Story Archive

Scene of the Crime

“It was a great little legend for us, but I don’t think any of us knew he was still alive,” said Alex McMahon, the wine director of an Ottawa, Canada, restaurant called Riviera. And yet Boyne Johnston turned up there to have lunch. In the notes to the reservation, McMahon said, someone had written: “I’m bringing my friend back to the bank that he robbed.” The Riviera’s space once housed the Imperial Bank of Canada, and Johnston was a teller there until, 60 years ago, he left with more than a quarter of a million dollars — now worth about C$2.3 million (US$1.8 million). He gallivanted about for 17 days, “a nightclub habitué with a taste for champagne,” according to his wanted poster, before he was arrested in Detroit, Mich. He was paroled in 1960. On returning to the scene, now the Riviera, he took a tour, he told stories, and in the wine cellar that was once the bank vault, he drank — what else? — champagne. (AC/CBC, Ottawa Citizen) ...Did he pay for it?