New Jersey, M, 1881-1987, Undated

s

out into the deepening darkness and free-
om.

Wearing overcoats stolen from the jail
over their white uniforms, they: crept un-
detected to the garage. There; when the
mechanic — Offenbecker—recognized Me-
telski and made a move as if to give an
alarm, the Pole beat the man and then,
frightened, the desperadoes ran off with-
out their objective—an automobile. :

As soon as news of the escape became

known, Prosecutor Hicks’ office became

the center of the hunt for the killer and
his companion, Long-distance telephone
calls were sent through to all parts of New
Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York; the
inter-state police: teletype sputtered, red
lights flashed above police call boxes in a
score of cities as police cruisers spurted
into action; highways, tunnels and ferry
terminals were choked off and twenty-
three State Police cars, equipped with
radio, tear gas pistols, long range rifles
and sub-machine guns pointed toward
Middlesex County from four directions.
Not since the Lindbergh kidnaping had
the Atlantic Seaboard known such seeth-
ing activity... In the outlying districts,
doors and windows were barred and: the
menfolk took up vigil with firearms. The
authorities issued a warning to all citi-
zens. not to resist the dark-eyed Pole
should they encounter him, ‘but .to .com-
ply with his wishes, then give an alarm as
soon as safety permited. _

WHERE Metelski obtained the gun
was an enigma. Sheriff F; Herdman
Harding, who had begun an immediate in-
vestigation of the escape, walked into the
Prosecutor’s office and informed him that
just prior to the getaway, the slayer had
been visited by his-parents and his wife,
who had been permitted to converse with
the prisoner in the lawyers’ room. - Sheriff
Harding also disclosed that since’ his in-
carceration, the killer -had been visited by
a blonde woman, one Mary Truchanoirez,
an unemployed cabaret singer. This wo-
man had visited the: Pole the day before,
but had not appeared ‘on the scene the
day of the escape.

The Prosecutor telephoned Newark Po-
lice Headquarters and‘ asked that the
blonde cabaiet entertainer and Metelski’s
relatives be arrested for questioning forth-
with. They were picked up within an
hour, with the’ exception of Metelski’s
wife who, it appeared, had gone to her
home in Philadelphia. Hicks hopped in
a car and drove immediately to Newark.

The desperado’s parents denied that
they knew, anything about the break. So
did the Truchanoirez girl. But the Pros-
ecutor had his suspicions of her. She
was hard, brazen and vain, and seemed to
relish being in the spotlight.

Hicks sited her pointblank whether she
had smuggled the gun to Metelski. Her
thin lips curled into a smile and she said:

“No, but I wish I had. I hate cops and
I love Eddie. So there!”

Hicks instructed that the woman be
taken to New Brunswick, and lodged in
jail, and that not a word about her arrest
be permitted to leak out.

The first inkling of the activities of
the fugitives came at 9:30 that night, five
hours after the escape. Two men’ who
resembled them drove off with a coupé in
Plainfield, several miles distant from New
Brunswick. The net tightened around
that locality, but the hours wore on and
there came no more news,

The Prosecutor was in his office in the
Courthouse at 2:30 o'clock on the Sun-
day morning when the State Police flashed
him the latest word.

Arthur Clark and his wife, proprietors
of a roadhouse known as Clark Gables
Inn, located on the rolling, desolate out-

" skirts of Plainfield, had closed up for the

night and retired to their bedroom above
the place of entertainment. They had
just dropped off to sleep when they were
awakened by a loud crash downstairs.
Then they heard heavy, ascending foot-
steps.

The bedroom door was kicked open and
the lights flashed on. Clark and his wife
saw two men standing at the foot of the
bed, each armed. One they recognized
as the ex-fighter, Semenkewitz, who had
formerly been employed in the inn as a
dishwasher. The ‘other man they knew
was Metelski, for’ they had seen his pic-
ture in the papers and heard about the
escape. .

“We want some clothes and money and
your car!” rasped Metelski. The killer’s
partner, who knew his way about Clark
Gables Inn, was meanwhile going through
the bedroom closet. and the bureau and
piling his arms with Clark's wearing ap-
parel. “We swiped a car in Plainfield,”
the killer went on, “but we're leaving that
here and taking yours. It’s getting hot.”

“You'll find the. keys to my car in my
sweater downstairs, behind the bur,” said
Clark, still lying in bed. The proprietor’s
wife had fainted.

The two desperadoes, disdaining to as-
certain if Clark had a gun, or to warn him
not to give an alarm, went downstairs,
took: about ten dollars from the cash
register, then went to the garage and
climbed into Clark’s car. In their rush to
get away, they veered off a cinder drive:
way near the roadhouse and crashed into
a telegraph pole. Panicky, they fled on
foot. Clark, peering from the bedroom
boreal ran downstairs and phoned the
warm, °
- Clark Gables Inn was on the fringe of
the thickly wooded Watchung Mountains,
the fastness of which has served as a tuck.
away for many a desperado. Half an
hour after the stickup, the Vicinity was
alive with manhunters. The greater part
of the area was inaccessible by car, and
troopers abandoned their machines and
went into the mountains on foot, carry-
ing red flares to guide them through the
darkness. This work entailed the utmost
danger. The flares, on one hand neces-
sary to carry on the search, on the other
hand made the troopers perfect targets
for the men they were secking.

Dp revealed a leaden sky, but no
trace of the quarry. As the hunters
pressed farther into the mountains, an air-
plane _droned overhead, Lieutenant. Ed-
ward Plummer of the State Police at the
controls, two other troopers in the craft
peering through specially-made binoculars
that revealed every movement in the
Watchung range below.

In the meantime, Metelski’s Wife had
been picked up in Philadelphia and
brought to the Prosecutor’s office. Hicks
was quickly convinced that she had had
no part in the escape.

It was on the Sunday that Hicks noticed
something he had previously overlooked:
Mary Truchanoircz, the cabaret singer,
had titian hair.

“I thought you were a blonde,” he said
to her.

“I got my hair dyed.”

“ hen?”

The girl flushed and _ hesitated before
answering. “A couple of weeks ago,” she
snapped.

The official summoned a matron to
lopk at the girl’s hair. “That dyeing job
has just been done,” the matron told him,
“if I know anything about hair.”

Why, Hicks wondered, should the singer
have lied as to when she had had her hair
dyed? There seemed to be but one answer:
She had planned to join Metelski after

the break, and wanted to disguise herself
so as to minimize the chances of detev-
tion. If that were true, perhaps. ther
existed a prearranged hideout that Me-
telski knew about and would make for,
The Prosecutor's next move, therefore,
Was a psychological one.

If Metelski somehow succeeded in tem-
porarily evading the police net, Hicks
wanted him to head’ for the hideout, ii
there was one. He wanted the killer to
feel reassured, to think that the girl who
joved him had hoodwinked the authori-
ties, and that the tuck-away would be
perfectly safe. So he gave out a false
statement to the press to the effect that
he had questioned the singer and was con-
Vinced that she knew nothing about the
escape or the killer’s whereabouts. Then
he ordered the girl placed in jail and hell
iIncommunicado,

Now he had to find the hideout. if there
was such a thing, and beat Metelski to it.
- State Police Detectives Hugo Stock-
burger and Francis Long and Detective
Charles Grauley :of the Newark Police

" began to check back on the activities of
the cabaret. warbler. Before nightfall on
Sunday, they learned that she had often
been seen in the vicinity of West Kinney
Strect. Newark—a scetion of the city that
was dotted with cheap rooming houses.
beer taverns and lunch wagons. System-
atically, the detectives, carrying photo-
graphs of the woman, began to coml
rooming houses in the section to ascertain
if she had rented quarters there.

T was not until Tuesday night—ihree
. nights after the jail break—that fears
that Metelski had slipped through a
mountain trap were confirmed. Louis J,
Boumtani, a barber, was sitting alone in
his shop at 202 Rock Avenue in Plainfield
about seven o’clock when the murderous
Pole and the ex-prize-fighter walked in.
displaying firearms.

“I’m Eddie Metelski,” the killer an-
nounced. “Is that your car out front?”
' “Y-yes,” stammered the barber,

“Well, hand over the keys!”

' As Boumtani gave the keys to the Pole’s
partner, Metelski rubbed his hand over
a three-day growth of stubble on his face.
“Wish I had time to have you shave me.”
he said to the barber. “I must look awful.
It’s no fun hiding in them mountains. No
sleep and nothing to eat.”

‘ With that, the two desperadoes van-
ished.

When police poured into the neighbor-
hood in response to Boumtani’s alarm.
the fugitives had left no clues as to
where they had gone. The car was found
abandoned the next morning in Hillside.
right outside of Newark. The gas tank
was empty. The location of the vehicle
convinced the searchers that Metelski had
been headed for Newark,

Prosecutor Hicks had just received the
report about the abandoned car when he
got other and more electrifying news.
Detectives Long, Stockburger and Grau-
ley had learned that the cabaret singer
had rented a room at 42 West Kinney
Street the day before the escape, paying
a week’s rent in advance! Would the fugi-
tives head for that room?

Unobtrusively, Newark detectives un-
der Captain Timothy Rowe and State Po-
lice under Captain Lamb arrived in the
neighborhood before noon, and planted
themselves in rooming houses and _ beer
taverns. The afternoon passed, and eve-
ning came, with no sign of the hunted
pair. With the advent of darkness. Detec-
tives Long, Stockburger and Grauley left
their hiding places and sauntered up and
down West Kinney Street in the vicinity
of No. 42, ,

At 7:30 o’clock two men shuffled into

TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES


of the State Police machine. No such
weapon had been found in the coupé or
on Metelski. That probably meant that
Morton had it.

Morton’s Philadelphia address was a
rooming house at 1800 North Sixteenth
Street. Detectives Leinhauser and Arthur
and Sergeant Simpson went there and
questioned his wife, Marie. She said she
knew nothing of the whereabouts of her
husband and that she was worried because
he had been absent from home all night.
He had said, she revealed, that he was
going out with a man to whom he had
referred as “Eddie.” Mrs. Morton was
taken to Headquarters and detectives
watched the Sixteenth Street address,
where she and her husband lived in fur-
nished rooms on the third floor.

EANWHILE, detectives under Cap-
tain Lamb and from the Prosecutor’s
office learned from neighbors of Metelski’s
parents in Newark that a bedraggled in-
dividual answering the general descrip-
tion of Whitey Morton had visited the
house on Lentz Street about ten o’clock
that morning. He had departed on foot
half an hour later in company with a girl
with raven bobbed hair and heavily car-
mined lips. The girl had been a frequent
visitor to the house, but neighbors didn’t
know who she was. Metelski’s parents
denied that either the girl or the man had
been there. They were close-mouthed
pene not inclined to talk, so Captain
amb decided to have their home
watched. They had no phone, so wire-
tapping was not possible.

Thus, at five o’clock on Saturday night
—twelve hours after the crime—the offi-
cials had a prisoner who wouldn’t talk.
and three homes under surveillance—
Morton’s and Metelski’s in Philadelphia,
and the one in Newark. Watchful waiting
was the only game that could be played.

At nine o’clock Hicks received a phone
call at his office in New Brunswick from
Philadelphia. Detective Simpson was on
the wire. He reported that sleuths cov-
ering Morton’s rooming house had picked
up a girl named Dorothy Johnson when
she called at the place with a suitcase and
began to pack Morton’s clothes. Simpson
said the Johnson girl was known as “Big
Dot” and had served time in Winston-
Salem, North Carolina, as an accessory in
a safe-cracking offense, that she was in her
middle twenties and that she had black

bobbed hair and heavily rouged lips.

The Prosecutor surmised that she was
the girl who had left the home of Metel-
ski’s parents with the man Hicks believed
to have been Whitey Morton. It was
obvious that she knew where Morton was,
Simpson said, and that she had gone to
his place to get his clothes. “But she’s
hard as nails.” Simpson added. “It’ll take
dynamite to make her talk.”

Hicks was sorry that the girl had been
picked up. It occurred to him that had
she been followed she would have led
detectives to Morton’s hideout. All he
could do now was the next best thing—to
keep Morton worried, wherever he was,
by not permitting news of “Big Dot’s” ar-
rest to leak out. Then he wouldn’t know
whether the girl had run out on him,
whether she was planning to double-cross
him, whether she had been arrested, or
what. Such suspense, he figured, might
cause the fugitive to make a betraying
move, ;

“Big Dot” and Morton’s wife were
brought secretly to New Brunswick by
Lieutenant Keaton and Sergeant Simpson.
The most the officials were able to get out
of the women was that Morton and_ his
wife weren't on very good terms and that
Whitey was in love with the Johnson girl.

Nothing happened the next day, Sun-
day, but on Monday Hicks was notified
by the Philadelphia police that the land-
lady of a rooming house at 2223 North
Fifteenth Street had smelled escaping gas,
gone to a room on the second floor,
entered with a passkey and found a
suicide. The dead person, who had
rented the room the previous Saturday
afternoon, was identified through his
fingerprints as Whitey Morton. A news-
paper clipping in the room told of the
usual fate of murderers of New Jersey
State troopers—death in the electric chair.
Morton, racked by suspense after “Big
Dot” had failed to return, and knowing
what his doom would be if caught, ended
his own mis-spent life, still another ex-

. ample of the adage that crime does not

ay.

Simultaneously with the news of Mor-
ton’s suicide came clarification of the
mystery of the fingerprints on one of the
liquor bottles. In reconstructing — the
movements of the bandits following the
café holdup in Philadelphia, it was learned
that they had stopped at a lunch wagon
outside of Trenton and, while eating ham-

burgers, offered patrons a drink, One man
necepted, and his fingerprints turned out
to be those on the bottle!

Metelski was quickly indicted for the
murder, Although under the law both he
and Morton were equally guilty of taking
Trooper Yenser’s life, the authorities were
convinced that it was Metelski who had
fired the shotgun; for it was learned that
Morton was a crack driver while the Pole
was not so expert at a wheel, also that it
had been Morton who jumped behind the
wheel after the Philadelphia holdup.
Metelski’s fingerprints on one of the bot-
tles in the murder car and the overcoat
button, found near the abandoned
machine, would, it was thought, send the
man to the electric chair. Thus, with
Metelski safely transferred to the Mid-
dlesex County Jail in New Brunswick,
the case was as good as cleaned up. At
least, so it was thought.

A month later, at 5:35 o’clock on the
afternoon of Saturday, December 14th—
two days before the trial was to begin—
Mrs. Walter Reynolds, wife of the pro-
prietor of an automobile agency on Peter-
son Street, New Brunswick, heard _ cries
coming from the garage of the establish-
ment as she sat in the showrooms. She
opened a door, looked into the garage,
and found Lawrence Offenbecker, a
mechanic, lying on the floor. The man
had been badly beaten.

HILE an ambulance from St. Peter’s

Hospital rushed to the garage in
response to Mrs. Reynolds’ excited alarm,
Warden Alfred H. Puerschner of the Mid-
dlesex County Jail walked up to the front
door of the institution after a visit to a
restaurant near by, and found himself
locked out. Try as he would, the warden
could get no response from Assistant
Warden George Anderson as he rang the
bell and hammered on the door. This is
what had happened:

Murderer Metelski had escaped. When
a negro trusty had opened the door lead-
ing into a cell block that the killer oc-
cupied alone, Metelski had whipped out
a revolver and stuck up the trusty, Assis-
tant Warden Anderson and Edward Ro-
berts, a guard. Then the murderer and
another inmate—a wiry-haired former
pugilist named Paul Semenkewitz, who
had gone from the prize ring into crime
—herded the three men into the cell block,
banged shut the door and made their way

NOVEMBER, 1939

Save time and money

uh


and make for the shadows farther up
the thoroughfare.

For a few moments, the two figures
became part of the darkriess as the
policemen ran blindly forward. Then
from ahead, came a quick succession of
shots. Keck and Carolin heard Death
pass within inches of them as they re-
turned the fire. :

Onward they rushed, brave men
these, the Law after the lawless. They
heard a noise, the sound of rapidly de-.
parting footsteps. “In the alley!” said
Keck. Firing as they went, the two
bluecoats darted into a murky passage-
way that ran between two ramshackle
houses and led to the edge of the rail-
road yards in the rear.

In the distance, there was a spurt of
flame. Then the officers saw a blob of
yellow light. “They’ve got a flashlight,”
said Carolin, “and they’re going between
the freight cars... .”

B* THIS time, several other police
cruisers had screamed into the
vicinity of the railroad yards, and faces
appeared at bedroom windows. From
the sound of the revolver fire, the other
policemen located. Keck and Carolin
and began to spread fanwise through
the expanses of the railroad yards. In
fifteen minutes, Keck’s voice again
crackled over the loudspeaker at Head-
quarters, this time to announce that
the killers had slipped through the net.
“The license number of that car is
Pennsylvania D-C-two-four-naught,” re-
ported Keck. “Blue Chevrolet coupé
with yellow wheels. Latest model. We’ve
found a shotgun and two whisky bot-
tles in the car, and Patrolman Carolin
picked up a button that looks like it’s
from an overcoat. The button was right
near the coupé and we think one of the
occupants tore it off by accident in his
hurry to get out. when he saw us.
There’s a piece of goods with the button.
It’s light gray.”
“Okay, Keck. Okay,” came the voice
in the radio room. “Bring everything in
for processing for fingerprints.”

Rain had fallen in northern New
Jersey a few hours béfore and a large
patch of heavily weeded fields beyond
the railroad yards, which the killers had
been forced to traverse in fleeing the
police, were muddy. All this Head-
quarters knew and when patrolmen
throughout the city again called in, in
response to the second light signal with-
in half an hour, they were told to be
on the lookout for two men, both of
whom probably had muddy feet and
burrs on their clothing, one of whom
wore a gray overcoat with a button
missing.

It was from Trooper Matey that
Captain John J. Lamb, Chief of State
Police Detectives, obtained the story of
what had led to the wanton deed. Matey
and Yenser had been patroling the high-
way when they noticed a truck with a
defective tail-light. They stopped the
vehicle and were talking to the driver
when a north-bound coupé with Penn-
sylvania tags roared past, almost strik-
ing Matey. Yenser blew his whistle,
but the coupé kept right on going, far
in excess of the speed limits. The police
car gave chase, but the other car had
had too great a start and was soon out
of sight.

Yenser and Matey had turned around,

headed south for an all-night station
where they could phone an alarm to
wave down the coupé. It would: have
been easily identified by its hissing,
overheated radiator, which the officers
had noticed when it raced past the
parked truck. It was while en route to
the gas station that the car appeared
for the second time, still traveling north-
ward. The moment the troopers spotted
it they concluded that during the first
chase the vehicle had dodged into a
side road, there to wait until the police
car .had passed.

The killers had no sooner slipped
through the police net at the railroad
yards than the octopus of the law, like
a sleeping giant suddenly awakened,
was extending its feelers to tunnels,
bridges, ferries, and railroad and bus

‘

(Below) At this spot near the New Jersey Central Railroad yards at
Elizabeth, the Yenser slayers and the Police staged a spectacular pre-
dawn gun battle. (Right) Edward
the police net by a missing button.

NOVEMBER, 1939

Metelski, wanton killer, caught in
He paid the penalty for his crime

terminals. As if springing from the very

_ earth, a circle of police suddenly ap-

peared around Elizabeth and began to
close in. It seemed inconceivable that
even a Houdini could: evade those hu-
man tentacles, with radio cars racing
and screaming around the perimeter of
the circle, with every man in that alert,
contracting band knowing what every

other man was doing.

Communication with Philadelphia

police disclosed that the coupé, the -

property of one Jack Cutler, had been
stolen in the Quaker City the night
before. F
Captain Lamb put in aq call for
Charles A. Collins, Chief of Middlesex
County Detectives, and Chief Collins
in turn notified Douglas M. Hicks, then
Prosecutor of Middlesex County, at his
home in New Brunswick, then his four
assistants—Sergeant Walter L. Simpson,
J. 8. Drossick, William McDermott and
John Kreuger. It was while Chief Col-
lins, the four detectives and the Prosé-
cutor were speeding to Elizabeth that
the next (Continued on paae 94)

<<

The Case of the Slain Trooper and the Chameleon Blonde

(Continued from page 47)

episode in the crime drama was enacted
there.

Patrolman Geiger, the officer who had
spotted the murder car at East Broad and
Jersey Streets, walked into the Penn-
sylvania Railroad Station, which was on
his beat, for the fourth time since the
coupé had passed through Elizabeth. It
was possible, Geiger calculated, that the
killers, realizing that highways into and
out of the city were being covered, might
walk, unsuspected, to the railroad station
and there attempt to board a
train. Geiger’s three previous
visits had been prior to the de-
parture of trains for New York
and Philadelphia, for: which
there had been no _ passengers
from Elizabeth.

It was exactly 7:15 o’clock
when the patrolman sauntered
up to the ticket window and
asked Leroy Rhodes, the agent
on duty, if he had sold any fares
yet.

name any more than it’s mine. He denies
everything, of course. Denies he was in
the car, that he ever saw a shotgun and
all that sort of thing. We’re having the
shotgun and two whisky bottles we
found in the car processed for prints now.”
Captain Lamb then told the Prosecutor
of the finding of the overcoat button, and
that it matched the garment the prisoner
was wearing.

As the morning wore on, the widow of
the slain trooper—she had been a bride

AN INVITATION TO
POLICE OFFICIALS

quart of rye whisky—that did not tally
with the prisoner’s classifications.

It was at this stage of the game that
the investigators learned that two men.
one of whom answered the description of
the prisoner, had held up the Palm Gar-
den Café, 4114 Ridge Avenue, Philadel-
phia, three hours before the Yenser mur-
der. The loot had been about eighty dol-
lars, including two silver dollars, rare
coins these days. The Elizabeth prisoner
had been carrying about forty dollars,
much of it silver, including two
“cartwheels.” There seemed little
doubt that he had been one of
the café bandits.

Sergeant Simpson and Lieu-
tenant Arthur Keaton of the
State Police left for Philadelphia
with the fingerprints. Simpson
phoned the Prosecutor from the
Quaker City that police records
there revealed that the suspect
was one Edward Metelski, a no-
torious safe cracker and_ bur-
glar. Phone calls from Philadel-

“Why yes,” answered Rhodes.
“T just sold a ticket to Philly a
few minutes ago to a young
fellow wearing a cap.”

“ AS a gray overcoat?” de-
manded the bluecoat.

“Come to think of it, he did
have on @ light overcoat.”

LW.
“Where'd he go?” ae
£ Cart C. Donaugh Mr. John Shuttleworth, Editor
Bacon a er — pees feo efeue Devective iysteriees,
somewnere. he train doesn go ‘Oresen, New York City. NeY.
until seven fifty-six.” re
His hand on his revolver eae We My Gear Mr, Shuttiewortht
holster, Geiger took a quick Tstinanemsete I would greatly appreciate that you
] . d tk ; tion roper > Salinaten kindly advise the Law Enforcement Officials
glance aroun ne § a a th Yr a, ™ Eee of the World balan Be cee ay your well
saw no one answering e e- Px “Dhicins National known international medium, that I ae
ee ieecuce, Cot Vice-President and Chairman of the Mexican
scription of the man he wanted, Cepert ticn Board of Directors of the Paoifio Coast Inter
] jederico Montes national Association of Law Enforcement Offi~
then stealthily ascended a steep co eae. cials, take thie opportunity to extend to them
flight of stairs to the platform sicie eae and to their @istinguished famiiies, a warn
} i ; nll and eincere invitation to visit thie Ancient
where the Philadelphia trains ea Aztec Capital, Mexico City, during our inter-

pulled in. Near the head of the
stairs was a tall, dark man in
his middle twenties. He wore a
cap pulled well down over his
brow and a gray, double-breasted
overcoat. The first thing that
Geiger noticed was that a but-
ton was missing from the gar-
ment.

The man waiting for the train
—the sole occupant of the lon
platform—seemed absorbed an
paid no attention to the patrol-
man, and Geiger had a good
chance to quickly appraise him.
The pale light of early winter
morning revealed enough details
of the suspect’s person for Geiger
to see that the man’s shoes were

Asociacién Internacional

De Auloridades Ejecutoras de\\4\ Ley de la Costa del Pacifico

‘CANADA + ESTADOS UNIDOS - MEXICO

Mexico, D.P.
July 25,1939.

phia came in at frequent inter-
vals, information being relayed
to Hicks as soon as it was un-
covered. The Prosecutor learned
that Metelski was mairied, and
that he made his home with his
wife’s family at 1621 North
Hutchinson Street, Philadelphia,
and that his parents, Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Metelski, lived at
48 Lentz Avenue, in Newark.
Detectives were immediately
dispatched to cover both ad-
dresses and find out whatever
they could. A _ rogues gallery
photo of the man was immedi-

Garden Café.
What puzzled the probers was
who Metelski’s partner had been.

ately identified at the Palm °

national convention, November 15th to 20th,1939.

There will be law enforcement officiale
from South and Central American Republice, besi-
des the active members of our association in the
United States and Canada.

Your friends who have visited thie co
try in the past, may have told you that they hai
the time of their lives here in Mexico, but the
time we shall give you, can only be compared, not
surpassed, by a visit of royalty. And, as we say
here, "ESTA ES SU CA in other words, thie is

.
your home, will be the key note of our attentions *

and courtesies while we are afforded the honor of

The fingerprints found on one of
the liquor bottles did not match
any classifications on file in
Philadelphia or New York.
Meanwhile, the detectives were
hammering away at the prisoner.
Confronted by his real name, he
admitted his identity but noth-
ing else. A check-up in Philadel-
phia by Headquarters Detectives

your company. Can we expect you ?.

Sincerely youre,

FEDERICO MONTES,
Brig. General
inief of Police.

William Leinhauser and William
Arthur supplied the New Jersey
authorities with a list of Metel-
ski’s acquaintances. Among these
men was a twenty-six-year-old
former convict named Albert
Morton, popularly known as
“Whitey.”

covered with fresh mud and that
burrs stuck to his. clothing.

“Hands up, you!” Geiger
shouted. The man in the gray overcoat
wheeled around.

“Don’t shoot!” he cried. He flung his
hands high over his head. “TI’ll surrender.”

The prisoner was in Elizabeth Head-
quarters: being questioned by Captain
Lamb and other officers when Prosecutor
Hicks and his detectives arrived. Chief of
Detectives Collins and Hicks walked into
the room where the suspect sat. The
Prosecutor nodded to Captain Lamb, then

' studied the prisoner. He had a hard face,
protruding jaw and dark, deep-set eyes.

Captain Lamb, Chief Collins and Hicks
stepped from the room. “I’ve only been
talking to him a few minutes,” said the
Captain. “He says his name’s Eddie
Wood and that he’s from Philly. You
can see he’s Polish and Wood's not his

94

but a few months before—arrived at the
hospital. She sobbed quietly over the
body of her husband.

Captain Lamb, Chief Collins, and other
officials made a vain attempt to get some-
thing out of the recalcitrant prisoner.
Meanwhile, where was his partner in
murder? Not only had the officials no
idea where to look for the man, but they
re no idea who he was or what he looked
ike.

Then came the fingerprints. There were
only smudged impressions on the stolen
coupé and on the shotgun, but the liquor
bottles told a clearer story. One of the
bottles contained several clear prints that
checked with those of the prisoner. There
were also prints on the second bottle—one
that contained a _ partially consumed

ICKS reeled off the names

of Metelski’s known friends

to the prisoner and he admitted

knowivg every one of them—except

Whitey Morton. That was the Prosecu-

tor’s tip-off. Why should Metelski deny

knowing Morton unless Morton had been

in the crime with him and would be

likely to talk if captured? Still, those

were not Morton’s fingerprints on the

whisky bottle. Had a third man been in-
volved. in the murder?

When the Morton information was re-
layed to Philadelphia, it was quickly es-
tablished that Whitey had been the Pole’s
partner. His picture was identified by the
og employees as that of the second ban-

it.

But where was Whitey Morton? He
was known to be armed. A bullet from a
.38-caliber revolver, fired from the murder
goupé, had been taken from the radiator

TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES

of tl
weap
on \
Mort

M:
room
Stree
and
quest
knew
hush:
he li:
He |}
going
refer:
take:
wate!
wher:
nishe

M’
office
pare!
divid
tion
hous:
that
halt
with
mine
visit
know
denis
been
peop
Lam
watc!
tapp:
Th
—tw
cials
and
Mori
and |
was |
At
call :
Phila:
the v
ering
up a
she ¢
began
said t
Dot”
Salen
a safe
midd!]

NOVEM!

“T would if I could,” she sneered to the
sheriff, “but I didn’t.”

Harding looked the girl over with
smoldering eyes. “I don’t believe you,”
he said. “You think you can bust out
of our jail? Okay. I’ll give you your
chance. I’m locking you up.”

Terry was put on ice in the county
jail and held incommunicado. The arrest
was made an official secret, Harding was
proceeding in accordance with a plan. He
reasoned that if the gitl had aided
Metelski to escape, she might also have
arranged a hideout for him. If she were
permitted her liberty, she might warn the
escapee off and tip him that she was under
surveillance. With her in the lockup,
Metelski might show up at the rendez-
vous.

But where was this rendezvous? Where
would Metelski have dared to go?

The. police, learning that Terry had
been living in Newark, New Jersey, be-
gan a round of questioning there in order
to find out if she had made arrangements
for other quarters. It was discovered
that she had served notice on her land-
lord that she would soon be living else-
where. She had not intimated, however,
where she intended moving. The police
began to canvass the run-down slum areas
in the Newark environs for a room which
had been rented by the beautiful blonde.
They got nowhere in a hurry. No one
remembered such a person,

It was the matron in the jail who set
them on the right track. Terry’s hair,
left to the inadequacies of prison facili-
ties, began to show red at the roots.

“That gal’s a redhead,” the matron told
Sheriff Harding. “And the bleach job is

comparatively new. She must have been
a redhead as late as last week.”

It was a long chance, but the sheriff
couldn’t afford to pass it up. The word
went out to look for an apartment or
furnished room which had been rented
by a beautiful redhead—instead of a
blonde.

This was the wedge which cracked the
case. The cops found the answer at 42
West Kinney Street in Newark. There
was a rooming house at that address. The
proprietor told the police that on Thurs-
day—which was the day before Terry's
prison visit to Metelski—a beautiful red-
head, but otherwise fitting perfectly the
hoofer’s description, had rented a rdom.

“She said it was for her husband and
herself,” the proprietor said. “She paid
in advance and told me that the husband
would be in some time during the next
week.” ‘

It was all the police needed to know.

If Metelski and his prison pal managed to

slip through the Watchung cordon, they

might well head for the Kinney Street
rendezvous.

The rooming house was kept on a

twenty-four hour stake-out by a whole

squad of detectives. This stake-out ran |

for two days before the final break came.

At half-past seven on Wednesday night,
December 18th, Detectives Hugo Stock-
burger, Francis Long, and Charles
Grauley were on stakesout detail on
Kinney Street when two men turned the
corner from Halsey Street and, looked
hungrily at a diner across the street from
the rooming house. The officers had
memorized the features in the mug shots

of Ed Metelski and Paul Semenkewitz.
There could be no mistaking the two men
who now approached the Kinney Street
diner.

The capture went according to a pre-
arranged plan. Long fired twice in the
air. From vantage points on both sides
of the street, detectives rushed the pair
and drove them into the waiting arms of
Stockburger and Grauley. Semenkewitz
was nabbed without a struggle. Metelski
went down‘ under the flailing fist of
Charles Grauley when the cop-killer
reached for the gun in his pocket.

That gun, later processed by ballistics,
was the .38 caliber revolver which had
fired a bullet into the radiator of the
state police cruiser in which Trooper
Matey had given chase to the slayers of
his partner.

Metelski, even before his trial, impli-
cated Terry Chiclet in his daring escape.
It was she who had smuggled the revolver
to him. It. had been stashed by Whitey
Morton in the home of Metelski’s parents.
Terry had learned about it from Tough
Tilly Ten-Tricks who had known it was
there.

For her part in aiding Metelski break
jail, Terry was sentenced to five years in
jail.

Paul Semenkewitz, for his unofficial
furlough from jail, had from fifteen to
twenty years added to his prison sentence.
Ed Metelski was at last brought to trial
for murder on January 6, 1936. He was
convicted, and sentenced to electrocution.
On August 6, 1936, the cop-killer walked
the last mile to the waiting hot seat in
the death house of the State Prison at
Trenton.

Hate Spills Over

[Continued from page 30]

an attractive woman in her late 40’s. “You
and Sallie sit down a minute. Tell us about
the shop.”

“I’m _ so excited about it I’m going
around in circles,” Mrs. Lutin said, laugh-
ing. “I think it’s going to be wonderful,
being a business woman.’

“You won't have much time for golf
now,” Davenport remarked. “I shouldn’t
think you’d want to quit, since you won
the Women’s Invitational this year.’

od 9g | play again next spring. You know
you can’t do much golfing around here in
the winter time, anyway.

The shop which was the subject of the
conversation was a children’s shop in
which Mrs. Lutin had purchased a half
interest two weeks before. She’d been a
widow for nearly a year, since her hus-
band, also a former Sterling city council-
man, had dropped dead on a Denver
street. Mrs. Lutin had always been an
expert golfer, but after the death of her
husband she’d played consistently, and
had walked away with top honors in the
local tournament the previous spring.

The three adults had chatted a few
minutes, when Sallie suddenly wrinkled
her nose and said, “I smell something
burning.”

Davenport went to the window and
looked out. “Someone must have started
their incinerator. The smoke’s blowing
this way.” He turned back to the room.
“We'd better get going, if we don't want
to miss the show.”

At that moment the quiet, late-summer
dusk was shattered by a deafening ex-
plosion. Davenport was thrown violently
to the floor, and for a moment, as the

62 6

detonation reverberated against the walls,
he lay stunned. Then he pulled himself up,
as dust and plaster and debris settled
around him. There was a moment of com-
plete silence, as the last concussion rolled
away.

“Eva... are you all right?”
Mrs. Davenport was slowly picking
herself up from the floor. “I... I think

so. I don’t seem to be hurt.”

The children on the porch screamed
wildly, and Sallie’s voice came hysteri-
cally from across the room. “Uncle Or-
ville... Aunt Eva... 1 think Mother’s
hurt!”

Davenport groped his way across the
dust-filled room, while his wife hurried
to comfort the frightened children on the
porch.

Mrs. Lutin was lying quietly beside the
couch where she and Sallie had been sit-
ting. Blood was soaking into the carpet
from a wound on her head. The explosion
had been right beside her; the sectional
couch on which she and her daughter had
been sitting was littered with plaster.
Lamps were broken and-overturned, and
the radio, which had been beside the
couch, was clear across the room by the
dining table. It was aemtidion! demol-
ished.

“You stay here with your mother,
Sallie,’ Davenport said. “I’ve got to call
help. You sure you're all right?”

The girl nodded. Tears streamed down
her face. “What was it, Uncle Orville?”

“T don’t know, Sallie. Now... you stay
here. Rub her hands ... like this. But

‘don’t move her. I’ll call for help.”

Davenport said a silent thanks when he
picked up, the telephone, from the floor
where it had fallen. It was still working.
He called the police, told them of the ex-
plosion and asked for an ambulance. “Tell
them to hurry!” he said to the operator.

Mrs. Davenport had shepherded the

frightened children into the room, “Thank
heavens they’re not hurt,” she said.
“What was it, Orville?” Then, as she saw
her sister lying on the floor, “Oh my God

. Lula’s been hurt!”

Davenport grasped his wife’s shoul-
ders. “Take it easy, Eva. You’ve got to
stay calm. Lula’s hurt. I’ve called an am-
bulance. I’ll stay with her until it gets
here.” He propelled her across the room.
“You take the children and go outside.
Get back away from the house.”

Moving as if she were a sleepwalker,
her eyes staring dully from her dust-
covered face, Mrs. Davenport herded the
children from the room. Davenport could
hear a siren wailing in the distance, as he
knelt over his sister-in-law.

Mrs. Lutin was still breathing, but un-
conscious. Some of the flying debris had
evidently rained sledge-hammer blows on
her head. Even as he watched, Davenport
could see the breaths becoming more
shallow. He clenched his fists. “For God’s
sake hurry, you guys,” he muttered.

Five minutes later two attendants
were gently lifting the prostrate form
onto a stretcher, One of the men had his
stethoscope out. He shook his head.

“She’s going fast,” he whispered to
Davenport. “It looks bad.”

“Well hurry, then,” Davenport an-
swered, urgency making his voice harsh
and raspy.

“We'll have -her in the hospital in a
few minutes.”

On the way out, Davenport motioned
to his wife. “You go with her, Eva. I'll
watch the kids. The police should be here
any minute now.”

Police Chief Joseph T. Trinnier pushed
through the crowd, which had grouped
itself in tight little knots on the sidewalk
in front of the Davenport house. It was
a silent and shocked crowd, for Sterling

was not used

had been a |

of the comm
from the ho:
dead, and th

from mouth °

Trinnier st:
bris which |:
terior of the
fully exposec

' foot hole blo
living room
were a sham
plaster, and
about.

The Daven;
corner of th
hovered about
of comfort. 4
burst into wil

“She’s dead

Orville Dav
the girl’s sh
down, Sallie,
tioned to his
Martha. Bett
will be back
soon.”

Chief Trinn
around the sh:
“You have any

Davenport <
at first the ra
right by the c
explosion—I k
thing much w
“Lula never k:
right after the
without ever
Her skull was

The police
corner where
onto the outer
Looks like this
explosion, Pre
dynamite...
edge of the pc

. Stay comp!
don’t want an

Trinnier tur
“I've got more
and I'm going
paused, and a f
“Orville, this i
sion was set de
Lula’s death is

Davenport s
Then finally he
Who on earth
to Lula?”

Trinnier shoc
terrible thougl
true. Maybe we
through all thi
want you to th
to remember ai
just before the

_ Davenport sh
tioned smelling
went to the wi
wisp of smoke,

“What about
one?”

“Not a soul. I
street, or hear
playing right tl

“Did they se.

“No. Marcia’s
Mary Lynne sa
around the ho
paused as sirens

“That must be
of my men,” Tr
get your family
Orville. We'll w
house carefully.

For several hc
and several dep

Brown's o

through the del


- ° ‘ - 3.
: o 9

| (Mrs. Hattie Decker) cont'd Jerseyman
| gan 19, 1906:

The woman died while at the Montville R.R. station where
she was being sent to a hospital. She had obtained a
divorce from her husband Oscar Decker several years ago and
was living with her 2 children at her father‘s (Wilbur Ray
Hart) home in Montville.

Monage was taken to Memorial Hospital where three bullets
were removed but 2 remained in his body.

, ip

y

@

MONICH, Samuel, white, hanged Morristown, NJ, on 8-10-1906.

any: ne

Samuel Monich The Jerseyman: 1 se a

C August 10, 1906

Samuel Monich was hanged in the jail yard this morning for

the murder of Mrs. Harriet Ray Hart Decker +. Montville iast
January. He was tried at the May term of court — sentenced

to be hanged on June 15, appeal by his attorneys stayed the y
execution -—- Resentenced two weeks ago by Justice Pitney.

A temporary roofed structure was erected between the jail

and the county offices and yesterday Hang man Van Hise brot

up the gallows and set it up for the execution. Jury witnessed
the execution. Monich was married and leaves a wife and
children in Peresce, Hungary, his native town.

Jerseyman
Jan 19, 1908:

Mrs. Hattie Decker, who was living apart from her husband,

was shot to death about 7’ O'clock on Wednesday evening at

her fathers* home by Samuel Monage, A Hungarian who was
jealous of her. He was a middleaged business man of the
vicinity who had been infatuated with the woman for some time,
but she preférred the company of another Hungarian with

whom she had gone to Paterson on the day of the shooting.
When Monage learned of the trip he became very excited,

and after some words, shot her 5 times with a revolver. He
ran away but was later found in his own home a Carter of a
mile away with bullet wounds in his right side naar the heart.

ARR Fy BE Katie pen del Ch att. 3g NA es SET Boe Ss ORT A AN aah EE CHE a YEE Heusen a? GENE OE Tg: tye tines aot ek bese: at Leech See inee 4 tenia a Rae, :
RENAE GPE A PERIL E RESP RAR ESSE. Pea APE RAE ARNE EN LE RA OR SR SEPA PRR BER, iN ite gl Cog Zi secant 2 aaat cticot Sandan ete

pi wee

1016

(74 N. J. L. 522)
STATE vy. MONICII.
(Cout of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.
July 11, 1906.)

1. HoxutcipeE—Dy1ne@ DECLARATIONS—COMPE-
TENCY.

Where a dying declaration is offered in evi-
dence, the preliminary question of fact, whether
the declarant was under a sense of impending
death, is for the determination of the trial court,
and its finding, if supported by any legal evi-
dence, is not reviewable by ordinary writ of
error.

[isd. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig.
vol. 2G, Ilomicide, $§ 458, 459.]

2. SAME—INSTRUCTIONS.

Where the trial court determines that a
dying declaration was in fact made under a
sense of impending death, the defendant is not
entitled to have the jury instructed that they
may review such determination, and disregard
the declaration if they come to a different con-
clusion from that reached by the trial court.

2 (Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to Court of Oyer and Terminer,
Morris County.

Sam Monich was convicted of murder in
the first degree, and brings error. Affirmed.

Charlton A. Reed, for plaintiff in error.
Charles A. Rathbun, for defendant in error.

PITNEY, J. The defendant below, having
been convicted of the crime of murder iu the
first degree, and thereupon sentenced ‘to
death, brings the record of that conviction to
this court for review. Besides the strict
record, he has brought up with his writ
of error certain bills of exception sealed at
the trial raising questions concerning the
adinissibility in evidence of declarations
made by the deceased after receiving the
mortal wounds, and in the absence of the
defendant, and also certain: exceptions re-
specting the instructions of the trial judge
to the jury. The entire record of the pro-
ceedings had upon the trial is not brought
up as permitted by section 136 of the Crim-
inal Procedure Act (P. I. 1898, p. 915), and
our review of the conviction must there-
fore proceed as on ordinary writ of error.
Yhore are but five assignments of error, and
these are rested upon the bills of exceptions.
Three of them concern the admission of the
declarations already alluded to. The other
two refer to the charge. Upon the argument
here the learned prosecutor of the pleas in-
sisted that the declarations were admissible
as part of the res gesteo, and also that they
were admissible as dying declarations. The
foriner question we have not found it neces-
sary to consider, having come to the conclu-
sion that the trial court committed no legal
error in adinitting them as dying declara-
tions.

The eclreumstances disclosed in evidence
were briefly as follows: The deceased was
an able-bodied woman of middle age named
Ilattie Decker. She was widowed, and lived
upon-a farm with her parents, Mr. and Mrs.
Wilbur Kayhart. Between 6 and half-past

64 ATLANTIC REPORTER.

(N. J.

having taken supper with her parents, she

took a lighted lantern with the avowed pur-

pose of going from the house to the barn to

fasten up her dog. Shortly afterwards, a3

Mr. Kayhart testified, he heard the firing of

two or three shots, went quickly to the door,

and found his daughter standing there with

the still lighted lantern in her hand en-

deavoring to enter the house, but unable to

do so for want of strength. To him she

said: “Ob, Pa, I am shot with a bullet. I

am dying”? Ye asked her: “For God's

sake, who shot you?’ and she answered:

“Sam shot me” (meaning the defendant).

At this time, as appeared from medical tes
timony previously introduced, she was suf-
fering from two pistol shot wounds in the
body, one in the right shoulder and the
other in the chest. The bullet that caused
the latter wound had entered and passed
through the thoracic cavity, penetrating the
lungs. severing arteries and veins. fracturing
the fifth rib and the shoulder blade, an

lodging under the skin at the back. From
this wound she died within a few hours
Kaybart’s testimony that she declared the
defendnnt had shot her was admitted over
objection, and an exception was thereupon
sealed. Nine other witnesses were produced
who saw her during the same evening. Their
testimony tended to show that she was very
wenk and sinking. They swore that she said
in their hearing at different times that she
was shot, that she was convinced she was
about to dic, and that Sam had shot her;
that she knew it was Sam because she had
seen him. Exceptions were likewise sealed
to the admission of these declarations. The
ground upon which evidence of this character
is admitted in homicide cases was. stated
with sufficient clearness by Chief Justice
Green in Donnelly v. State, 26 N. J. Law,
463, at page 497, as follows: ‘Dying dec-
larations devive their sanction as testimony
from tbe fact that they are made under tlis
apprehension of approaching dissolution, in
the view and expectation of speedy death;
the situation of the party under such solemn
circumstances creating a sanction equally im-
pressive with that of an oath administered
in a court of justice (citing authorities). It
is essential, therefore, to the admissibility
of these declarations, and is a preliminary
fact to be proved by the party offering them,
that they were made under a sense of {m-
pending death. If not so madt, they are
not admissible in. evidence. It consequently
becomes necessary that the circumstances
under which the declarations are made should
be shown to the judge, it being his province
to determine whether they are admissible.
It is a question of competency which address-
es itself to the court, and which must be
met and decided by the court. If the declar-
ations were in point of fact made under a
sense of impending death, in view and ex-
pectation of the immediate approach of that

give

G6 in the evening of January 17, 1906, after

solemn event, they are to be admitted in

“

NJ

evi
to |
jury
cou
at j
flici
no
fact
acc
give
rey:
der
ist
ing
¥y
revi
mia
that
the
was
war
Upe
pre:
Cou
12
nii-
on
whe
of i
Na
abo
+

tn
dec]
dec!
er }
exis
that
erre
que
the
the
fum
der:
ther
shor
dyir
pre:
revir
of ¢
eusi

owls

prir
the
er t
tari!
flue:
legy
trian!
was
sub.
upo!
such
sass
Mac:
Qa
evid
pert
ey]


ind prison bars.
d Durning, still
4 + another. “If I
ating again.”
the youth said,
oot added up to
which Mike said
$2—and articles
in.
tutored his son
of burglary, his
your jobs alone,”
vou work with a
weak sister who
»eans to the cops.
can get a good
10's coming from

en trained, Mike
enant Durning,
yns of his ability
ows and circum-

him on the rob-
ually the father
, snarling animal
Jk up and down
se it; then would
mingly no more
sr, while the boy
re or home.

car last night?”
ran away and left

ve the officer

sted at home,
_ —Jout the long
hich his son had
llside, Bloomfield,
vington, Millburn
futher investiga-
the Essex County
r locked up in the

confession of the
attention of Cap-
etectives Heming-
; when the report
er the police tele-

worked one theft
Winkelmann ob-
lawn mower shop
len?”
sway promised. “It
-. Remember, we’ve
ks about a man and
» Shamrock, a kid

ynahan was driven
1ere his crimes had
inted out the sites
nber, but he could
er a while,” he said,
gets to be just an-

tives Donald Ebert,
rmit Reiss of the
the Monahan home,
loot as well as three
revolver and two
rifles was the Mar-
llburn lawn mower
vas: what had hap-
»matic?
evidence, plus news
slen from a Newark
ech, had been found
Monahan confessed
sJaries. “I’m respon-
aid, weeping. “I be-
-- =bout a year ago
sd. Give the boy
m—him and my

iger? The one you
rlin rifle?”” Monahan

the Millburn break-
the Luger had been

stolen from his car some time later in
March.

Quizzed on the same hot subject, young
Mike also admitted this burglary, but gave
a different fate for the all-important Luger.
He said he and his dad had thrown it away
in a vacant lot.

Truthful in all other details of their
crime career, why had the father and son
told contradictory stories about the dis-
posal of this automatic pistol?

Was it because they shared the guilty
knowledge that the weapon was one which
could be linked to the double murders in
the Shamrock Bar on March 7th?

A second search of the car which Mona-
han had abandoned in Verona—its owner,
a Hillside used-car dealer, meanwhile had
been arrested for the alleged fencing of
part of the Monahan’s burglary loot—
turned up the Luger’s holster, hidden be-
hind a seat cushion. Then the Elizabeth de-
tectives, in checking on young Mike’s pro-
bation record, discovered that at about 11
o’clock on the Saturday morning of March
7th, the boy had made his regular visit to
a parole officer in the Union County court-
house!

With other clues already pointing to the
Monahans in the Shamrock Bar case, the
cops now could prove that the boy had been
within half a block of the murder scene
not much more than half an hour before
Sebastian Weilandics and Walter Diskin
were shot to death.

Chief Brennan, Captain Winkelmann,
County Detective Chief Lombardi and De-

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tective Ebert of the Union police faced
young Mike with this evidence.

He gave in quickly—perhaps a bit too
quickly, Winkelmann suspected.

“J killed ’em both,” the boy said, still
nervously sucking at a cigarette.

“My dad waited for me at that bar while
I went to the courthouse. I had a soft drink
with him, and then we went out. We de-
cided to stick up the joint. Dad told me to
go back and shoot the bartender and rob
the place.

“I walked in. The bartender laughed
when I pulled the gun, so I let him have it—
Pow! Pow! Pow! Then this other guy walks
in. I let him have it, too. Pow! Pow! Pow!
Then I got over the bar, grabbed the dough
and beat it.”

“The second man,” Winkelmann said.
“Tell us again just how you shot him.”

“He walked in. I let him have it. Pow!
Pow! Pow! Just like that.”

Michael's confession came as a profound
shock to his semi-invalid mother, a victim
of rheumatic fever, and to neighbors who
had known him only as a bright, polite boy
who worked around home a great deal and
did not run around at night with juvenile
gangs, as so many teen-age youths were
wont to do. At school he was known as
something of a problem pupil, but only be-
cause of truancy and complete indifference
to his studies; his behavior record was good.

The police who talked with him noted

Ti eel

with interest that he had embarked on his
career of crime at the age of 14, the same
age as that at which his father before him
had first run afoul of the law.

Although the murders of Weilandics and
Diskin appeared solved by the confession
of the young high-school freshman, neither
Captain Winkelmann nor Prosecutor Morss
was satisfied that the truth had been told.

The boy’s confession erred in one im-
portant detail: that he had shot Diskin
three times while the victim faced him.

The officers told Eugene Monahan of his
son’s statement. The father paled, then
composed himself and said, “Don’t believe
the kid. He’s just trying to shield the old
man. I did it. I killed those guys.”

Monahan said that when the boy joined
him in the tavern, he sent Mike to their
car to get the Luger. The son passed the
automatic over to his dad in the Shamrock
men’s room. Weilandics was cutting cheese
when Monahan opened fire without warn-
in. Then Diskin entered. The first slug took
the newcomer in the shoulder, spinning
him around. Two more plowed into his
neck. He fell, moaning.

“Take my money! Leave me alone,” he
gasped, and died.

The Monahans went to their car, drove
around the block, and then the father re-
entered the tavern, vaulted over the bar
and looted the till of $58.25. The father and
son then drove around until they saw a
crowd gathering in front of the Shamrock,
whereupon they went home. Monahan said
that two weeks later he broke up the Luger
and they hurled the pieces off the Stickel
Memorial Bridge in Newark into the Pas-
saic River.

This version of th shooting the authori-
ties accepted as the true one. Later, when
the father and son faced each other, Mona-
han said, “Tell the truth, Mike.”

The boy retracted his confession of the
murders. His father’s story was true, he
said. Captain Winkelmann was certain the
boy had taken the blame for the shootings
partly out of fear of his parent, partly be-
cause of an urge toward self-dramatization.

Under New Jersey law, since the mur-
ders had been committed as the result of
another felony, armed robbery, Michael
would be regarded as equally guilty with
his father, although it was the latter who
actually killed Weilandics and Diskin.

Both were indicted on two counts of
first-degree murder, arraigned before
County Judge Milton A. Feller and ordered
neld without bail for trial on May 25th.

Monahan and his son previously had re-
enacted the murders and had guided offi-
cers to the spot where the father said he
had disposed of the weapon. The river was
dragged with magnets, which brought up
metal pieces, but no parts of a gun.

As Prosecutor Morss moved to bring the
father and son to trial, H. Andrew Moore,
a Newark attorney who had represented
Eugene Monahan in the past, said he would
defend the father and son.

“Monahan is willing to go to the chair,”
Moore announced. “He is cooperating with
the authorities. But I believe the boy should
not be blamed. Everything Mike did he was
ordered to do by his father.”

What will the jury decide? That young
Michael must share his dad’s guilt, or that
he be absolved from blame and given an-
other chance? Who can tell? None, of
course, but the jurors themselves when the
time shall come to write the verdict.

Eprtor’s Norte:

The names, Victor Santoro, Bill Froel-
ich and Art Sheldon, as used in the fore-
going story, are not the real names of
the persons concerned, These persons
have been given fictitious names to pro-
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ring of detectives who questioned him not
only about the Klotz holdup, but the two
killings in the Shamrock Bar as well.

“I never was near the place,” Froelich
claimed. He said he was trying hard to re-
member where he was at the time of the
murders in South Broad Street, but he
could not.

He did, however, in his eagerness to es-
cape the murder charge, reveal the hiding
place of his Luger automatic, and the
weapon was handed over to ballistics ex-
perts for test shots to be checked against
the bullets that had killed Diskin and
Weilandics.

These tests had not been finished when,
at about midnight Sunday, a pedestrian
rushed into police headquarters in the vil-
lage of Verona, several miles from Eliza-
beth, on the northwestern outskirts of New-
ark.

“There’s somebody prowling the roof
over a store across the street,” he re-
reported to the desk lieutenant.

As squads of policemen converged on
the Peggy-Ann Dress Shop at 617 Bloom-
field Avenue, facing police headquarters in
Verona, an auto at the curb a few doors
away darted into the street, tires screech-
ing.

The cops bellowed orders to halt, but the
man at the wheel paid no attention. The
officers heard the excited yelp of a dog as
the car swerved crazily into a side street.
One policeman fired a single shot, and then
the sedan disappeared from view.

Radio cars took up the chase. The cops
found the machine, its motor hot, aban-
doned in Pease Avenue, two blocks below
Bloomfield. A snarling black Scottie was
removed from the machine, which bore a
New Jersey dealer’s plates. In the car the
cops found a box of .38 caliber cartridges
15 rounds of .32 shells, three boxes of BB
pellets, a screwdriver, flashlight and a
length of rope. The driver had escaped.
There was a bullet hole in the side of the
auto, but no blood.

Meanwhile, back at the dress shop a cor-
don of policemen closed off the store while
other officers ventured inside and dragged
out a thin boy whose black leather cap hid
a shock of unruly dark hair.

Taken to police headquarters, he was
searched and found to be unarmed. He said
he was Michael Monahan, aged 15, who
lived with his parents in Byron Terrace
in the Vaux Hall section of Union, some
ten miles south of Verona.

“What were you doing in the store, son?”
Police Chief Edgar Coffin demanded.

“Looking around,” was the curt reply.
“Can I have a cigarette?”

The boy lighted a smoke, then sat back
and sullenly parried the questions shot at
him.

“Who was the man who ran away in the
car with the dog?” Mike finally was asked.

Mike shrugged. He fused another ciga-
rette from the stub of the first, and sat
smoking while the cops tried in vain to get
information from him. Finally the boy
offered a suggestion. “Get Lieutenant Durn-
ing over here from Irvington,” he said.
“He’s the one square cop I ever met. Maybe
T’ll talk to him. I ain’t sure.”

Durning drove up from Irvington early
Monday morning. He knew young Mike
Monahan, had handled the boy after Mike’s

-arrest about a year before in another

burglary, an offense for which the youth
still was on probation.

Mike talked freely to the lieutenant. For
five long hours he narrated a story which
amazed Durning. The boy confessed to
taking part in no less than 150 burglaries
in a year’s time! He had become a criminal,
he said, under the tutelage of his father,
44-year-old Eugene Monahan, who had a
crime record dating back to 1926 and who
had spent all but 18 months of his son’s

brief span of life shut behind prison bars.

“T had to rob,” Mike told Durning, still
burning one cigarette after another. “If I
didn’t I’d get a terrible beating again.”

Most of the burglaries, the youth said,
were of small shops. The loot added up to
at least $5000 in cash—of which Mike said
his father gave him only $2—and articles
worth at least as much again.

The elder Monahan had tutored his son
carefully in the techniques of burglary, his
son claimed. “Always pull your jobs alone,”
he counseled the boy. “If you work with a
gang, you'll always find a weak sister who
crabs the job or spills the beans to the cops.
Work from the roof. You can get a good
view that way and see who’s coming from
all directions.”

How expertly he had been trained, Mike

“demonstrated for Lieutenant Durning,

giving convincing exhibitions of his ability
to pick locks, jimmy windows and circum-
vent a burglar alarm.

Mike’s dad worked with him on the rob-
beries, the son said. Usually the father
would take their Scottie, a snarling animal
named ‘‘Mickey,” and walk up and down
in front of a place to case it; then would
walk the dog again, seemingly no more
than an innocent pet lover, while the boy
entered and looted the store or home.

“Your dad was in that car last night?”
Durning questioned. “He ran away and left
you to take the rap?”

A glum nod from Mike gave the officer
his answer.

Eugene Monahan was arrested at home,
but would admit nothing about the long
string of break-ins to which his son had
confessed in Newark, Hillside, Bloomfield,
Union, East Orange, Irvington, Millburn
and Maplewood. Pending futher investiga-
tion, Mike was lodged in the Essex County
Parental Home, his father locked up in the
jail in Newark.

On Tuesday, the boy’s confession of the
150 burglaries caught the attention of Cap-
tain Winkelmann and Detectives Heming-
way, Harrigan and Yoos when the report
on Mike’s story came over the police tele-
type.

“This father-son team worked one theft
in Millburn,’ Captain Winkelmann ob-
served. ‘How about that lawn mower shop
where the Luger was stolen?”

“We'll check,” Hemingway promised. “It
looks like it could be a fit. Remember, we’ve
been wondering for weeks about a man and
a boy who were in the Shamrock, a kid
with a black leather cap.”

On Tuesday, Mike Monahan was driven
through communities where his crimes had
been committed. He pointed out the sites
of those he could remember, but he could
not recall them all. “After a while,” he said,
“they’re all the same. It gets to be just an-
other job.”

That same day, Detectives Donald Ebert,
Joseph Spies and Kermit Reiss of the
Union police searched the Monahan home,
finding a large store of loot as well as three
weapons—a .32-caliber revolver and two
.30-.30 rifles. One of the rifles was the Mar-
lin stolen from the Millburn lawn mower
shop. The big question was: what had hap-
pened to the Luger automatic?

Confronted with this evidence, plus news
that a 1952 Cadillac, stolen from a Newark
hospital lot late in March, had been found
in his garage, Eugene Monahan confessed
to his guilt in the burglaries. “I’m respon-
sible for all this,” he said, weeping. “I be-
gan taking Mike on jobs about a year ago
to show him it was no good. Give the boy
a break. I’ve let him down—him and my
dog, my two best pals.”

“What about the Luger? The one you
stole along with the Marlin rifle?” Monahan
was asked.

Monahan confessed the Millburn break-
in, but he claimed that the Luger had been

stolen from
March.

Quizzed on
Mike also adn
a diffe ite
He sa n
inav ot

Trutntul in
crime career.
told contradi:
posal of this

Was it bec:
knowledge th:
could be link.
the Shamrock

A secondfse
han had aban
a Hillside use
been arrested
part of the
turned up tte
hind a seat cu
tectives, in ch
bation record,
o’clock on the
7th, the boy }
a parole office
house!

With other
Monahans in
cops now coul
within half a
not much mo
Sebastian We
were shot to

Chief Bre:
County Detec

MAST

on s
NOT!

Effective t
will be pu
All subse
ceive the
which th:
the next i
be at voir

te
ee: e

tective Ebert
young Mike v

He gave ir
quickly, Wink

“T killed ’e
nervously suc

“My dad w:
I went to the
with him, an
cided to stick
go back and
the place.

“T walked
when I pulled
Pow! Pow! Pc
in. I let him
Then I got ov
and beat it.”

“The secor
“Tell us agair

“He walkec
Pow! Pow! Ju

Michael's c
shock to his :
of rheumatic
had known hi
who worked :
did not run ¢
gangs, as so
wont to do.
something of
cause of truar
to his studies;

The police


fH

KO
Ul
2

New Jersey (Union) January 11,

electrocute

MUNATAN, mugene, white,

At an arraignment held at his bedside
the hospital the injured gunman was
entified by the FBI men as Albert Jo-
ph Kostal, although he insisted that
was Joe Delmar, the name under
hich he had registered at a hotel.
At the request of U.S. Attorney Rich-
d A. Green, U.S. Commissioner Earle
. Bishopp held Kostal in $100,000 bail
r a hearing when he has sufficiently
covered from his wounds. Agent Ger-
ity is making a good recovery. And
efferson County Sheriff Art Wermuth
ready to bring the murder suspect,
Ibert Kostal, back to Colorado to
tand trial.

HOLLYWOOD HEISTERS
AND THE OPERA STAR

(MD October, 1957)

On the evening of June 18th, 1957,
former Metropolitan Opera tenor Lauritz
Melchior, 68, entertained guests in his
Hollywood, California, home, “The Vik-
ing.” When the guests left, Melchior
and his wife prepared to retire. Ap-
parently, however, as the visitors de-
parted, four robbers slipped through the
well-guarded gates of the estate. At gun
point they bound the singer, his wife,
and a maid they had brought up from
her quarters and proceeded to loot the
mansion of furs, jewelry and cash, for-
tunately covered by insurance. The
stolen property was valued at $99,771.

The four heisters were soon identified
as Robert Morgan, 39, Louis G. Spivak,
44, Alfred J. Pope, 28, and Richard M.
McFall, 39. Pope and Morgan were soon
in custody and property to the value of
$88,670 was recovered. On August 4th
Louis Spivak was captured by the FBI,
And on August 11th Richard McFall was

1S In seized in Missoula, Montana. All four
oe had long police records.
= fa Morgan, whose real name is Wayne
noes, Burke, one of the first to be appre-
tion hended, cooperated fully with police,
band enabling them to solve the case. For
scial his cooperation, the charges against him
te were dismissed, with the approval of the
Por district attorney, and he was granted
ae Immunity,
McFall also took the stand as state’s

- witness. He disclosed that Louis Spivak,
nee former gardener and chauffeur for the

Melchiors, had planned the job, supply-
ee ing a diagram of the house. But on De-:
; t cember 16th Superior Judge Maurice C.
: , Sparling denied McFall’s plea for proba-
. tion, in view of his lengthy prior record,
ca and sentenced him to five years to life

} in prison.

. : Pope, who had pleaded guilty to first-
. degree robbery, was put on probation
’ by Judge Sparling, with the first six

months to be served in the county jail.

On December 31st Superior Judge

Leon T. David denied a new trial or

probation for Spivak and sentenced him

| to two terms of 5 years to life for armed

; robbery and life for kidnaping under

' the Little Lindbergh Law. Spivak also

pleaded guilty to a new charge of writ-

ing a fictitious check and was sentenced

to 1 to 14 years on this count. All terms

are to run concurrently. In 7 years
a Spivak WH be eligible for parole,

Melchior identified holdup gun

LETHAL LEGACY

(MD September, 1953)

The life of Michael Gene Monahan
was a short and a tragic one. When he
was 15 years old his father, Eugene
Monahan, then 44, with a long record
of convictions for burglary, forced the
boy to accompany him on burglaries.
During the commission of one, in a bar
in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on March 7th,
1953, the bartender and a lone customer
were shot to death. On April 12th
Michael was arrested while committing
another burglary. His father fled as the
officers approached.

Questioned, Michael confessed to tak-
ing part in some 200 robberies. Charged
with the slaying of the two men in the
bar, Sebastian Weilandics, 63, the bar-
tender, and William S. Diskin, 27, the
customer, young Michael confessed that
he had shot them to death. However,
Eugene Monahan, who was arrested later
that day, insisted that he had fired the
fatal shots and that his son was covering
up for him. Both were indicted on two
counts of first-degree murder.

The New Jersey supreme court de-

.cided that young Michael should be

Py

treated as a juvenile delinquent. The
elder Monahan was sentenced to die in
the electric chair. In Bordentown Re-
formatory Michael studied hard and
after three years Juvenile J udge Libby
Sachar of Union County placed him on
probation last May and sent him to
work on a Texas ranch.

The boy made good. His probation
ending on October 9th, 1957, with the
report that he had made a “most satis-
factory adjustment to his new environ-
ment,” Michael joined the air force and
was stationed at Williams Air Force
Base in Phoenix, Arizona. On December
4th he and a buddy went for a ride in a
car. Returning to the base the car
skidded, jumped a curb and crashed into
a light pole. The other young airman
was seriously injured, but Michael Gene
Monahan was instantly killed. At 20 his
young life was over, but he had made a

brave new start before he died.

THE COWBOY CARRIED
A BAYONET

(MD January, 1957)

A body, presently identified as that of
Robert Boyd Chapman, 37, a business-
man of East Lansing, Michigan, was
found near a lovers’ lane section of Can-
yon, Texas, on March 17th, 1956. He
had been brutally stabbed and beaten
and apparently had been dead for at
least three days. Stuck into a tree near
the body wasa commando-type bayonet.

It was learned that Chapman had left
Phoenix, Arizona, for his home on March
12th, after concluding some _ business
there. And he was remembered as hay-
ing stopped at a highway motel, accom-
panied by a man who stood 6 foot 6 and
weighed about 300 pounds. Later this
man was seen driving Chapman’s car,
heading toward Oklahoma.

No further trace could be found of

‘either the car or the presumptive killer

until the following May when a young
girl was spotted driving the Chapman
car in Wichita, Kansas. Questioned, she
said it belonged to her husband, Clar-
ence Edward Young, 25, who fitted the
description of the suspect. Young was
arrested on May 29th and on June Ist
he was indicted for murder and car
theft in Potter County, Texas. He was
returned to Canyon, where he confessed
to killing Chapman, who had picked him
up as a hitchhiker. He claimed Chap-
man had threatened him with a pistol.

His trial, in November, lasted only one
day. At 1 a.m. the following day the jury
returned a verdict of guilty and recom-
mended mercy. The judge then sen-
tenced Clarence Edward Young to life.

TEENAGE TERROR

(MD February, 1958)

To the three youths it was “just a
little assault, can’t call taking 35¢ rob-
bery.” But to Miami police it was
murder. The killers were Clark Thomas,

17, Robert Lee Myers, 18, and Robert .

Haddon Jr., 26. Their victim was John
Lloyd, a 74-year-old ex-jockey.

In the early morning hours of October
Ist, 1957, Lloyd was walking along
Southwest Fifth Street, Miami, toward
his rooming house, when a heavy blow
on the back of his head killed him
almost instantly. Greedy hands rifled
his pockets of a small amount of change,
then callously rolled his body off the
sidewalk into a vacant lot.

A tip from an outraged citizen who
saw the killers flee the scene in a
souped-up hotrod soon resulted in the
capture of the youths. A fourth boy
was involved in: the crime, but since
he was only 15, he was turned over to
the juvenile authorities. The other
three were indicted for first-degree mur-
der. They confessed the crime, insist-
ing they had not meant to kill.

On December 31st State Attorney
Richard E. Gerstein joined three de-
fense attorneys in asking that the state
accept a plea of second-degree mur-
der. The youths then pleaded guilty
to the lesser offense and Circuit Judge
Grady L. Crawford then ‘sentence!
Thomas, Myers and TMaddon each to 20
years in prison.


n hair cascaded
=nd if I used the rest

re in the rear of the
tes later, he nodded
en able to talk to her
on again, nor would
es, -
d several customers
to the market again.
‘he store. Right after
‘aring horn-rimmed
in. He didn’t bother
ew small items and
them, and thensaid

ntinuedon Page &6)

re serious of
eshy muscle

g

The incredible but true story of a young man who
learned about robbery and killing at his father’s knee,
and admired him so much he tried to take the rap
for a double-murder the old man had committed...

/

He suddenly became aware that he was

suffering from the worst hangover since

the birth of booze, and from long ex-

perience, he knew that his only hope of

relief from the blinding headache and the

shakes thathad him trembling from hat to
~shoes was a couple of quick shots’ of
straight whiskey.

Either by coincidence or the homing
instinct of the true alcoholic, he suddenly
found himself in front of a ginmill, the
Shamrock Tavern. He pushed open the
door and made his way through the dim
interior to the bar that fronted one wall. He
had almost reached it when he stumbled
over something on the floor. Whatever it
was his foot had struck, he ignored it as he
looked around for the bartender, who was
nowhere in sight.

Impatient for the drink that would still

the hammers in his head, he was just about H
to pound the bar and call out when he |
happened to glance down. Sprawled on the
floor at his feet was the body of a young
man, arms outflung, one knee doubled
under the other leg. The sawdust under his
-head was red with blood. |
For one fleeting moment, the hangover
sufferer thought he was hallucinating, but
then he knew it was real. Somehow he
made it out the door. On the sidewalk he
looked around helplessly, till he spied a
traffic cop out in the intersection.
Oblivious of traffic, he ran out to the cop |
amidst a sudden squeal of brakes .and |
blasting horns as several drivers barely |
missed hitting him. He threw his arms
around Traffic Officer Walter Pietrowski
and began to babble, and finally the cop |
understood what he was trying to say. |
|

1

i

by CARL JENSEN

HERE’S NOTHING funny about
murder, but one had to admit there
was grim humor—‘gallows

humor,” one local newsman dubbed it—
about the way the first murdered body was
found in the Shamrock Tavern, which was
a pleasant little drink dispensary across
the street from the Union County Court
House in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

An elderly gentleman, who frankly ad-
mitted he had never gone on the wagon
since he started drinking 45 years before,
found himself out on the street on a bright,
sunshiny March morning after a night of
imbibing of which he had no recollection.

51

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Cyan. 7.
Co TIER P25

BY Vave Marziaie

You wouldn’t know it to look at Mount Holly today, but -.
Burlington County’s picturesque county seat once pun-
ished its notorious murderers in. gruesome public hang-

‘ings.

These displays often were held in circus-like atmo-
spheres, according to records at the Burlington County
Prison Museum. : : ;

Museum assistant Nicholas Kurti Says not only were

_tickets sold to the hangings but sometimes the displays

were so popular that scalpers peddled the tickets on a
black-market basis in downtown Mount Holly. '

THE COUNTY’S earliest recorded hanging appears to
be the 1781 execution of Joe Mulliner, a character who
was called ‘“The Robin Hood of the Pines.”

“He always raided at midnight and never failed to kiss
a pretty girl,” said one account of the Mulliner case.

Mulliner, who always was dressed in a fancy uniform

', and looked like a gentleman, met his demise before a

hostile Mount Holly crowd. But this episode predated the
1810 construction of the old prison, at 128 High St.

The first hanging of one of the prison’s inmates took
place on July 20, 1832, when Eliza: Freeman, a Mount:
Holly area woman, was put to death before the local
citizenry for the murder of her husband.

She was hanged in a field, located between Mount
Holly and Hainesport. -

THAT FIELD was the site of the hanging of Joel
Clough on July 26, 1833. Some 1,200 persons watched the
execution of Clough, who had killed Mrs. Mary Hamilton
in the bedroom of her Bordentown home after she had .
refused his romantic advances. . oo fe ees

The backyard of the prison became the scene of the
hangings with the execution of Philip Lynch on March 23,
1860. Lynch had been convicted of the 1859 murder of
George Coulter during a quarrel in a Bordentown bar.

Lynch’s hanging took place in the southwest corner of
the old prison’s back yard. Today that spot is green and
peaceful, but in the last part of the 19th Century and the
first few years. of the 20th Century, some wild executions .-
took place there.

ONE OF the more notable hangings was the 1894 exe-
cution of Wesley Warner for the murder of his girlfriend
two years earlier. A crowd of 59 persons was packed into -
the tiny jail yard to watch Warner meet his maker. i.

In 1901, as they were taking Charles Brown out into the
yard for his hanging, he tried to kill the two jail guards
with a lead pipe. However, after he caused a small com-
motion, he was subdued and hanged “‘at once,” the re-
cords say; for the slaying of Washington Hunter, ‘an
aged toll gate keeper.”

_ One of the more raucous scenes behind the old prison
unfolded on March 24, 1906, at the double hanging of
Rufus Johnson and George Small.

Johnson and Small had been convicted of murdering

Miss Florence Allinson of Moorestown and it seems the

' crowd that gathered to watch them die was really out for
blood .

Before the dead bodies of the killers could be cut down,
there was a mad scramble for the ropes. By the time
officials could stop the crowd, the ropes had been cut up
into souvenirs of the occasion.

BUT THE crowd was not satisfied. A contemporary
newspaper account said after the bodies had been placed
into pine coffins, some of the men in attendance “ex-

" pressed a desire to remove buttons from the clothing” of

Johnson and Small.
It was with this exhibition that Mount Holly saw its
last hanging.
The following year the executions were moved up to

' Trenton, where the electric chair came into use.

But a section of one of the ropes from the Johnson-

‘ Small episode still hangs in the prison museum today —

a’grim reminder of the taking of lives in atmospheres
like those of sporting events.

It might be useful to remember these Mount Holly
spectacles as New Jersey considers reinstituting capital
punishment

ig r Lister

|

Lei ibeisics haemo

Ae afb ORM ote ate eel
sfieaiats


NOTORIUS Joe Mulliner, Tory
’Rohin Hood’, found few friends
among crowd that watched him
swing for his crimes.

THE DAY

THEY HANGED —

Joe Mulliner

(And Other Famous Hangings).

Fehruarv. TOA4

mm atiek seasaseess
dred or so, once

burned the home
of a widow whose four sons served
in the Continental, Army. Mulliner, |
allegedly, wasn’t there. A few
days later the widow received a
,mysterious $300, supposedly an
indemnity’. from Mulliner, who
simply wouldn’t permit his rogues
to behave in sucha peasant fashion,

Again.

Handsome Joe, so say the
makers of legend, strode into the
Quaker Bridge tavern, notfarfrom
his stamping grounds ~ The Forks,

DRA ok

in the Batsto - Pleasant Mills area, °

He stopped the music and demand.
ed a dance with the prettiest lass
in the place, as was his custom,
He ordered the men to leave,
another standard in his behavior
pattern. The girl’s- spunky boy--
friend defied him and slapped him
in the face. Mulliner laughed and
left. (It takes a certain amount of
restraint to create good publicre-
lations.)

The Robin Hood of The Pines
did a good job on his image. They
tell romantic tales there of his
exploits today, forgetting John Ba-
con, infamous for his massacre of

sleeping Patriots at Barnegat Inlet, -

Jonathan West, ‘‘the one-armed
terror,’’ and Fenton, ‘‘the ter-
rible.’? They were Mulliner’s con.
temporaries in crime and, from all
accounts, not a whit worse thanhe,

To some degree the romance of
Joe Mulliner is his own creation ~
he always raided at midnight and

never failed to kiss a pretty girl,
He did have help. Charles J, Peter-
gon in the mid~19th Century penned
**Kate Aylesford’’ and used Joe as
a model for a character in the

- ‘novel’s love triangle,

' Folklore has it that Joe loved
Honore Read, daughter of the first
jronmaster of Batsto, of whom no
record can be found, eShe had two

suitors, Joe and a Continental offi- -

cer, As Joe and her other friend
didn’t agree politically, she did her

BURLINGTON COUNTY“HERALD' >» — ° .

