The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - My Fugitive Dad | 5. Tom's Very Last Round

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

Ashley realizes her Dad has been hiding a diagnosis from her and her mother. Time is running out for him to tell the truth. Hosts Jonathan and Ashley go back to the house on Carter Road, her childhood home - where her Dad dropped the bombshell that changed everything. And Pete Elliott helps his father face the fact that he may never catch Ted Conrad. Subscribe to The Binge to get all episodes of Smoke Screen: My Fugitive Dad, ad-free right now. Click ‘Subscribe’ at the top of the Smoke Screen: My Fugitive Dad show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. A Neon Hum Media & Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. The Bench.

Okay, so Ashley, talking to Tom's friends, Dave and Frankie, the car guys from the dealership, there's this one story that stuck out to me. It was about the time Tom drove the company car to get some Wendy's. Yeah, I've been thinking about that moment too. I said, where are you going? David saw Tom heading out to his car and asked him where he was going. He told him he was going for lunch at Wendy's.

He liked that shitty chili. Fucking chili. Forty-five minutes later, he got a call from Tom, who was in a ditch on the side of the road. The car was totaled. He says, some fucking guy just ran. It's the only time I hear him swear. He never swore. Some fucking guy come up on my left-hand side and run me off the road.

And I went down in the ditch and I'm in the ditch. I said, are you okay? Apparently, Tom was more concerned about the spilled chili, according to David, who found this story hilarious. And dad had like a scratch, like no broken bones, no black eyes from the airbags. And then what dad had told me afterwards is that he'd actually had a small heart episode. The reason he drove off the road was because he was having a small heart attack. And so the story he tells David is just a lie. I mean, I guess it's like 40% true, but it's 60% not telling people the whole truth. And I tell this to mom and she's like, what are you talking about his heart?

Over the years, Tom had been successful at shielding inconvenient truths from the people around him. But it wasn't secrets from the distant past he was hiding anymore. And he wouldn't be able to hide his health problems for long. And once those came to light, everything else would too. From Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Smokescreen. My fugitive dad. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. And I'm Ashley Randall.

Chapter 5. Tom's Very Last Round. In the Thomas Crown Affair, Faye Dunaway plays the part of Vicki Anderson, a private insurance investigator working on commission for the bank, where Crown pulls off the heist. Vicki, I want you to meet Lieutenant Eddie Malone at the Boston Police Department. The boss? The man in charge. I've read your report. She's garnered something of a reputation for herself,

for her methods. Every crime has a personality, a something like the mind that Blandon and this one has. Oh, that's clever. her methods. She quickly narrows down her suspects. The money must have moved to Switzerland on multiple trips so as to not arouse suspicion. Who would have made deposits to multiple accounts in large sums over a short period of time, there was only one person. $16,240 bills, $19,871 bills. Thomas Crown.

And she is unconventional in her style. So she devises an age-old method of hunting down Crown. She seduces him. And perhaps the only thing more titillating than their steamy on-screen chemistry is the fact that Crown knows she's coming after him. You have any idea how much they're costing you? Those characters that follow us around? Following you is following me.

I don't like it any more than you do. In a very 1960s fashion, things come to a head in what can only be described as the sauna scene. Crown and Anderson are shirtless in the sauna, weighing his options. She convinces him

to turn himself in. Conveniently, but also kind of gross if you ask me, there's a telephone mounted to the wall of the sauna. She picks it up

and calls the authorities. You can't ever spend it. Not yours. Not the bank's. Every penny you spend, they want to trace. Don't you see? There's no way out. You've done too good a job, Vicki.

So, this is it. The cat and mouse game is almost up. Tom Randall, too, would give up on running from the truth. By the time Tom had been Kathy's husband and Ashley's dad for decades, he was very good at pretending everything was fine, even when it wasn't. Tom had reasons, though,

why he didn't tell his wife some things. He never wanted me to be worried or upset about anything to the point that it would be last minute I would find out about things. About really bad stuff? Well, any stuff. I have anxiety. I have terrible anxiety. So for him, the best thing is to do is put it off as long as you can,

because she's going to get upset anyway. My theory is tell me right away. Let me get upset and not get over it. Tom tried to shield Kathy from hardship, as if not saying bad news out loud would not give it life. But he struggled to admit some things to himself, not just her,, not just Ashley. How did you come to know that your dad was sick?

