Sometimes he would give up a little information then demand something significant in return, like a drink of Crown Royal or a private visit with his wife in the detachment office. On a few occasions he asked that special food be delivered to the detachment office. One time, at his insistence, they let him call Wally’s to order a pizza.
Danny Belland was astonished to hear from him.
“Where are you calling from?” he asked.
“I’m at the OPP detachment office,” Galvan replied.
“Well, are you in jail or what?”
“Yeah, I’m in jail,” Galvan advised, “but you got to eat in jail too, you know.”
“And you want a pizza delivered?” Danny asked incredulously.
“Yeah. Don’t you deliver here?” Galvan teased.
“Sure we do,” Danny replied, “I just can’t believe it, that you can get a pizza in jail. Are they paying for it?”
“No,” Galvan insisted. “I am. You want my credit card number?”
There was a long silence.
“I’m just kidding,” Galvan said, “They’ll pay for it all when the driver gets here.”
Danny was amazed by Robert’s chutzpah but when he got off the phone and told the waitresses about Robert Whiteman ordering a pizza from jail, somehow they weren’t surprised.
Galvan’s ability to recall the details of his robberies was phenomenal. Usually, without prompting, he was able to remember the exact amount of money stolen from each institution. In every case he could recall when he came to the particular city, how he got there, where he stayed, what he ate and drank the night before, what he wore as a disguise, and the details of the robbery. In accordance with the statement format, at the end of each confession, Smith would ask him: “Have you been promised anything to give this statement?”
Galvan would invariably reply: “Yes, that I will be given the opportunity to waive this charge to Pembroke.” Oddly enough Galvan always signed the statement as Robert Whiteman and initialed it with an R.W.
During the interrogation sessions Galvan exhibited severe mood swings. One moment he could be jovial and engaging, and then suddenly he would turn morose and miserable. At those times he would often shut down and refuse to communicate. Although the detectives found it hard to predict his behaviour they suspected he became most difficult when he focused on himself and his depressing situation. To keep Galvan’s focus external, Snider and Smith had to keep him entertained.
Pretending they didn’t get along, Smith and Snider would stage arguments in front of Galvan that had nothing to do with the interrogation. Smith would accuse Snider of leaving his office a mess and tell him he was really tired of his slovenly clerical habits. Snider would counter with negative comments about some of Smith’s personal shortcomings.
Sometimes they argued over Galvan’s demands. Shawn Smith, as the good guy, would pretend he wanted to give in to Galvan’s requests; George Snider, as the bad guy, would balk at Smith’s generosity and refuse to give Galvan what he wanted. Usually Snider would blame his refusal on Inspector MacCharles. He’d say, “I’d like to do that for you Gilbert, but our boss would never go for that. We can’t do it. Sorry, it’s out of the question.”
One day, in an attempt to keep the mood upbeat, Smith and Snider set up a scenario where Shawn would let Galvan handle an empty revolver while Snider was out of the room. Galvan had always had a fascination with guns and enjoyed handling the gun and spinning its cylinder around. When Snider walked into the room, Galvan had the gun pointed to Smith’s head. Snider had to do some serious acting to plead with Galvan: “Jesus, Gilbert, take it easy! Don’t do anything stupid and no one will get hurt here.” Snider had to maintain his feigned alarm until Smith and Galvan started to laugh out loud and Galvan showed Snider that the gun was empty.
Another time, Smith and Snider wanted to see what Galvan would do if they gave him the opportunity to escape from the detachment building. They set up some guards around the building and then left Galvan alone and uncuffed in Smith’s office. When the two detectives walked out of the room, Galvan couldn’t believe it. The office door was open and nobody seemed to be around. Galvan snuck out of the office and darted into the room next door. He looked around in desperation for a way out of the building. He couldn’t go back out in the hallway because it was bustling with OPP. When Galvan heard Smith and Snider coming down the hall he jumped into a closet in the room. Moments later Snider found him huddling sheepishly among some coats. All three of them had a laugh over that.