4 SNR EDT I a TP vir ws ¥--77 eaieiiaead
ar greater and much cas :

hostile than the crowd that watehcd
Joe Mulliner dic.

There were several reasons:

One, simply that the population
had grown.

Another, Clough’s crime was one
of passion.

Finally, the nation was’ in the
throes of a religious revival, and
Clough - in the logic of the time -
represented the repentant sinner
returning to the Lord’s mercy.

Joel Clough slew Mrs. Mary W,
Hamilton in the bedroom of her
Bordentown home. His published
confession ~ by order of the Sher.
iff of Burlington County, printed
by Robert P. DeSilver - fills in
the lurid details uf a shabby ro-
mance worn thin. Said Clough:

“I was living in the same house
with Mrs. Hamilton and, to say
the least not discouraged.by her,
I became sincerely attached toand
ardently desired tomarryher...”

Apparently a Widow with several
men friends, she toyed with


Famous Hangings

—Continued from page 2%

Clough’s affectioris, and he ‘said: Swung from a scaffold erected in
“T at times meditated her de« the southeast corner of the Bur~
Struction, intending afterward to lington County Jailyard, their
destroy myself,’? deaths witnessed only by officers
Mrs. Hamilton made the mis* and official representatives,
take of entering Joel’s bedroom Officially, 59 persons saw Wes-
as he pondered his morbid plan,’ Jey Warner hang on September 6,
‘ He took a knife from his pocket 1894, but 20 of these were guards;
and; ° < , ; detailed to control a fair-sized
- “In a moment, in which I sole crowd that gathered outside of the
emnly protest before God, I was prison walls, attracted by the lurid
entirely without consciousness of nature of the case,

T. ALL BANKS ARE ALIKE,
2, ALL BANKS ARE DIFFERENT,

Banks may appear to be identical, as twins do, but once

“you get acquainted you learn that each bank has a per- what. I did, I struck the tiene ht o too, Handed tar ¢cttinn

: . . : 1d, I struck the firs OW. arner, A g ime

sonality all its own, And this oné which most nearly o My consciousness then returned, of passion, tye knife slaying of

matches your own make-up is the one you'll get. along 7 and I repeated it, with most dead. Lizzie Peak, who - from all ace

- With best, : be ly purpose, again and again!’? counts .- wasn’t worth dying for,

pe In an effort to carry out the ° Warner went the way of all flesh
OK
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Since a lot of particular people find our bank a sympa- rest of his plot, Joel took a heavy in 1890 ‘when he.met Lizzie, He
thetic, agreeable place to do business, chances are youll 3 dose of laudanum. It didn’t work, abandoned his huckster business
pe Joel was incarcerated in Burling~ and wife and children. She dropped
- ’ 9 - g Ppp
feel at home here to, Call on us; won't you? Ask ques ba ton County jail, which was about the guy. she was living within Bur.~
tions, It costs nothing and may well peeve profitable. as escape-proof then as itis now, _ lington, ,

He fled and made his way toward The couple skipped off to Brook~
Burlington, They caught hini near lyn, N.Y., and Lizzie stuck by him

fe.
i
a.
o
, : ; ‘Rancocas ‘‘sevyen miles’ away while he spent some time in jail
Tt N i 0 N NATIO NAL pe from the prison. awaiting disposition of a charge of
bs Joel, 29, admitted he had grown assault. He hégan to hit the bottle
ee be ‘fond of the world’s cares and heavily, :

’ BANK h| TRUST 0 : bs pleasures.’’ However, witha noose. On. Saturday, September 11,
an ws oS ' hanging over his head he began to’ 1892, the couple returned to Bur-=

7 a

' co,
Phone: AMherst 7-0002 ; = , cal ministers, at Mount Holly, Lizzie made the
‘ ; ‘ be If Clough’s conversion was 4° midway her private hunting,
Main & Mill Streets, Mt. Holly, N. J. 9 ploy, it didn’t work. The jury. re-.. grounds, flaunting her pick-ups ia
o ‘turned a guilty verdictintwo hours, the face of her boyfriend. Sha

COLONIAL BRANCH VINCENTOWN BRANCH :

but under crying circumstances; ° ‘shouldn’t have, Guilt had prompted
- Rt, 38 and Eayrestown Rd. 46 Main St,, Vincentown

Member Federal Reserve System Member F.D.LC:

repent, He sought, and received, —lington County. He took a job at
. Spiritual counsel from several lo~ .the County Fair, then in progress

3 *“‘While delivering the verdict,’? him to drink, Jealousy was to prod
ays the record, ‘‘several of the him to take up a knife, .
jury were dissolved in tears and ... On Saturday, September 18, Liz~
jappeared to feel the effect of the ie’s last day on earth, Wesley
high and solemn responsibility that «quit his job and went ona drunk,

4? .* they had discharged.’ , . He put in anappearanceat Lizzie’g

; Chief Justice Hornblower deliys . Mount Holly home that evening,

FOND «hh ial ac Ad bleh a ib ddd setido dada dian pigeons erent] men Bb ed Alle BBAtedeewitha-20.inuiute.. tor hospital folks -put him up

ae = mr, FS sa gett oration, Clough was to be takento in an upstairs bedroom. Lizzie
ield two mi Om MounrHoliv’ waco on the town About mij

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CXetechy A Asa MOUNT HOLLY, NW JERSEY .
The day they hanged Joe Mulliner best to keep them apa
Two thousand folk stood still sion she neglected t

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To watch him dangle from a limb
Upon the Gallows Hill...

It’s too bad, but there was no
bard of The Pines to memorialize

the event. Joe would have liked
that, for he had a flair for the
dramatic. :

Joe also found it difficult to in-
terpret the temper of the people;
that’s why he stood upon the make-
shift gallows - a horse-drawn wag-~
on, which carried his plain pine

_ coffin-to-be, In those few moments

before he crossed to eternity he
looked, perplexed, upon the hostile
faces of the throng. He could find
no one who loved him, except his
wife. He had: carefully nursed a
Robin Hood legend to cover his
banditry, but the:.dodge hadn’t
worked. That had been abvious in
court. :

When Mulliner stood before the
bar in Burlington in mid-August,
1781, not one of the many court-
room spectators did he recognize
as a friend. A contemporary ac-
count of his sentencing todeathfor
high treason states:

‘*, . The whole county, both
Whigs and Tories, (were) his ene-~

“mies.”

The Whigs onecould understand,

_ but the Tories? Wasn’t Mulliner a

Refugee, a Pine Robber, a Loyalist
who burned and plundered Patriots
in the service of George III? Of
course not! Mulliner was a crafty
scoundrel who worked forhimsclf,
He garbed himself in the King’s
uniform, carried a braceof pistols
.and, like a gentleman, wore a
sword, :-The resemblance to noble
character stopped there, despite
the concoctions of his. personal
public relations program,

They say that’Mulliner’s gang,

. . which at its best numbered a-hun-~
“ dred or so, once burned the home

of a widow whose four sons served

. in the Continental Army. Mulliner,

ev aw. fare

ret Pees ee A
ae

“man of his waltzing propens

Joe didn’t ignore this slap int
face. He raided the dance and kid-
naped the girl. They honeymooned
in the woods for a couple of weeks
until they, or the search parties,
tired of the game, Then she went
home.

Well, that’s the story, the fact
that there apparently was no
Honore notwithstanding. Other
doubts arise because Joe had a
wife and, besides, the Read family
had sold its interests in Batsto at
least ten years before the time
Joe was .supposed to have’ made
off with Honore. But on with le-
gend!

The kidnap supposedly made the
Militia, so mad that a bunch of
Rangers under a Captain Baylin
set a trap (this is fact) and, fitting-
ly enough, caught Joe at a dance.

Six weeks after his capture Joe
made his final scene. He danced
reluctantly from a tree in what is
now St. Paul’s Cemetery, Burling-
ton.

“Under the noose he confessed
many of his crimes and acknowl-
edged the justice of sentence,’”’

His body swung for half an hour
and was cut down to be returnedto
his wife. She buried him beside the
Weekstown-Pleasant Mills Road.

About 1850 a party of drunken
jronworkers dug up his bones and
brought them to Batsto. Ironmaster
Jesse Richards Sr. ordered the re-
mains put back where they came
from. There they rest today under
a stone reading:

“The Grave of Joe Mulliner,
Hung, 1781.”’

JOEL:CLOUGH, 1833

About 1200 persons witnessed
the hanging of Joel Clough on July:
26, 1833, at Mount Holly - anaudi-
ence far greater and much less
hostile than the crowd that watched
Joe Mulliner die.

There were severalreasons: .

—.

: |
a

BN ‘ZINhOO No

_


trial
wranted privileges,
on the plot to break jail, for he stood

for a holdup but had been
Clearly, he was in

by while the other two were being
locked up, then leaped to Metelski's
Side,

They hastened into the corridor,
where they donned a couple of coats
which Metelski had taken from the
Warden’s office. The murderer ex-
tended a general Invitation to all the
prisoners in the tier of cells to leave
with them. None volunteered to go,
and the two desperadoes stepped out
of a side door. With a contemptu-
ous laugh, Metelski turned a key in
the lock, and the pair vanished into
the darkening streets. 4

When Warden Puerschner returned
to the jail at 6 p.m., he was not yet
aware that anything had gone amiss,
He rang the main doorbell, and got
no response. He went around to the
side entrance and tried that door. It,

too, was locked, and there was no

answer to his insistent ringing.
Alarmed by this time, he began
shouting up to the upper windows of
the three-story brick jail building. He
aroused Sheriff F. Herdman Harding,
whose home was on the top floor, but
who had remained oblivious. to the
break. Then Anderson, the Assistant
Warden, gave a signal from his cell
and all the prisoners yelled in concert.
A panel in the plate-glass door of the
Sheriff’s office was smashed and a set
of keys found. Soon, incoherent

guards and convicts were telling their ;

stories. ;

Te carloads of officers, summoned

by telephone, rolled up to the gate
of the prison.

Five minutes later, police teletype
systems crackled with the alarm. The
manhunt for Handsome Eddie Metel-
ski was on again. More than 300
state troopers from various barracks
were rushed to the area and stationed

along all roads leading to New York.

and Philadelphia. .

‘Hurry orders had gone out to quiz
Metelski’s parents, his wife and the
titian-haired Mary Truchanowicz. Po-
lice sped to the Metelski home in the
“Down Neck” section of Newark; they
found Eddie’s shapely blues-singing
girl friend with the aged couple. The
father and mother wept, as they ve-
hemently denied having had anything
to do with smuggling a gun to their
son. The Truchanowicz girl made the
same denials—but she didn’t weep.
Puffing calmly on a_ cigarette, .she
grinned in her accusers’ faces and pre-
tended surprised innocence.

Prodded with further quéstions,
however, her face hardened and she
turned angrily on-her inquisitors. ‘~

“I didn’t give the gun to Eddie, see!”
she spat. “But I wish I had. Only, if
I’d brought a gun in, it would have
been a machinegun. I hate cops, and
I hope Eddie shoots some more,”

This hardly made her popular in the
circumstances. She was taken to New
Brunswick Headquarters for a grilling.

Metelski’s wife was brought from
Philadelphia and questioned for hours:
At the finish, the detectives were con-
vinced that she merely had been used
by her husband as-a decoy and knew
nothing of the gun-smuggling. ’

Mary Truchanowicz finally broke.
“All right, you win!” she sneered.

“What do you want to know?. Make |:

it snappy, or I'll fall asleep right here.”
“Did you give that gun. to. Eddie

Metelski?” asked Police Chief John |:

“Yes, I did.”

H. Harris.
She nodded wearily.

“Weren’t you searched when you |.

came to the jail?” i

“Naw! I flirted with the guards
and they were all pushovers! They
frisked me the first two times, and
after that they knew me and never
bothered. I could have brought Eddie
anything I wanted.” — ;

“Was anybody else in on it?” -

“No. Just Eddie and myself—and
Semenko. Eddie told me Semenko was
in on the bust.”

“Did you make a date to meet Eddie
afterwards?”

The girl stared hard at the Chief
and didn’t answer. But ways were

02

dinvovered to make her talk, After Chief Harvis a
much urging, she admitted: the Middlesex
“Eddie said he would be at Halsey cided to tr

Tuesday night at 7 o’clock, and for
me to be sure to meet him there.
When Fddio was In Newark, we used
to.hang out around that corner.”

The detectives were astounded at the
gall of Metelski, He had fixed a
rendezvous at a spot within three
blocks of the First Precinct Station,
and ‘seven blocks from Headquarters,
But would he keep it? He certainly
would not, if he knew that red-haired
Mary had been sweated,

Y A rue,
and Wert Kinney Blivold, Nowark, papers headlined the
ruchanowicz had. be
But the girl
reveal anything after several hours
* and was released,
Meanwhile,
ensconced In a ce
The authorities ga
ability that Metels
the story, somehow,
keep his date on Tuesday night.
Metelski’s escape
percussions at the Middlesex County

questioning,

of course,

1d Douglas M, Hicks,
County Prosecutor, de-
Monday, news
fact that Mary
en arrested for
fniled to

the papers said.
Mary was safely
I at Headquarters,
mbled on the prob-
ki would see or hear
and attempt to

had had its re-

Jail. Sheriff Harding, raging at the
“disgraceful state of affairs” which his
Investigntion dixclowod, avdeved the
Suspension of Warden Puerschner, As-
sistant Warden Anderson and Guard
Roberta, Formal charges wore prompt-
ly lodged against Puerschner, and a
revsed set for his trial in Quarter Ses-
sions,

At 11 o’clock on Sunday night, Met-
elski and Semenko broke into a board-
ing-house on the outskirts of a small
community near New Brunswick and
stole a few dollars. They escaped be-
fore an alarm could be raised. At
3:30. a.m., four hours later, the des-

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evadoes appeared at the swanky
‘lark Gable Inn on Route No, 29, near
‘unellen, Smashing in the rear door,
wy climbed to w bedroom on the secs
nd floor where the proprietor and his
‘if@ were asleep. They forced the
innkeeper to provide them with
vanges of clothes. ‘They took the
eys in his car, as well as cash,

While they were trying to get his
wr started, the victim bravely phoned
le police. The gunmen’s excitement

1 the rush to get away was so great,

iat they drove the car less than 300
et when they crashed into a tele-
lone pole, badly damaging the ma-
ine. Without waiting to shut off the
otor, they leaped out and raced in
e direction of a near-by woods.

The following night, they stuck up
.e barber shop of Louis J. Bontai in
ainfield, and took ten dollars from
e register. Bontai recognized Metel-
i, who had often visited the shop
‘fore, and offered no resistance as he
as ordered back into a washroom,
ere the bandits went through his
rckets, pouncing upon the keys to his
‘w black coupe which was parked
front of the shop. A hat was also
atched from a hook. After binding
e barber securely to a water pipe,
e pair fled to the street. ,

And so it went on. A minor robbery
br Page hours. A whole state ter-
rized,

In Newark, more than a hundred ex-

First. of the

wked. If I could find one of his
yployers whose cellar was short a
enace shaker... - '
Although I canvassed everyone for
iom the.suspect had ever worked, I
ind none who were missing a fur-
ce shaker. Nor could anyone rec-
nize the rusty axe or the iron. bolt
the angle iron.

The Lampfier angle was petering out.
it one line of investigation remained.
iere was Lampfier during the hours
the previous sluggings? By dint of
lot of questioning of the suspect’s
ends and acquaintances I finally
inaged to account for his time on
st of the evenings in question. That
ished it, 3

RED LAMPFIER was not-the Phan-
tom Terror, We never did find out
iy he was so worried himself.

While I was on this wild-goose chase,
‘ brother officers had been follow-
; other and more promising leads.
en now they were checking on a
ild-eyed” young man who had been
iging about the Chester Street
ghborhood asking peculiar questions
yut a young lady.

Jescriptions of this young man tal-
1 in some respects with my precon-
ved notions of the Slugger. The
ing man was rather short and of a
it build. Previous to the McPhee
rder he had rung several doorbells
the Chester Street district asking if
‘Miss Mack” lived there. ;

Ve set a trap, and a few evenings
or he ran into it. Under a heavy
ird he was rushed to Headquarters

ere he told a strange story. It was -

ale of a lovers’ spat and his search
the lady love who had left her
mer home to live “somewhere near
axster and Orchard Streets, West
nerville.” We checked it and,
ingely enough, proved it. Thus an-
er suspect was eliminated.

Vhy couldn’t we find the Slugger?
flere we were, working our heads
on the most atrocious series of
nes in the history of Massachu-
s, and what did we find? . Lovers’
‘rrels.

very police force in Metropolitan
‘ton was on the case night and day.
: best manhunters in jthe State
‘e working their hearts out and get-
$ nowhere. The Phantom Terror
; making us all’ look like fools.
nd underneath all our efforts was
terrible question: ‘“Who’s next?”
en friends met, they asked, “Where
| he strike next time? Why can’t
police do something?”

decided to make known my theory

tra patrolmen, detectives and troop-
ers were secretly posted Tuesday, in
anticipation of Metelaki's braven proms
Jse to meet red-headed Mary there.
They were stationed in vacant apart-
ments facing tho street, In doorways,
in basement windows, in every con-
ceivable hiding place. Tuesday night
and the appointed hour arrived. But
Handsome Eddie didn’t show up.

Towards morning *an_ encouraging
piece of news drifted in. Bontai’s
abandoned car had been found on a
dirt road some miles out of the city.
The fugitives apparently were head-
ing for Newark. ’

With approaching darkness Wednes-
day evening, the small army of offi-
cers again took up their “plants? of
the night before, and waited tensely,
A little before 7 o’clock, two look-
outs sighted Metelski walking on Hal-
sey Street with Semenko. He was
just 24 hours late for his astonishing
appointment. ’

Silently the men began closing in,
‘but as the gangsters neared the cor-
ner, Semenko turned off abruptly and
entered a lunch room on West Kin-
ney. Almost at the same instant, Met-
elski spotted an officer and ducked
into a near-by alley. The officer fired.
Suddenly both Halsey and Kinney
Streets were swarming with police.
*One detail rushed into the restaurant
after Semenko, and the others block-
aded the alley. $

Phantom Terrors (Continued from Page 28) ne

of the case, even at the risk of being
laughed at by my superiors. After all,
we were getting nowhere and, if they
did not agree with me, ‘at least there
would be no harm done. With some
temerity I broached the subject to
Lieutenant Carter, my immediate su-
perior. He listened attentively to what
I had to say, then thought a minute.

“I think you're right,” he agreed.
“The Phantom Slugger is a small man
with a real or fancied grievance
against young women, who is working
off his spite.” °

“Yes,” I added, “and I think he is
a poor man because he has stolen the
watches and handbags of his victims
although: all were young women with-
out means.”

“No doubt robbery is a part of the
motive,” said the Lieutenant. “But I
think it is a secondary one because
most of the victims chosen were poor
themselves,”

Then we discussed the devilish
cleverness of the Phantom in. his
ability to escape without being seen.

Automobiles were not common in
those days and a quick getaway could
be made in only one of three ways—
by running, taking a street car, or
using a bicycle. Since in no case had
a man been seen running away from
the, sluggings, it did not seem likely
that the Phantom had escaped by foot.
Street-car lines in the vicinity of the
Phantom's crimes had been carefully
checked, without result. , :

The Phantom must use a bicycle.
Surely it was the best means, in those
days, for a quick and silent escape.

Another angle occurred to me. “If
the Phantom has stolen watches and
handbags from all his victims he must
have some means of disposing of
them,” I ventured. “Have all the hock
shops been canvassed?” :

“We've circularized all the pawn-
shops,” Carter replied, “with descrip-
tions of the missing watches. But noth-
ing has come of it. Many suspects
were picked up in our tireless search,
but all had cast-iron alibis.”:

October 19 he struck again. Miss
Jane Ladell was attacked in Water-
town, just beyond Cambridge, with a
bludgeon. The girl escaped, however.
Her description of the assailant ,was
meager ‘as.the previous ones. She
thought him a huge man, but I -at-
tributed this to: her fright.

And then all hell let loosé.

Striking with lightning-like thrusts
in far separated towns, the Phantom
Slugger let loose with a reign of ter-
ror which made his former depreda-
tions seem like child’s play.

There was little action for a mo-
ment, Then someone located Metelski
crouchlig tha dari corner of the alley,
Four bullets whizzed past his ears,
ricocheted from the brick wall behind

hhin,

“Mercy! Mercy! Don't kill mel!”
he screamed as the avengers bore
down on him, But, a jittery hyper-
thyroid to the last, he raised his own

8. That was a fatal error, Like an
avalanche, and before he could fire
a number of hard bodies had landed
6n him with fists flailing. Handsome
Eddie must have wished then that a
bullet had gotten him,‘for seldom has
a man taken such ‘a beating and lived
through it.

Semenko was captured in the lunch
room. He indiscreetly offéred some re-
sistance, When it was all over, both

he and Metelski were crimson hulks-

of human pulp. What price freedom—
for only four days!

cy JANUARY 6, 1936, Metelski went
on trial in Middlesex County Court
before Judge Adrian Lyon, for the
murder of Trooper Yenser. Within
three days, he was found guilty and
immediately sentenced to die in the
electric chair.

Less than a week later, Semenko
stood before the bar and learned the
folly of his four sleepless nights and
hunted days. He received from fifteen
to 20 years in the State prison,

On the night of October 28 he re-
turned to Somerville and severely in-
jured Mrs. F. H. Stentiford. The next
night he killed Miss Mary Meyers in
Reading by ‘pounding her head to a
pulp with a great rock. The follow-
ing night he made another attack in
Somerville, but was frightened off.
The night after that he made the most
daring attack of all. \

A group of nurses were walking
through the park-like grounds of Mc-
Lean Hospital, Belmont, when they
were startled by a scream of terror

‘from the dark path before. them.

Bravely they ran toward the frantic
cries. They saw a man strike a pros-
trate figure several times. He disap-
peared in the shrubbery. This at-
tack had occurred not more than 50
yards from them, The attacker must
have heard their talk and laughter as
they approached.

Their first thought was for the vic-
tim but their professional training told
them. that nothing could be done for
the poor girl. Her skull was crushed
in half a dozen places. They recog-
nized her as Miss Claire Morton, a
hospital employe, who was on her way
to report for duty when the slugger
struck her down within sight and
sound of friends.

Thomas Walsh, Chief of Police of
Belmont, lost no time in taking up the
trail.“ With him were State Troopers
under Rufus Wade, Chief of State De-
tectives, and a force of county police
led by Sheriff John R. Fairbairn.

Deploying like skirmishers in battle,
this force combed the entire neighbor-
hood and the countryside beyond for
the skulker. They found no one.
Again the Phantom had struck and
vanished. 2

But this time the police had a lead.

“An arrest within 24 hours!” promised
Chief Wade.

The newspaper ‘e tid-
ings with banner e public
went wild. Thre i on the
historic Boston C: fiseuss the
latest developm: derneath
the jubilation » ~ mutter-
ing, warning ! take very
good care Yerror—
if they « ‘in for the
court.
~ Judge | a wher-
ever men

‘The nex flashed
to Somervi! ters that
the promis made,
Would the ‘5 men
care. to be stioning
of the susp<« ce Head-

quarters in the

4 eal asia oa st Ga ea ace

Red-haired Mary Truchanowicz, too,
was to lose her jeering smile and flip-

pant alr, Ploading guilly on two
counts, she was sentenced to three
years for aiding a jail break and two
yours for carrying convouled weapons,

The usual appeals delayed the date

of Metelski’s execution until August.

4, 1936, He feigned insanity toward
the last, refusing to eat and tearing
his cot apart. ‘

But among those who sat as a wit-
ness in the death chamber was Offi-
cer Earl Wright of Camden, New Jer-
sey. He was there for an odd rea-
son. Five years earlier he picked up
Eddie Metelski, for a series of petty
thefts. Wright had advised him to
straighten himself out while there was
stiJl time.

“If you keep on going the way you
are, you’re a cinch to wind up in the
hot seat,” Wright had said. -

And Metelski had answered, with a
sneer: “If I ever do, come and see
me off, won’t you?”

In Germany, Wright would have
hauled the young hoodlum into a
morals court, where he would have
been ordered to be sterilized. In Den-
mark, since 1929, the treatment would
have been castration, if it were felt
that his moronism was deeply rooted.
How much better, it would have been
to curb him by such means than to
burn him alive after he had wreaked
incalculable harm,

ead It First in
L DETECTIVE STORIES

Would they? I never saw two men
move faster.

I was on pins and needles waiting
for their return. Who was the Phan-
tom Terror? What did they have on
him? We waited impatiently for the
Chief and Lieutenant Carter, to return.

No one could have been more re-
mote from the poor, crazed half-wit
I had pictured all along. .

It was the son of one of Boston’s
wealthiest and most respected families.
A Beacon Hill blueblood, Alan Gregory
Mason, scion of the Mason and Ham-
lin Piano Company family.

A wave of nausea swept over me.
What a ghastly mistake, if Mason was
innocent.

No crime or news event of that era
faintly compared with this sensation.
Boston—the State—the whole nation
rocked as a wealthy young man of
position was held for assaulting seven
young women—murdering three more.

Mason refused to talk and he was
abetted in this by a famous lawyer
of the day, hired by the Mason mil-
lions, : i

Fearing that the Mason fortune
might be used to obstruct justice, the
people rose as one great army and
demanded an early trial and execution.
Ministers preached on the subject from
their pulpits and the editorial writers
dipped their pens in flaming ink.

Scores of persons came forward to
swear they had seen the cringing mil-
lionaire in the vicinity of the Phantom
Terror crimes. The grand jury
promptly returned an indictment and
Mason was lodged in the Charles
Street jail, strongest jail in the vicinity,
with a heavy guard to prevent him
from committing suicide and armed
men constantly on the alert to. prevent
a lynching.

| TALKED to Lieutenant Carter re-
garding the evidence against the ac-
cused man.

“They’ve got pretty nearly enough
to hang him,” the Lieutenant replied to
my question. “He had been a mental
patient at the McLean Hospital, where
the Morton girl was slain. He had
been seen riding about the district on

his bicycle for a couple of afternoons |

preceding the murder. He was seen by
several persons hanging about the
grounds on the afternoon of the mur-
der and he boarded a street car in
Waverley, adjacent to the hospital
ground, at about 10 o’clock that night,
not quite an hour after the slaying.
The conductor said he was disheveled
and panting, as though he had been
running.”

02


Mi Tin Lox,

| ne |

Sdward, whe, elec. Nd (Middlesex)

{MART boys, the thugs v were. © Hard’ merciless, with
the dangerous cunning of animals bat both hunted
and were hunted.

grey matter. That was the trouble,
{i Take the hold-up of the Palm Garden. Cafe, for
Mii instance. That had gone off as planned. . Smooth.
Efficient. Smart stuff. Ayers

First the getaway car. That had been snagged on a
side street in Philadelphia the night before. An in-
conspicuous Chevvy coupe. Then the time of the hold-
up of the little cafe, plotted for an hour when the till
would be nearly full, yet the place nearly empty of
customers.

Gir Davie, Di LROTLIVE Whey Quis Lo NE 9

But a little quicker on the trigger than on the .

one and two o’clock, in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday
morning, November 9th, 1935, to be exact.

_ It was a pushover. Just a matter of walking in,
waving a shotgun and a .38 gat, growling:

. “Keep quiet, and nobody won’t get hurt!”

The loot wasn’t much.,..About eighty dollars, mostly
silver and a scattering of small bills. A couple of silver
cartwheels, even, like they used to have out West—
according to the movies—but pad néver, been, common

Still, eighty ‘bucks was eighty” bucks, Forty “dol
apiece. Not bad for a few minutes work.

companion split the dough after. counting it... iy
for good luck pieces.” ; e
“We won’t have no good luck of any ‘kind if v we don’t’ 3
scram the hell out of here!’ pis pel aetoie “Let’s get;
going!”
“Where to?” Te
“New York. There ain’t no pickings in “Philly no*
more. I know a guy in New York that’s got connections."4
“What about the car?” Eddie protested. “Maybe #
there’s an alarm out already. Maybe they’ll stop us at. ,
the tunnel.” =
“We ditch the car in Newark, dope!’ his buddy
snarled. “C’mon! Whatta we got to lose?”
“Okay, okay.” Eddie’s nerves were beginning to
fray. He reached down and picked up a bottle of
whisky, took a long swallow. “Step on it, then!
Make it fast!”
It had all been planned so carefully, so
smartly. But things could go wrong.
Lots of things. The car, for instance.
It had been smart to steal it ..
smart to use it for the actual crime.
But then, Eddie kept telling himself,
they should have ditched it. They

A couple of hours after midnight would do. Between {

Ga
ri

JANUARY, 1942 - |

~sneaked ,back there to find a

‘easier way out.

~been the next stage.

The prisoner was allent, ominously
silent, Suddenly, he wrenched his arm
free from Shultz’ im

hla reach and raced down the alreet,
His would-be captors were thunder-

, Struck, Before they could step him, he

disnppeared around 4 corner, Shultz
and Franson hurried back to the Sher-.
iff’s office, where Deputy Sheriff
Dewey Homan took charge.

; RANSON, you come with me,” he
ordered. “Got to move fast.
We'll go back to the cafe.”

A sheriff’s car roared away, In front
of the cafe it stopped. Homan jumped
out, ran inside. “Where does that dish-
washer of yours live?”

“Down on West Sixteenth Street, a
place called the ‘Marathon Rooms.’”

Homan and Franson sped to the
rooming house, told their mission. to
Joan Sunter, an employe, who showed

* them to the dishwasher’s room, As

twisted from:

they entered, the telephone rang, ‘The
girl answered, ;

“Listen, Joan,” confided a voice on
the wire, “This Is BIL, Cops are tall
ing:me, I need help. Get my gun and
my car, Meet me at the warehouse by
the railroad,”

The Deputy Sheriff overheard—saw
the girl hesitate. He clamped a hand
over the mouthpiece, :

“Tell him you'll do it,” he ordered.
“And don’t tip him off.”

The trembling girl nodded to the
officer and faced the telephone, “Yes,
Bill,” she murmured, “At the: ware-

ouse,”” ' .

Fifteen minutes later Deputy Sheriff
Homan saw a sedan roll to a halt in
the shadow of the warehouse, A girl
- tapped nervous fingers on the steering

wheel and feigned an air of non-

chalance, Seconds dragged into min-
utes of waiting.

- Suddenly from behind the building’

the officer suw a‘ man appear, It was
the dishwasher, He shot a glance down
the atroot, Tt was empty, With rapid
a he headed for the car and the
girl.

Deputy Sheriff Homan stepped from
his place of hiding across the street,
gun in hand. “Take it easy, buddy,”
he shouted, “I’ve got you covered.”

Startled, the man spun about, saw
the officer and raced down the street.
Deputy Homan started in pursuit, but
soon saw he was no match for the
flying heels of the dishwasher, The gap
between them widened, The officer

fired a warning shot. The man con- ;

tinued his flight. Homan drew a bead
on the bobbing figure, squeezed the

' trigger. The man stumbled, a bullet in

the right leg. Vainly he struggled to
his feet and tried to go on. The officer
overtook him and snapped a pair of
handcuffs on his wrists.

At Memorial Hospital where he was

treated for the gunshot wound, “Bill
Demos,” the dishwasher, admitted he
wan the fugitive, Harry Avaxt aligned
a slalement giving his version of whut
took place the morning of. December
12, 1934, at the Lincoln Hotel in Long
Beach. He remembered being chased

by Officer MacLean, Then, he said, ”

everything went blank, Vaguely, he
recalled that several shots were fired
—that he changed clothes in a little

shop, threw his gun into the ocean and -

rode to Los Angeles on the electric
train, Then followed his trips to Sac-
ramento, Salt Lake City and Cheyenne,

Sergeants Ben Wood and Charles
Guthro took charge of the prisoner
and. returned him to Long Beacly

where, sullen and uncommunicative, ~

he ‘was arraigned on a charge of first-
degree murder, On May 20, 1935, he
came to trial before Superior Court
Judge Vickers. He was convicted and
sentenced to life imprisonment,

Read It First in

Eddie Metelski—Gland-Crazed Viper (Continued from Page 17) orriea eet erst F onins

in a movie, this cop under a tempo-
rary cloud had ‘shreWaly ‘spotted the
much-wanted: Eddie Metelski -and
taken him single-handed.

Confronted with irrefutable evidence
of his guilt, Metelski fell back on
stubborn protestations of innocence.
He offered one glib alibi after another,
but none of them stood: up under
investigation. For 72 hours, he sat
surrounded by grim men hurling in+
cessant questions. Metelski wouldn’t
break. It was of no great importance_

whether he did or not. The damning.

story had already been told—by an in-
significant little cocklebur, a missing
“button, some mud and two of his fin-
ger-prints on a half-emptied whisky
bottle. : ‘
Handsome Eddie was tossed into a
cell at the Middlesex County Jail, New’
Brunswick, and the intensive search
for his gunman partner continued.
That afternoon, the Pennsylvania Po-

lice sent over some of .the victims. sadistic, heartless; will rob, torture and,

of the Philadelphia stickup.. With-
out hesitation, four of them identified
Metelski as one of the bandits who
had robbed them. i :

A huge pile of rogues’ gallery: pho-
‘tographs was then shown to the wit-
-nesses. In no time they had picked
out the picture of Eddie’s murder

companion. He was a battered hood= °

lum and ex-convict named Albert—
Whitey—Morton. He and- Metelski
were, beyond the shadow of a doubt,
the two gunmen who had cleaned.
out 'the cafe an hour or_so before
Yenser had been killed. Moréover,
the coupe stolen in - Philadelphia
roved to be the same one that had
i abandoned at the edge of Eliza-
bethport Meadows, -

Morton’s axis of operations had long
been known to be Philadelphia. It:
was almost a certainty that he had
hide-
away. Local police turned the heat
on him full blast and two days later
that phase of the problem had solved
itself. Morton,-knowing that capture
was imminent and certain, took an
On the morning of
November 11, his body was discovered
on the floor of a room in a cheap: ho-
‘tel on North Fifteenth Street. Two
gas jets in the tiny room were wide

“open, and Morton’s leering, distorted

features were rigidly fixed in death.
What a story. of chronic gangsterism .

Metelski’s life had been! Though Eddie,

aged 26, had not previously committed
a-murder, he had done everything
else. Wholesale homicide would have

exception of. Tony—The Stinger—

* Cugino, already portrayed in this se-

ries, Metelski was the toughest, most’

- cruel and poisonously dangerous mobs-

man I have .ever encountered, ~He
had absolutely no*conscience. He was
the destroyer incarnate... -

Before I tell what he had done, 1
want to explain what he was from

‘the glandular viewpoint. Thymus—the
“gland of childhood, which . normally
“ dries up at about the age of seventeen:
-—inevitably was present in this viper.

Thymus is the basis of criminality, .

With the single .

because the adult who has it is mor-
ally nothing but an overgrown child.
Metelski, however, was not a thymo-

centric; that is to say, his entire be- .

. ing was not dominated by thymus.
.The hyphen in his case was furnished
by the thyroid gland. He was pri-
marily a hyperthyroid type. - .

The thyroid is the ductless gland
with which laymen probably are most
familiar. Located at the base of the
throat, it sometimes becomes ‘diseased,
swells and produces the malady called
goiter. ‘It is. the energy gland.
The prefix “hyper” means excessive.
Therefore,~ the term “hyperthyroid
type” indicates that the person in
question is driven to abnormal action

. by the over-abundant secretions of his
thyroid. ‘

The type is easily recognizable. It
longs to be perpetually on the go, and
if things are dull it creates artificial
excitement. In extreme stages it is

kill for the mere fun of causing suf-
fering. It°is sex crazy. It feeds its
insatiable vanity with jewelry, expen-
sive clothes and every form of lux-
ury. It is highly nervous in manner,
‘boastful and jittery at the same time.
Its chief physical characteristics are
' brilliant and rather protruding eyes.

Briefly, the symptoms are those
which are always present in modern
gangster’ leaders. These, it is not too
much to say, are products of thyroid
glands working overtime. . The disease
is one of the curses of civilization.
You will find very few hyperthyroids
among savages,

Eddie Metelski, in his behaviorism
and his appearance, perfectly matched
* the description I have given. If law-

enforcement agencies were scientifi-
cally run, there would: be no excuse
for overlooking him. Metelski could
have been classified in adolescence,
sterilized and rendered harmless.

PISTEAD, he started as a petty thief
before he was sixteen. Then he be-
came a trafficker in dope, a slimy
profiteer on the white-slave racket, a

‘ safe blaster and. stickup man. He was

“long a member of the “Shoey” Bon-

“ner gang, whose operations in women °

and drugs spread over all the East-
ern seaboard--States. In addition to

his juvenile showing, he had been ar- '
~ rested 30 times in eight different states. ©

He .had three jail breaks on his rec-
ord, with the result that extra penal-
ties amounting to- life imprisonment
- were piled up against him.’

His most recent escapade of the
sort had occurred on August 17, 1935,

less than three months before: Yenser’s -

murder: On that day, he had smashed
.- his way to freedom from the. Cale-
donia Prison Farm in Halifax County,
North Carolina. Slightly more ‘than
a‘year of his eight-to-twelve-year
“sentence for safe-breaking and lar-
“ceny had been served. Metelski actu-
ally was a fugitive from a chain gang.
The New Jersey authorities had him
“now for cop-killing.. They thought

‘ that nothing remained to be done, ex-

cept the formalities of trying, con-

‘anything I can.” ‘
From that time on, practically every -

victing and executing him. But the
tragedy of Metelski’s anti-social ca-
reer had not yet reached its climax.

His manner changed abruptly as he
became the New Brunswick jail’s
model prisoner. His egotistical ravings
and fierce, rebellious outbreaks ceased.
He grew friendly, almost meek. But
behind the mask, ingenious schemes
were hatching in Handsome Eddie’s
— mind. He had beaten stir be-

‘ore.

- Characteristically enough, he hit
upon women as the way out of this
prison.

Carefully, he began cultivating War-
den Alfred H. Puerschner and making
demonstrations to convince his guards
that he was not. such a bad guy after
all. Next, he sat down and wrote sev-
eral appealing letters which he handed
to the Warden for safe mailing. One
was to his parents, Mr. and Mrs.
Charles Metelski, a respectable, law-
abiding old couple who lived in New-
ark, New Jersey. Another was to his
wife, Mary. A third and most sig-
nificant missive was addressed to one
of Eddie’s numerous sweethearts, a
gaudy redhead named Mary Truchan-
owicz who sang blues songs in metro—
5h ara night clubs: She had met

die’s wife once or twice, but the
two women lavished no affection on
each other.

Metelski, the assassin, begged them
all to come up and see him sometime.
They did, and soon were making a
regular habit of it, in and out of visi-
tors’ hours, and on any old day. It
was all right with Warden Puersch-
ner. He dropped in on some of the
sessions, and they were just one big,
happy family. I may as well state

here that Puerschner later was in- .

dicted for malfeasance in office and
compelled to resign.

Handsome Eddie was allowed to re-
ceive his company in the visitors’ room
without the supervision of guards.Tea,
jello and apples were served to the
callers from the jail kitchen down-
stairs. Of course, a routine search of
all callers for weapons ‘had been made
the first two or three times they came,
but after that it seemed a little un-
necessary

Before long, Eddie was happy to

he ‘arried since his escape from
“srolina prison farm, had
preciative eye of War-

He waited until af- .

more visits, then took
aside, : :

he said, with a sob in
i “ve been ee a lot of
thinxing about my poor little wife.
Here 1 am in jail, and she’s all alone.
Poor kid, she looks kind of pale and
worried. It would be swell if you'd
take her out and buy her a drink the
next time she comes over. You know,
sort of cheer her up!” ;

observe that his pretty bride, whom ©

“Sure thing, Metelski,” the amiable

Puerschner replied.

jail visit of the attractive Mrs. Metelski
wound up in a tete-a-tete with the

“T’ll.be glad to do |
tare - washer, were busy ladling out meals.»
A third trusty, Paul Semenko (born *:

Warden at some New Brunswick tav-
ern,

That cleared the field for the killer’s
cunning plan.
Mary Truchanowicz into his confi-
dence. One afternoon she appeared
at the prison for’ her usual visit. In

her best coquettish manner, she went. *~

through her routine of a few rough
pleasantries with the guards, and was
soon on her way to the waiting Eddie.
Before she left, she slipped him a .38
caliber revolver loaded with deadly,
man-tearing dum-dum bullets.

EVERYTHING was set for the jail

break. But Metelski waited for a
really good opportunity.

It came on Saturday afternoon, De-
cember 14, two days before he was to
go on trial for the murder of Yenser.
Mary Metelski and Eddie’s parents
had been at the jail, and Warden Puer-
schner had kindly consented to put
the younger woman on her bus for
Philadelphia. Eddie returned to the
cell block where he had been segre-
gated because of the seriousness of the
charge against him. He was not locked
in a‘cell, as he had been given the
entire run of the block.

t 5:30 p.m., he was sitting on an
upturned pail at the near end of ‘the
cell block reading-a book. George
Hill, a Negro trusty, came along with
a dish of soup, bread and coffee. He
opened the door, and’ the prisoner
looked up indifferently at his sup-
per. Suddenly, Metelski leaped to his
feet and whipped a revolver from
under his book.

“Get in here!’ he ordered, and as
Hill entered the block the gunman
forced him into a cell. George Ander-
son, the Assistant Warden, had been

walking a few paces behind the trusty.’
He stepped back quickly and at-

tempted to slam shut the tier door.

“Don’t make a move,” shouted 'Met- ©

elski. “If you do, I’ll drill you full
of holes. I'll kill you.”

Intimidated by the revolver, Ander-
son marched into the cell with Hill.
Metelski locked them in. Then he
rushed to the front part of the jail,
where nineteen other prisoners were
housed. “He met Edward Roberts, a

guard. on

‘Don’t: holler,”- ‘advised Metelski.
“One word out of you, and you'll be
a dead man. Give me those keys.”
The elderly guard ‘complied, and
Metelski went to Warden Puerschnér’s
office. He rifled the desk there and
took all the keys in sight. As he

started .running back along the cor-'

ridor, he encountered still. another
guard standing near the dumbwaiter.

“Come on, buddy,” Metelski snarled.
“Get in there with them, if you know
what’s good for you.”

The other backed into the cell where
Anderson and Hill were already im-
prisoned. Metelski then hurried down-
Stairs to the basement kitchen. Two
model prisoners, the cook and a dish-

He took red-headed °

re |

a

tis

2

ase a

Semengewitz), was also working there.’

This 22-year-old tough was awaiting a

o2


It was near Linden, New Jersey, that it happened.
It was nearly five in the morning then, and Newark
and the hurly-burly safety of the Hudson Tube, crowded
with workers for New York, was almost in sight. Eddie
murmured a prayer of thanks to his own particular God,
and aloud said, “The last lap, pal. Step on it!”

That was a mistake. Cars travelling over sixty miles
an hour, at that time of the morning, attract attention.
This one did. :

At first it was just the routine attention of two State
Troopers in a prowl car, cruising southward along the
highway, on a lookout for just such speeders.

The normal speeder, suddenly coming upon an un-
mistakable patrol car, instinctively slows up. When,
instead, the onrushing coupe raced by them with ac-
celerated speed, Troopers Warren Yenser and John
Matey stiffened to alert, suspicious attention.

As’ Matey hurriedly turned the police car to give
pursuit, he asked:

“Did you get a good look at that bus, Warren?”

“Blue coupe,” Yenser grunted. ‘Yellow wheels.
Pennsylvania license.”

“Suppose it was the Chevvy we got an alarm fo

“Might be.”

As Matey stepped the police car up to eighty, Yenser
consulted his note book, refreshed his memory as to the
license number of the car that had come in over the
radio earlier. DC240.

Meantime, Matey had pressed the accelerator clear
to the floor-boards. The red tail-light of the pursued
car drew nearer. Three hundred yards. Two hundred.
And then but the distance of a pistol shot.

Slowly the two cars drew abreast. ‘Trooper Yenser
put his police whistle to his lips, to shrill out a warning

to pull over and halt.
But that warning—that whistle—never came. There

r?”

CRASH-OUT——

by Edward Metelski was
made from this New
Brunswick cell block.

.

was a flash of orange from the blue coupe, and Yenser’s
breath came in a soft, gurgling sigh, inaudible over the
Yoar of the motors.

His body slumped heavily, inertly against Matey,
fighting for a desperate moment to retain control of the
car. Matey cried:

“What’s wrong, Warren? What happened?”

There was no answer.

By then the blue coupe, the Chevvy coupe, Matey
had noticed, had once again drawn ahead until its tail-
light was only a red firefly flickering in the distance.

Once again Matey stepped on the gas, until his speedo-
meter needle, wavered between 80 and 85. It was
harder now to drive, with Yenser’s dead weight lurching
against him. But he made it. Foot by foot, he crept up
on the stolen car.

He unloosened his service revolver, shifted it to his
left hand. It isn’t easy to hold a careening car on the
road with one hand at eighty-odd miles an hour. It
isn’t easy shooting with your left hand, when you're
not accustomed to it.

But Trooper Matey did both. And from the shattered
rear window of the coupe came answering shots that
stabbed the pre-morning darkness with darts of flame.

A bullet crashed through the radiator of the police
car. Another evidently caught Yenser, for his body
gave a sudden bounce, once again throwing Matey off
his balance. The car swerved dangerously off the high-
way—back on again. Matey was forced to slow down.

And by then the blue coupe had vanished around a
bend in the road, in the direction of Elizabeth, New

Jersey.
ITHIN that fleeing car Eddie sank back on the seat

with a little moan of relief. Perspiration ran down
his face in wet, dirty streaks. His hat had fallen off and

STICK-UP——
shotgun and a .38 revol-

was a matter of waving a

ver as though they meant it.


tween
turday

ng in,
*

mostly
‘ silver
West—
»mmon

dollars 2
ind his -
‘se, ’em “% t
e don’t” ‘
at’s get >
ily no.
rtions.”
‘Maybe

p us at
buddy .
ling to
ttle of

t, then!

ily, so

‘BIG DOT——

hid out with Whitey
Morton, but when she
was nabbed fear drove
him to suicide by gas.

COP KILLER——
Edward Metelski, as he
looked shortly after
his capture in Newark.

should have had a car of their own to switch to, one
the coppers didn’t have tabbed.

That was the hell of being broke, of not being able
to get into the big dough. You couldn’t protect yourself
right. When he got to be a big shot things would be
different. Damned right things would be different! He
wouldn’t have to worry about little things like getaway
cars, and stuff like that. Other mugs would do that for
him. He wouldn’t take no lip from nobody. Let some
punk up and sass him and he’d out with his roscoe. No
argument. Just a curl of his finger around the trigger
and bingo. No argument. Big shots didn’t argue.

He took another slug of whisky to keep his imagination
in a comfortable glow, his fears deadened.

With each passing minute New York grew nearer.
At that hour of the morning traffic on the Philadelphia-
New York highway was light. You could bust all the
speed laws you wanted.

SIDEKICK——

who escaped and was
retaken with Metelski
was Paul Semenkewitz.

RICHARD WARREN

Two smart boys try to open the world’s
oyster at the point of a gun, only to find that

their pearl is an eight ball and death the sole payoff

53


his hair was a black, smeary mass against his chalky

er’s °
the ~ white face. Fumbling for the whisky bottle, he babbled:
' “That stopped ’em, pal! That stopped ’em!”
tey, His companion grunted in reply, his eyes narrowed
the on the road ahead. His headlights picked out the sign
of an intersection—his foot shifted from accelerator
| to brake pedal—the car swayed in a whining skid as
| they made the corner on two wheels.
| itey Eddie righted himself with an effort. ‘What the
ail- hell, Whitey! What’cha doing?”
2, ' Tersely, luridly, Whitey explained. “They caught us
‘do- twice, didn’t they? We gotta get off the main high-
was way!”
ling “We gotta get to Newark while its still dark, too!”
> up Eddie protested. “Soon as it gets light they can spot this
car a mile away.”
his Whitey turned another corner, and another. They
the were in the outskirts of Elizabeth, then the center of
It Elizabeth. And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, cops
u’re appeared. Cops in patrol cars. Cops in commandeered
cabs. Cops in private cars. ps
ared Then began a gruesome game of hide-and-seek—a
that macabre game of tag with death the forfeit. It was no
ime. longer a stolen car that police were interested in. That
ylice item had sunk into relative unimportance five minutes
ody before when Trooper Matey had made his report to
- off Elizabeth Police Headquarters from an all-night way-
igh- side diner near Linden.
ywn. For by then he knew that his brother officer, Warren
ida Yenser, was dead.
New It was cop-killers the police were after now. ; |
That was the word that went out from Elizabeth.
Over the radio. Over the phone. Over the teletype.
Above police call boxes on street corners throughout
own the slowly waking city red signal lights flashed. i
and The swift, implacable machinery of the law had if

snapped into action.

Cop-killers on the loose!

Then it was that Eddie and his pal discovered what
it meant to be really hunted—hunted in a deadly, precise
manner.

How it was done, Eddie and his pal didn’t know.
They didn’t know about the man in the radio room at
police headquarters in Elizabeth. (Continued on page 86)

Eddie snarled, herding
the shuffling trusty be-
fore him... Ten minutes
later Eddie was “out.”

POSSE——._ - ? ng
armed to the teeth, set

a watch along New Jersey
highways for Metelski.


eae tene

86

a strange smile. He did not seem
ee nor particularly remorse-
ful.

Captain Edwards spoke: “The Bu-
reau of Identification has checked the
prints found on the empty gin bottle;
they tally with the prints of one of
you two men. The laboratory has
definitely proved that only one pair
of shoes made all the footprints
around the Ely home, thus definitely
eliminating one of you as the mur-
derer. And the liquor dealer has been
found who sold one of you the gin.
Although he has not yet seen you two
in person, his description of the pur-
chaser is unmistakable.”

He paused. Edwards looked at Jes-
sup, whose eyes narrowed; then the
homicide chief turned to look at
Bockius, whose eyes dropped before
his gaze.

“You murdered Marvel, Bockius!”
snapped the captain ...and_ his

DETECTIVE

On the wide, flat-topped desk in front
of that man was a large map of Eliza-
beth and environs. On that map the
call boxes were marked down. There
were large numbered pins that could
be moved about to signify the posi-
tion of prowl cars. There was another
pin, a bright, yellow pin, that could
be moved'as reports came in from
various stations. One report after the
other.

“This is Patrolman Morris. Just
spotted the murder car on East Jer-
sey Street!”

And from a prowl car:

“This is Patrolman Keck. Murder
car just passed us. We’re trying to
head it off at Schiller and Trumbul.”

From the radio room went out the
order:

“Calling all cars! Calling all cars!
Schiller and: Trumbul Streets. Head
off murder car at Schiller and Trum-
bul Streets!”

And on the map the yellow pin was
moved to Schiller and Trumbul
Streets. The yellow pin that stood
for Eddie and his pal.

How it was done the hunted men
didn’t know. Enough that the cops
were here, there, everywhere!

Eddie babbled, “Get us out of this,
Whitey! Get us out!”

For answer, Whitey only swore,
viciously, obscenely. Suddenly he
jammed on the brakes, brought the
car to a slithering halt, slammed into
reverse.

Eddie started to cry out, “What’s
wrong?” then saw for himself. A dead
end street. Railroad tracks ahead,
and the cops behind them!

He grabbed for Whitey, clawed at
his hands on the wheel. “Stop!” he
yelled. “Stop! Let’s run for it!”

A moment later he was out, Whitey
at his heels, sprinting for the gloom of
the freight yards. Behind them a shot
rang out, and then another.

Eddie gasped, ‘“We’d better split,
Whitey! Lay out with my folks in
Newark if you get there first.”

Whitey’s reply was unintelligible.
A moment later he vanished in the
darkness.

CRIME DETECTIVE

_ finger pointed at the trembling, stoop-
‘shouldered figure. of Charles Rex

Bockius!

Jessup sagged against the wall.
Bockius turned livid, then screamed
in protest.

“T didn’t! I didn’t!”

“There’s no doubt of your guilt,”
continued Edwards. “Not one single
scrap of physical evidence points to
Jessup.” He swung around to the
disabled veteran, who was getting
himself under control. “Why did you
pull that hoax confession?”

Jessup gestured toward Bockius. “I .

was afraid of him. He said he fixed

her and he’d have fixed me too, if he’d

had the time.” Jessup explained fur-

sem the fear Bockius had aroused in
im.

Still protesting his innocence, Bock-
ius appeared at the preliminary hear-
ing before Municipal Judge Irvin
Taplin early in February. Jessup

pe ara are

testified at this hearing and, although
his testimony was damaging to
Bockius, he furnished the shoes the
accused, wore in place of his own
which were held by the police as evi-
dence. Jessup also had cleaned and
pressed Bockius’ suit.

On April 22, Bockius appeared in

,’ Superior Court, before Judge Clement

D. Nye, and pleaded guilty to man-
*slaughter for which he was sentenced
to one to ten years in San Quentin.
Because of his previous record, he
was not permitted to ask for proba-
tion.

“I was afraid Marvel wouldn’t come
back to me,” he admitted in court.
“And.I was determined nobody else
would have her. I strangled her be-
fore I left that night.... Mrs. An-
derson must have been mistaken in
the time. I really can’t recall much
about the details because my brain
was in a turmoil.”

TOO MANY LOVE-NEST HIDEOUTS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 55 : :

Eddie breathed easier. Together,
they were marked. Alone he had a

‘chance. Just lay low for an hour or

so, then grab a rattler.

But not for Newark!

Back to Philly—that would be the
smart thing. Back where he knew
where—and how—to hide out.

[HAT was about five-thirty in the
morning. Barely a half hour—a
crowded, hectic half hour—after
Trooper Yenser had been shot—after
the quiet of Elizabeth had been awak-
ened into sudden life by the shrill
screaming of police sirens,:the screech
i brakes, the staccato bark of gun
re.

By then police were inspecting the
abandoned Chevvy coupe. There was
a shotgun in it. A couple of whisky
bottles. And on the running board a
button—what might well be an over-
coat button—with a fragment of light
grey worsted caught in the threads
that had once‘held it in place.

Given time, the shotgun and whis-

_ky bottles—as well as the car, itself—

might reveal finger prints that in turn
would point to this or that criminal.
Given time... ;

But for cop-killers, the police had
no time to spare. Retribution couldn’t
come too soon.

So it was that Patrolman Geiger,
for the fourth time within an hour,
tramped into the Pennsylvania Rail-
road Station, just on an off chance. It
was just a few minutes past seven,
then.

“Sold any tickets yet?” he asked the
ticket seller on duty. Three times
before, in the hour preceding, he had
asked that question, and each time
received a negative answer. This
time, however, the clerk nodded.

“Man just bought a ticket to Phila-
delphia.” :

“What did he look like?” Geiger
demanded.

The ticket agent frowned in con-
centration. “Young fellow. Grey over-
coat. Smooth shaven. Dark eyes.”

“Where is he?”

The clerk gestured towards the plat-

form. ‘Must be out there, some-
where. His train isn’t due for another
half hour.”

Patrolman Geiger grunted,
“Thanks,” and turned out towards the
platform. At the far end a man was
standing, idly gazing into the mirror
of a gum machine. Geiger paced for-
ward slowly, studying the man. Rum-
pled clothes. Muddy trouser cuffs and
— A double-breasted grey over-
coat.

The man turned, and Geiger’s eyes
widened involuntarily. A button of
the overcoat was missing!

Geiger made a swift gesture, and
when he spoke his service revolver
was in his hand, to lend deadly em-
phasis to his words:

“You, there! Come here!”

The man’s hands went up with al-
most practiced speed. “Don’t shoot,
copper! Don’t shoot! I’ll come.”

It took Patrolman Geiger but a few
minutes to herd his prisoner over to
headquarters. There Captain Lamb,
soon aided by Prosecutor Hicks and
Chief of Detectives Collins, took over
the questioning.

At first the man didn’t know any-
thing. His name, he said, was Eddie
Wood. From Philadelphia. He’d never
even seen a stolen blue Chevvy coupe.
He didn’t know anything about a
shotgun. He didn’t know anything
about a State Trooper being killed.

Just an innocent guy waiting for a
train.

The police kept him waiting, while
they took his finger-prints, checked
the overcoat. button found in the car
with those on his overcoat. It matched.

The finger-prints matched, too—
matihed some of those found on the
whiskey bottles in the murder car.

After that it was just a matter of
further waiting—waiting while two
of the State Police—Sergeant Simp-
son and Lieutenant Keaton—drove to
Philadelphia to check up on the fin-
ger-prints of the uncommunicative
Mr. “Woods.”

After that, the information came
in swiftly. From Philadelphia, the
New Jersey police phoned back the


information that Eddie “Wood” was,
according to police records, one Ed-
ward Metelski, with a long record as
a safe cracker and petty burglar. He
was married, although not working at
it very hard; sometimes making his

home with his wife’s family, at 1621

North Hutchinson Street, in Philadel-
~Phia, and at other times staying with
ae | parents on Lentz Avenue, in New-
ark.

_ From that point, it was only a rou-
tine matter for his photograph—
rogue’s gallery—to be identified as one
of the two men who had held up the
Palm Garden Cafe.

The two silver dollars found in his
pockets—along with some forty dol-
lars in change and small bills—
clinched that matter.

Eddie’s lucky pieces had gone sour.

But what about his companion, who
had vanished in the early morning
gloom? Eddie shook his head.

He didn’t know nothing.

He kept on “knowing nothing”
while the Elizabeth police fired ques-
tions at him, hammered away at his
stubborn silence. By that time, from
Philadelphia police, they had ac-
quired a list of Eddie’s habitual com-
panions. They ran over the names.

“You know this guy? Was it him?”

Each time Eddie shook his head.
Then they came to the name of Albert
Morton. ;

“Don’t know him,” Eddie said short-
ly. “Never heard of him.”

Prosecutor Hicks stared at the pris-
oner thoughtfully. That was interest-
ing! He turned, and gave orders for
an alarm to be sent out for Albert
Morton. Albert “Whitey” Morton.

Eddie Metelski ‘claimed he didn’t
know him. There must be a reason.

For the Philadelphia police claimed
he did know him—and knew him
well.

But Morton wasn’t at his Philadel-
phia address, a cheap rooming house
on North Sixteenth Street. His wife
was there, though. She told police
she didn’t know where “Whitey” was.
He had gone out early the night be-
fore with a friend named Eddie, and
hadn’t been back since.

They took her in custody, placed
detectives on watch at the rooming
house

Meanwhile, in Newark, New Jersey,
other detectives were covering the
Metelski house—home of Eddie’s par-
ents.

Watching and waiting...

All through Saturday night. All
through Sunday. All through Mon-
day.

HAT was what Albert “Whitey”
Morton was doing, too. Watching
and waiting... and listening. In a
rooming house on North Fifteenth
Street, not half a mile away from his
home. %
For a while he had had company:

His new sweetie, “Big Dot.” Then he .
had sent her over to his. place to pack °

up his clothes, so he could take it on
the lam.

Big Dot hadn’t come back.

She hadn’t come back because the
cops had nabbed her. Whitey couldn’t
know that—definitely—but he could
guess.

Big Dot hadn’t squealed, but Whitey
couldn’t know that, either. He could
only hope. :

And hope was a frail comfort when
fear rode you with heavy spurs

Maybe the cops had got Eddie, too.
And maybe Eddie had squealed... .

Whitey tried not to think. He

CRIME DETECTIVE

wished he had a cigarette. He wished
he had a drink. He wished he had
some one—any one—to talk to.

But he didn’t dare to go out. He
didn’t dare to do anything, but stay
there on the creaking bed in the sor-
did bedroom, staring at the stained
ceiling until it grew dark and then
staring into the darkness until it grew
light again, a hundred hours later.
He didn’t even dare to sleep, for then
his dreams were nightmares that were
more horrible, even, than his waking
thoughts.

He could just wait. Wait and fear.
Wait and tremble with each creak in
the hallway, each footfall on the
stairs.

And from the four walls his life
closed slowly, relentlessly in on him.
Fear of the past. Fear of the present.
Fear of the unknown, uncertain fu-
ture.

Whitey Morton could stand the
darkness of his soul no longer—alone
by himself. He reached out for the
gas light.

That was how the police found him.
On Monday night the landlady of the
rooming house had smelled escaping
gas, opened the bedroom door with a
passkey, and discovered Whitey freed
at last from his fear.

That left only Eddie Metelski to be
tried for the murder of Trooper
Yenser.

But Eddie wasn’t ready to be tried.
Cooped up in his cell in the Middle-
sex County Jail in New Brunswick,
he had been busy plotting and plan-
ning.

He saw now where he and Whitey
had_ made their mistakes. Doing too
many things at the same time. Steal-
ing acar. Knocking off a cafe. Shoot-
ing a trooper. Even a simple thing
like speeding. Too many chances for
too small a stake.

The smart way was to do one thing
at a time. Do it, and then lay low.
Like the big shots did, everything
planned out in advance.

Only when you were broke, like
he and Whitey were, and in a hurry,
you couldn’t do things that way. You
had to take chances then. Dumb
chances.

Now, though, he had plenty of time.
Until December 16th, to be exact. A
smart guy ought to be able to figure
an out by then.

Figure a getaway. Figure a hide-
away.

The break came late Saturday after-
noon, two days before Eddie Metelski
tng scheduled to go on trial for his

ife.

When the trusty unlocked the cell
block where Eddie was confined alone
to bring in his supper, Eddie greeted
him with a gun jammed in his ribs.

“Get back!” Eddie growled. “Back
up slow or I'll blow your guts out!”

With the trusty shuffling backwards
before him, Eddie moved slowly out
to the office where the Assistant War-
den and a guard were stationed. A
moment later they had taken his place
in the cell block, with the door
slammed and locked.

. «Then, in company with another con-
vict, an ex-pug named Paul Semen-
kewitz, Eddie took it on the lam.

And within a few minutes police
teletype and radio and phones began
to hum with orders and details of the
new man-hunt.

First word of them came at 9:30,
when two men answering their de-
scription stole a coupe in Plainfield.

Then, five hours later, Arthur Clark
and his wife, owners of the Clark

-

87

Gables Inn, on the outskirts of Plain-
field, reported being held up and
robbed of money and clothes. Semen-
kewitz they knew, for he had once
worked for them in the kitchen. Me-
telski they recognized from newspaper
pictures.

They had stolen the Clark car, too,
but had soon crashed it against a tele-
graph pole.

After that, the trail grew cold.

But while police cars scoured the
countryside, Prosecutor Hicks began
checking over Metelski’s recent jail
visitors. On the afternoon of his get-
away, he had been visited by his
parents and his wife.

Picked up and brought to head-
quarters, they denied all knowledge
of the planned break.

The day before, however, Metelski
had had another visitor. A blonde
cabaret singer, currently unemployed,
named Mary Truchanoircz.

- She, too, denied fore-knowledge of
the escape—sneered at the suggestion
she might have smuggled the gun in
to Eddie.

Something in her hard, surly man-
ner prompted Prosecutor Hicks to
order her detained, but word of her
arrest to be kept from the papers.

That was Saturday night. Sunday
the police were still honey-combing
the countryside in search of the es-
caped prisoners. And between check-
ing over their reports, Prosecutor
Hicks was busy réquestioning the Me-
telski parents, and the singer, Mary
Truchanoircz.

Suddenly Hick’s eyes narrowed. He
punched a button, summoned the As-
sistant Warden from the Middlesex
County Jail. When the man arrived,
Hicks said:

“T thought you told me this woman
was blonde?”

The warden nodded. “She was,
when I saw her a couple of days ago.”

“Well,” Hicks pointed out, “she’s a
redhead now!”

The warden shrugged.

Hicks turned back to the woman.
“When did you dye your hair?” he de-
manded.

The woman maintained a surly si-
lence. Hicks gave the signal for her
to be led back to her cell.

After she had gone, Hicks frowned
thoughtfully at his desk for a long
moment before he came to an abrupt
decision. Then he called in a stenog-
rapher, and dictated a note to the
press, to the effect that he had ques-
tioned the woman Truchanoircz re-
peatedly, but had come to the conclu-
sion that she knew nothing important.

To an assistant he explained:

“T’ve got a hunch that she’s the one
who smuggled the gun into Eddie,
and that further she has probably ar-
ranged a hideaway somewhere for
him. Sooner or later, when he’s
grabbed what loot he’s after, he’ll
make for that spot. It’s up to us to
find out where it-is. Check on the
woman’s background, and history, and
where her favorite hang-outs are.”

That took time. First, by dint of
repeated questioning in bars and cheap
cabarets, detectives learned that the
singer was seen most frequently in
the vicinity near West Kinney Street,
Newark, a section of rowdy beer halls,
taverns, and questionable rooming
houses.

It took the rest of Sunday and part
of Monday to learn that. And then,
armed with a photograph of the wo-
man, police began checking every
house in the section, to discover if she
had rented a room recently.

fais |


88

Mary Truchanoircz denied this, but
she had already denied quite a lot of
things.

And late Tuesday, Prosecutor Hicks

discovered his hunch had been right. :

At 42 West Kinney Street, detectives
learned that a woman answering the
singer’s description had rented a room
on Friday, Dec. 13th—the day before
Eddie Metelski’s escape—paying a
week’s rent in advance!

Hicks had found the rat hole. Now
he had only to set his trap... and
wait.

And that same night came fresh
word of the fugitives. They had
walked into a barber shop in Plain-
field, held up the owner, escaped with
his car. :

The following morning the car was
found, abandoned and out of gas, on
the outskirts of Newark.

Once again police snapped into ac-
tion. All that Wednesday, Newark
detectives and State Troopers began
quietly, unobtrusively, surrounding
the house on West Kinney Street. All

DETECTIVE

questioning of the hotel guests, up to
that point, had furnished nothing.
No one had heard any unusual noises,
no one had seen anything. When all
the persons in the hotel were finally
accounted for, the district attorney
and the two detectives had questioned

-51 people.

It was later in the afternoon when
Detective Anselmi hit upon the idea
of fingerprinting the slain redhead.
He had a hunch that she was known
to the police, for what reason he
could not fathom. When the Bureau
of Criminal Identification reported
back to him that the fingerprints
matched a set on file, Anselmi was
jubilant.

According to the record the red-
haired victim was Mary Dillon, 32,
and she lived in a furnished room in
the East 20s. She had been arrested
under the name of Marion Delaney in
July of that year and sentenced to 60
days as a user of narcotics. The pic-
ture on file showed a rather pretty
woman, but one whose beauty was
being dimmed by excessive indul-
gence in dope. A note appended to
her dossier said that Mary Dillon cus-
tomarily haunted 3rd Avenue from
14th Street to 23rd Street.

IN Grebow’s office that evening De-
tectives Anselmi and Denham sat
down with the district attorney to
consider their next moves.

“The fingerprint report on the room
is no good, nothing shows anywhere,
only smudges on the bottle so that
lets that angle out,” Anselmi declared.
“The next best thing to do from here
is to backtrack on Mary Dillon’s
movements last night. We should be
able to find someone who saw her
with this Borker guy.”

“We still have to get the taxicab
driver who brought them to the hotel,”
Grebow reminded. “He might know
the man.”

“Sure,” Anselmi agreed. “Right now
I'm going to take a walk up 3rd

CRIME DETECTIVE

through the long day they waited,
and on into the dusk of early eve-
ning. ;

It was nearly eight o’clock before
two figures came slowly down the
street and stopped at the entrance to
an alley across the way from No. 42.
The waiting detectives watched as the
two men whispered together .. .
watched as one man walked a few
steps down the street to a diner while

the other man slunk back into the.

shadows of the alley. ‘
One of the detectives said in a low
voice:
“The man who went into the diner
looks like Semenkewitz.”

His companion nodded. “Then the

other is Metelski.”

Then, while one officer kept an eye
on the man in the diner, the other
meved away to pass the word along.
The alley in which Metelski lurked
ran through to an open parking lot. It
took but a moment for detectives and
troopers to close quietly in, then, on
both ends of the alley ... waiting for

DORE See ea

the given signal before they would
charge in simultaneously.

A second later it came
shots fired into the air.

And while Eddie Metelski dived
headlong, hopelessly, into an unyield-
ing wall of detectives, Semenkewitz
swirled from the cafe stool where he
was waiting for hamburgers and coffee
to take out, only to find himself star-
ing into the business end of a police
gun.

The hunt was over!

EF, DDIE METELSKI had been able
to postpone his trial, for a few
brief days, but not his sentence.

On him had been found the .38 re-
vélver that had fired the fatal shot
that killed Trooper Yenser. It didn't
do him any good claiming Morton, his
dead‘pal, had fired the shot. It didn’t
do him any good claiming anything.
108m went to the chair on August 4th,

... three

He was smart—but he just didn't
figure right.

DEVIL'S HANDYMAN

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 75

Avenue and hit every bar and grill
from 14th Street to 23rd. If that’s her

- hangout she might have been in one

of those joints last night.”

It was decided that Anselmi was
to comb that portion of 3rd Avenue
where Mary Dillon might be known,
and Denham was to start a search for
the cab that brought the couple to
the Commercial Hotel.

Armed with her police picture, An-
selmi began his tour of the cheap
bistros under the 3rd Avenue ele-
vated. Luck, however, seemed to be
running against him. While the face
on the photograph seemed familiar
to many a bartender and habitue of
the drinking spots, no one could defi-
nitely say who she was, much less
tell whether they had seen her re-
cently.

The following morning’s papers
carried the story of the murder and
cuted the police picture of Mary

illon. Soon after the Papers appeared

on the streets a man came to the-

Bellevue Morgue to offer positive
identification. The man told police he
had been a friend of the dead woman’s
for the past two years. She had come
from a fine family in an upstate New
York town. He also said he hadn’t
seen Mary Dillon for some time.
Meanwhile, Detectives Anselmi and
Denham continued their respective
searches, While Denham checked the
cab companies Anselmi returned to
3rd Avenue. This time, however, he
decided to visit every store, speak to
every inhabitant along the street.
he had done the night before,
he. began at 14th Street and 3rd Ave-
nue. He approached a newsdealer on
the corner. The newsie viewed the
photograph carefully.
“Sure, I know her,” he told An-
selmi, “that’s the Delaney girl.”
“When did you see her last?”
“The night before last,” the news-
dealer, who gave his name as Ben-
jamin Leichus, responded. “Rather it
was early in the morning of the 9th,

yesterday. A friend of mine, Michael
Tally, a jewelry peddler, and I were
in the 98 Cafe, at 98 3rd Avenue,
around 3 a.m. Marion Delaney was
sitting around having a drink when
this guy comes in and right away
starts picking her up. He’s a husky
little fellow I’d seen around before.

“Well, after they had a couple of
drinks they walked out together.”

“You say you saw this man around
before?” Anselmi asked quickly.

“Yeah,” Leichus said. “He used to
hang around this neighborhood a cou-
ple of years back. I never knew his
name but I heard people call him
Mike.”

“Where'd he live, what did he do?”

Leichus shook his head. “Maybe
Tally can tell you. He’s at the
Jeweler’s Exchange down on_ the
Bowery.”

Anselmi thanked Leichus and hur-
riedly rode to the Jeweler’s Exchange.
Tally was soon found and a brief
conversation with him corroborated
all that Leichus had told the detective.

“I don’t know where this Mike
lives,” Tally offered, “but I do recall
he used to go witha girl by the name
of Eleanor in that neighborhood.”
Tally didn’t know the girl’s last name
but he told Anselmi. that Eleanor
worked in some hospital as a maid,

Detective Anselmi went back to
Assistant D. A. Grebow’s Office to
map out the next step in the cam-
paign. A long, tedious checking of all
the hospitals in New York City for
a maid named Eleanor was in pros-
pect.

Detective Denham, at that moment,
was on his way to the garage of the
Zenith Cab Corp. at 506 East 20th
Street. He had learned from the rec-
ords of the license bureau that several
taxicab companies were allotted plates
whose numbers began with 025, Com-
Piling a list of these firms, Denham’s
checking had narrowed the field down
to the Zenith outfit as users of new
tan and brown vehicles.


METELSKI, Edward, wh,

Top picture shows close-
up of shell found in
death car. At bottom is a
test shell shot from gun
of slayer.

HE wide cement ribbon of Route

25, a few miles south of New
Brunswick, New Jersey; stretching
away to the horizon’s first streak of
a yellowish dawn, was as quiet and
lifeless as it usually was at five
o’clock in the morning.

State Trooper John Matey, at the
wheel of the police car, and his part-
ner, Trooper Warren G. Yenser, sit-
ting at his side, paid no particular
attention to the one car in sight as
it approached from the opposite di-
rection. It seemed to crawl at the
usual snail’s pace of far-off objects.
Not until it was a few hundred yards
away did Yenser notice anything
about its speed.

“Say, that bird sure is going
some,” he remarked.

It was an understatement. For, as
the machine came nearer, this “go-
ing some” was translated into seven-
ty-five or eighty miles an hour. It
roared past the two officers at a
breath-taking pace and, before the
astonished troopers could’ turn
around and start in pursuit, receded
into the distance and into the illu-
sion of diminishing size until it
looked like a large bug.

“Step on it, John,” Yenser snap-
ped. “That’s one bird who’s going
to get a ticket if it’s the last thing
I do on this earth.”

Matey nodded. He pushed the
speedometer up to sixty, then sev-
enty, then seventy-five, and then
eighty. The hot tires hummed as
they spun over the hard surface, and
trees and underbrush jerked by in
a long, grey-green blur. But still the
police car did not seem to gain. Yen-
ser shook his head.

“Why, he must be doing eighty-
five or ninety,” he ejaculated. “Can
you get a little more speed out of
her?”

24

elec

NJSP (Middlesex) August 4, 1936

Matey bore down on the accelera-
tor until the needle trembled around
eighty-five, keeping on at this rate
until they had eaten up five miles,
then ten, then fifteen.

Evidently those in the coupe didn’t
know they were being pursued. For,
at Avenal, they stopped and pulled
over to the side of the road. The
police machine drew up opposite.

“Let’s see’ your
Yenser began.

The sentence was never completed.
The coupe, the heat from which
could be felt by the two officers, sud-
denly pulsed into life. It leapt for-
ward. Before the two troopers were
fully .cognizant of what had oc-
curred, it tore down the road at a
constantly-accelerating speed until it
had put almost a full mile between
it and the other car.

Now the infuriated officers took
up the chase all over again. This
time they went about three miles to
where the coupe had once more
pulled to the side of the road.