Summer of 2020, I, like most of the country, was working remotely. And I still had my apartment in New York, but I really needed to get out of the city. It was a little scary being there. And so I went back to Massachusetts and was living at home in Linfield. And it was end of June, beginning of July. Dad just started feeling not sick, like he had a cold or the flu, but really tired. He was exhausted all the time. And all he would do is take Benadryl, which was weird, but sort of dad. He didn't want to admit that he was sick.

He refused to go to the doctor for months. And it was finally in the fall. He wasn't getting any better. Mom and dad went to the hospital to have some tests done, and they found out that his heart was only functioning at, I believe, 15%. So his heart became an issue. It was also at that time that in looking at my own medical records, there's an app called Gateway that I don't know if it's used just in Massachusetts or all over the country, but it has like all of my medical records.

But then I can also see high level family things. So under my mom, you can see breast cancer, anxiety. And then under my dad, it said emphysema. Mom and I had no idea he had emphysema, had no idea how long he'd had it, but it's sitting there in his records. And you're just discovering it. It was so shocking. This is something he should have told, at bare minimum, me. I mean, and also you should probably tell your wife. Why do you think he didn't tell you? You know how it was John Elliott's mission to catch my dad? Well, my life's mission was to get my dad to quit smoking.

When we were digging through these home videos, we found one of me at six years old complaining about his smoking. Graham was behind the camera. Oh, that's a beautiful tree. Grandma! And there's Ashley saying, Grandma. There's dad on one end of the couch smoking a beautiful tree. Grandma! And this is Ashley saying, Grandma. There's Dad on one end of the couch smoking a menthol. And me on the other end, all dressed up for the holiday in a party dress, playing with my dolls.

And this is Tom. Smoking! What a smoking cop cop. And the tree. I actually used my allowance money one year to buy him the first ever nicotine patch. Oh my God. That was his birthday present for me. So I think he didn't tell me because I would have just told him to quit again for the millionth time.

So, okay, so we know he has heart issues, smoker. We know he has emphysema. He's obviously sick, but I'm still having a hard time kind of understanding what's really going on. The doctors wanted to give him a quadruple bypass. Oh, wow. That's how bad his heart was. Wow. But when they went in to check his lungs, you know, before they do the surgery to make sure everything else is okay.

Yeah. That's when we found out that he had lung cancer and it was really bad. So, so that's the moment. Yeah. Up until then, we'd sort of been living our lives. Yeah. But then that March with that diagnosis, I mean, I packed up my life in New York. I moved home and nothing was ever the same. And is that sort of around the time that he like stopped playing golf too? He had tried to play right around when he was starting the chemo because the golf course is open depending like in April. Yeah.

There was one doctor's visit where the doctor said, you know, like, you just do what you want to do. And he heard that is, see, I'm fine. They're telling me to go do what I want to do. And mom and I hear that and know what they're saying is, you should just enjoy the time you have left. And that's when he went and tried to play a round of golf with Steve. Thank you. Learn more at scotiabank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotiabank. You're richer than you think. On a cold morning in April 2021, Steve Mills drove up to Sagamore Golf Club. For years, Tom and Steve played together.

They had a standing weekend tea time. I think it was about 15 years ago, probably, when I first met him. We had a regular tea time at a local course. They allow you to reserve a certain slot every week. They want you to show up with a full foursome. But from time to time, somebody bags out and you show up with three, and you need somebody to fill in that slot. And we needed a fourth, and so we got paired up with Tom,

and thank goodness, we knew right off, you know, wow, this guy's really great, really cool guy, good guy. For years, this was a steady part of Tom and Steve's life, playing golf together every week. By now, Tom's closest friends knew he was sick. He'd been getting weaker and weaker. But Steve still invited him out. And I would check in with him every week, you know, so you're going to play this weekend? Are you going to be able to do it this weekend? And every week. And he said, yeah, you know, can't do it this weekend, week, you know, so you're going to play this weekend? Are you going to be able to do it this weekend and every week?

