Over the Wall: The Ty Conn Story

Episode 437: Tyrone William ‘Ty’ Conn became the first man in over forty years to climb over the wall at Kingston Penitentiary, Canada's oldest and most secure federal prison. Born to a teenage mother in 1967 and adopted at age three by a prominent Belleville psychiatrist, his childhood unravelled into a cycle of theft, institutionalization, and escape that would follow him for the rest of his life. By the time he was thirty-two, a string of armed bank robberies and repeated prison breaks had compounded into a forty-seven-year sentence, a number that raised eyebrows given that not one of his crimes had ever physically harmed another person. On May 6, 1999, using a homemade ladder and a length of sewn canvas, he scaled Kingston's wall and disappeared into the Ontario countryside, setting off a thirteen-day manhunt that captivated the country. What happened when police finally caught up with him in a Toronto basement apartment two weeks later remains, to this day, a matter of dispute, one his own mother was never able to get answered. Sources: Tyrone William Conn | Brief Biography Ty Conn: A Life Imprisoned (2000) | The Fifth Estate Ty Conn : My Brother The Outlaw | YouTube Ty Conn : My Brother The Outlaw | Facebook Who Killed Ty Conn by Linden Macintyre, (Paperback) | Indigo Ty Conn Project Materials - York University Ty Conn | Wikipedia Tyrone Conn's escape ends in death | CBC News 7 Things You Need to Know About Kingston Penitentiary Niagara Falls Review • Wed, Mar 14, 1984 • Page 8 The Kingston Whig-Standard • Thu, Mar 15, 1984 • Page 1 The Ottawa Citizen • Sat, Mar 07, 1987 • Page 8 The Kingston Whig-Standard • Fri, Jun 30, 1989 • Page 2 The Kingston Whig-Standard • Mon, Dec 18, 1989 • Page 9 The Kingston Whig-Standard • Thu, Jun 28, 2001 • Page 1 The Kingston Whig-Standard • Thu, Jun 28, 2001 • Page 10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices