On Sunday, August 30, 1959, four men decided to crack the safe at the Bellevue Cooperative Bank in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. 33-year-old John J. Storis was chosen to be the lookout while the other three men worked on the safe inside the bank.  Then, Storis saw a police cruiser and panicked. Perched in a tree, he fell to the ground and then ran to his car to signal the others with its headlights.

The officers had no clue up until this point that a robbery was occurring, but now it was clear that something sinister was going on. Storis was arrested on the spot and he stooled on his friends, who were able to get away.  Police caught two of the men in Franklin Park “after an unsuccessful attempt to pose as shrubbery.” 

The men had already removed one door from the safe and were just about to set off explosives to remove a second door when the police arrived.  Ironically, there was nothing in the safe that they were trying to open. Absolutely nothing.  If only they had opted to open the second safe in the bank. That one contained about $3,000 in cash.