The Beatle Bandit

October 1, 2021
It was like something out of the Wild West. In July 1964, 24-year-old Matthew Kerry Smith held up a bank in North York, a district of Toronto. Making his escape, he engaged in a gunfight with a retired military man, shooting and killing him. Thus began the largest manhunt in the history of the Toronto police department. Veteran true-crime writer Hendley takes us through Smith's life--he was a serial bank robber who was diagnosed as schizophrenic not long after his first robbery--before focusing on the North York caper. Smith, who became known as the "Beatle Bandit" because he wore a mop-top wig during that robbery, evaded capture for months before police eventually collared him. Hendley tells the story as though he were writing a crime novel; an apt read-alike might be Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, with which The Beatle Bandit shares a journalistic style and a perceptive analysis of people and events. First-rate true crime.

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October 11, 2021
Drawing on court transcripts, interviews, newspaper articles, and police documents, journalist Hendley (The Big Con) takes an engrossing deep dive into the life of Canadian bank robber Matthew Kerry Smith. On July 24, 1964, Smith, wearing a mask and a Beatle wig, and armed with a semiautomatic rifle, robbed a bank in North York, Ontario. One customer, a Canadian Army veteran named Jack Blanc, grabbed a revolver, which all banks routinely kept for the safety of the staff, and pursued Smith. Blanc died in the ensuing fire fight, and Smith wasn’t caught until four months later after another bank robbery. He confessed, but tried to get off on an insanity defense, as his mother had been mentally ill for years and he had been diagnosed as “deeply disturbed” as a child. Convicted of murdering Blanc, Smith was sentenced to hang. Though his sentence was commuted to life in prison, he died by suicide in 1966. In the wake of this case, the practice of keeping sidearms in banks was discontinued, gun laws were strengthened, and debates were sparked on the death penalty. Hendley does a fine job putting Smith’s crimes in the context of Canadian culture decades ago. Students of true crime won’t want to miss this thoughtful book.