Edwin Alonzo Boyd

Edwin Alonzo Boyd
Boyd in 1952
Born	(1914-04-02)April 2, 1914 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Died	May 17, 2002(2002-05-17) (aged 88) British Columbia, Canada
Occupation	Infantryman, actor, bus driver
Criminal penalty	Eight life sentences
Criminal status	Paroled, 1962
Spouse(s)	Dorreen
Children	3
Allegiance	Boyd Gang
Motive	Money He was compassionate to wounded veterans.
Conviction(s)	Bank robbery, 1952

Edwin Alonzo Boyd (April 2, 1914 – May 17, 2002) was a Canadian bank robber and leader of the Boyd Gang. His career made him a notorious Canadian folk hero.

Early life

Edwin Alonzo Boyd was born on April 2, 1914.^[1] Four months after Ed was born, the British Empire, of which Canada was part, went to war with Germany. His father Glover Boyd joined the army in August 1915.^[2] It would be a few years before Glover would return home from the war. The apartment the family lived in was now too small so they soon moved to a duplex on Bee Street in Todmorden, an area beyond the Don Valley, in East York.^[3]

Soon after, Eleanor (Edwin’s mother) became pregnant again, so Glover Boyd took a job at the Toronto Police Department.^[4] Edwin was enrolled in school in the 1921–22 year, but due to an incident at school he did not remain there for very long and before his first year of schooling had ended his family had moved again.^[5] At this time he switched to Gledhill Public school to finish out the semester. In September 1923 Glover moved the family a few blocks north and Ed switched to Secord Public school for a brief period of time before being transferred back to Gledhill Public school.^[6]

The Boyds soon moved again, this time to Glebemount Avenue.^[7] With this move came the transfer to yet another new school, this time to Earl Beatty Public School and it was here that Ed became more of his own person. It was here that he became a soccer player on the school team, and for years his picture hung in the hall of the school.^[8] It was also at this time that Edwin Alonzo Boyd joined the YMCA marching band. It was with the YMCA that Boyd mastered the mouth organ and he also accompanied the YMCA band as they won a world championship at the Canadian National Exhibition.^[9]

In early 1930 Gord and Norm Boyd contracted scarlet fever, and while taking care of them Eleanor Boyd became sick herself and died from the disease.^[10] In 1933 Edwin had his first brush with the law when he was picked up for vagrancy by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.^[11]

World War II

A few years later, Edwin Boyd joined the Royal Canadian Regiment, First division. In June 1940 his regiment crossed the channel to France.^[12] It was when his regiment was posted to Reigate, Surrey that Boyd met his future wife, Doreen Mary Frances Thompson.^[13] On August 20, 1941, almost nine months to the day after Ed and Doreen married, she gave birth to a son, Edwin Alonzo Boyd, Jr.^[14] The baby was two days old when the air raid sirens sounded and it was discovered afterwards that their child had died from cerebral hemorrhage and so he was buried on August 30 in a York cemetery.^[15]

In early 1941 Doreen went to York and joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, but she was too short to be a truck driver and thus she became a motorcycle driver to join her husband in the war.^[16] Boyd was transferred to the Canadian Provost Corps on July 27, 1942, because he was displeased with the army.^[17] Soon after this Doreen discovered that she was pregnant again and this time they had twins on December 21, 1943.^[18] Boyd was officially discharged from the war effort on May 24, 1945, which was two weeks after the war ended in Europe.^[19]

Crimes

After he was discharged, Boyd failed to find adequate permanent employment and so he turned to crime to provide for his wartime wife and three children.^[20] On September 9, 1949 Boyd robbed a North York branch of the Bank of Montreal.^[21] Between September 1949 and October 1951, Boyd pulled at least six bank heists.^[22]

He joined up with another robber and carried out several other bold bank robberies. He had a reputation for jumping over counters, moving quickly, and carrying a gun. His partner, old Howard Gault, got caught and told all. They both went to the Don Jail in Toronto. While Eddie and his partner were robbing banks, another more violent gang was also doing the same thing. Lennie Jackson, a member of this gang, was caught at the same time as Eddie, and they soon began to swap notes. Soon another experienced bank robber, Willie Jackson (no relation to Lennie), alias "The Clown", arrived at the Don Jail awaiting transfer to the Kingston Penitentiary for a seven-year sentence. Lennie Jackson had lost a foot in a railway accident and had a wooden foot in which he had stored several hacksaw blades.

