Edwin Alonzo Boyd: The Story Of The Notorious Boyd Gang

by Brian Vallée

A Second World War veteran and the son of a policmen, Edwin Alonzo Boyd seemed an unlikely condidate for the role of master criminal.  But before his career as a bandit was ended in 1952, the glamorously handsome Boyd cut a swath through 11 Toronto-area banks, stealing thousands of dollars and igniting two manhunts of unprecedented scope.  When he and his confederates escaped not once but twice from Toronto's Don Jail, the Boyd Gang created headlines across North America and became an enduring Canadian legend.

Eventually recaptured and sentenced to life imprisonment, Edwin Alonzo Boyd was paroled in 1966.  Since then he has lived under as assumed identity, but he willingly shared his memories with best selling author Brian Vallee, resulting in this gripping account of Boyd's dubious career.  Numerous others--including Boyd's former wife and various police officers involved with the Boyd Gang--also spoke candidly to the author.

Edwin Alonzo The Story of the Notorious Boyd Gang sheds light on a unique fragment of our history, rich with details of Depression-era and postwar Canada and alive with the insights and memories of those who lived this true-life cops-and-robbers drama.

Genres: True Crime

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[Christina McLain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Canada, it is often said, is a country full of polite, if slightly dull people. But not every Canadian is polite and dull. And Edwin Alonzo Boyd is the exception who proved the rule. Boyd was at one time, Canada's most notorious and prolific bank robber. He became a legend for his Erroll Flynn good looks, his manners and for the many heists he pulled off in the early 1950's in Toronto, then a staid, rather lackluster Anglo-Saxon city, a sort of London without the oomph.
Little in Boyd's childhood pointed to the career path he would choose. His parents were lower-middle class respectable people. As a child Boyd may have become estranged from the soldier father he didn't see for several years during WWI. It is possible that he may have been bullied at school and had little interest in academics but Boyd wasn't a total outsider. He played soccer and joined the YMCA marching band, playing at the Canadian National Exhibition in the late 1920s. In 1930, his mother died suddenly of scarlet fever and there is evidence that he clashed with his father, who by then had become a policeman, a classic authority figure.
During the Great Depression, Boyd, like a lot of young unemployed men, left school and rode the rails, looking for money and employment. In 1933 he was arrested for vagrancy..He also robbed a gas station and served time in a penitentiary

During WWII, Boyd joined the Canadian army and though he disked rules, he.served overseas in England for almost five years. He married a British woman and they lost their first child in a bombing raid in northern England.
All of these factors could have put a chip on his shoulder, or made him angry with the world. At any rate by the end of the 40's, Boyd who by then had a family, found he couldn't make enough money to support them or was.bored with the jobs offered to him..One day he put on some makeup (Boyd had always had an interest in theatrical life, and had once auditioned for an acting job), disguising his looks and robbed a branch of the Bank of Montreal. By October 1951 he had pulled over six successful bank heists and was famous for his good looks, his style and his panache, often jumping over bank counters to get the money he demanded. He also twice sawed his way out of the notorious Don jail, adding to his legendary status as a colorful outlaw.
Soon, while serving time Boyd met up with a group of men destined to be his partners in crime. His closest friend was Lennie Jackson, a small-time criminal who had lost a foot in a railway accident. Along with Willie Jackson, alias the Clown, and the unstable and violent Val Lesso, a Bulgarian immigrant who also went by the name of Steve Suchan, the men became known as the Boyd gang. Boyd was definitely the brains behind the operation and he spent months hiding out successfully, by moving all over Toronto and avoiding capture. However, while he was in hiding, his accomplices Willie Jackson and Suchan, killed a policeman, an act which shocked the country and cost Boyd his folk hero status. The two men were later executed.
On March 15th, 1952 Boyd surrendered, ending the then greatest criminal manhunt in Canadian history. Though he received eight life sentences, he was released in 1962 after serving ten years in the Kingston penitentiary. His life of crime cost him his wife, his children and the relationship with his father.
After being paroled, Boyd moved to British Columbia and married again, to a disabled woman. He stayed out of trouble and died quietly in 2002.
What made him tick? Was it hatred of his father, life as a vagabond, a desire for quick, if not necessarily, easy money? We may never know. But it is interesting to note that not long before his death, Boyd told a CBC television producer he had murdered a couple, Iris Scott and George Vigus, in a robbery gone bad, years before he began his bank robbing spree. He died before a formal investigation could begin.