Warning: There are no murdered or missing people in this episode. It was released on Friday the 13th and I decided to produce an episode about a young woman, who between 1963 and 1968, pulled off one of the most amazing bank thefts in our history. I hope you enjoy the story!
Ann Spiller grew up on an orchard just outside Penticton. She was a quiet, deeply religious girl who suffered from asthma and eczema and missed a lot of school. She graduated Grade 12 in the commercial program and received a C- in bookkeeping. “She wasn’t a girl for university but that doesn’t mean she was a nitwit. She was an above-average student,” said her high school principal.
When she was 20, she was hired as a teller for the Penticton branch of the Royal Bank. Around that time, she met 35-year-old Frances Shubin, who went by the nickname Bambi. Bambi was the daughter of a butcher and Pentecostal preacher from Los Angeles and worked as a bookkeeper for a local supply company.
Ann borrowed money from her father to put a deposit down on a two-bedroom bungalow in Naramata that cost $11,000, and the two women moved in together.
Ann started clocking up some debt and she began stealing from the bank. At first they were just small amounts that she intended to pay back before anyone discovered that the money was missing.
Except it wasn’t discovered.
Ann may have been a lacklustre student, but she proved to be a brilliant embezzler.
By March 1965 she had taken $18,000 – nearly five times her annual salary. By September 1968 she had embezzled $492,000 (a staggering $4.2 million in today’s dollars) from the largest financial institution in Canada, right under the noses of her male bosses.
Initially, Ann and Bambi bought furniture and spent weekends in Vancouver, but soon they were buying mink coats and taking trips to places like Fiji, New Zealand, Lisbon, Madrid, London and Amsterdam. Ann bought a red Thunderbird convertible for Bambi, and a green Cadillac Eldorado for herself. She drove it to work and often parked next to her manager’s, beaten up sedan. She wore her expensive clothes and jewelry to work and told people she had come into an inheritance.
Ann built on to the house and added 24-karat gold plated taps and fittings, venetian marble, eight crystal chandeliers, plush carpets and a $8,500 Steinway piano. She wrapped up the house in a six-foot privacy fence, installed a locked gate and a speaker/phone intercom.
Ann bought cars and household appliances for her friends and family and loaned money to anyone she liked.
Over the five years that she padded her $73-a-week salary, she survived several internal audits and two spot bank inspections. She was finally caught in the fall of 1968 when a new manager joined the bank and found some discrepancies.
Her trial received national attention, and the media took to calling her the blonde Ann Spiller and the blonde embezzler. Ann was sentenced to three years in prison and sent to Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario. Soon she was out on day parole and studying for a BA in social work from Queen’s University. After serving less than two years, Ann was out on parole, hired on as a social worker in Kingston and given a bed at the Elizabeth Fry Halfway house, which also became the subject of one of her term papers. She was 28.
Frances Shubin (Frannie in her obituary) died in May 2019 at the age of 92. I have not been able to locate Ann or find out what happened to her.
SHOW NOTES
With thanks to Craig Henderson who first told me about Ann’s story. Craig is a resident of Naramata, a volunteer at the Naramata Heritage Museum, and he hosts the Naramata Roadshow on CFUZ community radio.
Music: Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’
Intro: Mark Dunn
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
This is a truly amazing story, that deserves a movie.
Ann’s opulent lifestyle, the relatively vast amount of money, the incompetence of the bank auditors, and her short prison term; when viewed all together are astounding!
I am inspired to take up embezzling as my next occupation.
What a story! My goodness, what a clever theif thanx Eve Lazarus
This crime practically destroyed my family. There are no victimless crimes!
You are quite right, and I am so sorry your family suffered because of this.
great story, and so true , I remember the 2 embezzelers story, quite the feat…
I was a hippie back in 68, spent part of the summer sleeping on the beach at Naramata, visiting my girlfriend who worked at the canning facility. I’d hitchhike back and forth to Penticton, got picked up by Ann several times and she would generously give me $5 or $10!
Love this! thanks for adding to the story
Wow! What a story!! Is she still Alive to tell the tale?
I wish I knew – I’d love to talk to her!
I remember this case! The Vancouver Sun Newspaper covered this story, and the subsequent trial that followed.
