Feet On The Ground | 06

Listen to the complete season ad-free by subscribing to Curiouscast Discovery exclusively on Apple podcasts. A quick warning before we begin. This episode contains discussions of eating disorders, so please listen with care. 15th of May 2004, and in Winnipeg, Canada, it's another cold night. A few degrees above freezing, and the winds, spiteful. Above the new branch of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, a thin, waning moon casts a miserly light. The shopping malls deserted. In the gridded expanse of the parking lot sits a single car, like a forgotten counter in a board game. The lights are off. The engine extinguished. There's no one inside. But then. Something's triggered the bank's alarm systems. All of the alarm systems. In minutes, police officers are on the scene, red and blue lights flashing. At three in the morning, an alarm came in from the bank that police attended. The officers surround the bank. They rattle the doors, shine their flashlights through the glass. They can see the plumped up leather couches in the marble-tiled reception. The pot plants, the immaculate carpeted floor. They looked around. They didn't see any sign of forest entry. They tried to get in touch with the keyholder to come let them in. Nobody was available. Through the windows, it was clear that really nothing had happened. It's not unusual to have false alarms at banks. It's quite normal, actually. The banks due to open its doors for the first time tomorrow. The six ATMs have just been fitted and filled with stacks of brand new pristine dollar bills. So at the time, they determined it was a false alarm and they left. But a few minutes later, another car engine starts and headlights flood the parking lot again. It's the abandoned car. As it reverses, the banks' glass doors briefly flare red, reflecting the car's tail lights. The driver rubs a hand across the steamed up windscreen. And through the cleared halo he's made in the condensation, we see the grinning face of Daniel Blanchard, perfectly framed. Of course it turns out it wasn't a false alarm. Which is why Daniel's laughing. Because in the trunk of his car, stacked in pristine piles, is more than half a million Canadian dollars. In curious cars and Blanchard House, I'm Seren Jones. [Music] Episode 6. Feet on the ground. Just a few hours later, and it's daylight now, around 10am. Daniel's vehicle's long gone, of course. But the parking lot is now packed with busy Saturday morning shoppers. Even the weather's taken a turn for the better. It was a beautiful day. It was sun and park clouds. Ben Hagueman's on a rare day off. He and his wife are expecting a baby in the next few weeks. And their to-do list is as long as your arm. So today, they're on a mission. So we were driving through a part of town on the way to a store where we were going to look at a child's crib. Now the crib stores in the same shopping mall as that new C.I.B.C. branch. And as they get close, Ben sees something that makes his heart sink. As we're pulling past it, you know, you can see that there were police cars out. It can see a little bit of activity out front and through the glass. And I just remember looking over to my wife saying, "I'll bet you I'll be going to work here very soon." Now, you'll probably remember Ben from previous episodes. And you might remember him insisting that he knows Daniel Blanchard quite well. But he would never describe him as a friend. Look, Danny and I had a business relationship. Because Ben Hagueman and Daniel, they're kind of in the same trade. Just on opposite sides of the law. All right, so at the times, I was a detective in the major crimes unit. Yes, Ben's a Winnipeg cop. And he's a cop with a very special area of expertise. Our area of focus in the major crimes unit are robberies of a significant dollar value loss. Basically, Ben and Daniel have shared interests. And just like Daniel, he'll do whatever it takes to get the job done. Look, it was not uncommon to pull a 48-hour day doing the work there. You are surrendering in a piece of your life when you go into that unit. And also like Daniel, Ben loves his work. The thrill, the adrenaline of the major crimes unit. If you want a taste of that life, if you want to do the things, and end up in news stories and documentaries and podcasts, that's where you go, right? So I mean, that was the life we were living and it was full-time crime work. So when Ben sees those flashing red and blue lights outside the C.I.B.C. bank, he knows exactly what he has to do. He drops his wife at the baby store to pick out the crib. Then does a U-turn and heads straight to the office. Now at the time, Ben's office, the major crimes unit, came under the umbrella of something called the Criminal Investigation Bureau. And that's where we meet another familiar voice, Gordon Schumacher. OK, so my role was as an executive officer with oversight of the entire Criminal Investigation Bureau. Basically, Gordon's the guy who calls the shots. At the end of the day, final approval for things where it was needed, I've had to come through me. Gordon's proud of his department because they get results. We're not filled with keys to uncobs here. We've got some highly sophisticated, highly intelligent, well-trained police. And let's be clear. Over the course of his long career, Gordon's seen all kinds of serious crimes, including several bank break-ins. But-- This one was unusual. And it's unusual, not only because of the enormous sum of money stolen, but also because the job was so neat. I mean, this took planning, a long-term planning. Gordon realizes this thief, well, he's