12 Facts About Ty Conn

Ty Conn was the only person in the last half-century to escape over the wall from the Kingston Penitentiary, one of Canada's most secure prisons.

Tyrone Ty Conn was born in 1967, as Ernest Bruce Hayes, to an Ontario 15-year-old mother and a father from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Ty Conn was adopted by a Belleville, Ontario psychiatrist, Dr E Bert Conn, and his wife.

Tyrone Ty Conn remained with Dr Ty Conn and his wife for eight years before being returned to the care of the local Children's Aid Society.

Ty Conn then spent the balance of his adolescent and teenage years in foster homes, group homes, and youth detention facilities, starting at the Brookside Training School, at the age of fourteen.

Ty Conn had been "illegally at large" by escaping from a number of lower-security institutions.

In 1998, Ty Conn was transferred to Kingston Penitentiary for acting as an informant at the Millhaven Institution.

Ty Conn advised security staff at Millhaven that fellow inmates were planning an escape and was therefore placed in protective custody.

Ty Conn's escape on May 6,1999, from inside the compound was the 26th in the history of facility.

Ty Conn employed a ladder and homemade grappling hook to scale the wall and used cayenne pepper to prevent dogs from following his scent.

Ty Conn was found in a Toronto apartment building two weeks after his escape.

At the time, Ty Conn was serving a 47-year sentence, principally for bank robbery.