The untold story of crossbow suspect’s bizarre holdup spree
Years before being charged in killing of mother and two brothers, accused apologized to family in court for ‘everything I’ve put them through’
The old man was moving at a glacial pace, shuffling and limping through the front doors of a stand-alone TD bank on a busy stretch of Kingston Rd. in Scarborough.
Despite the late June heat, he wore a dark jacket over his plaid shirt, a Gilligans-tyle bucket hat covering his head.
In his hand was a black attaché case containing a note: “Stay calm. Have gun. Withdraw $4,000, large bills. No, no games. 60 seconds. Go.”
Outside the bank, undercover Toronto police readied for a holdup by a criminal equally gifted in robbery and disguise.
For eight months, Brett Ryan had stymied police while collecting a total of $28,000 in a rash of bank robberies across the GTA, thanks to his elaborate — and, as it turned out, professional — costuming.
Moments before, officers had watched as the youthful 28-year-old climbed into his Ford vehicle. He drove to the bank, then emerged from his vehicle an old man, having donned what had become his trademark accessory: a high-quality fake grey beard.
Once inside the bank, however, Ryan abruptly changed course. He did not approach the till, did not silently slide his holdup note toward the teller.
Instead, he stood for a few moments, then, still aping the gait of an old man, walked right back out the doors and into police custody.
Ryan’s sudden change of heart at the end of that chain of bank robberies was just one mysterious dimension of a case that, for investigators, prosecutors and an Ontario court judge, was unlike any other.
Transcripts from the January 2009 court proceedings in the so-called Bearded Bandit case detail how both court staff and Ryan’s friends and family were blindsided by his behaviour.
Last month, seven years later, Ryan would be accused of strangling his mother and slaying two brothers in a bizarre triple homicide possibly involving crossbow bolts.
Just as those close to Ryan are now questioning how he could be charged with murdering his family just days before his Montreal bachelor party and three weeks before his wedding, relatives and friends had struggled in 2009 to reconcile the Ryan they knew with a prolific bank robber.
“The offences . . . were a shock to the people who know Mr. Ryan,” Cynthia Fromstein, Ryan’s lawyer, told a Scarborough court on Jan. 26, 2009, the day Ryan pleaded guilty to16 charges in connection with his robberies.
His crimes were entirely out of character, according to friends and family, who knew him as a bright university student, a kind and generous young person who volunteered at Sick Kids, Fromstein said.
The “intelligent young men” who wrote letters in support of Ryan could never, “in their wildest of imaginations,” have believed their friend was a bank robber, Justice Paul Robertson said in court.
He understood their shock. For someone with “a stellar background” and no criminal record to commit a series of bank robberies was, Robertson said, “virtually unheard of.”
According to a summary of the facts provided in court, Ryan’s robbery spree began at 11 a.m. on Oct. 20, 2007, when he held up a CIBC bank on Old Kingston Rd. His inaugural disguise was a hooded sweatshirt, with white hospital bandages covering his face and his arm in a sling.
Arriving at the counter, he slipped the teller a note demanding money and warning he had a gun. She handed over $1,155.
Over the next three months, five more banks were robbed in a similar manner. The robber was a lone, limping man who disguised his face, initially with bandages, then with a beard. He typically got away with about $2,000 each time.
Toronto police officers investigating the separate robberies were able to link them through fingerprints and holdup notes. Except for small variations, the notes were virtually identical: clipped demands for a few thousand dollars in 60 seconds, and terse instructions: “Stay calm.” “No games.”
Police also noted the robberies were taking place at branches close to Hwy. 401, presumably to aid in a quick getaway.
But while they knew it was a serial robber, police did not have a suspect. With little else to go on, investigators set up surveillance at a selection of banks along the 401, hoping to catch the bandit in action. At the operation’s height, 20 to 25 officers were stationed outside various banks.
The surveillance was called off when the Bearded Bandit hit up a west-end bank that hadn’t been on police radar.
Investigators got creative. Surveillance video footage from the banks showed that underneath the beard and old man shuffle was a youthful face. So police began researching companies that sold theatrical supplies in the Toronto area, and — after consulting with experts in the movie industry — determined the bandit’s high-quality disguises could only be obtained at one major supplier in Toronto.
Asearch through six months’ worth of sales receipts for relevant items turned up two pertinent sales, but in both cases the customer paid in cash. The clerk remembered selling the items to a young man who claimed they were for his brother and said he would return for further purchases. Police set up surveillance cameras outside.