different. He's got a funny feeling about this one. Actually, a whole bunch of funny feelings. First one was intrigue. Second was interest. And the third was curiosity as to who this guy was, where he came from, and what he was doing in Winnipeg. Now that just about sums up where Ben's at, too. He's fascinated by how this bank was robbed. Once Ben's reported for duty, he and some colleagues from the forensic squad are sent back to the CIBC bank parking lot. They get a briefing from the officers who were first on scene for the break-in. And then they take a tour around the inside of the bank, which is still immaculate. And something becomes immediately apparent to Ben. I mean, quite clearly, it wasn't this guy's first rodeo, right? The sophistication of the crime proves the thief's no novice. He's clearly a seasoned professional, because Daniel's left no trace of his visit. Forensics, dust for fingerprints, but there's nothing. Boy, this guy was good at it. Apart from the missing cash, it's like he was never there. The bank's CCTV is still connected, but Daniel's stolen the hard drive. This is a different fish, right? It's not the usual customer. Now, of course, we know who the thief is. And we know that Daniel Blanchard is definitely not your ordinary kind of fish. After all, we've watched him risk his life, parachuting in the dead of night onto the Shurnbren Palace in Vienna to steal the prized crown jewel of Austria, the CC star, then pocket it like a lucky charm. So somehow, I don't think this next bit will surprise you. When the bank staff first discovered the theft, Daniel was watching [BLANK_AUDIO] The show. Because once again, during construction, he installed pinhole cameras and microphones all over the new building. Journalist Jennifer Bauer's Barney says he enjoyed a live feed of the scene. He was able to listen in when the bank manager headed into the bank and finally realized, "Oh my God, where's all our money?" Blanchard was able to listen to him talking to the police. Remember how Daniel always likes to taunt police by leaving a tantalizing clue? I'm thinking the bullet with a smiley face he left from the desk of the Nebraska police station? When he climbed down from the ceiling panels and stole some police souvenirs. Or the parachute he stuffed in the bin at the Schurren-Bren palace when he stole the CC star. Well, at the CIBC bank, it's almost like Daniel worries he's been too clever. That the investigators won't know where to start. So he offers them some help. He called the bank, the audacity. Someone called the bank early on and started saying that they knew who broke it into the ATMs and taking the money. There's more. The phone call to the bank manager was basically saying, "Listen, you've got to be looking at your construction workers. That's where their suspect should be." The nerve of the man. Oh, it's my boy, yeah. And of course, when the bank does check through the names of the construction workers, they won't find any Daniel Blanchard on the list. Daniel's got a whole host of aliases these days with a whole host of forged identity cards to match. I think he felt invincible and they were never, ever going to catch him. So that call to the bank is a dare. Catch me if you can. And Ben feels the challenge personally and rolls up his sleeves. Yeah, okay. All right. But where does Ben even start? There isn't a single lead. Remember, this is 2004, the internet's in its infancy. Ben can't control through social media as today's officers would do to see if a thief was bragging about his crime. A lot of cricks like to put their crimes and post videos about them on Facebook and similar. Well, thank you very much. You know, I didn't have the benefit of that when I was doing it. So Ben decides to employ a tactic. He feels it is often overlooked. Something that demands patience and time. I went out and I conducted a canvas. A canvas? That is old school policing. That is going out knocking on doors to talk to people in the neighborhood who may have seen or heard something. Sounds simple. But this isn't really a residential area. The banks on the edge of a shopping mall. It feels like a bit of a long shot. But it was worthwhile. It's 1870. And like Ben, Cece is also doing something that takes patience and time. She's working out. She's doing big time. She's doing crunches. She's lifting weights. Serious exercise. Remember, she's no longer just Empress of Austria. She's also been crowned Queen Elizabeth of Hungary. Through her own political maneuvering, she's massively expanded her husband's territories into the new Austro-Hungarian Empire. She looks untouchable at the height of her powers. But her demons are circling. And Cece is determined to keep them at bay, with a punishing routine of exercises in her very own gym. Sorry, but you knew that 19th century women were into aerobics. You know, we often think of Jane Fonda having started this fad, but it was actually Empress Elizabeth. Regina Neuhauser is an Austrian historian. She's also a Vienna tour guide, so she knows all of Cece's palaces like the back of her hand. She has her winter residence, the Hofburg. Here you can see it's actually a combined dressing room with a gym. And you can see the rings hanging down. Then we have wall bars. Where she did her fitness exercise. In fact, Cece insisted that wherever she stayed, she had a fully equipped gym. And when I say fully equipped, she had the very latest fitness aids that 19th century sports science could offer. She had a rowing machine. Can you imagine? I wouldn't want to go near it. Tessa Dunlop, our royal historian. Nothing is left to chance. She controls her diet and