Donita Naylor, The Providence Journal
Sat, May 7, 2022, 6:55 PM·3 min read
BRISTOL — For a few hours Tuesday, Bristol put on a Facebook Live version of Geraldo Rivera's opening of Al Capone's secret vault on live TV in 1986.
In Bristol's case, the mystery involved a locked safe that had been forgotten for decades in the basement of the old Oliver School on State Street. For as far back as anyone remembers, the combination has been lost, and no one had any idea what was inside.
The town's Facebook page was open for wisecracks Monday after Town Administrator Steven Contente used it to announce that the town had hired a safecracking specialist, and the opening of the safe would be on Facebook Live on Tuesday.
What he didn't say was that the safecracker was trained by descendants of Harry Houdini's locksmith, the man who adjusted handcuffs, padlocks and other keyed mechanisms to make sure Houdini made his impossible escapes just in time every time.
So Houdini's act was rigged?
"I cannot divulge that, but let us say, I have knowledge," said Francesco Therisod, the vault-opening expert behind Castle Vault & Lock, where Contente was advised to seek the specialty service of breaking into a safe.
At 76, Therisod is semiretired. He has worked for the feds, opening seized assets and changing the combinations. He was hired to re-combo safes all over the state in 1999 when corporations feared losses from Y2K. When Gov. Bruce Sundlun shut down financial institutions to prevent collapses during the 1991 credit union crisis, Therisod was called in. He takes jobs like Bristol's, he said, because "I still have the rush when I turn the handle and open the safe."
He honed the specialty skill he learned from his wife's family. She is the former Linda J. Clark, the granddaughter of Herbert Clark, Houdini's behind-the-scenes locksmith. Herbert Clark moved to Rhode Island in 1901 when Houdini established his New England base in Providence.
Therisod prefers the term "safe technician" to safecracker, he said. He became a master at opening a safe by listening to the lock mechanism as he slowly turns the dial.
That's what he did in the Oliver School basement. He figured out the combination, but the bolts were rusty and wouldn't release.
His assistant drilled just under the lock and through the insulation, but even after "lots of banging" with a mallet, it still wouldn't budge.
Facebook commenters offered their takes on what was inside: milk money, little blue lunch tokens and Mount Hope Bridge tokens, Jimmy Hoffa, gold bars, dust, report cards, confiscated squirt guns and a whoopee cushion, the legendary "permanent record."
Contente wore a fedora for the Facebook Live reveal, to evoke the Al Capone era. He kept announcing delays and asking the Facebook Live audience to stand by.
"We were at the end of the second hour," Therisod said. He decided, "I'd like to go another way," and he was ready to stop and come back with the huge cutters.
Assistant Cesar Lecaros wanted to give it one last good whack with the mallet.
This time the bolts fell away
The door opened to reveal ... another locked door. Eventually Superintendent Ana Riley led viewers through the cubbies and drawers, pulling out annual reports from 1838, bus contracts, handwritten minutes of School Committee meetings, but nothing after 1976.
The safe will be moved to a Bristol administration building, and the Oliver School will be sold. Therisod gave it a new combination before he left, and he'll return to repair the drill hole and touch up the paint.
"A professional never ruins a safe," he explained. Bristol had bought a good one from a company that no longer exists. It was sold as a "double-door insulated fire safe," and he considers it a museum piece now.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Safecracker with a link to Houdini opens mystery safe in Oliver School
"I cannot divulge that, but let us say, I have knowledge," said Francesco Therisod, the vault-opening expert behind Castle Vault & Lock, where Contente was advised to seek the specialty service of breaking into a safe.
At 76, Therisod is semiretired. He has worked for the feds, opening seized assets and changing the combinations. He was hired to re-combo safes all over the state in 1999 when corporations feared losses from Y2K. When Gov. Bruce Sundlun shut down financial institutions to prevent collapses during the 1991 credit union crisis, Therisod was called in. He takes jobs like Bristol's, he said, because "I still have the rush when I turn the handle and open the safe."
He honed the specialty skill he learned from his wife's family. She is the former Linda J. Clark, the granddaughter of Herbert Clark, Houdini's behind-the-scenes locksmith. Herbert Clark moved to Rhode Island in 1901 when Houdini established his New England base in Providence.
Therisod prefers the term "safe technician" to safecracker, he said. He became a master at opening a safe by listening to the lock mechanism as he slowly turns the dial.
That's what he did in the Oliver School basement. He figured out the combination, but the bolts were rusty and wouldn't release.
His assistant drilled just under the lock and through the insulation, but even after "lots of banging" with a mallet, it still wouldn't budge.
Facebook commenters offered their takes on what was inside: milk money, little blue lunch tokens and Mount Hope Bridge tokens, Jimmy Hoffa, gold bars, dust, report cards, confiscated squirt guns and a whoopee cushion, the legendary "permanent record."
Contente wore a fedora for the Facebook Live reveal, to evoke the Al Capone era. He kept announcing delays and asking the Facebook Live audience to stand by.
"We were at the end of the second hour," Therisod said. He decided, "I'd like to go another way," and he was ready to stop and come back with the huge cutters.
Assistant Cesar Lecaros wanted to give it one last good whack with the mallet.
This time the bolts fell away
The door opened to reveal ... another locked door. Eventually Superintendent Ana Riley led viewers through the cubbies and drawers, pulling out annual reports from 1838, bus contracts, handwritten minutes of School Committee meetings, but nothing after 1976.
The safe will be moved to a Bristol administration building, and the Oliver School will be sold. Therisod gave it a new combination before he left, and he'll return to repair the drill hole and touch up the paint.
"A professional never ruins a safe," he explained. Bristol had bought a good one from a company that no longer exists. It was sold as a "double-door insulated fire safe," and he considers it a museum piece now.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Safecracker with a link to Houdini opens mystery safe in Oliver School
No comments:
Post a Comment