“Probably ran out of gas,” Matey
observed as they approached. “That
would be the only reason for them
to stop now, since they know we're
after them.”

It was a logical explanation. But
it wasn’t a true one, as the events of
the next few moments were to show
with heartbreaking clarity. Matey,
his mouth set in grim anger, once
again drew up abreast of the other
car. Yenser leaned out of the near
window.

“Hand over your license,” he de-
manded tersely.

“Sure,” said a husky voice inside
the darkened vehicle. “Here it is.”

The end of a sawed-off shotgun
was thrust through the rear window.
With an ear-splitting roar, a lava-
hot eruption of leaden pellets

”

LATEST DETECTIVE, Winter, 1948

sprayed from the weapon and tore
into Yenser’s face. In an appalling
fraction of time they transformed
his handsome, boyish countenance
into a mutilated, blood-covered mass
of seared and torn flesh.

The upper part of his body sagged
onto his fellow-officer’s knees, send-
ing a crimson stream over his uni-
form trousers and puttees. It was
not until the latter felt its soaking
warmth against his skin that he
came to a full realization of the
tragedy which had come so suddenly
out of the peaceful morning. His
emotions a turbulent mixture of sur-
prise, pity and blazing anger, he tore
his gun from its leather container
and fired shot after shot at the rap-
idly-receding coupe.

Then, with but one thought in his
mind, that of getting his stricken
companion to the hospital as soon as
possible, he lifted him up by the
shoulders, propped him against the
seat, and roared down the road to-
ward Elizabeth with every ounce of
speed he could get out of the car. -

He stopped only once, in front of
an all-night lunch wagon. His shrill
police whistle brought the proprietor
to the door.

“Trooper shot!” he — shouted.
“Phone Elizabeth Police headquart-
ers! Notify them to watch for a
blue coupe with a Pennsylvania li-
cense!”

It was just a few minutes later
when Matey, with the help of sev-
eral orderlies, carried the terribly
wounded 'Yenser into the Elizabeth
Hospital. But in those few moments
Sergeant Leonard Mayes, night op-
erator at Elizabeth headquarters,
who received the phone call from the
lunch wagon owner, had sent a mes-
sage flashing out of the magic dia-
phragm in front of-every police ma-
chine within a radius of fifty miles:

“Calling all cars. Calling all cars.

Be on lookout for blue coupe with

Pennsylvania license driven by

two men. State trooper shot by

them at Avenal. Use caution. Men
armed and desperate. Watch every
road and shoot to kill’

Simultaneously the police call
boxes in Elizabeth rang a general
alarm for all uniformed patrolmen,
sending them scurrying to answer.

Pee

H
E
t

"Don't —
Worry, Y
Give You

Be

One by on
ble speed, th
to call in. A
man John
pounding hi
Street. Accc
trolman Geo

Morris hs
from vhe bc
coupe just p
ent, appare!
other autor
looked more
was decided
Pennsylvani
steam liter
radiator. S
vember mor
that it had
speed.

“That’s it
ris shouted
“Call headq
sighted the
sey Street!’

Geiger bz
of the sen
running to
which was

“Tail th:
manded the

It was ob
observed th
coupe bega
idly it put
the lumber

But int

passed the
quarters, \
all police c
that in wh
ert Keck

riding. T}

a few bloc

seen the ¢

headquart
Their e
of Morris
radio hac
routine
looked up
vehicle ra:
followed :
by the tax
on the ru
police wh


‘eapon and tore
In an appalling
ey transformed
ish countenance
jod-covered mass
flesh.
his body sagged
er’s knees, send-
um over his uni-
puttees. It was
- felt its soaking
is skin that he
salization of the
come so suddenly
ul morning. His
it mixture of sur-
ing anger, he tore
leather container
r shot at the rap-

yne thought in his
ting his stricken
aospital as soon as
ij him up by the
i him against the
down the road to-
ith every ounce of
out of the car.

y once, in front of
wagon. His shrill
aght the proprietor

t!” he shouted.
, Police headquart-
m to watch for a
a Pennsylvania li-

few minutes later
th the help of sev-
arried the terribly
into the Elizabeth
those few moments
-d Mayes, night op-
ibeth headquarters,
. phone call from the
ner, had sent a mes-
it of the magic dia-
- of every police ma-
-adius of fifty miles:
ars. Calling all cars.
for blue coupe with
license driven by
-ate trooper shot by
val. Use caution. Men
ssperate. Watch every
fot to kill”

sly the police call
beth rang a general
uniformed patrolmen,
scurrying to answer.

"Don't — Kill — Me," The Killer Begged.

Worry, You Rat,” The Officer Shot Out Bitterly. “
Give You A Chance. That's More

For Yenser.”

ad Bo

One by one, with almost incredi-
ble speed, the “harness” men .began
to call in. Among them was Patrol-
man John Morris, who had been
pounding his beat on West Jersey
Street. Accompanying him was Pa-
trolman George Geiger.

Morris had barely turned away

from the box when he saw a blue
coupe just passing. It was no differ-
ent, apparently, from hundreds of
other automobiles. But when he
looked more closely he saw that it
was decidedly distinctive. It had a
Pennsylvania license, and it had
steam literally pouring from the
radiator. Since it was a cold No-
vember morning there was no doubt
that it had been running at high
speed.
“That’s it! That’s the car!” Mor-
ris shouted to the astounded Geiger.
“Call headquarters and tell ’em we've
sighted the blue coupe on West Jer-
sey Street!”

Geiger barely caught the last part
of the sentence. For Morris was
running toward an empty taxicab
which was just passing.

“Tail that blue coupe,” he com-
manded the driver.

It was obvious that his quarry had
observed the move. Immediately the
coupe began picking up speed. Rap-
idly it put distance between it and
the lumbering taxi.

But in the meantime Geiger had
passed the message along to head-
quarters, which was relaying it to
all police cruisers. Among them was
that in which Radio Patrolman Rob-
ert Keck and John Carolan were
riding. They were on First Street,
a few blocks from where Morris had
seen the coupe, when the flash from
headquarters was received.

Their experience duplicated that
of Morris. The instrument board
radio had barely transmitted the
routine ‘That is all’ when Keck
looked up to see the pharitom-like
vehicle racing down East Jersey St.,
followed at a considerable distance
by the taxicab, with Morris standing
on the running board shrilling his
police whistle.

ELST Ta

comers or.

Pe ae cn ee SLA AERALTL AD ANE

"Don't
i
Than You Did

Ed

By JOSEPH FULLING FISHMAN

@

Twisting the wheel around, Keck
took up the chase. As the fleeing
machine rounded into Trumble St.,
Carolan sent a bullet at its tires. But
he was going too fast to take ac-
curate aim. The slug went wild. It
was answered by two from the coupe.
These also were wasted.

The fugitive machine, with the
pouring steam from its tank slicing
back to evaporate in the air, turned
into Schiller Street at seventy miles
an hour, and whined on toward the
Elizabeth Airport.

But Keck was gaining on it. And
the fugitive undoubtedly knew it.
For, in front of 260 Schiller Street,
the driver braked the car with such
force that it lurched from side to
side before coming to a full stop
against the curb.

Its two occupants tumbled out and
separated, one darting into an alley,
the other racing toward a vacant lot.

A few seconds later Keck brought
the police car to a stop. “I'll go af-
ter the one in the alley ; you take the
other,” he said to his partner.

With drawn guns the two officers
sped after the fleeing men. When
Keck reached the alley the one he
was pursuing was not in sight. But
Carolan saw the second fugitive as
he was entering Port Avenue, 4
highway which led to the so-called
“Jersey meadows’, high-weeded
wastes which comprise so much 02
the Garden State.

Carolan, firing as he went, in-
creased his speed. Once in that long
grass and cat-o’-nine-tails, he knew,
a man would be comparatively safe,
at least for a time. In the shelter of
those dank growths he could move
without being seen, and could easily
work his way back to another section
of the city.

Several times the fugitive turned
and shot at his pursuer. Then the
officer would throw himself flat on
his face. This caused him to lose
time. The distance between him and
his quarry widened. With heart-
breaking disappointment Carolan
saw him plunge into the high swamp
grass and be lost to view. The pa-

25

t.

trolman dared not follow. To do
so would make himself a target for
a savage killer whom he could not
even see,

Morris, whose commandeered taxi
had been greatly outdistanced, now
came puffing up, to share Carolan’s
disappointment when he learned that
the fugitive had made his escape.

They raced to the nearest call box
and informed headquarters of. these
latest developments. The desk man
there, under orders of his superiors,

: Phoned the Standard Oil Company
to ask for the loan of one of their
airplanes. The company willingly
agreed. A few moments later the
plane, at a low altitude, was skim-
ming over the meadows in the area
where the fugitive had disappeared.

But no sign. of him, or of the other
man who had dodged into the alley,
was found. Undoubtedly the former
had done what Carolan feared—
pushed through the weeds and skirt-
ed around toward another section of
the city before entering it.

Long before the pursuit through
the streets was over, however,
Trooper Yenser had succumbed to
his injuries. His death saddened all

those who knew him, as. he was un-’

usually popular not only among his
fellow-officers, but among all others
with whom his duties or his social
life brought him in contact.

Immediately the news of his pass-
ing was received at the headquarters
of the State Troopers at Trenton,
Captain John Lamb, Chief of State
Detectives, hurried to Elizabeth. He
took with him two of his best men,
Detectives George Dube and Henry
Stockberger. At the same time he
issued orders for every state trooper
within an area of twenty-five miles
of Elizabeth to go to the city at once,
to report to Acting Chief of Police
Frank Brennan, and to work under
his direction.

The latter had been far from idle.
Following the attack on Yenser he
had called back to duty every officer
on leave, and had assigned all others
who could be spared to the duty of
tracking down the demoniac slayer.
Within half an hour after the news
of the tragedy had been phoned from
the little all-night lunch wagon, more
than five hundred officers had been
alerted. And every one of them,
either actuated by the thought of
the prestige involved, by a sincere
liking for the slain trooper, or both,
was keeping a sharp lookout for the
murderers.

But nothing came of it until Chief
Brennan and Captain Gus Winkle-
man, his aide, made a search of the

26.

a

State Trooper
Warren G. Yenser
Victim of a savage and unpro-
voked attack.

coupe which had been
the killers.

Captain Winkleman had an out-
standing reputation for his ability
to evaluate apparently trivial clues,
and to build upon them substantial
theoretical structures which usually
worked out with survrising accur-
acy.

He had few clues to go on here—
a broken rear window, two foot-

abandoned by

prints on the side of the car where:

one of the men had alighted, a
Sawed-off shotgun with: an exploded
Shell, a half-filled whiskey bottle, a
few small automobile tools, some
strands of rope, and a button to
which was adhering several pieces
of gray cloth.

One by one he studied these ob-
jects. Then he turned to Chief Bren-
nan, who was watching him expect-
antly, convinced that he would come
up with a plausible, and in all prob-
‘ability:a tenable, theory.

“T think I’m beginning to get a
bit of the lay,” he remarked slowly.
“The fellow who lost this button’ was
wearing a gray coat, probably an
overcoat, and may have been wound-
ed. There is a speck or two of what
looks like blood on the shreds of
cloth, And the owner of the coat, I
think, was of the bum type, or at

least wasn’t particularly concerned av
with cleanliness,” Oi
“What makes you think that?” un
“The greasy condition of the but- ™0
ton, plus the fact that this footprint
shows that his right shoe was brok- sul
en across the middle of the sole. A bu
man particular about his appearance pe!
wouldn’t go around with a shoe of :
that kind. And I believe he weighs sel
about a hundred and forty or a hun- tw:
dred and fifty pounds, and that he is bot
of a rather chunky build.” but
“How do you know all that?”
Brennan challenged. ]
“T don’t know it for certain, but offi
I'd be willing to bet I’m almost right. wa:
In the first place, notice: the depth too
of the print in the earth. Now, bet
Chief, notice the depth of your print 7
as well as mine. We both weigh 81g!
about a hundred and eighty pounds. bec.
See how much deeper our impression sey
is than the one he made. He is prob- mig
ably of a chunky build, too.” rail
“And how do you figure that one any
out, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” Bren- kno
nan kidded. cove
“By the spread of the print. Usu- wou
ally men of a chunky build wear a unt
wide shoe. And of course the half- ae
as

empty whiskey bottle may show that
both of the men were pretty well liq- W

uored up. The most important clue, mal
it seems to me, is this button. But occa
that isn’t of much value until we win'
catch our men.” the
“All right, I’m going to accept to 3
your theories,” Brennan agreed. He wick
telephoned headquarters. Immedi- idle
ately thereafter a supplementary the
alarm went winging with radar-like -
speed through the ether: wit
“Calling all cars. Be on lookout | Leia
for short, heavily built man, =a
weighing about.one hundred forty | aay
and wearing dirty, shabby gray °
overcoat. One button and part of halal
cloth missing from either jacket 1g
or overcoat. Man has been drink- in tt
ing and may be under influence of = :
liquor. Take no chances. Man dan- pes .
gerous. That is all.” pal
Every place within a radius of }
fifty miles, including Newark and ty ~
New York, received this message, al- pushi
though both Brennan and Captain he
Lamb were certain that the one fug-
itive at least had slipped out 6f the piel
Swamp grass and was hiding out { load
somewhere in Elizabeth. Gei
They did not permit this theory, pullec
however, to interfere with a further forwe
search of the meadows. A dozen men, thoug
guns in hand, prowled,through the The
marshes, knee deep in water and able }
mud, looking for the fugitives. At iA the m
the same time the plane, piloted by bi him a
William McPhaul, an experienced: 4 tion o

. id

——

arly concerned

think that?”

ion of the but-
t this footprint
shoe was brok-
of the sole. A
his appearance
with a shoe of
lieve he weighs

stint hanna

forty or a hun-
3, and that he is
uild.”
now all that?”

for certain, but
I’m almost right.
notice’ the depth
je earth. Now,
sth of your print
We both weigh
d eighty pounds.
yr our impression
yade. He is prob-
1ild, too.”

1 figure that one
Holmes?” Bren-

f the print. Usu-
vky build wear a
‘ eourse the half-
tle may show that
re pretty well liq-
3t important clue,
this button. But
h value until we

going to accept
ennan agreed. He
iarters. Immedi-
a supplementary
ag with radar-like
ether:
‘-s. Be on lookout
avily built man,
one hundred forty
irty, shabby gray
sutton and part of
from either jacket
an has been drink-
under influence of
chances. Man dan-
3 all.”
ithin a radius of
ding Newark and
ad this message, al-
nan and Captain
n that the one fug-
slipped out 6f the
id was hiding out
zabeth.
permit this theory,
fere with a further
idows. A dozen men,
rowled through the
jeep in water and
r the fugitives. At
he plane, piloted by
ul, an experienced:

aviator employed by the Standard ling sensation to Pulse like a warm at him, and once more cast down his

Oil Company, skimmed low over the gush through his veins. eyes.
“Stand up,” the officer command-

undergrowth, on the alert for any Clinging to the cuff of the man’s
moving figures. trousers was a cockle purr of the ed, his hand fingering the butt of his

Their efforts met with zero in re- kind with which the Jersey meadows gun and his left fist clenched ready
sults. There was little doubt now abounded! for immediate action.

put that the killers had, at least tem- Geiger retraced his steps and There was a frightened look in the
porarily, eluded capture. stood in front of the hunched-over other’s face as he rose slowly to his

All the officers had to solace them- _ticket-holder. The latter, evidently, feet. As he straightened up Geiger
selves with was an additional clue of had not previously noticed him. Now experienced that soul-satisfying
two thumb prints on the whiskey his eyes caught the blue of the pa- thrill of exultation which every
pottle. These however, like the torn trolman’s uniform trousers. He peace officer regards as more than
button, were of little use until the glanced upward, saw Geiger looking (Continued on page 56)
quarry was run to earth.

Among the now-several-hundred
officers on the lookout for the killers
was Patrolman Geiger, whose beat |
took in the railroad station at Eliza- |
beth, and who had been with Patrol-
man Morris when the blue coupe was
sighted. Geiger, who subsequently
became Jail Inspector of New Jer-
sey, had a theory that the slayers
might attempt to leave the city by
rail. He reasoned that, if they had
any intelligence at all, they would
know that all highways had been
covered, and that their best chance
would be to lurk around the station
until a train pulled in, and then to
rush up and board it like so many
last-minute commuters.

With this in mind, Geiger re-
mained in the vicinity of the station,
occasionally peering through the
window and giving the once-over to °
the people there. Finally he decided
to go in and lounge around the
wicket as though he were engaged in
idle conversation with Fred Fangrel,
the agent.

Never did a theory prove itself
with greater accuracy. As a train
pulled in a man rushed up to the
window and asked, ‘Where's that
train going?”

“Tt’s not going anywhere,” the
agent responded. “This is the end of
its run. Where do you want to go Wks

“Oh!” There was disappointment
in the prospective passenger's voice
as he stammered, “Why—uh--uh—
New York.”

“There'll be a train in about twen-
ty minutes,” the agent informed,
pushing a ticket through the open-
ing.

The other paid for it and then
went to the end of the room and sat
down.

Geiger noticed that he kept his hat
pulled over his eyes, and that he bent
forward looking at the floor as
though he were in deep thought.

The Patrolman had an unexplain-
able hunch. He walked casually by
the man, shooting @ sharp glance at
him as he passed. A jerky accelera-

tion of his heartbeat caused a ting-

i eae Fm s
police at Elizabeth, New Jersey.

bs

Arrest of Edward Metelski by
27


e

TAMING of
Bad Boy Eddie
fo SSeS Se ar

. (Continued from page 27)
ample compensation for weeks and
months, and even years, of drudgery
and monotony.

One button on the right side of the
overcoat was missing! And the coat
was gray and dirty! And the man
weighed about 140, and was of
chunky build!: And the sole of his
right shoe, which Geiger made him
lift up, was cut across the middle!

Every deduction of Captain
Winkleman, notwithstanding the
tenuous clues on which they were
based, had been borne out by the
facts!

With the feeling that he was walk-
ing on air, Geiger took his prisoner
to headquarters. He ushered him
into Chief Brennan’s office, trying to
keep his voice casual as he took him
aside and announced:

“Here’s one of those fellows who
killed Yenser, Chief.”

Brennan jumped as though a bolt
of electricity had been shot through
him. He saw the dirty grey coat and
the missing button. Then he smiled
at the proud patrolman and grasped
his hand. “That’s swell work,
George!” he exclaimed, but keeping
his voice low.

He listened for a moment while
Geiger explained how he had made
the pinch. Then he sent for Captain
Lamb. But before they interviewed
the sullen suspect, he took the Cap-
tain aside.

“Don’t say anything about the
button at first,” he counseled. “Nor
about the fingerprints we found on
that bottle. We'll spring those
things on him later. We want him to
think that we haven’t much or him,
and that we know it was his partner
who did the actual shooting. The

most important thing is to locate the.

bird who was with him. We don’t
have to worry about this fellow. We
have enough on him right now to
send him to the chair.”

Geiger had already searched the |

man for weapons. Now a complete
frisk revealed several hundred dol-
lars in bills, together with some
change. Outside of this there was
only the usual miscellany of pen-

56

knife, keys, handkerchief, and so on,

such as are usually found in the
pockets of all men.

The prisoner gave his name as Ed-
ward Witowski. His fingerprint clas-
sification, however, telephoned to the
FBI at Washington, disclosed that
his real name -was Edward Metelski,
and that he had a long and unsavory
police record.

As a juvenile offender, he had been
arrested an even dozen times in
Newark, and had been sentenced to
the Eastern State Penitentiary at
Philadelphia for receiving - stolen
goods.

Released on parole after serving
two years, he had violated its condi-
tions by leaving the state without
first obtaining the permission of the
parole authorities. He was next
heard of in St. Louis, where he was
arrested for auto theft. He beat this
rap, and also one in Kansas City for
a similar offense. Returning to New-

‘ark, he was caught. robbing a safe

and. was sentenced to three years.
Again he was released on parole,
this time at the end of six months.
On three other occasions he was sen-
tenced for various offenses, but each
time was released before the expira-
tion of his term.

In 1934 he was sentencéd to the
chain gang in Raleigh, North Caro-
lina, for safe robbery. On August
17, 1935, he escaped, being a fugi-
tive from the Tar Heel State at the
time he was picked up by Patrolman
Geiger. .

He did not attempt to deny any of
this criminal record. As a matter of
fact, he boasted of it, particularly of
the cleverness of his escape from the

chain gang. But he affected surprise.

when questioned about the murder
of Trooper Yenser.

“T don’t know a thing about that,”
he insisted.

“Where did you get that mud on
your shoes and that burr on your
trousers?”

“I walked from Newark to Eliza-
beth.”

“Where were you last night and
early this morning?”

“In a erap game. It started at

eight o’clock and kept going all
night.”

“Where?”

“In my mother’s home at 48 Lentz
Avenue.” ;

“That’s in Newark, isn’t it? Did-
n’t you say you were in Elizabeth?”

“T made a mistake,” the prisoner
answered. “I meant I walked from
Elizabeth to Newark.”

“Why d you walk? You had plenty
of money with you with which to
ride.”

“Well, I—I uh—well, I just like to
walk.”

“T° get it,’. Brennan .came back
ironically, “you’re just one of those
fresh air fiends. Now, we know the
actual shooting was done by the fel-
low with you. Of course, if you want
to be a sucker and take his rap,
that’s up to you. Do you think he’d
do it for you? Now, tell us who he
is, and let him suffer for what he
did.”

The strategy didn’t work. Metel-
ski still declared he knew nothing of
Yenser’s murder. No amount of per-
suasion, flattery, promises or threats
could change his story. Nor were
the officers able, by trick questions,
to trap him into some kind of a dis-
crepancy which would provide an
opening wedge to a possible confes-
sion.

It was ridiculously easy, however,
to crack his alibi that he had been
playing crap all night at the home
of his mother. The latter, when ques-
tioned, asserted she had not seen him
for more than two years. Nor did
she exhibit the usual motherly con-
cern for her offspring. It was ob-
vious that she considered him a hope-
lessly bad egg.

Convinced there was little chance
of obtaining help from Metelski in
locating his partner in crime, the
Chief had him taken back to a cell.

“We've -got an ironclad case
against him,” he told Lamb. “That
button fits perfectly into his over-
coat; the shreds of cloth clinging: to
it match the color and texture; and
the fingerprints on the whiskey bot-
tle are his. We’re through with that
bird.”

Captain Lamb agreed. But “that
bird” didn’t. The officers, as they
were to find out later, were far from
through with him. _

Now,: however, they concentrated
on finding his partner, following
some “doping” on the part of Chief
Brennan which would have done
credit to an Einstein.

“Metelski admits that he lives by
burglary,” he told Captain Lamb.

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“Now, why was he tearing up the
road at eighty or ninety miles an
hour at five o’clock in the morning?
Isn’t it possible that he was trying
to put as much distance as possible
between himself and some stick-up?”

Lamb nodded agreement.

“O. K.”, the Chief went on. “It

. seems to me then that the thing to
do is; first, to trace that car in which Jersey towns and cities were in-

he was riding, and which in all prob-
ability was hot, and then to work
backwards on recent stickups around
the place from which the car was
heisted—if it was heisted. If we can
locate some stickup which he and his
pal pulled, we might find out who the
pal was.”

Again Lamb agreed that the rea-
soning was logical. And one part of
it, at least, did turn out to be accur-
ate. The car had been stolen from
Jack Cutler. It had been taken from
in front of his home at 1929 North
Myrtlewood Avenue in Philadelphia.
. The moment this information was
received from the Pennsylvania offi-
cials, Brennan dispatched two of his
best men, Detectives Henry Stock-
berger and George Dube, to Phila-
delphia. They went immediately to
the local police and obtained a list of
stickups beginning with November
8th, the time at which Cutler’s car
was stolen.

One by one they rounded up the
victims and as many of those who
had been present as they could find.
All were shown the photograph of
Metelski.

It was not until they came to a
small cafe on the outskirts of the
city that the detectives had any luck.
Marjorie White, the head waitress
there, immediately identified the pic-
ture of Metelski as one of the men

who had robbed the place. This was .

confirmed by three customers who
had been present, William Starrett,
John Cupio and James Burns.

The elated .sleuths hustled the
four of them to the Philadelphia
Rogues Gallery. They had gone over
several hundred photographs before
they gave a simultaneous exclama-
tion, followed by a babel of “There
he is! That’s him! I’d know him
anywhere!” and similar affirmations.

The picture they pointed out was
that of .Albert Morton, known as
“Whitey”, who had a long police rec-
ord, and who had been one of the no-
torious “Shooey” Bonner mob which,
until broken up, had trafficked in
narcotics‘and white slavery.

The alarm for Morton was more
far-reaching than that which had
been sent out for Metelski. For the

58

former had had plenty of time to get
anywhere in the United States, if
not even out of the country. Within
twenty-four hours of his identifica-
tion, his ‘‘mug” and description were
on the bulletin boards in hundreds
of police departments, while state
troopers -and the police of Newark,
Elizabeth, Rahway and other New

structed to give first importance to
the capture of the remaining thug.

Armed with this additional infor-
mation, Brennan and Lamb again
interviewed Metelski. They decided
that an initial shock might be the
means of “opening up” the obdurate
killer.

“Well, we’ve got Morton, and he
says you did the actual shooting,”
Brennan began with designed cas-
ualness.

“Morton?” Metelski repeated, a
barely perceptible break in his voice.

“Sure; the fellow who was with
you when Yenser was murdered.”

The prisoner seemed to take hold
of himself. ‘He wasn’t with me,” he
asserted. ‘Nobody was with me, be-
cause I wasn’t there. I tell you I
don’t know anything about that
shooting.”

“No? Well, that. isn’t what Mor-
ton says. He claims you fired the
shot. And he says you knew all the
time where he was, and that the only
reason you didn’t tell us was because
you knew he’d put the finger on you
for doing the actual killing.”

There was much more of the same
kind of questioning, Brennan and
Lamb hoping that Metelski, thinking
Morton already caught, would drop
something which would give a clue
to his whereabouts. Or possibly to
some of his feminine companions,
through whom he might be traced.

But, after a wearying three hours,
during which they learned nothing
additional, they had the prisoner
taken back to his cell. Now, unless
they had an unexpected break, they
were sure that finding Morton would
be a long and tedious process.

Stockberger and Dube, in Philadel-
phia, had already set themselves to
this task. Day after day they slowly
and laboriously followed up every
single clue, no matter how nebulous,
which drifted:into them through the
various stoolpigeons whom the Phil-
adelphia officers had put on the job.
One of the latter called up Detective
Martin Flaherty, who had been de-
signed to assist the two New Jersey

. sleuths.

“If you tail Dorrie Grimes maybe

= oe

you’ll find out something,” he whis-
pered.

Doris Grimes was the name of a
well-known “call house” girl. Fla-
herty took the tip. The haunts of
Doris were well known, and it was
easy enough to find: her. ,They fol-
lowed her to a respectable rooming
house in the northern part of the
city, where she lived when not out
on “business”.

The place was kept under constant
surveillance and the girl \tailed for
more than two weeks. Then the
“spot” on the house was lifted. The
following day Mrs. Gallagher, the
landlady, smelt gas. She traced it to
the third floor rear, the room occu-
pied by a man who had come in the
night before.

She opened the door. A suffocat-
ing wave of gas fumes poured
through the opening. The landlady
slammed the door and sent for the

police, Wearing masks, they entered ”

the room and checked the eo
ing flow.

Lying lifeless on the bed was the
fully-dressed lodger. Clutched in his
hand was a note:

“I’m sorry to cause you all this

trouble. Don’t notify anybody.

Nobody gives a damn”.

But he was wrong. The police did.
For they identified the dead man as
the long-sought Whitey Morton! His
nerves shattered by the spectre of
the electric chair, he had takén his
own life. The long finger of the mur-
dered Trooper Yenser had reached
out from its grave to destroy one of
his slayers!

“One down,” Brennan said grimly
when he received the news of Mor-
ton’s death. “And the other one sure
to go,” he added.

It was a prophetic sentence. But
not in the way the Chief meant.
Metelski, in the Middlesex County
Jail at New Brunswick, had his own
plans concerning his future. And
they didn’t jibe at all with those the
officers had for him.

It was in the midst of the Christ-
mas-New Years holiday week. The
evening meal was just being fed to
the inmates. George Hill, a colored
trusty, with Warden George Ander-

son in his wake, came down the cor- -

ridor carrying Metelski’s supper.
Anderson unlocked the cell door, then
stood outside, as was his custom,
while Hill entered with the meal. He
had followed this routine since Me-
telski’s incarceration, as he had been
warned of the desperate nature of
the killer.

The prisoner stood up as Hill en-

tered, as though preparing to take
the metal tray from him. But when
he reached out it was with his fist.

Propelled with the strength of des-

peration, it collided with a clapping
impact against the trusty’s jaw, scat-
tering the contents of the tray over
the cot. and floor and sending its
dazed target reeling backwards.

The stunned Warden, but half
aware of this astounding departure
from routine, started forward, and
then stopped, staring incredulously
at the gun in Metelski’s hand. He
stood rigid, as if in a trance, when
the latter spoke:

“Just one move, screw, and you’re
dead. That’s right. Now, take just
two steps to the left. O. K.”

He slipped out of the cell. “Now
get in there,” he commanded.

The Warden could only comply.
Metelski slammed the door shut, then
made Anderson hand over his keys.

’“Goodbye,” he jeered. “You can
have that lousy junk you call food.
Maybe you’ll like it.”

A minute later he was out on the
street. With him.was Paul Senenko,
an ex-pugilist charged with a stick-
up, whom he had released on his way
out.

It would be difficult to describe the
bitterness experienced by Brennan
and Lamb, as well as every state
trooper, when.they learned of Metel-
ski’s escape. All their hard, tedious
work, their risking of their very
lives, had gone for nothing. And not
only that, but the life of any one of
them who. might nuw apprehend the
armed slayer, was. again in danger.
For if Metelski had beer desperate
before, he was doubly so now, when
he knew that capture was tanta-
mount to his execution.

An investigation was immediately
begun to find out how he had ob-
tained the gun. Suspicion fastened
on Mary Trianano, a flashy-looking
blonde, who had. visited him in: jail
on several occasions.. She could not
be located.

But Chief Brennan did succeed in
locating Mary Metelski, the killer’s
wife, for whom they had been
searching since he was first arrested.
While the fugitive had only been

‘married to her for four months, he

had already proven unfaithful with
the Trianano woman.
The young wife, a decidedly pretty

woman, knew this. And, naturally, |

she was not at all friendly to the one
who had, at least partially, displaced
her. But she insisted she did not
know shere the Trianano woman
could be found. \ .

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Now the indefatigable Stockberger
and Dube started their plodding, ted-
ious work all over again—this time
to locate once more the man they had
considered as good as in the electric
chair. Through the aid of stool-pig-
eons, they finally found Metelski’s
blonde sweetheart, Mary: Trianano,
in a rooming house in New York.

But, so far as obtaining any in-
formation from her was concerned,
they might as well have saved them-
selves the trouble. She was sneering
and combative.

“Sure I visited Eddie,” she
sneered. “What of it? I love him.”

“Loved him enough to pass him a
gun, didn’t you?”

“That’s what you say, copper. Try
and prove it.”

“Maybe we can, and maybe we
can’t,” Brennan shot back. “But
there’s one thing we can do, and
that’s to throw you in the clink until
your memory improves. And that’s
exactly what we’re going to do.”

“Go ahead,” the woman chal-
lenged. “I’ll stay there for a hun-

SSeS SSSA

my |

SSssqsx
j

\Y

dred years before I squeal to any
cop.”

Realizing that, at the moment at
least, further talk was uséless, Bren-
nan had her taken to jail. Then he
gave the story of her arrest to the
newspapers. Vague fragments of a
plan to entrap the fugitive were be-
ginning to form in the back of his
head. The pattern of it was yet far
from clear. But.the Chief was sure
it would make itself manifest within
a short time.

In the meanwhile the route. taken
bythe fugitives was beginning to
show itself. At dusk on the evening
following the escape, William Frick,
a merchant of Plainfield, was driving
towards his home when a man jump-
ed from the side of the road into the
middle of it and started to wave his
arms. i

Frick recognized the prison uni-
form. Sure it was Metelski, whose
escape had been widely broadcast, he
stepped on the gas and spurted for-
ward. The man leapt to the side just
in time to avoid being run down.

SSX

rf

Y
q.
4
ee
Li
Z

“YOULL HAVE TO POSTPONE THe HANGING,—
IV GOT A SoRE THROAT: ”

60

The merchant promptly telephoned
State Trooper headquarters at Tren-
ton. Within a short time dozens of
men were searching the area where
the would-be hitch-hiker had been
seen. They found no sign of the two
fugitives.

But that they were still in the vi-
cinity was proven at three o’clock the
following: morning when they sud-
denly appeared at the Clark Gable
Roadhouse in Green Brook. The place
was closed, and the owner, Arthur
Clark, and his wife, were asleep in
their quarters above the cafe. Clark
opened the door. He tried to slam it
shut when he saw two men in prison
uniform. But the one holding a gun
thrust his foot inside.

“Want to get killed?” he snarled.
“Get all the money out of the cash
register.”

The proprietor complied. Then,
under the thug’s gun, he turned over
to them two of his suits. The con-
victs donned them, left their prison
uniform, and then departed after a
‘taunting: farewell.

Once more the officers rushed to
the scene. And once more their
search was fruitless. The fugitives
had vanished.

But they again put in an appear-
ance around six-thirty the following
night. Louis Boumpani, a barber of
Plainfield, was in his shop alone
when two men entered.

_“Stickup,” came tersely from the
armed one. ,

They tied and gagged their victim,
took all the money in the register—
about twenty dollars—ran out of the
shop, got into Boumpani’s car and
drove away.

Now Brennan and Lamb were
really worried. The two desperadoes
had a car and civilian clothes. Any
moment they might decide to try and

get out of the state. If they did, the |

charices of getting them would be im-
measurably lessened. The two offi-
cers didn’t care particularly about
Senenko. But the thought that Yen-
ser’s slayer might still beat the rap
was maddening to them.

Brennan went to see Deputy Chief
Haller at Newark, in whose judg-
ment he has much confidence. “‘We’ve
got to catch Metelski before he gets
out of the state,” he- asserted, “or
we may never get him.”

“Sure,” Haller agreed. “But how?
We’ve got several hundred men try-
ing to trap him. What else can we
do?” :

“We can let him trap himself,”
Brennan answered.

“What do you mean?”

other end—a sound which might
mean his death instead of the cap-
ture of the man he was after. Well,
it was all part of a cop’s job. If —

A blood-chilling ‘‘fee-e-e-ee” broke
into his thoughts. Stockberger. dart-
ed to the alley’s entrance just as a
racing man emerged. In the light
of a néarby lamp the officer caught
the glint of his gun. With the mem-
ory of the brutally-slain trooper
burning in his blood, Stockberger’s
fist looped out, sending his target
into a senseless heap on the pave-
ment.

In a moment or two the thug re-
covered, lying on his back and blink-
ing at the officer standing over him
with a gun in either hand, one of
which he recognized as his own.

“Don’t — kill — me,’ he begged.

“Don’t worry, you rat,” Stock-
berger shot out bitterly “I'll give

you a chance. That’s more than you

did for Yenser.”

Long and Grauley, in the mean-
time, had entered the saloon and
seized Senenko, who offered no resis-
tance.

Metelski’s case was rushed to trial.
It took but two hours for the jury to

find him guilty of murder in the first
degree, with no recommendation for
mercy. This made the death sentence .
mdndatory.

Just a year later, after the usual
appeal had been denied, Metelski
walked the last mile to the man-made
metal contraption which is about the
only thing many criminals fear. Five
minutes later his electric-shocked
heart had ceased to beat.

NOTE: The name Doris Grimes is
fictitious.
THE END

LE me

“COME COME ALI BABI,— CONCENTRATE /_ wuaT Comes NEXT APTER

=
— =e

~~

-

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vw

“THE six ?

CRIME-ODDITIES

Steamboat Runs Over Plane—Finis!
CHARLESTON, W. Va., Oct. 4 (AP). — The

Hunt Owner Of Lost Tombstone

If you’ve lost a tombstone in the vicinity of

oddest accident on record was logged at South’

Charleston’s police headquarters today—a steam-

boat ran over an airplane and demolished it.
The Maiscott Flying School reported Frank

Isaacs, piloting a seaplane, miscalculated the

shadow of electric wires on the Kanawha River, ©

altered his course and crash landed in the path
of a ship. Isaacs was treated for cuts on the ear.

Verona, N. J., for the luvva Pete hurry up and
claim it because Verona police have an 11-state
alarm out for the owner.. The 314-foot hunk of

granite is in memory of Anna Brierley and her’

infant daughter, who died in 1864 . A patrolman
found it in Verona Lake Park. There are no
cemeteries for miles around Verona.

64

ABR

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saan
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“ss a X
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ct
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Edward Metelski and Paul Semenkewitz,
Captured after gun battle.

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, CIRCULATION, ETC., REQUIRED BY

THE ACT OF CONGRESS OF AUGUST 24, 1912, AS AMENDED BY THE ACTS OF MARCH

;. ee id JULY 2, 1946 of LATEST DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, published quarterly at New
ork, N. Y. ‘

State of New York is

County of New York ; ihe

Before me, a Notary Public, in and for the State and county aforesaid, personally appeared Pierce L.
Wright, who, having been duly sworn according to law, deposes and says that he is the Tecinss Manager
of the LATEST DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, and that the followin is, to the best of his knowledge and
belief, a true statement of the ownership, management (and if a a. weekly, semiweekly or triweekly
newspaper, the circulation), etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above ‘caption,
required by the act of August 24, 1912, as amended by the acts of March 3, 1933, and July 2, 1946
(section 537, Postal Laws and Regulations), printed on the reverse of this form, to wit:

1. That the names and addresses of the ublisher, editor, managing editor, and business managers are:
publisher, Bermac Associates, Inc., 535 Fifth Ave., N. Y. City; editor, mana ing editor, Wallace
Hamilton Campbell, 535 Fifth Ave., N. Y. City; ‘business manager, Pierce L. Wright.

2. That the owner is: (If owned by a corporation, its name and address must be stated and’ also’ im-
mediately thereunder the names and addresses of stockholders owning or holding one percent or more of
total amount of stock. If not owned by a corporation, the names and addresses of the individual owners
must be given. If owned by a firm, company, or other unincorporated concern, its name and address,

New York City; Bernarr Macfadden, 535 Fifth Ave., y.
3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent.
or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities are: (If there are none, so state.) None.
4. That the two paragraphs next above, giving the names of the owners, stockholders, and security
holders, if any, contain not only the list of stoc holders and security holders as they appear upon the
books of the company but also, in cases where the stockhol or security holder appears upon the books
of the company as ‘trustee or in any other fiduciar relation, the name of the person or corporation for
whom such trustee is acting, is given; also that t ‘said two paragraphs contain statements embracin
affiant’s full knowledge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders an
security holders who do not appear upon the books of the company, as trustees, hold stock and securities
in a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner; and his affiant has no reason to believe that any
other person, association, or corporation has any interest direct or indirect in the said stock, bonds, or
other securities than as so stated by him. ;
5. That the average number of copies of each issue. of this publication sold or distributed; through the
“mails or otherwise, to paid subscribers durin the twelve months preceding the date shown above is
(This information is required from daily, weekly, semiweekly, and triweekly newspapers only.)
Pierce L. Wright
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 8th day of August, 1947,
MAXWELL E: SPARROW,

(My commission expires March 30, 1948.)

as well as those of each individual member, must be >. Associates, Inc., 535 Fifth Ave.,
4 it:

62

“I mean that, if he thinks Mary
Trianano is out, he may try to see
her,”

“I still don’t get you. She’s in,
isn’t she?”

“Yes—at the moment. But I’ve

-had some men checking up on her

and I think I know all the places in
which she hangs out. Metelski, un-
doubtedly, knows them too. So my
plan is, not to release Mary,‘ but to
give a story to the papers stating
she’s been freed, and then — — —”

“And then watch the places where
she hangs out to snag Metelski if
he tries to see her,” Haller finished.
“It’s a swell idea. Whether or -not
it’ll work is another question. But

- it’s sure worth a try.”

The story of Mary Trianano’s re-
lease for lack of evidence appeared
in the papers the following morning.
For two days and nights following,
a half dozen places known to have
been frequented by the girl were
kept under observation.

One of these was a saloon on Hal-
sey Street in Newark, a place which
was a rendezvous for many of the
shady characters of that city. Across
the street was an apartment house.
Behind the windows of a first floor
flat lurked State Trooper Francis
Long and Detective Charles Grauley,
of the Newark force. Every fifteen
or twenty minutes they could see De-

.tective Stockberger, looking like any

other passerby, as he walked up and
down the street, carefully avoiding
glancing at the tavern.

Both Long and Grauley were de-
cidedly skeptical “I know guys will
do a lot for a woman,” the former’
observed. “But they’ll think a long
time before they take a charice on
the chair. Now, if this — — —”

He stopped, gripping Grauley’s
arm. Stockberger, passing, had
waved to them from across the
street. It was a signal that the want-
ed men were approaching.

The two sleuths left their hiding
place. They contacted Stockberger a
half block away.

“Senenko’s gone into the saloon,”

he informed them. “Metelski’s wait-

ing in that alley just. alongside it.
He probably sent Senenko in to see
if the girl was there. The alley’s only
a block long. Circle around to the
back. Blow your whistle. I’ll grab
him when he comes out.”

Once more he sauntered carelessly
by the cafe, slowing up as he passed
the alley’s mouth. Then he retraced
his steps, rigid, expectant, waiting
for that shrill to split the darkness
from the two who had gone to the

ames

tl,
were
*

pgm om

His father made the
rules. Work alone.
With a gang there is
always a

weak one who erabs
the job or blabs to

the police

BY JOHN C. JOHNSON

Union, N. J., April 18, 1953
@ IT WAS THE strangest homecoming you
ever saw. 3

Nobody laughed or even smiled. The old
man had been away for seven years, yet he
greeted his family as though he had just
come back from the corner cigar store. He
kissed Mike’s mother awkwardly on the
cheek, then stood staring at Mike. He was
a small, sad-faced man, with steoped shoul-
ders and a balding head. He was only 43,
but he looked at least ten years older.

Mike knew he should say something ‘but
what do you say to a man who’s your father

—if he’s been gone half your life-time and
you're 14 years old?

“Say hello to your Pa,” Mike’s mother
said. .

Mike's ears got red. “Hello Pop,” he said.

His father didn’t answer. He just nodded.
It was as if all those years in prison had
made him afraid of his own voice.

“They made me get a job,” he said finally, |

peeling off his overcoat and tossing it over ‘
a chair. He made it- sound like someone
had played a dirty trick on him. “I start
work tomorrow.” Then he shuified out into
the kitchen and got himself a can of beer.

continued on next page

Gi
S

09
@O

@


“FAGIN & SON, INC. continued

Be homecoming took place January 7, 1952. Mike and his
’ tee were a in a couple of furnished rooms in Newark,
--N, J., at the time. Mike was only 14 then, a shy, baby-faced
“<- youngster who bit his nails and chain-smoked. His all name
“was Michael Monahan. He didn’t like school. He liked the
out-of-doors and he thought that some day he’d like to buy
a couple of acres of land away out in the country and become a

. truck farmer. :
Mike’s father began working the midnight to 8 AM. shift

at his factory job and he wasn’t happy about it. One week
after he came home he broke parole by buying a second-
hand car. That afternoon, when Mike came in. from school, é
his father was waiting for him. They went for a short Tide in @
the park. That was the first time Mike heard about his father’s
grag easy way to get dough,” his father said. “But I
need some one to work with me. Do you think you can handle
it?”

Police official ee Se-
~~ bastian Weilandics' body.

Sey

-

Mike looked down at his torn sneakers, the blood pounding in
his ears. He felt a little proud, and a little scared, too. “I don’t
knew, Pop,” he mumbled. “I never thought about anything like
‘that. I don’t wanna get in no trouble.”

His father’s face got as stiff as-a hunk of tanned leather.
“Lissen, kid,” he said, his voice hard: “I’m your old man, ain’t
I? If it’s good enough for me, it oughta be good enough for you.
Besides, we won’t get in no trouble. I’m too smart for that.”

Mike tried to keep his voice steady. “Okay, Pop,” he said.
“Tf you say it’s all right—”

His father stepped on the gas and spun around a comer. “That’s
better,” he said.

After that, Mike and his father began spending a lot of time
together. He treated Mike just like a grown-up and it made Mike
feel good. As far as Mike was concemed. this was the first time
he had ever known a father; that’s how long the old man had
been away. Sometimes after supper, his father would drink a
couple of beers and talk to him for hours on end. Mike learned
a lot of things from him, important things; like how religion
was a big racket, something for suckers, and why cops couldn't
be trusted. Sooner or later though, the conversation always got
around to his father’s favorite subject: easy mgney.

“If you're smart, there’s easy dough all around.” his father

’ would say. “People even leave it laying around in their stores

all night. Some day Ill take you out and show you how to get

some of that quick dough.”

DERING the afternoons, aiter Mike came home from school.
his father would lecture him some more on how easy it was

to rob a store at night. He said the easiest way was to break

in through the skylight.

“Roof jobs are best,” his father said. “Then you can see if
anyone’s coming. Another thing, always pull your jobs alone.
If you work with a gang youll always find a weak sister who
crabs the job or spills the beans to the coppers.”

The more Mike listened. the more he was convinced that his
father was one of the smartest men (Continued on page 36)

Mike Monahan shows reporters and detectives where gun was thrown from bridge.

Mike readily confessed —
he had murdered two men.

Father, holding Mickey,
confessed same - murders.

me ae Competition’s
oe Wonderful!

It’s one reason we all have
so many of the good things
that make life worth living!

Sa _ Johnny couldn’t tell you whether
: Mary’s friendlier smile, or her
name on the sign, made him
choose her lemonade. But he’s
glad he did! Because let’s face it
—we all like to have somebody
try extra hard towin our good will.
In fact, when so many brand
manufacturers compete for your
£ favor, as they do every day in
this land of ours— it makes you
feel pretty wonderful, doesn’t it?
Their keen competition is the
’ chief reason we can all choose to-
day from the biggest line-up of
top-quality brands of merchan-

dise ever offered to a purchaser *

~ anywhere in the world! It explains
why makers of brand-name prod-
ucts never stop trying to improve
their brands to increase our satis-
faction. And why they keep us up-
to-date about them in magazines
like this.
Yes, today it is truer than ever
before— when you name your
brand, you better your brand of

living!
BRAND NAMES FOUNDATION
A Non-Profit

Educational Foundation

37 West 57 Street, N.Y.19,N.Y. .

{

CRF ee ae
ay aie

oe . GE: 7] = 4 a :
e - -
Fagin & Son, Inc.
continued from ‘page 25
in the whole world. No one could be smarter.
By the end of five weeks, Mike had learned
as much about burgjary as most crooks learn

in a lifetime. Thanks to his father, he now
knew how to jimmy windows, pick locks and

| open skylights, using nothing but a long screw-
tuiei7. He even knew how to stop a burglar

alarm before it- went off—‘“catch a bug,” as
‘his father had said—something few veteran
burglars know how to-do.

One Saturday morning Mike’s father came
home dragging a mongrel dog on a leash:
They named the dog Mickey. Mickey fitted
into the plans, too. .

- “Ill walk him up and down outside a store
while you're inside making a strike,” the
father said. “Nobody will ever suspect a
man with a dog of being a lookout.*

They pulled their first job in February.

It was a cold, windy Sunday night. For
a starter, Mike’s father had chosen a low-
roofed tavern in nearby Irvington. They had
cased the place thoroughly two nights before,
on one of their frequent drives through the
suburbs. Mike’s father parked the car around
the corner and while he started walking the
dog, the boy slipped into the alley behind the
store.

It was darker than the inside of a hip boot.
Mike clutched a piece of rope and a screw-
driver in one hand. With the other hand, he
felt along the. brick wall until he found the
water pipe leading to the roof. He shinnied
up. The skylight was a black shadow on the
roof. He worked swiftly. First the copper
screws, then the steel molding, then the glass.
The seconds ticked by while he tied one end
of the rope to the skylight. Then he grabbed
the rope in both hands, took a deep breath,
and slid down into the blackness below.

When he popped out of the side door a few
minutes later, he was breathing heavy and
his hands and face were wet with sweat. But
he had the money.” -

His father was still walking Mickey when
he reached the street.

They piled into the car and drove back to
| Newark. When they got home, Mike turned
| the money over to his Pop. There was $68.
| His father’s eyes glittered. “Not bad for a
beginner, kid,” he said. “Not bad at all.”
Then he tossed Mike a dollar.

1 The burglary business fairly boomed in
| Newark that winter. Even the nearby Oranges
; and Maplewood noticed a big hike in the
| number of stores being robbed. In each case.
| police noted, entry had been made through
| the roof skylight. They had no worthwhile

| clues to work with.

ATE that summer, meanwhile, Monahan
moved his family to a rented house .in
| Union, a quiet little town just outside New-
| ark. Monahan’s parole officers were pleased
| with his progress. Evidently the ex-convict—
"| the man with a string of arrests that went
| back to 1924—had learned ahis lesson, they
| decided. He had a steady job and he seemed
| to be buckling down to work. And indeed he
| was. “
Mike's success went right to his father’s
' head. He drove up beside their house one
rainy July night and called the boy out to
the car. He was excited.
“Bring that bottle of black shoe polish outta
| the kitchen,” he said. “I’ve got a great idea.”

veal adic i Rina nani eis abe k Cts sa oti fe alee

Prosecutor Morss, right, with report

iis

When Mike returned, his father made him’ ~
climb into the car and they swung out of the
driveway. .

“T just came through Irvington,” he said to -
“Mike. “There’s a bus parked on a side street 4
over there just waiting to be knocked over.” © ~
He pointed to a pistol on the front seat. “Just 3
stick that in the driver’s ribs and he'll do
anything you say. Anything.”

hale

MIKE was so scared he couldn’t swallow.
+"4 Golly, he thought to himself, what if the
guy puts up a fight? What if the gun goes off?
Before he knew it, they were driving into
Irvington. His father drove by the bus slow,
real slow, and parked the car around the
corner. He opened the black shoe polish and
hastily painted black smears on Mike’s face.
Then he took his hat and rain jacket off and
handed them to the boy.

“Put these on,” he ordered. “And nobody
will ever know you.”

Mike put the clothes on and stuck the
loaded pistol in his belt. He was just step- 3
ping out of the car when he saw a cop turn ;
the corner. His knees began to shake. He
ducked back into the car.

“T can’t, Pop,” he gasped. “I’m scared.
That cop on the corner—”

His father turned, saw the cop and started
the car motor. “Okay, okay,” he said. “For-
get it. Maybe some other time.”

Summer eased into fall and Mike, 16 now,
enrolled in Union high school as a freshman.
He didn’t do so well. He fell asleep in class,
never did his homework.

That same September, Mike got into trouble>
His father and mother were drinking beer in.
a tavern one Saturday night when Mike
dropped in to visit them. It was a few min-
utes before the 2 a.m. closing time. As the
tavern-keeper told police later, “One minute
the kid’s sipping a coke at the table, the next
minute he’d disappeared.”

The tavern-keeper didn’t notice it at the
time. But he was upset the following Mon-
day when he opened up the place and found
the cash register empty. Detectives who in-
vestigated found a pair of small footprints on
top of a big pile of package paper towels in

wih

Wa ATM atl ek ki alle Mi

:

ice found six t cartridges
the floor. But there was no trace of oe
Detectives did the best they could with
They even tried to hook the mu
recent wave of burglaries, but
seem to” be any connection.
; ; hours every lead in the case
min knew detective i
had the right boy. sae eee Scie ~e the case tucked in the back of his mint
“oa the knee. “Tell ‘me, seig(apPed, Mike ey ae t
ietly. “How much did cane he said pears father decided they whet Gon
for their night work He ch erona money
; ‘ose Vi way to make Z
MIE hung his head. “Four bucks,” he said. Thanull town 15 miles northwest of Union PERSONAL suiTs
‘All I got was four bucks.” - They planned their first strike there , Pay L sul S$ To WEAR
lower. “I didn’t mean to do it,” be aad, utet 12s & Sunda ‘or APril | ose Me Money! Send No Mm
it was ia a seid, “but It rai py hout Paying Sddition
bo money and To iy aL tan Bave was ay ners ey ad by nightfall Mike | P¥seyGrpae fou ate'Y i iey audios rer
at me ‘ives looked ing in hi = had a | ~ r
Tine eam card he ra” fin he oma oe ing | SE UBSON. ING ne
hell,” he said. “Let's give the kid thing bad. When his father went | Pomme bined
esther thoes The to get the car out; Mike nek bik, ent | 1 Miz S'850N. tmcsbepls Tait 1
Later that day, juvenile officers talked with Let's not go tonight, Pop,” he said “Let’ | | Dear sie: tw. ‘Amscene ee
him car arcmts. His father promised to Keep £0q°,2,0Vie instead, or just takes ride.” | | Raat Ea AND SRO wi as
the niet Streets at night and, as far ds pra ogre just and pushed him | | A20LOTELY PRanmPle Kit ofderaal feusiee
TS were concerned, he ke his : H
At least nothing mo pt word. Tt was still raini H 1 er enereteeeers
Mohn Sng Mat tt abe ey" fi tng when ty ec | &
A’ whole string of nad "Seek : the store and parked around —— = pone a oe ee
bs ap . paling bursaries, hand : wit eae wrth pcp Rarer | hwwemmnnatsoh eer eseoeedseccasig. State... 22.
y — 1, 1953, 2 big backlog i Nenad =~ toof. He looked the skylight over and |
po cities. Bet goa ps -in nine _ This should be an easy job, he th Aleph
erent ma Sead . Hie hed fee » he thought to y, Neishbors? rites bos ;
forget everything else for the aiaciene Police molding when he heard it A prc pial gh - i : saneaey wae terns? :
- q the , Tom | sound deade: s
_bappeted sieht in brat ly, HE Te Gap aly ME, omeboaY owing | ead ee
= vlieht, in a place wasnt a cap meetioer knew it | of ear stopnin: OnLy es ‘
downtown Elizabeth, = 2 mill in the roof. He looked Agel marched, Rast 7
Sts aed wth open ae tse nh ee es | LRT ||
ene tie ea heard net Se | :
wasn't ‘discovered until :
kage a man wan- es | f
br Be nde ene ya cerng TESS on tig fr ie wie | 7
@ pool . ; i f
of blood behind the bar. Another man was store. The police station, Mike quickly tac | Font, Tickly in 8 short weeks ;
ari igen the floor near the door. Both out, was right across the t. The pany | : ¥ Sevens yal neat Bost Se ee
ae took him into an Ps | SSeS E MARKET O9 TOGA Gwh ROPTE AS a
The victims were later identified mug of hot coffee mh tern, Ae | Raat Sent or Sec ta te a
Han Weilandics, 63, the bartender. ng a * questions at hi they started | No obligation. “GL AporoveyDe™ Ulustrated FREE
liam Diskin, J Zs 27. Weilandics, woe Frade He pulled satveias t the | en eee
a . ya worn bitim of | gee. ee :
Keo hie bases see wees | ENVENTORS |
ed acy oe hemeah an who re ut he had to find out S$
: m the tavern, what had happened to his fathe When i
Parently was. on his way te heap: & deana . They started to. drag it . | BETES of value write mee ou, bars i i .
appoin : tal. Tee him, then, @ | fall intormauon ta Gime, wtbour Obl
tment and had : little a * r & |) fall i oa on eation, for
2 just stopped into fa time. “Come on kid,” secure a Paeayo™ ould
a few minutes with his fri Wei Pee ssid We knew ‘som one gent < z take wo
tiend : ebody was with you PATRICK pb. BEAVERS

— bl might as well tell us.” ‘
inally € gave up and ask L908 Columbi iiding, Washingtoa

for page When he tinted” oman a> = ~ ont

seem:

pene, e the words couldn’t pour out fast |

rst jeb they pulled
and how much money they

told them about jobs f a
Sotten all about. He

}
obligation |
| AMEnica, QUR S6TH YEAR -———_ (|

next morning, though, |
what had happened |

th f i
somebody had seen him climbime net. that |

: alll Pipe and had called the coe
Police officials tell of confessions,

R
| AMERICAN SCHOOL,
De; Vasu
I Drexel at 58th, Chieago 37, Tlismois
!

Please send FREE High School booklet.

right through |


1018

just quoted indicates a permissible practice,
not one that the defendant is entitled to
have observed. In Bullock vy. State, 65 N.
J. Law, 5357, at page 567, 47 Atl. 62, at page
65, the same learned jurist did, however, de-
clare obiter that in cases of doubt the ques-
tion should be left to the jury with the in-
struction that they should reject the confes-
sion if upon the whole evidence they are satis-
fied that it was not the defendant’s voluntary
act. In other jurisdictions, where the prac-
tice is recognized of permitting the jury
to review the finding of the trial court upon
a preliminary question of fact on which de-
pends the admission of a declaration or the
like, the practice is commonly treated as dis-
cretionary with the trial court. In Massa-
chusetts, for instance, it seems to have been
adopted as a matter of grace to the defend-
ant. Commonwealth vy. Cuffee, 108 Mass.
285, 288; Commonwealth v. Smith, 119 Mass.
395, 811; Commonwealth y. Nott, 185 Mass.
259, 271; Commonwealth v. Preece, 140 Mass.
276, 277, 5 N. E. 494. The opinion of Chief
Justice Fuller in Wilson v. United States,
162 U. S. 613, 624, 16 Sup. Ct. 895, 40 L. Ed.
1090, likewise indicates his view that the
practice is discretionary. See, also, 11 Am.
& Eng. Ene. Law (2d Ed.) 497; 23 Am. &
Eng. Ene. Law (2d Ed.) 556.

In an opinion by the present chancellor,
speaking for this court, in State v. Young,
67 N. J. Law, 223, 230, 51 Atl. 989, attention
was called to the fact that the language above
quoted from the Roesel Case was obiter dic-
tum. But since the Young Case did not call
for a decision upon the point, nothing more
was done than to declare it still open to ques-
tion whether, after the trial court has, upon
the preliminary examination, determined the
question of fact, and admitted such a state-
ment in evidence, it may be required to sub-
mit the same question of fact to the jury.
The question is fairly raised in the present
case by the refusal of the trial judge to ac-
cede to the request to charge above men-
tioned; and in our opinion it admits of but
one answer, The determination of the ques-
tion whether a declaration that is offered
as a dying declaration was in truth made
under a sense of impending death, like the
determination of the cognate question wheth-
er a defendant’s confession was made volun-
tarily, is for the trial court, and not for the
jury. The question relates to the admissi-
bility of evidence, and like all similar ques-
tions is not reviewable by the jury. Wheth-
er the deceased spoke the truth when she
declared that the defendant had shot her
was for the jury’s determination. Whether
the witnesses who testified that she made
such a declaration testified truthfully was
likewise for the jury to decide. But, tn our
opinion it was not their province to lay
aside the evidence of her declarations upon
coming to a conclusion that she was not
Impressed with a sense of impending death
when she made them. A single assignment

64 ATLANTIC REPORTER, (N. J

of error remains undiscussed. It is without

substantial basis, and was properly aban-

doned upon the argument.
The judgment under review should be af-
firmed.

CARLIN y. CARLIN et al.
(Prerogative Court of New Jersey. July 23,
1906.)

1, WITNESSES—CoMPETENCY—PERSONS INTER-
ESTED—IEXECUTORS—ACCOUNTING.

In a proceeding to surcharge the account
of an executrix with money claimed by her, but
deposited by the decedent, her father, in the
name of himself and the executrix, the executrix
cannot testify to statements by and transactions
with the decedent in support of her claim.

[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig.
vol. 50, Witnesses, § 571.]

2. SAME—TrESTIMONY AGAINST INTEREST.

In a proceeding to surcharge the account
of an executrix with money claimed by her, but
deposited by the decedent, her father, in the
name of himself and the executrix, testimony
of the executrix as to transactions with decedent,
that the deposit included a sum which came from
the earnings of another daughter, that the de-
cedent recognized such sum as belonging to the
other daughter, and an admission by the execu-
trix that she was bound therefor, are admissible,
as against the interest of the witness,

[I5d. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig.
vol. 50, Witnesses, § 706.] ,

3. EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS—OWNER-
SHIP OF PROPERTY AT DEATH—TRANSFER TO
ISXECUTRIX — SuRCHARGING AccouNT—EVI-
DENCE—SUFFICIENCY. .

In a proceeding to surcharge an executrix’
account with money claimed by her but deposited
by the decedent, her father, in the name of him-
self and the executrix, evidence examined, and
held to show that the deposit was so made to
restore to the daughter money earned by her
and deposited with her father for safe-keeping,

4. BANKS—DepositT In SAVINGS BANK—TITLE
—POSSESSION or Pass Book.

A pass book showing a deposit of a savings
fund in the name of both father and daughter
was kept by the daughter in the common recep-
tacle of the household in her mother’s room
where the daughter could and did get it when-
ever she wished. The family were in moderate
circumstances and lived together amicably.
Held, not to warrant a holding that the book
was not in the daughter’s possession sufficiently
e indicate a control of the fund as claimed by

er.

5. EXecuTrors AND ADMINISTRATORS — Ac-
COUNTING — REVIEW — TIMELINESS or AP-
PEAL—W&ATVER.

An objection to the timeliness of an appeal
to the Prerogative Court from a decree of the
orphans’ court, surcharging an cxecutrix’ ac-
count with certain money comes too late after
all the evidence has been taken, though an un-
timely motion to dismiss the appeal had been
made and refused. :

Appeal Camden
County.

Proceedings by Thomas J. Carlin and
others to surcharge the account of Margaret
KE. Carlin, as executrix of Peter Carlin, de
ceased. From a decree of the orphans’ court,
surcharging the account, the executrix ap-
peals to the Prerogative Court. Reversed,
and decree entered.

from Orphan’s Court,

N. J.)

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“Nothing,” the elderly man de-
clared.

The officer took a long look at
the body of the young man on the
tavern floor. He was well-dressed,
and his carefully brushed hair
seemed almost lacquered into
place. Officer Pietrowski lifted his
eyes and stared around at the tav-
ern. A mirror was shattered be-
hind the mahogany bar. The web-
like lines of fracture diverged
from a single small hole in the
heavy plate glass. An empty pony-
sized jigger stood on the bar. Next
to it, only half-full, was a small,
foam-rimmed chaser of beer.

“When I first saw him on the
floor, I thought it was Sebastian,”
the patron volunteered.

“Sebastian?” Officer Pietrowski
questioned.

“The bartender.”

The officer put his hands on the
bar and raised ‘himself to look
over into the bar-well. An elder-
ly man in shirt sleeves and a

horrified veteran cops with story of a $53.25 murder

starched white apron lay crum-
pled on the duck-boards. A wide
red stain had spread across the
front of his chest, and an over-
turned bottle of whiskey had
poured its contents across his
right forearm.

When Officer Pietrowski tele-
phoned Elizabeth police head-
quarters from the tavern’s coin-
booth, he noted that bullets had
slashed through the wooden pan-
eling and buried themselves in
the metal facing of the wall. He
studied the round holes in the
wall as he reported the double
shooting to Detective Captain
August F. Winklemann at the sta-
tion house.

Within minutes of noon that
Saturday, a full complement of
city and county officers converged
on the Shamrock Tavern. Police
Captain Nicholas A. Migliore com-
manded the Elizabeth contingent.
County Detective Chief Louis T.
Lombardi, whose office was only

half a block away, directed the
efforts of his headquarters staff.

The dead man in the apron was
quickly identified as Sebastian
Weilandics, 63, who for many
years had tended bar in Roselle,
New Jersey. He had hired on at
the Shamrock only three weeks
before.

It was another matter to iden-
tify the young man with the care-
fully groomed hair. Although
there was no identification on his
person, several of the officers pres-
ent were certain that they had
seen him before.

“It’s the Elder boy,” one of the
detectives exclaimed. “You know
Bob Elder, up at the Linden fire
department. This is Bob’s kid.”

Elder, on duty at a fire house in
nearby Linden, was promptly no-
tified. He started out for Elizabeth
at once.

While Captain Migliore and
County Detective Chief Lombardi
checked or the taproom’s cash
register, the other officers made
a careful search of the premises.
Captain Winklemann and Detec-
tive Michael Tevnan each picked
up several brass casings which
were scattered over the floor.
These empty cartridges, seven in
all, were of foreign manufacture,
stamped Ortgies Werke, 9mm.
Each was distinctively nicked by
both the firing and the ejection
pin of the automatic pistol which
had discharged them.

Captain Winklemann at once
recognized that these bullets had
been fired from either a Luger or
Walther automatic.

According to the cash register
tape, the Shamrock’s till had been
tapped for $53.25. The killer had
obviously neglected to search his
victims, whose pockets yielded a
combined total of $49 more. A
professional heistman, Chief Lom-
bardi reasoned, would not have
overlooked this source of possible
additional cash. This assumption,
plus the fact that a German auto-
matic pistol had been used in the

robbery, presented a definite pic-
ture to the investigators. The
number of GI’s who had collected
souvenir automatics while in
service was legion. From all ap-
pearances, the killer was an ex-
soldier, probably down on his
luck. A seasoned robber would
have avoided actually pulling the
trigger; the Shamrock gunman
had nervously sprayed the tap-
room with lead. Three bullets had
cut down the younger man. Bar-
tender Weilandics had stopped
two slugs in the chest. Two wild
strays had ripped into the phone
booth,

Technical men from the CBI
squad moved in with photograph-
ic and technological equipment.
While fingerprint specialists went
to work with their spray-cans, a
red fire department car with
Linden markings roared up to the
curb. A uniformed fireman, white-
faced and wild eyed, hurried
through the door. Captain Win-
klemann led him to the body in
front of the bar.

Fireman Bob Elder’s lips moved
tremulously; his eyes widened
with relief. “This isn’t Jim!” he
blurted, color coming back into
his face. “It looks a little like him,
sure—but this isn’t my kid!”

A mortuary ambulance from
Elizabeth General Hospital ar-
rived shortly afterward and con-
veyed both bodies to the morgue.
Fireman Elder, telephoning his
home, located his son. Young Jim,
unexpectedly, was able to provide
the officers with a lead to the
identity of his double.

“I think you’ll find he’s a fellow
named Diskin,” he said. ‘People
are always pointing him out to
me. He’s an Irishman, with a
brogue you could cut with a knife.
I don’t think he’s more than two
or three months off the boat.”

By 2:30 p.m., that Saturday,
Jim Elder’s hunch proved to be
right. The young shooting victim
was identified by his brother as
27-year-old William S. Diskin Jr.,

who had gone to the Elizabeth
business district that morning to
keep a dental appointment. Dis-
kin’s fingerprints matched those
on the shot glass and beer chaser
which were found on the bar.

Interrogating the Shamrock
regulars as they showed up at the
tavern, the officers were able to
locate two patrons who had been
present in the taproom that Satur-
day morning. Both men had
stayed in the bistro for about a
half an hour. Since their visits had
overlapped, it was possible to ac-
count for the passage of time be-
tween almost 10:30 and 11:45. Be-
tween them, these patrons were
able to recall about half a dozen
persons who had come to the
Shamrock Tavern that Saturday.

To the best of their recollection,
most of these customers had been
transients. Two were truck-driv-
ers who had made a delivery to a
furniture store down the street.
One was a tall, well-dressed man
in his early sixties. He came in to
consult the telephone. book and
stayed long enough to order and
drink a double Scotch.

oT

One of the regulars said he had
put his head through the door to
say a brief hello at about 11:30.
He told Sebastian he was on his
way to see a City Councilman and
would be back “sometime after
lunch.”

A middle-aged man and his
half-grown son were the last cus-
tomers the witnesses recalled. The
man made some brief comment
about the cold and gulped down
a pony of whiskey, neat, while
his son lingered over a bottle of
soft drink.

Police Captain Nicholas Migli-
ore, listening to this information,
had an idea. Recalling the over-
turned bottle which had spilled its
contents on the bartender’s shirt,
he asked the regulars if they re-
called that any patron had or-
dered bourbon.

“I’m pretty sure Weilandics was
about to pour from that bottle of
bourbon when the killer blasted
him,” the captain said. “Think
now. Do you remember anybody
ordering bourbon?”

The man with the kid asked for
bourbon, (Continued on page 177)

Young Monahan turned to his dad even when he faced trial for murder


A teenage boy tried to help New Jersey de-
: tectives find murder gun in Passaic River

=
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esi
=
Ja

3

MON peqnoorzoete faqtym fou

by JAY EDSON ©
! %
r } ta
i @
: 7 | t
BLiul rane ©) \ N ELIZABETH, New Jersey, the Union County As he headed toward the bar at the rear of the ~~
i ] courthouse, its 17-story tower white against tavern, his foot brushed against something bulky. =)
i j ; i the sky, dominates the central business dis- He stopped, uncertainly. “Sebastian!” he called. sd
99) trict. In one of its many offices, at about 11 a.m. on But the bartender, Sebastian Weilandics, did not a)
nae March 7, 1953, a 15-year-old boy on probation from answer. be
} a burglary charge a year earlier was making his Now, his eyes becoming adjusted to the gloomy Q
| monthly report to his probation officer. That for- interior, the man who wanted only a glass of beer oO
| mality satisfactorily concluded, the youth returned stared down at the bulky object he had stumbled =
to the street where his father waited for him. against. For an instant the elderly man stood mo-_ cH
Diagonally across the street from the county tionless, unbelieving, while icy fingers clawed at his J
courthouse, on South Broad Street, stands the spine.
Shamrock Tavern. As the noon hour approached Before him, sprawled on the floor, lay the body
an elderly pedestrian separated himself from the of a young man, arms outflung, one knee doubled $|
: throng of shoppers and turned toward the tavern. beneath the other. The sawdust beneath his head ‘el
‘ : +t tT x : But the glass of beer he hopefully anticipated was was stained with blood.
The incredible story of Michael Monahan, 15, who not to be his that brisk March Saturday noon. Heart thumping wildly, the shocked would-be @
was beaten until he learned how to be a holdup man Coming in from the glare of the sun-bright street, customer backed away, turned, plunged back s
he could see nothing for a moment in the dimly-lit through the door. Only a few steps away he saw
tavern. An odor of bourbon came strongly to his Traffic Officer Walter Pietrowski, directing traffic. a
nostrils, as if some had been spilled on the sawdust- Panting, he ran to the officer. By
covered floor. And over it came another stronger A few seconds later, Traffic Officer Pietrowski ra
odor. “Smells like firecrackers,” the would-be preceded the jittery patron into the barroom. “You Bee
| patron told himself. didn’t touch anything?” Pietrowski asked.
~
i \O
{ 59
i WL
” * ccerabienadaiinietiammahtieeasdneniadiiiaimmnedmaiitaad imental

MASTER DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, February, 1963,

weeks for the rape of a 9-year-old girl
in Cobbs Hill Park in Rochester. Both
men agreed that a mug shot of the con-
victed child-molester closely resembled
the newspaper sketch.

Less than 24 hours later, at 10:30 a.m.
on Thursday, September 20th—just two
weeks after Pamela Moss was slain—
three plainclothes officers approached
the red brick house in Webster where
James Robert Moore lived with his
pregnant wife and two small children.

Detective Sergeant Anthony Fanti-
grossi, in the lead, noted with interest a
bright red Jeep, parked in the driveway
at the side of the house. The vehicle, he
realized, would be capable of traveling
over the rutted roadway leading from
the Old Penfield Road to the bluff over-
looking the stone quarry.

“lve been expecting you,” said the
slender, muscular man who opened the
door in answer to the officers’ summons.

“Yes, you must be getting accustomed
to answering the questions of the po-
lice,” countered Sheriff’s Sergeant John
Kinnicutt coldly. “You’re one of the
guys we talked to shortly after that
girl’s body was found in Penfield, aren’t
you? You’re the man who was doing
some gardening work for one of the
Mosses’ neighbors on the day before the
girl disappeared—the man who couldn’t
remember ever having seen Pamela, and
denied having been anywhere near the
place next day.”

As Moore nodded silently, State Po-
lice Investigator Michael Iaculli slipped
a pair of handcuffs on the suspect’s
wrists. Moments later, the three officers
were driving the paroled child-molester
back to the Monroe County Jail where
Sheriff Skinner, District Attorney John
J. Conway Jr., and other officials waited
to question him.

On the way, Sergeant Fantigrossi
turned to the sullen, grave-faced prison-
er and inquired casually, “That wasn’t
blood in the back of your Jeep, was it?”

Moore replied that what the officer
apparently took for blood was actually
fresh red paint. He had repainted the
vehicle only a few days before he took
the gardening job at the home of the
slain girl’s neighbors, he said.

“Oh, we know it’s paint, all right,”
said Sergeant Fantigrossi easily. “But
did you know that laboratory techni-
cians are able to compare paint scraped
from the body of a truck with that
which might be found on a murdered
girl's white sneakers—and determine
whether both samples are the same? Do
you realize what that would mean to a
jury that was to try a man for murder?”

But Moore had no answer to those
questions. A few minutes after his ar-
rival at the county jail, he was booked
for suspicion of murder and closeted
with District Attorney Conway. What
took place during the tense minutes that
followed, has not been revealed by Mon-
roe County officials. But when the DA
emerged from his conference with the
white-faced suspect, less than half an
hour later, he turned to the score of men
who had worked day and night on the
investigation for two weeks, and said:

“Moore is ready to make a formal
statement. He has admitted not only the
rape and murder of Pamela Moss, but
the previous rape of that nine-year-old
girl in Cobbs Hill Park. He has also ad-
mitted having assaulted between 50 and
60 other schoolgirls, both before and
since his marriage five years ago.”

Two hours later, Sheriff Skinner
handed newsmen a statement in which

sd the accused man was quoted as saying:

“I saw her (Pamela Moss) return
from school while I was working the

6 neighborhood on September 6th. I con-

tinued to work and then saw her again,
going down a path into the woods. About
half an hour later, I walked to the rear
of the yard and followed the creek into
the woods to where it crossed the path
she took. I waited there and saw her on
her way back.

“She was wearing a green raincoat. I
stepped out and walked alongside of her
and talked about the weather and the
beauty of the woods. She kept walking
right along, and just answered in mono-
syllables. As I sighted the first house in
view, I said to myself, ‘It’s now or
never.’ I grabbed her from behind, put
my right arm around her waist; she
screamed.

“I put my left hand over her mouth
and forced her off the trail toward the
creek.”

There was a struggle and both fell
down an embankment, the statement
continued. Moore said he put his right
hand against the girl’s throat, and
pressed.

Pamela made a one-word plea. Her
voice was barely audible. The last word
she uttered before she died was,
“Please.”