Galvan said, “What the hell did you think I was going to do when you left, sit there and twiddle my thumbs?”
Galvan got his turn to have fun too. On one occasion when an RCMP officer was questioning him in Snider’s presence Galvan agreed to give him the name of the bandit who had shot the Brinks guard in Quebec if the Mountie did Galvan a little favour. The Mountie agreed to Galvan’s terms and Galvan wrote a name on a piece of paper and slipped it to him. When the Mountie opened the note, it read: “Jesse James.” In the spirit that was intended, the Mountie showed the paper to Snider and the three of them had a good laugh. Galvan laughed hardest of all.
In July Galvan told the police that he had rented a houseboat last February and had thrown some of the stolen jewels into the Ottawa River. He claimed he had packed the jewels in a thermos bottle, weighed it down with two C-clamps and dropped the thermos into the water. Galvan assured them he could take them to the very spot which was located in forty feet of water near Oiseau Rock not far from Pembroke. The first thing the police did to verify his story was to check his Visa account to see if he had rented the houseboat. When that proved to be accurate, they checked with Garmac Houseboat Rentals to confirm that he had gone out on the water in February. When this too proved to be the case, they asked Galvan to take a lie detector test. He agreed.
Galvan after his sentencing in Pembroke, 1988
(Peterborough Examiner)
Sgt. Bill Blake of the Ottawa city police administered the polygraph test. After working with him for three hours Blake was convinced that Galvan had put the jewels in the water. Blake told Snider, “If you’re asking me did he put something in the river, I would say yes. Based on his physiological reaction, he is telling the truth when he says he put those jewels there.”
The OPP rented a houseboat and went out on the Ottawa River looking for the jewels. Mel Robertson was brought in from Nepean to join another OPP diver in a two-day search along the river bottom. Galvan, on board in handcuffs and anklecuffs, led them to the diving area by repeating his original locating procedure. He tied two long ropes to two anchors positioned at two specific spots on the shore. Running the lines out to the houseboat, he crossed them at precisely forty-five feet each. He claimed that this was how he had determined the position where the thermos had been originally dropped. The police searched the area for two days but found nothing.
In retrospect, Sgt. Blake told Snider that it was possible that Galvan was telling the truth about the location of the jewels, but there was nothing to say that someone hadn’t come along and retrieved them in the interim. Blake’s polygraph test had not addressed that possibility.
In fact, the whole exercise was an escape attempt. Originally Galvan asked to be allowed to dive with the OPP divers. With his scuba diving experience, he planned to go down into the murky water and disappear. But his plans were foiled when Snider refused to let him take off his cuffs and wouldn’t let him get into the water.
In August, after the twenty-year sentencing deal, Galvan really began to open up. On the first of the month, he gave them the details of three robberies: Calgary in 1984, London in 1985 and Toronto in 1986. Two weeks later he gave them ten more robberies plus the details on the holdup at Alyea’s Jewellers in Ottawa in 1986.
Then on Tuesday, August 18, Galvan appeared before Judge C.R. Merredew in Pembroke Court. The TRU team from Belleville were in the courtroom for security. MacCharles, Snider and Smith were in attendance. Tommy Craig and Pete
Bond sat together in the rear. Janice was not there. In the morning session, Galvan’s lawyer, Scott Milloy, requested that a psychiatric assessment be done on his client. The judge agreed and court was adjourned.
Galvan had been hoping the court would send him to a medium security hospital where his chances of escaping would be good. However, when Galvan heard during the adjournment, that the Crown was suggesting he be sent to the dreaded maximum security mental institution at Penetanguishene, he changed his mind and refused to be assessed.
