economic mainstay and employed 100s. Meaning that the bank was sure to have on hand.
This 1940s postcard shows the imposing Nanaimo branch of the Canadian Bank of Commerce.
But the robbers hadn’t allowed for the inevitable—the unforeseen.
Royal Bank Manager McCarty wasn’t on the premises when they burst in. He was at the dentist! Had he been on hand they undoubtedly would have forced him to open the vault—he was the only bank employee who knew the combination—thus gaining access to another $68,000.
Instead, they mistook employee Bobby Husband for McCarty. Saying, “You’re the guy,” the leader ordered him to open the vault. Fortunately, Husband was able to convince the robbers that the didn’t know the combination.
It was McCarty’s unforeseen absence that kept the robbers on-site for so long—awaiting his return. All the while employees and 14 customers (originally four) had been made to lie on the floor at gunpoint for what must have seemed an eternity before the gang, no doubt reluctantly and disappointed, withdrew.
The leader was described as being a tall and well dressed man who’d taken up a position that allowed him a full view of both the interior and the streets. While their prisoners lay prostrate, his men cleared out the tellers’ cages, placing the bills in a sack and ignoring the coins.
It’s interesting to note that only the leader was well dressed, probably implying he wore a suit, all his men being in working clothes of khaki pants and mackinaw coats. Too, this probably allowed them to blend in with Nanaimo’s working populace.
None wore masks or made any effort to hide or disguise his face.
William Bagley proved to be the leader of the gang.
Dick Shively stalled Canadian justice because he had unfinished business in the McNeill Island Penitentiary.
'Big' Tom Johnson who rented the getaway car in Victoria.
Edgar O'Donnell another of the bank robbers.
Finally, after 25 suspenseful minutes and no Manager McCarty, the gang jumped into a waiting vehicle and sped away down Commercial Street. At last report, as the newspaper went to press, the gang was seen speeding south of the Nanaimo River on the Island Highway in a Durant car, license number 4001.
Ironically, only those customers who were in the act of making deposits lost their money, the robbers not having bothered to search the others.
Provincial Police, of course, had been immediately notified and the manhunt was on, the next day’s issue of the Free Press assuring its readers that police were “hot on the trail of Nanaimo bank bandits”. (It was also reported that the gang had netted $40,000 for their efforts.)
As soon proved to be the case, hot on the trail was, at best, optimistic, the robbers having fled Nanaimo for Boat Harbour, six miles southeast of the city in the Cedar district, where they had a launch waiting. That’s where City Constable Archie McCuish found the abandoned Durant, and a nearby resident spoke of seeing a group of men push off from the beach in a rowboat to a larger craft which had its engine running.
All of which suggested, or confirmed, that the bank robbers were American and that they’d returned to the States.
Informed of their nautical flight route (they were last seen as they passed Mayne Island), five provincial police officers departed Vancouver in the “speedy diesel tug” Trucilla, capable of making 15 knots, in hopes of cutting them off before they crossed the 49th parallel. Police-manned speedboats were also dispatched from Victoria, the Royal Canadian Navy destroyer Patrician cleared Esquimalt, and the U.S. Coast Guard was alerted.
All were too late, of course.
From Bellingham, Wash., came word that police had found the abandoned motorboat, El Toro, used in the escape and that the gang leader was thought to be a former Seattle policeman. This should have come as no surprise to British Columbians who were well aware from newspaper reports that one of the leading bootleggers (this was the time of Prohibition in the United States) was a disgraced former Seattle police chief!
American police had, in fact, almost captured the robbers (eight of them, two more than had actually robbed the bank) when they landed just after midnight. Alerted by Canadian police authorities of the robbery and the gang’s suspected escape route, they’d come upon them as they switched to two cars which, alas, proved to be faster than the police vehicles. Police did manage to keep on their tail as far as Everett but there the chase had to be abandoned.
Hardly had this been made public than it was reported that an unidentified man thought to be one of the robbers had been surrounded after a lengthy chase in a wooded area north of Seattle and all available police reserves had been rushed to the scene.
This had come about when Seattle police officers, alerted to the car chase that had ended in Everett, tried to pull over a large touring car bearing the license plate number reported by Bellingham police. Again, after a half-hour-long chase, the suspects’ vehicle outpaced them. Two hours later, a man was seen walking along the highway near where police had first “hailed” the touring car. When police approached him he dashed into the woods.
It had since been learned that the robbers had begun their work in Victoria where they hired a car from Victoria Auto Livery on the morning of the robbery. “Credence is given to the belief,” said the Free Press, “that the robbery was planned here, probably in a downtown hotel, by the likelihood that the man who hired the car from Mr. A.L. Meugens, proprietor of the garage, was the leader of the gang.