Picking up his unconscious victim, the
accused man then reportedly said he
carried her “fireman-style” across the
creek. In the statement issued by Sher-
iff Skinner, he is further quoted:

“I don’t know whether she was dead
when I assaulted her. I left her there
and walked back to the house where I’d
left my Jeep, and drove down the trail
into the area where she lay. I put her in
the back of the Jeep and took the prun-
ing shears and cut some wild shrubbery
to spread over her. If I hadn’t had a 4-
wheel drive, I’d never have gotten off.
I drove on to the Panorama Trail where
I stopped. Three cars passed.

“In one car was a lady who stared
right at me and I realized she might rec-
ognize me later. So I turned off the trail
into a sort of Lovers’ Lane, and drove on
as far as I could. I wanted to dump her
in Irondequoit Bay. But I had to stop
on the bluff above the quarry. From
there I could see the water. On the way
down the bluff, I lost my footing.

“I dropped her to the ground and

dragged her on by the wrists. On the
way down, one of her tennis shoes fell
off and her shorts and pants came off. I
found an opening in the weeds and
pulled her across the last gully, up an
embankment and pushed her into the
water with my foot.”

The accused killer allegedly told po-
lice that he then hurried to the new
brick home where his pregnant wife and
children waited. Before eating supper,
he washed out his shirt and trousers,
then took his blood-splattered boots
outside and burned them.

Moore allegedly told police he later
found his victim’s blue wallet in his
Jeep. The next day, he was quoted, he
drove to Curand-Eastman Park near
Penfield and buried the wallet in a pile
of leaves.

Later, after being arraigned for mur-
der and ordered held without bail pend-
ing the convening of a grand jury, Moore
led police to the spot where he claimed
to have disposed of the wallet. There,
according to the sheriff, the missing blue
billfold was recovered.

The next day, the 9-year-old girl who
had been assaulted a month earlier in
Rochester was brought to the county
jail to view the prisoner. “Yes, that’s the
man who hurt me,” the child reportedly
told police. %

“Yes, that’s the girl,” police said
Moore replied.

As the investigators left the county
jail for their homes a few minutes later,
hopeful of getting their first good night’s
sleep in more than two weeks, one of the
officers who had accompanied Sergeant
Fantigrossi to Moore’s home turned to
him and inquired, “Now, what was that
bit about the red paint on the girl’s
white sneakers? I don’t recall having
seen any paint on them.”

“Nor do I,” replied the veteran detec-
tive sergeant drily. Fantigrossi ex-
plained that the man who had admitted
Pamela’s murder had, nonetheless, been
willing to believe they’d found paint on
the sneakers. If it had not been Moore’s
newly painted Jeep that transported the
girl to the scene of her death, the detec-
tive sergeant doubted he would so read-
ily have drawn that conclusion. $44

My Father Taught
Me to Kill

(Continued from page 61)

one of the witnesses was sure, but he
and the boy had stayed in the bar only
a few minutes. Apparently, only William
Diskin had been in the tavern at fifteen
minutes to twelve.

In the ballistics section of the Eliza-
beth crime laboratory, experts carefully
studied the death slugs and their match-
ing brass. The murder gun was definitely
a Luger, the experts decided. Photo-
graphic enlargements of the bullets were
of the same general character as other
photographs of Luger ammunition. Ejec-
tion nicks in the brass were also of a
generally similar configuration. These
photos were rushed to the state crime
lab in Trenton for comparascope ex-
amination with prints of other Luger
bullets which had figured in New Jersey
crimes of violence.

Although the Elizabeth officials were
of the belief that the double shooting
suggested a novice gunman rather than
a professional, a study of other ginmill
stickups was at once undertaken. The
projected state rundown of such hold-
ups might possibly reveal that the
gunsels involved had used a Luger
automatic.

Within the next three days, the Eliza-
beth detectives studied reports on a
number of such tavern robberies. A
“Juger-like” gun had been used in the
New Brunswick stickup of the Gateway
Bar, some two weeks prior to the Sham-
rock shootings. In this heist, a tall, hard-
mouthed thug had pulled a solo job just
before noon on a Saturday. Patrons,
who had been ordered to freeze in
their positions next to the bar, and
the owner-bartender, who made no
effort to fight for his cash, described the
hood as a slender young man with
tousled, sand-colored hair. He crammed
the money, almost $300, into a paper bag
and backed out of the bistro, brandish-
ing his gun. It was believed that he
made his escape in a black 1948 Mercury
sedan,

Closer to home, the manager of Pete’s
Bar on Franklin Street in Elizabeth, had
been relieved of more than $4,000 by
three armed bandits. Two of these men
had been apprehended and were cur-
rently in police custody. The third man
was as yet unapprehended. :

Benny Corio and Ernest Liquori, both
jailed for their participation in this rob-
bery, steadfastly refused to name their
confederate. Elizabeth police, pumping
for a link to the Shamrock killings, re-
interrogated the imprisoned youths but
to no avail. Corio and Liguori talked
little, and said nothing.

Elizabeth Police Chief Frank Brennan,
in taking over command of the investiga-
tion, approached the riddle from a new
angle. The chief requested from the
State Firearms Registration Bureau in
Trenton a listing of all legally licensed
Lugers in the State of New Jersey. He
reasoned that such a list would not be
too unwieldy to check out. Detective
Joseph Harrigan, who was charged with
the responsibility for compiling this list,
quickly came up with what appeared to
be a promising lead.

Just two days before the Shamrock
Tavern killings, a registered Luger had
been stolen from a lawnmower shop in
the neighboring town of Millburn. The
automatic was part of a miscellany of

loot, consisting of tools, cash and hunt-
ing equipment. Another gun, a_ .30-30
Marlin rifle, also was taken, along with
a quantity of ammunition for both fire-
arms.

Harrington and two other detectives
visited the lawnmower shop in Millburn.
A talk with the store’s owner revealed
that the thief also took one spare clip of
nine cartridges. Part of a box of 9 mm
cartridges, however, had been left be-
hind. These the detectives hurriedly con-
veyed to police headquarters.

The cartridges, compared with the
brass recovered at the scene of the mur-
ders, seemed identical with the murder
bullets. In the ballistics section, several
sample cartridges were carefully dis-
mantled. The crimp marks were found
to be exactly the same. Spectrum analy-
sis of the heated castings showed an
exact duplication of metallurgical com-
poundings. In the opinion of the tech-
nicians, the bullets in the box were from
the same batch as those which had
figured in the tavern killings.

The Elizabeth officials, satisfied with
this analysis, were therefore certain that
the Luger stolen at the Millburn lawn-
mower shop, was the gun used to kill
Sebastian Weilandics and William S.
Diskin Jr. Again, the police searched the
records in an effort to establish the
existence of a crime pattern.

The lawnmower shop burglary had
been accomplished, apparently, by a
practised sneak thief. A rear window
pane in the store had been neatly re-
moved with a patent glass-cutter. The
blade of this cutter had been lubricated
with kerosene. This, while not unheard
of was not the usual modus operandi of
back-door burglars.

Checking through the string of small
suburban towns around Elizabeth, Chief
Brennan's men discovered that a kero-
sene-dipped glass-cutter had figured in
more than thirty burglaries over a
period of almost a year. In each case,
a rear or a side window had been care-
fully cut close to the putty line. The
glass, held firmly by a rubber suction-
cup, was lifted out in one piece. The
premises were then entered.

From the size of some of the openings
which the officers studied, the sneak
thief obviously was slender. It was also
obvious that he either wore gloves or
was careful not to leave fingerprints.

Chief Brennan, certain that the thief
was of small stature, and a resident of
the Elizabeth environs, now went to
work on a different tack. Armed with
detailed lists of articles stolen in the
string of similar burglaries, Elizabeth
detectives made the rounds of pawn-
shops and second-hand stores, searching
for specific articles of loot.

By early April, three such items were
recovered. One, a typewriter, had been
disposed of in the town of Bayway. It had
been pawned by a balding man, who
arrived at the shop in a large, flashy car.
A small dog was left in the automobile
while the man transacted his business.

“It was a Scottie,” the pawnbroker
told Detective Harrigan. “They can be
real mean. My sister has one.”

“What name did the guy give you?”
Detective Harrigan asked.

The pawnbroker consulted his ledger.
“John Keely,” he said. “February 23rd.
Underwood portable, deluxe. I gave him
$26.00.”

To the best of his recollection, the
pawnbroker remembered “Keely” as a
man of average height and weight. From
his description, the detective could not
picture a man of that build crawling
through some of the small-sized win-
dows he had seen in the course of his
investigations.

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78

On Sunday, night, April 12th, another
break-in was reported to the New Jersey
police. The store involved was a dress
shop on Bloomfield Avenue in suburban
Verona. Had the report come in the next
morning, it would have been one more
job in the lengthening string of back-
window burglaries which so interested
the Elizabeth police. What made it
dramatically different was the fact that
the burglary was reported to the police
while it was still in progress.

In response to a telephone call from
a resident across the street from the
shop, two police cruisers sped to the
shop. As the lead prowl car swerved to
the curb, a late model Cadillac sedan
gunned out of a nearby driveway and
hurtled up Bloomfield Avenue at top
speed.

The lead cruiser stayed put, but the
second police car barreled after the
Cadillac. The driver of the big car
pushed the accelerator down to the
floorboard and turned corners like a
madman. A patrolman in the sirening
cruiser got close enough once to squeeze
off a shot. The Cadillac swerved crazily
and turned into Pease Avenue.

Overshooting the turn, the police car
screeched to a halt, backed up, and
wheeled in fast. By then, the Cadillac
was stalled, empty, on the next corner.
The officers surrounded it and ap-
proached with drawn guns. A small black
dog, a Scottie, snarled as the officers
came close. A cardboard carton, hastily
snatched from a rubbish can, served as
a temporary prison for the animal while
the officers searched the abandoned
automobile.

In the back seat-well, the police dis-
covered three glass-cutters soaking in
a kerosene-filled beer can. They found,
also, a box of .32 caliber Smith & Wesson
cartridges, fifteen .32 caliber Colt auto-
matic rounds, and three tubes of copper-
clad BB shot. In the trunk of the car,
they came upon an assortment of pry-
bars and screw drivers, a coil of rope,
and several high-powered flashlights.

A bullet-hole in the trunk of the
Cadillac was proof that the police
marksman had hit his careening target.
There was no blood in the car to indi-
cate that the driver had been hit, how-
ever. Presumably he had braked the
car to a stop, leaped out and flied.

Although the officers searched for the
fugitive in the neighborhood, they found
no sign of him. The license plate num-
bers were called into headquarters for
an immediate registration check. The
cruiser men then arranged to have the
Cadillac impounded at the Verona
Municipal Garage.

At the dress shop, Police Chief Edgar
Coffin quickly arrested a slightly built
boy who looked to be fourteen or fifteen
years of age. He was found cowering in
a small dressing cubicle at the rear of
the store. He admitted that he had en-
tered the premises after cutting out a
small pane of glass in a side door.

At Verona police headquarters, the
youth asked for a cigarette and looked
sullenly at the officers who were at-
tempting to question him. In response to
their queries, he would say only that
his name was Michael Monahan, and
that he lived in the Vaux Hall section of
Union, less than a dozen miles away.

“Who's the guy who took off and left
you holding the bag?” Coffin asked him.

“I was working for him,” the kid said.

“What's his name?”

Mike Monahan sneered at him. “Get
out the rubber hoses and start beating
it out of me,” he suggested. “That's the
only way you'll ever get me to tell you.”

“You've been reading the wrong kind
of comics, son,” the chief told him.

“There aren’t any rubber hoses.”

They plied him with questions for
almost an hour before the youth finally
looked as if he might talk. “Look,” he
said, “I don’t know you guys. The only
cop I ever met that I’d trust is Lieuten-
ant Durning, over in Irvington. If he
tells me to talk, I’ll open up.

The Irvington lieutenant, reached at
his home, told the Verona officers he had
known Mike for about a year. “He’s on
probation for a burglary down in this
district,” he said. “Let the kid sleep for
a-few hours. I'll come down and talk
to him first thing in the morning.”

Early on Monday, the Irvington police
official drove out to Verona. He talked
with young Mike in the detective mus-
ter-room. They were closeted together
for almost five hours.

The story which the youngster told
Lieutenant Durning was little short of
fantastic. In the space of one short year,
Mike had taken part in more than 150
burglaries.

“My old man was teaching me the
ropes,” he said. “He’s gone out with me
on the jobs. He wanted me to be perfect.
Even better than him.”

According to Mike’s recital, 44-year-
old Eugene Monahan, whose crime rec-
ord dated back to 1926, had literally
forced his son to become a thief. The boy
was beaten for any show of rebellion. He
was beaten when he performed clumsily
or showed any signs of being afraid.

“He’d whale me with his strap,” young
Mike said. “He’d say to me, ‘I’m gonna
learn you, now. And you pay attention,

ro

or it’s gonna cost you lumps!

Eugene Monahan had imparted to his
son a set of simple rules—a kind of
thieves’ catechism. “Work alone. If
there’s nobody with you, there’s nobody
who can blab. Work from the roof. It
gives you a chance to see who's coming
from all directions. Work fast. If it’s
time you want, they’ll give you plenty of
that in stir.”

According to the youth, his father,
leading the Scottie, cased each job, then
stood around looking like an innocent
dog-walker while Mike broke in.

Lieutenant Durning was_ shocked.
“You mean, your old man drove away
and left you in that store last night—
left a kid like you to take the rap?”

The boy nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “The
way he has it figured, if there has to be
a pinch, there’s no use of the two of
us gettin’ caught.”

Eugene Monahan was arrested at his
home in Union..With the hard veneer of
prison wisdom, he admitted nothing. His
son was a liar, he said. What the kid
needed was a good going over with a
short length of broomstick. He had been
too lax in “bringing the kid up proper.”

Jailed in Newark, New Jersey, Eugene
Monahan was held on an open charge.
The story of his alleged Fagin-like tute-
lage of young Mike was picked up by
the papers. The Elizabeth, New Jersey,
police were quick to relate the arrest to
their own particular problem.

Union detectives, cataloging the con-
tents of the Monahan home supplied the
bridge between the Verona burglary and
the Elizabeth double-slaying. A number
of guns were found in the basement of

—————$

ff

B

fF RUS Oo

D0 om

| STATE

Prison |

Rew.

the ex-convict’s home. Among these was
the .30-30 Marlin deer rifle which had
been taken along with a Luger, from the
Millburn lawnmower shop.

Captain Winklemann confronted Eu-
gene Monahan with this information.
“You and the kid were in the Shamrock
Tavern on Saturday, March 7th,” he said.
“You knocked off the bartender and an-
other man. We have witnesses who can
place you in that ginmill just before the
shooting took place.”

“Do you have the gun?” Eugene Mona-
han demanded. |

“Not yet.”

“Then you don’t have nothin’,” Mona-
han bit out. “You got an idea—that’s all
you've got. All cops got ideas.”

Young Mike Monahan was likewise
questioned about the shooting. As his
father had done, the boy vigorously de-
nied any knowledge of the Shamrock
Tavern slayings. This time, however,
Captain Winklemann had a trump card
up his sleeve.

“Were you in Elizabeth that Saturday
morning, Mike?”

“No,” the kid said. “I don’t remember
where I was, but I ain’t been in Eliza-
beth in months.”

Winklemann drew from his pocket a
copy of the youth’s probation report. It
indicated that on each Saturday, for al-
most a year, young Mike had presented
himself to his probation officer in the
Union County Courthouse at Elizabeth,
New Jersey.

“And Saturday, March 7th, was no
exception,” the captain said. “You were
there. Do you know where the Shamrock
Bar is, Mike?”

The youth’s lips trembled. “I don’t
know nothing abovt any bars,” he said.

“It’s directly across the street from
the Union County Courthouse,” the de-
tective captain said.

Brought to Elizabeth to be interviewed
by Chief Brennan and his staff, young
Mike abruptly changed his story.

“Okay,” he said. “I killed both of them.
Here’s the way it happened. My dad
waited for me at that bar while I went
to the courthouse. I come back and had
a coke with him, then we went out. The
old man says I should go back, shoot the
bartender, and rob the place. I said sure,
give me the gun.

“He gave me the gun. I walked in. The
bartender laughed when I pulled the
gun, so I let him have it—Pow! Pow!
Pow! The other guy was there and I let
him have it, too. Pow! Pow! Pow! Then
I got over the bar, grabbed the cash and
beat it.” ;

The officers refused to believe this was
exactly the way in which the murders
had been accomplished. When they re-
peated Mike’s story to his father, the ex-
convict paled. Then he gritted his teeth
and told a different story.

“Don’t believe the kid,” Eugene Mona-
han said steadily. “He's just trying to
shield the old man. I killed those guys.”

The elder Monahan then reportedly
told the following story: When Mike
came down from the probation office,
his father met him at the tavern. He sent
the boy to his car to get the Luger. Mike
returned and passed the automatic to
him in the Shamrock’s men’s room.

When they went back into the tavern,
bartender Weiiandics was cutting
cheese. Without warning, Eugene Mona-
han shot him. At that moment young
Diskin entered the tavern. Again Eugene
Monahan fired. The first slug took the
newcomer in the shoulder, spinning him
around. Two more plowed into his back.

The unfortunate customer fell to the
floor, moaning, “Take my money .. .
Leave me alone .. .” Then, with a gasp,
he died.

Father and son then ran to their car
and drove around the block. Coming
back to the tavern and seeing no one
about it, Eugene Monahan reentered the
tavern, vaulted over the bar and looted
the till of $58.25. Again he and Mike
drove around in their car until they saw
a crowd gathering about the tavern.
Then they went home.

It was two weeks later, the elder
Monahan said, when he broke up the
Luger and hurled the pieces into the
Passaic River from the Stickel Memorial
Bridge in Newark.

The authorities accepted Eugene
Monahan’s version of the shootings as
the correct one. And later, when father
and son were brought together and the
father urged Mike to “tell the truth,” the
boy retracted his confession. His father’s
story was the true one, young Mike ad-
mitted.

Captain Winklemann said he believed
the boy had taken the blame for the
shootings partly through fear of his
father, and partly through a youthful
urge for self-dramatization. But under
New Jersey law, since the murders were
committed during a felony, armed rob-
bery, both Monahans must be regarded
as equally guilty.

The Luger automatic pistol was not
recovered, despite lengthy police efforts
to locate it. Both father and son attemp-
ted to lead the police to the death weap-
on. It could not be found.

Indicted on two counts of first-degree
murder, Michael and Eugene Monahan
were arraigned before County Judge
Milton A. Feller. They were ordered
held without bail for trial on May 25,
1953.

Before this date, at the insistence of
the court, the facts in the bizarre case
were reviewed by the Union County
juvenile authorities. Michael, whose total
take in more than 200 burglaries was less
than $2.00, was committed to Borden-
town Reformatory. The father stood trial
alone on the murder charges. He was
convicted and sentenced to die.

On January 11, 1955, Eugene Monahan
was executed in the electric chair at
Trenton State Penitentiary.

Late in 1955, after three years in
the Bordentown Reformatory, Michael
Monahan’s case was again reviewed by
the court. Juvenile Judge Libby Sacher
placed Mike under probation and sent
the boy to work on a Texas ranch.

A year later, Juvenile Court Judge
Richard R. O’Connor, declaring that
“Michael has made a most satisfactory
adjustment to his new environment,”
took young Monahan off probation and
placed him entirely on his own.. Mike
immediately joined the Air Force and
was stationed at Phoenix, Arizona, for
basic training.

On December 4, 1957, death cheated
the young airman out of his chance to
complete redeeming himself. Returning
to the base in a car with one of his
buddies, young Mike hit an oil slick on
the road and crashed into a light pole.
His passenger was critically injured, but
Michael Gene Monahan was instantly
killed. At 20, his turbulent young life
was over, but not before he had shown
that he had what it took to leave the
past behind and make a new start. $@¢@

Eprror’s NOTE:

The names, Bob and Jim Elder,
Benny Corio and Ernest Liquori, as
used in the foregoing story, are not
the real names of the persons con-
cerned. These persons have been giv-
en fictitious names to protect their
identities.

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79


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“6

need or) 78 ah Oe aN OT ee

Chief Justice llornblower deliv~

-~ered the sentence witha 20-minute-

oration. .Clough was to be taken to
a field two miles from Mount Holly ‘
and hanged, The whole courtroom
cried, ’
As to the hanging itself, here’s
the way it was described: ..
“Upon this solemn occasion, the

* appropriate prayers conducted by.

the Rev. Mr. Moorhouse, were
preceded by the singing of hymns,
the delivery of his confession, and °
an address from the Rev. S, Wil-~ +
mer, accompanied by an extract
from a letter to his (Clough’s)
mother. ;

‘During the whole period he was
perfectly composed, and having
previously given directions as to‘
particulars of the arrangements
within his control, he with un-
shaken confidence assisted his
friend the sheriff in adjusting the
rope, measured off the desired
length of the drop, and arranged
the noose on his neck. All things
being fully arranged, he with joys
ful anticipations was launched into *
eternity abouthalf after twoo’clock
P.M, .in the twenty-ninth year of
his age, :

‘*After hanging about 30 minutes
his body was cut down, placed in
a plain mahogany coffin and con-
veyed to the place of interment,
being grounds within the bounds
of the prison and in the public
ground attached to the Statehouse,”

So ended Joel McClough who
dropped to eternity with the echo
of 12,000 voices, raised in hymn,’
sounding in his ears,

WESLEY WARNER, 1894

After Joel. Clough hangings
ceased to be a public Spectacle,
Of the five who journeyed to the
gallows in the 19th Century only
Elizabeth Freeman, 1832, shared
with Clough the dubious ‘honor of
hanging in, public.. Philip Lynch,
1859, and Charles Brooks, -1863,

HISTORIC BURLINGTON COUNTY

Pie

Mount Holly home that evening,

--Her. hospitable folks put him up

in an upstairs bedroom. Lizzie
was out on the town, About mid-
night Wesley came downstairs,
saying he couldn’t sleep. He took
a knife from the Peak kitchen and
his bottle,

Lizzie and her two sisters,
‘meanwhile, started for home with
three young male acquaintances,
They stopped off on Pine Street
for a ride on the famous bicycle
railway then took the narrow path
toward Lizzie’s home, The party’
walked single-file,

.Wesley had hidden inthe bushes,

Amanda, ‘Lizzie’s sister, told
what happened: is

‘‘Lizzie’s escort was inthe lead,
and Lizzie immediate following
him. When we had gone about 120
yards, Warner sprang up and I
saw that he had a knife in his
~hand. He exclaimed, ‘Oh, G--
damn you,’ then made a lunge at
Lizzie with the knife, He then
Struck at me, but I caught his coat
and screamed that I would knock
him down if he touched me, When
‘I saw Lizzie, she was lying on the
grass. One of the men started af-
ter Warner with a fence paling, I
did not think Lizzie was dead, only
weak from loss of blood, and asked
the young men to carry her somes
where so that something might be

' done for her,’ We went with her to

Mrs, Joseph F, Bryan’s where we
stayed the night,’?

In the morning Lizzie was dead,
Warner was arrested at a livery
Stable. He had tried to borrow 2
horse to leave town,

‘Initially, justice was swift. War-
ner was indicted for Murder on
September 27, He came to trial on
December 27, It lasted four days,
A four-judge panel under Supreme
Court Justice Garrison heard the
case. The jurors in a proceeding
unusual at that time actually

—Continued on nage 37

February, 1984

purin an appearance atl izzieg


visited the site of the crime.
Their verdict, guilty!

Judge Garrison sentenced War-
ner to hang on March 15, 1893,
Then the long appeal process be-
gan. The case went to the N. di
Supreme Court, then Errors and
Appeals, then before the board
of pardons. Crux of the argument
was that Warner was not himself
the night he killed Lizzie because
he had engaged in a long drink-
ing session and suffered Dl's,

During this time, Warner took
his situation calmly. He ate hearti-
ly, refused religious consolation,
and wouldn't believe that he would
hang. He felt himself a persecuted
man who in all fairness deserved
a new trial. His mood changed after
the pardons board turned him down
on July, 25, 1894.

His family visited him the day
before the execution ~ with the ex~
ception of his mother, who couldn’t
bear up tothe ordeal. His brothers,
Bert, Will, and Clarence tried to
console him, They left him
agitated.. Between 2 and 3 in the
afternoon two guards and a barber

assisted him with a new suit,_

bought the week before, and gave
him his last shave. He cursed
them roundly.

Warner went to bed at 10, slept
soundly, and woke at 2. He dressed
in his new suit, without collar or

tie, and went back to bed, sleep-
ing until. 7, Steak and eggs for
breakfast were served at his re-
quest.

Shortly after 9 The Rev. J,
Madison Hare of Burlington and
Sheriff Townsend, his: executor,
came to his cell. Warner broke
down.

“Come,  Wesley,’’ said the
Sheriff, ‘*we will go down to the
execution, and I want you to bear
it like a man.’’? Guards clapped
manacles on his wrists, and the
party moved through the prison,
into the jailyard.

Five mounted the gallows,
two guards, the Sheriff, The
Rev. Hare, and Warner. Quickly,

.a black hood was dropped over

his face, and the guards strapped
his ankles together. ‘‘Gentlemen.’?
said Wesley Warner, ‘‘you will all
be sorry tor this, I thank Mister
Hare for all he done for me. Good-~,
bye, Mister Hare, goodbye all,
here goes to the only begot-
ten Son,”’

The trap bolt shot back. The
rope snapped taut.

The doctor pronounced himdead
at 10:47 A.M, They let the body
dangle for 30 minutes.

The Warner family buried Wes-~
ley in Coopertown graveyard. He
had died, with dignity, at age 30,

As Old As The
Great State of New Jersey

of Our Role In

New Jersey's Growth

nliwear h


o

—Continued from page 7

the outside. The escape alarm
came about 5o’clock Sunday morn-
ing. Searchers assembled immedi
ately and took off in different di-

rections. The search parties spent ©

the day scouring the woods and
examining the country for mileg
around. Clough was not tobe found,

On Sunday night at about 11 he wag -

apprehended near Rancocas. They
committed him to the dungeon,
chained and handcuffed until hig
day of execution, Friday, August
26, 1833. An account of the hangs
ing is rendered elsewhere in this
magazine,

ine executions of Joel Clough
and Elizabeth Freeman were the
only ones heldat Hainesport. After
1833 murderers hanged:in the pri-
60n yard on a gallows of rather pe~
culiar construction. It consisted of
two upright timbers with a cross
beam across the top from which
two large pulleys were suspended,
Two ropes passed through the pull-
eys, One end of each rope was tied
to a 450 pound stone. One rope was
used to raise the stone to a proper
height and was secured around a
cleat, The end of the other rope
terminated inthe hangman’s noose,
The culprit was noosed and placed
in position, Then the sheriff cut the

| The County Jail

rope holding the stone witha hatch-
‘et. The fall of the stone would snap
the prisoner’s neck and throw him
Several feet into the air. He would
Stop with another sudden jerka foot

Or two from the ground. This gal~.

lows never misfired. But it was soon
replaced by one of a more conven~
tional construction.

The sheriff of 1886 had a rather
peculiar problem added tohis many
Others. The prisoners declared
that cell Number 5, where Joel
Clough had been confined, was
haunted. Many of them said they had
heard chains rattling, the sound of
metal being sawed, the rending of
woodwork, followed by low cries
and moans. No inmate would stayin
the cell unless placed inthecell by
brute force. They preferred to
sleep in the dank dungeon rather
than meet Clough’s ghost.

Today, after more than 100 years
of contention, the county has begun
to replace the ancient Burlington

_ County Prison with amore modern
penal institution. Clough’s spirit

may find peace at last,

The writer wishes to express his
thanks and appreciation to Sheriff
Francis P, Brennan, Warden Jo-~
seph V. O’Connor and the jail staff
for allowing him free access to the
prison records, ,

Batsto... Monument —

—Continued from page 21
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about not having “a thing’”—but their minds were not on
concealed weapons. Supervision grew steadily more lax,
and soon she was not searched at all. Thus it was that one
day, left alone by virtue of Warden Puerschner’s standing
order, Mary was able to pass a .38 caliber revolver, loaded
with body-tearing dum-dum bullets, to her cop-killing lover.
Several swift words, a parting kiss—and the jail break
preparations were complete!

In the prison corridor, unquestioned and free to roam
where he willed, waited Paul Semenko. Metelski nodded
exultantly in response to the question in the trusty’s eyes.
The revolver changed hands and vanished into the pockets
of Semenko's prison garb. No one would search him. No
one would know. They were safe.

“When'll it be?” Semenko asked in a tense whisper.

“Soon as I say. Keep on your toes and don't talk in
your sleep. And for Pete's sake. hold on to that rod.”

On Saturday, December 14, two days before he was
to have gone on trial for his life before Common Pleas
Judge Adrian Lyons, “Handsome Eddie” went into action.
Semenko was in the trusties’ quarters, but the 38 was no
longer in Semenko’s possession; he had slipped it back to
his pal.

At 5:30 p. m., George Hill, a
Negro trusty, stopped before
Metelski’s cell with a pewter tray
containing the prisoner’s supper—
thick lima bean soup, three slices
of wholewheat bread and coffee.
Assistant Warden George Ander-
son accompanied Hill. In this jail
there was no opening in the cell
doors to allow passage of large
trays to prisoners. Anderson
swung the master lever, opening
the grating.

“Evening, Eddie,” smiled Hill,
entering to deposit the food.

Metelski was seated on his cot,
his dark hair tumbling over his
forehead, reading a magazine. He
looked up slowly.

“Evening,” he replied, in a low
voice. Then in the same quiet
tone, he said, “Come on in, Ander-
son, or I'll kill you.”

Hill, bending over the tray, let
loose a hearty guffaw.

The killer leaped to his feet,
snarled, “Shut up, or I'll bump
you, too!” :

The magazine had fallen to
the cell floor. In Metelski’s hand.
a finger crooked tightly about the trigger, was the .38,
and there was no mistaking the kill-crazy gleam in his
eyes.

Anderson, taken completely unawares, lunged desperately
for the master lever. But Eddie had planned too long and
too hard for this moment to brook failure now. His squat
body hurtled into the corridor, the gun burying itself in the
assistant warden’s ribs. Hill, his eyes glassy with fear, stared
open-mouthed as Metelski forced Anderson in beside him
and swung the master lever. The door clanged shut.

“You mugs can divvy up that lousy supper between you,”
Eddie flung over his shoulder. “And give my regards to
my friend the warden when he gets back. Tell him I
hope he liked my moll!”

He raced down the corridor. Out of a door ahead of him
came Guard Edward Roberts. The guard blinked several
times, then went for his gun.

“Go ahead, draw!” taunted the escaping killer, the 38
level with Roberts’ waist. “Draw and I'll pump you full
of lead!”

32

INSIDE DETECTIVE

State Trooper John Matey, co-author of
this story, holds the bloodstained coat which
his buddy, Warren Yenser, was wearing at
the time he was riddled by shotgun slugs.

The guard's hands reached for the ceiling. Metelski dis-
armed him, took his keys, and marched him toward the
trusties’ quarters. En route he was joined by Semenko
and another trusty, Ray Trout. In the trusties’ rooms
they came upon two model-conduct prisoners, Ray Shephard,
the cook, and Joe Lamont, a dishwasher.

“I want all you boys to be nice and quiet,” Eddie cau-
tioned, a mocking smile on his lips. He tapped his re-
volver significantly, started to back slowly out the door—
and paused. “You coming, Paul?”

Semenko started, gulped hard, nodded. “Sure! Okay !”
he said hoarsely.

The pair hurried to the absent Puerschner’s office, rifled his
desk of every\key to the jail and strode unmolested out the
side door into Kirkpatrick Street. With contemptuous non-
chalance, Metelski locked the heavy steel door behind them.
Then they vanished into the night.

Warden Puerschner, it developed, had not been out with
Mrs. Metelski that afternoon. But he had been away from
the prison in alleged violation of regulations. When he re-
turned at six p.M he was not aware that Metelski and
Semenko had just made their escape. Everything appeared
snug and tight, but when he
rang the main door bell there
was no response. He tried
the side door. Still no
answer. Alarmed by _ this
time, he notified the local
police. Sheriff F. Herdman
Harding arrived with a key
to the institution. Two car-
loads of officers rolled up.
The party shouldered its way
through the opened door—
and then hell broke loose.

It took only a moment for
the incoherent guards and
prisoners to tell their stories.
A new alarm was flashed far
and wide for the arrest of
the cop-killer.

HUS we began one of
the most intensive man-
hunts in the state’s history,
the greatest since the Lind-
bergh baby kidnaping. More

ON VENGEANCE QUEST than three hundred _ state

troopers, armed with sub-
machine guns and_ holding
“Shoot to kill” orders and
an undying hatred for the
white slaver, were dispatched
over the countryside. An eight-state teletype description
of the killer and his pal was broadcast. Excitement was at
fever heat. Newspapers heralded the break with tremendous
headlines. Radio stations relayed the progress of the search
at fifteen-minute intervals.

Authorities sent out a hurry call for a round-up of
Metelski’s parents, his wife and the red-haired Truchanowicz
girl. The parents, quizzed at their home at 48 Lentz Avenue,
a dwelling in the “Down Neck” section of Newark, denied
indignantly they had smuggled a gun in to their son. The
mother wept bitterly when she was told of her boy's latest
escapade.

“Why does he bring so much suffering on us ?” she cried
softly. “We love him. I know he would be a good boy if he
only had the chance. It’s so heartbreaking. So terrible.”

The officers listened silently and went away. The killer's
bride was grilled at headquarters. It was a lengthy session.
and at its conclusion authorities were satisfied her husband
had slyly engineered her drinking parties with Puerschner.

Blues-singing Mary. she of the (Continued on page 47)

=

Ay ape

MURDERING
MOTHER

POISON ARTIST
Plump Hattie Stone methodically
fed strychnine to all the members
of her family to gain their insur-
ance. She laughed at,the Maryland
authorities—until they got the goods

on her!

ONE day late in September, 1928, Dr. Charles
Foley, Health Commissioner of Havre de Grace,
Maryland, was hurriedly summoned to the local
public school. It was early afternoon, soon after
the pupils had eaten their lunches. As soon as he
entered the principal’s office he beheld a boy—
fourteen-year-old George Stone—in the throes of a convul-
sion. Dr. Foley immediately gave the lad an emetic, then
rushed him to the Havre de Grace Hospital.

Within half an hour the patient’s mother, Mrs. Hattie Stone,

a plump woman of thirty-eight, arrived at the hospital look-
ing anxious and perturbed.

“What has happened? Oh, dear, this is terrible!” she ex-
claimed. “They called me up from the school. Has George
had another fit?”

“Has he had these spells before, Mrs. Stone?” Dr. Foley
asked.

“Yes, he has,” she replied, nodding emphatically. “I'm not
exactly surprised. You see, epilepsy runs in the family.”

“Epilepsy,” he echoed. “Yes, one does have fits in epilepsy.”

“Epilepsy and heart disease—they both run in the family. -
My other son died the same way.”

“Now that you mention it, Mrs. Stone,” said Dr. Foley,
“] do remember that your other son died in convulsions. Just
when was that?”

“Edgar died last year—June 8. Is George in a bad way ?”

The doctor regarded her a moment before he answered.
“Why—yes, he is.”

“You mean he might die?”

“I wouldn’t say that, Mrs. Stone. I think with good care,
here at the hospital, he ought to pull through.”

There was no sign of relief in the mother’s face. “But he
don't have to stay in the hospital, does he ?” she asked. “I
could take good care of him at home. You see, I know his
case.”

“You've had experience in nursing patients?” Dr. Foley
was looking at her in that peculiar way again.

“Oh yes! I nursed his brother and—er—and all the others
who were sick in the family. We've had quite a few go the
past few years.” .

Dr. Foley for a moment could not answer. He stared at
the woman as though hypnotized. She had spoken the truth, as
he knew. First there had been the father-in-law, John Stone,

= % TEER) MET ATE ELIE OE

he:

then the mother-in-law, Mrs. Emma Stone, then Hattie’s hus-
band, Edward, and then the strapping eighteen-year-old son,
Edgar.

“Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, you have. But—er—I think it
would be advisable—most advisable—if George remained in
the hospital for the time being.”

Hattie Stone went to her son's bedside. He was very weak.
She sat looking at him for a while and then began to talk
quietly to him. “It’s your heart, darling,” she said. “That's
what did it. You have to be careful. It runs in the family.
When anybody ever asks you what did it, you tell ‘em that.”

Dr. Foley telephoned State’s Attorney W. Worthington
Hopkins and informed him that George Stone’s symptoms were
definitely those of strychnine poisoning.

“Good God! You suspect the mother?” exclaimed Hopkins.

“I'm not saying whom I suspect,” said the doctor. “I’m
merely telling you about the symptoms. I don’t believe that the
boy has epilepsy, and I don’t believe he has heart trouble.
Besides, this illness has no resemblance whatsoever to heart
trouble. That youngster had a convulsion soon after eating
his lunch!” :

“Didn't Ed Stone, this boy’s father, die sort of suddenly 2”
asked Hopkins. :

“Very suddenly indeed,” replied Dr. Foley.

Edward Stone, a signalman for the Pennsylvania Rail-
road, had eaten a hearty breakfast on the morning of Janu-
ary 30, 1928, and died forty-five minutes later in a caboose.
He, too, had apparently suffered from epilepsy, for he had
convulsions. His wife had fed him pills, he complained to a
fellow worker, which invariably made him sick. She had
assured him that “they wouldn't hurt a baby.”

“I’m going to look into this,” the prosecutor told Dr. Foley.

But Hopkins’ secret investigation produced meagre results.
True, there had been a strange series of deaths in the rather
substantial Stone residence on Bourbon Street, but after all
what did that prove? Maybe it was true that heart disease
and epilepsy ran in the family, just as she had said. Mrs.
Stone enjoyed the respect, if not exactly the admiration, of
the community.

The worst the neighbors could say about her was that
she had caused quite a bit of trouble in the home of James
Aberts, a small, red-haired, wiry-looking brakeman almost
ten years her junior. Aberts, (Continued on page 49)

LPS Oy ORE LOFT AT LE EES ME PONE Den ae a aa


YOU cant killa cop and get away with it. The
underworld knows it. The world at large knows
it. It is as inevitable as the tide, the changing sea-
sons and death itself; the cop-killer forever will be
hounded like a hated, menacing beast of prey until
finally he meets his doom. ;

In this story for INstpe Detective I am going to tell you
about “Handsome Eddie” Metelski. Eddie was not particu-
larly handsome. He was a rat. And he killed a cop. The
victim was my best friend, my buddy—clear-eyed, laughing.
courageous Warren G. Yenser. When I sat by powerless
and watched the life blood of Trooper Yenser ebbing away.
when J heard his dying words and was tortured by his part-
ing agony. I dedicated myself to a campaign of personal
vengeance. I resolved that by my own efforts and_ those
.of my fellow officers, Cop-Killer Metelski would be routed
straight to the electric chair.

The stench of evil was sweet in Eddie Metelski’s flaring
nostrils. He was a trafficker in dope and women, a past
master in the art of blasting safes. a stickup specialist and
many other things. It was a mathematical certainty that
his path would one day lead to murder. When this appears in
print Eddie will perhaps already have held his appointed
rendezvous in the wired chair at New Jersey State Prison.
There is talk of an appeal, but chances of a reprieve are
slight. If he still draws breath, Eddie may gain some
measure of comfort from the lot of the strange, grim man
whose death-house cell adjoins his own Bruno Richard
Hauptmann has long thumbed his nose at the executioner.

Killer and all-around bad man though he was. the chunky,
broad-shouldered Metelski might nevertheless have eluded
the reaching arm of the law had it not been for his ego
and his lust for women. It was a cocklebur—an insignificant.
ordinary variety of cocklebur—a half-emptied whisky bottle.
a coat button and a generous quantity of New Jersey mud
which helped grease his path to the death-house. They repre-

ir rvteinennthe intemal nna. e ameeitehiae nena ett eictiten deem peiisin

Te ee

“It was a mathematical certainty that Eddie
Metelski would one day come to murder.” He

is shown here in his death house cell awaiting

the chair.

sented. illogically enough, the only logic in Eddie's life
They spelled “finis” to the twenty-six years he had spem
wallowing in the profitable muck and slime of the white
slaver, and in the welter of broken bodies whose unholy
need was a dream-making powder he could supply. Maggot-
like, he fed and fattened on the living dead.

But to begin at the beginning. ;

Sixty minutes after two gunmen paralyzed a Philadelphia
restaurant and made off with the receipts, shortly after
3:30 o'clock the morning of Saturday, November 9, 1935.
a powertul coupe drummed along New Jersey Route 25
toward New York. Trooper Yenser and I, cruising in a
patrol car at Sand Hills, saw the machine hurtle past and
judged that it was doing at least seventy miles an hour.

Neither of us had been apprised of the stickup in Phila-
delphia, nor did we know that the bandits were headed our
way. The thundering coupe then meant but one thing—
speeders. I shot our prowl car into third and sent it racing
after the lawbreakers.

I had just been congratulating my partner on his wed-
ding “anniversary.”

“Dorothy and 1 have been married just six months,”
Yenser had exclaimed with a happy chuckle. My response
had been cut short by the passing of the mystery machine.

Dawn was a long way off, and the headlights gleamed
whitely in the mist-filled darkness. The speedometer needle
touched eighty—a mile and a third a minute. The tail-
light appeared ahead and then winked out. Yenser laughed
grimly. | jammed the accelerator down to the floorboard.
The glowing light was in sight again. We inched up on the
fleeing coupe until we could make out its Pennsylvania
license plates. Our siren was screaming.

The coupe ground-to an abrupt stop. I pulled alongside.
My partner had his hand on the door handle. He leaned
out the window, his jaw set at a determined angle. His
police whistle shrilled eerily in the early morning darkness.

serra tenteet contenant

Red-headed, blues-singing Mary Truchanowice,
the killer's sweetheart, smuggled him a revolver
after dazzling guards by lifting her skirts and

saying, “See, I haven't got a thing!”

That was Yenser’s last mortal act. The dull snout of a
shotgun was poked out of the other car, almost in his face.
Flame weirdly lighted the scene for a. brief moment, and
the thunder of the weapon sounded in my ears.

I swung the wheel hard and cursed bitterly as my buddy's
inert form thudded against me and I realized he Was dying.

I drew my gun, aimed it at the red tail-light vanishing into
the black void ahead and squeezed the trigger. There were
answering spurts of flame. Lead sang close to my ear. A
slug struck the radiator. While Yenser went through death’s
agony, I put on all possible speed, bent on vengeance.

For ten miles we roared down the highway, the gunmen
opening an ever-growing gap between us: past sleeping
towns, dimly lighted gas stations . and then I had to
give it up. T pulled to a halt at an all-night lunch wagon
and ordered the gaping counterman to spread the alarm by
telephone.

There was something tight in my throat when I returned
to the car. My buddy lay still and bloody in the seat. I
rushed him to the Elizabeth General Hospital, where doctors
told me he had died almost instantly. Red rage and speechless
sorrow numbed my brain. Sooner or later the man who
fired those blasting shotgun charges would be caught. And
when he was . . . Unconsciously I clenched my hands
into tight, hard fists. Now if ever “Jersey Justice” had to
be accomplished !

LEARNED later that officers had been waiting when the

murder car rocketed down the highway into Elizabeth.
Guns bellowed. But the coupe had charged through the wall
of leaden death and outsped its pursuers.

At Trumbull Street and Schiller Avenue, the small army
of manhunters came upon the car—abandoned. On the seat
lay a shotgun and a half-empty whisky bottle. The killer
might just as well have remained in the car. Just as surely
as if he had left behind a signed confession, his guilt was


STERN vee i Tao

es

Semenke sacaked into this Newark cafe te buy
food while his pal Metelski lurked outside. A venge- cs

ful posse gave the two outlaws no time for lunch.

written here. There were fingerprints! And something else.
A few feet away. almost buried in the soft mud and cockle-
burs abounding in the meadowland stretching to the south,
my fellow officers found a dark coat button with some shreds
of gray cloth attached to it.

Ten minutes later headquarters flashed word over the
state police teletype that the fingerprints found on the whisky
bottle had been identified as those
of “Handsome Eddie” Metelski. All

“TOT RE

Searching Metelski, following his final capture, the.
police feund a 38 caliber revolver, four deadly
dum-dum bullets, and a half-empty whisky bottle.

2

fastly protested his innocence. He gave several alibis, none
of which stood up under subsequent investigation. For
seventy-two hours he was hemmed in by a circle of grim-
faced men, their eyes hating him, their mouths hurling ques-
tions. But he refused to break. It really wasn’t necessary
for Eddie Metelski to break. His fingerprints, the mud,
the cocklebur, the button torn from his coat—they told their
own damning story.
“Metelski,’ Acting Police Chief

of New Jersey's crime-fighting re- aS ee
sources were now given over to the SIRES coma mee,

aoe Brennan rasped, “we've got enough
on you to send you to the electric

¥-P.Cleee; $8.9 UTO 12
a20n

case. Planes joined in the hunt. ae Co era ee chair.”

At 7:30 o’clock that morning—a ie. Y | : The repulsive white slaver shud-
few short hours after Yenser died— ae & | 3 dered but remained mute. Soon the
Patrolmah Alexander Geiger, walk- = ee ee iron-grated doors of Middlesex

ing his beat in downtown Elizabeth,
strolled into the Broad Street sta-
tion of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
He paused abruptly, his eyes alert.
At the ticket window, with his back
turned, slouched a man who some-
how seemed to warrant suspicion.
Geiger distinctly heard him ask for
a ticket to Philadelphia.

ea wecrusrr
150 Lps.; Dlee ores;

Lamued 12-15-35,

County jail, at New Brunswick.
| closed on him, while we continued
| ma our unrelenting search for the slay-
er’s companion.

Pennsylvania police, giving the

Aer 26; helgnt S¢e.sdt
brows hair;

Mew . . . c
ee eo closest cooperation, sent victims of

the Philadelphia stickup to New
Jersey. Four persons pointed accus-
ing fingers at Eddie Metelski, pick-

S.torees
Suowriatencact

Mew Jereey Stabe Polics,
State Bouse, treatos, KZ.

The officer took a step forward.
His eyes darkened as they focussed
on the man’s shoes. Mud adhered
to them, ankle deep. Geiger’s face
became grim as his glance shifted to

THE TELLTALE PRINTS

This police circular describing cop-
killer Metelski was broadcast over
five states after he and his confed-

ing him unhesitatingly out of a
lineup. They were shown next
through a mass of rogues’ gallery
photographs, and before long they
spotted the picture of Eddie’s part-

the tiny cocklebur clinging to the erate escaped from the Middlesex ner in murder—a tough hoodlum

man’s trouser leg. Mud and cockle- County
burs were to be found in only one
section of the city!

Just then the man turned. Geiger’s eyes shot from his un-
shaven features to his double-breasted coat—and to the tiny
ragged tear where a button had_ been.

Eddie Metelski, sudden fear mirrored in his sharp glance,
twisted abruptly and ran toward a train just pulling out.
But Geiger had no intention of losing his quarry. His big
hands closed firmly over the shoulders of the wanted man.
Geiger didn’t stop to ask questions. He hated a cop-killer
as much as any other enforcement officer. With a low-
muttered warning not to “try any tricks,” he hauled Eddie
to headquarters and left the business of grilling to his
superiors.

I was there when the rat-faced Metelski was brought in,
and it took all my will power to keep from laying hands
on him. But I knew the law would have to take its course.
My rage was somewhat abated now, and my desire to take
savage vengeance into my own hands was replaced by the
hope that I would see Metelski burn.

Metelski, faced with the incontrovertible evidence, stead-

w

Jail. and an ex-convict named Albert

“Whitey” Morton. Metelski and
Morton, the victims stated positively, were the thugs who
held up the Philadelphia restaurant shortly after midnight on
the Saturday morning Yenser was killed.

We now had the story complete. Metelski and Morton
had committed the stickup and then stolen a coupe. That
car, bearing Pennsylvania license plates and containing the
murder shotgun and the telltale whisky bottle, was the one
found abandoned near the Elizabeth meadows.

Jersey troopers rushed to aid local authorities in Phila-
delphia, Morton's center of operations. But aware that cap-
ture was only hours away, Morton elected to take the easiest
way out. Shortly after he sneaked back to his hideaway,
he attached a rubber tube to a gas jet, placed the free end
in his mouth and inhaled deeply. He was found lying in
a twisted heap on the floor, a crooked grin on his mouth,
as though he were having the last laugh.

Meanwhile the imprisoned “Handsome Eddie” was doing
a lot of thinking. He was thinking that nothing would please
him better than to get away from Middlesex jail. The
matter presented problems—but he had broken jails before.

a

ee OS 4%

and Semenko when the fugitives were recaptured.”

Metelski had a record longer than his arm. He had
tangled with the law twelve times while under age, and an
additional nine times after reaching his majority. On
August 17, 1935, only a few months earlier, he had crashed
his way out of the Caledonia Prison Farm chain gang in
Halifax County, North Carolina, where he was serving
eight to twelve years for safe-cracking.

Several years back, he had taken
it “on the lam” from a_ western

New Jersey state troopers, eager to avenge the death =
of Warren G. Yenser, were not gentle with Metelski

# From the rear window of this murder car Metelski
<< -- snuffed out Trooper Yenser’s life after a thrilling
cighty-mile-an-hour chase over pitch-dark highways.

Eddie began to cultivate Warden Alfred H. Puerschner,
painting himself as “not a bad fellow, after all.” His
manner was meek and friendly. Next he wrote letters to
his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Metelski, who were decent,
law-abiding citizens, to his wife, and—most significant of
all—to one of his many sweethearts, a tantalizing, red-headed
girl named Mary Truchanowicz. Mary was, off and on, a

purveyor of blues songs in metro-

politan night spots. She knew

penitentiary after sawing through
the bars of his cell. And more re-
cently, while awaiting trial for an-
other of his many  safe-looting
expeditions, he almost repeated the
performance at the Burlington
County Jail at Mount Holly, New
Jersey.

This cop-killer was a tough
hombre, all right. So tough, in
fact, that he was one of the few
surviving members of the notorious
“Shoey” Bonner gang of cutthroats
which at one time carried on a lucra-
tive and despicable traffic in dope
and women throughout the East.

While Eddie was racking his
brain for an out, Philadelphia officers
picked up Dorothy Johnson, a
friend of the dead Morton, and an
attractive woman who said she was
Mrs. Marie Morton, the widow.
Dorothy, or “Dotty,” the authorities
pointed out, was a well-known character; she had operated
vice dens, carried guns for mobsters, handled dynamite
in safe-robbing operations, and engaged in general out-
lawry. Both women were held as material witnesses.

Although Eddie was not informed that Dotty and Mrs.
Morton were in custody, it is coincidental that he hit upon
women as a way out of Middlesex County Jail. The gentler
sex had always played a big part in his life. A married
man, he had mistresses to boot—and sometimes -did.

Eddie Metelski became, abruptly, the county jail’s model
prisoner. But in the agile recesses of his mind several
ingenious ideas were developing. These he kept strictly
to himself—with one exception. He confided in Paul
Semenko—born Semenkowitz—a tow-headed fellow who had
reached the stage of prison trusty although he was even
then awaiting trial for a holdup at Dunellen. Call it an in-
stinctive knowledge of human nature or call it foolishness,
Eddie took a chance and won. Semenko agreed to play
along with him. Semenko had the run of the cell blocks—
which was of the utmost importance in Metelski’s scheme.

VIGILANT OFFICER

Patrolman Alexander Geiger of the
Elizabeth force, in the “dog house”
for an infraction of department rules,
redeemed himself by dramatically
Spotting and capturing Metelski.

Eddie’s wife, but there was little
love lost between them.

The killer, with characteristic
facetiousness, asked that they — all
come up and see him some time—
and they did. They came often.
Warden Puerschner allowed Eddie
to receive his guests in the visiting
room without the supervision of
guards. The routine search of all
visitors for weapons was ‘made, of
course, but for the time being this
was all right with Eddie.

Eddie’s wife, an attractive bride
of four months, caught Warden
Puerschner’s discerning eye, and the
prisoner was elated. One day, as-
suming a forlorn air and seemingly
bursting with friendship for the
amiable Puerschner, he said to him:

“Gee, warden, you know I’ve been
thinking a lot about my wife. Poor
kid, here I am in jail and she’s all
alone. Gosh, I'd sure appreciate it if you’d take her out
for a drink the next time she comes around to see me. If
you tell her everything’s okay with me, I'm sure she'll feel
better.”

“Why. sure thing, Metelski,” the warden replied, “I'll
be glad to. I guess I know what’s she’s going through.
You can count on me.” ;

It was not long before almost every jail visit of pretty
Mrs. Metelski wound up in a New Brunswick tavern with
Puerschner !

That angle satisfactorily disposed of, Eddie explained his
plans to his titian-haired songstress, Mary Truchanowicz.
She enthusiastically agreed to help him.

Mary came to see her boy friend every day. Playing her
part like a trouper, she would start off her jail visits with
a little act for the guard. Tilting her head coquettishly, she
would lift her skirts some distance above her knees and
coyly observe:

“See, I haven't got a thing.”

The guards, of course, disagreed with the shapely Mary

31

1 EMA awihd a8 Al


herself
n detec-
ps there
hat Me-
uuke for.
‘herefore,

ain tem-
t. Hicks
deout, if
killer to
girl who
authori-
would be

a false
ifeet. that
was Con-
bout the
its, Then
and held

t. if there
iski to it.
xo Stock-
Detective
rk Police
uvities of
ghtfall on
had often
st Kinney
e city that
ng houses,
s. System-
ng photo-

to comb
> ascertain

ghi—three
-that fears
through a

Louis J.
g alone in
, Plainfield
murderous
walked in,

killer an-
uit front?”

er,

» the Pole’s
hand over
on his face.
shave me,”
look awful.
intains. No

idous Vane

e neighbor-
wni’s alarm,
lues as to
“was found
in Hillside,
o gas tank
the vehicle
letelski had

eceived the
ar when he
ving news.
and Grau-
varet. singer
est Kinney
ipe. paying
dd the tugi-

ectives un-
d State Po-
ived in the
nd planted
< and beer
1, and eve-
the hunted
ness, Detec-
irauley left
red up and
the vicinity

huffied into

YE MYSTERLES

the thoroughfare from Halsey Street and
approached a diner across the strect from
where the singer had rented a room. They
halted at an alley just a few feet before
reaching the diner, and talked for a few
seconds. The street was dark and it was
not possible for the sleuths, two of whom
were on the other side of the thorough-
fare, one of whom was on the same side
of the street but on the other side of the
diner, to see the faces of the men. But
all three suspected who the men were.

INALLY, one of the suspects walked

into the alley and the other proceeded
a few paces and entered the diner. He took
a seat at the counter and the waitress, Mrs.
Gertrude Phyllis, approached. The man
was ordering four hamburgers and two
containers of coffee “to take out” when
Detective Stockburger, who had _ been
nearest the diner, peered in. As a signal
he reached into his pocket and lifted a
handkerchief to his face. Immediately
Detectives Long and Grauley started to
walk slowly across the street toward the
mouth of the alley. Stockburger mean-
while replaced the handkerchief and drew
his service weapon. Without being ob-
served, he walked into the diner to a
point directly in back of the man who
had ordered the hamburgers and coffee.
He leaned over and said in a low tone:

“Don’t move, Semenkewitz. you're cov-
ered. Stick up your hands.”

The alley into which the second man
had gone was about fifty feet in length.
In the rear of it was a well-lighted auto-
mobile parking lot and the illumination
from this silhouetted a figure slouching
against a building at the mid-way point
of the passageway. Detective Grauley re-
mained at the mouth of the alley, out of
sight of the suspect, while Detective Long
gave a signal that brought other man-
hunters pouring into the street. Some of
these men joined Grauley, others hurried
with Long around the block to the park-
ing lot in the rear. Long had arranged
to attack from the rear, so that the figure
in the shadows would be driven out into
the narrow confines of the street, rather
than into the open parking lot.

Long and other officers tiptoed to that
point of the parking lot that led into the
alley and peered into ‘the murky passage.
One of the sleuths stepped on a large
cinder and it gave off a crunching sound.
The form in the alley stiffened, then be-
gan to move quickly toward the street.

Long fired three wild shots, the signal

to the men in the street to spring into
action, as he and the other sleuths poured
into the alley, after the fugitive. Without
getting the opportunity to bring into play
the .38-caliber revolver that reposed in his
overcoat pocket, Edward Metelski ran
headlong into a bucking mass of detec-
tives, then found himself sprawled on his
back on the sidewalk, from the effects of
blows from Detective Grauley’s fists. De-
tective Stockburger had meanwhile re-
lieved Semenkewitz of a revolver and,
at the first sound of the shots, had brought
him out of the diner.

The weapon found on Metelski proved
to be the one from which the bullet had
been fired into the State Police car in
which Trooper Yenser was slain. The
killer had also been carrying a flashlight
when arrested the second time. These
two articles constituted another link in
the chain of evidence being collected
against the Pole.

Mary Truchanoirez subsequently ad-
mitted that Whitey Morton had left the
gun and flashlight at the home of Metel-
ski's parents, and that she had picked them
up there and smuggled them to the killer
in jail. Metelski, while professing inno-
cence of the trooper’s murder, admitted
to Prosecutor Hicks that he went into the
neighborhood where he was trapped only
because he had read in a newspaper that
his girl friend had been released. He had
therefore concluded that it was safe to
proceed to the room which the singer had
rented and told him about before he
broke jail.

HE singer elected to plead guilty to

aiding Metelski, and received five years
in prison. Semenkewitz, who also pleaded
guilty, was sentenced to from fifteen to
twenty years. Metelski went on trial for
his life January 6th, 1936. In presenting
the case, Prosecutor Hicks used the singer.
the defendent’s wife, Morton’s wife and
“Big Dot” Johnson as Witnesses for the
State. No charges were preferred against
the latter three. The jury found Metel-
ski guilty of murder and he was executed
in the State Prison at Trenton on August
4th, 1936.

Metelski, like the thorough coward that
he really was, cracked up completely be-
fore his execution. When he found him-
self in the spot where he had put poor
Trooper Yenser —doomed—it was too
much for this “brave” man of the under-
world. He walked -into the death chamber
a quivering, whimpering weakling.

Trapping the Invisible Bandit of Wall Street

. (Continued from page 37)

weeks later, she readily admitted having
sounded out the Marquis on the negotia-
bility of the securities. She denied, how-
ever, that she knew they had been stolen.

“Who, then, was this friend for whom
you caused inquiry to be made?”

“Mr, Frank—Dave Frank.”

“Dave Frank, the horse-race bookmaker
of Central Park West?” asked one of
Hoover’s men.

“Yes,” .

“And did Dave Frank,” the noble-
woman was asked, “give you the list of
the serial numbers of those bonds?”

The Marchioness nodded, and forthwith
went out of the picture, innocent, her rdle
played.

Mr. Frank was next on the carpet.
“Sure,” he said, “I gave the lady the
numbers of the bonds. I knew she had
good brokerage connections and could get
them looked up. I had been curious about
those bonds. ‘I originally got the numbers

NOVEMBER, 1939

trom Tony (the dead De Pasquale) and I
finally got the idea that they were part
of the stolen securities. So I wanted to
make sure. I figured that if they were,
maybe I could find out where they were,
put the finger on them and collect the five
per cent reward that’s out for turning
them up.”

Frank was apparently telling the truth
when he said that his interest in the

securities was ‘confined to locating them.

and getting a cut of the reward money
for his trouble. G-men urged him to search
his memory for anything else that De
Pasquale might have told him about the
notes.

“Come to think of it,” remarked Frank,
“Tony said something about a whole batch
of that stuff being cached somewhere in
lower Manhattan or over in New Jersey.”

Inasmuch as De Pasquale was pretty
definitely tied into the stolen securities
pieture, a thorough investigation of his

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"rT rr

MONAHAN, Eugene

—Monahan, a ll-year-old Union, N.J., burglar and_thief_had_a_police
- record dating back to 1926, His 15-year-old son, Michael, was on
. probation for a burglary that happened in 1952, On March 7, 1953,
——Eugene—Monahan-waited-at_a_tavern_across the street fromthe Union
County Court House in “lizabeth while his son reported to his pro-
bation officer. When Michael returned, his father sent him to the
~——automobile—to—get—a—Luger—pistol -whieh—+ €
him. Monahan REXSMFE robbed the 63-year-old bartender, Sebastian
Wellandics and when Weilandics made a move towards tim, Monahan shot
—and_killed—him,—At—that—times—a-2?-year-old_patron, William -S,Dig__
kin, Jr., entered the bar and Monahan killed him also. The Monahans

left the bar and the bodies were not discovered until another patron
~—entered—a—few-minutes-later.,—For- over a-year;~—the—area—around-Eliza=
__beth had been plagued by a series of burglaries where the ESRORERE
AM WAN OWANOULOABEXGYEXGHEXBIKEXEAR pane of a rear window would be
~—removed-by a-glass-cutter-and-someone- small of -BEX- size—would-squeeze-
_thppugh and loot the premises, On the night of April 12 aod, An
suburban Verona, Michael Monahan was caught in a shop. Afapr inten=
——Sive_questioning,-he-confessed—that-his father nad been teaching

him the ropes and that Eugene Monahan would case a place during _

ff r . : “a , : NE Ge : ~T ee eee ee ee ru eEr eee |

the day time in order that Michael might rob it that. night... While.
Michael would be inside the building, Zugene would walk a dog.in _
the front, serving as a lookout-and overseeing the operation....They
were tied in on the Weilandics-—Diskin killings when it was discover-
ed that they had stolen a luger in one of the robberies, Michael
confessed, stating that he had fired the gun that killed the two
men. When Eugene was told of this, he, too, confessed but stated
that he had been the killer: and that Michael had confessed only in
an effort to save him. Michael Monahan was sent to the Bordentown
Reformatory- and released two years a#ater, after which he joined the
Air Force and served with honor until he was killed in an automobile
accident on Dec. ll, 1957, Eugene Monahan was electrocuted on

HN Jan. 11, 1955. _*

MASTER DETECTIVE, February, 1963, Page 58


MONAHAN, Eugene _ LARGE CARD

J. 7~

Monahan, a hh-year-old hi nitee. robber and theif was
aching-his-15-year-old-son,Michael, the ropes “when, on
March 7, 1953, he shot and killed 63-year-old. Sebastian
Weilandics, an Elizabeth, N. J., bartender and a pa tron,
-27myear-old-William S. Diskin, Jr., while holding up the -
‘bar. At first the son eonfessed to the shootings, but——
his father admitted that he pulled the trigger. Eugene
Monahan: died in the electric chair at Trenton on Jan. ll,
vy 19 Michael was sent to Reformatory school and subse-...
quently joined the Sir Force. He was killed in an auto-

---mobile-accident on Dees ty TS te fs ; es fy pe A

h

“SOURCE: Master Detective February 1963. |,
BEE ee iiclinf Cop HSB em,


ttt us ri bac) a RmRE Yh my agree ah) | iy.
C * gti, diy eee ate patie

MONICH, Samuel, white, hanged Morristown, New Jersey, on August 10th, 1904,

1016 64 ATLANTIC REPORTER. (N. J.

(74 N. J. L. 522)
STATE v. MONICH.
(Couit of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.
July 11, 1906.)

1, Homwicipe—DyIn@ DECLARATIONS—COMPE-
TENCY.

Where a dying declaration is offered in evi-
denee, the preliminary question of fact, whether
the declarant was under a sense of impending
death, is for the determination of the trial court,
and its finding, if supported by any legal evi-
denee, is not reviewable by ordinary writ of
error.

[Iad. Note.—I"or cases in point, see Cent. Dig.
vol. 26, Tlomicide, §§ 458, 459.]

2. SAME—INSTRUCTIONS.

Where the trial court determines that a
dying declaration was in fact_ made under a
sense of impending death, the defendant is not
entitled to have the jury instructed that they
may review such determination, and disregard
the declaration if they come to a different: con-
clusion from that reached by the trial court.

. (Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to Court of Oyer and Terminer,
Morris County.

Sam Monich was convicted of murder in
the first degree, and brings error. Affirmed.

Charlton A. Reed, for plaintiff in error.
Charles A. Rathbun, for defendant in error.

PITNEY, J. The defendant below, having
been convicted of the crime of murder in the
first degree, and thereupon sentenced ‘to
death, brings the record of that conviction to
this court for review. Besides the strict
record, he has brought up with his writ
of error certain bills of exception sealed at
the trial raising questions concerning the
admissibility in evidence of declarations
made by the deceased after receiving the
mortal wounds, and in the absence of the
defendant, and also certain. exceptions re-
specting the instructions of the trial judge
to the jury. The entire record of the pro-
ceedings had upon the trial is not brought
up as permitted by section 136 of the Crim-
inal Procedure Act (P. L. 1898, p. 915), and
our review of the conviction must there-
fore proceed as on ordinary writ of error.
There are but five assignments of error, and
these are rested upon the bills of exceptions.
Three of them concern the admission of the
declarations already alluded to. The other
two refer to the charge. Upon the argument
here the learned prosecutor of the pleas in-
sisted that the declarations were admissible
as part of the res geste, and also that they
were admissible as dying declarations. The
former question we have not found it neces-
sary to consider, having come to the conclu-
sion that the trial court committed no legal
error in admitting them as dying declara-
tions.

The circumstances disclosed in evidence
were briefly as follows: The deceased was
an able-bodied woman of middle age named
Hattie Decker. She was widowed, and lived
upon a farm with her parents, Mr. and Mrs.
Wilbur Kayhart. Between 6 and half-past
6 in the evening of January 17, 1906, after

having taken supper with her parents, she

took a lighted lantern with the avowed pur-

pose of going from the house to the barn to

fasten up her dog. Shortly afterwards, as

Mr. Kayhart testified, he heard the firing of

two or three shots, went quickly to the door,

and found his daughter standing there with

the still lighted lantern in her hand en-
deavoring to enter the house, but unable to
do so for want of strength. To him she
said: “Oh, Pa, I am shot with a bullet. I

am dying”’ We asked her: ‘For God’s
sake, who shot you?’ and she answered:
“Sam shot me” (meaning the defendant).
At this time, as appeared from medical tes
timony previously introduced, she was suf-
fering from two pistol shot wounds in the
body, one in the right shoulder and the
other in the chest. The bullet that caused
the latter wound had entered and _ passed
through the thoracie cavity, penetrating the
lungs, severing arteries and veins, fracturing
the fifth rib and the shoulder blade, an

lodging under the skin at the back. From
this wound she died within a few hours,
Kaybart’s testimony that she declared tlie
defendant had shot her was admitted over
objection, and an exception was thereupon
sealed. Nine other witnesses were produced
who saw her during the same evening. Their
testimony tended to show that she was very
weak and sinking. They swore that she said
in their hearing at different times that she
was shot, that she was convinced she was
about to die, and that Sam had shot her;
that she knew it was Sam because she had
seen him. Exceptions were likewise sealed
to the admission of these declarations. The
ground upon which evidence of this character
is admitted in homicide cases was stated
with suflicient clearness by Chief Justice
Green in Donnelly v. State, 26 N. J. Law,
463, at page 497, as follows: “Dying dec-
larations derive their sanction as testimony
from the fact that they are made under thio
apprehension of approaching dissolution, in
the view and expectation of speedy death;
the situation of the party under such solemn
circumstances creating a sanction equally im-
pressive with that of an oath administered
in a court of justice (citing authorities). It
is essential, therefore, to the admissibility
of these declarations, and is a preliminary
fact to be proved by the party offering them,
that they were made under a sense of im-
pending death. If not so madt, they are
not admissible in evidence. It consequently
becomes necessary that the circumstances
under which the declarations are made should
be shown to the judge, it being his province
to determine whether they are admissible.
It is a question of competency which address-
es itself to the court, and which must be
met and decided by the court. If the declar-
ations were in point of fact made under a
sense of impending death, in view and ex-
pectation of the immediate approach of that
solemn event, they are to be admitted in

N.J

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evidence. If they are not so made, they are
to be excluded from the consideration of the
jury.” Upon review of the same case in this
court Mr. Justice Ogden said (26 N. J. Law,
at page 617): “When the death wound is in-
flicted in secret, as was done in this case,
no person can be expected to speak to the
fact except the victim of the violence, ITlis
account of the circumstances of his injury,
given in articulo mortis, when intelligently
repeated to a jury, is received by them un-
der the like sanction as all oral testimony
is received, the sense of impending death be-
ing equivalent to the sanction of an oath.”

With regard to the function of a court of
review in the premises, Chief Justice Green
made it plain (26 N. J. Law, at page 501),
that the question here is not a question of
the weight of testimony, but whether there
was evidence before the trial court which
warranted it in admitting the evidence.
Upon this point we agree with the view ex-
pressed by Mr. Justice Dixon in the Supreme
Court in Peak vy. State, 50 N. J. Law, 231,
12 Atl. 710, where, after saying that the ad-
missibility of such declarations depends up-
on the preliminary decision of the question
whether they were made under a conciousness
of impending death, he proceeds as follows:
“Now, undoubtedly, the preliminary question
above referred to was one of fact. What
state of mind must be shown to render a
declaration admissible in evidence as a dying
declaration is a question of law; but wheth-
er in a particular case that state of mind
exists is a question of fact. The decision of
that question cannot be reviewed on writ of
error. But, behind the decision of such a
question, and necessarily entering into it,
there is another question, viz.: whether
the evidence relative to the fact as such
furnishes legal support for the decision ren-
dered. This question is one of law, and
therefore open to review on error.’ In
short, evidence of declarations admitted as
dying declarations stands, as we think, upon
precisely the same legal footing, so far as
review on error is concerned, as testimony
of confessions made by a defendant while in
custody. . In the case of such a confession,
where its admissibility is challenged, the
primary question for the determination of
the trial court is the question of fact wheth-
er the defendant in confessing acted volun-
tarily, or, on the contrary, was under the in-
fluence of fear or hope. If there be any
legal evidence to support the finding of the
trial judge to the effect that the confession
was voluntarily made, his finding is not
subject to legal exception, and not reviewable
upon a writ of error that rests alone upon
such an exception. State v. Young, 67 N. J.
Law, 223, 227, 228, 51 Atl. 939; State v.
MacQueen, 69 N. J. Law, 522, 55 Atl. 1006.

So, where it is proposed to introduce in
evidence the opinion of a witness as an ex-
pert witness. The question whether he is
eypert is a question of fact for the deter-

STATE v. MONICH.,

1017

mination of the trial court, and if there be
any legal evidence to support the finding the
admission of the opinion is not reviewable
by ordinary writ of error. State v. Arthur,
70 N. J. Law, 425, 427, 57 Atl. 156. If there
be no legal evidence to support the finding
the error is one of law, and consequently
reviewable. Riley v. Camden & Trenton Ry.
Co., 70 N. J. Law, 289, 57 Atl. 445. It is en-
tirely manifest that in the case at hand there
was abundant evidence to legally justify the
determination of the trial court that the
declarations of the deceased that were adimit-
ted in evidence were made under the ap-
prehension of impending death. She was in
fact mortally wounded. Her appearance
foreshadowed the fatal result, and she de-
clared that she was dying. Nor were the
declarations rendered inadmissible by the
circumstance that when they were admitted
it had already appeared in evidence that
after the making of the declarations her at-
tending physician held out to her some slight
hope of recovery if she would be removed
to a hospital for treatment. Ividence of a

- hope subsequently aroused was legally imma-

terial upon the question of her state of mind
at the time the declarations were made. See
10 Am. & Eng. Ene. Law (2d Ed.) 368,

The only other matter requiring discussion
is the refusal of the trial court to charge
the jury that “before the jury can consider
declaration made by the deceased as to the
person who inflicted the mortal injury in
the absence of such person, they must be con-
vinced that the person making the declara-
tion had an absolute conviction that death
as an absolute certainty {s immediately at
hand.. If there is the least hope, no matter
how faint, the requisite certainty of belief
does not exist.” The effect of this instruc-
tion would have been to permit the jury to
revise the finding of the trial court upon the
question of fact whether the declaration was
made under a sense of impending death, and
to disregard the declaration if they disagreed
with the conclusion of the judge upon this
point. Defendant’s contention upon this
head received some countenance from a dic-
tum of Justice Depue (afterwards Chief Jus-
tice), in Roesel v. State, 62 N. J. Law, 216,
238, 41 Atl. 408, 416, where, in discussing the
admissibility in evidence of a confession made
by the prisoner, he said: “If there be a con-
flict of evidence as to whether the confession
was or was not voluntary, if the court de-
cides that it is admissible, the question may
be left to the jury, with the direction that
they should reject it if upon the whole evi-
dence they were satisfied that it was not
the voluntary act of the defendant.” This
dictum was based in part upon the charge of
Mr. Justice Drake to the jury in State y.
Guild, and the qualified approval of his in-
struction contained in the opinion of the Su-
preme Court in the same case (10 N. J. Law,
163, 181, 182, 18 Am. Dee. 404). It will be
noticed that the language of Justice Depue

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phone book, and stayed long enough to
order and drink a double Scotch on the
rocks.

According to the best consensus
available from these witnesses, the last
customers who could be placed in the
Shamrock before the murders were dis-
covered were a middle-aged man and his
half-grown son. The man made some com-
ment about the cold and gulped down a
shot of whiskey, straight. The son had a
cola drink.

Captain Migliore, after digesting this
information, had an idea. Recalling the
overturned whiskey bottle which had
spilled its contents on the slain bartender’s
shirt, he asked the witnesses if they
recalled any patron ordering bourbon.
“I’m pretty sure Weilandics was about to
pour from that bottle of bourbon when the
killer blasted hir” the captain said.

“Think now. Do you remember anybody
ordering bourbon?”

One witness was sure the man with the
kid had asked for bourbon, but he and the
lad had only stayed in the bar for a few
minutes. Apparently, only William Diskin,
the other victim, had been in the tavern at
a quarter to twelve,, That was the time to
which the detective had been able to
narrow the presumed time of the double
murder. The hangover sufferer had found
the first body and ‘ran out to the traffic
cop at precisely 12:55. The last regular had
left at a quarter of. It must have happened
in that 10-minute period.

Ballistics experts did their usual
marvelous things with the recovered brass
shells. Ejection marks told them the
murder gun was definitely a Luger. The
slugs retrieved from the bodies were
definitely Luger ammo. These bits of

evidence were rushed to Trenton for com-
parascope examintion with prints of other
Luger weapons which had figured in New
Jersey crimes.

During the next three days, Elizabeth
detectives studied reports on a number of
similar tavern robberies. A ‘“‘Luger-like”
gun had been used in the New Brunswick
stickup of the Gateway Bar, two weeks
earlier. The long gunman got away with
about $300. closer to home, $4,000 was
stolen from Pete’s Bar on Franklin Street
in Elizabeth by three armed bandits. Two
had been caught. They refused to name
their missing pal.

