Within minutes, while the thieves were filling a shopping bag with almost $10,000 in cash, Patrol Sergeant Bernard Oakes and Constable Norman Howard arrived. Seeing the officers, Brown and Cotham fired at them, and warned them that they had hostages. Herding tellers Gruber and Johnston in front of them, ordered the police to drop their weapons. When the officers hesitated, Brown shot Sergeant Oakes twice. Constable Howard then dropped his weapons, and the culprits, finding the driveway to the bank blocked by the responding police cars, forced the two tellers into one of the cruisers and fled the scene in a stolen police car. Detectives Mel Simmons and George Wilson, arriving on the scene, saw the departing cruiser and gave chase, followed closely by Detective Douglas Burrows. The suspects, together with their hostages in the in the stolen police car and the stolen money, travelled at high speeds along Dundas Street and then northward on Dixie Road, using the cruiser’s radio to relay false information in hopes of confusing police and aiding their escape.
The “great chase” as it was dubbed lasted some nine miles, with over 50 shots being fired. Detective Burrows’ car was struck by bullets nine times in the chase before he rammed the stolen cruiser, but he failed to stop it and wrecked his own vehicle in the process. The chase continued with Detective Burrows commandeering a passing car driven by Cooksville resident Clayton Smith. The fugitives attempted escape ended north of Derry Road near Malton with police being able to disable the stolen cruiser thanks to Clayton Smith ramming the suspect’s vehicle. Police then apprehended the robbers and rescued the two hostages.
Brown and Cotham were brought before Magistrate H.T.G. Andrews on Wednesday, May 29, charged with armed robbery, kidnapping and attempted murder. They pled guilty to armed robbery and kidnapping, and the charge on attempted murder was remanded for trial in June. That charge was later withdrawn, and the two were sentenced to 20 years hard labour at the Kingston Penitentiary on June 26, 1963.
The bumbling duo, however, only served seven years before being released, and the two did return to the United States, and court records show they continued running afoul of the law. Donald Cotham died in Oregon in 1981, while Melvin Brown may have died in Texas in 1983. Detective Douglas Burrows (1934-2020) would go on to serve as Chief of Peel Regional Police from 1974 to 1988. Chief Burrows recounted the story of the “Great Chase of `63” in “VIPs of Mississauga” by Kathleen Hicks (1998).
Does anyone remember the “Great Chase of ‘63”? We’d love to hear from you!