her exercise rigorously. Fastidiously, in fact, because just like Daniel Blanchard, Cece is driven. When Daniel or Cece set themselves a goal, they don't stop working at it until they've got exactly what they want. Be that stripping a bank of all its cash or getting the body to die for. They're both obsessive about being in control. But Cece's gym craze is not really about getting healthy. It's about getting skinny. We have to own that she was underweight. She had this ridiculously narrow waist, apparently 19 inches, 50 centimeters. This is a woman who had four babies. She was the personification of pain for beauty. But it was unhealthy to the point of obsession. Just another warning here. We're going to be talking in more detail about eating disorders for the next five minutes. So feel free to skip ahead if you need to. Cece has got exactly what she wanted, a new throne, an escape from the hated court in Vienna, and a new baby whom she adored. But behind the scenes in private, Cece is not well at all. Her eating restrictions came after her pregnancies. After she gave birth to her daughter Marie Valerie, Cece was disgusted with her body. She wrote, "Children are the curse of a woman. But when they come, they drive away beauty, which is the best gift of the gods." Remember, in her mind, being beautiful is what's give Cece her power. And it's what sets her apart from others. So heaven forbid her followers should see her as a normal woman with a little postpartum belly. But the fanatical exercising is about more than just wanting her figure back. Cece becomes obsessed with controlling her weight. When I am not feeling well, my weight goes up. And of all my ills, this upsets me the most. She weighs herself constantly. She can't stop herself. You can see the scales here. Scales were extremely important for her and every palace where Elizabeth had an apartment for example, also in Budapest, had scales and she weighed herself every day. She had a weighing journal. This doesn't sound healthy. And in fact, very soon, she was barely eating at all. She would eat five or six egg whites with salt. I mean, the very idea makes me want to gag. Gravy squeezed into her soup. Milk. But really nothing that would sustain you through the day. Today's historians and psychiatrists are unanimous in their diagnosis of Cece's symptoms. Nowadays we would just call it for what it was anorexia. She had a needing disorder. Yeah. Anorexia nervosa wasn't a known condition. Chris Fairburn is a professor of psychiatry at Oxford University. His specialism is eating disorders. And in the mid 19th century, Chris says anorexia was only known about in a tiny academic circle. Most doctors had no clue it even existed. Empress Cece would have absolutely been on her own and her health advisors. They wouldn't have heard about it. They probably wouldn't have seen anyone like this before. We know Cece has often lost her appetite when she's been unhappy. Like when she first arrived at the strict Fienese courts, when her children were taken from her or when her husband Franz Joseph had an affair. It seems to be triggered by or maintained by a sense of not being in control and controlling your eating or appearance gives you a sense of control back. So that seems to fit a C.C. situation where she had almost no control or anything. And now of course, Cece has a new source of worry. She's terrified that age will rob her of her famous beauty and with it, her status, her influence, her power, everything she's worked so hard to achieve. So this time when she stops eating, it's about much more than just going off her food. It's a serious illness. I don't think we can underestimate the extent to which she lived in a goldfish bowl. The pressure on her own self-image, on her body is immense. I mean, you can look at pretty recent examples. Lated Diana, later Princess Diana. Princess Diana described her eating disorder as an escape mechanism from her unhappy marriage, from the constant public gaze. And just like Diana says Regina Neuhauser, Cece also takes refuge. in controlling her food. There was a huge vacuum in her. She had to fill it with something. You know, this is how she tried to fill the void, the emptiness. Does CC realize her mental health is spiraling? Occasionally, the pressure becomes too much. And CC loses her eye in grip, eating and eating more and more food until her maids are horrified. That doesn't surprise psychiatrist, Chris Faberne. There's a subgroup of people with anorexia who binge eat and usually follow it with vomiting. And then life somehow gets out of control. Is CC's star burning out? Once upon a time, those glittering diamond stars were the making of her. Now she's a hostage to them. It's like she's constantly trying to prove that she's enough, that she still has star quality. One of the risk factors aroundorexia is being somewhat perfectionist or even very perfectionist in personality. Perfectionism at almost any cost. And that's something else CC shares with Daniel Blanchard. Because both CC and Daniel need challenges. They need to be at the top of their game. I need to be seen at the top of their game. Whatever they do. It's this trait of perfectionism achievement doing things really well in terms of having a slim waist to be the smallest or your performance as a bank robber. It could be the best. But just like Daniel, CC's no quitter. She's damned if she's just going to fizzle out and disappear. Believe me, CC still has her eyes fixed on the stars. And she's about to blind us with a new flash of brilliance. [MUSIC PLAYING] [KNOCKING] Good morning, ma'am. I apologize for disturbing you. We're back in May 