Elizabeth Police Chief Frank Brennan
now tried a new tack. From the State
Firearms. Registration Bureau, he re-
quested a listing of all of all legally
licensed Lugers in the state of New Jersey.
Detective Joseph Harrigan quickly dug up
a promising lead from this gambit.

Just two days before the Shamrock
killings, a registered Luger had been stolen
from a lawnmower shop in the neighbor-
ing town of Millburn, along with tools,
cash and hunting equipment. A_.30-30
Marlin deer rifle was also taken, along
with ammunition for both guns. Inter-
viewed by detectives, the shop owner
disclosed that an extra clip for the Luger,
loaded, had also been taken. He had the
rest of the box of shells from which he had
loaded the clip. They were identical to the
bullets which had killed the two men at the
Shamrock Tavern.

It could be safely assumed, therefore,
that the Luger stolen from the lawnmower
shop was the gun used to kill Weilandics
and Diskin. The burglary of that shop
apparently had been pulled off by a thief
who knew his business. A rear window
pane in the store had been neatly removed
with a glass cutter, the blade of which had
been lubricated with kerosene. This was
not a new MO, but it certainly was not
common, and a check of burglaries in
nearby communities disclosed that the
same method of entry had been used in
more than 30 burglaries in a period of less
than a year. In each instance, a rear or side
window had been carefully cut close to the
putty line. The glass, held firmly by a
rubber suction cup, was lifted out in one
piece. The premises were then entered.

From the size of some of the openings,
officers concluded that the thief had to be
quite slender. Also, he must have worn
gloves, since no fingerprints could be
found.

Chief Brennan, certain that the thief
was of small stature and a resident of the
area, now armed his detectives with
detailed lists of the loot from these
burglaries and sent them on a canvass of
pawn shops and_ secondhand stores,
searching for specific stolen items.

By early April, three such items were
recovered. A typewriter had been disposed
of in the town of Bayway, pawned by a

(Continued on page 80)

53


demonstrated that his intention was not
innocent toward this girl right from the
outset.

“The defendant is obviously under
some strain. You must make proper
allowances for the ordeal that he faces.
Don’t be over-critical of a man in the
position of Brian Ball.

“He is a man of hitherto perfectly good
character.”

The all-male jury needed under two
hours to reach a unanimous verdict. They
found Brian Ball not guilty of murder.

Sentencing the defendant on the charge
of manslaughter which he had admitted,
the judge said:

“You have pleaded guilty to the offence
of manslaughter and it is abundantly
plain, whether on your case or the
prosecution’s, that you behaved
abominably toward that girl. .

“If you had sexual intercourse with her
consent you then attacked her, an act
which resulted in her death. If you at-

tacked her in another way you acted even
more abominably.

“T am sentencing you to spend the next
ten years in one of Her Majesty’s prisons.”

After the verdict, Mr. Tom oster, the
victim’s father, said, “The picture which
has been painted of Elizabeth is entirely
false. She was a God-fearing girl, brought
up in a strict and respectable way. She did
not smoke or drink, or visit public houses
or dance halls. She had only been to the
cinema once in her life. 2

“I am quite satisfied that Elizabeth did
not give herself willingly to any man.
Elizabeth lived by the Bible, for religion,

}

and for her social work.” oe

EDITOR’S NOTE: ene
Dr, Alan Campbell is not the real name
of the person so named in the foregoing
story. A fictitious name has been used
because there is no reason for public in-
terest in the identity of this person. ~

Daddy Was an
Instructor in Murder

(Continued from page 53)

balding man who arrived at the shop in a
large, flashy car. He left a small scottie dog
in the car while he transacted his business
and gave the name “John Keely.” He
received $26 for an Underwood deluxe
portable typewriter. “Keely” was describ-
ed as a man of average height and weight.
From his description, the detectives could
not picture a man of that build crawling
through some of the small-sized window
openings they had seen in the course of the
investigation. ‘

On Sunday night, april 12th, another
break-in was reported at a dress shop in
suburban Verona. What made ‘this one
dramatically different was that the
burglary was reported to police, while it
was still in progress, by a resident who
lived across the street. Two police cruisers
sped to the scene, and as the lead cruiser
pulled to the curb in front of the dress shop,
a late model Cadillac sedan gunned out of
a nearby driveway and raced up the
avenue at top speed.

The lead cruiser stayed put, but the
second one barreled after the Caddy. The
driver of the big car-floored his accelerator
and turned corners like a madman. A cop
in the pursuing cruiser managed to get off
a shot at it, but then the Caddy swerved
crazily and turned into a side street.

Overshooting the turn, the police car
screeched to a halt, backed up, and
wheeled in fast. By then the Caddy was
stalled, but empty, on the next corner.
They had to capture a snarling Scottie dog
in the car before they could search it.

In the back seat, they discovered three
glass cutters soakin in a kerosene-filled
beer can. They also found a box of .32
Smith & Wesson ammo, fifteen .32 caliber
Colt shells and three tubes of copper-clad
BB shot. In the Caddy’s trunk they dis-"

80

covered an assortment of pry bars and
screw drivers, a coil of rope and several
high-powered flash lights. A bullet hole in
the trunk of the Cadillac was proof that the

police marksman had hit his careening

target, but there was no blood in the car to
indicate that the driver had been hit.
Presumably he had braked the cartoa stop
and taken to his heels. A search of the
neighborhood turned up no sign of him.
The Caddy was towed to the Verona
Municipal Garage.

At the dress shop, meanwhile, Police
Chief Edgar Coffin had arrested a’slightly
built boy who didn’t look more than 14 or
15 years old. He was found cowering in a
small dressing cubicle at the rear of the
store. He admitted that he had entered the
premises after cutting out a small pane of
glass in a side door.

At Verona headquarters, the kid asked .

for a cigarette and stared sullenly at the
officers trying to question him. But beyond
saying thst his name was Michael
Monahan adn that he lived in the Vaux
Hall section of Union, less than a dozen
miles away, he would tell them little.

“Who’s'the guy who took off and left
you holding the bag?” Chief Coffin asked
him. eae:

“I was working for him,” the kid said.

“What’s his name?” ;

The youth simply sneered, then said, -

“Get out the rubber hoses and start beating
it out of me. That’s the only way you'll ever.
get me to tell you.”

“You’ve been reading the wrong kind of
comics,” the chief told him. “There aren’t
any rubber hoses.”

They plied him with questions for
almost an hour before the youth finally
looked:as if he might talk. “Look,” he said
then, “I don’t know you guys. Theonly cop

I ever met that I’d trust ‘is Lieutenant -

Durning, over in Irvington, Ifhe tells me to

talk, I'll open up.” sa yet
The Irvington officer, reached at home,

told the Verona officers tKat he’d known

he

Mike Monahan for about a year. “He’s on
probation for a burglary down in this
district,” he said. “Let the kid sleep for a
few hours. I’ll come down and talk to him
first thing in the morning.”

Early Monday morning, the Irvington
lieutenant arrived to talk with young
Mike Monahan in a private office. They
were closeted for nearly five hours. The
story the kid told Lieutenant Durning was
little short of fantastic. In the space of one
short year, the youngster had taken part in
more than 150 burglaries

“My old man was teaching me the
ropes,” he said, “He’s gone out with me on
the jobs. He wanted me to be perfect. Even
better than him.”

According to Monahan’s recital, 44-
year-old Eugene Monahan, whose crime
‘record dated back some 26 years, had
literally forced his son to become a thief.
The boy was beaten for any show of
rebellion. He was beaten too when he
performed clumsily or showed any signs of
being afraid.

“He’d whale me with his strap,” young
Mike said. “He’d say to me, ‘I’m gonna
learn you, now. And you pay attention, or
you'll get lumps!”

Eugene Monahan imparted to his sona
set of simple rules—a sort of thieves’
catechism:

“Work from the roof. It gives you a
chance to see who’s coming from all direc-
tions.

“Work fast. If it’s time you want, they’ll
give you plenty of that in stir.”

According to the youth, his father,
leading the Scottie dog, cased each job,
then stood around looking like an innocent
dog-walker while Mike broke in.

Lieutenant Durning was shocked. “You
mean,” he said, “your old man drove away
and left you in that store last night—left a
kid like you to take the rap?”

The boy nodded. “Yeah. The way he has
it figured, if there has to be a pinch, there’s
no use of the two of us gettin’ caught.”

Eugene Monahan was arrested at his
home in Union. With the hard veneer of
prison wisdom, he admitted nothing. His
son was a liar, he declared. What the kid
needed was a good going-over with a short
length of broomstick. He’d been too lax in
“bringing the kid up proper.”

Jailed in Newark, Eugene Monahan
was held on an open charge. The story of
his Fagin like tutelage of his own young
son was picked up by newspapers from
coast to coast. Elizabeth police were quick
to relate the Monahan saga to their own
particular homicide problem.

Union detectives, inventorying the
contents of the Monahan home, supplied
the bridge between the Verona burglary
and the Elizabeth double-slaying. A

‘number of guns were found in the base-

ment of Monahan’s home. Among them
was the .30-30 Marlin rifle which had been
stolen, with a Luger, from the Millburn

“lawnmower shop.

Captain Winkelmann confronted the

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elder Monahan with this information and
bluntly accused him of the double killing of
the Shamrock Tavern. “You knocked off
the bartender anda young fellow there. We
have witnesses who can place you in that
ginmill just befoire the shooting took
place.”

“Do you have the gun?” Monahan
demanded.

“Not yet,” the captain admitted.

“Then you don’t have nothing”
Monahan snapped. “You’ve got an idea—
that’s all you got.”

Young Monahan also vigorously
denied all knowledge 6f the: Shamrock
killings. This time, however, Captain
Winklemann had a trump up his sleeve.

“Were you in Elizabeth that Saturday
morning, Mike?” he asked the kid.

“Naw,” Mike replied. “I don’t
remember where I was, but I ain’t been in
Elizabeth in months.”

Winkelmann drew from his pocket a
copy of young Mike Monahan’s probation
report. It showed that on each Saturday for
nearly a year including the Saturday of
March 7th, the youth had presented
himself to his probation officer in the
Union County Courthouse in Elizabeth,
New Jersey,. The courthouse was right
across the street from the Shamrock
tavern.

Mike changed his story when he was
brought to Elizabeth to be interviewed by
Chief Brennan and his staff.

“Okay,” he said, “I killed both of them.
Here’s the way it happened. My dad waited
for me at the bar while I went to the
courthouse. I come back and had a coke
with him, then we went out. The old man
says I should go back, shoot the bartender,
and robe the place. I said sure, give me the
gun.

“He gave me the gun. I walked in. The
bartender laughed when I pulled the gun,
so I let him have it—Pow! Pow! Pow
The other guy was there and Ilethim have
it, too. Pow! Pow! Pow! Then I got over the
bar, grabbed the cash and beat it.”

The officers were sure the kid was lying.
They had his father brought in and
repeated young Mike’s story to him. Eu-
gene Monahan hardened criminal though
he was, paled. He then told a different
story.

“Don’t believe the kid,” he began. “He’s
just trying to shield the old man. I killed
those guys.”

He now told the following story: When
Mike came down from the probation office,
his father met him at the tavern. He sent
the boy to his car to get the Luger. Mike
returned and passed the automatic to him
in the Shamrock’s men’s room.

When they went back into the tavern,
the bartender was cutting cheese. Without
warning, Eugene Monahan shot him. At
that moment young Diskin walked into the
tavern. Eugene Monahan fired again. The
first slug hit Diskin in the shoulder. Spin-
ning him around. Two more shots plowed»
into his back. He fell to the floor moaning.

82

“Take my money...Leave me alone...”

Those were Diskin’s last words. He gasped
once, and died.
Father and son then ran to their car and
drove around the block. Coming back to
the tavern and seeing no one about it,
Eugene Monahan reentered the place,
vaulted the bar and looted the till of $58.25.
Again he and Mike drove around in their
car until they saw a crowd gathering in
froni of the tavern. Then they went home.

Two weeks later, Eugene Monahan
said, he broke up the Luger and hurled the
pieces into the Passaic River from the
Stickel Memorial Bridge in ..Newark.
Despite lengthy police efforts to retrieve it,
the weapon was never found.

Confronted with his father’s story, and
at the parent’s urging, young Mike
Monahan admitted he had tried to take the
blame for the killing to protect his old man.

Both were indicted on two counts of
first-degree murder and ordered held
without bail for trial on May 25, 1953.
Before that date, however, at the in-
sistence of the court, the facts in the bizarre
case were reviewed by the Union County
juvenile authorities. Michael Monahan,
whose total take in more than 200
burglaries was less than $2, was ,com-
mitted to Bordentown Reformatory. His
father stood trial alone on the murders

charges. He was convicted and sentenced
to death.

On January 11,1955, Eugene Monahan
was executed in the electric chair of the
New Jersey State Penitentiary in Trenton.

Late in 1955, after spending three years
in the reformatory, Michael Monahan’s
case was again reviewed by the court.
Juvenile Judge Libby Sacher placed Mike
under probation and sent the youth to
work on a Texas ranch.

A year later, Juvenile Court Judge
Richard. R. O’Connor, declaring that
“Michael has made a most satisfactory
adjustment to his new environment,” took
young Monahan off probation and placed
him entirely on his own. Mike at once
joined the Air Force and was stationed in
Phoenix, Arizona, for basic training.

On December 4, 1957, death cheated the
young airman out of his chances to
complete the program of rehabilitation he
had laid out for himself. Returning to the
airbase in a car.with one of his buddies,
young Mike hit an oil slick on the road and
crashed into a utility pole. His passenger
was critically injured, but Michael Gene
Monahan was instantly killed.

At the age of 20, his turbulent young life
was over, but not before he had
demonstrated that he had what it took to
leave his unfortunate past behind and
make a new start. eee

Last Embrace Was
A Kiss of Death

‘(Continued from page 43)

a Kenneth Morgan, a widower, from infor-
mation assertedly imparted by her tenant.

The lieutenant checked Mrs. Burling’s
apartment, but so far as he could deter-
mine, everything appeared to be in order.
Her clothing hung neatly in her closets.
The contents of her resser drawers
appeared to be undisturbed. So far as the
landlady could determine, the condition of
the room was normal.

Asked what she knew. about Kenneth
Morgan, the landlady said she met him for
the first time in July, 1972 and last’ saw
him for the last time on Sunday, August
20th. She said he came to the apartment
house looking for Evelyn while the woman
was with relatives in Long Beach. ;

The description of Morgan given by the
landlady was similar to witnesses’ descrip-
tion of the man who got into her car at the
San Gabriel parking lot.

On August 24th, Lt. Hughes dropped in

on Morgan in the latter’s office in the Los -

Angeles Civic Center, where he worked for
the city’s Public Utilities, Com-
munications and Transportation Depart-
ment. Hughes said he told Morgan he was
investigating the disappearance of Mrs.
Burling. Morgan reportedly told officers
that he was acquainted with Mrs. Burling,
but that the last time he had seen her was
on Sunday, August 20th, and not on Mon-
day, August 21st.

This conflicted with the reports of Mrs.
Burling’s fellow employes, who saidaman
resembling Morgan had been seen necking

with her on the 21st.

When Lieutenant Hughes began ask-
ing more questions, Morgan became indig-
nant and demanded to know why he was
being questioned. Hughes simply explain-
ed that he was checking out a missing
persons report and was trying to pinpoint
the last known movements of Mrs. Burl-
ing.

Morgan was quoted as telling Hughes, “I
don’t want to talk any more about it. I want
to contact my attorney.” He called his
attorney immediately but was unable to
reach him. Hughes heard him tell the
attorney’s secretary, “Have him call me at
my office as soon as he comes in. It is bad.
It is bad.”

Lieutenant Hughes left the office and
picked up other threads of the investiga-
tion.

Police next contacted Mrs. Burling’s
niece, Mrs. Emily Cartwright, who ex-
plained that Mrs. Burling was her
mother’s sister and that she had known
Evelyn. all her life. She said when she
and her husband came to California in
1972, they stayed with Mrs. Burling
while they looked for a place of their own.
She said that Mrs. Burling had been going
with Kenneth Morgan at that time.

The young woman said that she had
received a phone call from Morgan during
the first week end of 1972. He told her he
had to work on New Year’s Eve and he
couldn’t be with Mrs. Burling. He said he
told her he would call her when he got
home from work but when he did she was
not at home. Morgan told the niece that he
called Evelyn several times and when he
didn’t get an answer he went over to her
apartment and left a note asking Mrs.
Burling to call him as soon as she got
home.

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SECO LEN ae eT

Pietrowski led him back to the Shamrock
and took, stock of the scene that greeted
him inside.

The young man on the floor was well-
dressed, he noted; certainly he was no bum.
The back bar mirror was shattered; web-
like’ star cracks radiated from a small
bullet hole in the center of it. An empty
whiskey shot glass stood on the bar. Next
to it, half full, was a small, foam-rimmed
chaser of beer. Someone’s been drinking
boilermakers, Pietrowski thought
irrelevantly.

Wondering where the bartender was,
the officer stood on the bar rail to peer over
the bar. The answer was there. An elderly
man in shirtsleeves and a white apron lay
crumpled on the duckboards. A wide red
stain had spread acrogs his chest, and an
overturned bottle of whiskey had emptied
its contents across his right forearm,
Pietrowski stepped outside to a street
phone booth and called in his report to
Detective Captain August F. Winklemann.

Within minutes of noon that Saturday,
a full complement of city and county police
converged on the Shamrock Tavern. Police
Captain Nicholas A. Migliore comamand-
ed the Elizabeth contingent. Coutny Detec-
tive Chief Louis T. Lombardi, whose office
was only a half block away, directed the
efforts of his headquarters staff.

The dead man in the apron was quickly
identified as Sebastian Weilandics, 63,
who for many years had tended bar in
Roselle, New Jersey. He had begun work-
ing at the Shamrock a mere three weeks
before he was gunned to death.

The young man lying dead in front of
the bar was not that easy to identify. He
had no papers on his person. For a while,
the police thought they knew who he was,
One officer looked at him and said he
looked like the son of a fireman in Linden,
New Jersey. This later proved to be a
mistake. The fireman was notified, raced
to Elizabeth, took one look at the young
guy, and heaved a mighty sigh of relief. He
conceded the shooting victim bore a very
strong resemblance to his son, but it was
someone else.

While Captain Migliore and Detec-
tive Chief Lombardi checked the cash
register, other officers carefully searched
the premises. Captain Winkelmann and
Detective Michael Tevnan each picked up
several brass casings which were scattered
on the floor. There were seven of them, all
of foreign manufacture and stamped
“Ortgies Werke, 9 mm.” Captain
Winkelmann at once recognized that these
bullets had been fired from either a Luger
or a Walther automatic pistol.

The cash register taped showed that the
till had been tapped for $53.25. The killer
had neglected to search two murder vic-
tims, whose pockets yielded a combined
total of an additional $49.

From all appearances, the crime looked

like the work of an amateur who had .

panicked and sprayed the taproom with
52

a

At first Interrogation by police young
Mike Monahan took sole responsibility

for tavern murders, claiming that

his

dad (r.) took no part in’ the , shooting

\

lead. Three slugs had cut. down the
younger victim. The bartender: took two.

bullets in his chest. Two wild stray shots

had ripped into the phone booth, Technical -

men from the CBI squad moved in with

photo equipment and their scientific’

gadgets. The fingerprint men wentto work
with their spray cans and cameras,
Later that afternoon, a call from the

fireman’s son helped clear up the mystery .

of the young victim’s identification, “T

think you’ ll find he’s a, fellow named
Diskin,” the. youth: told’ Captain

Winkelmann, “People are always mistak- -

ing us for each other and he’s been pointed
out to. me a couple of times,’ He’s an
Irishman, with a brogue you could cut with
a knife. I don’t think he’s more than two or
three months off the boat,”

By 2:30 that afternoon:of. March 7th,

1953, the young man’s guess had proved to

be correct. The young victim was identified
by a relative as William S. Diskin dr., 27,
who had gone to the Elizabeth business
district that morning to keep a dental
appointment.

Interrogating the Shamrock’s regular

patrons as they shoed up at the tavern, the

probers were able to locate two who had
been in the place that morning. Both had
stayed in the bar for about a half hour, or
there abouts. Since ther visits had
overlapped, it was possible to account for
the time between almost 10:30 and 11:45,
Between them, these two men were able to
recall about half a dozen persons who had
come to the Shamrock that morning.
Most of them, they thought, were tran-
sients. Two were truckmen who had made
a delivery. toa furniture store down the
street, One was a tall, well-dressed nian in
his early sixties, He came in to consult the

phone book, and st
order and drink a
rocks.

According to
available from the
customers who coi
Shamrock before t
covered were a mid
half-grown son. The
ment about the col:
shot of whiskey, str
cola drink.

Captain Miglior
information, had a
overturned whiske:
spilled its contents o
shirt, he asked th
recalled any patro
“Tm pretty sure We
pour from that bottl:
killer blasted hir

tention of Captain Winkelmann and
Detectives Hemingway, Harrigan and
Yoos when the report came over the
police teletype in Elizabeth head-
quarters. :

“This father-son team worked one
theft in Millburn,” Captain Winkel-
mann observed. “How about that
lawn mower shop where the Luger
was stolen?”

“We'll check,” Hemingway said. “It
looks like it might be a fit. Remem-
ber, we’ve been wondering for weeks
about a man and boy who were in
the Shamrock, a kid with a black
leather cap.”

Later Tuesday, Mike Monahan was
driven through communities where
he said his crimes had been com-
mitted. He pointed out the sites of
those he could remember, but he
couldn’t recall them all.

“After a while,” he said, “they’re
all the same. It gets to be just
another job.”

That same day, Detectives Donald
bert, Joseph Spies and Kermit Reiss
of the Union police searched the
Monahan home, where they found a
large store of loot, as well as three
weapons—a .32 caliber revolver and
two .30-30 rifles. One of the latter was
the Marlin hunting rifle stolen from
the Millburn lawn mower shop along
with a Luger pistol.

The big question now was: What
had happened to the Luger?

Confronted with this evidence, plus
the news that a late model Cadillac,
stolen from a Newark hospital lot
late in March, had been found in his
garage, Eugene Monahan confessed
to his guilt in the burglaries.

“I’m responsible for all this,’ he
said, weeping with belated contrition.
“I began taking Mike on jobs about
a year ago to show him it was no
good. Give the boy a break,” he
pleaded. “I’ve let him down—him and
my dog, my two best pals.”

“What about the Luger? The one
you stole along with the Marlin ri-
fle?” Monahan was asked.

He freely confessed the lawn mow-
er store burglary, but he claimed that
the Luger had been stolen from his
car later. Quizzed on the same hot
subject, young Mike also admitted
this burglary, but he gave a different
fate for the all-important Luger. He
claimed his old man had thrown it
away in a vacant lot.

It was a glaring discrenancy which
.did not escape the alert detectives
working on the pair. Father and son
had been truthful, remarkably so,
about all other details of their unique
crime career. Why then, had father
and son come up with contradictory
stories about the disposal of the Ger-
man pistol?

Was it because they shared the
guilty knowledge that the weapon
was one which could be linked to the
double murders in the Shamrock
Bar on March 7th?

A second search of the car Mona-
han had abandoned in Verona, mean-
while, turned up the Luger’s holster,
stuffed down behind a seat cushion.
Then Elizabeth detectives, checking
on Mike’s probation record, discov-
ered that at about 11 o’clock Satur-
day morning, March 7th, the boy had
made his regular visit to a probation
officer in the Union County court-
house!

Hence, they could now prove that
the boy had been within a half block
of the murder scene at the Sham-
rock little more than a half hour be-
fore the bartender and a customer

52

were slain there. Chief Brennan,
Captain Winkelmann, County Detec-
tive Chief Lombardi and Detective
Ebert of the Union police faced young
Mike with this evidence.

He capitulated quickly. Captain
Winkelmann suspected it was too
quickly.

Nervously puffing a cigarette, the
kid looked up and said softly, “I
killed ’em both.”

Pressed for details, he continued:
“My dad waited for me at that bar
while I went to the courthouse. I had
a soft drink with him, and then we
went out. We decided to stick up the
joint. Dad told me to go back and
shoot the bartender and rob the place.

“I walked in. The bartender
laughed when I pulled the gun, so I
let him have it—Pow! Pow! Pow!

“Then this other guy walks in. I
let him have it, too. Pow! Pow! Pow!.
Then I got over the bar, grabbed the
dough, and beat it.”

“The second man,” Captain Win-
kelmann said. “Tell us again just how
you shot him.”

Mike shrugged, dragged on the
ubiquitous cigarette, and said, “He
walked in. I let him have it. Pow!
Pow! Pow! Just like that.” ;

Investigation disclosed that. until a
bit more than a year earlier, Mike
had been a normal youngster, de-
scribed by neighbors as a kid who
was bright, polite, and always work-
ing around his home. He didn’t run
around at night with juvenile gangs,
like so many of the kids his age. At
school, truancy, and indifference to
his studies, were his only problems.
His teachers, who said he was cap-
able of much better work, described
him as an “under-achiever.” His
school behavior was good.

Police who questioned the youth
noted with interest that Mike’s career
in crime had begun at the age of 14,
the same age at which his father had
first run afoul of the law, according
to Eugene Monahan’s lengthy police
dossier.

For all practical purposes, the
Shamrock murders had been cleared
by Mike’s confession, but neither
Captain Winkelmann nor Prosecutor
Morss were satisfied that the kid had
told the truth. For one thing, both
were aware that the boy’s confession
had erred in one important detail. He
claimed he had shot Diskin while the
victim faced him.

So they brought in Eugene Mona-
han and told him about his son’s
statement. The father’s face went
ashen white, and he began to trem-
ble. A few minutes later, after he had
composed himself, he said:

‘Don’t believe the kid. He’s just
trying to shield the old man. I did it.
I killed those guys.”

Monahan said that when the boy
joined him in the tavern, he sent Mike
to their car to get the Luger and the
son passed the gun to him in the
men’s room in the Shamrock. Sebas-
tian Weilandics was cutting cheese
when Monahan opened fire without
warning. Then young Diskin walked
in. The first slug took the newcomer
in the shoulder, spinning him around.
Two more plowed into his neck. He
fell, moaning.

“Take my money! Leave me alone!”
he gasped, and died.

Monahan said that later he broke
up the Luger and hurled the pieces
off the Stickel Memorial Bridge in
Newark into the Passaic River. Later,
when father and son confronted each
other, the elder Monahan urged his

~

son to tell the truth. Mike then con-
firmed his father’s story.

Captain Winkelmann ‘said he was
certain the boy had taken the blame
for the shootings partly out of fear of
his father, partly from an urge to-
ward self-dramatization. Under New
Jersey law, since the murders had
been committed as the result of an-
other felony, armed robbery, Michael
would be regarded as equally guilty
with his father, although it was the
latter who actually pulled the trigger
on the gun which killed two men.
Both were indicted on two counts of
first-degree murder, arraigned be-
fore County Judge Milton A. Feller,
and ordered held without bail for
trial on May 25th.

Before that trial began, a Newark
attorney who had represented Eu-
gene Monahan in the past said he
would defend the father and son.
“Monahan is willing to go to the
chair,” he announced. “He is cooper-
ating with the authorities. But I be-
lieve the boy should not be blamed.
Everything Mike did he was ordered
to do by his father.”

In the long run, the attorney was
able to persuade the New Jersey Su-
preme Court to go along with this
reasoning, and the state’s highest

court ruled that Mike should be -

treated as a juvenile delinquent. The
boy was sent to the Bordentown Re-
formatory.

In the meantime, Eugene Monahan
was tried, convicted and sentenced to
death. The usual appeals were re-
jected, and on January 11, 1955, the
father who had given his teenage son
on-the-job training as a criminal
went to his death in the electric chair
at the state prison in Trenton.

sss ansehen thsRit te AON nso hinted nchcnaendesnsininecisc ates!

Young Mike Monahan remained in
the Bordentown Reformatory for
some three years. He was an exem-
plary inmate and, studying hard, won
high grades in his educational courses.
In May, 1957, Union County Ju-
venile Judge Libby Sachar placed him
on probation and sent him to work
on a Texas ranch.

Mike justified the judge’s faith in
him. He worked assiduously at his
ranch job, behaved himself beyond
reproach, and on October 9th of the
same year, his probationary period
was ended, with the report that he
had made a “most satisfactory ad-
justment to his new environment.”

Soon afterward, he joined the Air
Force and was stationed at Williams
Air Force Base in Phoenix, Arixona.
His career in the Air Force, however,
was shortlived.

On December 4th, he and a buddy
went for a ride in the latter’s car.
Returning to the base, the car skid-
ded, jumped a curb and crashed into
a utility pole. Mike’s buddy was se-
riously injured, but Michael Gene
Monahan was killed instantly.

It was the final tragic irony in a
life he had begun with two strikes
against him. At the age of 20, he had
lived through more and greater trou-
ble than most men face in a long life-
time. He had closed the door on the
dark side of his life and made a brave
new start on a brighter one. The pity
is it couldn’t have ended more Pgs

pily.

The names Pat McNiff, Aldo Fiori,
Matty Schwarz, Vito Marco and Leo
Adams, as used in the foregoing story,
are fictitious.

OFFICIAL DETECTIVE

“| wouldn’t want to get anybody in trouble
but yes, | did see him shoot the victim.”


oho Hath, Sie7/, 70 rig A. y


: “the patstineare ‘but we ae not’! Fated: to> do justice” A aithed ee
> elegance of the design, or, td ‘the’ author's fertile inventio Py a

Eat the lower’ window, a ship with the British colours’

7 At .the middle window, above, the’ portraits of a Wxcellency: Gs
Washington and Count Rochambeau,, with 1 rays of ut and’ interlaced ae

Btapan Acts Duties on Tea, &e, this structura. fi ‘And ‘the: ute of

the’ building beginning with the words, : Lexington, ' ‘Bunker-Hill, .

Moultrie, ‘Trenton, ’ Princeton,’ ‘Germantown Burgoyné, Fr

ance, Monmouth, Stony, Fal wd

. ~The first story. of i building of ‘the Ionic order on: ‘the hye of whic

/were these words, By the voice of ‘the People}: which ‘supported thirteen
2 Gate ‘representing. the states supporting ‘a: frize, on*‘which ‘were

- wrote Ilustrious Senators; \and’ in a pediment; which: ‘govered’ th

“whole range. of ‘columns were wrote Brave. Soldiery, with: rays’ of

‘light and ‘support from the senate: the pediment’ ornimented with the

> following statues, Justice with her even scales, a flaming’ sword and

of Congress ; Yon the right the statue‘of Hope,’ with her’ anchor’; ¢ an
*. the left, the Limite of Industry, with her bee-hive. : “The. second. story: r+)
‘ ‘the Corinthian order, with statues in’ niches, with the: words, Heroes

f . Fallen In Battle;: and an Attic story, as the work ‘completed with thé?

* words, ‘Agrienleure Arts,’ And» Commerce, | ‘and ® represented - by: the
following statues,, Agriculture, a figure holding a sheaf of wheat ‘on her,
. left, arm, a sickle in‘her'right hand, and a plough’ at her feet. Dhe
“arts represented by the statues of painting, sculpture, and architecture;
'. Painting has a pallet and pencils in one hand,:and the other supporting eS
a a picture ;~ she has a golden chain hanging from her neck, with a medal’ ¥
on which ‘is Imitation ;: the several links allude to ‘the: many. parts ©

_ necessary to be studied. before a whole can, be produced ; : or, the com-_

» hined qualifications of an able artist: and’ ‘it’ being - of gold, to ‘shew
x that the art of painting canpot flourish without itv is supported by: the
2 generosity of the ‘oppulent, ;: Sculpture is represented by. A: statue,

e holding, in’ one hand a mallet and chisel, and in the: other a bust, x) :
~namented with laurels. ; , Architecture by a statue, having in one hand
plan of elevation, and ‘in the other a: ‘square and ‘a- ‘plummet. \Com-

,merce by_a statue, holding: a- globe in one hand, and the: other: on; th
“prow of a ship. , A dome covers the building’ and“ ‘finishes: with, the

g bere of Fame, blowing her, frompet, to the east 7)

\_be comprehended. | ; ej a Me,

< And ‘at® another window. the’ genius’ ‘of ‘Ameren Sean Get Dis
* A cord, being a handsome female figure, the bigness of life,» -clothed in
white, a puree shee with the ‘word Virtue on it,
; ‘ tn é ee Ai tin ss ek Se,

*

f.
“0 the Gospel at BlisabethTown,

great /huma ity:
in New-York, und,

‘asked ee whether he Sud Bo, pn ‘board’
n. board the: sloop, and was i informed the young jad

h would. take a ‘small parcel’ ‘tied: up. in sf.
‘on: ented: to take. it, went on: shore, pute 8 i
iving off. when a’ ‘soldier stepped =
5 \chair,. to. Bee | .whethér -yo ;
@ not seizable’ goods.i that ‘bi ndle,” Mr. Caldwell | ‘then ‘feeling it

\y. further yisk asked the soldier ,whether’ yr \s

e. bundle. to Heol bag To this Foauesty
+

ag

s\whethe con: ee 3
as 3 preacl “f tategme pac cit
se embarked t he: Buse country
ZB mind nc pale. of bei g intox
clouds of, adversity Tig: ‘geal, activity, ‘and Gnahaken'
3 ircumstance ye f ‘the. present revolution, ‘are

few, of the present age; his. oratory: :
a Asxoeedingly perpuasive He: owas:


Fives. and ouverbntions of a large partis of» hs
*-tioh bedran unequivocal ; testimony: eee 2 eee es se
a 7 * Hé ‘has left a most destitute and. help! ea ey nine! Bigs
children, the oldest about seventeen’ years of: ge, had! the youngest’ ‘not i:

c exceeding two; to experience the: umanity’ ‘and. benevolence of t ose. er
7 Ea “tender. and sympathetic ‘minds: “who. ‘are: “ndt. ‘above: ghee: feelings” ‘of aN ys

* another’s: woe—Though Mr. Caldwell find. been: almost constantly’ ns i
© ‘gaged, in publick. departments § since the. present war, A
4° the source of riches, and affluence, to.” ‘many, ‘othérg) ‘yet such 9

iy + uprightness and love of his country), that ‘his’ rising, family” ‘are: ‘lef
Sto deplore the want, of a. baré isubsistence,’ but” from) the ee
those. who. knew their: father’ 8. virtues We. may justly conchide, 3 it
/Jamenting ¢ our country’s 8 loss. Jods to. {mankind cts buen natu ure oy

i : aay £98 F pat ob y ae by BAR, g
‘Now: selling at Bell's “Book- Store," ‘near St. ‘Paul's, ‘Church, ‘in “Third
“<. Street, Philadelphia ;, also, by, James Burnside," Tee ‘and:

ae James Martin, post. rider to Morris Toni ve A bata lie rack Ma ‘

at tae aN At cH
Pe TH REVOLUTION ora if;
eee vexes By. the Abbe Raynalj' * Pred salt ee x
Author of ‘thé philosophical and political history: of: the. eins ;
and. comnierce , of ay e, Buropeans : bet tee oo :
“Dollar.\¥ * et a ted he ‘
,* Variety. of ‘cried ‘and aaseful. Woe n hi
‘travels, poetry; ‘novels, and, aentettalaie

Ure,

On Tuesday the 4th: Of Decem|
ee two state notes }: ‘one No. 14, for"
“4 Thirteen: Shillings. and | Bat pee he fother;;No.: 19 for
‘Pounds. ‘The former_ ‘my ‘own. property; the la té e, “operty: ‘ot
“Joseph Wright; soldier. in! the, firs Jersey ‘Said. merconen 4 i
<x) also contained about One: ‘Huridred Beate Dollars: Whoever ‘finds. the:
fy ysame, and will return ve tome or, of shall ‘receive
i a. rewar .
All persons are “forewarned : ‘purchasing’ exal
San be seceeet by the re Ae Baus %

a eee ‘taken atise on’ tke a hear Q and dn
~ another person whos: name: is “anknowsi’ hey. ‘had with them. two 7 AS
horses supposed to be stolen ; ‘one, of them black,” ‘fourteen hands high, cs Sch

“with. a star; ~ the othér. a sorrel, about, the: same heights The ee ries
ke x5

coe are desired to come. aad ere “their! property)’ ‘bay ones
‘them away,’ “aye dey sone a .
3 ai she : ‘ .

Bae Sigs saa dh het Ree ee s

| Midaetes, Bix Mit Run; Dee. 10, 17 A, rae

pet Sh, fg ie,

ite oe

Py ey TT
Sao

STG tie Ce ed
bi aa

re Ee
trie? ise:
os
SS

: Lae

ine
pees
aes,

a
c

‘On ‘the. 4th ‘Or. bth instant ‘a steel ‘mounted pistol. ; “Whoever has Tat keke =
hee found the same and. will pring) it, to) the printer} Teeeive Three » ae a

me

“BE: rr REMEMBERED, that Tf Martin. ‘Long, “of Net: Hanover! i
F i cand ‘county. of: Burlington, -do ; hereby. acknowledge | ‘and. confess » that,\" Fie Set
yf conttary\ to. the: principles. ‘of honesty and, truth, (I,.did. endeavour to nist §
ns painjure. the. Sma kis of Jacob, Phillips, eq. High-Sherift of the. county’, 4 nats te
ae ‘and unjustly, reporting: ‘that: the said Jacob ie 4 a

¢ fees, than allowed, oe
aes

; Be oe wee )
the: ipublick, ‘and. ‘aleb his ‘clstithanh
‘bréwing,: and has beer for’ sale, which he hopes. will rive fatiataction,,
pat, the’ ‘current. prices. °° - Da Nias aM ak mat SS
P@NeB All persons. who have haks | 0
See. Or. Pay the. worth: of hen.
> Bur ngton, Dee , 1781; z
Be wernlgso gah ee

oe nS ee ete

; Aas
ast

in ‘pursuance of the direction of the last, will and. ‘testament of Robert
Priest, deceased, late. of Windsdr, in. the county: of Middlesex, ‘ os
te :; New-Jersey, on Monday, the 24th of this inst. December ; Ec anas| ei
oA Ai, ‘that ‘valuable plantation, situate, lying and pbing near Princeton,
j, whereon; the said. ‘testntor. lately dwelt, containing’ ‘about. 156 ‘acres ‘of,
pyland). part’ thereof good. meadow, and. more may. be made," There is on-
Fe the premises. a frame. "houde. and ‘kitchen; barn’ and. other. convenient: >
Elouthoiises,. a! young. bediitig ‘orchard | in its prime!? * The whole, in good f
tis’: 3 (hath | sufficient; * quantity.’ ‘of excellent
het es 5 mead i vf eorgny es ra sity
mya Al <6). it be a at Cane tune ail "the personal ‘estate of the ‘snid,:
i “4 deceased): consisting, ‘of, an ¢ight day clock, feather beds and. Seadng’!
ee ‘glasses, and a variety of ‘household and kitchen furniture too.
288 tedious. to” enumerate : tA large quantity of hay, flax, Indian corn in the {
an érib;! wheat) rye, and oats in stack, and about 16 acres of green’ wheat,”
Win ‘the ground; | \togethet! with all the horses, cattle, sheep and hogs, &e.2
The vendue. ‘will Begin ‘at. ten ‘o'clock in.thei forenoon of said day;:on:
Oe ee Peenrap eran will be given, ' pod the conditions made {
eee for see ;
( BZBKIBL, SMITH, ‘Brecutor.

as


WOM Fepresented when the bill to remit her taxes was
under discussion in Congreas.

One-day about this time the individuals who sup-
plied Mrs. Sprague's table got tired of dunning her,
and brought a suit against her to recover their
money. Roscoe Cankling Promptly appeared as Mrs,

Rag
- | that it belonged to th
Chase.

Spproaching the devotion of
arried people, the Proceedings
andthe Lady Waldemars ot

+

ent, describing the love-

Sprague, said :
** And then,

conspicuous

amber. Even the Senator's most
brilliant speeches seemed to take their color from the
admiring. eyesof the lady in the gallery. As she
tripped down the stairs to her seat, it was a frequent
sight for the knowing ones to glance over to nD)
ling’s desk and observe the arranging of thé curly
gold locks and the red necktie; the posing of the
stalwart legs and-the broad
of the Snimated way in wh,
up his trip-hammer to crac
for the moment before the

peper—notes passed to
and fro with unblushing publicity and frequency.
Almost daily and even nightly during the extra seg
sion these pranks were carried on in the sight of gal.
leries full of ordinary spectators, Senators, and the
lackeys of the Senate. The “enator, as soun as the
gavel fell, wpuld always rise and seek the gallery seat
and escort the wife of the Rhode islander in the most
lover-lke way to her carriage. At 3 6’clock in the
morning at that, too, But in the last « effort ‘ of the
Senator in the Presence of the wife of the ex-Senator
end the daughter of the Chief Justice the distin:
guished Senatorial Pasha seemed to have run up
against his - when Lamar flung in his fine

exist a thirst for such unhappy revela-
nate that the secrets and sorrows and
of s family should be paraded before | Abeel
inspection. We
matter could be hushed, or
drawn over the further
has, unfortunately,
tentions from Con
social circle of w
She was always
79 bara and pick
the house, > being posses!

sround
Permanent recluse. she acce | £0 eatat the table, Lammens was 4 years old.

Senator Conkling,

Washington days
love her husband.

in the Senate gar
with fire, and t
women.

DEAD, DEAD, DEAD.

The: Law’s- Awful Deéree Carried Out
With Mrs. Meierhofer and Her Para-
mour, ens. - tne,

eaiienetinneadll

The details of an Unnatural marriage were broug

j for the pardon of
Bowen of Calvert county, Md,, who is serving a «:
years’ sentence in the Ho im. Ba

o’clock was the

but the sheriff waited

for reprieve. Then h

went to Mrs. Meierhofer’s cell,
Preparation for the awful 6

She had made every
8he was dressed in

had anything to say
read, she said: “I hay
Father Gerard. As to

immedi-

der Sheriff Davis, Deputies

Lang and Benedict and Father Gerard. In the rear
were two constables. Mrs. Mei walked with

fear. The priest he had one child, s

The latter, as she

cross beam,
was drawn over the face end

teeth the words that “mo good man would deserve |

/and uo grave man would tear,’ ’
This was last year. The

pegaddgetinis, 7 eae

remained there two days. | g!

pr returned, found Conkling, and gave bim

enty minutes to get out of the house.
accelerated, it is reported, by the appearance of

double berreled shot-gen in William § 26 8


Plants
aching
stood
ment.
y open
ed.
red. I
‘e him.
attered

‘amer’s
ying in
hich he

‘andom
lis Was

calmly:
shat he

{: This
it of his
3e to be
vruised?
ragged
ige 116)

LOK. 4 J mhite S NWJSP (Middlesex County) August
Min Th LoAL ’ Lhdaward 9 WOALULE 5 ele C,. Nv oS (Mi idle US )

Accused of the mass murder

of six persons in a cottage

near Bremerton, Washington,

Leo Hall in handcuffs is led
to jail.

Captured in a cellar a few minutes

after a jewelry store hold-up

was Jack Austin. Apparently he

bumped his head straightening up
in the cellar.

Wincing, Edward Metelski is hustled ' ‘off to jail

after his arrest for the murder of a New Jersey State

Trooper. He escaped and was the object of a wide-

spread man-hunt that ended with his seizure five
days later.

Detectives look on while six loan

sharks duck the camera. They

were trapped in a New York police
round-up.

A ten-day career of crime
ended with the arrest of
this trio of bandits who
confessed to eleven kid- *
Mapings in California.

Secking Douglas Van Vlack, ‘
who kidnaped his divorced
wife and killed a policeman,
authorities found’ his cold-
benumkted form in a ditch. 4
Revived, he was imprisoned. |


In England, 200 or so years ago,
there were approximately 200 crimes
for which hanging was the penalty.
This is about as “tough” as you can
get with criminals. But there were
other far-from-gentle penalties as
well.

For ‘minor’ offenses—things for
which today a man would get ten days
in jail—jailors cut off ears and hands,
slit noses, used the pillory and the
stocks, weighted offenders down with
gradually increasing amounts of iron
until they were slowly crushed to
death, burned them, broke them on
the wheel, pulled them apart with
horses, drowned them, boiled them in
oil, and inflicted other ingenious forms
of excruciating agony.

So it’s an understatement to say
that they “treated ’em tough.” ~ And
what was the result? The result was
that never in the history of England
was there such a wave of crime as
there was at that time. It wasn’t
safe for a woman to go out alone on
the streets of London even in broad
daylight. And no man in his right
senses would think of driving five
miles into the country without taking
along an entourage to protect him
from the hordes of bandits and high-
waymen who thronged. the roads.
Constables were held up and unmer-
cifully beaten, men were robbed,
houses were entered and their owners
killed at the slightest sign of resist-
ance, women were insulted and at-
tacked, and criminals strutted about
in the public houses openly boasting
of their evil deeds.

Now let’s see what the effect was
on those who witnessed the carrying
out of this “treat-’em-tough” policy?
Hangings were public, to impress
upon onlookers the fact that crime
doesn’t pay. As many as 100,000
people would flock to Tyburn Tree at
Execution Dock on these gala occa-
sions. One of the most frequent
causes for execution was pocket-pick-
ing.

But the public fiestas of death final-
ly had to be abandoned. And why?
Because so many people in the huge

COMPLETE

DETECTIVE cases

ferries were blocked off for the second
time in a week. Bus stations, railway
depots and even taxi stands were
closely watched. The state police
threw the entire facilities of their
splendid organization into the search.
Even in the outlying districts, farmers
threw down their farm implements

and picked up ugly looking shotguns -

to join in the greatest manhunt New
Jersey had known since the Lind-
bergh kidnapping.

T 2:30 Sunday morning stark real- .

ism was suddenly injected into
the prosaic lives of a man and wife
who were owners of a roadhouse,
located in the heavily wooded country
outside of Plainfield, New Jersey.
They had just retired when they
heard the sounds of heavy footsteps
coming up the hall stairs. Their bed-

42 >

crowds watching pickpockets being
hanged had their pockets picked by
practitioners of this art! Far from
being deterred by this. “treat-’em-

tough” method, the “poke divers” |

thronged to the executions for the
purpose of plying their trade!

So out of hand did the whole crim-
inal ‘situation become that the au-
thorities decided to form penal col-
onies in Australia and banish crim-
inals there.. At Botany Bay, the site
of the first colony, the lash was to
be the great reformer. For the slight-
est infraction of the rules, prisoners
were given 20, 40, 50, 100, even 200
lashes at a time.

Then some genius, with that in-
stinct which humans have for inflict-
ing cruelty on others, found out that
after 30 or 40 blows, the body be-
came so numbed that a man scarcely
felt the succeeding ones.

From then on, when a man’ was
penalized with 200 lashes, he was
given only 20 at a time, then allowed
a respite for a week or two until his
back had healed, after which he was
given another 20 and so on until the
entire 200 were meted out.

But prisoners continued to steal,
lie, attack their officers and each
other, murder, or try to escape, just
as they had before. So the keepers got
even tougher. They put little iron
hooks at the end of each thong in the
“cat,” so that when a man ‘was
whipped these dreadful claws would

dig into his flesh and tear it to strips. '

And when this too failed; these fiend-
ishly whipped offenders were sen-
tenced to work in the cayenne pepper
mill where the flying pepper dust
would bite-like liquid fire into their
torn and bleeding bodies.

Is it necessary, in the light of what
has gone before, to tell the result?
It apparently made not the slightest
difference in the men’s conduct. If
it had any effect at all, it was to
brutalize them still further and make
them even more determined not to
submit to discipline. Thus it was
proved once again that brutality only
begets brutality. :

Tremendous numbers of these Lon-
don criminals transferred to Botany
Bay were in their teens, béys whom
we would now vall juvenile delin-
quents,

Did this incredibly savage treat-
ment change these bad‘ boys into
good boys? It did not. It made no
more impression on them than it did
on adults who had been in the busi-
‘ness of crime for a much longer time.

So when Chief Scarboro quotes the
1655 law of Connecticut:

“Tf any man have a stubborn, -
rebellious child, then shall his fa-
ther and mother testify their son
will not obey their voice, but
lives in sundry crimes, such a
son shall-be put to death,”

in support of the contention that
“perhaps this law” had something to
do with the alleged: lack of juvenile
delinquency, the fact’ must not be
overlooked that the very necessity
for such a law indicates there was
juvenile delinquency in those days.

Parenthetically, this Connecticut
statute is a particularly ridiculous
one, assuming as it does, that parents
would willingly turn their children

over to the law to be hanged. There |

may be some such unnatural ones,
but they are certainly few and far
between. Ne

Of course criminals deny their
-guilt. But they deny it whether you
treat them with the most gentle con-
sideration or the most brutal abuse—
until they are convinced that a differ-
ent course of conduct is more to their
“interest than the one they are pur-
suing. There are, naturally, excep-
tions to this. Some do admit their

guilt after being beaten or otherwise .

physically “handled.” Others—many
more others—admit it only after a
clever officer has, by skillful question-

, ing, trapped them into one admission

after another until they realize it is
hopeless to continue their pretense of
innocence.

But what does such a denial of
guilt prove? Merely that, in this,
criminals act exactly like other peo-
ple. For do not thousands of non-

criminal witnesses in civil cases per-
jure themselves every day in the year,

. when they consider it to their interest

to do so?

Nor, in my opinion, does the fact
that some criminals are surly to the
police, even abusive on occasion,
prove anything one way or the other
insofar as their general treatment by
the police is concerned. Certainly one
cannot expect them to like their nat-
ural enemies.

As to whether or not g/ criminals -
are “balmy,” I admit I am not quali-
fied to speak. And I am vain enough
to say that until we are able to fathom
what goes on in people’s minds, I do
not believe anyone else is.

Last, as to the statement that crime

will not diminish until law-abiding '

citizens “get mad and do something
about it,” I can only counter with
an humble “What?” Certainly not
treating ’em tough. That has been
tried repeatedly and found completely
futile. So have many other things.
But we still have criminals. And
while psychology, psychiatry, and the
other behavior sciences—if one may
call them that—may not have suc-

ceeded in diminishing crime to any -

great extent, it must be remembered
that these are still in their infancy.

But I do not share the idea that
psychiatry and psychology should be
rejected as useless fads, and their
practitioners as so many phonies.
There are many first-class men in
both professions. Certainly the more
we know about the mental and emo-
tional reactions of human beings, the
more likely we are to be able to guide
them into courses of action which will
be a benefit, not a detriment, to the
community and to themselves.

In conclusion I can definitely say
—and I believe history over several
hundred years will back me up—that
the “treat-’em-tough” policy has
never, with rare exceptions, worked
with criminals, or for that matter,
with non-criminals, whether they be

adults or adolescents. And if the past -

is any criterion, it probably never
will.

ee

room door was thrown open. The
lights were snapped on and two men,
eyes glaring and guns leveled at them,
stood in the doorway.

The man recognized Pete Semen- -

kewitz immediately; the young thug
had formerly been employed about
the place as a handyman. He also
recognized the other gunman, Edward
Metelski, from the killer’s . pictures
in the newspapers. :

“What do you want?” the tavern-
keeper demanded.

“Keep your trap shut and you
won’t get hurt,”’ hissed Metelski, giv-
ing Semenkewitz a signal with’ the
gun,
Semenkewitz then strode to the
closet and grabbed two suits of

clothes and two overcoats, threw them -

over his arm and: joined Metelski
standing in the doorway.

COP KILLERS

Continued from page 15

“T want the keys to your car,” de-
manded the killer.

- “You'll find them in the cash reg-
ister downstairs behind the bar,” the
man replied, while his wife, on the
verge of hysteria, struggled desperate-
ly to control her emotions.

With pulses beating fast, they lis--

tened as the two men strode into the
bar. Then they heard them leave and
the garage door open. The coughing
wheeze of the starter trying to come
to life reached them, then the steady
hum of the motor as it caught. From
a position by the window, the man
saw the desperadoes drive hurriedly
along the driveway, then crash sick-
eningly into a telegraph pole.

The two jailbreakers, miraculously
unhurt, jumped from the wrecked. car
and disappeared -into the woods bor-
dering the wild Watchung Mountains.

=

em ee ee

The tavenkeeper hastened to the tele-
phone to give the alarm.

In less than twenty minutes the
whole section was alive with police
officers. Prosecutor Hicks afid Cap-
tain Lamb made temporary head-
quarters in the roadhouse to facilitate
the search.

Because most of the section was in-
accessible to cars, the posses had to
plunge through the thick undergrowth
on foot. Torches were lit and held
overhead to light the way through
stygian blackness. The job was
fraught with danger because the two
men they were seeking probably
would shoot without hesitation and
in the glare of the torches, the search-
ers made perfect targets.

When the sun rose over the Watch-
ung Mountains the next morning, the
fugitives were still at large. Overhead


ee ae ee A eee ee cee

METELSKI, Edward, wh, elec NJ (Middlesex) August 4, 1936

(REAL POLICE STORIES, February, 1955)

BY RUSS T. CREIGHTON

4 COP-KILLERS

\
JAIL BREAK
ROMEO

I. was just before 1 a.m. on Saturday morning. In the clubroom of the Loyal Sons of
Kildare, there was still a bottle of Jamieson’s on one of the back tables—even though the
bartender had called time and long since switched off the neon sign which had winked
alternately red and green on rain-wet Lombard Street outside. A handful of Sons, more
loyal than the rest, were happily lowering the level of the whisky in the bottle as they
pledged each other, Kildare, and the incomparable blue-eyed colleens of Erin.

Suddenly there was the clatter of pounding feet on the stairs. The door was kicked
open with a resounding crash. The club members half rose in their chairs to face two
intruders standing shoulder to shoulder just inside the threshold.

One of the newcomers brandished a pistol. His companion backed him up with a
double-barreled shotgun. Both men wore peak-caps, pulled low over their foreheads.

“We're taking up a collection,” the man with the pistol said, “Empty your pockets and
throw your dough down on the floor.”

One at a time the club patrons emptied their pockets and tossed silver and wadded bills
on the bare floorboards.

The unwinking black eyes of the shotgun muzzles drifted toward the bartender, settling
their ominous stare on the ample expanse of his white apron,

“You, too, fat boy,” the gun wielder rasped. “Open up the register.”

There was no back talk to the sandpaper harshness of that voice. The bartender tapped
the no sale key and the till door sprang open.

“Get us a couple of bottles,” the first bandit suggested,

“Sure,” said the man with the shotgun. He turned to the barkeep. “You Heard the
man, Fatso. Put a couple of bottles on the bar.”

The first bandit scooped up the money from the floor then stood guard as the man with °
the shotgun emptied the till and slid a bottle of whisky into each side pocket of his gray
overcoat.

“Good-by, now,” the pistol toter said. His partner backed to the door and started to

, tun down the stairs, “Don’t none of you monkeys get ideas.” He turned, ran through the
door, and followed his partner out to the street.

In the clubroom, the bartender and two of the customers ran to the front window.
They saw the two men plunge across the street and enter a new Chevrolet coupe—blue
with yellow wheels, They caught a glimpse of black and orange Pennsylvania plates as
the coupe catapulted from the curb and passed through the island of light dripping from
a Lombard Street arc-lamp, The car roared north and was lost behind a screen of traffic
surging in the opposite direction from Broad Street.

The Philadelphia police, notified at once, sent out an alarm for the two armed thugs
in the blue Chevvie. Checking the hot car list it was noted that a blue Chevvie coupe with
yellow wheels had been reported stolen that very evening from Jack Cutler, a Philadel.
phian, who discovered the theft just before 11 p.m. City patrols had been looking for this
car at Camden and Levick Street bridges. By 1:30 a.m., it had not yet showed up.

From the witnesses at the Kildare Club, it was determined that the combined loot
taken by the gunmen amounted to no more than ei hty-five dollars. Nonetheless the arro-
gance and the professional efficiency of the heavily-armed pair indicated that the police

rae fe

| 7 “ i;
natd,: taken by surprise

Hessly obeyed commands. beck | '” Only a vistor could have slipped the tough prisoner
“A have been shot dead. } y gh p

Du an | 4 : the gun which made possible his dramatic escape


a plane droned back and forth, swoop-
ing low to give the police officers,
equipped with special binoculars, the
best possible chance to spot the crim-
inals,

ROSECUTOR HICKS, back at his
desk in New Brunswick, hit on a
ruse. He figured that Joan Menko-
witz had not only slipped the gun to
Metelski, but had made arrangements
to meet him at some secret hideaway.
Playing his hunch, he ordered the
husky-throated nightclub singer to
jail where he gave a statement to the
newspapers to the effect that she had
convinced the police of her innocence
of any wrongdoing in the break from
the Middlesex County Jail.

He next assigned Detectives Stock-
burger and Long of the state police
to check back over the girl’s activities
of the past week. This they did, and
learned that the girl had been seen
around the West Kinney Street sec-
tion of Newark, a street lined with
cheap rooming houses, saloons and
pool halls.

With a picture of the singer in their

pocket, they started canvassing the -

neighborhood, hoping to find the
house picked for the rendezvous.

Tuesday night saw another sur-
prise in a case full of surprises. De-
tective Grauley of the Newark Police
contacted Hicks at his home with the
information that Metelski and Sem-
enkewitz had held up:a Plainfield
barber and escaped in his car... .
They had slipped through the police
cordon around the Watchung Moun-
tain area!

COMPLETE

DETECTIVE cases

bent under the torso. Kneeling, Reid
tried to turn the hidden face of the
dead man so that he could glimpse it.
Rigor mortis and freezing cold had
solidified the neck muscles so -that
they could not twist.

“Better help me turn him over,”
said Erskin, gripping the under-arms.

Together, the two men lifted the
corpse. The face was a smear of
crimson. Reid picked up a handful
of snow and washed off some of the
blood. Instantly he recognized the
dead man.

‘Bill Wainwright!” he cried. “Bill’s
been stabbed to death, too!”

William Wainwright was the town
constable of Benito, Manitoba. He
and Shaw had been great friends.

The constables looked around for
Shaw’s secondhand Buick, thinking
perhaps the two men had been at-
tacked and robbed while driving into
town on a pleasure trip. But there
was no sign of any car. If the killer
had stolen it, the snow had success-
fully removed any tracks.

Erskine took a covert glance at the
stricken face of his companion. ‘You
telephone the inspector to get some
detectives out here,” he said. “I'll

stay with the bodies.”

Reid nodded. He got back into
the car and drove to Arran. There,

44

The barber’s ‘car was found on

Monday morning outside of Newark.
The gas tank was empty. Evidently.

fearing a police broadcast on the car,
they had decided to ditch it and make
the rest-of the way without it.

Hicks had just digested the news
about the car when Stockburger
phoned to say that on Friday, the
day before the jailbreak, a girl, an-
swering Joan Menkowitz’s descrip-
tion had rented a room on. West Kin-
ney Street, paying a week’s rent in
advance.

Would Eddie Metelski and his pal
head for it? Convinced that they
would, police, under Captain Timo-
thy Rowe, converged‘on the neighbor-
hood, occupying hallways and alley-
ways, while others, dressed in non-
descript attire, sauntered up and
down West Kinney Street.

The entire neighborhood was ‘thor-
oughly covered, but so conveniently
placed were the officers that residents
of the section knew nothing of what
was going on.

The hours dragged by slowly. Day-
light faded and the blanket of night
descended gloomily over the dismal
street.

Suddenly, just before eight o’clock, -

two figures approached warily from
Halsey Street. Breathlessly, the

sleuths watched. In the darkness they _

couldn’t be sure. The pair stopped,
talked for a few minutes, then one
turned and entered a diner on the
corner; the other walked into an alley
that ran between a garage and a
rooming house.

Stockburger crossed the street and

.

he telephoned to Inspector John
Kelly, in command ‘of the Yorktown
sub-district,
commanding officer promised to send
help immediately. . 5

“You stay in Arran,” Kelly in-
structed.
saw Shaw and Wainwright in the vil-
lage.”

The constable began..a_store-to-
house canvass of Arran.

While Erskine was making a cur-
sory search of the vicinity where the

dead men were found, two cays loaded .

with police arrived, “Inspector Kelly
took charge. With him were De-
tective Sergeant. Join Molyneaux,
Detective Corporal Robert Walker,
and Detective ‘John Metcalfe of the
Yorktown detachment.

Inspector Frere, of Dauphin, Mani-
toba had brought several of his own
men.

The coroner reached the scene
along with a jury, and a spot inquest

“Ask around if anybody:

90 miles south. _ The .

was held. In addition to the numer-’

ous knife wounds in Constable Shaw’s
face, neck and chest, three bullet
wounds ‘were discovered i in the back
of his head.

Wainwright had basti stabbed. in
the face and throat and a single bul-
let had penetrated his right eye: _

_ “The killer played in a lot of luck,”

peered into the diner,“He smiled with
satisfaction and entered. Stopping di-
rectly behind a man seated at the end
of the counter he whipped out his
gun, prodded it into the man’s back

~. and snapped:

“Don’t move, Semenkewitz! Just
throw up your hands!”

Semenkewitz turned pale, but com-
plied, slowly.

Stockburger frisked him -quickly
and found a .32-calibre gun in a back
pocket.

Meanwhile, right behind Metelski
came Detective Grauley, gun in hand.

‘At the other end of the alley was the

open ground of an automobile park-
ing lot. From this end came. Detec-
tive Francis Long, stalking his prey.

From every conceivable hiding
place men emerged, walking swiftly
towards but one destination.

The unlighted alleyway was dark,
sinister. Metelski, about “half-way
through, spotted the burly figure of
Long coming towards him. A sixth
sense warned the killer that Fate was
catching up with him. He turned
quickly and ran in the direction he
had come, only to halt in confusion
as Grauley and other shapes mate-
rialized out of the darkness of West
Kinney Street and closed in on him.

. Before Metelski
move, Grauley was on him, a smash-
ing right to the jaw sending the killer
staggering backwards against Long
who pinioned Metelski’s arms to his
sides. A few seconds later, disarmed
and his hands shackled, it was the end
of the road for Eddie Metelski, cop
killer.

Continued from page 29

said Kelly grimly. “This snowstorm
was made to order for him.”

“It wouldn’t have done him much
good except that nobody happened to
find the bodies until now. Shaw and

' Wainwright had been dead at least

a whole day before the storm started.”’
’ While the silent jury listened, the
coroner offered his reconstruction of

‘the crime based upon the location of

the wounds on the two corpses and
other factors. -

“It’s my opinion,” he said, “that
Constables Wainwright and Shaw
were attacked from the rear and were
given almost no chance whatever to
defend themselves. They were un-

doubtedly sitting in an automobile |

when the killer or killers struck.

- “As you will observe, there is a

dangerous curve in the road about
ten feet ahead. One of the two of-
ficers was driving, probably Shaw,

since I am informed he owned a car

and Wainwright did‘ not, and as he

slowed down, the killer had his op- -

portunity.

“The victims were stabbed first.
They didn’t die soon enough to suit
the murderer. He shot them both in
the head.”

There was nothing in this logical
picture of the dastardly crime that
did not concur with the opinions al-

could make ‘a>

* learned of the date.

This time the law wasn’t taking
any chances of having him escape. He
wasn’t entrusted to a small-town jail
but, instead, was imprisoned in the

‘imposing edifice which houses New-

ark’s unlawful. To further seal the
doom of the killer, the .38-calibre gun
found on him proved to be the

‘weapon that fired the slug into the

state police squad car.

Metelski, awaiting trial, admitted
that the ruse of his girl friend’s re-
lease from jail had fooled him. He had
gone to West Kinney Street to keep a
previously arranged rendezvous.

As the date for the killer’s trial ap-
proached, Joan Menkowitz admitted
her part in the jailbreak. She had
smuggled the gun to Metelski the day
before, securing it from its hiding
place jn his home in. Newark. She
pleaded guilty to aiding Metelski and
received a five-year rap for her loy-
alty. Pete Semenkewitz- also pleaded
guilty and got a fifteen-to-twenty-
year sentence. No charges were made
against Babe Connors.

Metelski went on trial January 6,
1936. He was found guilty and sen-
tenced to die in the chair at State’s
Prison, Trenton, during the week of
August 2nd.

Thus on the night of August 4th,
Eddie Metelski had to be helped
through the green door to pay with
his life for the life he had taken.

The underworld warning, “Never

_ kill a cop,” is good advice.

Note: Joan Menkowitz and Babe
Connors are fictitious names, used to
protect the identity of actual persons.

RUSSIAN TERRORISTS

ready formed by Inspectors Kelly

and Frere.

Metcalfe. pointed out a detail.
Clenched in the hand of the dead
Mountie was a sprinkling of tiny gold
links, broken off from a thin chain. .

“Maybe from a woman’s locket
chain,” said Metcalfe slowly.

The possibility that a woman had
figured in the murders had not oc-
curred to the officers. - But now, a
new theory was evolved.

“Shaw and his friend Wainwright
went out on a double date,” Metcalfe
suggested. “The girls were in the
car. Native suitors of the girls
They ambushed
the two young officers at the slow-
down. . The girls were forcibly ejected
from the car by the two attackers.
Shaw tried to protect his girl and in.
the scuffle, the chain of her locket

' broke.

“At pistol.point the victims were
forced back into the front seat. They
were killed.”

The jury listened and agreed that
Metcalfe’s theory, like the coroner’s,

‘fit all the physical facts thus far

known. After a brief deliberation,
they returned a verdict of “murder
at the hands of a person or persons
unknown.”

Photographs and detailed sketches


at Elizabeth, N. J., had his muddy shoes
Temoved as_ evidence: his accomplice,
Whitey Morton, below, escaped by suicide.

Above, Edward Metelski, police captive

Paul Semenkewitz, at right, a fighter
turned criminal, who with the killer
escaped from the County Jail, below.

were looking for a couple of extremely dangerous men. The Kildare
Club holdup might well be the prelude to an eruption of stickups which
would become increasingly violent with each succeeding sortie. The
Philadelphia authorities were seriously impressed with the duo’s crim-
inal potential.

Before the police blockade could tighten around Philadelphia, the
desperados in the blue coupe were safely beyond the city limits. They
headed north through.a maze of side streets and picked up Route 413 at
Newton Junction. Swinging east, they arrived at U. S. 1 just outside
of South Langhorne, They followed the New York bound highway to
the Delaware River, crossed the bridge into Trenton, New Jersey,
then swung east again and drove as far as the village of White Horse.
Here, in back of a roadside diner, they pulled up the stolen car and
went in for a quick cup of coffee,

At 2:15 a.m., there were only three other patrons in the all-night
eatery. The counterman filled thick mugs with steaming coffee and
placed them before the two newcomers. When he went back to put
a couple of hamburgers on the griddle, the gunman in the gray over-
coat took a bottle of whisky out of his pocket. ‘Who wants a drink?”
he invited cordially,

One of the patrons, a Hightstown trailer truck-jockey, had just
come off a grinding lap of his overnight Baltimore-Perth Amboy run.
An intermittent drizzle had sharpened the early winter chill of that
morning of November 9, 1935, He gladly reached out for the proffered
bottle and poured a couple of fingers of Irish whisky into his water
tumbler. When he handed back the bottle his fingerprints were clearly

The blue coupe. bore north at the Robbinsville crossroads and fol-
lowed New Jersey State Highway 25 to its junction with U.S. 1, just
outside of New Brunswick.

Just south of the city limits of Rahway, New Jersey, State Troopers
Warren G, Yenser and John G. Matey were on routine patrof along
Lincoln Highway, the main traffic artery leading into New York City,
Idling along in their cruiser, the officers scanned both lanes of cars,

.

ion
ellow-
and s

defective tail
erator truck w

. Philadelphia |

who was stanc
The coupe wa:
hour.

Yenser bare
the Chevvie c
shoulder of the
a U-turn i
up the chas

Past Ra
was fast closi1
hitting 75. Int
watched their «
80—82. The cx
and the driver
heated radiato
night air. The:

Shown on guar
N. J., are the
for the escap:
abandoned by


feet, until he stood just inside the
etween the liquor store and the
m. ;
oew it!” Winkelmann exclaimed.
: been overlooking an angle. I
what happened now. The gun-
aited for the bartender to go out,
over the bar, took the money
as going to leave. But the bar-
surprised him and the robber
He was getting ready to scram
Jiskin came in. Diskin probably
the way and the gunman fired

EVER, straightening out what ,

d happened brought the officers
rer a solution to the savage,
s slayings, and other crimes were
more and more of the detectives’
mn.

, at ten o'clock Monday night,
3, two radio-car patrolmen were

s in Verona, New Jersey, a short '

e from Township Police Head-
s, when they spotted a shadowy
n the roof of a dress shop:
pulled quietly to the curb, got
he car unobtrusively and Slipped
le store, one officer going toward
r while the other approached
e front.
ey advanced quietly toward the
shout ran out behind them and
lirled around. An automobile
at the end of the block on the
a hill had started rolling down
» Man was chasing it.
other patrolmen.cruising in a
adio car fortunately came along
‘he brake of the parked auto-
\‘pparently had slipped and the
aicked up speed to head off the
the bottom of the hill it struck
nd came to rest.
ver, the running man had dis-
i, No one showed up to claim
\way auto, f
irst two policemen clambered
of of the dress shop and found
’ fifteen up there. They took
the roof and hustled him. to
rters. There he identified him-
fichael Monahan.
vner of the driverless auto still
appeared and its license num-
ed that it had been stolen.
pal ran away and left you
the bag,” Police Chief Edgar
id

't believe it!” the boy pro-
Pop wouldn’t do that.”
' exclaimed Coffin,

‘1 clammed up. “I ain’t going
y more. I just don’t believe it.”
ght,” said Coffin, “it’s your
He'll laugh while you take the

‘t care. You got nothing on

“Your

Reema We iS WAR ON Bey

Ex-Convict Bob Stewart traveled a rocky road before he

. was slain on Houston's quiet Inner Circle Drive, Pg. 49

me. So I was thinking about getting
into the store. What’s that? I didn’t
do it, did 1?” ’
* “You've probably had a lot of experi-
ence getting into places,”*Coffin sug-
gested. :
Young Monahan shrugged and re-
fused to answer further questions,
Coffin ordered him charged with at-
tempted breaking and entering and
taken before a Municipal Court judge.
He then sent detectives to the youth’s
home, in Union, New Jersey.
.,. They arrived about two o'clock in
the morning. ‘The dilapidated house
surrounded by overgrown weeds was in
darkness and the officers moved cau-
tiously, lest they make any noise. A
garage door was closed but unlocked
and they opened it carefully. In the
‘rays of flashlights, the detectives saw a
shiny, baby-blue, 1952 Cadillac sedan
in excellent condition. A $5,000 car in
a rundown garage didn’t make sense,
and the officers wondered if they had
come across something big.
They separated, one covering the
back while the other rang the doorbell
in front. iss

A FEW moments later, a sleepy, red-
eyed man opened the door.

“What the Hell do you want at this
hour?” he demanded.

- “Police,” said the officer, showing his
-badge. “Are you Eugene Monahan?”
' “That’s right.”

“Well,” the detective said, “I wanted
to let you know your son’s in trouble.
He's been arrested in Verona.” «

Monahan expressed surprise. “What
was he doing in that burg?”

“Incidentally, the automobile that
rolled down the hill was a stolen car.”

“I haven't the slightest idea what
you’re talking about,” Monahan de-
clared.

“Then suppose you come with us;
we'll explain it.” ‘

Monahan dressed and accompanied
the officers to Verona. For hours he was

questioned about his activities, but he’

insisted he hadn’t been in Verona
Monday night. r

Records showed that he was an ex-
convict whose criminal career had be-
gun in 1924 when he was fifteen years
old. He now was 44 and had served
more than fifteen of the intervening
years behind bars. However, he insisted
he had done nothing wrong lately.

“That Cadillac—I suppose you won it
in a raffle?” Chief Coffin asked... .

\

\

\

“It isn’t mine,” Monahan asserted.
“If someone wants to use the garage it’s
okay, with me.”

Coffin ordered ‘him locked up pending
further investigation, i

A routine report of the arrest of
young Monahan and the detention of
his father went to police in neighbor-
ing communities. Among those who saw
the report were Detectives Donald J.
Ebert, Kermit Reiss and Joseph P. Spies.
of Union, who had been investigating
a number of burglaries in their city.
They obtained a search warrant for the
Monahan home from Magistrate Archi-
bald A. Wacker; '

Ebert looked further into the Mona-
hans’ records,

Eugene, the father, had been one of
three suspected robbers captured No-
vember 20, 1936, in Orange, New Jersey,
after a mile-a-minute gunfight with
detectives. The three men were.in an
apartment with a gangster’s moll when
two detectives raided the place. One of
the policemen was felled with a gun
butt; the three men ran out, comman-
deered a truck and fied. Twenty-five
shots were fired in an exchange of gun-
fire before the three were captured.

As @ result Monahan was sentenced
to serve from fifteen to 21 years, was
paroled in June, 1944, but soon was back
for stealing a car and violating the

_terms of his parole. Finally, in 1952, he
had been released,

The boy had been picked up in Sep-
tember of 1952 on a charge of attempted
breaking and entering and rzieased on
parole but ordered to report to a pro-
bation officer periodically.

Detective Ebert knew that Elizabeth
Police were looking for aman anda boy,
probably father and son, and also Pprob-
ably burglars. But he wanted to be
sure. ~

WHEN he and his partners reached
the Monahan house they were
amazed by the amount of property they

found—property which obviously didn’t .

belong in a private residence of that
type. It included two rolls of new gar-
den hose, two automobile radios, a rail-
road lantern, four cigaret lighters, sev-
eral sets of pens and pencils, type-
writers, cameras, a dealer’s automobile
license plate, a .32-caliber Colt revolver
‘and two rifles, one of them a Marlin,
As he went through the basement un-
covering other merchandise; Ebert
picked up a bullet. He examined it
closely—it was a nine-millimeter Rem-

ington. Nine-millimeter bullets had
been used in the Shamrock Bar killings,
and a Marlin rifle ‘ana » German Luger

had been stolen two nights before in’

Millburn, :

Ebert sped to Verona to talk to
Eugene Monahan, who still was sticking
to his story that he knew nothing about
pon dress shop incident of Monday

ght. a ,

There, Ebert claimed later, in the

face of the merchandise found in his -

home, Monahan admitted a burglary
here and there. Ebert talked about jobs
in Newark, Irvington, Union and finally
in Millburn, ,

“We found the Marlin rifle stolen
from that lawn-mower store,” he said.
“What happened to the Luger?”

“Oh, that gun?” Monahan replied,

‘decording to the detectives: “Well,
you've got me on the Cadillac; you know
I stole that. A day or two after the
lawn-mower-store job I drove the
Caddy over to my sister's house in New-
ark. I left the gun on the seat and when
I came out of the house the gun was
gone, Some dirty rat stole it.”