When court reconvened, Galvan pleaded guilty to the London and Winnipeg bank robberies. Before passing sentence Judge Merredew addressed Galvan: “What need be said other than the fact that you were quite obviously a brazen, cool, professional armed robber, carrying with you all the necessary tools of that particular trade, including, incredibly, a fake Canadian passport and professional disguise devices.”
For the two holdups, the use of a gun and the use of a disguise, the thirty-year-old Galvan was sentenced to eleven years in the penitentiary. This sentence had been prearranged by the Crown to hold Galvan in custody until all his crimes had been documented and cleared. Then, when he pleaded guilty to those crimes, the twenty-year sentence would be rendered to run concurrently with this sentence. After his court appearance, Galvan was returned to Pembroke for further interrogation.
Galvan used the entire Tuesday of August 25 to relate and explain the particulars of his million-dollar robbery of Birks Jewellers in Vancouver. Two days later, he gave Smith and Snider the particulars on eleven other robberies including all of his remaining jewellery store heists.
By now Galvan was phoning Tommy Craig three or four times a week, asking him to run errands or deliver certain items to the jail. Sometimes when Galvan returned to his county jail cell from the detachment office he seemed to be drunk. When Snider heard about this, he thought Galvan must be putting on a show for the guards, possibly with the intention of invalidating his inculpatory statements. It was either that, or quantities of rye were being smuggled into him as apple juice.
One special deal that Galvan arranged for himself was an overnight conjugal visit with Janice in the detachment office. When Galvan pleaded for the visit MacCharles authorized it. He felt that the way things were going with Galvan’s confessions, the taxpayers were being saved a fortune, and bending the rules a little to keep the confessions coming was a small price to pay and a very wise investment.
“I don’t give a shit what anybody says about it,” MacCharles told Snider, “we’re going to do this my way and get the job done. Find them a mattress and make them a bedroom.”
Janice was allowed into the detachment office at night after the last officer went home. Smith’s office was cleared out and suitably furnished. Smith, Snider and MacCharles kept guard on the love nest throughout the night. Galvan was left alone with his wife until six the next morning. Then she was whisked out of the building before the day shift began to report.
MacCharles could see that his brand of pragmatic compromise was paying big dividends with Galvan. By the end of August Galvan had confessed to forty-two robberies and given inculpatory statements for each of those confessions.
Still, his temperament was unpredictable. Some days he was sullen and curt; other days he could make Shawn Smith split his sides with laughter. With all his demands and petulance, Gilbert Galvan was blessed with a keen sense of humour. And he was a good mimic. During one session he did a take-off on a Quebec Air pilot who had flown him to Quebec City. Speaking English with a heavy French accent, Galvan got Smith laughing so hard he couldn’t write.
Above all, Galvan loved to brag about his accomplishments and impress the detectives with his feats.
At one point Snider said to him, “You know it’s amazing.”
“What’s amazing?” Galvan asked.
“Well,” Snider said, “in checking out your credit card purchases, it’s amazing that everywhere you flew, there was a bank robbery the next day.”
Galvan said, “That is an amazing coincidence, isn’t it.”
“You should have been more careful with your credit card,” Smith chided.
“I couldn’t even afford a credit card for the first eighteen months I was in Canada.”
“I noticed that,” Snider said.
“Yeah, but by my last year I had an En Route card,” Galvan boasted. “You know you’ve made it big in the criminal world when you got yourself an En Route card.”
Snider and Smith could only nod in agreement.
By September 3, Galvan had given them the details on each and every one of his fifty-nine robberies. The statistics were unbelievable:
Vancouver– 9 robberies for a total of $1,245,319
Toronto– 6for $370,164
Ottawa– 12 for $289,077
Winnipeg– 5 for $223,812
Sudbury – 4for $74,961
Montreal– 1for $40,000
Regina– 3 for $22,584
Hamilton– 3for $18,256
Peterborough– 3for $14,564
London– 3for $14,257
Halifax– 3for $12,268
Quebec City– 3for $8,187
Calgary– 2for $5,200
St. John– 1 for $1,314
for a grand total of $2,339,903
The paperwork for the case was a nightmare. Shawn Smith had to write up all of Galvan’s statements and match them to the various robbery reports. He was responsible for correspondence with all the police forces including the RCMP, FBI and Interpol. He had to send reports out to all the jurisdictions for every robbery and request that the Crown waive each charge for prosecution to the Pembroke Court. They all had to agree to the twenty-year sentence proposed for Galvan. Many of the Crowns took weeks to clear things at their end and reply.