And he said, yeah, you know, keep, can't do it this weekend, but, you know, keep checking. And then one Sunday he said, yes, he could play. This time was different. Tom was frail and moving slowly. He got in the car and your mom was out on the lawn with him waiting for me. It's been years since that last game, but Steve still thinks about it. I said, how's it going, man? Great to see you. Great to see you. This is great. He said, well, I've gotten better news from the doctor before. That's when I, yeah, that's, the whole time I knew the guy,

he never, he wouldn't have complained about a hangnail, right? Just carried his own bag, you know, got balls down to the range. He just could not swing the club. It was just, it was still the beginning of, or mid-April, and it was just too cold and he was having trouble breathing. And at that time, he had a giant tumor in his lung that, of course, he would not tell you. That day was Tom's very last round. It's a strange irony, too, that a year earlier, almost to the date, Deputy U.S. Marshal John Elliott gave up the game he loved the most, too. The game of cat and mouse.

The search for Ted Conrad. Brian Fitzgibbons is the Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal for Northern Ohio. He's a native New Yorker. After 9-11, he joined the Marshal Service, started out in Brooklyn. But in 2007, he had an opportunity to come to Cleveland. That's where he first met John Elliott. He always reminded me of the man in black, Mr. Johnny Cash. He had that voice that was very commanding, and he didn't have to raise it in order to get your attention. John had been retired for more than 15 years, but you could see him hanging around the office of the Marshal Service.

I came here in 2007. He had been retired for quite some time. He was still in the mix, right? He was still passionate. He wanted to know what we were doing. He'd always come to visit. Brian is filled with emotion and adoration when he talks about John. He could tell a great story. He was a man that he could tell a story. And I don't care how many times I heard those stories, I would just sit around and be a fly on the wall and listen to him tell somebody else that story. Best thing about him, up until his last days, he had an incredible handshake. Brian and John never worked together, but they became close.

They bonded over, of all things, the bagpipes. My father's father played, and it was something that I wanted to do to pay homage to my family, my culture, and the bagpipes have been really something that has transitioned from Celtic tradition to U.S. law enforcement tradition, U.S. military tradition, to honor our fallen. So when Brian arrived in Cleveland, he was looking to join a group where he could keep playing the bagpipes.

John, it turns out, was already part of a group. So he got me in touch with the pipes and drums of the Cleveland Police. John sort of took Brian under his wing. They even performed at his wedding. John took him aside at the first parade Brian ever performed with the pipes and drums of the Cleveland Police. He said to me, he's like, you know, I'm not getting any younger, right? The parades, it became tougher and tougher for him because you have to stay in step. Eventually, the day came when John could no longer join in performances or visit the marshal's office or check up on the Conrad case. It's interesting. Pete Elliott said something to

me when we started to talk about the last years of his dad's life. He'd been quoted a decade ago in an article, and he was asked where Ted Conrad might have been today if he were to guess. I always thought that Conrad was still alive, living in a

town in New England, I had said. Somewhere, probably a grandfather with a family that doesn't know his true identity. I don't know why I felt that. I just kind of felt that. It was oddly prescient, creepy how accurate he was. While his dad was dying, that's exactly what was happening with Ted, or Tom, as we now know him. A satisfying resolution for John was always painfully close, almost like he could feel it.

In the spring of 2020, John went into hospice. He never gave up on it. Never, ever gave up on it. Never, ever. Brian Fitzgibbons and John Elliott stayed in touch all the way to the end. And I was also someone that would, you know, provide some updates, especially when his health was ailing. And I do remember visiting him in his last days. And it was good because I had a chance to say goodbye. I remember I shook his hand. That was our goodbye. On Friday, March 20th, 2020, John Elliott passed away in his sleep at the age of 83. Miss him dearly, you know, and I did play the bagpipes at his funeral.

John's gravestone has the U.S. Marshal badge engraved on it. A Marshal till the very end. I was able to give him his badge back and put it in his pocket, you know, so he could take it with him the rest of his life. Pete never had the chance to haul away Ted Conrad with his dad. But that didn't mean that the search was over. Now it was up to Pete to close the case. Merry Christmas, Tom. I hope you're feeling better. I feel great.

This house looks exactly the same as the day I left. Nothing has changed. Ashley and I are driving to her childhood home in Linfield. The Randalls lived here for decades until they sold it last year in 2022. And this, from the outside, you wouldn't know that Tom and Kathy weren't living here. The family that currently lives there let us visit for an afternoon. As we walk through all the rooms, Ashley catalogs every change she sees. The walls and the hardware and the doors and everything is exactly the same.