Ebert left to talk to the man’s son.
Michael had been transferred to New-
ark Police Headquarters for question-
ing about a series of burglaries in that
city. The elder Monahan was booked
on a charge of burglary after several
persons allegedly identified loot taken
from them, and he was.held for grand
jury action.

Before Ebert headed for Newark he
telephoned Elizabeth and told Prosecu-
tor Morss of his talk with Eugene Mon-
ahan. In a few minutes two cars filled
with Union County and Elizabeth offi-
cers were on their way to Newark.

Ebert got there first and received
permission to question the: boy.,

“I've been talking to your father,”
the detective said.

Michael slung his legs over the arm
of a chair, lighted a cigaret and asked,
“So?”

“We found a load of stuff at your
house.” *

Monahan allegedly replied, “I guess
I had a good teacher.”

“Your father?” Ebert asked.

The youth nodded and, Police said,
replied, “Yes, he told me what to do.
He forced me to pull the jobs. Mother
and I were afraid of him. I had to rob.
If I didn’t, he would take me to the:
Sarage and beat me. _

“He was always giving me lectures—
how to pick a lock, jimmy a window and

Shut off a burglar alarm.”

SOMETIMES his father cased jobs for
him by walking up and down a street
with the family dog on a leash and sig-
nalling when the coast was clear, the

boy continued, officials claimed.
53

Upside et.

ire


MONAHAN, Eugene, white, elec.

promise of spring, hatched a throng

of week-end shoppers on the streets
of the central business district of Eliza-
beth, New Jersey. Its 17-story tower a
gleaming shaft of white against the
sky, the Union County courthouse
reared above the shops huddled at its
feet along Broad Street, the dominant
piece in the tumbled architecture of a
bustling city.

From atop the courthouse, the inces-
sant stream of humans seemed ant-
like, swarming up and down the
sidewalks, each black dot indistin-
guishable from the rest. Peering down
from the spire, no one could have
pointed out a certain speck on the
concrete ribbon far below, and have
said, “That is John Ward. He has no
inkling of it as yet, but in a moment
he’s going to get the shock of his life.”

Even at the street level it would have
been difficult to have singled out John
Ward from the hundreds of his fellow
men passing up and down Broad Street
that Saturday morning of March 7th,
1953. He was just an ordinary pedes-
trian, moving leisurely along on feet
that had trod the earth some 62 years,
bent on no particular destination until
he came to the Shamrock Bar at 12
South Broad, diagonally across the
street from the courthouse.

It lacked but a few minutes of noon.
The time and the day seemed to call
for a beer. Ward stepped into the
liquor store, fronting on the. street,
and casually pushed past a swinging
door to the long, narrow barroom in
the rear.

Half-blinded by the glare of the sun,
Ward stood blinking a moment in the
gloom of the windowless taproom, then
inched toward the bar. The place was
empty. Even Sebastian Weilandics, the
jovial new bartender, was not behind
the polished mahogany.

The floor was a dark blur. John
Ward did not see the darker blob at his

Te BRIGHT SUN, with a warming

NJ (Ybuib) January 11, 1955.

"! HAD TO ROB. IF | DIDN'T I'D GET A TERRIBLE BEATING AGAIN"

LETHAL LEGACY

By Carlos Lane

MASTER DETECTIVE, September, 1953.

CRISES: 7"

feet unt
But the
instant]:
man, sp
tion of
blood t!
linoleu:
Ward
like a
corner
a few st
Walter
The old
of crow
officer

still had time evenings to visit his six
children and their families.

Mannion -said he had instructed his
bartenders that if a holdup man ever
entered the bar he wanted them to
comply with the demand for money.
He saw no sense in resisting and get-
ting a slug through the head or heart.

“T can't understand it,” Mannion de-
clared. ‘Sebastian knew how I felt.
It’s a lot better to be alive than to argue
with a robber who gets his courage from
a@ gun.”

WHILE he was explaining why he
had cautioned his employes time
after time to hand over money to a gun-
man, Fire Captain Frederick F, Durr-
schmidt and Patrolman Casper Daniels,
his son-in-law, entered the funeral par-
lor. They viewed the second body in
silence. Patrolman Daniels was the
first to speak.

“I don’t think this is Fred,” he said.

“I know it isn’t,” declared Captain
Durrschmidt. “It’s someone else. The
similarity is remarkable but my boy’s
mouth and chin are different.”

And before long the telephone bell
in the funeral parlor rang.

“I’m Fred Durrschmidt,” a voice said.
“I understand I’m supposed to be dead.
Well, I'm not.”

What was wonderful news for one
family came as a shock for another, for
that afternoon Charles O’Connell told
Captain Winkelmann that from the
conversation of men around town he
had an idea the body on the slab might
be that of a friend, William S. Diskin,
Junior, 27. He went with Winkelmann
to the mortuary and quickly identified
Diskin. Soon afterward, the identifica-
tion was confirmed by relatives of the
dead man.

Diskin’s brother, Patrick, who roomed .

with him, asserted that the slayings
couldn’t have had their origin in any-
thing Bill had done, for the dead man
had no enemies.

“He must have been in the way of a
robber,” Patrick insisted. “It was just
tough luck.”

Bill Diskin, a native of Ireland, had
come to America in 1949,

“He had an appointment with his
dentist this morning,” Patrick related.
“I don’t know why he was in the bar
unless he was killing time before his
appointment.”

Patrick wasn’t sure of the hour of the
appointment, but said his brother had
left their room at eleven o'clock.

Detectives learned that the appoint-
ment had been with Doctor Nicholas J.
Tortorella for 10:30 a.m. He had ar-
rived almost:an hour late, and the den-
tist was busy. Diskin said he’d be back
later. With time on his hands, he had
dropped into the Shamrock and sat at
the bar reading his newspaper, and a
few minutes later the gunman had en-
tered and killed him.

Bot who could this killer be? How
had he escared without being either
seen or heard?

When he had entered the Shamrock
only two persons had been there—
Weilandics and Diskin. Hundreds of
others had passed the place but nobody
could remember seeing the killer enter:
the shots, fired from a point far from
the front door, had been muffled by the
partition;~and the slayer could have
walked out and mingled with the crowds
or climbed into an automobile parked

-near by.

Elizabeth is an industrial city, with a
number of factories; and several small-
er communities near by have foundries,
manufacturing plants and oil refineries.
Of necessity, many inexpensive room-
ing-houses and hotels are in the area
and one of the first tasks of detectives
was to visit those places, looking for
men of shady reputation and residents
who might have left their quarters

suddenly. Other officers continued the .

job of routing out the regular custom-
ers of the Shamrock and talking to
them. In this way they learned the
name of a seedy-looking youth who
visited the bar occasionally and who
answered in a vague way the descrip-
tion of the one who had quarreled with
Weilandics. He was Leo Black, nine-
teen, a jobless shipping clerk,.and he

52

was located in a diner by six that eve-
ning.

Black denied, however, that he had
been in the Shamrock.

Asked where he had been all day, he
replied, “Just around; I ain’t been do-
ing anything special,”

He fidgeted, shifted his feet and
tugged at his hat constantly; obvious-
ly he was nervous—afraid of something.
Winkelmann prodded him:

“If you haven’t done anything wrong,
you have nothing to be afraid of. All
I want to know is where you’ve been.”

Black, still panicky at being taken
to the police station, declared, “I don’t
know anything about it.”

“About what?”

“About the shooting.”

“Nobody's asked you about a shoot-
ing,” the Captain said. “Do you have
a guilty conscience?”

“No, but I read about it in the papers
and I figured that’s why you brought
me here.”

The youth realized that he had said
too much. He broke down and cried.
“T'lied to you! I knew about it right
after it happened! I was in there.”

He admitted that just before eleven
o’clock he had gone into the Shamrock,
intending to talk to the bartender.

“I got into a fight with him yester-
day. . I guess I had too much to drink
and was making a sap of myself. He
told me to get out and I wouldn't do it.
We had words and he bounced me. I
was sore but the more I thought about
it the more I realized he was right and
I was wrong, so I went in this morning
to apologize. I ordered a shot and he
wouldn’t serve me; he told me to get
out. So I did. I didn’t get a chance
to tell him I was sorry about yesterday,”

He had left the ‘tavern, Black said,
and stopped to see a storekeeper he
knew three blocks away.

“I tried to get a part-time job with
him, but he didn’t have an opening.
So I just meandered around, and about
noon I was back near the Shamrock. I
saw a crowd outside and wondered what
was going on. Someone said the bar-
tender was killed.”

RIGHTENED because he had been in
the bar earlier and he might be im-
plicated, Black said, he had fled. He
roamed the streets and when, late that
afternoon, he heard a radio news report
that police were looking for a young
man who had argued with the bar-
tender, he was going to give himself up.
“But I couldn’t prove I wasn’t there
at the time of the shooting, so I didn’t
say anything,’’ Black stated. “I didn’t
do it. So help me!”

“Maybe,” said Winkelmann, “but
we'll have to be sure. It would help if
you could remember exactly where you
were at a quarter to twelve.”

“I’m sorry,” Black said. “I just don’t
know. I was in the neighborhood but I
don’t remember where. All I’m sure is,
I was outside the Shamrock at noon.”

In his pockets Black had less than
three dollars, but the robbery had netted
very little and anyone would know
plenty of ways to spend that much
money in an afternoon.

Winkelmann sent men out to investi-
gate his habits and question his ac-
quaintances. He ordered one detective
to talk to Black’s landlady and have a
look at his room. The Captain par-
ticularly wanted to know if the youth
owned & gun,

Meanwhile, street-department crews
were searching catch basins for a dis-
carded weapon, giving special attention
to the area along South Broad Street
between Elizabeth and Washington
Avenues. That would have been the
logical escape route for the slayer.
Every available policeman was engaged
in a concentrated hunt in alleys, cellars,
vacant lots, trash cans and parked au-
tomobiles, but no trace of the missing
nine-millimeter Luger could be found.

Except for the fossibility that Black
was hiding the truth, police still didn’t
have a tangible clue. Winkelmann had
talked to every person who was known
to have been in the Shamrock between
10:30 and 11:45 that morning, except
the man and boy who had left before
11:15, and he issued a radio appeal to
them to communicate with him at

Headquarteis. Though they had left
at least a half hour before the shoot-
ings, the Captain clung to a straw—
the hope that they might have observed
someone acting suspiciously.

The autopsy report added little, ex-
cept that every bullet that hit Diskin
went clear through. These were the
bullets that had been imbedded in the
back bar. Those three, plus the one
taken from the telephone booth and
two removed from Weilandics’ body,
were identical.

A minor mystery—seven ejected
shells and only six bullets—was cleared
up with the discovery of a slug in the
back yard. It was a stray shot.

Sunday was no day of rest for the of-
ficers working on the case, and for
Winkelmann the shootings presented a
direct challenge.

He had handled any number of crim-
inal investigations and realized the ease
with which an innocent person could
become involved. Circumstances made
it look bad for Leo Black, the Captain
knew, but he was as anxious to clear an
innocent man as he.was to find the
guilty one and, somehow, he felt that
Black wasn’t guilty.

When his men reported that young
Black had a good reputation and that
nobody ever had heard of his having a
gun, Winkelmann was convinced the
boy had nothing to do with the crime.

MEANWHILE, ballistics reports con-
firmed that the death weapon was

a nine-millimeter automatic, and Win- -

kelmann called for a complete file on
all crimes in the county in which such
a gun had figured over a period of three
months. Possibly the affair in the
Shamrock was not the first venture in
crime for the slayer.

A large number of Lugers are in cir-
culation, most of them souvenirs of
World War II brought back by vet-
erans, and although many have been
turned in to police of various cities in
response to urgent pleas by law-en-
forcement authorities, Lugers con-
tinue to crop up here and there.

In his search of crime reports,
Winkelmann did not have to go far for
the first mention of a nine-millimeter
Luger. On Thursday night, March 5,
in a burglary in Millburn, New Jersey,
only a few miles from Elizabeth, the
Suburban Lawn Mower Store had been
entered and among the loot was a Luger
of that size as well as a .32-caliber Mar-
lin rifle and a quantity of cartridges
for the Luger.

Captain Winkelmann lost no time.
He called Prosecutor Morss and re-
ported what he had learned. Five min-
utes later, the two men were on their
way to Millburn, where they talked to
local police and then to the operator of
the lawn-mower shop.

The storekeeper told them that the
stolen cartridges had been in a box but
for some reason only a handful had
been taken. The box and some of the
shells were left. Morss and Winkel-
mann took a handful, hoping to com-
pare the cartridges with those fired in
the tavern slayings. And soon after-
ward, ballistics expressed the view that
the fatal bullets were identical in make,
size and material.

Possibly then the killer was a bur-
glar as well. Detectives were given the
task of investigating every known bur-
glar, not only in Union County but also
in Essex and others near by.

A large number of unsolved burglaries
had been committed in the past sev-
eral months, The police of every com-
munity in a radius of 20 miles had been
plagued by the success of after-hours
prowlers. Quite a few of the breaks
were in stores and invariably the pat-
tern seemed the same; the victimized
store was in a one-story building, where
entry could be gained through a sky-
light, and near by was a taller build-
ing from which a view of the victimized
place could be obtained and from which
the burglar had been able to do a job
of casing before staging the break.

Then, on Tuesday, March 10, a man
was arrested in Brooklyn, New York, on
a charge of felonious assault and pos-
session of an unlicensed gun, a nine-
millimeter Luger.

Detective John Hemingway hurried

to New York to question him but the
trip was in vain; the man couldn’t pos-
sibly have been in Elizabeth at the time
of the double slaying.

Every time a man was picked up in
connection with a burglary or a stick-
up in New York or northern New Jer-
sey, an Elizabeth detective went to talk
to him; every nine-millimeter Luger
that was found was subjected to ballis-
tics tests.

Leo Black, who had an air-tight alibi
for March 5, the night of the Millburn
burglary, was cleared and Captain Win-
kelmann, convinced of his innocence,
helped him land a job.

P4xs passed without a lead. The city |
of Elizabeth had been turned up-
side down in the search for the death
weapon; every heap of rubbish, every
pail of refuse, every sewer basin was
examined in vain. Spring came, and
March faded into April; the public had
forgotten about the deaths in the
Shamrock, but for Prosecutor Morss,
Captain Winkelmann and other officers
the gunplay in the little tavern re-
mained an open wound. More than 500
men had been interrogated closely and
nearly 50 Lugers tested, without result.

In all this time, two aspects of the
case perplexed Captain Winkelmann.
He had gone over the details of the
slaying scores of times, discussing
theories with other officers time and
again, and was satisfied that the kill-
ings were committed in a robbery, but
he could not understand why Diskin
had to die nor could he see why, in the |
face of appeals by radio and in the
newspapers, the man and boy who had
been in the bar a half hour before the
slayings had not come forward.

“Doggone it,” he told Prosecutor
Morss, “not even a hop-head would
have shot Diskin deliberately in the
back and then gone on to rifle the till.

“It’s almost as if this fellow shot once
as a lesson, a demonstration, and then
someone else shot to show how well he’d
learned.

“An ordinary stickup would have
told Diskin to reach for the sky. He’d
cover the man and then get at the reg-
ister. ‘The way we've been figuring
doesn’t make sense.”

haw

“I’ve been thinking along that line
myself,” said Morss. “I’ve been won-
Hig if the bartender wasn’t killed

rst.”

“It would be more logical,” Winkel-
mann declared. “Suppose it wasn’t Dis-
kin who was reading the paper, after
all. Suppose the killer himseif was sit-
ting there reading, waiting for a chance
to pull the job. All right, the bartender
goes out into the yard, leaving the rob-
ber alone. He sees his chance, leaps
over the bar, opens the drawer and
grabs the money. The bartender comes
in and the robber gets frantic and fires.
Now, suppose Diskin just happens to
come into the place. The gunman has
done his dirty work already and he lets
go and pumps three more bullets at
Diskin, then beats it.”

He reached for the telephone and
called Doctor Horre. j
“Doc,” he said, “get your charts on
the Diskin autopsy and meet me at the
Shamrock, will you? I want to do an
experiment.” 8
Five minutes later Winkelmann,
Morss and Doctor Horre were across the
street in the bar. The Doctor had a
batch of papers and the Captain a

bundle of photographs.

Winkelmann sat on the stool which
Diskin presumably had occupied at the
time of the shootings. He gave Doctor
Horre a piece of chalk.

“Now, Doctor,” he asked, “mark the
back of my coat at the point the bullets
hit Diskin.” The physician did so.
“Okay, now mark the front of my coat
where the bullets came out.” Again,
the Doctor complied.

“Now,” Winkelmann asked, “by fol-
lowing the angles, would those bullets
have hit the back-bar where they did?”

Doctor Horre shook his head. “It’s
impossible.”

“Okay,” Winkelmann said. “Put me
in the spot where Diskin would have
had to be for the bullets to hit him and
go through to the back-bar.”

Morss and Horre moved the Captain


“Dad warned me to pull my jobs
alone, He told me if I worked with a
gang I'd always find a weak sister who
crabbed the job or spilled the beans to
the coppers. He told me to work my
burglaries from the roof so I'd get a
good view.” ,

Ebert felt the time had come to lead
up to the Luger. He asked “What about
that Millburn job, the lawn-mower
store?”

The boy said he didn’t recall.

“What happened to the Luger stolen
there?”

Michael shrugged his shoulders.
“Why do you want to know?”

“Let's stop playing games,” Ebert
suggested. “How about this business in

the tavern in Elizabeth with your °

father?”

“What do you want to know about
it?”

“Well,” said Ebert, “I was talking to
your father.”

“And he told you?”

“Do you want to tell me anything?”
Ebert asked. “If there’s anything on
your mind go ahead.”

The youth lighted another cigaret,
crossed his legs and, Ebert announced
later, said, “I guess I might as well. I
shot both of them. My father was with
me. We didn’t get too much dough.

“You know, out of all the money I
stole, Dad only let me keep two dollars,”

Police claimed the boy then made this
statement:

He had accompanied his father to
Elizabeth on March 7 because the elder
Monahan had to report to his parole
officer. Alone, Michael went into the
Shamrock to get a sandwich and a soft

drink, and while there decided to rob
the bartender. He waited until his
father finished his business in the court-
house and joined him and then staged
the holdup.

The bartender appeared ready to
resist, so he shot him. The father and
son team cleaned out the cash register
and were about to leave, only to be sur-
prised by Diskin. They shot their way
out of the place, mingled with the crowd
sand waited for an opportunity to get
into the car they had parked near by.
Later, Michael threw the automatic
into the river,

Detectives soon found one thing
wrong with Michael's story. On Sat-
urday morning, March.7, Eugene Mon-
ahan did not have to see his parole
officer. However, Michael, the boy, did,
and the records of the probation de-
partment showed that Michael was in
the courthouse from .11:15 to 11:30
a. m., not in the tavern, .

Prosecutor Morss and the other
Union County and Elizabeth officers
went over the boy’s story from start to
finish. They felt it did not ring true.
They questioned neighbors of the Mon-
ahans in an attempt to verify the lad’s
alleged story of beatings by his father,
but folks who lived next door said they
never saw any indication of brutality.

Father and son appeared fond of each
other, the neighbors said. The only
thing vicious was the family’s dog,
which leaped at and scratched
strangers. Michael's mother, Rose, was
described as a quiet woman who sel-
dom was seen.

Neighbors said, however, they be-
came suspicious that something was

wrong when, late in March, the elder
Monahan drove the baby-blue Cadillac
to the house and put it into the garage.
They wondered how a family living in
such meager circumstances could af-
ford so expensive acar. .

On Thursday, April 16, Prosecutor
Morss talked to the elder Monahan.

“Your son has told us all about the
Elizabeth tavern shooting,” Morss de-
clared. “He says he did it.”

Eugene Monahan, soft-spoken de-
spite his criminal] career, sighed,

“Don’t believe it,” he said, according
to Morss. “Please don't believe him. I
did it. Don’t pay any attention to him.
He's only trying to protect his old man,
The whole thing’s my fault.”

THEN came, Morss announced, the

following story: Father and son had
driven to Elizabeth, where Michael had
to report. They stopped at the tavern
and the elder Monahan had a couple
of beers while the boy had a bottle of
soda. They went out, the boy to go
across the street to the courthouse.
Later, with the boy standing outside,
Monahan went back inside. He sat at
the bar reading a paper, and when he
saw his chance he stuck up the bar-
tender. Weilandics laughed it off asa
joke and Monahan fired. Diskin came
in and was shot to silence him.

Late Friday afternoon, April 17, fath-
er and son met for the first time since
their attempted burglary in Verona
petered out. They were brought to-
gether in the offices of County Detec-
tive Chief Lombardi,

Eugene Monahan saw the boy and
said, “Tell the truth. I told them I did

it,”

Lombardi claimed, and the boy
broke down and was taken to another
reom, where he made a new statement
admitting his father had fired the fatal
shots.

The next day, father and son sepa-

rately re-enacted the crime, according
to police, and Michael led county and
city officials to a trash-filled lot in Har-
rison Avenue, near First Street, Harri-
son, New Jersey, where he and detec-
tives found 25 spent Luger shells; he
also pointed out a spot on the William
Stickel Memorial Bridge, connecting
Harrison with Newark, and said he had
tossed the gun into the Passaic River.

Father and son were charged with
murder and entered the required pleas
of innocent before Magistrate John L.
McGuire.

UNDER New Jersey law a killing com-

mitted in the course of another
crime, such as armed robbery, is mur-
der, in which all participants are equal-
ly culpable. Michael’s youth was nota
factor in this case, for a charge of mur-
der automatically removed him from
Juvenile Court jurisdiction.

Prosecutor Morss lost no time pre-
senting the case before the Union
County grand jury, and on Wednesday,
April 22, father and son were indicted
on murder charges in a true bill handed
up to Superior Court Judge Frank L.
Cleary.

At the time this story was written,
further legal action was pending.

The name of Leo Black as used in
this story is fictitious to protect the
identity of an innocent man,

For Mrs. Brown Wouldn't Be Murdered (Continued from Page 16)

However, they headed for an all-night
cafe, where they sat in a booth with
pie and coffee.

“It’s funny she said she didn’t know
who slugged her when they took her
to the hospital,” Cahill mused, stirring
his coffee.

“Yeah. I’m wondering if it ties into
those threatening telephone calls, She
didn't put out much information on
those, either.”

Cahill tasted his coffee to see how
hot it was. Pointing the spoon at his
Partner, he said: “Do you think you
would cover for a person who tried to
kill you with a hammer?”

“I don’t know,” O’Haire said. “I
don’t know. I’ve got an idea we may
be up against a strange one this trip.”

The detectives were at the hospital
at eight o’clock the following morning.
They waited around for an hour anda
half before they were able to see the
doctor caring for Mrs. Brown.

“She is as well as can be expected,”
was all the doctor would say.

“Is she conscious?” O’Haire asked.

“Yes. But she is still in a critical con-
dition. I can’t allow you to question
her. She suffered four hammer blows
to the back of the head and one over
the right eye. Head injuries are ex-
tremely serious.”

“We want to ask her only one ques-
tion,” O’Haire persisted. “Just one
question. We want to know the name
of the person who beat her.”

As the doctor hesitated, Cahill urged:
“We have reason to believe she knows
the person. If she gives us the name,
that’s all there is to it.”

The doctor compromised. He did not:

want his patient disturbed by the po-
lice officers, but he would put the ques-
tion to her himself and give them her
answer.

Impatiently, the detectives waited
outside the door. When the doctor fi-
nally came out, O’Haire popped the
question at him:

“Did she tell you who it was?”

“She doesn’t know,” the doctor re-
plied evenly.

Through tight lips, O’Haire demand-
ed: “Did you ask, her about the young
fellow she let into her apartment?”

The doctor nodded. “She doesn’t

54

recall him, either. Let’s go down
to the office. This may take a little
explaining.”

WHEN the detectives were seated in

his office, the doctor told them:
“Mrs. Brown actually cannot recall
who struck her or the person who was
seen going into her apartment.”

“Does that mean she doesn’t know
the person?” Cahill asked.

““Not necessarily. Her memory is
in what we term a temporary state of
repression. It is a form of memory
Segregation.”

“You mean the blows on the head
have made her forget? Like amnesia?”

“Not exactly, although the two
conditions are somewhat similar. Mrs.
Brown indeed may have seen the per-
son who struck her. She may have rec-
ognized him. In fact, he could be the
young man you mentioned as having
entered her apartment, since she is un-
able to recall such a man.”

Bluntly, O’Haire asked: “Look, she
isn’t holding out, is she?”

“No. I’m positive that is not the case.
Memory repression is a defense mech-
anism of the mind which segregates
unpleasant associations and subcon-
sciously locks them in a compartment
so the conscious part of the mind is
unable to recall them.”

The detectives looked skeptical.
They were familiar with people who
“forgot”, although not because of
amnesia.

“Repression is a well-known factor in
psychiatry,” the doctor went on. “You
may even have experienced it. Have
you ever forgotten an appointment with
someone you disliked? Or have you
ever stayed later than you intended
with agreeable companions because you
forgot what time it was? In a mild
form, that is the same thing. Your sub-
conscious mind is holding the facts
from your conscious being.”

O’Haire rolled a burning cigaret be-
tween his thumb and forefinger. “How
long will it take her to remember?”

The doctor shook his head, “No one
can tell.”

“How about memory association
tests?” Cahill asked.

“Not in a case like this. The more you

try with the conscious mind, the strong-
er will be the concealment by the sub-
conscious.” *

When the detectives left the doctor's
office he had promised them, without
confidence, that he would try to get
the name they sought from Mrs. Brown
and would keep them informed on her
condition.

As they walked down the steps in
front of the hospital, O’Haire said: “
had an idea this was going to be a
tough one.”

“I don’t know,” Cahill replied. “May-
be not. Maybe she will remember the
fellow if we find him.”

“Yeah? Where do you suggest we
look?”

“I don’t know,” Cahill said frankly.
“But one thing I do know. Whoever
tried to kill her isn’t aware of this
repression business. As long as she
stays alive, she is the one witness who
can put him in the big house. We'd
better have a twenty-four-hour guard
on her room. We may even grab him
making a second try.”

THE guard was put on the hospital

room at once and O’Haire and Cahill
took their problem to Chief English.
They went over all the angles and Eng-
lish had just one suggestion. “Keep
digging until you find out who the man
is who went into her apartment. You’ve
got one break because it must be some-
body she knows. It won’t be easy, but
it isn’t impossible.”

After a week, the detective team was
positive that it wasn’t going to be easy.
And they weren’t so sure that it was
possible.

They interviewed friends, relatives
and acquaintances of Mr. and Mrs.
Brown by the dozen. The vague de-
scription they had from Mrs. Moye did
not give the man they sought enough
physical features for anyone to recog-
nize.

Because Mr. Brown was an attorney
and he handled criminal cases as’ well
as litigation for professional show peo-
ple, the detectives ran into a number of
characters who they felt might well be
tempted by the $2,000 in rent receipts.

At the same time; they did not lose
sight of the possibility that the money

stolen from the apartment might not

have been the sole motive for the crime.

The threatening telephone messages
Mrs, Brown had received in some way
could be connected with the attempt
on her life.

Mrs. Brown slowly recovered in the
hospital. The detectives kept in touch
with the doctor but he assured them
that she still was unable to recall the
events during or immediately preced-
ing the hammer attack upon her,

When she was stronger, he allowed
the detectives to question her and learn
for themselves that her memory cover-
ing the facts they sought was a com-
plete blank.

O'Haire and Cahill kept plugging
away at the case for over a month. The
file they gathered was bulging. How-
ever, the veteran Homicide inspectors
knew that they faced a blank wall un-
less they got some kind of a break.

And the break came with a telephone
call from an officer of the San Diego
detective division. He called Inspector
O’Haire on the Friday afternoon of
November 14.

“I don’t know how much good this
will do you,” the San Diego officer said,

“but I got a piece of information from .

a man down here which may tie into
something up your way.”

HE GAVE O’Haire the man’s name

and said the information had come
voluntarily,

“Our boy tells us: he was up in San

Francisco about a month back and he.

ran into a fellow he knows only by the
monicker of ‘Lucky’. This Lucky gave
him a ride back to San Diego in a new
Cadillac. He says Lucky seemed to be
loaded with dough, which didn’t add up
because he is usually on the bum.

“He asked this Lucky where he con-
nected and Lucky told him he had ‘just
finished up a woman’. Our man tells
us that this is all he said about it but
he’s sure the money came from what-
ever deal this Lucky was in on.”

O’Haire listened to the account and
asked: “What day was your man up
here?”

“It was Monday night, October sixth.

Our man says he met Lucky about |

eleven o’clock in the evening in a bar.”


are

said. “You got any suggestions, kid?”
“Mickey,” said Mike, smiling. “I’ve

always wanted to call a dog Mickey.”
“Okay, it’s Mickey.”

Mike assumed that the dog .was a

present from his father.
him.

“Sure he’s yours.
gonna be a pet. He’s. gonna help us
on our jobs. You see, I'll walk him up
and down in front of a store while
you're inside making a strike. © That
way nobody will figure me as a look-
out. Ill just look like a guy out walk-
ing his mutt.”

Mike’s training was put to a test on
a cold Sunday night in February. The
place was a low-roofed tavern in
Irvington, a town not far from Newark.
Monahan had Genet it two pee be-
fore.

He parked the car around the corner
from the bar and got out with the
dog. Mike slipped into the alley behind
the building, a length of rope and a
screwdriver in one hand. He knew ex-
actly what to do—his father had taken
care of that. He shimmied up the
water pipe and hooked a leg over the
edge of the roof. Then he pulled the
rest of his body up.

The skylight was a dark square in
the center of the roof. Mike kneeled
alongside it, working as fast as he could.
First he took out the screws, then the
steel molding. Then he carefully re-
moved one of the triangles of glass.
He tied one end of the rope to the sky-
light and let the other end fall into
the darkness below.

The wind whistled around him and
he felt as cold as an icicle. His heart
pounded, his stomach felt tight. He
took a deep breath and let himself
down on the rope.

It took him a few minutes to rifle
the register. He jammed the money
into a pocket and ran to the side door,
opening it cautiously. Everything was
okay. There was his father still walk-
ing Mickey.

They drove back to Newark and
counted the money when they got
home.

“Sixty-eight bucks,”
his eyes glittering. ‘Not bad for a
beginner. See how easy it was. Just
listen to your old man and you'll be all
right.” He tossed Mike a dollar bill.
“Yes, sir, not bad at all.”

This was but the first of many bur-
glaries for the father-son combination.
That winter they ranged all over New-
ark and sometimes hit nearby residen-
tial communities. Their activity
Caused a big hike in burglaries in the
area, a fact that didn’t make the po-
lice happy. The slick burglar left no

He thanked

But he ain’t just

Monahan said,

The balding ex-con is escorted fam tle a Wwe: men were set to death.
He admitted crime only after his young son had told everything to police.

7

clues and worked the same way each
time, gaining entrance through a sky-
light.

Monahan, through the efforts of his

boy, was riding high. He decided the-

furnished rooms were no proper place
to live and moved his family to a house

in Union, a quiet town just outside ©

Newark.

“The rent’s pretty high,” he told his
wife, “but that’s okay. We can afford
it. ”

Monahan’s parole officers were prop~
erly impressed with the ex-con’s
progress. He had a steady job, a nice
home and seemed eager to keep out of
trouble. The transformation was re-
markable, for Monahan was a hard-
ened criminal with a string of arrests
dating back to 1924.

“Keep it up,” he was told, “and you'll
make out all right. There’s nothing
we like better than to see a man make
something of himself.”

The petty crook could afford to smile
at that one. He had a sweet racket and
he had everybody fooled. But he was

too stupid to see that his luck couldn’t
continue forever. One day little Mike
was bound to make a slip and that
would be the end.

So Monahan blithely continued his
operations, keeping almost all the mon-
ey for himself and slipping Mike a

dollar now and then. On a rainy night

in July he came home and told his_

boy he had spotted an easy job. “Get
that bottle of black shoe polish out of
the kitchen,” he ordered. “I’ve got
a. great idea.”

They drove away, Monahan explain-
ing the job. “I came through Irvington
a few minutes ago and there’s a bus
parked on a side street there just wait-
ing to be knocked over.” He’ pointed
to a pistol lying on the seat. “Just
stick that in the driver's ribs and he'll
do anything you say.”

Mike was scared—he’d never pulled
a holdup before.

“What if the guy pute. up a fight?”

he asked, hoping his dad wouldn’t get

mad. “I might get nervous and shoot.
Is the gun loaded?”

43

Ee

Be me =

~

oe MONOHAN, Eugene, white, lh, ‘electrocuted New Jersey (Union county) on Jan: 12, 1955.
ds HE HAD THE SPINE OF A JELLYFISH, |
THE ETHICS OF A SHARK. IT WAS EASY

FOR HIM TO BETRAY HIS SON oe 4

é

HOW LOW CAN

oa
+

STAR DETECTIVE # 6, = 1955.

is

| Mike and Eugene Monahan: What kind of man would
lead a son into crime, to within steps of the chair?


‘
Reperesen Atel de Soy.

OU GET

E LIKE to think there is at least a trace of virtue in

everyone, that somewhere down deep there is a tiny
spark of honor, integrity, decency, love. But it would have
taken the most charitable of men, generously endowed with
imagination and armed with a magnifying glass, to find any-
thing good in Eugene Monahan. ‘ os

He was rotten to the core, corrupt and spineless, a weasel
who walked like aman. He wasa slight, balding fellow with
stooped shoulders and a sad, apologetic face that seemed to
say, “It’s not my fault. I didn’t mean it.” He was 43 but
tooked at least ten years older. ;

Unfortunately, he had a family, a wife and a son named
Mike. He was almost a stranger to them because he had
spent a good part of his life behind bars. A petty crook,
he was even a complete failure at breaking the law.

His latest sojourn at the state’s expense ended in January
of 1952 when he was paroled. There were no cries of joy
when he showed up at the two furnished rooms where Mike
and his mother lived in Newark, N. J. Mike, who was 14
and knew all about his father, looked at him with hesitant
eyes and wondered what, to say. What do you say to a
man you hardly know but who’s your father all the same?

“Say hello to your Pa,” his mother prompted him.

Mike’s face flushed. “Hello Pop.”

Monahan looked at him a moment, then turned away and
tossed his overcoat over a chair. “They made me get a
job,” he said finally. “It’s in a factory. I start tomorrow.”
It was obvious that he wasn’t happy about it. Putting him
to work was like adding time to his sentence. “I’m on the
midnight to 8 shift. It ain’t gonna be easy to sleep.”

He’d been working a week when he came home driving
a second-hand car, which meant he’d broken his parole:
When Mike returned from school his father took him for a
ride in the park. Mike sat stiffly next to his parent, smoking
one cigarette after another. He was a baby-faced kid,
nervous and unsure of himself. poco,

Monahan grumbled about his job, saying the hours were
killing him. “But it ain’t gonna last forever. There are
easier ways to get dough, lots of dough. All I need is some-
body to work with me. Are you game?”

Mike knew what his father meant. He felt a little scared.
“I don’t know, Pop. I never thought about anything like
that. I don’t wanna get in no trouble.”

A hardness edged into his father’s voice. “Don’t be a
chump. If you listen to me you won’t get in no -trouble.
I know what’s best. I’m your old man, ain’t I?”

“Yeah Pop.” Mike’s voice betrayed a lack of conviction.
“Anything you say, Pop.”

“Now you’re showing some sense. One of these days we'll

get something -lined up.”

Pe abate

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ats pasabltoabsiid Diebeyas

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en hey van

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_. Officér covers body of Sebastian: We
andics;, killed: “during a tavern holdups,

a

es ee Mike was too young to follow his Gradually Monahan spent less time Maybe you take after your old man.
i own inclinations and he fell under the doling out his brand of fatherly advice I’ve pulled some real jobs in my time,
sway of the sad-faced little man who and more in detailing the techniques real jobs. You. know what I mean?
was his father. They spentalotoftime of burglary. “Roof jobs are the best. And I'll teach you everything I know.” 5
together and Mike learned a lot of That way you can see if anyone’s com- Mike proved an apt pupil. During ©
things that were better unlearned. He ing. Always pull your jobs alone. If the next few weeks he learned how to~ :
| . was told that religion was a racket, that you work with a gang you might get jimmy windows, pick locks and open ~
c cops couldn’t be trusted, that working hooked up with a weak sister who'll skylights by using nothing more than ~
every day was strictly for the birds, crab the ‘job or spill the beans to the a long screwdriver. 'He was shown ES
that easy money could be had almost cops.” how to disconnect a burglar alarm, a
.for the asking. The lectures usually were S canducted trick his father called “catching a bug.”
“You can get the dough if you’re_ in the kitchen where beer was within Monahan, in his twisted way, was —
_ smart,” Monahan would say, conven- easy reach. Toward the end of an af- “proud of the boy. The kid was just 3
bel , iently forgetting that he’d never shown’ ternoon the father’s face would be about ready to try-the real thing.
Ee signs of becoming an Einstein. “All flushed, his speech a little thick, his A
you gotta do is learn the ropes, and manner expansive. NE SATURDAY morning the father
I'm the guy who can teach them to “You look like.a good kid to me,” he’d came home with a mongrel dog .§
you.” say. “You’ve got a good head on you. ona leash. “What’ll we call him?” he {

wo FS nao nant posers ion gener

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Once | Mike started talking
there was no stopping him.
He confessed twin slaying.

Sad-faced Eugene Monahan
. _ (right) holds dog that he
rH walked during burglaries.

PEM Ree.
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Gt ELLIS H. PARKER Tell Now

Official Detective Stories Continues Its

Series of Articles, Published in Response to
Countless Requests from Would-Be Sleuths

The Obvious

OOK for the obvious!—That old
axiom of the police stations is
one that can’t be beat.

‘he most recent example we have

had of it was in the mystery surround-
ing the murder of Nancy Titterton in
her New York apartment last Good
Friday, an excellent account of which
appears elsewhere in this issue. The
Titterton case, in which the most like-
ly suspect was the killer, is merely
history repeating itself.

The obvious is nothing more nor
less than the killer leaving his trade-
mark. But it never happens the same
‘vay twice. The obvious is not neces-

‘ily a clew that links the killer im-

liately to the crime. It can be, for
mple, a condition created by the
er—a condition that might very

Al be overlooked by a detective go-

. after the solution of a case “the
hard way.” I have always felt that the
Supreme Being so befuddles the mind
of a murderer that he cannot see the
obvious things in his own crime that
are later easily discernible to an astute
detective.

A, glittering example of the obvious
was in a case I cracked in Lakehurst,
New Jersey, a few years ago. Two
seamen—Albert Duffy and _ Robert
Evans—were found shot to death in
the kitchen of Evans’ home. Evans’
widow said that the men had been en-
gaged in a drunken brawl. There was
a weapon alongside of each man.

The walls and windows of the
death room were splattered with blood
and bullets, indicating that the men
had shot each other. Then I examined
a screen through which several pellets
had passed. The wire mesh around the
holes in the screen was bent inward,
positive proof that the bullets had been
fired from the outside.

HE rest was easy. Conditions in the

kitghen had been simulated to in-
dicate that a brawl had taken place.
I learned that Evans’ widow had been
having a love affair with a Marine
named Lester Underdown. She and
Underdown had plotted the murder,
the Marine standing outside the kitch-
en window and firing through at the
two men.

Mrs. Evans and her former lover
are both serving life sentences, and
two friends of Underdown, convicted

of complicity in the crime, are doing
lesser terms—all because of the ob-
vious, the fact that bullets fired
through a screen from within a room
definitely do not bend the mesh in-
ward.

Nothing is more obvious than nature,
and when a killer overlooks this fact
he makes the detective’s work very
simple indeed. Take for example the
murder of a youth named Herman
Fy ad in Burlington County back in
1 6

pAsHen had been spending the eve-
ning at the home of his fiancee. The
girl lived in a lonely section of the
country and Fisher was in the habit
of going to his own home by way of a
desolate road that was skirted on
either side by woods and fields.

On the night of the murder Fisher
was walking along the road in ques-
tion shortly after eleven o’clock, when
someone concealed behind a clump of
bushes pulled the trigger of a shotgun,
became a murderer and fled. Fisher’s
body was found shortly afterward.

I began my investigation the next
day. It was impossible to trace a shot-
gun through its charge, and the fact
that Fisher had been killed by a shot-
gun was the only evidence that was
established.

Frankly, I was up a tree. Just about
every one for miles around owned a
shotgun in those days. What was more,
the weapons were usually in constant,
legitimate use. I decided, however, to
examine every shotgun in the general
territory. I was, as the saying goes, get-
ting nowhere fast when at length the
routine of my task took me to the
home of a young chap named Edgar
Murphy. Young Murphy was not in.
I asked his mother if there was a shot-
gun in the house. She answered in the
affirmative, saying that Edgar owned
one. I examined the weapon carefully,
then asked the woman nen it had
been used last.

“Tt hasn't been out of ite house for
several months—not since the hunt-
ing season,” she answered.

“You’re absolutely certain that this
gun has not left this house for several
months?” I asked.

“No, Edgar is the only one in the
house who uses it, and he only uses it
during the hunting season.”

Edgar Murphy was over at the home

of the slain youth assisting in funeral

arrangements. The two had long been

Out of his two-score years of experience Ellis H. Parker,
ace detective, advises all who wish to follow in his footsteps

close friends. I went to the Fisher home
and arrested Edgar Murphy for the
murder. He wanted to know why I had
singled him out.

“Because,” I said, taking from my
vest pocket a piece of fresh twig half
an inch in length, “I found this stuck
in the trigger guard of your shotgun.
You must have picked it up when you

ran through the fields after killing
Herman.’

Murphy said that the twig must have
become caught in the trigger guard
when he had last used the gun, during
the hunting season several months
previously.

“Murphy,” I said, “now I know
you’re lying. This twig is green. It’s
fresh. Don’t you know that a twig
stays that way only a few days?”

TRS most simple of observations was
enough for Murphy. He cracked
up and confessed. Jealousy was the
motive. He had been secretly in love
with Fisher’s fiancee. He went to the
electric chair in State Prison, just be-
cause nature is very obvious,

Now, both the Murphy-Fisher case
and the Lakehurst cise could very
well have gone unsolved were it not
for the obvious being noticed. The
same could have held true in the cur-
rent ‘Titterton mystery. But the obvi-
cus must be noticed quickly. Had a
few days elapsed in the Murphy-Fish-
er case, the life would have fled from
the twig, just as it fled from Fisher’s
body, and the one thing that cracked
the killer would no longer have been
in existence.

But what is obvious to the detective
is often very complex to the killer. I
have talked with many killers who,
after they have confessed their crimes,

have been utterly astonished that the
solutions have hinged on things a
school child would have noticed. Stu-
pidity on the part of slayers is an
amazing but constantly recurring fact.
A man simply ceases to see things in
their proper perspective when guilt
befogs his mind.

Tables Turned on
Detective

A striking example of this con-
cerns a_ nationally-famed detective,
now dead. The detective, long noted
for tripping so-called clever criminals,
turned culprit himself, after a fashion,
right in his own household. He was ill
and the doctor had ordered him to
take, at regular intervals, a vile tast-
ing medicine. The sleuth’s family,
through love for the man, wanted to
make certain that he took his medi-
cine, and constantly reminded him
when it was time to take it. The de-
tective, wishing to keep peace with the
family, but not wishing to take the
medicine, walked into the bathroom
at’ regular intervals, brought the neck
of the medicine bottle in contact with
a glass so that all could hear, then took
a spoon and made a loud imitation of
stirring the medicine in water. He did
not take the medicine, of course, but
went to some trouble to give the im-
pression that he was taking it. All
might have gone well, except for the
fact that he neglected such a simple
thing as actually removing any of the
medicine from the bottle and when,
at the end of three days, the bottle was
still full, he was detected!

The Most Wanted Man in Memphis (Continued from Page 33)

possess ironclad, condemning evidence
of his guilt.

Somewhere today the man _ who
wore a sheet because one of his arms
was temporarily or permanently stiff
when he menaced a peaceful house-
hold with his deadly weapons—Roy
Wiman, burglar and potential killer,

>» of the most audacious criminals

y whom it has been my duty to
..--a man who deserves imprison-

i

ment for his known depredations—
may be plying his nefarious trade.
You can possibly aid in our relentless
search for the dangerous criminal by
carefully studying the photograph re-
produced here. It shows how he
looked a decade ago.

He is now about 35 years old. When
previously arrested, Roy Ellman was
described as follows: Height 5 ft. 634
inches; weight (then) 151 sasincls:

gray eyes; brown hair; medium build;
a crane operator by occupation. His
never-changing finger print classifica-
tion is:

9 U 8 and 9 U 8
1 Ua 9 1 Tt 9

If any reader of this publication pos-
sesses information that will assist us
in apprehending the wanted man, do
not hesitate to communicate with the

writer—Chief Inspector Wm. T. Grit-
fin of the Memphis, Tennessee, Police
Department—who promises that your
assistance will be highly appreciated
and treated with the utmost secrecy.
And don’t be deceived by the fact that
he had a lame arm when he pulled the
sensational robbery here in 1927, for
he has had ample time to overcome
that physical handicap. And if given
a chance he will fight when cornered.

39


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46

INSIDE DETECTIVE

began tracing the whereabouts ot Elton
M. Stone.

They found that Stone, out on parole
from San Quentin penitentiary, had been
paroled to persons living in Northfork, a
little mountain village in Madera county,
45 miles northeast of Fresno. Overholt,
Conway, Deny Sheriff Oren King, Un-
dersheriff C. Tarr, Detective George
Mohler, Wecdeu Re W. R. Thomas and
Owen Kessel of the State Identification
Bureau went unostentatiously up to North-
fork and closed in on the garage where
Stone was working as a mechanic. They
took along a friend of Stone’s.

“Come out a minute, Stone—a couple of
fellows want to see you,” the friend
called.

Stone stepped out—and looked into the
muzzle of half a dozen guns. They told
him why he was being arrested. He did
not argue. He knew before a word had
been spoken.

They took him down to Fresno in the
dark of the night, driving into town by
back streets and smuggling Stone quickly
into jail before anyone could spread the
news that the sheriff was back with a
prisoner. And Stone, without hesitancy,
without argument, admitted everything.
His confession was taken down by a sten-
ographer. He read it and signed it. He
talked, and he didn’t seem to care who
heard him.

“Yes, I killed Mary Stammer,” he said.
“T didn’t care which one of the Stam-
mers I got, just so I got one of them. And
I don’t care what rap I have to take for it.
I'd do the same thing again.”

“Why?”. asked the officers.

“I've got a grudge against the Stam-
mer family,” said Stone.

“What had Stammer done to you?”

“That’s my business. When he hears

my name, he'll know why I did it!”
_ For three nights, Stone admitted, he lay
in wait outside the Stammer home. Once
he had his gun aimed at Mrs. Stammer
and was about to pull the trigger, when
her husband suddenly appeared and the
hidden killer was afraid to fire. Then he
launched into details of what happened
on the night of November 24; a story that
fitted in every detail the story that had
been reconstructed from the mute evidence
left behind.

He borrowed a car, he said, and drove
from Northfork to Fresno, parking out-
side the Stammer home with lights off.
He saw Mr. and Mrs. Stammer and the
maid leave. He sneaked up to the house,
looked in at the window, and saw Mary
sitting alone under the lamp, reading her
father’s law book. He had fired through
the window, just as the evidence showed.

Then he answered one question that
had puzzled the officers. What became
of the empty shell?

Stone said that he held his left hand
ready and caught it as it was ejected.
Later he chewed it up and threw away
the tattered remains. In detail he told
how he had entered the house, how he had
taken the dying girl to the bedroom, ripped
her clothing off, placed her on the floor.

“I didn’t attack her,” he insisted, ad-

mitting, however, that he had committed

an immoral act.

“Why?” asked the officers. “Just to
make the Stammers feel worse about it?”

“Sure,” nodded Stone calmly. “That
was it.”

Sheriff Overholt and his fellow investi-
gators were skeptical of the grudge mo-
tive. They believed it was a crime of
lust—otherwise, why the brutal disrobing,
why the maltreatment of the girl? “In
spite of Stone’s loud talk about a grudge,”
said the sheriff, “I believe that Mary Stam-
mer’s killing was an act of sex degener-
acy.”
Sheriff Overholt told Walter Stammer

_raignment.

that Stone had confessed the murder and
brought Stammer secretly to the jail. The
two men, father of the murdered girl and
prisoner accused of her murder, con-
fronted each other.

“T never saw the man before. I never
heard of him,” said Stammer. “Why did
you do it?” he cried to Stone.

“T’ve got a grudge against you and your
whole family,” Stone insisted doggedly.

“T'd have shot you if I'd had a chance—
and your wife, too!”

Again and again Stammer racked his
memory, went over records of his legal
cases. He could find no mention, no
recollection whatever of Elton Stone.

he Fresno jail is a strong one, but
Sheriff Overholt was taking no chances.
A few hours after Stone had signed his
confession, he was smuggled out of Fresno
and rushed to Folsom penitentiary. Stone
showed no particular interest in his fate.

“Hanging’s okay,” he remarked calmly.
“And maybe, when they sentence me to
hang, I'll tell you something else.”

With Stone safely in Folsom, the law
moved rapidly. On Monday, he was re-
turned from Folsom to Fresno for ar-
Eight thousand persons gath-
ered in the plaza before the courthouse
when Stone appeared under heavy guard.
Deputies were ready, but except for a few
muttered exclamations and shaken fists the
crowd was quiet.

Stone’s bravado broke when he saw the
crowd. He tried to hide his face in his
coat. He whimpered and shook as he was
rushed into the courthouse.

An aged woman in black struggled in
the crowd, finally gained the attention of
a deputy sheriff. “Please let me in,” she
begged. “I’m his mother.”

So, dazed and shaken, Mrs. Ida Stone
watched the law do its business with the
stepson who, alone of all the six children
left when her husband died three years
ago, had “turned out bad.”

Elton Stone, thirty-one, had a record
that went back to 1924 when he was sent
to a reform school for burglary. Paroled,
he was sent back on an automobile theft
charge; escaped, was caught—and was
paroled again. In 1931, he went to San
Quentin, again for automobile theft, and
in spite of his previous record, was once
more paroled. His stepmother, four broth-
ers and a sister are a respected, hard-
working family, none of them ever in
trouble with the law.

Stone pleaded guilty to murder. The
authorities breathed more easily. They
were not quite sure what would have hap-
pened if that crowd had heard that Mary
Stammer’s murderer was trying | to escape
punishment.

So that the full requirements of the law
might be fulfilled, Judge H. R. Thomson,
after receiving Stone’ s plea of guilty, spent
two hours studying the transcript of the
grand jury proceedings at the time of the
indictment. Then Stone was brought into
court again.

“It is the judgment of this court,” said
Judge Thomson, “that you, Elton M.
Stone, suffer the penalty of death.”

Will Elton Stone, as he ascends the
gallows-tree for the final quick-shudder-
ing leap into the next world, lose his
bravado? Will he come clean—admit that
his “grudge” story was a blind to hide
his own tardy shame? Will he confess
that the fiendish violence done to Mary
Stammer was conceived in his own crimi-
nal mind in a moment of bestial lust?

The sight of the noose has loosened
many a tongue; perhaps it will loosen
Elton Stone’s, Whether it does or not,
Fresno citizens are agreed that the sicken-
ing, neck-breaking jolt is a just and fitting
end for the man who snuffed out the life
of pretty Mary Stammer.

Li a in aa te al

slain daha

wh

soit

EA eh Nt a a aE a te aga

Rendezvous
with Death >

(Continued from page 32)

luscious legs, could not be found that night.
When she was picked up the following
day she insisted she was as innocent of the
gun-smuggling as a new-born babe. Taken
to headquarters, the little red-head seated
herself on a desk, crossed her knees, calm-
ly pulled at a cigarette—and laughed in
her questioners’ faces.

“I didn’t bring Eddie that revolver, but
I would have brought him a machine-gun
if I had the chance.” She glanced con-
temptuously about the room at the alien
circle of faces. “I don’t like cops—see?”

The detectives were certain she knew
more than she was telling. And finally,
after hours of grilling, Mary suddenly
broke.

“All right,” she announced wearily. “You
win. What do you want to know? If you
don’t make it fast, I'll fall asleep right
here.”

“Did you smuggle that gun to Eddie
Metelski?”

She nodded. “Yes, I gave it to him.”

“Was anybody else in on it?”

“No. Just Eddie and myself—and Sem-/

enko. He told me Semenko was going
to bust out with him.”

Police Chief John F. Harris asked : “Did
you make an appointment ,to meet Eddie
sometime after the break

The girl started. She began to weep
softly. After much urging she stam-
mered, “Eddie said he would be at Halsey
and West Kinney Streets Tuesday night
at seven o'clock, and to make sure | would
be there. When Eddie was in Newark,
we used to hang out around that corner.”

The police stared at her in astonishment.
Then one of them exploded:

“Well, this takes the cake! The guy
plans to break out of jail, and while he’s
still there he tells his girl to meet him on
the corner of Halsey and Kinney, three
blocks from the First Precinct station,
seven blocks from headquarters, and every
trooper and cop in the state gunning for
him. And he says seven o’clock Tuesday
night. Either he’s the most conceited
mug in the world or he's nuts—and 1
think he's both!”

Middlesex County Prosecutor Douglas
M. Hicks and Newark authorities now re-
sorted to a piece of strategy. The news-
papers headlined the fact that Mary had
been taken in custody for questioning.
With the girl safely stored away in a cell,
a story was released to the effect that she
had revealed nothing, and had been released.
The authorities knew the papers and the
radio would spread the news, and that
somewhere Metelski would see or hear it
and attempt to keep his tryst. This was
Sunday night. Preparations were begun
for the Tuesday rendezvous.

The widespread manhunt continued, how-
ever. Residents locked their windows,
bolted their doors and looked fearfully be-
neath beds before retiring. A mass un-
easiness gripped New Jersey. The net
about the killer and his companion drew
tighter. Several times it was believed they
were trapped, but always they managed
to run the gauntlet and vanish. Two cars
were stolen and several holdups committed.
The jail breakers needed money. During
one stickup, a midnight affair at the swank
Clark Gable Inn, on Route 29 near Moun-
tainview, Metelski boasted to his victims
he would “never be taken alive.” To a
harber shop proprietor at Plainfield, an-
other victim, the killer admitted he would

INSIDE DETECTIVE

“like to get a shave” but didn’t believe he
could “spare the time.”

“I’m going right now to the Hudson
Tubes at Park Place in Newark, and let
the cops try to stop me!” Metelski told the
barber. But he never carried out this boast.

Giant searchlights were added to ma-
chine gun nests at strategic positions along
all main highways. Airplanes manned by
National Guardsmen and private fliers
droned overhead, seeking to locate the
wanted men. Farmers, descendants of
Revolutionary foemen, dropped their plows
and snatched up shotguns. Possemen raked
the hills and valleys.

While the search proceeded, repercus-
sions were felt at Middlesex County Jail.
Sheriff Harding, outraged by what his in-
vestigation had uncovered, suspended War-
den Puerschner, Assistant Warden Ander-
son and Guard Roberts and lodged formal
charges against them.

DDIE METELSKI did not turn up to

meet Mary on Tuesday night at Hal-
sey and West Kinney—but he did on Wed-
nesday night, just twenty-four hours late
for his amazing appointment. Thereby he
and Semenko walked blindly into the trap
baited with the newspaper story about the
red-haired torch-singer’s release. More
than seventy-five detectives and troopers,
stationed in doorways, in empty apartments
fronting on the street, in every available
nook and cranny, formed the reception
committee. Disappointed the - previous
night, they nevertheless were eager to try
again; because of Eddie’s egotism, they
were sure he would show up sooner or
later.

The first to be spotted was Semenko.
Wan and pinched from lack of food and
sleep, he walked wearily into the Purity
Restaurant at 31 West Kinney Street,
slumped into a stool at the counter, and
asked the waitress, “Do you know Nick
the Greek?”

The girl shook her head.

“Okay,” said Semenko. “Let's have
four hamburgers and two containers of
coffee to go out in a hurry.” .

Who “Nick the Greek” was never came
out, but authoritics later expressed the be-
lief he was a friend of Metelski’s and that
Semenko had been instructed to ask for
him. Possibly Metelski intenc.d going to
“the Greek” for aid.

A moment after Semenko entered the
restaurant, the watchers spotted Eddie
crouching in an alley nearby, apparently
waiting for his companion and half of the
“four hamburgers to go out.”

Whispered orders went to the tense offi-
cers:

“A half dozen of you enter that alley
from behind and smoke Metelski out. We'll
get him as he comes.” Our jaws were
set and our fists clenched. We had been
waiting for this for a long time.

A separate detail was quickly formed to
handle Semenko, who was already moving
toward the door of the restaurant with his
sandwiches and coffee.

Suddenly the street was swarming with
the minions of the law. Guns glinted men-
acingly in the light from windows. Hard-
eyed officers waiting for a reasonable ex-
cuse to follow the “Shoot to kill” order,
closed in rapidly.

It was a short, ugly battle. Semenko of-
fered little resistance; but Eddie, appar-
ently set on fulfilling his prophecy that he
would not be taken alive, screamed,
“Mercy! Mercy! Don't kill me!”—and
then reached for his .38!

It was a suicidal move, but Eddie was
not to die that night. Four bullets sang
past his ear and ricocheted off a brick wall
across the street. Suddenly an avalanche
of hard bodies struck him. We police
wielded gun butts and swung iron fists like

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47

flails. All the pent-up hatred for this cop-
killer went into those prodigious blows.

Nor did Semenko, willing enough to
taise-a white flag, get off lightly. While
a frenzied, hysterical crowd, surging about
the embattled men, shouted, “Kill them!
Give it to them! K-i-l-! them!” the pair
took a beating such as few men have re-
ceived—and lived through it. Finally both
were hauled by the legs, heads bouncing
on the pavement, to a patrol wagon.

Neither was more than _half-conscious
in the wagon. Their heads lolled on their
chests, their faces were bloody caricatures.
They were crimson masses of human
wreckage, revolting to the eye.

Metelski was brought to trial in Middle-
sex County Court on January 6, 1936, and
in two days was found guilty of the mur-
der of Trooper Yenser. The judge prompt-
ly sentenced him to die in the electric chair
the week of February 17.

Three days later, Semenko discovered his
five sleepless, hunted days of “freedom”
had cost him dearly. He was sentenced
to serve from fifteen to twenty years in
the state prison. And as for red-haired
Mary, not quite so gay, her plea of guilty
on two counts earned her from two and
a half to three years for aiding a jail
break and two and a half years for carry-
ing concealed weapons.

I was the chief witness for the prose-

‘cution at Eddie Metelski’s brief trial. When

I was not occupying the stand I sat in a
far corner of the courtroom. I don't be-
lieve my eyes ever left the face of the
man who had shot down my buddy.

When the jury foreman, in almost a
whisper, said: “We find the prisoner guilty
of murder in the first degree, with no rec-
ommendation,” I think I relaxed for the
first time. That jury couldn’t bring War-
ren Yenser back, but at least it visited
vengeance on as black a killer as ever
stalked the state of New Jersey.

Pot of Gold

(Continued from page 27)

“Are you the supposed heir?”

“That I cannot divulge,” said Hartzell,
frowning slightly.

“You have, I presume, agents in Amer-
ica ?”

“Yes. I have twenty-one people. There
are eight or nine who have been sending
money since 1922.”

“Is this the money you live on?”

Hartzell said yes, that he borrowed
from it and made a note to pay six per
cent interest. “I have promised that in the
end they will receive five hundred per
cent.” he informed the officer.

“Where is the Drake Estate?” Bishop
asked then.

“I can't tell you offhand. It is all over
the place. Much of it is right here in
the heart of London, the most valuable
property on this side of the Atlantic.”

Inspector Bishop glanced at a memoran-
dum. “On November 15 last,” he said,
“a Mr. Amos Hartsock, one of your
agents, told a body of citizens in America
that you had established the identity of
the person entitled to the estate.”

“That I cannot divulge,” said Hart-
zell, looking at the tip of his cigar.

“Have you seen this person?” persisted
Bishop. “How do you know that he
exists?”

“From people who have done business

INSIDE DETECTIVE

for me. It is a great mystery. I’m sorry
I cannot tell you more, but I owe it to
my clients not to reveal these matters.
It might spoil everything.”

“I see,” said the officer, and took his
departure.

t
Now this was no idle visit on the part
of the Scotland Yard man. What had
happened was that the Department of
Justice of the United States government
had decided to look into the Drake Estate
racket, and had asked the London police to
investigate Hartzell. Inspector Bishop,
before his call at 14 Washington Man-
sions, had tailed Hartzell for several days
and observed that the corpulent ex-farmer
had been doing nothing but collecting and
banking money.

Presently Mr. Hartzell learned that the
British authorities had decided to deport
him as an undesirable citizen. He pro-
tested that he was “practically British”
now. The United States, indeed, seemed
to be the last place on earth he wished to
see again. “I have no use for Americans
or America,” he told the authorities.
“They have treated me badly.” (What a
statement!) “When this is all ended my
name will become Drake and I will be a
British subject.”

He arrived in New York on the French
liner Champlain February 16, 1933. When
reporters peppered him with questions
about the Drake Estate he remarked that
there were “two sides to every pancake.”
He asserted that everything he had done
was “one hundred per cent above board
and on the level and I’ll prove it.”

“When?” ~

“Whenever the English authorities give
me back my papers. They treated me very
badly. I was rushed out of England and
all my records over there were sealed up.”

Shipped to Sioux City, Iowa, he was
indicted for using the mails to defraud.
While out on bail he and various henchmen

had the audacity to call upon contributors *

for a defense fund. Hartzell spoke at
many meetings, usually starting his re-
marks by stating that he was a thinker, not
a speechmaker. Invariably he appeared to
carry weighty secrets. As for the grand
payoff, he expected that to happen before
Christmas.

John L: Hensel, a heavy contributor,
held a Drake Estate picnic in a pasture
on his farm near Auburn, Iowa. The

American flag waved over the gathering, *

members of the American Legion turned
out in force, there were some fine, stirring
speeches, and $4,000 was collected for the
Hartzell Defense Fund. It was Hensel,
too, who wrote the following letter to a
fellow-donator in Lincoln, Nebraska :

“If you can figure out just where and
when Roosevelt is going to finance the
NRA you will know when we can ex-
pect our checks as we feel that the two
deals are very closely connected. This
may not make very good sense to you but
nevertheless it is the whole story.”

The impossible happened to Hartzell in
the fall of 1933. In other words, he was
convicted. He appealed the case, remain-
ing free on bail, and the racket continued
to flourish. However, the Supreme Court
refused to review the case, and when Hart-
zell failed to surrender in Sioux City the
police went looking for him. He was ar-
rested in Chicago on January 12, 1935,
and presently was on his way to the Fed-
eral Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas,
to begin a term of ten years’ imprisonment.

Delmar C. Short, bookkeeper in Hart-
zell’s Chicago office, sent out the follow-
ing letter to reassure the faithful:

“IT will say that our deal is going fine.
This last stunt of taking him away is all
in the play. We have been advised all
along that the outside world would think
this a fraud. If the papers came out and
said the Drake Estate thing was okay we
would be run to death by agents and
grafters, and some of the heavy donors
possibly would have trouble with kid-
napers.

“This way no one will ever know we
got money. As to Hartzell, he is not
where the papers say, even though he left
here with officers. We know where he
really is, and we know the reason.”

When the Chicago police discovered a
few weeks later that the racket was still
going full force, they raided the Chicago
office of the swindle ring, arrested Otto T.
Yant, former Iowa banker and Hartzell's
chief assistant; Bookkeeper Short; Lester
E. Ohmart, formerly of Texas; James H.
Hauber; plucked Canfield Hartzell out of
his Riverside Drive apartment in New
York, and rounded up a total of forty-one
defendants, including Oscar himself.

NCIDENTALLY, no one ever found out
what happened to Oscar's hoard. He
alone must have netted close to a million,
Judge Philip L. Sullivan, who presided
at the subsequent trial in December, soon
realized that many of the defendants be-
lieved that they had been cooperating in
an entirely worthy cause. Accordingly he
gave directed verdicts of not guilty for
twenty-one of the accused, telling them:

“If you have sinned, go ye and sin no
more. If you have not sinned, don’t be
sinned against any more. Go back to your
hamlets, villages, your cities, highways,
byways and farms, and tell all those peo-
ple, the donors and contributors, that the
court has judicially found that there is no
pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

Before the closing arguments began he
freed twelve more. To these he- said,
“There never was a goose which laid a
golden egg. Sir Francis Drake is dead.
Don’t try to revive him.”

Those remaining to face a jury verdict
were the two Hartzells, Yant, Short, Oh-
mart, Hauber, A. R. Gregory, formerly of
Wenatchee, Washington, and Emil R. Ro-
chel of Madison, Wisconsin.

On January 31, 1936, all eight were con-
victed. Oscar Hartzell suddenly arose in
court and hoarsely demanded the oppor-
tunity to speak. His request granted,
Hartzell launched into a frantic defense
of his accomplices. They were innocent,
he said, intimating that he himself was
the only guilty party, but hinting darkly at
further “secrets” that would yet come out
and square everything.

Hartzell’s ramblings were so incoherent
that he was sent to Dr. Harry R. Hoff-
man, of the Cook County Behavior Clinic.
for examination, and was judged insane.
The remaining seven men were sentenced
on February 17, each to a year and a day
in Leavenworth, while the disposition of
the wily Oscar still remains in doubt.

Was Hartzell merely putting on an act
for the court? Or, as seems more prob-
able, had his years of swindle-promoting
and highball-swigging really wrecked a
mind never too scrupulously honest?

Yes, indeed, it was a far step from the
Spanish Main to the Iowa corn country.
But for Oscar Merrill Hartzell it was
probably even a longer step from 14
Washington Mansions, Battle Street,
London, to a Chicago conviction for fraud
and judgment of insanity. Just about as
far, indeed, as from the pot of gold to
the other end of the rainbow.

NEXT MONTH: A Thrilling True Story, “BLONDE WILDCAT”

ca

suk

a,

Ladies Who Kill

(Continued from page 33)

a married man with three children, had
often visited the Stone home, not only
before Ed Stone’s death but afterward.
In fact, after Ed’s death he was there
practically all the time. Mrs. Aberts had
complained to the authorities, with the
result that Judge Martin Foley had warned
him to stay away from Mrs. Stone. After
this suggestion from the court the Aberts
had moved to Oxford, Pennsylvania, and
the neighbors had seen no more of Jimmy
Aberts. :

Another death, which was not linked to
Mrs. Stone at this time, however, had oc-
curred the previous year. Fifteen-year-
old Pauline Hale accompanied the Stone
family on a picnic in September, 1927, ate
food prepared by Mrs. Stone, became ill
soon afterward, and died on October 22,
1927.

State’s Attorney Hopkins, after gather-
ing these facts, again talked with Dr.
Foley. “How’s young George Stone?” he
inquired. .

“Coming along fine. We'll be sending
him home any day now. He thinks he has
something wrong with his heart.”

“But you don’t think so, doctor?” .

“There's nothing whatsoever wrong with
his heart,” Dr. Foley stated decidedly. _

“Are you still of the belief that his
symptoms were those of strychnine poi-
soning ?”

“T can't think of any other explanation
for his illness. Have you been able to find
out anything?” :

The State's Attorney said that his men
had gathered a lot of information and gos-
sip, but nothing upon which to make an
arrest. “If I were to prosecute Mrs. Stone
on the information that I have at this time,
I would be laughed out of court,” Hopkins
told Dr. Foley.

George Stone recovered and _ returned
home. Though apparently robust, he
avoided physical exercise. He did this at his
mother’s suggestion, for she continually
told him that his heart was bad and that
he might strain it fatally at any time.

EVERAL~ months passed. Jimmy
Aberts left his wife and family in Ox-
ford and returned to Havre de Grace to
live with Mrs. Stone. Nine-year-old Mor-
ris Gibson, who had been boarding at the
Stone home following the separation of his
parents, saw more things going on about
the household than he should have. On sev-
eral occasions Mrs. Stone warned him
about talking to his playmates. :
Late in May, 1929, George Stone again
fell ill. That family trouble, epilepsy, had
apparently caught up with him once more.
He suffered several “spells.” Mrs. Stone
gave him some medicine which George did
not like. In fact, he complained to young
Morrie that it tasted bitter. When Mor-
rie communicated this complaint to the
mother she looked strangely at the child,
and later confided to a neighbor, Mrs. Kate
Wilson, that she planned to “get rid of”
the youngster. Morrie had never heard the
word “strychnine,” and he did not know
that strychnine has a very bitter taste.
Nor did Mrs. Wilson realize what Mrs.
Stone meant by the words “get rid of.”
On Monday, June 3, Dr. Foley again
responded to an emergency call—this time
to the Stone home. He found George
Stone suffering as before. More than ever
suspecting strychnine, the physician in pre-
scribing a remedy purposely omitted a drug
because he wanted nothing to confuse his
diagnosis. The next day he visited the

INSIDE DETECTIVE

house again and found George no better.

“Mrs. Stone,” said Dr. Foley. “I pre-
scribed some medicine for your son. I see
by the bottle that you have not given him
any of it.” ‘

Mrs. Stone looked slightly startled. “No,
that’s right,” she said. “He seemed so
much better this morning that I didn’t
give him any. Besides, our family never
has been much for believing in medicine.”

“Mrs. Stone, you must give him this
medicine if you wish to save his life.”

“Is he really that bad off?” she ex-
claimed.

“He will not be badly off, provided that
he gets the right treatment.”

“Oh, I'm glad to hear that, doctor!”

That night George Stone took a sud-
den turn for the worse. He cried pite-
ously for water. His aunt, Mrs. May
Baker, hastened to the bathroom and filled
a glass. On the way to the boy’s bed-
room, she encountered the mother.

“He's not to have any water,” said Mrs.
Stone. ;

The boy called weakly, “Please let me
have some® water !”

“I'll just wet his lips,” said the aunt.

“No!” The mother took the glass and
dashed the water into the wash bowl.
George died a little while later.

Dr. Foley telephoned Hopkins. “Well,
just what we feared has happened. Young
George Stone is dead.”

FFICERS questioned neighbors, then

sought to grill the mother. She re-
fused to admit them to the house. They
left, got a warrant, and placed her under
arrest. Her son's vital organs were sent
to a chemist in Baltimore. Mrs. Stone
laughed at every attempt to break her
down. Questioners exhausted themselves
trying to extract a single admission. Epi-
lepsy, that’s what had killed the boy, she
insisted. Epilepsy, or heart, disease.

Presently the report arrived trom Bal-
timore. The dead boy’s organs, stated the
chemist, were “those of a person who had
died of strychnine poisoning.”

“Don't try to kid me,” said the mother.
“If poison has been found in his body, I
don’t know anything about that, except
that the doctor gave him four injections
of some medicine before he died.” :

“You were the only one in the room with

your son,” said Hopkins.

“You're a liar!”

“You gave him poison instead of the
medicine Dr. Foley prescribed.”

“That's another lie!”

Hopkins informed her that the bodies
of other members of her family would be
removed ‘from their graves to accuse her.

“Fine!” she said. “I think 1 would like
to see them.” : .

Hopkins and others who tried their hand
at the examination of Mrs. Stone confessed
to reporters that she was the toughest per-
son, male or female, that they had ever
encountered. She practically dared them
to get anything on her.

What if she had profited by every death
in her family? What if she had insur-
ance policies of $1,200 to $1,700 on every
one who died? What if her husband _dis-
appointed her by leaving a share of his
estate to George?

“You can’t convict me on that kind of
evidence!” she snapped.

But State’s Attorney Hopkins—and Dr.
Foley, too—had the last laugh. On Sep-
tember 27, 1929, Hattie Stone was con-
victed of murder in the second degree—it
was a compromise—and Judge Walter W.
Preston gave her the maximum penalty,
eighteen years at hard labor in the Mary-
land House of Correction.

Hattie fainted when she heard the ver-
dict. This mother of murder probably still
doesn’t understand how they ever hung
anything on her.

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49


Seldom Are Criminal Tendencies-as Clearly Defined Through Gland-
ular Defects as They Were in This New Jersey Cop-Killer. Yet He

Was Released from Custody. If the Authorities Had Known——

+ +. How, Matey wondered,’ would
he be able to tell Yenser’s wife? -

Meanwhile the night radio operator: ,
at Elizabeth Headquarters flashed the
information to all police cars, and a
signal summoning every patrolman in
Elizabeth to his call box went through
a system of siren alarms up and down .
Broad Street. }

Patrolman John Morris was the first
to report at his box. As he turned
away to resume his beat, a blue coupe
with radiator steaming shot past him
and sped east on West Jersey Street.
Morris commandeered a taxicab and
gave chase. | ,
. At the next corner, two radio pa-
“trolmen sighted the hunted car and
joined in the ‘pursuit. -° Several ‘shots *

‘ were exchanged, as the- careening
automobiles raced wildly in the direc-
tion of Elizabethport -Meadows.

As they reached the edge of the
fields, the blue coupe -stopped sud- : ;
denly with a screeching of’ brakes,-
Two-men leaped’ out. One ‘wheeled °.
for°a moment: to return. the police- -
“men’s fire, then the pair fled into the.
waist-high grasses: ‘of: the: marsh, |“

‘A half dozen ‘officers waded. in.
after them through the long. stretch »
of miry, treacherous ‘bog, and up to,
a line of empty freight cars- stand- *
ing on a-railroad spur in the middle:
But they were too late. The quarry °
had disappeared. A half hour of fur-
ther search proved futile, and the men ;
returned dejectedly to the abandoned
coupe just outside the meadows.. :

As they reached the roadside, one
of the officers pulled open the door -
-of the blue murder car. . There on

the seat lay the sawed-off shotgun and -'
a half-emptied whisky. bottle. Some-

Metelski at large:
murder,

No

one shouted:. For there were finger-
prints on the bottle! The killer might
as well have saved himself the trou-
ble of his flight into.the marsh. A
signed confession left behind would
have done no more to establish his
,* guilt... But that wasn’t all. Near the

! coat-button with a few. shreds of gray
+) cloth’ clinging to: it. : ; :

’ Fifteen’ minutes after the whisky
' bottle had been examined at Eliza-
: beth Headquarters, ‘word was flashed

the finger-prints had been identified
= en of “Handsome Eddie” Met-
elski.

