LAST OF THE GANG

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 January 1931, Page 12

LAST OF THE GANG

BANK ROBBER FOUND GUILTY. T. El. Johnson will pay further toll to the law of the United States for a life of crime in which he gained a reputation as the most daring of Northwest bank robbers. A jury in a Seattle court found him guilty of participation in the Queen City bank robbery at’ Fremont five years ago. Johnson was released from prison at New Westminster, British Columbia last year, after serving four years of an ’ eight-year sentence for the £B4OO Nanaimo bank robbery, and was rearrested at Seattle six months later on the Fremont charge. The jury brought the verdict in after deliberating only seventeen minutes. Johnson was released from the New Westminster prison because of good conduct. In addition to his eight-year sentence, he had been given 20 lashes. Asked before the verdict how he felt about the Canadian system of sentencing convicted men to the lash, Johnson declared: “I would rather take a hundred lashes than serve the time.”

With the conviction of Johnson, every man involved in the Fremont bank robbery has been brought to justice. James McCarthy and James Kendall arrested shortly after the crime, are both serving sentence at Walla Walla. James Burns, the fourth member of the party, died on the gallows at San Quentin, for the murder of a San Francisco policeman. Although arrested with McCarthy and Kendall, Johnson was not tried before because the Canadian Government already had served notice of extradition for the Nanaimo hold-up. He was held at the county gaol for extradition and escaped shortly before the Fremont bank robbery.