LINED UP TO BE ROBBED

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 31 July 1928, Page 9

LINED UP TO BE ROBBED

THIEVE® HOL'D UP 200 DANCERS. HAUL OF £40,000. Afore than pale-faced men tod women in evening dress were lined up against ’the walls before dawn to he confronted (by ’the firing party. That is not the scene of a war-time execution of spies, hut an early-hour spectacle actually seen in the ballroom of a fashionable Broadmoor Country Club, near Indianapolis, U.S.A. The “firing party” consisted of ten. robbers armed with sawed-off shot-guns and pistols. So long as the ex-revellers stood still to be rifled of their money and jewellery —and they did all stand very still—the order to “fire” was not given. Among the victims- of the hold-up were s'oine of the most prominent and richest residents of Indianapolis and their guests. Several of the robbed ones were visitors from other cities, who, after attending the annual automobile Derby had assembled at the dinner and dance given by the Country Club. JEWEL'S “ HIDDEN. Tt is calculated that the -value of the intruders’ (‘('bag” exceeded £40,000; and yet some of the women had managed in the excitement 't'o- hide jewels to almost an equal amount. It was, in fact, several hour's “before dawn” when the last wheel of the departing bandit party echoed awhy, and the stayed revellers were at liberty to go home, sadder, but perhaps wiser. About an hour before midnight strangers In full evening dress were slipping, one by one, into the ballroom. They were the hold-up gangmen in disguise, but, no one guessed it till, at a signal from their leader, they suddenly displayed their weapons and fired volleys into the floor and ceiling. 'Of course, the music and dancing stopped abruptly. ROBBER ’S EDICT. In tho silence the robber chief began to deliver his sentence. All present were informed that any attempt at resistance or escape Would be punished by instant death. All were ordered to stand with backs to the walls and to raise their hands. This they did.

While some o'f the robbers kept them covered, others guarded the door, an ! d the remainder went round the room with bags,- into which they dropped their loot- as they collected it.

All the 'ten gunmen then swiftly withdrew and drove off in motor cars.