VERY crime-fighting agency in New
“Jersey turned ‘to the manhunt.
Almost simultaneously, news came
from ‘the Pennsylvania Police that a
holdup had been committed in a
Philadelphia restaurant hardly more
than an hour before the murder of
Yenser. Two gunmen had stamped
into an all-night cafe, grabbed the
receipts and escaped in a blue coupe!
Also, a car had been reported ‘stolen
from a public garage in North Well-
ington Street, Philadelphia. License-
~ plate numbers’ checked with those
. found on the abandoned coupe. The
H.- picture was rapidly taking’ form.
* Metelski and his still unidentified com-
‘-panion: were: fleeing from ‘the scene
: of the cafe robbery when Yenser.-was
’--slain: » Pennsylvania : promised’ active
: co-operation, and the police of six

for the desperadoes.

At 7 o’clock that morning, hardly
four hours after Yenser had been shot
dead, Patrolman George Geiger came
on his-beat in downtown Elizabeth
and started up Broad Street towards

This cop had been “in the doghouse”

‘ily on his plight

> running-board of the car, in a tangle.
 0f:muddied ‘cockleburs, was an over-:

over the” State: Police teletype -that -

-he was too late.

‘heard the policeman’s

~ states were warned to be on the alert .

the Pennsylvania Railroad Station.’

Above, guarding the road after Yenser’s
“Left,.the cell. from. which: Meteiski escaped. .-

‘for some minor infraction of depart-

mental rules. He reflected gloom-.
as he’ walked_ along
in the early morning air. Presently,
as he neared the station, he stopped

in his tracks. His whole body snapped

“into rigid attention.

A. man. was loitering in the half .
shadows .at- the side of ‘the- building,
and there was something about: his...
manner that excited suspicion:

‘Geiger took a few steps forward,
and suddenly his eyes widened. The
man’s shoes were covered with mud
up to the ankle. ‘A small cocklebur
clung to the hem of one trouser leg.
Mud and cockleburs! They sang a
suspicious tune to Geiger—a song of
the marshlands,

As the patrolman edged. closer, .the
man turned. almost facing him, and
entered aside ‘door of the station. '
Geiger looked at the double-breasted
light overcoat as he passed. There
was a ragged tear where .a button
had once been. *

Like any other police officer, Geiger
hated a cop-killer worse than poison.
His eyes narrowed and his jaw hard-
ened, as he quickly stepped through’
the door at the man’s heels. .He col-
lared the loiterer from behind with
one big hand. tos a oa

Metelski, taken unawares, wheeled.
in a lightning defense movement,: but
Terror filmed. his
eyes, as he twisted. around to: look
into the muzzle of an automatic: and

not*to try any tricks. . .

n Metelski’s pocket: was a ticket to
Philadelphia—and the train left Eliza-
beth in Jess than 20 minutes.- The
gods had been on Geiger’s side. The
patrolman rushed ‘his prisoner to . .
Headquarters and turned him over to
naps officers for grilling.

dramatically as any G-Man hero
(Continued on Page 36)

alt

ao

growled. warn= os

emai

ME TE LSI

WANT it clearly understood that in

showing how the malfunctioning of
the ductless glands can and does
lead to criminality, I do not mean to
imply that every person who suffers
from such irregularities is a criminal.

If his environment is good, if he has a.
job, if his love life is happy, the defec- ‘

tive probably will be harmless to his
kind. Further, if only .one of the five
glands—thymus, thyroid, parathyroid,

pituitary, adrenal—is abnormal, his -

conduct is likely to be eccentric rather
than downright evil. | -

But if any of the favorable factors
are absent, the latent queerness flares
up and may lead to anti-social acts.
If in addition there’ is a double or
treble glandular hazard—I mean, if
the person is a hyphenated type, a
thymocentric affected by excess of
thyroid, et cetera—beyond a shadow
of a doubt crime will result. ‘

These are a large number of “ifs.”
The reader may: find. it a bit hard ‘to
grasp them, but should make the effort.

They are necessary to an understand- .

ing of the epochal new science of en-
docrino-criminology. A science that
teaches us to spot the potential de-
linquent and sterilize him, as a curb
to his impulses and. to prevent him
from handing down his tainted hered-

of any crime: An individual of, such
and such mental and physical charac-
teristics must be the guilty one! It’s
well worth understanding, don’t you
think? : :
I shall illustrate, as. usual, with a
sensational case studied by myself at
first hand. The special glandular prob-
lem involved and the need for steril-
ization will come out in the telling.
At about 3:30 am. on Saturday,
November 9, 1935, State Troopers War-

ren G. Yenser and John Matey, both:

of the Milltown Barracks in New
Jersey, were cruising along in’ their
police car four miles south of New
Brunswick. ‘Suddenly. a: dark blue
coupe hurtled ‘out of nowhere and
sped past them into the darkness
ahead. The machine was doing at least
70 miles an hour. Matey, who was at

the wheel of the prowl car, stepped,

on the gas and the troopers gave chase.
There had been no word of trou-
ble in the. neighborhood, and the offi-

16

Ward, white, elec, NJSP (Middle

‘cers. thought they were tailing a

. down as far as it would go. But the

explosion.
ity! A science that enables us to say *'

» slumped form of his companion in

ta
@
bd
ww
es)
ing
=
aS
am)
Oo
\N
Or
ww

Metelski in custody: Above,
when held on an earlier mi-
,. >" mor’ charge; below, when first

iat picked up in Elizabeth. His
os : shoes were held as evidence

speeder. It was some time before
they‘ caught sight of the tiny red light
ahead.’ Matey jammed the accelerator

light had vanished again. The pursuit

car roared forward, as the speedometer -
needle climbed to 70—75—80! Pres-

ently the red light was flickering once

more in the distance. The coupe was

slowing down for the first time.

Just outside Avenel, Matey drew up
almost alongside the fugitive and noted
that it bore Pennsylvania license
plates. A new burst of speed, and it
had regained its lead. Then it’ began
to slow down deliberately. The pursuit
car, with sirens screaming, did like-
wise. The coupe ground to a stop.
Matey pulled up level with it. Yenser,
ehis police whistle between his teeth,
leaned out of the window with one
hand on the door catch.

The next instant,'a fiery blast rent
the darkness, and Yenser’s body
slumped back into his seat. A sawed-
off shotgun poking through the win-
dow of the other car had thundered
a charge of lead squarely into his
face: Blood and pieces of flesh ‘spat-
tered in every direction. ‘The trooper
~was almost decapitated by the terrific

-Matey, however, was unhurt. 2: ip-
ping with his partner’s blood ay
a frenzy now, he turned his wie.
Sharply and set out after the already
fleeing car. His gun drawn, he fired
several shots at the red tail-light, but
‘the blue coupe was soon out of range.

For ten miles, Matey roared down
Route No. 25 in pursuit, with the

the seat beside him. The gunmen
made an‘ ever-widening gap in front
of him, He had to give up. At Lin-
den, several miles beyond Avenel
Matey stopped at a lunch wagon and
telephoned to the Elizabeth police.
Yenser was rushed to a hospital, but -
it was useless. The doctors said that
he had died almost instantly. Young
Matey collapsed at the announcement. 'Be
His ‘partner had been a general fa- —&
vorite, and. married only six months.
The home of the young couple had
been a preferred gathering place’ for.
the troopers when they were off duty

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Be WER Sho als pnt vetiy v6 weeds «

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comparison tests, there was a dramatic
break in the case.

At 7:30 in the morning, Patrolman
Alex Geiger, who was covering the Penn-
sylvania Railway Station in Elizabeth,
noticed a bedraggled man approach the
ticket counter. Clad in a muddied, gray
overcoat and hatless, this stranger looked
carefully around him before asking for a
one-way ticket to Philadelphia. Geiger
noticed the burrs clinging to the cuffs
of the man’s trousers. He took in the
caked marsh-muck on his shoes. The:
missing button on the gray coat was the
clincher. Drawing his gun, Geiger circled
in order to place the man between him-
self and the wall. Then he ordered him
to surrender.

“What's the matter, Cap?” the stranger
demanded. “What do you think I done?”

Geiger snapped handcuffs around the
man’s wrists. Then he tapped his pockets
with a practiced palm. The suspect was
carrying no weapons. “I think you killed
a policeman,” Geiger said. “We got some
guys down at headquarters who want to
talk with you.”

The “guys” at headquarters included
some of the top police brass in the area.
Captain Lamb and Lieutenant Keaton of
the State Police; Captain Charles A.
Collins, Middlesex County detective
chief; County Prosecutor Douglas M
Hicks; Detective Sergeant Walter A.
Simpson and a contingent of local police
officials were all on hand to interview
the suspect.

Filtering through a welter of aliases,
the officers finally identified the prisoner
as one Edward Metelski, a safe-cracker
and burglar who worked the Philadelphia
district. Printed before his interrogation,
Metelski was caught flat-footed when his
fingerprints matched some of those which
had been lifted from the whisky bottle.

Within the hour, telephone communica-
tion with the Philadelphia police resulted
in a positive identification by witnesses
in the Lombard Street social club of
Metelski’s mug shot which was on file
in the Pennsylvania metropolis. The bar-
tender and three of the patrons definitely
identified the photograph as that of the
bandit who had menaced them with the
shotgun.

Sullen and uncooperative, Metelski
clammed up and was lodged in Middlesex
County jail. He refused to name his con-
federate in the brutal assassination of
Trooper Yenser, and withheld even the
most innocuous information about him-
self. It was from the Philadelphia police
that the Jersey authorities learned some-
thing of the prisoner’s background.

Married, and in his middle twenties,
Metelski made his home with his wife’s
family at 1621 North Hutchinson Street
in the Quaker city. His own parents, Mr.
and Mrs. Charles Metelski, lived in
Newark, on Lentz Avenue.

The Philadelphia police knew Metelski
as a bad actor. Their dossier showed that
he consorted with some of the toughest
hoodlums in the area. A list of his crim-
inal associates, together with mug shots
was made available to the robbery victims
at the Lombard Street social club, With-
out exception, these witnesses at once
picked out the photograph of a 26-year-
old ex-convict, one Albert Morton—
known to his intimates as Whitey. ;

Whitey Morton was missing from his
furnished room at 1800 North 16th Street.
His wife, Marie, told Sergeant Walter
Simpson and Philadelphia Headquarters
Detective William Leinhauser that she
hadn’t seen Whitey since late Friday
afternoon,

“I didn’t think much about it because

0 86©@

he doesn’t come home much, these
nights,” she said cynically. :

Simpson was quick to catch her in-
flection. “You mean he’s been playing
around, Ma’am?”

She shrugged. “He’s no bargain,” she
said. “If some other woman wants him,
she can have him, I’m fed to the teeth
with that guy.”

Whitey, it developed, had been spend-
ing a lot of time with a buxom brunette
known around the neighborhood as
Tough Tilly Ten-Tricks. Tough Tilly
was a police character in her own right.
She had been arrested a number of times
for offenses ranging from indecent ex-
hibitions at stag parties to a petty theft
for which she had actually served time in
the women’s prison at Richmond,

Mathilda Warcienowicz, by which
name she had been baptized, was also
not to be found along her usual circuit.
The police were certain that the absences
of Whitey and his king-sized girl friend
were in some way connected.

This assumption became a certainty
when Newark police officers began a
round of questioning in the neighborhood
of Lentz Avenue where Metelski’s par-
ents lived. Whitey Morton had been seen
there that very Saturday morning. Lentz
Avenue residents had seen a disheveled
man of his description speaking around
to the back of the Metelski pest at
about 10 o'clock. A couple of hours later,
a large, over-blown young woman with
jet black hair had come to the house. She
and Morton, who was shaved now—and
somewhat spruced up—left together only
minutes later.

The elder Metelskis, obviously fright-
ened and ill at ease, claimed to have no
knowledge that either of their visitors
that morning was wanted by the police.
They were unable to supply any lead as
to where their son’s friend could be
found,

There could be no doubt that Whitey
Morton was Ed Metelski’s confederate,
yet the police were sorely puzzled by the
fact that Morton’s fingerprints did not
match the unidentified specimens on the
whisky bottle. Late that afternoon, this
enigmatic circumstance was cleared up

_ when troopers, retracing the itinerary

taken by the killers, stopped at the diner
outside of White Horse, In due course
the state police visited truck jockey Paul
Trambitsky in Hightstown who readily
admitted accepting a drink from the pair
in the early morning hours. His were
the mysterious fingerprints on the bottle.
At 9 o'clock that Saturday morning,
Philadelphia police took Tough Tilly
Ten-Tricks into custody. She walked into
the stakeout around Morton’s rooming
house at 8:45. Mrs. Morton was not at
home at the time. Tough Tilly was sur-
prised in the act of packing a suitcase
with Whitey Morton’s clothing.
Sergeant Simpson, who was sticking
close to the Philadelphia end of the in-
vestigation, telephoned the news of the
arrest to Prosecutor Hicks in New
Brunswick—seat of Middlesex County.
“Tf I were theré, I wouldn’t have ar-
rested her,” Simpson told the D.A. “I
didn’t find it out until they brought her

n.

“Too bad,” Hicks agreed. “She might
have led us right to Morton.” '

It was decided to keep the arrest of
Mathilda Warcienowicz as quiet as pos-
sible. Much depended on the cooperation
of the press. If there was no news leak,
Whitey would be wondering why his girl
friend did not show at their prearranged
rendezvous. If he worried enough, he
might come looking for her and walk into
the same trap. ‘

This did not happen. Sunday passed
with no word of Whitey Morton. On
Monday morning, Philadelphia police
were called to investigate a suicide in a
furnished room at 2223 North 15th
Street. The landlady there took them up
to a second floor room still rank with the
pervading smell of illuminating gas.

“T caught a whiff of it early this morn-
ing,” she told the officers. “I saw it was
coming from this room, here, and I
knocked at the door. When I didn’t get
an answer, I used my pass key. I found
him here, just like that.”

The man referred to was a new tenant
who had checked in late Saturday after-
noon under the name of Albert Morrison.
A large-framed young woman was with
him at the time. She told the landlady
that she would go back to the former
residence to get their luggage.

Even before they checked the finger-
prints, the police recognized the dead man
as Albert “Whitey” Morton, the desper-
ado for whom the police of a half dozen
states were feverishly searching.

Evidently believing that Tough Tilly
had forsaken him, afraid to venture out
of the room, and literally at. the end of
his rope, Whitey had taken the coward’s
way out and committed suicide.

It looked as if the case against the
conscienceless cop-killers was all wrapped
up. Ed Metelski was indicted and his trial
set for December 16th. Whitey Morton
had spared the state of New Jersey the
expense of prosecution. Normally, this
would have been the end of a successful
investigation. But the police were not
yet to write finis to the violent story.
There was still another climactic chapter
to be written.

On December 13th, three days before
he was due to come up for trial, Ed
Metelski was visited by Therese Czicolik,
a stunning blonde who made her living
as a hoofer in second string night clubs.
Known professionally as Terry Chiclet,
the statuesque entertainer was no new
friend of the prisoner. She had been
writing to Metelski since his arrest, her
letters being postmarked: Boston, Hart-
ford, and Albany—all route stops on her
night club circuit. The afternoon of the
13th, however, was the occasion of her
first visit. She was allowed to talk to the
prisoner in the privacy of the lawyer's
room while guards patrolled the outside
door.

The next morning, Saturday, Metelski
was visited by his wife, and—in the after-
noon—by his parents. Each of these
visits, like the one the day before, took
place in the counsellors’ room.

It was on Saturday afternoon at half-
past five, that Edward Metelski escaped
from the Middlesex County Jail!

Warden Alfred H. Puerschner was out
at the time, eating supper in a nearby
restaurant. In the jail, Assistant Warden
George Anderson was in charge. Metelski
was in the cell-block, waiting for his
evening meal to be brought to him.

A trusty came to the cell door and
unlocked it. Carrying his heavy tray, he
was helpless when he found himself fac-
ing a revolver in the hands of the prisoner.

“Okay, screw,” Metelski said, “here’s
where you and me change places.”

Taking the keys and herding the trusty
ahead of him, the cop-killer paused at
the cell in which Paul Semenkewitz, an
ex-pug turned criminal, was waiting.
Metelski opened the door, let his pal out.
and locked the trusty inside.

“We're going to bring you some com-
pany,” Ed told him. “Just sit here quiet-
like and you won't get hurt. If you start
hollering, I’m going to let you have it.”

Unlocking
the former fi;
ward Roberts
Marching him
prisoners mad
office and kno

“Who's th
Anderson wa

Metelski ins
into the guard
it goes off,” |
egg-head that

“Roberts, s

Anderson «
immediately
The assistant
marched to °
away with the
then donned «
in the locker 1
fully bolting 2
even locked t
to the conster
ner, when he
meal.

By this tin
a half hour’s

It proved m
to break into
for the two ;
professional |
gency key bef:
an explanatio
come so impr:

News of
coincided wit!
Reynolds, wit
automobile as
only a few bl
Mrs. Reynold
had gone bac!
ing what sou:
other side of t
found Lawrer
mechanic, lyin
cement floor.
with a lug-wr
He was unabl:
to him until h:
ment at Saint

Two men
prison uniforn
garage. Offer
Metelski from
He made a m
Metelski’s cc
wrench at hir

There had
pairs at the t
car was on th
tion job. Non
taken by the

. dently been f

of the mecha:

New Bru
Lincoln High
segmented b>
streets which
Rutgers Univ
other to New
All along Liv
main stem, the
for informati
Raritan Brids
saw-horses w:
highway. Sta
with radio, tez
sealed off H
Bound Brook
precautions w
of the succes
form of a sto
student repor:
Ford from
fraternity hov
abandoned—i:
Plainfield, sho
to the Middk
the back seat

a i ae ea st 8s

ippen. Sunday passed
Whitey Morton. On
Philadelphia police
estigate a suicide in a
at 2223 North 15th
.dy there took them up
oom still rank with the
‘ illuminating gas.
€ of it early this morn-
officers. “I saw it was
s room, here, and I
or. When I didn’t get
my pass key. I found
e that.”
>d to was a new tenant
in late Saturday after-
me of Albert Morrison.
oung woman was with
She told the landlady
-o back to the former
heir luggage.
ey checked the finger-
ecognized the dead man
y” Morton, the desper-
: police of a half dozen
shly searching.
ving that Tough Tilly
, afraid to venture out
literally at. the end of
had taken the coward’s
imitted suicide.

if the case against the
»-killers was all wrapped
vas indicted and his trial
- 16th. Whitey Morton
tate of New Jersey the
‘cution. Normally, this
the end of a successful
it the police were not
s to the violent story.
nother climactic chapter

13th, three days before
come up for trial, Ed
ted by Therese Czicolik,
le who made her living
cond string night clubs.
mally as Terry Chiclet,
‘ntertainer was no new
risoner, She had been
ski since his arrest, her
stmarked Boston, Hart-
‘—all route stops on her
t. The afternoon of the
vas the occasion of her
as allowed to talk to the
privacy of the lawyer’s
cds patrolled the outside

ning, Saturday, Metelski
is wife, and—in the after-
parents. Each of these
yne the day before, took
isellors’ room.
urday afternoon at half-
‘dward Metelski escaped
‘sex County Jail!
d H. Puerschner was out
ting supper in a nearby
he jail, Assistant Warden
was in charge. Metelski
\l-block, waiting for his
> be brought to him.
ie to the cell door and
rrying his heavy tray, he
1en he found himself fac-
the hands of the prisoner.
*,” Metelski said, “here’s
me change places.”
ys and herding the trusty
the cop-killer paused at
ch Paul Semenkewitz, an
criminal, was waiting.
d the door, let his pal out.
trusty inside.
; to bring you some com-
him. “Just sit here quiet-
on’t get hurt. If you start
zoing to let you have it.”

Unlocking the cell-block, Metelski and
the former fighter surprised Guard Ed-
ward Roberts on duty in the corridor.
Marching him ahead as a shield, the two
prisoners made their way to the warden’s
office and knocked on the door.

“Who’s there?” Assistant
Anderson wanted to know.

Metelski inserted the barrel of his pistol
into the guard’s ear. “You'll hear it when
it goes off,” he said, “—Unless you tell
egg-head that it’s you.”

“Roberts, sir,” the guard called out.

Anderson opened the door and was
immediately pinioned by Semenkewitz.
The assistant warden and the guard were
marched to the cell-block and stowed
away with the trusty. The two prisoners
then donned overcoats which they found
in the locker room and fled the jail, care-
fully bolting all doors behind them. They
even locked the outside jail door—much
to the consternation of Warden Puersch-
ner, when he returned after eating his
meal.

By this time, the two crash-outs had
a half hour’s head start.

It proved more difficult for the warden
to break into the jail than it had been
for the two prisoners to crash out. A
professional locksmith had to fit an emer-
gency key before the warden could obtain
an explanation of why the jail had be-
come so impregnable a fortress.

News of Metelski’s daring escape
coincided with a report from Mrs. Walter
Reynolds, wife of the proprietor of an
automobile agency on Peterson Street,
only a few blocks distant from the jail.
Mrs. Reynolds, on duty in the showroom,
had gone back to the garage after hear-
ing what sounded like a struggle on the
other side of the salesroom partition. She
found Lawrence Offenbacker, the firm’s
mechanic, lying in a pool of blood on the
cement floor. he had been badly beaten
with a lug-wrench and was unconscious.
He was unable to tell what had happened
to him until he received emergency treat-
ment at Saint Peter’s Hospital.

Two men wearing overcoats over
prison uniforms had surprised him in the
garage. Offenbacker at once recognized
Metelski from his published photographs.
He made a move to-grab the phone and
Metelski’s companion hurled a_ lug-
wrench at him.

There had been three cars in for re-
pairs at the time of the attack. A new
car was on the grease rack for a lubrica-
tion job. None of these automobiles was
taken by the desperados who had evi-

Warden

. dently been frightened off by the noise

of the mechanic's resistance.

New Brunswick is a college town.

Lincoln Highway bisects the city and is
segmented by a trellis-work of cross
streets which lead on the one, side to
Rutgers University campus and on the
other to New Jersey College for Women.
All along Livingston Avenue, the city’s
main stem, the metropolitan police sought
for information of the escapees. At
Raritan Bridge, a barricade of wooden
saw-horses was thrown across the double
highway. State Patrol cruisers equipped
with radio, tear-gas pistols and riot guns,
sealed off Highland Park, Metuchen,
Bound Brook, and Milltown. All these
precautions were too late. The first news
of the successful getaway came in the
form of a stolen automobile bulletin. A
student reported the theft of a battered
Ford from Mine Street, outside his
fraternity house. The car was found—
abandoned—in Dunellen, on the road to
Plainfield, shortly before 7 p.m. The keys
to the Middlesex County Jail were on
the back seat of the car. ;

The search for the cop-killer and his
pug pal centered around Plainfield. The
way it worked out, the'police just missed
the fugitives by minutes.

At half-past nine, a Plymouth coupe
belonging to a local pharmacist was re-
ported missing from outside his drug-
store. This car outraced a police cruiser
on the New Market Turnpike, and dis-
appeared on the main highway—Route
22-29,

For hours police cars stalled traffic on
this highway while the occupants of every
passing automobile were carefully scru-
tinized. The Plymouth didn’t show up
at any of the check-points.

A tavern-roadhouse on the outskirts
of Plainfield provided the next lead. The
proprietor of this establishment was a
man named Arthur Clark. In a fit of in-
spiration he had named his hostelry
Clark Gables Inn. At 2:30 that Sunday
morning, the police rushed to this road-
house in response to a telephone call from
Mr. Clark.

The stolen Plymouth was parked in the
lane when the officers got there. A
wrecked Studebaker was piled up against
a telephone pole four hundred yards
north, up the road. The Studebaker was
Mr. Clark’s.

“These two guys walked into the house
and took my wallet and car keys, along
with some clothes. I recognized one of
the men—a gtty named Semenkewitz. He
used to work here as a dishwasher.”

The two lamsters, evidently anxious to
swap their hot Plymouth for a car a little
cooler, had made off in Clark’s Studebaker
only to come to grief in a smashup when
the car spun out of control on the steep
grade. :

Clark told the police that from his win-
dow he had seen the crash and observed
the two fugitives make off on foot in the
direction of the densely wooded Watch-
ung Hills. ’

Gite of the wildest portions of Jersey—

despite its proximity to Metropolitan
New York—is the Watchung Mountain
range. A goodly portion of the area has
been left wild in its natural state as a
permanent park and game refuge. In-
accessible by car, and almost impenetra-
ble even on foot, the Watchung Range
has often in the past, provided temporary
sanctuary for other fugitives. In recent
history desperados are known to have
holed up there. During Colonial times,
art of Washington’s Continental Army
ound haven in.the dense Watchung for-
ests for months at a time.

Posses beat through the woods as an
enormous manhunt got under way. Even
with the help of airplanes from the Na-
tional Guard, it was impossible to track
the fugitives.

The jailbreak in Middlesex County was
under investigation by Sheriff F. Hurd-
man Harding who was anxious to find out
which of his visitors had slipped Ed Me-
telski the gun which made possible his
dramatic escape. He had the cop-killer’s
wife and parents brought before him for
questioning. Both Mrs. Metelski and her
parents-in-law flatly disclaimed any
knowledge of the way in which Ed had
obtained the revolver. Terry Chiclet,
tough as they come, taunted the police
with the loss of their prize prisoner.

“Don't come to me with your trou-
bles,” she mocked them. “You guys
couldn’t hold on to a strap in the subway.
Anybody could bust out of this jail. And
they wouldn’t need my help to do it.”

“Young woman,” Harding told her,
“you may be involved in a very serious
difficulty. If you gave Ed Metelski that
gun, you’re an accessory to his escape.”

“T never gave him nothing,” she hurled
back. “He crashed out and you guys are
squirming with a slow burn. Go tell it to
the marines. I don’t have to listen to
you.”

“You didn’t give him that gun?”

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men. The Kildare
1 of stickups which
succeeding sortie. The

‘el with the duo’s crim-

ound Philadelphia, the
id the city limits. They
picked up Route 413 at
at U. S. 1 just outside
‘ork bound highway to
Trenton, New Jersey,
illage of White Horse.
up the stolen car and

atrons in the all-night
h steaming coffee and
1 he went back to put
man in the gray over-
Who wants a drink?”

ruck-jockey, had just
ore-Perth Amboy run.
y winter chill of that
d out for the proffered
whisky into his water
gerprints were clearly

m the bottle. Then the
the quart bottle back
ffee and hamburgers,
le change from a five

e crossroads and fol-
tion with U. S. 1, just

ersey, State Troopers
| routine patrol along
into New York City.
-d both lanes of cars,
Ss, and tagging viola-
ations. Near Avenal,
hat his ground chain

reefer-rig with a

= Matey, exhibiting the bloodstained jacket he wore when his
ellow-trooper was fatally wounded’ beside him. Left, the shotgun
and stolen liquor bottle left in the car used by the bandits.

defective tail light. While the driver of this refrig-
erator truck was changing the bulb, a blue coupe with
Philadelphia plates bore down on Trooper Yenser
who was standing next to the truck with a flashlight.
The coupe was barreling along at over sixty miles an
hour.

Yenser barely had time to leap out of the way as
the Chevvie coupe roared past him. He ran to the
shoulder of the road where Matey had already begun
a U-turn into the northbound lane. The cruiser took
up the chase.

Past Rahway, the distance between the two cars
was fast closing, although by now the Chevvie was
hitting 75. In the cruiser, the two grim-faced troopers
watched their own speedometer needle climb to 78—
80—82. The coupe up ahead was a new 1935 model,
and the driver was pushing it to capacity. The over-
heated radiator was billowing steam into the cold
night air. The resultant clouded windshield must have

Shown on guard along the road near New Brunswick,
N. J., are the police and deputies during the hunt
for the escaped convicts. Below, the stolen car
abandoned by the desperadoes during their. flight.

State Trooper Warren G. Yenser,
killed by fleeing bandits while
on patrol along Lincoln Highway.

been giving the driver trouble. Surely it made his breakneck
speed reckless to the point of folly.

Yenser pulled his service .38 from the holster of his Sam
Browne belt. He leaned out of the window, steadying his
forearm against the no-draft. The cruiser was bearing down
on the driver’s side of the coupe. The two men inside, wear-
ing peak-caps, intent on the road, cast occasional glances at
the oncoming police car. Yenser saw the coupe’s passenger
haul himself over the back of the seat and take up a position
behind the driver. He watched the rear-side window of the
coupe roll down.

“What's he doing ?” Matey asked.

“T don’t—”

Yenser never got the chance to finish his sentence. The
ugly black snout of a double-barreled shotgun poked through
the side window of the coupe, There was a yellow muzzle flash
and a harsh bark that melted into [Continued on page 59]


-»

is head. “Never mind

lully. “I’ll tell you what
it. I killed her. [ wanted
ouldn’t give it to me.”
‘r wasn’t robbed,” said
as over a hundred dol-

ag.

1 dully. “I know. I
ed her and threw that
{| lost my head. I never
ied that glass. I was so
et my fingerprints on

ed haltingly to explain
fetime he had received
Bauer on innumerable
lays before she died she
it he could expect no
ner.
en he called that night
would probably stick to
e knew that she kept
-se and he had resolved
he had to use violence.
e had left his coffee cup
nost careful not to leave
vhere.
‘ument with his hostess,
put his pocket knife and
back. She had staggered
varently, to cry for help.
cched up the jelly glass,
hitting her above the

ad fallen into the porch
id carefully washed the
he woman had drunk. He
th- ‘~sression that the
( y a professional

ould not join her

e.

begun to look for her
that moment, the collie
ess in the porch chair.
caresses were not forth-
had started to whine.
ntened Mullins. He went
-h and saw Mrs. Bauer
{ in the chair. Actually,
conscious at the time.

y spark of conscience re-
Mullins reacted on him
ie remorseful and afraid.

> house, back to the hotel. .

ving day, he threw away
ring and tossed away his
‘near Ninth and Kossuth
1e had gone to a movie.
had checked out of the
to his uncle’s place.

fession was transcribed,
d witnessed. He was re-
ippecanoe County jail and
orning was arraigned be-
: Elbert E. Lasher where
vreliminary hearing on a

er 22nd, the grand jury
s on two counts of homi-
‘st degree: Premeditated

nurder during the act of

felony.

Ist, before Circuit Court
D. Ewan, the prisoner
nt by reason of insanity.
ng with the lawyers for
nd the prosecutor, Judge
il for December 6, 1954.
erval before trial, the ac-
» examined by Dr. Philip
Dr. Harry E. Klipinger.

will be presented to the -

-t Mullins sits in his cell in
ul. He is silent and not

o" Perhaps, there are
s, kindness is the
Ay : criminal impulse.

; Mullins is the exception
the rule.

Cop-Killers

(Continued from page 21]

the night, lost in the roar of the straining
automobile engines.

Trooper Warren Yenser collapsed
against his partner, nearly throwing the
car out of control as his dead weight
slumped across Matey’s right arm. Matey
fought the wheel. The cruiser careened
from side to side, weaving a precarious
course on both sides of the highway cen-
ter line. By the time Matey elbowed his
partner’s limp body to the right side of
the seat, the coupe’s tail light was wink-
ing dimly on the approaches to Linden.

Matey pulled his own gun free of the
holster and placed it across his knees.
Then, his chin jutting with granite resolu-
tion, he depressed the accelerator until
the sole of his foot was forced against the
floorboards. The coupe came up fast as
the cruiser’s speedometer hovered near
90 miles an hour.

Trooper Matey took a firm grip on the
wheel with his right hand and picked up
the revolver with his left. It was an awk-
ward way to shoot, but he had no choice.
He pumped the trigger three times, hop-
ing that at least one of his shots would
have a telling effect.

Up ahead, the man in the back seat of
the coupe raised the butt of his shotgun.
He smashed out the pane of the rear win-
dow with two ram-like blows of the
wooden stock. Then, dropping the shot-
gun, he took up a position on the back
seat and leveled a pistol through the
jagged hole in the broken glass.

Three needles of orange flame stabbed
the darkness. There was a metallic clatter
like ricocheting shrapnel as one of the
slugs ripped through the cruiser’s grille
and tore through the radiator core.

Tight-lipped, Matey emptied his serv-
ice revolver in a final drumbeat of fire.
There was no chance to reload. Besides,
there was his unconscious and blood-
spattered partner to consider. He braked
the cruiser, reluctantly watching the blue
coupe pull away. He wheeled left into
Linden and stopped at the first gas station
he came to. He phoned in the alarm to
the Elizabeth, New Jersey, sub-station,
then raced his partner to Elizabeth Gen-
eral Hospital.

Trooper Yenser was dead on arrival
when the admitting surgeon examined
him. The state policeman had taken the
full force of a shotgun blast directly in
the chest. Matey was a tough and sea-
soned officer to whom violent death was
no stranger, yet he blinked back tears as
he described the coupe and its occupants
to Captain John J. Lamb, chief of state
police detectives.

“Get those rats,” he exhorted brokenly.
“T just hope to God I’m around when
you bring them in!” ‘

It was the dog watch at Elizabeth Po-
lice Headquarters. Nearly every cruiser
and beatman in the city had already been
alerted. Patrolman Michael Morris, see-
ing the red light flashing above his police
telegraph box—on the corner of East
Broad and Jersey Streets—was actually
on the wire with headquarters when, the
blue coupe with the Pennsylvania plates
roared past.

“Get the Meadows blocked off!” Morris
shouted into the phone. “Those guys are
headed for Newark!”

The Jersey Meadows, a barren stretch
of wasteland between Newark and Eliza-
beth, abutts the maze of railroad tracks
which converge on the approaches to
New York. From both ends of the turn-

pike, squad cars moved in phalanxes like
pistons meeting in a cylinder.

It was into this escape-proof trap that
the blue coupe had blundered. It was only
a matter of minutes before it was cor-
nered. ;

Patrolmen Ernest Keck and Leo
Carolin of the Elizabeth force were the
first to spot the fugitive Chevrolet. With
the siren of their police car wailing, the
officers moved in fast. The driver of the
coupe plunged across the highway ditch
and opened the door of the car. He and
his partner then scrambled through the
cattail marshland and gained the cindered
embankment of the Jersey Central rail-
road.

There was a running gun battle as
newly arrived police joined in the pursuit.
Blossoms of flame spurted from a dozen
guns. The chase ended between chains of
stalled freight cars in the yard side-spurs.
The desperados had a flashlight which
marked their course for a few moments.
When the light went out, the quarry
seemed to have disappeared.

For the next two hours, the Jersey Cen-
tral freight yard and the surrounding
marshland was the scene of a feverish
manhunt. Patrolmen with portable arc-
lights made a thorough search of the
shunted freight cars. Every trestle, each
machinery shed, even the roof of the
roundhouse was carefully investigated.
However, there was no trace of the kil-
lers. Somehow they had slipped through
the cordon and made good their escape.

The police of three states joined in
sealing off the escape routes from Metro-
politan, New Jersey. Along the Hudson
River, ferry stations, subway tubes, and
vehicular tunnels leading to New York
were scrupulously watched. The roads
back to Pennsylvania were barricaded
with highway check stations which
screened every truck and car that fun-
neled through. Bus lines, railway ter-
minals, even the ticket desk at Newark
Airport were kept under surveillance.

The blue Chevrolet coupe was towed to
Elizabeth where state police technicians
meticulously examined every inch of it
for clues to the murderous occupants.
They fourid a shotgun—an L. C. Smith
Field Grade double hammerless—on the
back seat of the car. There were two
exploded 12-gauge shells in the breech.
In the glove compartment were two bot-
tles of Irish whisky, one full and the other
half consumed. The surfaces of both
bottles were liberally cluttered with
fingerprints. These were immediately
processed for comparison with the crim-
inal identification files. The car yielded
an additional clue—a gray overcoat but-
ton still attached to a shred of gray
cheviot coating.

These, together with the .38 caliber
bullet found in the radiator core of
Trooper Matey’s cruiser, comprised the
physical evidence with which the police
had to work.

The whisky bottles bore Pennsylvania
state tax stamps. The, license number of
the car quickly established that the coupe
was the one stolen from Jack Cutler the
night before. These facts at once iden-
tified the killers as the two gunmen who
had stuck up the Loyal Sons of Kildare
Club on Lombard Street in Philadelphia.

The circumstances indicated the itin-
erary which the cop-killers had followed
since the stickup. The two men were

. headed in the general direction of New

York. Photo copies of the lifted finger-
prints were rushed to Center Street
headquarters in Manhattan, and another
set was sent back to Philadelphia. Before
word could be returned of the results of

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GAIN"

irlos Lane

feet until he almost set foot upop it.
But then his clearing vision told him
instantly what it was—the body of a
man, sprawled in a grotesque contor-
tion of death, soaked in a welter of
blood that still crept slowly over the
linoleum.

Ward backed out of the Shamrock
like a frightened crayfish. At the
corner of Elizabeth and Broad, only
a few steps away, he spied Patrolman
Walter Pietrowski, directing traffic.
The old man plunged into the bluster
of crowding vehicles and plucked the
officer by the arm.

“You better come over there to
the tavern,” he said. “There’s a dead
man on the floor.”

Patrolman Pietrowski rushed over
and discovered the body of a dark-
haired young man only a couple of
paces inside the swinging door sepa-
rating the barroom and the package
shop at the front.

Behind. the bar, which ran some 35
feet from the front wall to-a rear
partition, was the body of an elderly
man who, from the apron knotted
around his middle, apparently was
the bartender.

Both the boy and the hardened thief
confessed to the amazing series of
burglaries, but both told different
stories when quizzed about a Luger

Both men had been shot in the
upper part of the body. The back bar
mirror was shattered. There was a
bottle of whiskey, but no glasses, on
the bar. A newspaper lay folded be-
neath a stool near the outflung hand
of the younger man.

Pietrowski noted these details be-
fore moving toward a phone booth
against the back wall. As he slid into
the cubicle to call headquarters, he
saw also the ragged tear of a bullet
through the thin wooden panels en-
closing the booth.

Within a matter of moments the
commonplace street scene was wholly
transformed. Police cars shrieked
through traffic to disgorge squadrons
of cops and detectives into the Sham-
rock, with Detective Captain August
F. Winkelmann and Police Captain
Nicholas A. Migliore in command.
From the courthouse across the street
came County Detective Chief Louis
T. Lombardi with those of his staff
on duty at their headquarters at the
time.

Identification of the dead _bar-
tender was a simple task. Papers in
his wallet named him as 63-year-old
Sebastian Weilandics of neighboring
Linden. He had been shot twice in the
chest.

There was no wallet, no card or
paper of any kind on the second body,
but a patrolman who viewed the
corpse was sure he knew the younger
victim.

“It’s Art Sheldon,” he said. “His
dad’s in the fire department.”

Several others who knew young
Sheldon peered at the body and
nodded their agreement

Scattered over the floor were seven
brass cartridge casings, fired from a
9mm. Luger automatic. “Or possibly
from a Walther,’ Captain Winkel-
mann said, remembering that this
German pistol, a great favorite among
souvenir-gathering GIs, was cham-
bered for Luger ammunition.

The cash register had been rifled
Its tape showed there should have
been $53.28 in the drawer, which now
held only three pennies. “But there’s
a total of $49 in the pockets of the
two dead men,’ County Detective
Chief Lombardi pointed out. “‘Why’d
a killer leave behind almost as much
as he got, if robbery was the real
motive for the murders?”

“Probably in too much of a hurry,”
suggested Detective Michael Tevnan
one of Lombardi’s aides


ny possessions. Pop
when Peggy took the
friend waiting out-
uwned and spent three
se, regularly punch-
1 only be guessed at.
junting through the
‘ch of some loot she
r, the court returned
and Peggy was sen-
iment.
iid never ‘have been
veen for the vial of
out the window. She
‘r, yet had held onto
yart of the evidence
planning on more
e Schwarz, at least, is
as broken up by the
started playing her

s NOTE:

Schwarz, as used in
is not the real name
rned. This innocent
en a fictitious name
ty.

strategy drawn up, of
olanned to pull later
. sigh, thinking of
averted, and went
jer—or murders—
he riddle of the flesh-
<ed as important as
vald’s killer. .
ols and a .30-.30 rifle
ckie Battles confessed
the tavern from the
ifle, had accidentally
id there in the excite-
soting.
were used in the tav-
<i had confessed using
on the weapon which
slonged to Angel Wil-
ith this, Williams soon
ifessed.
sh-covered bullet? The
irly, uncommunicative
out that flesh-covered
) days before the kill-
nanded. He noticed a
ika Saki and Blackie
er, there was malevo-
the enemy in the look.
m have it. “Come on
only one thing that’ll
1ot seat now, and that’s
cing and talk straight.”
between Blackie and
ey started to talk.
the Ewald murder,
and Angel Williams had
-adquarters. They were
nd quarrelsome, and a
ut between Maka Saki
obably the only time in
tried to act as peace-
s too late. Maka Saki,
», had his pistol out and
it through Blackie’s left
naged to calm them.
eculiar code of loyalty
Saki gouged the bullet
with a knife. With care-
vened the window and
vered slug out into the
-+~-Iman had found it.
. against all six for
jiracy and firearms
wad! the gang “the most
ret together in the city.”
»ster facing prospects of
inside Eastern Peniten-
-ime seems snafued.

LETHAL LEGACY

(Continued from page 15)

men in cells right now who might be able
to give us a hand.”

One was Benny Corio, a 26-year-old
truck driver, who several weeks earlier
had confessed to participation in the $4200
robbery of Leon Walewski in Pete’s Tav-
ern at 462 Franklin Street, Elizabeth, on
March 9th, 1952.

Corio had implicated Ernest Liguori, 26,
of the Bronx, New York City, now serving
a term in Sing Sing on another armed rob-
bery charge in New York. Liguori also had
admitted being one of the trio that had put
guns on Walewski and left him trussed
and gagged—and $4200 poorer.

Corio and Liguori had named the third
man: Victor Santoro, of New York City.
News of the confessions and solution of
the Walewski robbery had been suppressed
by police in Elizabeth while they hunted
Santoro.

Obviously, since both were in custody at
the time, neither Corio nor Liguori could be
considered as suspects in the Weilandics-
Diskin killings. But what about Santoro,
who was still at large?

“Did he ever carry a Luger?” Corio was
asked.

“I never saw him with one,” the pris-
oner answered. “I heard him talk about
Lugers. Vic said they were the only auto-
matics made that never jammed on you. It
was one time we’re having a session about
rods. Vie says Lugers is tops, only you got
to watch they don’t spit the empties back
in your face, and they got too much speed
and not enough stopping power. I never
saw Vic with any Luger. Only talk, that’s
all.”

Was Santoro, perhaps now in possession
of one of the finely-made German auto-
matics he had praised so highly, the double
slayer in the Shamrock Bar? Spurred by
Captain Winkelmann, robbery and homi-
cide detective details all over the north-
ern New Jersey metropolitan area, and
in New York City, less than 20 miles away,
intensified their search for the wanted gun-
man.

Detective Yoos’ second possible lead
stemmed from an Elizabeth tavern holdup
attempt early in December. A gunman had
walked into Greg’s Tavern at 657 Jackson
Avenue, covered Gregory Klotz, the owner,
with a pistol and demanded the contents
of the cash register.

Klotz’ reply was a bottle of bar cherries,
hurled at the bandit’s head. “Get the money
yourself!” the proprietor howled, ducking
beneath the fixtures.

The gunman fired twice into the back
bar, then beat a hurried retreat. The
weapon with which he had threatened
Klotz had been a Luger!

Detective Hemingway had been hard at
work on this case for weeks, having finally
unearthed the information that the gun-
man, a dark, dapper fellow about 30 yeats
of age, had been recognized by a patron
in the saloon.

“When I can find this witness,” Heming-
way said, “we'll soon know the identity of
the man with the Luger.”

At Chief Brennan’s direction, and under
Captain Winkelmann’s guidance, the in-
vestigators were also tacking on another
course in their quest for a lead to the
Shamrock Bar killings.

Union and the other northeastern New
Jersey counties contain within their limits
a number of large cities, all bordered by
incorporated villages and towns, each with
its separate identity but each also a seg-
ment of a huge metropolitan area wherein
community boundary lines are indistin-
guishable. Each city, village and township

Reve brag co remnememaminage” eat

has its own set of officials, including police,
and these latter units, together with county
and state authorities, are linked in a tele-
type system which provides a continual
and rapid flow of crime information be-
tween all interested departments.

Brennan’s men gathered a thick stack
of teletype reports covering crimes for
weeks before the twin murders at the
Shamrock, and studied each for any pos-
sible clue that might be gleaned to aid in
the solution of the slayings in the bar.

“Here,” Detective Harrigan said, pushing
aside one yellow slip of paper. “Here’s
something we ought to look into.”

It was a report on a burglary of the
Suburban Lawn Mower shop on Millburn
Avenue in the neighboring village of Mill-
burn on March 5th, two days before Weil-
andics and Walter Diskin were killed. In
the loot on this job were two firearms, One
was a .30-.30 caliber Marlin hunting rifle,
the other a 9mm. Luger pistol.

Hemingway and Harrigan visited the
lawn mower shop. The burglars had taken
the Luger, its holster and a spare clip with
nine cartridges in it. In the pistol’s maga-
zine was a clip with eight shells. “They left
these behind,” the storekeeper said, pro-
ducing a box of Luger cartridges. In it were
33 shells.

“Thirty-three here, seventeen in the two
missing clips,” Hemingway calculated.
“That makes a full box of fifty. We'll let the
lab experts see the cartridges that were
left behind. Maybe they can tell us whether
the empty casings we picked off the floor
in the Shamrock were from the same lot
as these cartridges.”

The lawn mower shop burglary, further
investigation revealed, was but one in a
very long string of relatively small break-
ins reported to police in half a dozen com-
munities over a period of about a year.
Many of these jobs bore earmarks of the
modus operandi of one burglar, or of one
set of burglars. None of the crimes had
been big, but the total loot in cash and
valuables ran above $10,000.

“There’s one healthy argument that says
the burglars are not our killers,” Harrigan
remarked. ‘Professional burglars rarely go
in for armed robbery.”

“It could be,” Detective Hemingway
countered, “that the Luger gave them ideas
to expand. A couple of young punks, may-
be, who got cocky because they’d been get-
ting away with so many jobs for so long.”

There was, however, no clue to the bur-
glar or burglars. Moreover, if the Luger
stolen from the Millburn store in March
was the death weapon, then the bandit
sought for the December holdup attempt at
Greg’s Tavern was not the killer, and Hem-
ingway still figured this Luger-toting thug
as the most likely suspect in the Shamrock
mystery.

Weeks passed. Repeated appeals failed to
bring any response from the unidentified
father and son or from the slick-haired
stranger seen in the Shamrock Bar the
morning of the murders.

The state police laboratory men reported
that the cartridge casings from the tavern
floor were of the same lot as the shells
turned over by the lawn mower shop’s
proprietor, but this was not conclusive evi-
dence that the stolen Luger was the mur-
der weapon. Many other casings had been
stamped from the same metal.

Early in April, Detective Hemingway
found the witness in the Jackson Avenue
tavern stickup attempt. And on Saturday,
April 11th, Bill Froelich, a 30-year-old ex-
con who had served six years in prison for
burglary, was arrested and charged with
the attempted robbery of Gregory Klotz.

He was captured on the very eve of his
wedding. Instead of looking into the radiant
eyes of a bride, Froelich found himself
facing the grim and searching stares of a

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14

The county chief shook his head,
and gestured toward the bar. “Look
at the layout here. To get behind the
bar, you’ve either got to jump over
or go around through the back room.
It’s a sucker’s setup, a trap for a gun-
man who wouldn’t have much time
to go behind the bar and get out
again. Maybe we’d better not be too
fast in assuming this was nothing
but the work of a_ trigger-happy
bandit.” ,

Although seven cartridge casings
were found, only six bullets could be
accounted for. Three had struck the
dark young patron, one in the left
chest from the front, two in the back.
These “slugs had pierced the body,
smashed the back mirror and,em-
bedded themselves in the wall. A
stray bullet had hit the phone booth,
and Weilandics had been shot twice
in the chest.

Where was the seventh slug? There
seemed but one answer to this puzzle,
the detectives agreed. It, too, must
have gone astray, missing the bar-
tender and whining its way out an
open door in the'rear of the building.

As the bodies were prepared for
removal, officers found a long, sharp
knife beneath Weilandics. Directly
above where he had fallen a round
of cheese stood on a cutting board.

Young suspect (/.) led police to the William A. Stickel Memorial
Bridge, from which gun supposedly was hurled into Passaic River

Apparently the bartender had been

slicing tidbits for his patrons when

he was shot down.

Police photographers and finger-
print men took over the premises.
Flashbulbs illuminated the dusty,
fadeti and fly-specked pictures of
boxers and racehorses along the wall;
the identification men laboriously
dusted the bar, glasses and bottles.
They turned up nothing of value..

City and county detectives set out
in a search for any witnesses who
could help in fixing the time of the
twin slayings, or who could describe
men entering, leaving or in the Sham-
rock that Saturday morning. A check
into the personal lives of the victims
was begun, to get at any possible
motive for murder.

No one had heard the seven shots,
but Captain Winkelmann realized the
peculiar layout of the taproom,
screened. front and back by the
package goods shop and a work-
room, and by thick walls on the sides,
could: have effectively muffled the
sound of gunfire.

The proprietor of a confectionery-
cigar store next door recalled heavy

thumpings at a little past 11:30. He
had paid them no special attention.

“There’s been repair work going on

around here,” he explained. “I figured
it was just somebody banging away
with a hammer.” :

Located on the fringe of the busi-
ness section of the city, the Sham-
rock attracted more regular customers
than transients. Thus, when detec-
tives found one man who had visited
the bar in mid-morning, they were
able to establish a train of contacts
with other patrons that took them
without a break up to within a few
minutes of 11:30 o’clock.

There had been few strangers in the
bar that morning, it appeared, none
of them acting in any manner to
arouse suspicion. The last persons
seen in the Shamrock before the mur-
ders were discovered had been a man
in his forties, a rather short balding
man, with a boy of fourteen or fifteen,
obviously his son. Neither was known
to the regular patrons.

The father had been drinking beer
when the youth, a thin, dark kid,
wearing a black leather hunting cap,
joined him and ordered a soft drink.

The
one re
bar. \
11:30
place
Sho
fied
tavern
a Stick
from °
had fi
and cu
lead.
Ther
tives
sona!
the sl:
He \
for ma
spot
House
niscen
ries of
served
took a
be ne:
more ?
retired
and,
death
barten
“Not
culty
tive J
Office
father
forma!
victim
man,
closely
“It's
looks e
But th:
Your
peared
he was
later a
Sheldor
Hew
kin Jr
He’d h:
the Sha
late for
into the
his den:
tient ar
Like
a frienc
his brot
a room,
with an
Irishma
“So v
motive,
cided. ‘
The ste

Older s
Elizabet
cut dow
give off

Stickel Memorial
nto Passaic River

ttle past 11:30. He
> special attention.
vair work going on
xplained. “I figured
ody banging away

fringe of the busi-
ne city, the Sham-
-e regular customers
Thus, when detec-
.an who had visited
norning, they were
a train of contacts
ns that took them
up to within a few
clock.
few strangers in the
_ it appeared, none
in any manner to
The last persons
-ock before the mur-
red had been a man
-ather short balding
f fourteen or fifteen,
_ Neither was known
itrons.
{| been drinking beer
a thin, dark kid,
leather hunting cap,
rdered a soft drink.

a

The pair had left, however, while

one regular customer remained at the

bar. When this man departed at about
11:30, he left only Weilandics in the
place.

Shortly thereafter the man identi-
fied as Sheldon had gone into the
tavern. Either he had walked in on
a stickup and met his death in a blast
from the bandit’s gun, or the killer
had followed him into the Shamrock
and cut loose with his deadly hail of
lead. ?

There seemed no likelihood, detec-
tives soon discovered, that any per-
sonal matter could have motivated
the slaying of Sebastian Weilandics.

He was a jolly, graying man who

for many years had tended bar in a |

spot near the Metropolitan Opera
House in New York City. His remi-
niscences were filled with the memo-
ries of the great men whom he had
served there. In the early 1940s he
took a job in Roselle, New Jersey, to
be nearer home so he could spend
more time with his family. Later he
retired, but could not stand idleness
and, only three weeks before his
death, took employment as the day
bartender at the Shamrock.

“Not an enemy, no personal diffi-
culty of any kind,” reported Detec-
tive John Hemingway.

Officers who escorted Art Sheldon’s
father to the mortuary to make
formal identification of the second
victim were stunned when the fire-
man, after studying the dead man
closely, shook his head.

“It’s uncanny,” the father said. “He
looks enough like Art to be his twin.
But that’s not my son.”

Young Sheldon himself soon ap-
peared at headquarters to prove that
he was alive and well. A few hours
later a friend and a brother identified
Sheldon’s double.

He was 27-year-old William S. Dis-
kin Jr., an immigrant from Ireland.
He’d had a dental appointment near
the Shamrock that morning, had been
late for it and seemingly had gone
into the tavern to pass the time until
his dentist finished with another pa-
tient and could take care of him.

Like Weilandics, Walter Diskin was
a friendly chap with no enemies and
his brother, with whom he had shared
a room, was positive there was no dhe
with any reason to murder the young
Irishman.

“So we concentrate on the robbery
motive,” Captain Winkelmann de-
cided. “The gun—that’s our key clue.
The state lab boys have seen the

Older suspect (center) went to the
Elizabeth bar room, where two were
cut down by gunfire for $53.28, to
give officers his version of murder

bullets and the cartridge casings. They
say the weapon was a Luger. If there’s
even one Luger in the state of New
Jersey that can’t be accounted for, I
want to know about it. Let’s get go-
ing.”

Detectives Hemingway, Joseph
Harrigan and James Yoos were as-
signed to work with Winkelmann on
the double murders. County detec-
tives under Lombardi and Prosecutor
H. Russell Morss Jr., a young official
facing his first major crime since tak-
ing office in January, joined in the
probe, and Chief Frank Brennan of
the Elizabeth city police took over
active direction of the investigation.

For two days street department
crews combed through sewers in the
vicinity of Broad .and Elizabeth
Streets in a futile search for. the mur-
der weapon. Vacant lots, parking
areas and alleyways were searched
with care, but in vain. :

Several ex-cons with armed rob-

‘pery records were pulled in for ques-

tioning, and the Saturday morning

patrons in the Shamrock Bar were
interrogated again in the relentless
quest for information which might
spotlight a possible suspect. Reques-
tioning of the tavern customers left
only three persons known to have
been in the Shamrock on the morning

-of the murders unaccounted for. Two

of these were the father and son who
had walked out perhaps 10 or 15
minutes before the shootings oc-
curred. The third.was a_ flashily-
dressed young man with a thin black
mustache and long black hair plas-
tered tight on his skull like a lac-
quered plate. Prosecutor Morss
publicly appealed to these three to
report to police, assuring them ‘their
identities and any information they
might give would be kept absolutely
secret.

On Tuesday, Detective Yoos came
in with two possible leads, “I’ve been
looking over reports on other gin
mill holdups here in town,” he said
to Captain Winkelmann. “We’ve got
a couple of (Continued on page 87)

s

Dad Gave Him Murder « » « (from page 35)

hearing an occasional backfire, but
nothing like a series of reports which
must have been made by the gun-
man in the tavern, firing quickly. He
was sure he would have remembered
inything like that.

Captain Winkelmann was not sur-
prised at the absence of witnesses
who had heard the firing. He real-
ized that the peculiar layout of the
taproom, screened front and back by
the package goods shop and a work-
room, and by thick walls on each
side, could have effectively muffled
the sound of gunfire.

Questioning the proprietor of a
confectionery-cigar store next door,
a detective was told that a clerk had
heard “heavy thumpings” at around
11:30, give or take five minutes. But
he had paid no particular attention
to them.

“There’s been repair work going
on around here,” he explained. “I
figured it was just somebody banging
away with a hammer.”

The Shamrock Bar, located on the
fringe of the city’s business district,
had more of a “regular” than a tran-
sient trade. Thus, when detectives
found one man who had visited the
bar around mid-morning, they were
able to establish a train of contacts
with other patrons. This enabled
them to account for the time—with-
out a break—up to within a few
minutes of half past eleven.

Apparently, there had been few
strangers in the tavern that morning,
and none had acted in any manner
that aroused suspicion, even in hind-
sight. The last persons seen in the
Shamrock before the murders were
discovered had been a man—a rather
short, balding man in his forties, a
witness estimated—with a boy of 14
or 15 who looked like his son. Neither
was known to the regular patrons.

Questioned closely by detectives,
the witnesses recalled that the father
had been drinking beer when the
youth, a thin, dark-complexioned kid,
wearing a black leather hunting cap,
joined him and ordered a soft drink.

The pair had left, however, while
one of the regular customers re-
mained at the bar. When this man
left the tavern at about 11:30, he said,
the only one in the place was Sebas-
tian Weilandics, the bartender.

Shortly thereafter, the slain man
identified as young Aldo Fiori had
gone into the tavern. Either he had
walked in on a stickup and met his
death in a salvo from the bandit’s
gun, or the killer had followed him
into the Shamrock and cut loose with
his deadly hail of lead.

It didn’t take detectives long to
dismiss the possibility that any per-
sonal matter might have motivated
the killing of Weilandics. Sebastian
was a jolly, graying man who for
many years had tended bar in a spot
near the Metropolitan Opera House in
New. York City. His reminiscences
were filled with the memories of the
famous personalities he had served
there.

In the early 1940s he had taken a
job in Roselle, New Jersey, so he
could be nearer home and spend
more time with his family. Later he
retired, but time hung heavy on the
hands of the man who had been so
active all his life. Because he couldn’t
stand the inactivity, he had decided
to go back to work and took employ-

50

ment as the day bartender at the
Shamrock only three weeks before
he was killed by a gunman’s bullets.

“Not an enemy,” Detective John
Hemingway, who had _ investigated
Weilandics’ background, reported.
“No personal difficulty of any kind.
I couldn’t find a soul who had a bad
word for him.”

In the meantime, detectives who
escorted Aldo Fiori’s father to the
mortuary to make formal identifica-
tion of the second victim were
stunned when the fireman, after
studying the dead man for a few sec-
onds, heaved a sigh of relief and
shook his head.

“It’s uncanny,” he said. “He looks
enough like Aldo to be his twin. But
that’s not my son, thank God.”

Young Fiori himself, soon after-
ward, dropped in at headquarters to
prove that he was alive and well.

A few hours later, a friend and a
brother identified Fiori’s double. He
turned out to be William S. Diskin
Jr, a 27-year-old immigrant from
Ireland. Questioning of his brother
disclosed that the victim had had a
dental appointment not far from the
Shamrock that Saturday morning.
Further inquiry revealed that he had
arrived late for the appointment and
the dentist had taken another patient
in his turn. Apparently, to pass the
time until the dentist was ready for
him, William Diskin Jr. dropped in
at the Shamrock Bar for a glass of
beer, which was all he ever drank,
according to informants,

Like Sebastian the bartender, Dis-
kin was a friendly chap with no ene-
mies. His brother, with whom he re-
sided, was positive there was no one
with any reason to murder the young
Irishman.

“So we concentrate on the robbery
motive,” Captain Winkelmann- con-
cluded when these facts had been re-
viewed in a conference in his office.
“The gun—that’s our key clue, The
state lab boys have seen the bullets
and the cartridge hulls. They say the
weapon was a Luger.” The captain
paused meaningfully before adding:

“Tf there’s even one Luger in the
state of New Jersey that can’t be ac-
counted for, I want to know about it.
Let’s get going.”

Detectives Hemingway, Joseph Har-
rigan and James Yoos were assigned
to work with Captain Winkelmann on
the double murder. County detectives
under Chief Lombardi and Prosecutor
H. Russell Morss Jr., a young official
facing his first major crime since tak-
ing office the previous January, joined
in the probe, and Chief Frank Bren-

‘nan of the Elizabeth city police took

over active direction of the investiga-
tion.

For two days, at the behest of in-
vestigators, street department crews
combed through sewers in the vicin-
ity of Broad and Elizabeth Streets in
a futile search for the murder wea-
pon. Vacant lots, parking areas and
alleyways were searched with care,
but in vain.

A number of ex-convicts with
armed robbery records were pulled
in for questioning, and the Saturday
morning patrons of the Shamrock
Bar were interrogated again and yet
again in a relentless quest for '‘infor-
mation which might turn th~. spotlight
on a possible suspect.

The renewed questioning of the
Shamrock patrons ultimately _ left
only three persons unaccounted for
who were known to have been in the
tavern on the morning of the mur-
ders. Two of these were the father
and son, who had walked out of the
place an estimated 10 to 15 minutes
before the shooting started.

The third was a flashily dressed
young man with a thin black mus-
tache and long hair, also black, plas-
tered tight on his skull.

Prosecutor Morss_ publicly ap-
pealed to these three to report to po-
lice, assuring them that their identi-
ties and any information they might
give would be kept absolutely secret.

But the week end passed with no
further progress in the investigation.
On Tuesday, Detective Yoos came in
with two possible leads. Reporting to
Captain Winkelmann, he said, ‘T’ve
been looking over reports on other
ginmill holdups here in town. We've
got a couple of men in cells right
now who might be able to give us a
hand.”

One was Matty Schwarz, a 26-
year-old truck driver who several
weeks earlier had confessed to par-
ticipation in a robbery at an Eliza-
beth tavern in which $4,200 had been
stolen. The robbery had occurred al-

most exactly a year before the kill- .

ings at the Shamrock, on March 9,
1952.

Schwarz had implicated one Vito
Marco, 26, of the Bronx, across the
river in New York. Marco was pres-
ently serving a term in Sing Sing on
another armed robbery charge in
New York. Marco also had admitted
being one of the trio who had put
guns on the Elizabeth tavern keeper
and left him trussed up like a
chicken—and $4,200 poorer.

Schwarz and Marco also had
named the third member of their
stickup combo, Leo Adams, who was
still at large. News of the confessions
and solution of the tavern robbery
had been withheld from the press
while detectives attempted to find
Adams. .

Since both were in custody at the
time of the Shamrock holdup slay-
ings, obviously neither Marco nor
Schwarz could be considered as sus-
pects. But what about Adams, who
was still on the loose?

“Did Adams ever carry a Luger?”
Schwarz was asked.

“I never saw him with one,” the
prisoner replied, “but I heard him
talk about Lugers. We were having a
big argument one night—me and him
and some other guys. Leo was say-
ing they were the only automatics
made that never jammed on you.
Some other guy said he was crazy—
that the Lugers jammed more than
any other automatic. But Leo says
this guy is nuts, that the Lugers are
tops—only thing is you got to watch
out they don’t spit the empties back
in your face, and they got too much
speed and not enough stopping power.

“But I never actually seen Leo
with a Luger. Only talk, that’s all.”

The investigators wondered if Ad-
ams might now be in possession of
one of the finely made German auto-
matics he had praised so highly. Was
he the man, perhaps, who had
gunned down two men in the Sham-
rock Bar?

Spurred by Captain Winkelmann,
robbery and homicide detective de-
tails all over the northern New Jer-
sey metropolitan area, as well as in
New York, 20 miles away, intensified

ws ia itn nh aR

their search for the wanted gunman.

Detective Yoos’ second possible
lead stemmed from an Elizabeth tav-
ern holdup attempt early in Decem-
ber. A gunman had walked into a
tavern on Jackson Avenue, covered
the owner with a pistol and demand-
ed the contents of the cash register.
The tavern-keeper’s reply had been a
bottle of bar cherries hurled at the
bandit’s head.

“Get the money yourself!” the pro-
prietor yelled, ducking beneath the
fixtures.

The gunman, nonplussed by the
unexpected reaction of his victim,
fired twice into the back bar, then
beat a hurried retreat. The signifi-
cant thing about this abortive hold-
up, however, had been the informa-
tion that the bandit’s gun was a
Luger. The intended victim and three
patrons present at the time, all of
whom had more than a passing fa-
miliarity with guns, swore to it.

Detective Hemingway had been
hard at work on this case for weeks,
having finally unearthed the infor-
mation that the gunman, a dark, dap-

er fellow about 30 years old, had

een recognized by a patron in the
saloon.

“When I can find this witness,”
Hemingway said, “we'll soon know
the identity of the guy with the
Luger.”

A: Chief Brennan’s direction, and
under Captain Winkelmann’s gui-
dance, the investigators were also
exploring another investigative ave-
nue in their quest for a solid lead in
the murders at the Shamrock Bar.

Union County, and other counties
in northeastern New Jersey, con-
tain within their limits a number of
large cities, all bordered by incorpor-
ated villages and towns, each with its
separate identity but each also a seg-
ment of a huge metropolitan area
wherein community boundary lines
are indistinguishable. Each city, vil-
lage and township has its own set of
officials, including police, and these
latter units, together with county and
state authorities, are linked in a
teletype system which provides a
continual and rapid flow of crime in-
formation between all interested de-
partments.

Chief Brenhan’s men gathered a
thick stack of teletype reports, cov-
ering crimes for weeks before the
Shamrock murders, and studied each
for any possible clue which might be
gleaned to aid in the probe.

“Here’s something we ought to
look into,” Detective Harrigan said,
pushing aside one file.

It was a report on a burglary of a
lawn mower shop in the neighboring
village of Millburn on March 5th, two
days before the Shamrock incident.
Two firearms were part of the loot
on this job, a .30-30 Martin hunting
rifle, and a 9 mm Luger pistol.

Hemingway and Harrigan drove
out to the lawn mower shop and
asked questions. They learned that
the burglar or burglars had taken the
Luger, its holster, and a spare clip
with nine cartridges in it. In the pis-
tol’s magazine was a clip with eight
shells.

“They left these behind,” the
storekeeper said, producing a box of
Luger bullets containing 33 rounds.

“Thirty-three here, seventeen in
the two missing clips,” Hemingway
calculated. “That makes a full box
of fifty. We'll let the lab experts see
the cartridges that were left behind.

lessly. “There’s a dead man on the
floor!”

The tall officer didn’t hesitate.
“Let’s go,” he said, taking Pat by the
elbow and guiding him to the curb.
They entered the Shamrock together,
and Patrolman Pietrowski at once
discovered the body of a dark-haired
young man only a couple of paces in-
side the swinging door which separ-
ated the barroom from the package
shop at the front. The officer fell to
his knees and tried to find a pulse,
but he could detect no sign of life
in the man lying in a pool of his own
blood.

“He looks like a customer,” Pie-
trowski said. “Where’s the help in
this place? Did you see anyone
else?”

Pat McNiff shook his head from
side to side. “No,” he said, “and when
I saw this fellow on the floor, I didn’t
wait to look. I went straight out
and got you.”

Officer Pietrowski walked over to
the bar, stepped up on the brass rail
and peered behind it. “There’s anoth-
er one here,” he said. “The bar-
tender.”

Sprawled in death on the duck-
boards was an elderly grayhaired
man, a white apron knotted around
his middle. Quickly surveying the sit-
uation, the traffic officer noted that
both men had been shot in the up-
per part of the body. The back bar
mirror was shattered. A bottle of rye
whiskey, but no glasses, stood atop
the bar. A newspaper, still folded,
lay on the floor beneath a stool, not
far from the outflung hand of the
young man on the customers’ side of
the bar.

Patrolman Pietrowski waited no
longer. He walked swiftly to a tele-
phone booth against the back wall.
As he slid into the cubicle to call
headquarters, he noted the ragged
tear ofa bullet hole in the thin wood-
en panels enclosing the booth.

Within a matter of minutes, the
commonplace street scene was wholly
transformed. Police cars shrieked
through the traffic to disgorge squads
of cops.and detectives into the Sham-
rock. Heading them all were Detec-
tive Captain August F. Winkelmann
and Police Captain Nicholas A. Mig-
liore. From the courthouse across the
street came County Detective Chief
Louis T. Lombardi, accompanied by
several of his detectives.

Captain Migliore quickly ordered
Patrolman Pietrowski to stand by,
and assigned several uniformed offi-
cers to handle his traffic assignment,
now multiplied several-fold by the
sudden influx of police vehicles.

Identification of the slain bartender
was a simple task, one of the few
simple accomplishments, later events
would prove, in the difficult investi-
gation which followed. Papers found
in the man’s wallet identified him as
Sebastian Weilandics, 63, of an ad-
dress in the nearby town of Linden.

Sebastian had been shot twice in
the chest.

Determining the identity of the
second dead man was not so easy. A
search of his pockets was fruitless.
There was no wallet, no car, not even
a scrap of paper. Captain Winkel-
mann was just telling a technician to
take the young victim’s fingerprints
and run them through the files, when
one of the patrolmen happened to
take a look at the body and said he
was “pretty sure” he knew him.

“It’s young Aldo Fiori,” he said.
“His dad’s in the fire department.”

i oseeetetieneediennnseinecenupnese

“You sure?” the captain asked.

“Pretty sure,” the officer said. “If
it isn’t him, he could be his twin
brother. Some of the other boys
know him. I'll get them.”

He went outside and returned with
two other patrolmen, both of whom
agreed the slain man was the son
of a fireman they knew.

In the meantime, detectives had
been going over the tavern interior
with a finetooth comb. Scattered over
the floor in a random pattern, duly
noted on a rough sketch one of the
technicians was making of the crime
scene, they found seven brass car-
tridge hulls which looked as if they
had been fired from a 9 mm Luger
automatic.

“Or possibly from a Walther,” Cap-
tain Winkelmann said, referring to
another German pistol he knew was
chambered for Luger ammunition.

The probers discovered that the
cash register had been rifled. The
owner, who had been summoned soon
after the detectives’ arrival, checked
the tape of the register and informed
Captain Winkelmann there should
have been $53.28 in the till, which
now held only three pennies.

“But there’s a total of $49 in the
pockets of the two dead men,” Coun-
ty Detective Chief Lombardi point-
ed out. “Why would a killer leave
behind almost as much as he got, if
robbery was the real motive for the
murders?”

“Could be he was in too much of a
hurry to take the time to go

In dramatic confrontation, Gene Monahan, who admitted letting young Mike down, said to him “Tell the truth, son’

through their pockets,” suggested
one of Lombardi’s aides, Detective
Michael Tevnan.

The county chief shook his head
and gestured toward the bar. “Look
at the layout here. To get behind the
bar, you’ve either got to jump over
it or go around through the back
roo. It’s a sucker’s setup, a trap for
a gunman who wouldn’t have much
time to go behind the bar and get
out again.

“Maybe we’d better not be too fast
in assuming this was nothing but the
work of a trigger-happy bandit.”

Now another in the long list of puz-
zling factors which would mark the
case emerged. Although seven car-
tridge cases had been found scat-
tered about the place, only six bullets
could be accounted for. Three had
struck the young patron, one in the
left chest from the front, two in the
back.

These were through-and-through
shots; they had gone completely
through the body, smashed the back
mirror and embedded themselves in
the wall.

One stray bullet had hit the tele-
phone booth.

The bartender, Weilandics, had
been shot twice in the chest.

That accounted for six slugs.
Where was the seventh? There
seeemed to be but one answer to this
puzzle, detectives agreed after ex-
ploring and discarding all other pos-
sibilities. The seventh shot, too, must
have gone astray, missing the bar-

tender and whining its way out
open door in the rear of the buildi

As the two bodies were being p:
pared for removal, detectives fou
a long sharp knife under the b:
tender’s body. Directly above wh
he had fallen, they noted, a round
old fashioned “store cheese” stood
a cutting board. Apparently the })
tender had been slicing tidbits
his patrons when he was shot dov

Police photographers and _ fing,
print technicians now took over |
premises. Flashbulbs illuminated }
faded pictures of prizefighters
racehorses along the wall. The Ici
men laboriously dusted the |
glasses and bottles, but in the k
run, it was found, they had tur:
up nothing of significant value to |
investigation.

Meanwhile, both city and cou
detectives set out to search for ;
witnesses who might be able to |
in fixing the time of the twin killi:
or who might be able to desc:
men seen entering or leaving
Shamrock that Saturday morni
A check into the personal lives
the victims was begun in an efli
to establish, or eliminate, any pos
ble personal motive for murder.

In the first canvass of the imm
diate neighborhood, no one could
found who had heard the seven sh
Even Patrolman Pietrowski, who h
been directing traffic less than
hundred feet away all morning, h
heard no shots. He said he recall

(Continued on page 50)


a

alicia

MET TSE SO

Maybe they can tell us whether the
empty casings we picked off the floor
: the Shamrock were from the same
ot.”

The burglary of the lawn mower
shop, further investigation disclosed,
was but one in a very long string of
relatively small ‘break-ins reported
to police over a period of about a
year. Many of these jobs bore ear-
marks of the MO of one burglar,
or of one set of burglars. None of the
crimes had been big, but the total
loot in cash and valuables ran to well
over $10,000.

However, there was no clue to the
culprits. Weeks passed. The probe
continued, but with little progress.

a single shot, then the car disap-
peared from view. Several men said
they heard the excited yelping of a
dog which might have been in the
fleeing car.

Patrol cars took off in pursuit and
found the car abandoned not. far
away. In it was a snarling Scottie
dog. The car New Jersey deal-
ers’ plates, and in it police found a
box of .38 caliber cartridges, 15
rounds of .32 caliber ammo, three
boxes of BB pellets, a screwdriver,
flashlight, and a length of rope. The
driver was long gone. There was a
bullet hole in the side of the car, but
no_ blood.

Back at the dress shop across from

talk to him. I ain’t sure.”

Durning drove up from Irvington
early on Monday morning. He knew
the boy in custody. He had handled
him after Mike’s arrest about a year
before in another burglary, an of-
fense for which the youth was still
on_ probation.

If young Mike Monahan had been
in doubt about talking before Lieu-
tenant Durning’s arrival, he had made
up his mind and talked freely when
he got there. For five long hours, he
narrated a story which astonished
the veteran police official.

The 15-year-old boy confessed to
taking part in no less than 150 bur-
glaries in a year’s time! But more
shocking than that, if the youth could
be believed, was his claim that he
had become a criminal under the

Police quickly suspected the
youngster might be telling the truth

3 The state police lab reported that the headquarters, meanwhile, policemen
s cartridge casings found on the floor who had surrounded the store had
P in the Shamrock had come from the dragged from inside the place a thin,
% same lot as those left behind by the dark kid whose black leather cap hid tutelage of his father!
' Luger thief at the lawn mower store. a shock of unruly black hair. He was
} The witness who knew the identity unarmed. Taken to headquarters, he
q of the tavern holdup thwarted by said his name was Michael Monahan,

NE Oa

TE Rca T

the counterattack of cherries was
found and identified the gunman, He
was charged with that crime, but he
had a solid alibi for the Shamrock
job.
That’s how matters stood at mid-
night on Sunday, April 12th, when a
pedestrian hurried into police head-
quarters in the village of Verona,
several miles from Elizabeth on the
northwestern outskirts of Newark.
“There’s somebody prowling the
roof of a store across the street,” the
pedestrian reported breathlessly.
Police poured out of the station-
house and converged on. a dress
shop across the way. At the first sign
of the cops, a car at the curb a few
doors away roared off, its tires
screeching. Police yelled an order to
halt, with no effect. One officer fired

age 15, and he claimed to live on By-
ron Terrace in the Vaux Hall sec.
tion of Union, about 10 miles south
of Verona.

