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IIn 1962, a crew of Massachusetts mail robbers tried to pull off a single heist for a very large score. Their focus was money brought into Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a popular tourist destination that draws in many visitors over the summer. The crew knew that the island’s banks would be full of tourist money on Monday morning. Money that would be sent to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston the next day.
On the evening of Tuesday, August 14, 1962, the crew pulled off a carefully planned mail heist. After the target mail truck passed a fork in the highway, they closed off the road behind it. Some of the thieves then stopped their car in front of the mail truck. One, dressed in a police uniform, stepped out to stop the mail truck. Armed, and with the element of surprise, he ordered the driver and guard to lie facedown in the rear of the truck, where they were bound with tape.
Thieves drove off with the truck to rendezvous with the rest of their crew. They left the truck’s guards unharmed outside Boston city limits. Postal inspectors oversaw the investigation, aided by state police, local police, and FBI agents. They began the investigation by questioning all known holdup men in the area. A particularly promising lead from a prison inmate led inspectors to John J. Kelley and Thomas R. Richards.
Richards, who had no criminal record, was said to have served as a driver for various heists. When questioned, Richards did not admit to anything. Inspectors staked out his house, and eventually Richards admitted that he was involved and cooperated to avoid jail time. In Kelley’s home, inspectors found tape that was determined to be from the same roll used to bind the truck driver and guard.
In the summer of 1967 the U.S. attorney in Boston charged Thomas R. Richards and John J. Kelley. But Richards had disappeared and without his testimony the prosecution did not have enough evidence to produce a conviction. The Post Office Department offered a reward of $50,000 leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible, and the Federal Reserve offered a reward of $150,000 or 10 percent of any part of the recovered currency. Despite these offerings, no one was ever convicted, and the $1.5 million that was stolen in the robbery has not yet been retrieved. |
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