And then it's just different furniture. And it just looks like a slightly nicer version of when we lived here. Wow. Don't tell Mom that. We go into Tom and Kathy's bedroom. So pretty much the whole room was my mom's stuff and her things on the big dresser, her things in the drawers that are built into the walls. And then there was this one little nook and my dad had a tall, dark wood dresser with really heavy, dark metal hardware. And that was where his stuff went. We talk about him not having a lot of stuff

and how he didn't really need things and he never bought things. And I think it translated to how much space he took up in a home that you're in this large bedroom and my dad is this one corner. Like this is my dad right here. We go into the living room. So in the middle of the one long wall is there's like a big three-cushion couch, and that was my dad's spot. We had like a chair and a half, so almost the size of a love seat, maybe a little bit smaller, and that's where I always sat. And then my mom would be nestled on the couch next to him. One day, they're all sitting in the living room,

Tom and Kathy and Ashley in their usual places, when Tom drops a bomb that changes everything. Ugh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're at that part. Yeah. Ugh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're at that part. Yeah. Ugh!

Looking back, it's a huge moment, right? But at the time, it was a pretty unassuming day. We were just sitting around in the living room watching TV, and in his very Tom way was like, I should probably tell you something. So when I moved here, I should probably tell you something. So when I moved here, I had to change my name. I don't really want to talk about it, but I had to change my name.

And the authorities are probably still looking for me. So just in case that comes up, I just wanted you to know. And back to NCIS. And I remember thinking, what? Wow. But okay, we can watch TV. Like, what do you do with that? Yeah. Did you realize it could be something really big?

Honestly, no. Like, it's my dad and he's boring, right? Like, he was in a great way. He was just like a suburban dad who golfed. Like, what, did you have to change your name because, like, you got in a fight with some kids? And what do you mean the authorities are after you? It just, it sort of sounded like a dad story for a moment where you're like, oh, okay, so the authorities would be after you. Sure, Tom. Sure they are. When did you decide that you had to look into it?

How long between like that confession and when you were like, okay, what the fuck's going on? look into it, how long between like that confession and when you were like, okay, what the fuck's going on? It was probably a day or two. It sort of built inside of me the need to maybe not confront him, but have a conversation with him. And I very much knew that I had a better shot if it was just him and me.

So it was probably the next day or the day after next. And it was the afternoon and he was laying on the couch and I said, you know, we got to talk. I deserve to know my name. You are going to tell me your name. What did he say? And he said, if I tell you, you have to promise you will not look into it. I don't want you looking into anything. I don't want you telling anybody. And if I tell you, that's it. Like, you're done. Like, that's, I will tell you. And then no more. And I said, fine, of course. Yeah, I won't look into it. And he said, just really quietly and almost like he was scared to say it. My name is Ted. And I said, okay. And what's your last name, Ted?

And it felt like that question hung in the air for days. It was probably five to ten seconds. But the weight of that. And he just looked at me with this face of, please do not ask me this and do not make me tell you. He looked pained. And then he finally said, Conrad. And we just sort of left the conversation there. And I really did think in that moment, okay, I got what I needed and I can just let it be. Right. And that was not what happened.

Because it just started to eat away at me. And I tried to go to sleep that night. And I just remember tossing and turning. And finally, it's like 2.30 in the morning, and I just remember rolling onto my side and picking my phone up from the nightstand and typing in Ted Conrad. And what showed up on that screen, no exaggeration, nearly fell off the bed, lightly screamed, and thought, oh my God, my life is a Lifetime movie. Theodore Conrad has spent a lifetime. The Conrad Trail is cold. Theodore Ted Conrad was a banking boy

Ted Conrad walked out of the banking Conrad was obsessed with the Times Ted Conrad, 52 years as America's most well-known Theodore John Conrad The one who got away And honestly I still didn't believe it at first Yeah I was like, this, this is not my dad Honestly, I still didn't believe it at first. Yeah.

I was like, this, this is not my dad. This is not him. I'm like, what do you do with that information? The box is opened and the truth comes tumbling out. She opened her iPad and I said, put in Ted Conrad Cleveland because by that point I knew that would be the fastest way to find it. And she looked at me like I'd hit her in the

face with a brick. And we just sat quietly and I just remember her saying, oh my god. That's next time on the finale of My Fugitive Dad. Unlock all episodes of Smokescreen, My Fugitive Dad, ad-free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show,

but you'll get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts all ad-free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series. That's all episodes, all at once. Unlock your listening now by clicking subscribe at the top of the Smokescreen Show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. you