Around the same time, the Bearded Bandit struck again, robbing a Bank of Montreal on Pharmacy Ave. This time, surveillance footage captured what police believed could be the bandit’s vehicle.
The licence plate number was impossible to make out, but officers noticed it was a newer Ford. When they sent pictures to the automaker, they were told the car had unique features only available at certain dealers.
As officers were attempting to determine where the car was obtained, police caught a break. An on-duty officer spotted what he believed was the same car used in the robberies. When police ran the plate, they got Ryan’s name.
Teaming up with Durham officers to help cover the hours, Toronto police started running surveillance on Ryan. They followed him as he led what was, largely, the life of a young, average, single guy. He went to the gym, practised martial arts, went out to eat, socialized with friends.
Then came evidence that investigators were on the right track. On June 9, 2008, police followed Ryan as he cased a handful of banks in the Toronto area — slowly driving by, then briefly entering and looking around, among them the TD branch on the busy stretch of Kingston Rd.
It was the same bank that, 11 days later, Ryan had shuffled into in dis- guise, only to abandon the robbery once inside.
What caused Ryan to lose his nerve later became the subject of debate. Police suggested that, upon entering the bank, Ryan noticed some construction out front and worried it would threaten his getaway.
Fromstein, Ryan’s lawyer, offered another explanation. Citing a conversation Ryan had with a psychiatrist, she said he had been guilt-ridden and wanted to give himself up.
Regardless, police arrested Ryan as soon as he left the bank, ultimately charging him with a slew of robbery and disguise charges.
Executing search warrants, officers found in Ryan’s car a Ziploc bag with hair and some glue. Inside his house, they found dark-rimmed non-prescription glasses; a sling and some bandages; $200 in a closet; two dye packs (used by some banks to foil robberies by staining cash) and a holdup note: “Stay calm. Gun under sling. Use envelope. 60 seconds. Go.”
For his spree of bank robberies, Ryan faced a possible 15 years in jail.
All parties agreed it was an extreme sentence for someone with no criminal record. But there was no precedent to help guide sentencing.
“I couldn’t find a single case,” Crown prosecutor Miriam Saksznajder told the court, “where someone of Mr. Ryan’s prior background, no police involvement, no history — there wasn’t even a 208 card (which Toronto police fill out when they stop someone) on him — would embark on this type of spree and offences . . . with this degree of severity.”
Ryan’s obvious premeditation, evidenced by the disguises, called for a harsher sentence, as did his repeated threats to use a gun during the robberies. On the other hand, no one was harmed and no gun was ever found in his possession.
Saksznajder noted the sentence should also reflect that Ryan was entering a guilty plea, thus avoiding a trial — though she noted Ryan had been “caught red-handed,” and the evidence against him was so strong conviction was likely even without the plea. In her sentencing submissions, Fromstein gave some context for her client’s crimes. Ryan “ran into some significant difficulties at university” that caused him to drop out, she said. That included a battle with depression that he chose not to share with his family, for fear of burdening them.
(Documents later filed with the Parole Board of Canada go into greater detail, suggesting Ryan had also gone into significant debt through “unhealthy intimate relationships.”)
Ryan was genuinely remorseful, specifically regarding the effect on his family, who had supported him “despite their shock at what has taken place,” Fromstein said.
In his address to the court, Ryan was articulate and forthright.
“I would like to say how sorry I am for the trouble and trauma I’ve caused everyone,” he said. “I do realize that regardless of my problems, there is no excuse or any sort of justification for my extreme and selfish, selfish actions.”
Justice Robertson was moved. Few individuals who come before him “have the understanding of the impact of their crimes that you have indicated to me,” he told Ryan.
Though he initially believed a 10-year jail sentence was appropriate, Robertson accepted a joint submission of three years and nine months in jail. The sentence struck the right balance of acknowledging the seriousness of Ryan’s crimes without crushing all hope of rehabilitation, the judge said.
Warning Ryan that jail was going to be depressing, Robertson told him his intellect would be an asset to him and fellow prisoners. To fight off institutionalization, Ryan should seek the help of prison psychologists and keep reading the books his friends were sending him in jail “to keep your mind sharp.”
In his parting words, Robertson expressed hope that Ryan could move beyond his crimes, because he wouldn’t have to do it alone.
“You’re a lucky man, Mr. Ryan, you have a family behind you. I think that family will stick with you.”
Ryan, now represented by lawyer John Rosen, made a brief court appearance Friday on the three firstdegree murder charges. He is due back in court Oct. 14. Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca