‘Blind’ bank robber Carl Synnerdahl dies at Barossa home

Notorious bank robber Carl Synnerdahl escaped prison twice - including once by pretending to be blind - during his long criminal career before “retiring” to South Australia.

Carl Synnerdahl, a notorious Australian criminal and bank robber at his home in Barossa Valley. Picture: Michael Marschall

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Carl Synnerdahl, the infamous bank robber who escaped from jail after convincing authorities he’d gone blind, has died at his Barossa Valley home aged 76.

Synnerdahl, who grew up in Sydney, committed his first crime at four when he stole the milkman’s horse and attempted to hide it in his house.

Front page of the Daily Mirror newspaper in 1977 showing bank robber Carl Ronald Synnerdahl, who fooled prison doctors into believing he was blind and escaping.

By his teenage years, he had moved on to robbing service stations before graduating to bank jobs, stealing thousands of dollars from financial institutions in between stints in prison.

Synnerdahl staged two daring escapes from jail. The first involved cutting through the bars of his Goulburn prison cell in NSW with a smuggled hacksaw blade before stealing a truck and driving to Wollongong, where he was caught and thrown back into custody.

After serving his time, he went on a bank robbing spree, hitting banks in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane before flying to Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo, where he’d wait for the heat to die down before returning to Australia.

Synnerdahl was eventually caught after authorities detected his fake passport, and it was his second escape that made him a household name and ensured he would become part of Australian criminal folklore.

Carl Synnerdahl on the set of Hoodwink with actor John Hargreaves in 1980.

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The crafty crim slowly pretended to lose his sight. He even convinced top eye doctor Fred Hollows that he was blind. Taking advantage of the lax security that his “blindness” afforded him, Synnerdahl staged another escape.

The con job became the basis for the 1981 film Hoodwink, starring John Hargreaves. Synnerdahl “went straight” after meeting wife Yvonne and the couple moved to South Australia. He spent the last years of his life battling multiple cancers.

In 2016, Synnerdahl spoke exclusively to the Sunday Mail, saying he had found peace in his later years.