I’m so sad to report that my friend, Paddy Mitchell, died today. Paddy was Canada’s favourite bank robber, leader of the Stopwatch Gang, and, since retiring to the US federal penitentiary system 13 years ago, a prolific writer.
In recent months I created a blog for Paddy. He would write the entries by hand and send them to be posted. He loved writing. His autobiography, This Bank Robber’s Life, was published several years ago. He was also the subject of several books, movies and documentaries.
There was an effort underway to bring Paddy home to a prison in Canada, preferably Kingston, so he could spend his remaining time close to family and friends. Unfortunately the bureaucracy moved slower than the cancer, and he died this morning at Butner Medical Centre in North Carolina.
I got a letter from him on Thursday. For the first time he sounded sick from the chemo, but he was still upbeat and optimistic about his chances of surviving. He included several blog entries, which I was planning to space out on his blog over the next week or so. Instead I’ve posted a letter from his son, Kevin, letting people know that he’s gone.
R.I.P. Paddy. The world was a better place because you were in it.
Zoom, I am so sorry for your loss. I wish I could do more then send you my condolences but I know there is nothing anyone can do to lessen the pain.
You are very lucky to have known him all those years.
Take care {{Zoom}}
I thought of you when I saw the report today. Take care of yourself.
Thanks Dakota and Gillian. I was thinking about him all night and all day. I never met the man, but he has meant something to me for many years…long before I started corresponding with him.
A week or so ago he wrote me a letter and included a handful of photographs to be posted on his blog. He asked me to return them after I’d had a chance to scan them, because he didn’t have copies. “No rush,” he said. Paddy was an optimist right till the end.
My heart goes out to Kevin and his family, and Paddy’s many friends.
I was so sorry to hear the news this morning from my sister. Paddy will always be remembered affectionately by the Cody family. He was a good person.