The Boyd Gang

"On November 4, 1951, Eddie and the Jacksons hacksawed the bars and went over the wall and escaped. They met a friend, Valent Lesso from Cochrane, one of the violent members of Lennie Jackson’s original gang, and the four became a team. Lesso was a talented musician who couldn’t find work; he changed his name to Steve Suchan and became a bank robber. They soon pulled off a series of robberies, including the biggest one in Toronto history. The newspapers dubbed the new group "the Boyd Gang," seeing Eddie as the brains behind the operation. Willie Jackson was arrested and sent to the Don Jail. Eddie went into hiding with his wife Dorreen."

Arrest and release

The police received numerous calls from residents in West Ferris and Powassan, Ontario, and from a pharmacist in North Bay. None of them panned out. After ten days, men were seen at a barn in the Don Valley 24 km^[23] from the jail, and all members of the Boyd Gang excluding Edwin Boyd himself, were captured without incident.

Now Boyd was the only gang member left to be captured. Detective Adolphus 'Dolph' Payne had kept Boyd's brother Norman under surveillance and discovered that he had rented a flat on Heath Street, but had not moved in yet. He secured a key to the back door from the owner. Payne then watched, from a neighbour's house, as Boyd moved into the flat. Wanting to avoid a shootout, he waited until he was sure everyone was asleep. At the crack of dawn on March 15, 1952, the police crept inside the house and captured Boyd and his wife while they were still in bed. Boyd's brother, who was sleeping in another room, was also apprehended. The Toronto Nugget reported the event by stating "Edwin Alonzo Boyd, Canada’s Public Enemy Number One, surrendered meekly with his henchmen to two suburban detectives, ending the greatest criminal man hunt in the Dominion’s history." One of these officers was Kenneth Craven.

Steve Suchan and Lennie Jackson were sentenced to death for killing Detective Tong. On December 16, 1952 Steve Suchan, after a brief visit with his mother, and Lennie Jackson with his wife, received last rites and waited for their 8 am execution. To their surprise, the executioner came at midnight, and by 12:14 am they were both dead, hanged back to back.

Eddie received eight life sentences and Willie Jackson thirty years. Willie Jackson and Eddie Boyd were both released on parole in 1962.

Ex Bandit Boyd Calls For Police. Edwin Alonzo Boyd, who has spent much of his life dodging police, asked for their assistance last night- to arrest his wife and her companion. Boyd was paroled Oct. 3 after serving 10 years in Kingston penitentiary for bank robbery. He set up housekeeping in a west-central house for himself and his children. Last night Boyd sent a hurried call for help to Markham St. station when a man and woman arrived at his home and battered down the front door. The woman said she wanted to pick up clothing. Booked on charges of being drunk were Doreen Boyd and Kenneth Caustan, 40. In court today she pleaded guilty and was fined $5. She was returned to the cells until she could raise the money.

— Toronto Star, December 14, 1962

Eddie, under the name John, went to Victoria, British Columbia, where he drove a bus for disabled people and married a disabled woman whom he met on the bus. He took care of her for the next 35 years, until they went into a home.

Death

Two months prior to his death, Boyd told a CBC producer that he had once killed a couple and left their bodies in the trunk of a car in High Park, Toronto years before his notoriety as a bank robber. The crime fits the September 11, 1947 murders of Iris Scott and George Vigus.^[24]

Before a formal investigation into his confession could commence, on May 17, 2002, after a visit from his wife and his son, and a phone call from his former war bride and the mother of his three children, Edwin Alonzo Boyd died at age 88.

Legacy

Two books have been written on the Boyd Gang, and one was made into a successful movie. "Girls in the Gang", a musical written by Raymond Storey and Jon Roby, was based on the story of the Boyd gang. It debuted in 1987 at Toronto's Factory Theatre, produced by Dian English, and won a Dora Mavor Moore award for best musical. In 1998 Boyd was profiled in a documentary on CBC Television's Life and Times, wherein he admitted that he had committed many more robberies than he had been charged with. Another highly fictionalized film on Boyd's life, Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster, was released in 2011; Scott Speedman plays the part of Boyd.^[25]

The episode "Scheherazade" of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit may have partially been based on Boyd's last days. In it, a former bank robber (Brian Dennehy) confesses to a murder shortly before dying.

References

External links

• CBC Digital Archives - Toronto's Infamous 'Boyd Gang'