Theodore John Conrad is the mastermind behind America’s one of the most infamous bank robberies. He was identified after a 5-decade long search, law enforcement announced on Sunday, November 12, 2021.

Conrad was a teller at a bank, Society National Bank in Cleveland, which he robbed in July 1969. He fled with $215,000, which is worth $1.7m (£1.2m) today.

The US Marshals Service investigators said that the man lived a quiet life after the heist.

Conrad was just 20 years old when he committed the crime. He is expected to have died in May from lung cancer. He took the advantage of the bank’s poor security and walked out of the bank with the money wrapped up in a brown paper.

By the time the bank realised, he had gone underground. This prompted a massive manhunt that lasted more than half a century.

This whole episode went on to feature on television shows like America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries.

According to the Marshal Service, he had allegedly informed his friends of the plan and mentioned how easy the job would be. He was inspired by the 1968 Steve McQueen heist film, The Thomas Crown Affair. In order to prepare for the heist, he watched those movies more than 10 times.

Conrad after fleeing to Washington DC and Los Angeles had changed his name to Thomas Randele. Eventually, he settled in a Boston suburb around 1,000km (621 miles) away from the scene of the crime.

As per a New York Times report, he spent working as a golf professional and at a used-car dealership.

The case remained cold for years. The investigators were alerted by Randele’s obituary in a newspaper. With the help of this information, they started connecting the dots and zeroed in on him.

Marshal Peter Elliott was one of the lead investigators on the case. He inherited it from his father John, who had been obsessed with finding out what became of the daring thief.

“My father never stopped searching for Conrad and always wanted closure up until his death in 2020,” Marshal Peter Elliott, one of the lead investigators on the case, said.

“I hope my father is resting a little easier today knowing his investigation and his United States Marshals Service brought closure to this decades-long mystery,” Elliot added.