Some of the paperwork on the robberies was difficult to locate. One jurisdiction mistakenly reported that no such robbery had taken place in their city. This was later corrected when it was learned that the branch had been closed and the building torn down. Some of the bank branches had moved. Many of the investigating officers had been transferred or retired.
After Galvan gave his last statement it took Smith over seven months to gather everything together. The accumulated files on the Galvan case were over two feet thick.
On September 29, after Galvan’s interviews were concluded, he was shipped to Millhaven Penitentiary, Ontario’s maximum security prison near Kingston. In some ways Galvan was glad to go. There were advantages to being in a federal prison. He would have greater freedom of movement, regular access to a phone, more liberal visiting privileges, and better opportunities for work, recreation and education.
His only reservation about leaving Pembroke was that his wife was due to have her baby soon. Three days after his arrival at Millhaven his second daughter was born. He would not get to see her for weeks until Janice brought the baby to Millhaven for a visit.
The final act of Galvan’s sad drama took place on March 18, 1988, in the Pembroke Court before Judge Merredew. Sitting in the glassedin prisoner’s box and flanked by two uniformed members of the OPP, Galvan listened as the Crown meticulously filed all the charges against him.
Galvan was represented by Gary Chakos, a lawyer supplied through the Ontario Legal Aid Plan. The Crown, as in his previous sentencing, was Peter Barnes. Two heavily armed members of the OPP TRU team stood guard at the rear of the courtroom. Sitting just in front of the TRU team were Tommy Craig and Pete Bond. Directly in front of them sat Shawn Smith, George Snider and Lyle MacCharles.
Jack McKay, head of OPP public relations, was also in attendance as was Ed Arnold from the Peterborough Examiner. With the exception of Arnold, the OPP had been successful in keeping the Galvan case away from the media. Two local reporters, unaware of the magnitude of the Galvan case, sat languidly in their seats beside Arnold. A class of fidgeting students on a field trip from a local school filled one section of the room.
Janice McKenzie wasn’t there. She had been advised to stay aw
ay because the attendant publicity might cause her too much distress. This wasn’t going to be one of Galvan’s finest moments; he didn’t want her to be there anyway.
When Galvan entered the court room he was joking and laughing with his custodians. At one point he turned and smiled at Craig and Bond and mouthed some words to them.
There was some anxiety among the OPP detectives in attendance because they still weren’t positive that Gilbert Galvan was going to keep his word and plead guilty. MacCharles’ tension disappeared when he heard Galvan say “guilty” to the first charge that was read to him. After that, the burly inspector got up and left the courtroom.
It took hours for all the evidence to be read into the record. At the conclusion of each statement, Galvan repeated his guilty plea. Occasionally his lawyer would interrupt the proceedings to point out certain factors in his client’s favour. He made it clear that at no time did Galvan implicate anyone else in his crimes. He took pains to underscore the fact that all of the jewellery had been fenced in the United States.
When Chakos made this claim to the court George Snider turned his head to the Fat Man sitting behind him and whispered, “That’s bullshit, Tommy. We know it was you who fenced all the jewellery.”
Tommy smiled, but being a gentleman, made no reply.
Galvan’s lawyer also pointed out that without Galvan’s guilty pleas these cases would not have been solved. Without his guilty pleas it would have cost the Canadian public a tremendous amount of money in court costs and labour.
The Flying Bandit Page 27