"WILD WEST" ROBBERY

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 75, 29 March 1928, Page 8

"WILD WEST" ROBBERY

AMERICAN BANDITS.

TRAIN CREW HELD UP.

MAIL BAG WITH 130*00 DOLLARS

LOOTED.

SIXTEEN MEN ARRESTED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, March 1. The trade depression in the United States has resulted in a tremendous recrudescence of daring robberies, railway trains and banking institutions being the principal sufferers at the hands of clever holdup artists in various parts of the country.

Blasting open the door of the mail coach with a charge of nitroglycerine, herding the train crew and post office guards into the rear coach, and subduing the 20 passengers with a volley of shots, six bandits seized two mail pouches containing 133,000 dollars in currency from a Grand Trunk mail train after it had been brought to a stop at the request of a suspected accomplice at the flag station, St. Maria, in Evergreen Park, near Chicago. The job was done and the men had escaped in slightly less than six minutes, showing the celerity of present-day American desperadoes. The money was for the payrolls of industrial establishments at Harvey, near Chicago.

Sixteen men, arrested by Chief of Detectives Grady and his squad, were taken to the Glresham police station late the same night. Squads, under the direction of Deputy-Commissioner William O'Conner, immediately began questioning them in connection with the mail robbery. Those arrested were taken from a house which was to have been used sk the rendezvous near the scene of the robbery, which was one of the most impudently-planned in American annals of crime. The police later obtained a clue through a woman and a large sum of money was later discovered in a cake tin in the house where it had been secreted by one of the robbers.

The loot consisted of a consignment of 80,000 dollars from the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago to the First National of Harvey, and 53,000 dollars from the First National Bank of Chicago to the same bank. It was to have been used to meet the payday rush of the thousands of employees of four Harvey concerns to cash their salary cheques. Mail Car Bombed.

As the train stopped at the lonely station six men, clad in khaki buckskins, overalls and hunting caps stepped out. One of them placed a bomb at the door of the mail coach while his companions with sawed-off shotguns fired through the window slots to intimidate the post office guards. The crew and guards were forced into the rear car of the train and the mail pouches were removed. Then the bandits tossed the loot into a motor car and sped away. The same train was held up and robbed a year ago, only a short distance from the scene of the present holdup, where bandits obtained 135,000 dollars.

For the previous four days, according to Henry Grafen, a labourer at St. Mary's Cemetery, the same bandit automobile had met the train and taken away the lone passenger who descended at the station. It was assumed that these had been rehearsals for the robbery, the passenger accomplice familiarising himself with the crew, the layout of the train and making himself known as one whose habitual business required him to alight at the wayside station. Five of the bandits were under arrest and a large part of the loot was recovered within two days, and from two of the five, William Donovan and Charles Cleaver, regarded as the master planners, detailed confessions were taken, and the police declared that they had obtained additional information showing that the same gang had been involved in an 80,000 dollars Ravenswood National Bank robbery and the holdup of a mortgage banker, Joseph Kekete.

Deputy-Police Commissioner William O'Conner said the robbery was one of the most carefully planed in Chicago police records. Apparently every contingency had been covered. One of the participants, Donovan, had ridden the Grand Trunk train for five days in a row to get a line on the train crews and to select the proper place for the onslaught of his confederates. From the prisoners the police learned that the loot had been 17 Jjm in i°i, eight Pa^ ts " Seven Bhares of 17,000 dollars each were distributed to the robbers The eighth share, 14,000 dollars, was laid aside for a defence fund. Crew Herded.

t f. details the holdup, two of the robbers herded the engineer and fireman to the rear of the train while the other three, acting under orders of one identified as the leader because he wore a white mask while' the others wore black, spraved the slu»s S the COaches with shotgun John Kelly, veteran mail clerk, who was m charge of the car robbed last year offered resistance, despite the temfic concussion he suffered when the '" d —

George Peters, of Battle Creek, Michigan, the other clerk in the car was 3TSSS- and w,th Kel,y — With the clerks disposed of, and the four robbers outside effectively subjuaersby tJe Z™' K^f sen^rs pissersby, the two robbers who invaded the calmly but swiftlv searched among the mail sacks until thev found the money pouches. Thev walked tow"d,,lfe station, the gang leader whistled shrilly, and the men guarding ® nd P® SBe ngers joined them. j a closed automobile parked nearby, the pouches were tossed ? twelve minutes from the I , ra , ln 2 ronnd to a stop the ™hb*E, £ a ° n P er P e t r ated, and the robbers had escaped. Kansas Bank Sobbed.

, at t he s ame time as bandits held up a mail tram near Chica a spectacular bank robbery was being staged at the City Bank at Kansas City bv twelve men. After a complete check-up it was estimated that 50,000 dollars had been taken.

While a machine-gun was trained on +w o i ma ? ent ™ nce .*<> the bank, the twelve desperadoes stormed the lobby from two entrances, and immediately &SJT* • J™ s l louts - accompanied by the flourishing of rifles, sawed-off shotguns and automatic pistols, sent the 70 persons mside the bank into a panic len customers were in the lobby 40 employees behind cages, and 20 more on a mezzanine floor. The bandits escaped m two automobiles.

When the first group cf ~ tered the bank, all olß^ u P° n floor. boiled" leader gave the rniiiii. "stick up your hands." -*• placed with their backs to tiTw-n 1 * 1 glass cages were smashed *** then a pistol shot rang out in thTw* as a bandit punctuated his with a shot through the cdSni UM ** Crosby Kemper, president ofthwas ordered to lie flat or suffeTdS? A revolver bullet whizzed nest m-iT 4, into the floor when he obeyed fk» f?* niand. Mrs. H. L. 3£artv a Wl _» heard a bullet rip through'her tost no time in complying w*h' bandits demands. Once inside the cages, the bandit! worked with precision in cairyntfi? their plans. One bandit scoopedun *Sl silver and currency, while anotfer guard. Mrs. Irene Schamback. sei2? board operator, made an effort in a burglar alarm, but was frnstnS by a bandit, who ordered from the switchboard. k J

The "commander" stood at the Jway, and shouted his order* to band as they scooped up the vwi "Hurry up! Let's go from shouted, when all the money in had been bagged. President Kemper of the bank jclared that he recognised seven! of bandits from descriptions of time iu participated in Kansas CSty« trZ machine-gun robbery several —a, Twenty thousand dollars was oimi-S in one of the cages.