One thing that stood out during the trial, was the fact that the ladies had an air-conditioned Dog House for their dogs, long before this “as a thing!”
It seemed to prove…. Just how rich they had become!
I read about the dog house!
Did she have to pay any of the money back?
Did they sell all her assets and money given back to royal bank?
The Royal Bank seized all her assets and got a judgement to go after her for over $300,000 after she was sent to prison. Have no idea how they thought she was going to pay it back – have her steal more money perhaps….
Ann was around 15 years younger than Bambi. It very likely she’s still alive and possibly still living her life in Ontario. No mention of Ann in Bambi’s obit. The bank would have sold whatever assets they recovered for pennies on the dollar.
The bank did sell everything they could at a massive auction which attracted 600 people. They still received a judgement to go after her for more than $300,000, have no idea how they expected her to pay them back – steal more money perhaps….
Francis Bambi Shubin was an American and was deported back to the US. Strangley, she died recently living in downtown Vancouver.
There is more to this story
I was working in Penticton at the time and a member of the Jaycees
One of our members worked for RBC and discovered the frauds while workin diligently to audit and then reported to the manager.
Much credit should go to him and less credit to the two crooks
Sorry, no credit for anyone at the Royal Bank. It took them five years to catch her. She went through several internal audits and a couple of spot audits. No one even questioned her inheritance story when she came to work in a new model Caddie and dripping in diamonds.
Goodness, it’s Jack Bennest….
What an amazing story! How she got away with it, is pretty clever. Is she alive? Thanx Eve!
Where are these 2 woman now?
Shubin is deceased.
Frances Shubin passed away in Vancouver in 2019.
https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/nsnews/name/frances-shubin-obituary?id=41251839
Thanks Terry = that’s fascinating!
I just found, Frances Shubin’s obit……..https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/nsnews/name/frances-shubin-obituary?id=41251839
Nice work! Happy that she lived a long life – no mention that the travels came courtesy of the Royal Bank! I like to think that she and Ann got back together again
Saddened to hear you are pleased she led a long and happy life. And Spiller got a free education while in Kingston Prison.
There crime was one of GREED, not necessity.
Their friends were investigated and questioned by Canadian police and Interpol.
Her parents and brother also suffered embarassment.
I used to work on the Cadillac and T bird when I was a mechanic at Grove Motors on Front St.
In the autumn of 1968, I was caught with a car full of teenagers driving in Vancouver smoking a joint.. They put all 7 of us in jail for less than 24 hours, until they charged one of us (not me, luckily!) with pot possession, then let the rest go; standard practice in those days.. But what an adventure, because in the holding cells waiting to get sent to trial, was Ann Spiller!! ..Such a nice lady, and she passed the time telling us how she started on her life of crime, $20 at a time originally.. A cautionary tale for sure! ..Made an interesting stay in the otherwise boring hotel behind bars😊..
I remember that. I was an RBC employee. A lot more checks and balances were put in place after that in all branches. The timer was when she became a social worker she embezzled from the Ontario government as well,
I heard that rumour, but wasn’t able to verify it. If she had been charged in Ontario I would expect to find headlines about it, and couldn’t find one mention of her after her parole ended.
Her brother confirmed the second theft to my late mother.
I started work at RBC in July 1968 as a teller in Vancouver. This was a huge story and we were under a great deal of scrutiny
Were Ann and Frances life partners or just friends??
Partners
There are relatives of Ann Spiller that live in Penticton and have for several decades. Thinking they probably don’t want anyone to know that they are related to her.
I was an RBC bank inspector on the next visit there a year or two later. The staff pointed out the only remnant of their former fellow employee. It was her fancy coat hanger in the staff room.
Love that image! Thanks for sharing it
Does anyone know who purchased the house that Ann had in Naramata between 1968 and 1978. My parents purchased Ann’s home in 1979.
Frances was my great aunt. Our family was from southern California by way of Russia. The bottom picture is her with my great grandmother. I was born in 1969 so I only heard rumors of this amazing story. I knew Frances but not the Frances of the wild tale I read in Maclean’s years ago. She lead a modest life in N Vancouver and did travel to India often to be with old friends.