WOMAN IN ROBBERY PLOT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 9 August 1924, Page 15

WOMAN IN ROBBERY PLOT.

HOW HIGHWAYMAN ESCAPED. AEROPLANE, MOTOR-BOATS AND MOTOR-CARS. NEW YORK, June 24. The great train iobbe/ry near Chicago, which affieials now admit to be the most lucrative and m many respects the most romantically daring enterprise ever undertaken by 7 highwaymen, is monopolising popular atention in the United States. Of the total amount of loot, now estimated by the Chief Postal Inspector at £69,U00, it is stated that £29,(XX) Vas in cash and the remainder in negotiable securities shipped by the First National Bank of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Bank. The incidents both of the escape of the bandits and of their pursuit by thousands of secret service men in a dozen large, cities are providing the public with a series of thrilling stories which overshadow all the recent fiction of the book and tlje stage. . The motor-cars used by the outlaws prove to have been stolen from a largeestate on the shores of Lake Michigan. From another estate two high-powered motor-boats are missing. • The motorcars were recovered yesterday on a remote country road near a field where on Friday a, strange aeroplane was seen to rise.

The theory of the detectives is that after their exploit the deperadoes scattered, some going by aeroplane and ethers by motor-boat to a remote wilderness off the Great Lakes, where the greater part of the loot has been hidden. The supposition is that they then, after providing themselves with an abundance of ready cash, repaired by different routes, some to Chicago and others to Milwaukee and other cities. It was in Chicago that the vast network of inquiries thrown out by the authorities yielded the first results. In a squalid district on the north side of the city detectives, gathering in force, broke into an apartment- house and arrested three men and one woman. One of the men, John Wayne, is dying of bullet wounds. He had five bullet holes in the body, three in the chest, one in the right jaw, and one near the left ear. He was so. weak that he collapsed while being caVried to hospital. Suspicion against him. rested on the known fact that one of the bandits during the progress of robbery was shot by his leader for disobedience of orders. Wayne had in his possession two new bank notes, one for £2OO and the other for £IOO. He offered conflicting explanations for the wounds. He first declared that a woman named Mairgaret Ray shot him at Hammond, Indiana, but after insisted that the injuries were inflicted by a boot-legger in a. quarrel over a liquor transaction. It is stated that Wayne cannot live. A CONVICTED MURDERER. In the house where he was discovered the detectives .also secured a couple describing themselves as William Coombe and wife -nd a man called Paul Wade. They said they came from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Wade said he was an airman, but the detectives said his. appearance tallies with the description given of Tommy O’Connor, a convicted murderer who escaped from the county gaol on the eve of the date scheduled for his execution. All the prisoners had notes of large denomination in their possession. The evidence of the postal clerks goes to show that the leaders of the highwaymen were in all probability former soldiers. They displayed perfect familiarity with the use of gas bombs, masks and with railway signals. 'One of them, as he was loading the mail sacks into the motor-car, remarked to the fireman, “We ain’t going to wait twenty years for our bonus,” a reference to the Soldiers’ Bonus Bill, recently passed bv the United Stares Senate.