A Belleville psychiatrist and his wife adopted Ty. The adopters were not wonderful people who cherished their adoptee. They punished him for minor misbehavior, like sneaking candy, by making him stand on his toes for hours. Eight years later, they decided he was too much trouble and returned Tyrone to the state just before Christmas in 1978. After age 11, he bounced from one group home to another.
Four years after being rejected by his adopters, Tyrone started breaking into houses. By the age of 16, he held up his first bank. Three years later in 1986, he was reunited with his mother. After an intense search, she finally found her son in a gloomy jail cell.
Since his conviction at age16, Tyrone has spent essentially his entire adult life in prison. In his 16-year criminal career between 1983 and 1992, he has been charged with almost 30 criminal offenses. By the time he was 25 with no history of violence, judges ordered Tyrone to serve 47 years in jail -- a sentence much longer than for rape or some murders. He was not due for release until the year 2032.
Tyrone is described as good looking, 5-foot-10, 185 lb. with hazel eyes, brown hair, and a medium complexion. Those who know him say he’s intelligent, interesting, non-violent, reclusive, and has never hurt anyone during the commission of his crimes. In prison, Tyrone completed his high school education and had taken university-level sociology and psychology courses. Still, he considered himself a failure.
In 1989 at the age of 22, Tyrone pulled his first escape by ditching his armed escort while on medical leave from Millhaven Penitentiary, which houses more than 600 convicts southwest of Kingston. He remained at large for 68 days.
Tyrone was 24 years old in November 1991 when he broke out of the Collins Bay Penitentiary, also west of Kingston, after scrawling on a calendar in his cell: "Gone Fishin." Ty remained free for 46 days that time. Police found him in an apartment building in Ottawa. Armed with a .357-magnum, Tyrone scrambled from one fourth-floor balcony to another. After this 90-minute standoff and exchange of gunfire, he surrendered.
| Ty was convicted of bank robberies in the Ottawa and Toronto areas in December 1991 -- committed while on the run. |
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The following year on May 7, 1999, guards discovered a grappling hook on the prison's east wall around 7 a.m. At the age of 32, Tyrone became the first inmate to break out of Kingston Penitentiary in more than 40 years. He delayed discovery by putting dummy in his bed and covered his trail by tossing cayenne pepper on the ground to throw the dogs off his scent. Ty wrote "FISHING TRIP '99" on the calendar for May 6, 1999 -- the day he escaped.
Ty’s very first stop was the home of his mother in Belleville about 75 kilometers west of Kingston. That was on Saturday -- the day before Mother's Day, known as “Birthmother’s” Day – to commemorate the pain and anguish that accompanies every adoption. Even though his ex-adopters also live in Belleville, he did not contact them. He gave his mom a hug and told her he loved her.
May 18, 1999, armed with a shotgun taken from a store in Trenton, Tyrone robbed the same Colborne bank that he held up during his 1991 escape. It's suspected that he drove off in a stolen 1977 Buick LeSabre with $15,000.
Tyrone spent his last hours on the run in a dingy, cluttered, basement apartment in west-Toronto sitting in the only chair in the room with a red broom handle jamming the door shut. Piles of dirty clothes littered the two-bedroom apartment, which reeked of foul odors. Head shaved, blue contacts to disguise his hazel eyes -- he sat there with his duffel bag of money and brand new police scanner trying to keep tabs on the cops closing in on him.
Ty's flight from justice ended May 20, 1999 at 10:30 p.m. after a standoff with police that began around 9 p.m. Police tried to negotiate with him for 90 minutes. Tyrone repeatedly shouted that he was not giving himself up under any circumstances.
CBC producer Theresa Burke was on the phone with Tyrone at the end. They had developed a friendship five years prior during an interview. Tyrone asked her to contact a lawyer for him, and she phoned high-profile defense attorney Clayton Ruby. She and Ty spoke for about 30 minutes, while she tried to get him to surrender. She could hear him shouting to the police, announcing every move he made. As he moved to an area where reception on the cellphone would be better and started to say something, she heard the blast, and then nothing. That was the end of the conversation.
While Tyrone was on the phone, police set off a flash grenade. When they explode, the sound is horrific and temporarily deafens anyone within earshot not wearing industrial ear protection. The flash of light is blinding. The result is incapacitation. When police entered the apartment, they found Tyrone dead with his gun lying nearby. At 1:30, Toronto defense lawyer Clayton Ruby arrived at the scene, picked up Tyrone's sister and mother, and drove off. Tyrone's body was not taken out of the house until early morning May 21st.
Police say a former jailmate called to tell them exactly where Tyrone was. They also stated that the former jailmate who lived in the apartment where Tyrone died had phoned the family above that apartment warning them to get out because the police were on their way. The penpal and her boyfriend had rented a motel room for the night of the standoff. I would certainly understand why they would not want to harbor a fugitive, but I also realize how devastating such a betrayal would feel to any adoptee but especially one with Tyrone’s adoption experience. As it is with many adoptees, the informant said Tyrone never seemed to fit in anywhere.
In the days before his death, Tyrone was also upset by an article in a Toronto newspaper, in which he was accused of violating a friendship by breaking out of Kingston Penitentiary. The accusation of betrayal wounded Ty greatly. After being betrayed so many times in his short life, it’s likely that Tyrone could not accept being charged with it himself.
At her Belleville home, Tyrone's mother was devastated. May 21st accompanied by his brother and sister, she visited the apartment where her son died. Later in the afternoon, she identified her son's body at the city morgue. An autopsy the morning of May 22nd declared that Tyrone died of a single shotgun wound to the chest. It was reported that Tyrone fatally shot himself -- after asking for a lawyer.
The funeral was at 11 a.m. on May 28, 1999. Close to 100 people gathered with his family. There were no adopters mourning Tyrone’s death. Thirteen days before his escape, Tyrone instructed his mother to scatter his ashes at a secret outdoor place, which she did.
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