“Mr. Meugens was able to give the police a good description of the bandit. This tallies with with the description given by eyewitnesses at Nanaimo of the man who directed operations in the bank.”
Said to be almost six feet tall, clean-shaven, well dressed and “well-proportioned,” he’d been possessed of a “not unpleasing personality,” according to Meugens. Throughout their brief transaction, his manner had been straightforward and businesslike, his voice modulated. As for his accent, Meugens was unsure whether he was American or Canadian. He wanted a large and speedy car hence the Durant, which he test-drove for an hour before arranging to pick it up at 7:30 next morning on the day of the robbery. But he didn’t show up at the rental office until 45 minutes after the arranged time; he left with the promise of being back by noon although there was a chance that he’d be later.
Victoria newspapers had taken up the story with a breathless account of how the 35-knot destroyer HMCS Patrician, “smoke belching from her funnels in the darkness of the night,” had joined the chase from Esquimalt in hopes of heading off the robbers’ speedboat as it raced for the American side.
First thing next morning, seaplanes based at Jericho Beach, Vancouver joined the search, not having been able to do so the previous day because of early darkness. Police boats dispatched from Victoria, Nanaimo and Vancouver had been frustrated by poor weather in Georgia Strait.
For all that, two days after the robbery the Free Press glumly reported that the authorities had conceded that the bandits had gotten away.
A shot of the Malahat in the 1920s when Johnson and another gang member had to plead with a road foreman to let them through because of a sick sister in Nanaimo. They were actually on their way to meet up with the rest of the gang who'd already arrived by boat.
An interesting development was a report that two men calling themselves Murray and Jordan drove up-Island in a rented car from Victoria but were stopped by roadwork on the Malahat. When road foreman Dan Cousins told them they couldn’t proceed, one man pleaded that he had a sick sister in Nanaimo and just had to go through. Cousins relented and raised the traffic barrier.
At Koksilah, just south of Duncan, they stopped at the local garage to buy two new tires for the rear wheels. While these were being installed they chatted pleasantly with the owner, paid their bill and left. They then met the other four members of the gang (police believed that there were eight in all, including two boat men) at Boat Harbour who’d arrived by water.
There was also some dispute as to whether the cars that had been chased by Bellingham police were the fleeing robbers or a blind, that the gang (and the money) had proceeded straight to Seattle. (There was no further word of the man who’d been chased into the woods near that city.) At this point, it seems, Provincial Police were down to examining the Royal Bank for fingerprints.
Did the fact that the stolen money was in Canadian bills pose a problem for the robbers? Hardly. It was expected that it would be ‘laundered’ by paying Canadian suppliers for smuggled liquor!
Were Canadian and cooperating American police stumped? Not at all, as soon became apparent. Just 10 days later, the Free Press reported that six suspects were being held in Seattle and Police Chief J. Shirras was on his way there with five of the robbery robbery witnesses for identification purposes.
The dramatic development was described by a Seattle newspaper and copied by the FP: “Seattle, Dec.22—With a single cast of their net over Western Washington tonight, Canadian and American officials [note the level of cooperation between the two countries—TW] and detectives trapped six of the eight men accused of the spectacular holdup and $40,000 robbery, December 12, of the Royal Bank of Canada branch at Nanaimo, B.C. The two most noted of the prisoners are:
“Ross C. Watson, until recently a police detective, dismissed from the department a few weeks ago and charged with complicity in the $22,000 Bon Marche robbery here on August 8.
“Clarence H. (‘Dick’) Shiveley [or Shively], former Seattle patrolman, convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for dry law [Prohibition] violations and awaiting trial in connection with last year’s California bond robbery here.
“The arrests are the result of work, day and night, from the time of the robbery, of Inspector Forbes Cruickshank of the British Columbia Provincial Police, and Deputy Prosecutor Bert C. Ross and T.R. Patterson of this city, acting as special prosecutors for the province, assisted by Captain of Detectives J.S. Strickland, Tacoma, and Captain of Detectives Charles Tennant and Sheriff Mat Starwich of Seattle...”
Seattle police had seized Shiveley’s new 800-hp motorboat El Toro.
Bellingham, where they’d switched to a Ford truck and a Cadillac car before continuing south through Skagit and Snohomish counties to Seattle and Tacoma.
Shiveley was thought to be the ringleader as he matched the description of the robber—six feet tall, 200 pounds, of sandy complexion—who rented the Durant and directed the Nanaimo robbery, and “who was so cool and polite during the robbery as to excite the admiration of all of his victims”. Polite or no, the former patrolman was suspected of other bank robberies and being deeply involved in the rum running racket.
Extradition proceedings, it was reported, were underway.
On the same front page that wished readers a banner line Merry Christmas, the Free Press reported that five of the men arrested in Seattle had been identified by witnesses from the Nanaimo bank robbery. It hadn’t been a unanimous process, however, three of the five witnesses having failed to positively ID Watson (who’d been segregated from the other suspects). But teller James Stevenson did finger two $5 bills and a $2 bill by red pencil marks as part of the $4748 in Canadian currency and gold coin found in the room one of the arrested men, Harry Stone alias La Rue, alias George Rossi. Of no fixed address, he couldn’t account for the small fortune in his possession. Police said they were continuing the search for two of his known associates, a man and a woman, and scouring Shiveley’s “ranch” for more of the loot. They did find a receipt for 500 gallons of gasoline—proof, they said, that he’d used the $50,000 El Toro to transport the gang to and from Nanaimo.
Watson’s alibi, such as it was, was that he hadn’t been in B.C. in months and his wife said he was home at the time of the robbery. He did admit to being involved in liquor smuggling but robbing banks—?
There was some internal heave-ho between Seattle and state authorities, the latter wanting to take custody of Shiveley to resume his unfinished sentence for rum running at McNeill Island Penitentiary, the former insisting he remain under lock and key in the King County Jail. If the Feds persisted this would upset, or at least delay, Canada’s chances of successful extradition for the bank heist. Canadian authorities promised that, if Shiveley were sent to McNeill Island they’d be waiting at the prison gate to re-arrest him upon release.
In its Boxing Day edition the Free Press proclaimed that all of the accused bandits had been positively identified by Nanaimo witnesses. For the first time, however, the ringleader was identified as a man named Thomas Johnson, not Watson. Apparently Seattle police had taken every step to ensure accurate IDs by first having a line-up of 10 non-suspects to test the witnesses’ memories. Other line-ups, each with just one or two suspects, followed. All five witnesses were convinced that Johnson was the ringleader.
It was now mentioned that at one point during the car chases with Bellingham police they’d levelled their rifles at pursuers while abandoning the Ford truck for being too slow.
Interestingly, a search of the robbers upon their arrest found that each man was equipped with a complete first-aid kit, including iodine, bandages and a magnetized instrument for extracting bullets from wounds!
Police on both sides of the border were lauded for their work in bringing the robbers to bay.
Extradition proceedings for all six in King Country Court were sure to pose problems for Canadian authorities eager to have their hands on the accused men, all but one of whom had engaged lawyers and were pleading habeas corpus. Only Clarence Shiviel [Shiveley] made no attempt to contest, apparently preferring to take his chances in a Canadian court rather than return to McNeill Island.
The well-connected Watson had come up with several respectable witnesses who gave him an “iron-clad” alibi for the time of the robbery—despite a rumour that he’d been seen there on the 12th by another former Seattle policeman.
What followed were two months of desperate legal manoeuvring, particularly on Watson’s part, before he, too, threw in the towel.
The real leader of what had been a seven-man gang, it turned out, was William Bagley, a hardened criminal who ultimately ended his career on the gallows. Gang members Stone, Castro, Johnson and O’Donnell who pleaded guilty in a Nanaimo courtroom, each got eight years and 20 lashes. Because Bagley pleaded not guilty he got 10 years and 20 lashes. Ross Watson, after a hung jury and a second trial, was acquitted. James Burns alias Gambertoli, escaped from the decrepit King County Jail and was believed to have stowed away on an outbound Japanese freighter. Unhappily for him, he chose to return to the States and was again arrested. He never did stand trial in Canada for the Nananimo robbery because he was convicted of killing a bank manager during another holdup.
That wasn’t quite the end of the story. Thanks to the writings of Cecil Clark, retired deputy commissioner of the B.C. Provincial Police, we know that Harry Stone, upon release from the B.C. Penitentiary, robbed another bank at Everett, WA and died in Alcatraz. Big Tom Johnson died of TB while serving 40 years in Walla Walla, and O’Donnell was hanged at Folsom for shooting a police officer.
Clark didn’t account for Clarence Shiveley’s final disposition in court, indicating that he was returned to McNeill Island to complete a previous sentence.
All in all, these were desperate men and all parties concerned, victims and police, had to be thankful they didn’t kill anyone during the robbery or during the wild car chases that followed.
As Mr. Clark summed up his article in the weekend edition of the Colonist 50 years ago, they really were the Roaring ‘20s!
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