The Robbery That Wasn’t What It Seemed

City National Bank (now the Kankakee County Administration Building) was located at the intersection of Court Street and Schuyler Avenue. The alley where the armored car hijacking was claimed to have taken place is at the left side of the building. (Kankakee County Museum Photo Archive)

By Jack Klasey

June 21, 2025

An event that the Kankakee Daily Journal described as “the largest armed robbery in the history of Kankakee County” took place on Saturday, September 3, 1966.

“A gunman ambushed the driver of a Kankakee Armored Car Service in the alley beside City National Bank at noon Saturday,” reported the newspaper, “abducting him and his armored car…and stole more than $42,000.”

The driver, Ronald T. Balthazor, told Kankakee Police Lt. Thomas Jones that he was making a deposit at City National Bank after completing pickups at Bell Discount Store and Tittle’s Food Market. Jones told the Journal that the driver “had just alighted from the truck and had a bank deposit bag in one hand and the other on the [truck] door when the man walked up to him and pulled a revolver.” Balthazor was then forced back into the truck, relieved of his gun belt, and told to drive south out of the city.

On a lightly traveled road forming the border between Kankakee and Iroquois counties, he was directed to pull off the pavement. The robber forced him to the truck’s floor and handcuffed him to the steering column, then fled the scene. Balthazor told police he thought that he heard a car drive away. About one hour later, a passing motorist, Earl Gillespie of Clifton, discovered Balthazor in the parked and still-running armored car.

Kankakee County Sheriff’s Department deputies responded to a call from Gillespie, and freed Balthazor from the handcuffs. The 24-year-old driver was unharmed, although suffering from heat exhaustion because the truck’s air conditioning unit had failed. Balthazor, an off-duty Kankakee City Police officer, was a substitute armored car driver. He was “subbing the armored car run,” Lt. Jones explained, “for another Kankakee policeman, Clifford Lord, who normally makes the runs in the car.”

“Visibly shaken after the experience,” the Daily Journal noted, “Balthazor sat in a police car at the scene answering questions in a heavy sweat….[He] said the gunman did not threaten him during the ride to south Kankakee County.”

Four days later, the armored car robbery story took a startling turn: “The $42,000 stolen Saturday from an armored car here was recovered today,” the Daily Journal reported, “and the truck’s driver was behind bars awaiting arraignment on a charge of taking the money.”

Kankakee Police Chief Thomas Maass told reporters, “I never thought that it would be necessary for me to have a press conference like this. It grieves me to tell you that one of our policemen, Ronald Balthazor, has been booked and is going to be charged with the theft of $42,000 from the Kankakee Armored Car Service on Saturday.” Maass revealed that Balthazor “had been suspected from the start,” and that “a full investigation was ordered and conducted by the department….His story didn’t jibe, several discrepancies [were] found in it.”

After submitting to a lie detector test in Chicago, Balthazor led Chief Maass and Lieutenants Thomas Jones and Robert Rogers to a place along the Iroquois River where he had hidden the stolen money. The Chief said the loot, contained in three bags and a pouch, had been “stashed behind some rocks and broken-up tile.” Balthazor’s service revolver was found in a nearby cornfield.

A member of the Kankakee Police Department for only eight months, Balthazor was assigned to the third (night) shift. He lived in the Hillcrest neighborhood on the city’s east side with his wife and two small children. Asked by a Journal reporter why Balthazor had staged the hijacking, Chief Maass said, “He had personal problems and wanted to get away from the area.”

Shortly before his arrest on grand theft charges early Wednesday morning, Balthazor formally resigned his Kankakee Police position. On Wednesday afternoon, Magistrate Sheldon Reagan set bail for the former policeman at $50,000. A relative posted the required 10 percent ($5,000) cash bond later that day. On Friday, Balthazor was indicted on grand theft charges by a Kankakee County Grand Jury.

Following Balthazor’s arrest, Chief Maass told the newspaper he was saddened by the actions of one of his men, but observed, “People have to remember policemen can be tempted as well as anybody else.”

Jack Klasey is a former Journal reporter and a retired publishing executive. He can be contacted at jwklasey@comcast.net.

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