2004. Ben Hagueman and his partner are canvassing the neighborhood and knocking on doors, asking if anyone saw or heard anything. Thanks for your time. It's not going too well. He's visited the homes near the mall and all the stores too. Hi there. I'm wondering if you're-- so I'm doing this canvas here, and my hopes are not high. Many thanks. But then he tries a trailer behind a Walmart store. And then I go to the furthest one on the opposite side of the park and a lot. I do the same thing there. [MUSIC PLAYING] Except the man who answers the door isn't just any old guy. He's a security guard. He works night shifts at the Walmart across from the bank. [MUSIC PLAYING] And this time-- It was an informational jackpot. Now, one of the security guard's duties is to clear the parking lot of abandoned shopping cards and trash. And that's he was sweeping the empty lot one night. The guard noticed a single car parked near the CIBC bank. In fact, it isn't the first time he's noticed the car. So he takes a closer look. And he told Ben he'd noticed something odd. The back seats had been removed, and a dolly had been placed in the back as if it was going to be carrying some heavy cargo. In fact, the security guard was so convinced that something wasn't right about that car. He'd even called the police. Ben checked the records. An officer had indeed shown up a few days before the theft. He'd taken a quick peek through the window, but decided it was all OK. After all, there's no law against putting a trolley in your car. People buy heavy things and shopping malls. But the security guard just had this hunch. And he says, you know what else I did? I said, no, what else you do? Basically, all the while Daniel was sitting in the car, watching the bank, the guard had been watching Daniel. And he jotted down all his observations in his notebook. He says, oh, yeah, by the way, here's that paper. All right, so that's nice. But when Ben reads through it, he realizes it's a little more than just nice, which is why he can't help giving himself a pat on the back. Because all that old-fashioned policing? It's paid off. And it's only as a result of that canvas. Did that investigation advance? You see, the security guard didn't only describe the car's movements. He also described the man he saw driving it. And moreover, he actually wrote down the vehicle license planar. OK, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Yes, Ben has a lead. But Daniel's always mega careful to cover his tracks. He doesn't make mistakes. But about that. Every single criminal that I've ever come across and there's been many think they've got it figured out and not of them actually do. Remember Gordon Schumacher, the big cheese with the criminal investigation's bureau? Well, he doesn't buy into the idea of the perfect thief. They always screw up somewhere. But surely not, Daniel Blanchard. I mean, he's got a string of alter-egos. He's got fake IDs and passports galore. And he's already got away with this gig half a dozen times. If you make any little mistake, it's going to be found. You're going to be caught. Ben's not holding his breath. But he's checking out every single detail the Walmart security guard gave him. We conducted some record checks on the license plate and we saw that it came back to a local rental agency. Well, no surprises that Daniel didn't use his own car for a bank heist. But it turns out the agency's glad to hear from the police because Daniel hasn't settled the bill. I contact a rental agency and he's been delinquent on payment and the agency's concerned about his vehicle. Ben asks the agency for the name on the rental contract. Now you can see things really start to unravel for him here. Because Daniel has made a mistake. He's done something that no criminal worth a salt should ever do. He's told the truth. Dan Blanchard used his own name, his real name, not one of his available aliases. And Daniel's moment of honesty will cost him dearly. He failed in that regard. So that's what kicks off this investigation into high gear. Because suddenly, the name Daniel Blanchard is on the lips of every local police officer. I mean, that was Dan's coming out party in the city of Wampig. Daniel Blanchard has finally been unmasked. You've been listening to a most audacious heist, a Blanchard house production for curious cast, hosted by me, Seren Jones. It's written and produced by Emma Jane Kirby, research by Hannah Tava-Colisade. Original music is by Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis Nanc-Minell and Toby Matamong. Sound design and mix engineering by Toby Matamong and Louis Nanc-Minell. The part of Empress Seacy is played by Rianne on Needs. Poetry translations courtesy of Regina Neuhauser from the book Empres Elizabeth of Austria, with special thanks to Rob Johnston. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pai. The head of content at Blanchard House is Lawrence Grisel. For Blanchard House, the executive producers are Amika Chautino-Nolan and Lawrence Grisel. For curious cast, the executive producers are Dileva Lasquez and Chris Duncombe. A most audacious heist is inspired by the book "Stealing Cece Star" by Jennifer Bauer's Barney. Our fighters Mr. Rives every single day, Friday's on global. You can get you out of here, bud. This is the greatest job in the world. In all new, fire country. Firefire, Leon. We need you to make your own rescue. We're going in. Deep in the woods behind you, there's a wildfire. Ready game now, boys! TV's hot as show. It's off. Be safe. Keeps getting hotter. Will you help? Happy to. Fire country, only Fridays and 90s are non-global. Stream on Stack TV.