Bank customer Fred Conrad shot dead helping child in 1966 - setting the story straight

  Let us rehabilitate the legacy of Fritjof "Fred" Conrad, 26, whose heroic bravery was shortchanged by an uncharitable eyewitness account.
   Conrad was one of about 50 customers in the crowded Royal Bank in Chomedey in the St. Martin Shopping Center Laval on Oct. 28, 1966.
   Banks were busy Fridays because if you didn't get your cash for the weekend you'd be doomed to stay home and be bored to death in the two channel B&W TV universe.
  Alas timing is everything in life and Conrad - who lived on 69th Ave in Chomedey - picked a bad one to go to that bank.
  Four heavily-armed thugs - one wielding a machine gun - screamed at everybody in French to line up against the wall, according to newspaper reports.
  Conrad failed to comply and one of them shot him dead in the head.
  He was killed instantly, with the bullet leaving a gruesome scene for all to see.
   A more accurate account would likely be not so much that the customers were ordered to stand on the wall, but rather they were ordered down to the ground.
   One robber sprayed his machine gun over their heads to encourage them to stay down but Conrad hadn't hit the ground quickly enough and suffered the consequences.
  Conrad, whose parents moved to Canada from Germany in 1955, wasn't on the ground because he had busied himself with trying to encourage a young girl to heed the order.
   The girl was standing nearby and didn't understand what to do.
   His attempt to help the small child cost him his life.
   Alas newspaper reports simplified the story to indicate that he himself was confused about the instruction because he couldn't understand the French command.
  This version is implausible because Fred Conrad was an exceptionally bright young man.
  So those who recall the story might have overlooked the act of heroism that Conrad undertook in a highly-charged moment of tension and drama.

Fred, at right, enjoys a Christmas celebration with family

   To make matters worse Fred's distraught wife Carla committed suicide a few weeks after his death. The Allo Police crime tabloid ran an indelicate article focusing on this double tragedy.
   The Royal Bank offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
   Responsibility for the $20,000 theft was later laid on a crew led by thief Bernard Sigouin who robbed with brothers Raymond and Serge.
  The less said of those lowlifes, the better.
  Bernard Sigouin was imprisoned for 10 years for an armed robbery in St. Laurent on 20 April 1966 and his crew was believed responsible for killing Conrad as well.
    Bernard escaped the Leclerc Institut in August 1967 but was caught soon after playing golf in Laval. Raymond Sigouin was also involved in a high-profile escape from the courthouse on Notre Dame and was only found five years later in St. Leonard.