“What were you doing in the store,
sail asked Police Chief Edgar Cof-

n.

“Looking around,” the kid replied
curtly. “Can I have a cigarette?”

He lighted up, then sat back and
sullenly fended questions shot at him.
“Who was the man who beat it in the
car with the dog?” the chief asked.

Mike Monahan shrugged. He lit
another cigarette off the butt of the
first one and let the questions sail

unanswered over his head. Finally he-

offered a suggestion.

“Get Lieutenant Durning over here
from Irvington,” he said. “He’s the one
square cop I ever met. Maybe I'll

when it was disclosed that the boy’s
parent, Eugene Monahan, 44, had a
crime record dating back to 1926 and
had, in fact, spent all but 18 months
of his son’s brief span of life behind
prison bars.

“T had to rob,” young Mike Mon-
ahan told Lieutenant Durning, still
burning one cigarette after another.
“If I didn’t, I’'d get a terrible beating
again.”

Most of the burglaries, the youth
said, were of small shops. The loot
added up to at least $5,000 in cash—
of which Mike said his father gave
him only $2—and articles worth at
least $10,000.

Under close questioning, young
Mike gave replies which indicated his
father had tutored his son carefully
in the techniques of robbery, cover-
ing both theory and practice.

“Always pull your jobs alo
boy claimed his dad counse!
“If you work with a gang, y
ways find one weak sister w!
the job or spills the beans to i

“Work from the roof. You
a good view that way and s¢
coming from all directions.”

How expertly he had been
Mike demonstrated for Lic
Durning, giving convincing ex!
of his ability to pick locks
windows and. circumvent
alarms.

Mike said his dad had work
him on the robberies. Usua
father would take their Sc
foul-tempered, snarly animal
“Mickey,” and walk up and <
front of a place to case it. Th
walk the dog some more, loo!
all the world like an innoc
lover, while the boy enter
looted the store or home.

“Your dad was in that c
night?” Lieutenant Durning
the youth. “He ran away and |.
to take the rap?”

A glum nod from Mike M
gave the officer his answer.

Eugene Monahan was quic!
rested at home, but he was
wise veteran of the crimina
who wouldn’t give the police th
time. He certainly would not
a thing about the long str
break-ins—to which his son ha
fessed—in Newark, Hillside, |
field, Union, East Orange, Irv
Millburn and Maplewood. P.
further investigation, Mike
lodged in the Essex County P:
Home. His father was locked
the jail in Newark.

On Tuesday, the boy’s coni
of the 150 burglaries caught t!

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A New Jersey boy's grim legacy...

AD GAVE HIM MURDER
TO REMEMBER HIM BY

by EARL WOOD
Special Investigator for OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES

Some men teach their sons to swim, play ball, or how to catch

fish. This is the story of a man who gave his teenage boy

on-the-job training in the business of being a burglar and killer

N ALL the endless discussions of
crime and its causes, there is one
question that stands out, like a
;) beacon ona dark night, dominat-

ing every study of the subject
by sociologists, psychologists, pen-
ologists, students of government and
the law, and perennial commissions
appointed by presidents, governors
and other sundry groups:

How does a man become a crim-
inal?

This is the basic question, but
closely linked to it are corollary rid-
dles like how does a man take that
first step on the path which will
lead him into a life of crime? What
motivates him to break his first law?
At what age is he cast irrevocably
in the criminal mould? Why does he
do it that very first time?

The subject has occupied man-

kind’s attention ever since men came

out of the caves and asserted indi-
vidual rights and privileges and, in
effect, propounded the first laws. But
in the last half century, it has be-
come a compelling puzzle, increasing
in urgency with each passing year. In
the past few years, in fact, the fate of
politicians seeking office on all levels
of government, including the Presi-
dency of the United States, has been
strongly influenced by their stands
on the subject of law and order.

Some of the world’s finest brains
have devoted years of study to the
question. Scarcely a day passes that
any citizen reading his newspaper
doesn’t find news of profound conclu-
sions by some new. authority. The
curious fact that anyone who man-

34

ages to get his name in the papers
in this regard is always described as
“an authority” recently prompted one
cynical commentator to remark:

“It’s getting so we have more au-
thorities than criminals.” .

The cynical attitude is understand-
able and the public can hardly be
blamed for doubting the alleged ex-
pertise of the thousands of “experts,”
each one of whom purports to have
the answers, but none of which solves
the problem. Society finds itself, con-
sequently, in the position of Alexan-
der the Great when he made the
wistful deathbed statement: “I am
dying with the help of too many phy-
sicians.”

The question, to be sure, will not
be resolved here, for this report is
concerned with a case history which
produced an answer to the key ques-
tion never dreamed of by any of the
thousands of crime researchers, It
might fit loosely into the bad
company-evil companions theory
much favored by many, but even
there it would have to be the unique
exception.

For this is the story of a boy taught
to be a criminal, in effect, at his fa-
ther’s knee—taught to rob, steal,
cheat and, by example, to murder.
The precise incident which marked
the youth’s debut in lawlessness is
lost in the maze of scores which fol-
lowed, but the catalytic act which
eventually precipitated the law’s dis-
covery of his shocking criminal ca-
reer occurred on the sunny morning
of March 7, 1953 in the central busi-

~

a

ness district of Elizabeth, New
Jersey.

St. Patrick’s Day was still 10 days
away, but soon after his opening
chores were done, Sebastian Weilan-
dics, the jovial new bartender at the
Shamrock Bar, had hauled out the
box containing Paddy’s Day decora-
tions and started to tack them up
around the popular tavern. The
Shamrock Bar was situated diagonal-
ly across the street from the 17-story
Union County courthouse, and got a
big play from lawyers, judges, court
reporters and others whose business
took them regularly to the huge
county complex.

Saturday morning was a good time
for the happy chore Sebastian had
set for himself, for unlike many tav-
erns, business was slower than usual
in the Shamrock on week ends be-
cause the courts and many of the
county offices in the big building
across the street were closed. A few
customers showed up for a morning
nip, but none lingered long. It was
learned later that three or four had
joked with the veteran barkeep
about putting up the St. Patrick’s
decorations so soon and, in his good-
natured way, he gave them “as good
as he got.”

Traffic, both vehicular and pedes-
trian, was heavy on Broad Street, but
these were mostly week-end shop-
pers, and not many of them were in-
terested in stopping at the Shamrock.
One exception was Pat McNiff, a
62-year-old dock worker who hap-
pened to be passing. Pat had been
born in the Old Country and his her-

(770

itage always beat strongly in his
breast in March.

“T wasn’t even thinking about a
drink,” he said later, “till I noticed
this place—the Shamrock Bar—and
thought it might be a nice place to
thhave a quick one.”

So Pat stepped into the place,
pushed past a swinging door and
walked into the long, narrow bar-
room stretching to the rear. After
the bright sunlight outdoors, Pat was
nearly blinded by the dim interior.
The floor was a dark blur. Pat didn’t
see the darker blob at his right, right
at his feet, till he almost stepped on
it. He had just noticed there was no
one behind the mahogany, when the
thing on the floor caught his eye.

He paused and regarded it with a
puzzled frown, his eyes trying to ad-
just to the dim light inside the tav-
ern. And slowly, his clearing vision
told him what it was—the body of a
man, sprawled in a grotesque contor-
tion of death and soaked in a welter
of blood which had spread in a
wide, eccentrically shaped pool on
the linoleum tile floor.

“God help us!” Pat exclaimed in-
voluntarily, and in the next instant
he backed quickly out the door and
looked around frantically, wondering
what to do next. The sight of blue-
clad Patrolman Pietrowski, directing
traffic at the corner of Elizabeth and
Broad a short stone’s throw away,
made up his mind. Old Pat plunged
out into the maze of traffic and
grabbed the officer’s arm.

“You better come over there to the
tavern right away,” he said breath-

L) Tt

- dead.
age at
d done
; again
hand,
umbled
ore the

speed-

’ again.
he car
distant,

within

STERIES

,
ALAN HYND

Special
Investigator

for

TRUE DETECTIVE

november, 1939

smashing the glass in the rear window.
There followed a spurt of flame and
another and another. Matey heard the

sharp, metallic sound of a bullet plow-'

ing through the radiator of the ‘police
machine.
Holding the steering wheel with one

‘hand, he leaned far to the left, crooked

his left arm out of the car and emptied
his revolver.
lurched over on the driver. . Again the
car careened dangerously to the far.side
of the highway.: Matey lifted his foot

from the accelerator, and brought the.

car under control. In the distance, the

ose of red disappeared around a:

nd in the highway.

A few minutes later, the police car
screeched :to a halt in front of an all-
night lunch wagon known as the Edgar
Diner, on the highway in Linden, some
five miles from the lonely spot where
the pursuers had drawn abreast of the
fleeing car. David Roxbury, the attend-
ant, was drawing a cup of steaming
coffee for the lone patron—Edward
Crouse, an engineer at the near-by
Sinclair Refineries—when the sliding
door opened noisily and Trooper Matey
entered.

“Where’s the nearest hospital?” Matey
asked.

Roxbury shut off the coffee tap and
Crouse wheeled around on his stool. __

“The Elizabeth General Hospital,. a
few miles straight ahead,” said Roxbury.

“Got a phone here?” asked Matey.
Roxbury jerked his head toward a pay-
station instrument on the wall. —

“Do me a favor,” said Matey. “Call
Elizabeth Police Headquarters and say

there’s been a shooting. Tell them to-

keep an eye open for a Chevrolet coupé
with yellow wheels headed that way. It

has a Pennsylvania license with the let-.
‘ter ‘C’ on it and the glass in the rear

Again Yenser’s form -

‘men_ hastening

window has been busted out. ‘They shot
my partner. He’s in a bad way.”

“Here,” said Crouse, “I'll. help. I'll
Tide “np you and show you where the

ospital is.”

“the bell of the cash register splintered
the silence as Roxbury reached for a
nickel with which to phone. Matey and
Crouse: rushed out to the car. ‘The
engineer: took one. look at Trooper
Yenser.

“Not much use going to the hos-
pital,” he said-to Matey. “Thig man’s
dead. . . .”

The police car had hardly’ drawn

away from the diner on its Poke have
rm to «

when Roxbury was giving the

Headquarters in Elizabeth. The officer :

there who received the warning glanced
up at the clock. The hands stood at
nine minutes after five. If the fugitive
coupé had headed straight for Elizabeth,
* would be nearing the city limits right
then.

The officer barked an: order and the

pre-dawn-quietude that marks the “dog
atch” in police stations was instantly
supplanted by the bustle of uniformed
from one room ‘ to
another. In less than thirty seconds
red lights flashed above police call boxes
throughout the sleeping city and the
radios in‘ departmental cruisers crackled
with the look-out warning.

As the cruisers, sirens screaming and
darting past street intersections at

sixty miles an hour, converged on_ the

southerly part of the city—the point.

at which the speeding coupé would be
most likely to appear—patrolmen on
their beats, noticing the call box lights,
began to phone i in. The box at East Broad
and Jersey Streets, not far from the
southerly limits of the city, was used by
the bluecoats on two beats. Officer Alex
Geiger, one of these policemen, was ‘the

45

BED oe COE

aera

ees

a Ti aot 3 x,


an oncoming automobile glittered in
the black night. Troopers Warren

- G. Yenser and John G. Matey of
the State Police stiffened as their own
car. cruised southward on the, New
York-Philadelphia highway near Linden,
New Jersey, at five o'clock on. thé morn-
ing of Saturda , November 9th, 1935.
the approaching vehicle came closer,

I THE distance the headlights of

. it was apparent. that it was “hitting

sixty.” ‘Trooper Yenser noticed that its
front license plate was orange and
black. “Pennsylvania,” he muttered.
“Maybe that’s the one we want.”
Yenser had no sooner spoken the

’.words than the car.shot past. As it did,

the hissing sound of an overheated radi-+
ator sliced through the noise of the roar-
ing motor and the whine of rubber on
macadam. ;
“Hear that hissing!” exclaimed Yenser,
“That’s ‘it, all right! Let’s go!”
_ Trooper Matey slowed down, turned
around, stepped on the accelerator and
the police car spurted in pursuit. The
quarry was by this time a quarter of
& mile distant, its tail-light a pinhead of
dancing red. Presently the figure “80”
was quivering in the center of the speed-
ometer of the police car and the red
light ahead began to grow larger as
the: distance Separating the two cars
~ diminished.

re weap ata singularly dark point on’

‘the highway, the pursuers drew abreast
of the ‘pursued and Trooper Yenser
‘placed his whistle to his lips. He was
about to blow a shrill command to the

driver of. the other car to stop when
_.» suddenly he. lurched heavily against
_ + Trooper
» - the driver sent the speeding police car

Matey. This interference with

careening far tothe left of the highway,
headed directly for a telegraph pole.

AS : , Desperately, Trooper. Matey jerked the

‘ through which the
fatal bullets sped

(Above) Along this
desolate stretch of
the New York-Phil-
adelphia highway,
Troopers Yenser and
Matey pursued a
car —a pursuit that
was to end in death

(Right) The coupé,
afterwards aban-
doned, from which
the bandits shot at
the pursuing troop-
ers. Note smashed
glass in window,

TDM’s Special In-
vestigator, Alan
Hynd, points to the
two whisky bottles |
found in the car,
Processed for finger-
Prints, they yielded
important clues

TRUE DETRCTIVE MYSTERI ES, November, 1939 «

TP Cr sea - Ps p= ' xz
ME TELSKI 9 Edward, white 9 ‘elec ° AN pol =f (Middle sé x Go a ) 8/4/19 366 ee

steering wheel and for a breath-taking (and was either unconscious or dead.
moment the machine swayed perilously, |
its two right wheels spinning in the | the thought of the fiend who had done
this, The. red light ‘ahead was again
the vehicle leveled off and he had it | diminishing. Driving with’ one hand,
.| Tapidly gathering speed, Matey fumbled
| for his service revolver. Once more the

figure “80” appeared on the speed-

air. Matey was in a cold sweat when
once more under control.

Matey stole a quick glance at his
brother officer as the second car roared
off into the. darkness, “Warren!”

There came no response from his ||

partner. The faint yellow glow of the
lights of the instrument board revealed
that Trooper Yenser had been shot,

Matey’s eyes blazed with rage at

"| \ometer, Then “85.” Then “90,”

Now the red light was larger again.

| Matey. threw a spotlight. on the car

‘ahead, less

than a hundred feet distant,

| just in time to see some. one within

TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES


roy age

ana re et

first to reach the box. He had just re-
ceived the warning from Headquarters
and was about to hang up the phone when
some one tapped him on the shoulder.
‘ “Hold on a minute,” Geiger told
Headquarters. “Here’s Morris.”

The man from the second beat,
Patrolman Michael Morris, spoke into
the phone, and Geiger walked across the
street to where Charles Mayer, a taxi
driver, sat dozing at the wheel of his
cab. The bluecoat awakened the hack-
man and ‘told him to start his motor
and be in readiness to give chase to the
coupé with the yellow wheels should
it appear. The cabby was still rubbing
the sleep out of his eyes when a car
came roaring up East Jersey Street.

“Maybe this is it now!” Patrolman
Geiger exclaimed to the taxi driver.
“Come on, get this car started!”

Mayer stepped on the starter but
there was only a loud wheeze under the
hood of the vehicle. “The motor’s cold,”
he muttered. The starter was still
wheezing, the engine still silent as the
oncoming car, its motor racing and its

, quarters,

radiator steaming and _ hissing, ap-
proached and shot past ‘the street in-
tersection.

“There it goes! That's it!” Geiger
shouted across the street to Patrolman
Morris, who was still talking to Head-
quarters. “Pennsylvania tags and the
rear window smashed!”

MORRIS relayed the words to Head-
quarters and the officer talking to
him there passed them on to the radio
room. A huge map of Elizabeth and
environs lay on a table before the man
in the radio room. He was making
rapid calculations and deductions. The
fugitive coupé was apparently headed
for Newark, which lay north of Eliza-
beth, just a few miles stretch of flat
barren land known as The Meadows.
From the scattered facts available, the
man in the radio room concluded that

in dodging the State Police car, the

coupé with the yellow wheels had been

_ obliged to leave the highway, which ran

directly into Newark, and was now en-
deavoring to get back to it.. East Jersey
Street, where Patrolman Geiger had

-'geen the car, intersected with the high-

way farther on. At

“That coupé has just been spotted
on East Jersey Street,” was the message
that now went out to the radio cruisers.
“Go to the main highway and East
Jersey Street and try to head it off.”

The cruisers were equipped with two-
way communication, enabling the patrol-
men in the cars to speak to Head-
“This is Patrolman Keck
speaking,” were the words that came
through the receiver in Headquarters.
“Patrolman Carolin and I are right at
East Jersey Street and the highway
now. Wait a second——I’ll just look
around. Nothing coming yet.”

“Well, be careful,” came the voice
from Headquarters. “Just got a report
from the General Hospital. That trooper
is dead. They’ve got a shotgun in that
car.”

“We're ready,” came the answer from
the radio car. “We’ve got our guns in

our hands. Nothing coming yet. Oh
yes, here comes something. Wait a
second. . . . No, it’s only a truck,”
Silence for a few seconds. Then: “This
is Patrolman Keck again. That truck
is getting closer. Can’t see anything
behind it until it’ passes. It’s almost
up to us now.”

More silence. Then: “Keck again!”
The voice was strident. “That coupé
just passed us! We're after it! We
didn’t see it until it shot from behind
that truck. I’m firing at it right now!
We're past the highway! I think it’s
lost its way! They’re shooting! Just
hit us! Right through the windshield!
We're cutting into Schiller Street now.
Think we can head it off at Schiller and
Trumbul. It’s headed for a dead-end
street and it’s got to cut over to Schiller

-and Trumbul unless it turns around!”

The voice in Headquarters barked
into the microphone. “Calling all cars
... calling all cars. . . . Go to Schiller
and Trumbul . . . Schiller and Trumbul.
That coupé is in the vicinity of the
Jersey Central Railroad yards. Be
careful not to hit Car Number Four at
Schiller and Trumbul . . . Schiller and

> Trurbul. .. .”

The veins stood out on the forehead
of the man in the radio room as he
gripped the microphone and listened to
the loudspeaker, ready to direct the
next move in the game being played on
the unseen board of life and death.

The voice of Patrolman Ernest Keck
came through again. “We’re at Schiller
and Trumbul! We see that coupé up
the street, coming this way. Wait a
second. It’s stopping! It’s lost! Must
see us! Looks like whoever’s in it: is
going to get out and make a run for
it! Yes, it’s stopped! We're getting
out... .”

- Patrolmen Keck and Leo Carolin
dashed’ to the street, a dismal, shabby
thoroughfare adjacent to.the yawning
yards of the New Jersey Central Rail-
road. Under the rays of a street light
two hundred feet distant, the patrol-
men saw two forms leap from the car

(Left, above) Albert (Whitey) Morton, one of the guilty men. Tor-
tured by his fears, he ended the hunt, which was under way for him, in
sensational fashion. (Left) Former Prosecutor Douglas M. Hicks, who
brought the surviving killer to justice, holds the shotgun they abandoned

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Legs Diamond died with a skinful

of lead, plenty of our more trusting
citizens have cherished the fond notion
that racketeering, as a crime issue, is
deader than prohibition. In rebuttal
whereof we cite the case of the now de-
funct Arthur. (Dutch Schultz) Flegen-
heimer.

Schultz was one of New York’s biggest
big shots. He was always in the heavy
money—controlled more rackets than he
could count on his pudgy fingers. But the
public heard little about him. Dutch
shunned publicity and managed to steer
clear of the courts.

Not long ago, however, as he was hid-
ing out from a federal
indictment at Newark,
N. J., gang enemies
put him and_ three
henchmen on. the spot.
Then the truth came
out, revealing some in-
teresting figures.

During the six
weeks before his death
—while he was “hot”
—Dutch collected
more than $800,000
from illegal sources.
The question is then raised, if Schultz
collected this staggering amount while
he was lying low, how much did he col-
lect when he really worked at his trade?
The answer to that may be found in a
reliable estimate which placed his yearly
“take” at $6,000,000 !

The rackets are not extinct in America.
Every large city has its counterpart of
the dead Schultz, civic leeches who fatten
on blood money. And they will continue
to prosper as long as grafting officials
and conniving shysters are allowed to
make bargain counters of our courts of
justice !

Goes Capone went to Alcatraz and

Dutch Schultz

Showing proof of police determination
to take no chances with desperate crim-
inals, Edward Metelski (left) and Paul
Semenkewitz, who recently made ‘a dar-
ing escape from the New Brunswick
jail, are pictured at Newark immedi-
ately after their capture in one of the
most elaborate manhunts ever staged in
the New Jersey district.

Bandit Busters—

cs ves authority to investigate rob-
beries of. national, federal reserve
and federally insured banks, America’s
G-men have hung up another enviable
record. According to a recent report
issued by J. Edgar Hoover, the federal
operatives have won convictions in 96.55
per cent of the robberies which have
come under their investigation.

Since the G-men entered the bandit-
catching field, bank stickups have been
more than cut in half. During the last
six months there were only 33 robberies
compared with 75 for a similar period
during 1934.

Good news for citizens and bad news
for crooks! The G-men do not intend
to rest upon the laurels won in the smash-
ing of the kidnap gangs. They have just
begun to fight!

Moronic Criminals—

GTERILIZATION as a crime pre-
ventive is finding increasing favor
throughout the country. A California
reader has the following comments on
this timely subject:

I firmly agree with Governor Fut-
rell of Arkansas (Nov. SDA) in his
statement that “A fourth conviction
should bring mandatory sterilization
and confinement for the rest of his
natural life.” I would make sterili-
zation mandatory on the third con-
viction.

But I do not agree with him on
capital punishment. I do not believe
in capital punishment. I believe that
sterilization and life imprisonment
will take care of, by far, a large pro-
portion of possible future murder
cases....I1 have made quite a
study of this subject and I can prove
that capital punishment is not a
deterrent for murder or any other
crime—Geo. T. Loher, Jr., Oak-
land, Calif.

We believe, with Mr. Loher, that
sterilization is the answer to the ques-
tion of what to do with our criminal
morons. And we have long been ad-
vocating life terms which carry no hope
of parole.

“One Of The Best”—

A RECENT contest winner sings the
praises of his favorite detective

magazine and tosses the following

bouquet to the Chief and his staff:

I have received the check for $10.
first prize in the Award of Honor
contest, for which TI thank you very

[Continued on page 80}

Agreements between states for crime suppression.
4. Curbing of indiscriminate possession of firearms.
5. Curbing of activities of lawyer criminals.
6. Co-operation between federal and state law officers.

STARTLING DETECTIVE ADVENTURES’ Anti-Crime Platform:

1. Stimulation of the full force of public opinion against crime. Fn
Establishment of a federal school for scientific training of law

and racial antagonism.

8. Laws eliminating abuse of parole and pardon powers and
from politics.
. Opposition to undue dramatizing of crime or criminals in
any publication or motion pictures.
Adoption by states of uniform, model codes of criminal procedure.

separating them

Orderly, lawful methods of dealing with industrial conflicts


veterans of many a brush with the law know that you’re a dead duck if you rub out a policeman.

glued on the road, snapped, “Give ’em the whistle,
Warren.”

Yenser raised the whistle to his lips, then sud-
denly lurched heavily against his partner, his head
falling over the wheel, Matey, confused by the
strange actions of his partner, momentarily lost
control, the car swerving crazily off the highway.

Just in time, he cheeked its mad. flight as it. -

headed straight for a telegraph pole.

Pushing Yenser away. with his Tight shoulder,
Matey shouted, “What’s wrong, Warren?”

In the pale glow from. the dashboard Matey
saw blood coursing down his partner’s face. Sud-
denly he realized that Yenser had been shot. The
roaring of the motors had deadened the report of
the bullet.

Maneuvering back onto the road, Matey pushed
the pedal to the floor. Precious seconds had been
lost, but he could still see the dancing red tail light

ini the distance. Manipulating the speeding car °

with one hand, he. loosened his holster and re-
moved his service revolver with the other.

Again the needle, rose with the rising crescendo
of the motor to 80; then 85... then 90. Slowly
but surely, the other car came into view. Now it
was less than 100 feet ahead and Matey snapped
the spotlight on the car, making it stand out
clearly in the bright glare.

Again the injured Yenser slumped over towards
him. This time Matey pushed his partner back
with his right hand. He gritted his teeth as he
thought, “Is Yenser dead?” . .

The smashing of glass interrupted the hum of
tires and motors. Someone in ‘the other car was
going to shoot throygh the rear window. Nothing
daunted, the avenging state trooper nodded with

satisfaction as his squad car kept gaining steadily:

every minute.

He saw a spurt of flame and then heard the me-
tallic “ping” of a bullet as it smashed into his ra-
diator. Grabbing the steering wheel with his right
hand, Matey leaned out the window and emptied
his gun at the car. But again Yenser fell sideways
against him, causing the car to careen wildly for a

PETE SEMENKEWITZ broke jail with
Metelski, but it wasn't long before
he was right back where he started.

chasing a traffic offender.
but he didn't live to find

few seconds. Fighting té keep it under control,
Matey saw the car disappear around a bend in the
highway. § atte

Spying an all-night diner, Matey drove into
the parking space with a screeching of brakes,
jumped out and ran inside. The counterman,
looked up in surprise as the disheyeled trooper
burst in at the door. .

“Got a phone?” snapped Matey.

“Yeah,” he nodded, indicating a wall phone.

“Take a look at my pal outside,” asked Matey,
inserting a coin in the box. . “He’s hurt, bad.”

The counterman' nodded and hurried outside.
A ‘few seconds lager Matey was talking to the
Elizabeth police. “There’s a car heading your way.
I think there’s two men in it. It’s a brand new
Chevrolet coupe, yellow wheels, Pennsylvania

- plates, number D-C-two-four-oh. Rear window

busted. They just shot my partner. Take no
chances, they’re armed!” ‘

Breathlessly, he hung up as the counterman
returned. One look at his face and Matey’s fears
were confirmed; fears he had hated to admit when
Yenser’s body slumped against his. .

“Nobody can do nothin’ for him,” said the
counterman. _ ‘

Matey sat on a stool and shook his head,
dazedly.

MEANwELS his call to Elizabeth had roused
that town’s police force into early morning
activity. Red lights flashed on all call boxes over
the town as a radio broadcast the alarm to cruis-
ing prowl cars, | . f

On the corner of Broad and East Jersey Streets
was a.call box used by policemen of two beats.
Patrolman Alex Geiger was the first to‘ receive the
news. Carefully recording the details, he hung up
after announcing, “Mike Morris is coming along
now. [ll tell him.”

Briefly Geiger relayed the instructions to his
comrade in blue. “How about getting that-cabbie
ready, just in case?” suggested Geiger, pointing
towards a taxi and its driver.

TROOPER WARREN YENSER thought he was

He was wrong,
out how wrong.

Crossing the street, Geiger ordered the cabbie
to run his motor and get ready. Suddenly a car
came tearing up East Jersey Street.

“Maybe this is it,”, muttered Morris, craning his
neck»

As the car shot past, its radiator hissing steam,
he exclaimed, “That’s it! Pennsylvania plates and
the rear window’s busted!”

While Morris sprinted across the street to call
Headquarters, Geiger jumped into the taxi and the
car spurted in pursuit,

pepe officer sat hunched over a huge map
of Elizabeth and it’s environs. With one hand
he was making rapid calculations and with the
other he was listening to Morris’ excited report.
According to the route followed by the Chevvy, it
was heading for Newark across the Jersey mead-
ows. He felt, too, that the car was trying des-
perately to get back on the main highway leading
to that metropolis and that if they stuck to East
Jersey Street they could come right into it.

He-grabbed the microphone and barked orders
to all cruising patrol cars:

“Make for the main highway and East Jer-
sey Street. Head off that coupe. Believe there
are two occupants. Be careful, they are armed.
Signing off.” -

The first prowl car to reach the intersection of
East Jersey and the main artery leading to Newark
was occupied by officers Keck’and Carolin. Both
men had their service revolvers ready for instant
use.

The faint glow of a new dawn showed in the
east as the two men waited tensely. A pair of head-
lights from an oncoming car flooded the darkness
of East Jersey Street.

“That look like it, Leo?” asked Keck, switch-
ing off his lights.

Officer Leo Carolin strained forward trying to
pierce’the gloom. “Don’t think so, Ernie, it looks
like a big truck to me. Yes, that’s what it is.”

As the huge truck came abreast of the patrol
car a smaller car shot out from behind its screening
shield and whizzed by the startled officers.

“There it is!” shouted Keck, hoarsely.

Carolin grabbed the transmitter. All squad cars
are equipped with a two-day communication sys-
tem enabling the men in them to talk to head-
quarters and vice versa.

“Patrolman Carolin calling,’ he snapped as the
squad car bolted forward in a burst of speed,
“That coupe just passed us goin’ like a bat outta’
hell! We’re after it. Now they’re shootin’ at us
and I’m firin’ back!”

The staccato sounds of pistol shots reverberated
over the ether as the radio officer sat in tense silence
listening to the drama coming over the airways.

“Keep after ’em, Carolin,” rooted the radio of-
ficer excitedly.

Carolin paid no heed to the words sputtering
over the speaker. Breathlessly he relayed the
events in the same manner as a fight announcer
gives the blow-by-blow description of a fight.

“Whew! A bullet just went through the wind-
shield! Right between Keck and me! We're gain-
ing on ’em. They’re turning into Schiller Street
now, heading for the tracks. Their goose is
cooked, it’s a dead end street!”

The man at Headquarters barked instructions
over the microphone to other prowl cars:

“Go to Schiller and Trumbull Streets. Fugi-
tives heading for railroad tracks. Be careful.
Keck and Carolin are right behind ’em. Sign-
ing off.”

“We're on Schiller Street,” barked Carolin.
“They're stopping. They know they’re stuck. Two
men“are jumping out and running towards the rail-

13


METH I5KI, Kdward elec NJ(Middlesex) August 4, 1936

OP KILL
DON’T LIVE LONG

‘
q
|

CORNERED: From out of the darkness Detective, Grauley and other shapes materialized. The killer knew he was trapped like a rat.

PRE-DAWN haze hovered over the’ New
Jersey countryside shortly before five
o’clock in the morning of November 9.

Flashes of lightning made weird patterns in the
sky as sounds of thunder rolled in from the
west.

Two state troopers, Warren Yenser and John
Matey, piloted their squad car along the New
York-Philadelphia highway a few miles from
Linden.

“I'd like to lay my hands on the guy driving
that car,” muttered Yenser, his lean jaws hard-
ening.

Matey nodded, but said nothing. i

12

(Specially posed)

By CHRIS SARGENT

Through the rear view mirror, Matey, who was
driving, saw a pair of headlights, pin points of
light in the distance, careening wildly and coming
fast. Could this be the car back again?

“Take a look, Warren, this may be ’em com-

ing,” instructed Matey.
- Yenser twisted in his seat and glanced back.
The steady hum of rubber on macadam reached
his ears. ‘It may be,” he waver softly. Well
know in a——”

‘The car shot past with a roar as the sakes of

an overheated radiator cut through the still nuet vi

air.
“Hear that wayside snapped ‘Yenser grimly

Matey stepped on the accelerator, the squad
car jumping as though propelled from a rocket.
They could make out the dim tail light of the
disappearing tar as it bobbed and weaved along
the highway a good half-mile ahead.

The two officers, their eyes glued on their speed-
ing quarry, saw the needle of the speedometer

- slowly tise from 60 to 65; then to 70 and 80. Now

they could see the car they were pursuing coming

‘ into focus as the drama unfolded on the silent

New. Jersey road.
Suddenly they saw its orange and black license

‘ plate in the glow of their powerful headlights and
_ then they’were abreast of the car. Matey, his eyes

a yy Ae
(2_20_ 2-9


COP KILLERS

continued

road vards. We're getting out. Signing off.”

Braking to a fast stop along the dirty, cobble-
stoned street, lined with vacant warehouses and
adjacent to the Jersey Central Railroad yards, the
officers jumped out and leveled their guns.

Running past the abandoned car, they spied the
two men making for an alleyway between” two
warehouses which lay directly alongside the tracks.

Spurts of orange flames and the ominous sounds
of bullets whizzing within inches of their heads
only spurred the two bluecoats.on. Returning the
fire, they saw the fugitives disappear among the
long line of box cars.

By now countless other squad cars had arrived
on the scene with the officers spreading fanwise
in an effort to head off the retreating killers, for
now it was a known fact that Trooper Warren G.
Yenser was dead. i

A half hour later,-Carolin, back at his squad
car, called headquarters: “Sorry, but we lost ’em.
We've found a shotgun and two empty whiskey
bottles in the car, along with a button. Looks like
the button came off an overcoat because it’s got
some heavy gray material sticking to it.”

“Good work, Carolin,” word came back, then:
“Bring in everything you can find for fingerprints.”

AIN had started to fall over northern New Jer-
sey some minutes ‘before. Men standing before
huge maps, planning the strategy in this chessboard
game of death, knew that beyond the railroad
yards were fields of wild weeds and that thé
ground would be muddy. Instructions were there-
fore issued for all policemen to be on the lookout
for anyone with muddy shoes and burrs on their
clothing and a missing button on a light gray
overcoat.
Like a giant octopus, the long, sinewy arms of

the law covered all railroad and bus terminals as

well as highways, tubes and ferries.

The Chevrolet coupe was found to have been
stolen the night before from a dentist in Phil-
adelphia.

Meanwhile Trooper Matey told of the circum-
stances leading to their first meeting with the
killers in the abandoned car. Listening attentively

ALBERT "WHITEY" MORTON, the other half
of the stick-up team, haunted by the spectre
of the electric chair, managed to cheat it.

14

DEATH CAR: The stolen Chevrolet whose occupants
answered police commands to halt with lethal gunfire.

to his story was Captain John J. are i Chief of
State Police detectives. .

“We were giving the driver of a nue a ticket
when this~ car suddenly appears. It swerved so
close to Yenser that it barely missed him by inches.
We hopped into the squad car and gave chase, but

by that time it had disappeared. We had just about .

given up hope when it showed again. The rest you
know.” ’

While this conference was in progress, a star-
tling event was taking place about. two miles
away. .

ATROLMAN Alex Geiger, making his rounds
after returning to his beat, stopped for a third
time at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station’ which
was on his rounds. For the third time he looked
questioningly at Leroy Rhodes, the ticket agent.

“Anything new?” he asked, hopefully.

The agent nodded. ‘Just sold a ticket to a guy
for Philly. He’s upstairs now. The train doesn’t
leave till 7:56.” z

Geiger glanced at his watch ... 7:15.

With eager steps he climbed to the train plat-
form above the street level. He swung his eyes
along the narrow station and spied a man with a
cap pulled low over his forehead. Even in the
dim light of a gloomy, overcast day he could see
he was wearing a gray overcoat. Geiger’s: eyes
sought the front of the coat. The bottom button

was missing! What’s more, the man’s shoes were -

wet and muddy.

Geiger drew his gun and advanced warily. The
man wheeled at the sound of the officer’s footsteps.
A look of surprise crossed his: round, swarthy fea-
tures. Spying the gun in the officer’s hand, he
threw his own hands skyward in a gesture of sur-
render. :

“What's the idea, copper?” he snarled.

“Keep ’em up, buddy,” warned Geiger, running
his free hand Seiad over the man’s form. He was
unarmed.

EN minutes later the man sat sulleinly’4 across

the desk from Captain Lamb. Seated nearby
were Prosecutor Douglas M. Hicks, then prose-
cutor of Middlesex County, and one of his
crack assistants, Detective Sergeant Walter L.
Simpson.

A search through the suspect’s pockets gave no
hint of his identity, A large amount of silver, plus

a few greenbacks and two silver dollars, were
found on him.
- “What’s your name?” asked Lamb.

“Eddie Woods.”

“Where you from?”

“Philly.”

A report lay on the desk stating that two men
had held up the Palm Gardens Cafe on Ridge
Avenue, Philadelphia, only two hours before the
murder of Trooper Yenser. Significantly enough,
$80, including two silver dollars had been taken.
There was little doubt that the man before them
was one of the holdup pair and perhaps a killer.

“Who was your partner?” asked Lamb.

“Partner?” muttered the man. he don’t know
what you’re talking about.”

Woods steadfastly denied that he had taken
part in any holdup; or had been in the Chevvy
when Trooper Yenser had been slain. It was evi-
dent to the officers that further questioning would

-be useless without something definite with which

to link the suspect to the murder.

The processing of the two whiskey bottles an-
swered this need. Several sets of prints were ob-
tained, one of which matched Wood’s prints per-
fectly. The shotgun and the abandoned car yielded
only smudges. ”°

Checking “Woods” fingerprints with the crim-
inal files in the Quaker City, it was soon learned
that the prisoner was really Eddie Metelski, no-
torious safecracker. and burglar who had a long
record.

Confronted by this proof of his true identity,
Metelski confessed to his real name, but clammed
up, refusing to give any further information.

At a conference in Hick’s office, Captain Lamb
said earnestly: “This man is a professional thug.
He won’t crack; there’s no use waiting for that.
I’ve just contacted the police of New. York and
Philly and there’s no record in their files match-

‘ing the second set of prints found on the bottles.

There’s only one thing to do, and that’s check up
on Metelski’s friends. That’s the only way we'll
learn who the other:man was.”

With this in mind, Detective Simpson was dis-
patched to Philadelphia. Assisted by Detective
William Leinhauser, who was familiar with Metel-
ski’s past, he learned that the latter had been seen
in the company of one Albert Morton, nicknamed
“Whitey” by his underworld cronies.

Playing both ends against the middle, Captain


FATAL BOTTLE! The gun proved nothing, but the whiskey
bottle, also found in the car, told an interesting story.

Lamb again confronted the prisoner. He mentioned
the names of several of Metelski’s close friends.
The suspect readily admitted knowing them, but
when Lamb casually mentioned the name of
Whitey Morton, he acted puzzled and shook his
head.

To the astute Captain Lamb that was the tip-
off. ““Whitey”” Morton had been his partner on
that fatal ride! :

Lamb received a setback, however, when it was
definitely ascertained that the second set of prints
on the bottles did not belong to Morton. Was there
a third person involved in the killing, or was Mor-
ton really innocent? Keck and Carolin had seen
only two men run from the car but they could
easily have been deceived in the hazy light cover-
ing the fog-enshrouded city.

Things started happening fast now. Detectives,
led by Sergeant Simpson, stormed “Whitey” Mor-
ton’s rooming house residence on North Sixteenth
Street in Philadelphia only to find their quarry
had flown. His wife said she hadn’t seen him in two
days and had no knowledge of his whereabouts.
She admitted that he knew an Eddie, but didn’t
know the last name. Simpson then put a 24-hour
tail on the house.

‘Meanwhile, a close watch was kept on Metel-:

ski’s home on Lentz Avenue in Newark. The only
road open to the officials was to wait.for the break.
They didn’t have long to wait.

A canvass of the neighbors around the Lentz
Avenue house revealed the interesting news that at
ten o’clock that morning a thin-faced man had left
Metelski’s home accompanied by a buxom girl
named “Babe” Connors. The man’s description tal-
lied with that of “Whitey” Morton.

ATE Saturday night, approximately seventeen

hours after Yenser’s murder, the telephone rang

on Captain Lamb’s desk. It was Detective Simpson
calling from the Quaker City.

“We’ve just picked up the Connors girl,” he
said. ‘She came with an empty grip to take away
his clothes.”

“Will she talk?”

Lamb could hear Simpson’ s chuckle. “Not that
girl. She’s tighter than a drum. From what I can
gather, ‘Whitey’ and the wife don’t hit it off any
too well.”

“Okay,” instructed Lamb, “bring her in, but
don’t let the newspapers know a thing about it.”

‘

Lamb’s idea was eventually to smoke out: Mor-

ton through the girl. Not knowing whether the -

girl had run out on him or had been picked up by
the cops, he’d leave his hideaway and come look-
ing, and the cops would be waiting.

‘He warned all officers working on the case to be
careful if and when they apprehended the killer,
for a .38-caliber slug had been dug out of the ra-
diator of the police car; and since no gun had been
found in the abandoned car or on Metelski, Morton
probably had it.

The mysterious fingerprints on the bottles were
explained when the movements of the murder duo

were closely checked into. They had stopped at a

roadside tavern following the cafe holdup and in-
vited the customers to take a “swig” from the
bottles. Some of the patrons had accepted, thereby
leaving their prints.

On Monday morning came startling news in this
thrill-packed. case. The landlady of a rooming
house on North Fifteenth Street, Philadelphia,
smelled gas escaping from one of her rooms. Fol-
lowing the fumes, she realized they came from a
room she had just rented on Saturday night to a
young man and his “wife.”

Notifying the police; the room was broken into
and a man was found sprawled in death, a suicide
by gas. Alongside him on the bed lay a newspaper
clipping telling of the fate usually meted out to
cop .killers—death in the electric chair.

Matching his fingerprints with those on file, it
was found that Albert “Whitey” Morton had
taken the easy way out. Tortured by a gnawing
fear of the chair and worried over the continued
absence of the Connors girl, he had ended his life.

Further reconstruction of the crime convinced
the authorites that they had the actual killer of
Trooper Yenser under tock and key. Morton was
known in the Philadelphia underworld as an ex-
pert driver, and witnesses to the Palm Gardens
holdup testified it was Morton who jumped behind
the wheel when the pair made their getaway.

ETELSKI was quickly indicted and held for

trial. However, two days before the big show,

on Saturday, December 14, 1935 Metelski and a

young hoodlum, named Pete Semenkewitz, es-
caped from the Middlesex County Jail!

Captain Lamb was infuriated when told the

news. Metelski had homicidal tendencies and in

effecting his sensational escape had almost killed

]

another man. He and Semenkewitz had entered
a garage across the street from the jail and badly
beaten up a mechanic, but fled without obtaining
their objective, a car. But Lamb knew they
wouldn’t be long without one. He broadcast a
warning to motorists to take extra precautions
with their cars.

Checking on recent visitors to Metelski he

‘ learned that the day before’ the break he had

talked with some close relatives and a Joan Men-
kowitz, husky-throated night-club singer.

Questioning the relatives, Lamb was convinced
they had nothing to do with their son’s break, but
the Menkowitz girl was another story. Heavily
rouged, with carmine lips and a voluptuous figure,
she stared at her interrogators insolently.

“How did Metelski get that gun?” snapped
Lamb. (The killer had flashed a gun in effecting
his break.)

“How should I know?” was the sullen answer.

“Where is Eddie now?”

An insolent smile played around the corners 'of
her mouth. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she
mocked.

Lamb decided to dispense with efforts to make
her talk. There was no doubt she had sneaked a
gun into Eddie’s cell, enabling him to overcome
two guards and escape from the small jail.

Prosecutor Hicks’ office became the hub around
which a gigantic web was being spun in Middlesex
County. Feverish activity was everywhere; tele-
types clicked, calls were made to warn all law
enforcement officers who, in turn, notified all
cruising patrol cars to be on the alert.

Highways, tunnels and (Continued on page 42)

peed Shr a eee ot ae

EDWARD METELSKI,
burglar and stick-up artist. These dubious accom-
plishments helped to plant him in the hot-seat.

notorious safe cracker,

15


ne eT

"jewelry, adding machines, even cases

~-" back to Verona

a - ps . ©
ONA police, meanwhile, had | notified -
_ ~ Union pA part of tue boy’s confession.

Mike’s fataer was arrested in his home at 2

cheer ang the house and found
two rifles, two pistols and six boxes of 38-
caliber shells. In the cellar they esr
i radios, typewriters,
cache of stolen items— pe
bonded whiskey. : é
That night Mike was placed in a county
parental home and his father was brought
for more questioning.

“=~ As soon as the story hit the newspapers—

- Escorted by detectives,

Gegecie Monahan hatless, leaves scene of murder.

joined him there about 10 a.m.
' pup decided it would be an easy place to
stick up on account of the package store in
the front,” Mike said. “We waited till the
place was empty, then I jumped the old
guy behind the bar. He looked at the gun and
laughed so I let him have it—pow, pow,
pow!” The boy —* —— he was
ing a of cops ro ;
are S gertics me Mike and his father
drove aroun ove hana eypw ay eaeor
neh id. “We had a_ safe. Then they went to

at Ragen Pings! he eget it outta “emptied the - a fg = 2
oe car. I don’t know‘ where it is now. i o beeing ein “Pop nodded
to let him have it, so I did. Right in the
back. Pow! Pow! Then we took off.” :

Afterwards, Mike said, they saw a big crowd

th in front of the tavern. =e 5
age rth said-it would look suspicious if
they didn’t mingle with the other people. Se
they joined the crowd and wandered into the
bar again. They stood around and watched
the detectives examine the bodies of the two
men. Then they strolled out of the bar, got
into the car and drove off. On their way

¥ tossed the gun into a river.

“So charged with first degree murder.
And for once, detectives had little trouble
breaking Mike’s father down. The father
told essentially the same story, except for one
thing. He insisted that he was the one who=
had fired the fatal shots which killed the two’
men. Two days later, police still had two
conflicting confessions.

: job they meant.
So st aya
murders of Sebastian Weilandics and
Diskin, Jr. :

Early the next morning,
drove over to Verona to
about the P

Monahan sat on his cell cot and picked
at the knees of his baggy overalls and stared

Thursday, Ebert
talk to Monahan

HAT Saturday, Union County Prosecutor
H. Russell Morss, Jr., decided to bring the
father and son face to face. When they met,
Mike looked at his.father and, for the first
time since he’d been arrested, the boy broke

“['m sorry, Pop,” he sobbed. “I had to tell
. I had to.” :
pens close to tears himself, patted his
n the shoulder.
That's okay, kid,” he said huskily. “You
can'tell them the whole truth now.
Detectives led Mike into another room
where he retracted his confession. “t only said
I did it because of Pop,” he said. His lips
trembled. “Pop said he’d burn in the electric
chair if anyone ever found out he had done
it.” He buried his face in his hands. I guess
T’ve let everyone down,” he said. “They even
took my dog away from me.”

in which Mike’s father was referred to as a
“Fagin” burglar—detectives all _over no
Jersey began clamoring for the list of rg
During the next 72 hours, Mike and 1
father were questioned in nine different cities.

By Wednesday, teams of detectives had con-
firmed nearly 100 of the burglaries listed by
the father and son. Late that ——
night, Union detectives were still busy check-
ing the list of loot hidden in the Monahan
house. Detective Don yom "i? up from

i “That’s funny,” he said.
what's funny?” his chief asked.

Ebert pointed at the list of confessed burg-
laries. “The kid said he and the old man got
a Marlin rifle and a 9-millimeter pistol from
that store job in Milburn two months ago.

“ ”

gy the rifle and a clip of 9-milli-

Mike’s father was charged with first degree
urder that night.
The following day Mike’s mother asked =
rmission to visit her husband and ——
When ‘she learned that prison yoy ez
her to visit only one of them, she chose sl
son. “I’m sure that Mike needs me more,
she said, simply. ;
. The prosecutor’s office, meanwhile, _ the
murder charge against the boy —_ stick.
“The law says the boy be ne
i i i ia esman .
BERT stiffened. The other detectives in trial wig rage 7 —_ ee
fell silent. The boy didn’t wait When 3 ae 5 ak
am anwer, He stared talking 4! ae eee - first time he had cried in
for an answer. _ stat talkin g. a
ape as urs >. == SG but he could _ waplns tears.
an body : i They were too late—too late ve 4
y her and, in a . oe in
oun ice, Mike pay the following story: too late Md uly oF ee Ss ee
Mike had ‘to report to his probation officer barroom floor,

’ Ebert saw that Monahan wasn’t going to say
any more. He left.
Forty-five minutes
Mike at police headquarters.
him straight. ;
neMike,” he said sternly, “what do you
know about that Elizabeth job? , é
The kid’s eyes widened. “I didn t yoo
you knew about that one,” he whispered. -
you want me to teil you. about it right now

later he was talking to
Ebert put it to

x

4
4
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4
2
tl
4

Bota L

adh acicatbar Rib atte 2

4

ot ea

tee is

A Woman, A Brandy

~_- O’Connor doubled the number of flyers that
went. out to neighboring states asking for in-
formation on the Aspirin Bandit, or Tea Party
Bandit as the newspapers chose to dub him

‘And An Aspirin, ~
~ Please
continued from page 37

<

Was assumed she had been killed shortly after

neon.

The necktie with which the girl had been
strangied did not belong to Pappas, but it was
a cheap tie of common design and could not
be easily traced. The only thing of value they
could find was a good clear print lifted from
one of the brandy giasses.

“She saust have known her caller,” O’Connor
said gently, trying to drag some shred of a
clre from the grief-ridden Pappas. “She let
him into the apartment. She served him cof-
fee...she...”

“No,” Pappas said gruffly. Kitty had spoken
little English. She did not make friends easily.
The shopkeepers, yes, she knew them all.
They liked Kitty. But she was so shy . . . she
did not like to be alone with peorle. The
friends they had were John’s friends, people
he brought home. And they were not people
who had time for coffee in the afternoon,
or brandy. He gestured with one stiff hand
toward the table. “And they are not killers,”

“But, Mr. Pappas, this man did not force
his way in here. He did not...”

“It’s a trick, some horrible, terrible trick,”
Pappas said brokenly. “My Kitty would not
let a stranger in here . . . and a friend would
not kill her. No, I cannot help you.” He
buried his face in his hands and his shoulders
shook convulsively.

“Chief, Chief!” It was Acting Captain
Charles Armstrong. He stood in the doorway
of the bathroom and motioned to O’Connor.
“I think we've got the answer.”

O'Connor walked over to him.

Armstrong held up an aspirin bottle, empty.
“This was on the bowi here.”

The chief wrapped the bottle in his hand-
kerchief and dropped it in his pocket. The
Aspirin Bandit. “Mr. Pappas,” he said, walk-
ing back into the living room. “Do you own
@ car?”

Pappas looked up. “No. I cannot drive.”

“Have you recently lent any money to
anyone? A stranger, a smail sum?”

Pappas shook his head. “I do not borrow,
I do not lend.” ;

“Have you given out your name and ad-
dress to anyone, written it down? Given it to
a stranger?”

“What is this? I am not a fool. Strangers
have no right to my address. Bums, tramps,

after the Pappas slaying. “Make a careful

search of files for man who gains entrance by |

subterfuge, claiming to know husband,” the
fiyers read. “After gaining entrance and get-
ting woman’s confidence, he mugs her, then
ties hands and feet with necktie, dish towel
or other household material and steals money
and jewelry.”

The inspector was stunned by the response
he received. Twenty-four cases were reported
from such cities as Washington, Philadelphia,
Trenton, and Newark, ail ranging up and
down the eastern seaboard within a 100-mile
radius of New York City.

O’Connor pulled out a set of road maps,
ran a pencil from New York to every city
from which reports were received and found
that the bandit was working just two high-

ways, US 1 and New Jersey 25. His list of |
aliases now read -like a national draft list. |
He had added new names from Practically

every country in the world; Murtaugh, Clark,
Mikos, Larson.

« ANY boob who thinks he can pass himself

off as both a Greek and a Swede is bound
to come a cropper some time,” O’Connor said.
But the bandit’s croppers were discouragingly
well scattered and when, at the end of the
week, a young Bronx housewife was ‘savagely
attacked’ in her home, such’ a howl of protest
went up that it wiped all war news from the
front page.

Detectives were staked out along both high-
ways the bandit worked, US 1 and New Jer-
sey 25, and instructed to talk with motorists,
gas station attendants and hitchers. There was
one detective who, on his own time with
nothing but a prayer and a C ration card,
toured up and down the roads, hoping the |
bandit. would wag him down. He gave more j
lifts than a $20 bra, but not one of them was
the borrowing bandit.

Other men were assigned to interview each
of the victims.

And the reports began to drift in: Medium |
height, stocky build, sharp nose, dark hair.
Deep scar on right cheek, three acne nodules
above bridge of nose. Wears blue-green over-
coat and yellowish shoes. “A dozen

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and one pair of shoes,” Edward Burns, acting
lieutenant of the Bathgate Avenue station
said. “If he just sticks to those-shoes and that
coat, we ought to get him.”

Tt was a trucker who remembgged some-
thing.

“That son of a .

A

. . ‘I gotta sick sister,’ he
says. ‘I’m broke and want to visit her.’ I
: give him a quarter and rode him 20 miles in
PATIENTLY the Inspector told him of the my truck. He tells me he wants to return the

Aspirin Bandit, of his way of operating and money. A quarter and he wants to return it. |
of their suspicion mow that the bottle had I shoulda known then I was dealing with a |
been found. “We do not know who he is.

‘crackpot. I told him keep it. I told hi
We have a dozen names for him, none of oy oe

busy-bodies. I have no time for them.”

Execauive Accountants and C. P. A's earn $4. 080
macs of firma need them. We train Tou thorely ai heave
Bm fer CP. A's

Eara big daily
commismons. Be a

forget it. No, he says, gimm:
them his own. But we will find him, Mr. address. He your name and
Pappas. Now we will find him.”
“Yes,” Pappas said bitterly, without looking

up. “Now you'll find him.” do

|

|

|

Z A you mean, stcard |

For several days after the murder, O’'Con- preacher?” the Getective shar ie
nor’s promise seemed like a mockery. A crum- “Oh he was a nut, all right, a real nut. I |

pled tie, a fingerprint and more than a strong shoulda guessed it. He told me
suspicion that the Aspirin Bandit was the of Boys Town. Said that was
killer was all the investigators had to go om. West run by a
The items stolen from the Pappas home failed Flanagan, Father
to turn up in the pawn shops.

some place out |
Preacher, a fellow named |

4 - He told me he |
was a good friend of this preacher fellow. He |

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Right in the heart of
Elizabeth, across from
the courthouse, the two
killers struck — twice —

With a Fagin Too

Close to Home

It Might Have Been a Lesson in Crime, This Slaying of

Two Men in Elizabeth, New Jersey—Someone Teaching,

Someone Else How to Kill. Otherwise the Mechanics of -

The Case Didn't Make Much. Sense to Police, Until—

N A city the size of Elizabeth, New
Jersey, with a population of
112,000, the shopping section gen-

erally is crowded when the noon hour
approaches on a Saturday.’

The seventh’ of March, 1953, was
typical—men and women thronged the
stores looking for bargains, the streets
were jammed, automobiles crawled al-
most bumper to bumper. At 11:55
a.m., Patrolman Walter Pietrowski was
directing traffic at Elizabeth Avenue
and South Broad Street, opposite the

12

Union County courthouse in the heart
of the business district.

As the signal light changed color, the
officer motioned ahead the cars on
South Broad, At the same time, a man
darted off the sidewalk into their path.
Pietrowski blew his whistle as a truck
almost knocked the man down.

“Officer!” the man cried. “In the
bar! A man—he’s dead, covered with
blood!” He pointed to the Shamrock
Bar on South Broad Street. '

Pietrowski rushed with him to the

OFEICIAL

eo

ui L ri /

DETECTIVE

place, a few doors away, and quickly
discovered that the story was only half
right; two men were inside, both obvi-
ously shot to death.

It was an unusual tavern, about 35
feet long and only a dozen feet wide,
hidden from view of the street by a
liquor store in front. One man lay face
up just inside the doorway between the
liquor shop and ‘the bar; his clothes
were drenched with blood. The other
was sprawled in a rear doorway leading
to the back yard. ©

Pietrowski noticed, immediately the
cash register with its open drawer. It
held only three pennies. :

This was a case for Homicide men.
The patrolman notified County Prose-
cutor H. Russell Morss, Junior, who
was in his office in the courthouse
across the street. Morss, recently in-
ducted into his position, hastened over
with County Detective Chief Louis T.

-Lombardi. In a few minutes almost a

score of .officers arrived, including
Detective Captain August F. Winkel-
mann, Police Captain Nicholas A.
Migliore and Doctor George W. H.
Horre, county physician.

Doctor Horre felt the body of the
first man; it was still warm.

“This fellow was shot three times in

' the back,” the Doctor said. “He died

instantly, and it couldn’t have hap-

pened more than fifteen or twenty |

minutes ago.”

He then examined the second man.

“And this one got two bullets in the
chest,” he announced. “Good-sized
bullets.”

The veteran police officers surveyed
the scene. The bar, running from the
rear door all the way to the package-
store partition; the back-bar mirror,

. Shattered now; the long walls deco-

rated with fading pictures of famous
boxers, baseball players and noted race
horses; the telephone booth—with a
bullet hole in it.

John P, Ward, the man who had dis-
covered the crime, reported that he
had gone into the bar for a drink,
stumbled over the body in the doorway
and paused only long enough to see if
he could do anything for the man. -

“But I realized he was dead and I

scooted out as fast as I could,” he .

explained. “I knew an officer. was on
duty at the corner.”
He had seen nobody leaving as he

- entered the kar, he declared.

GSS

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This man was the instructor, police say, although he .
neglected to tell his pupil about his years in prison

The question of how several shots
could be fired without attracting the
attention of- shoppers only a few feet
away was not too puzzling, for the
partition between the tavern and ‘the
store would muffle noises effectively.
However, the bar was only one of
several shops in the same building, and
detectives and uniformed police in-
stigated an immediate canvass. Some:
one might have heard: something. -

“I don’t see any sign of a struggle,”
Lombardi said. ‘The killer must have
been trigger-happy,” He Pointed to
an opened newspaper on the bar. “This
first man probably was sitting on the
stool reading when the robber came in.
No glass.on the bar; he wasn’t drinking.

“However, we'll worry about that -

later. You get their names, Doctor?”

“Not yet on this one,” the Doctor re-
plied, pointing to the first man. “No
papers. The other is Sebastian. Weil-
andics, the bartender.” He handed the
Detective Chief the wallet he had

found in the man’s pocket. It contained
- Several cards and twelve dollars in bills.

On one of the cards was Weilandics’
address and Lombardi sent a detective
to notify his family. He lived on East

Elizabeth Avenue in Linden, New
Jersey.

Who was the: other victim? One of
the uniformed policemen in the bar
thought he recognized him: it’ was
Fred Durrschmidt, a former bus driver
and son of a local fire captain, the
officer said,.and Captain Winkelmann
directed him to get in touch with the
Durrschmidt family. ‘

Meanwhile, examination of the man’s
effects yielded $37 in bills. Chief Lom-
bardi read the cash register tape, which
showed a total of $53.25.

“Two lives for the price of a suit of
clothes,” Lombardi muttered. “And the
stickup man overlooked almost fifty
dollars in his victims’ pockets.”

Photographers were now on the job

_ taking pictures of .the bodies and the

eeu t \

Sega es le ee Gates ceed Bais Cte kt pn ieay

The maestro, bald-headed Eugene Monahan, and his pupil, Michael,

who learned his lessons well—except that about working alone

By George K. Wynne

' Special Investigator for

‘OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES

'

general scene, and finger-print men
were looking for clues. As soon as the
cameramen were finished, the bodies
were removed and police had to push
their way through a crowd of men and
women clustered outside the Shamrock.

Inside, officers were going through
the place inch by inch. They examined

the shattered back-bar glass and they

dug out the bullet from the telephone
booth. This tavern had only one
entrance to the back-bar, through a
small door leading from the package
store. The pattern of the double killing
became apparent, .

“The way I see it,” said Winkelmann,
“the killer came in and found Durr-
schmidt at the bar reading the paper
and opened fire without warning. Then
he leaped over the bar, opened the
register and emptied it.

“The bartender must have been out
in the back yard. He came in to see
what the shooting was about and he
was dropped by a couple of slugs in the
chest. Then the killer went out the
front way and mixed with the crowds
and beat it.”

Chief Lombardi agreed. “It sounds
logical, and if that’s what happened
we're going to be stuck with a beaut.
This could be a hopped-up, trigger-
happy punk.” .

Captain Migliore meanwhile had dug
three bullets out of the mirror behind
the bar and one from the telephone
booth. Scattered around the floor were

seven shell casings.

“The gun that was used is a for-
eign make—probably a nine-millimeter
Luger,” he said. “I found four of these
shells near the front door and three

.near where Weilandics was killed.”

He placed bullets and casings in an .-

shoe Mate se NAS NS

envelope and handed it to Chief Lom-
bardi for ballistics tests.

Officers had questioned several men
from near-by stores who might have
been in a position to see or hear what
went on. . But no one could help.

William Lemkul, employed in a store
on Elizabeth Avenue near Broad Street,
said that at 11:45 a. m. he had parked
his automobile in the yard behind the
tavern and saw nothing out of the
routine.

“I didn’t hear a sound,” he declared.
“And I’m sure the bartender wasn’t
in the yard when I was there.” He was
Positive that the time was 11:45.

Louis Lorentzen, who lived -in the:

‘Campbell Hotel, not far away, had been:

in the yard from 10:45 to eleven and
had seen nothing unusual. Michael
Lettieri, proprietor of a confectionery
and tobacco shop‘ next door to the
tavern, recalled hearing “hammering
and thudding” a little after 11:30 but
he had paid no attention because ren-
ovation work had been under way in
the building for several days,

Perhaps a customer had been going -
out of the tavern just before the killing-_
and had seen the killer come in. Half
a dozen men in the yicinity admitted
that they had stopped at the Shamrock
that morning but all had left Jong be-
fore the estimated time of the shooting.
The Shamrock was one of those places ..
which, though in the heart of a busi-
ness district, enjoyed a clientele much
like a neighborhood taproom, the same
customers dropping in for.a drink or ie
a sandwich about the same time every ~
day. They knew Weilandics and he .
knew them by name. See

The only strangers in the place be

(Continued on Page 51)

mer


clared, “who are really a couple of local
characters. When I looked into it, I
found out they had been in Wichita the
day the bank was robbed. While I
haven’t any evidence to hold them on I
thought I'd tell you fellows so you might
send someone down here to talk to
them. We've got them. under (Surveil-
lance and if they should decide to leave
town we'll try to pick them up on some-
thing until you get here.” ° ;

As soon as the message from Willibey
was completed, the deputy relayed it
to the FBI office. : .

While the two bandits had not been

described as Indians, special agents
nevertheless were dispatched immed-
jately to Sapulpa. Any and every lead,
no matter how small or insignificant it
Seemed, was investigated to the fullest
extent. As the case grew older, the trail
grew colder and bumpier, The more
time the bandits had, the easier it would
be for them to escape apprehension.

Late that night, information was re-
ceived from Sapulpa that the two In-
dians could not supply a suitable alibi
for their actions during their stay in
Wichita. Agents decided to keep them
inder further surveillance until the
\uthorities had something more defi-
lite, one way or the other,

Tuesday and Wednesday passed and
luring this time not a bit of evidence,
angible or otherwise, cropped up. Five
ays had
fficers had dug up every possible lead.
could not be found to
latch those on the car, bank telephone
t coffee cups; hundreds of photo-
taphs, from those of small, penny-
ate thugs to those of Suspected killers,
ad been placed before the holdup vic-
ms ‘but none of them could pick out

1€ as resembling either of the bandits. i

x-convicts and the usual underworld

\formers were questioned, but nobody...
1ew a thing. Or at least nobody was

king. :
Shortly after eight a. m. Thursday

etectives Prowse, Klepper and Han-

on talked it over,

“We've done everything I can think

*" Prowse told his partners. “Two

nateurs pull a Seven-thousand-dollar

‘ist and neither the FBI, the Police

‘partment nor the Sheriff ’s Office can

t a line on them.” ;

As the detectives conversed about the

ie, the telephone on- Prowse’s desk

1g.

Che dispatcher was calling, “A wom-
by the name of Mrs. Loren Boley,
) lives just a half block from where
getaway car was found last Satur-
‘morning, called and said she found
le clothing in her incinerator this
ming and thinks it may belong to
bank bandits. I’ve Sent Officer
ncis Lane out there.”
oon after he reached Mrs. Boley’s,
cer Lane was examining a striped
wn suit coat, a purple shirt, a pair
rown gloves, a green checked sports
/ and a baseball-type cap with a
‘sparent visor on the bill.
rs. Boley told
ide to burn
t to work that morning. “I probably
too, if Ir
1't noticed that purple shirt stick-

robbers was wearing
thing like that.”

‘ith a Fagin Too Close to Home (continued trom Page DD) sinc,

he shooting appeared to have been
1 and a boy, who had dropped in
eleven o'clock. :
‘e man had a drink and the boy
soda pop,” one patron recalled.
‘sat and talked awhile, then went

ther steady patron reported that
i been in the bar about a quarter
ven that morning when a sSeedy-
& youth entered.

if I game question,

“Where is your

Mrs. Boley?” Officer Lane

“I'll show you,”

incinerator located,

for the officer to follow her through the
d

~ house and, out the

Mrs. Boley pointed to a large, ‘iron
barrel situated at the end of their back-

yard, near a fence

Boley property and that of a neighbor.
Hf

Seen the two men
robbery,

The woman shook her head. “I wasn’t
at home because I don’t get off work

until five o’clock.”
At the police la

boratory, Detectives

Klepper, Prowse and Hannon examined
the clothing. On the purple shirt Prowse
found a small, faded laundry tab, its
numerals barely distinguishable,

_In going over the

brown coat, Klepper

discovered numerous cleaners’ marks

imprinted on
almost completely
“Well,” declared

the lining, but they were

faded away.
Hannon, “it looks

like we have a long, hard job ahead of

us. It’s not

going to be easy to hit all

. the cleaners and laundries in town. And
these marks may not have even been

made here.”

decided th

THEY :
’ FBI agent would canvass the town’s

cleaners with the

at Klepper and an

Coat while Prowse,

annon and an agent would take the

laundry tab from

the shirt and try to

was printed.

A mild-mannered and congenial clerk
at the Reid Company told the detectives

that he couldn’t tel
them

1 them off-hand but
the past year’s in-

When the clerk brought out the stack

of receipts, the th
it with apprehensio:

ree men looked at
n.

“We'll be here a year at least,” Prowse

said, taking off his

coat.

The three men started their work.

Prowse went

by one, and as he

through

ceipt showing the kind of tab they were
looking for, he handed it to either Han-

‘ laundries tabbed their customers’ cloth-
tag exactly like the

had found on.the

Because the list had not been com-

Piled in alphabeti
started at the top
He dialed each

answers. Yes,
mark, we don’t

cal order, Prowse
and headed down.

laundry and asked the

Finally, on the 37th call, the detec-
te. se

tives got a bite.

\

“He asked for a
the bartender would
could tell there was

‘ing parlor.

Sr he

Aenea

Station, the three men hurried from
the supply company and out to a West
Side laundry,

Dooley. But there had been no fitst
name, initials or address, At 1

“Do you have a list of all the receipts
you’ve kept for this Dooley?” queried
Prowse.

“Yes. But they’re filed alphabetically
and we have quite a few customers
named Dooley,”

™~ “About the only thing we can do,”
the FBI agent Suggested, “is to go
through all the laundry tickets until
we come across one with this purple
shirt listed.”

And it started all over again. Tickets,
tickets and more tickets. Finally the
three men came across one which had
a purple shirt listed, The same man
had had

ley was July 20,

The detectives asked the employe if
she remembered anything at all about
the fellow with the purple shirt, :

“I’m truly sorry,” she answered, “but
I don’t. However,
here last Summer might be able to help

Thumbing through several] Pages in
the record book,
mother’s name and 8ave it to Prowse.

Another

This time no one
answered the phone,

“Operator,” the detective said, “will
you find out.the address
ber for me?”
intention was to
then call the local sheriff in hopes that
he would be able

he worked for a meat-packing company .
in Wichita. Armour, I believe, And I
think his first name was Harold.”

, She also told Prowse that Dooley had
and @ son. That
was as much as she knew.

After the call, Hannon first went
through the police file to see if they had
anything on a Harold Dooley. They did
have. Harold Dooley, whose age would
now be 25, had a juvenile record.

That places him as about the same
age as one of the bandits,” said the FBI
agent.

Frank Mannion, owner of the tavern,
identified Weilandics

pectedly, on Thursday, the day before
the robbery.

“Why, I don’t know,”
said.
was in a little financial trouble.
‘didn’t say a word when he quit, he just
up and left,”

“What did Dooley look like?” Prowse
asked,

“Kind of short, black hair, stocky,”

“Did you ever see his wife?”

“Yeah. She's a blonde, a little gal,
even shorter than he is,”

Records listed Dooley’s current ad-
dress and five detectives drove out ina
agg Squad car to Wichita’s South

e.

Driving past the unlighted Dooley
house, the men Noticed an accumula-
tion of newspapers piled on the front
Porch,

Klepper whirled the car around and
Parked in ‘front of the house.

‘Apparently nobody’s home,” ‘Han-
non remarked. : ;

“I think you're right,”
swered.

“Let's take a look,” Prowse said, and
the men piled out of the car,

he house was empty, all right,
Hannon and Klepper questioned the
neighbors.

A man living directly south said he
had seen Dooley and his wife, their son
and Dooley’s brother-in-law leave in
their car almost a week before. “In
fact,” the man Said, “it was on Friday
afternoon, about five o’clock, I'd Say.”
ma were they going?” Klepper

e

the manager

Klepper an-

“T believe they mentioned Something .

rae going to Missouri, Carrollton, I
n ape

And then the clincher question. One
of the agents asked, “What kind of a
car did they have?”

“A Pontiac, one of those Catalina
jobs. A two-tone blue.”

ROM that point on, the FBI took over.
They flagged their Kansas City of-.

M Y claimed
that he admitted his complicity in the
Rose Hill bank robbery and implicated
his brother-in-law, James Robert Pitts,
27, who was arrested in a Kansas City,
Missouri, hotel a few hours later,

The agents, at the time of Dooley’s

. arrest, recovered $5,879 of the bank

money, they said.

After: several hours of questioning,
the two men agreed to sign written con.
fessions that they had committed the
robbery, the FBI announced.

On Saturday, April 4, 1953, Dooley:
and Pitts were brought before United
States Commissioner Charles H,
Thompson in Topeka, Kansas, They
waived preliminary hearing. ‘

On Friday, April 24, both men were
found guilty in Federal Gburt in Wichi-
ta and sentenced to 20 years’ imprison-
ment for bank robbery and five years,
on a supplementary count. .

Read It First In
AL DETECTIVE STORIES

‘

“He was my day bartender,” he said.
“A fine man although he’s been with
me only about three months. He used
to work in New York near the Metro-
Politan Opera House and met a lot of
the famous stars. But he got tired of
working the night shift so far from
home.”

When the chance for a day job came,
Mannion said, Weilandics had seized it,
for he had Something to do by day and

- 51

“The rumors I heard indicated he.

aaegepepeene

Oe

LS RE RTP

wae,

_ trouble.

Police offici

“Sure is. But he won’t give you no
Now quit worrying.”

They arrived at Irvington and’ soon
were slowly rolling past the parked
bus. They pulled up around the cor-
ner. Monahan took out the shoe polish
and smeared Mike’s face with it. Then
‘he took off his hat and jacket and
handed them to the boy.

“Put ’em on. Nobody will ever know
you with them on.”

Mike did as he was told and stuck
the gun inside his belt. He was half-
way out of the car when he saw a
policeman round the corner. The boy
turned white.

“I can’t,” he whispered desperately.
“That cop will see me.”

Monahan grunted, starting the en-—

gine. “Okay, okay. Some other time.”

That September Mike was picked up
by the police, charged with stealing
money from a tavern. The barkeep
recalled that Mr. and Mrs. Monahan
had been drinking there and that
their son had come in just a few min-
utes before 2 a.m., closing time.

“T saw him sit down and have a.

Coke,” the bartender told investigating
officers. “Next minute I looked he was
gone. I figured he’d headed home.”
On Monday morning the discovery
was made that the cash register had
been looted.
The detectives discovered a pair of

small footprints on the top bundle of

als tell reporters that the two Monahans had
confessed to nearly 150 burglaries in northern New Jersey.

a high stack of packaged paper towels
in the men’s room. The stack was in

a dark corner, and the investigators

theorized that a boy could have
climbed up to the top, hidden there,

_and looted the tavern after it had closed

for the night.

IKE WAS picked up for question-
ing. He looked pale, thin and
scared, and he was dressed in worn
clothes—a plaid lumber jacket and cot-
ton pants. It wasn’t difficult to get him
to confess.

“Tell me, kid,” a detective said, “how
much did you get?”

“Four dollars. That’s all.” His voice
became almost inaudible. “I didn’t
mean to. I didn’t want to get in trouble,
but it was my Pop’s birthday and I
didn’t have no money.”

The officers couldn’t help feeling sorry
for the nervous youngster. “Let’s give
him another chance,” one of them said.
“He looks like he’s learned his lesson.”

The others agreed and Mike was re-
leased. Juvenile authorities paid a call
at the Monahan home later that day
and told Mike’s parents to keep an eye
on him. Monahan acted as though he
really belonged in his respectable sur-
roundings.

“Yes sir,” he said, “we'll do every-
thing we can. Can’t understand what

got into the kid, but you can bet he

won’t get into any more scrapes.”

So far as the authorities were con--

cerned, Monahan kept his word. The
boy went to school regularly, didn’t stay
out at night and reported to his pro-
bation officer every Saturday morning.

What the authorities didn’t know was
that Miké and his sad-faced father left
their home many a night in search of
“easy” money. By March 1, 1953, they’d
racked up so many burglaries that the
police of nine cities in the area were
going in circles.

On March 7, however, officials in
Elizabeth, N. J., became concerned with
a crime much more serious than bur-
glary. That morning two bodies were
found in the Shamrock Bar in down-
town Elizabeth. The victims were Se-
bastian Weilandics, 63, the bartender,
and Williams Diskin, Jr., 27. An early-
morning customer discovered them.
Weilandics lay in a pool of blood be-
hind the bar, and Diskin lay crumpled
near the door. Both had been shot.

The wonder was that no passerby had
heard the shots, for the crime, medical
examination showed, had _ occurred
about 10 a.m., when the street was alive
with shoppers. Six spent cartridges on
the floor were from a 9-millimeter

Luger.

Police learned that Weilandics, the
father of six children, had taken the job
only three weeks before. Diskin, who
lived a few blocks from the tavern and
who was Weilandics’ friend, had stopped

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in to say hello on the way to bse
a dental appointment.

Outside of the cartridge cases, there
were no clues. No one in the block had
seen any suspicious person leaving the
bar. Within 48 hours the case had
ground to a complete standstill.

Meanwhile, the father-and-son bur-
glary combination was still very much
in business. The ex-con had concluded
that it was getting too hot around
Newark and -Elizabeth and had tagged
Verona as a nice place in which to
work. Verona is a small town 15 miles
northwest of Union.

They planned their first strike there
for the night of April 12, a Sunday. It
was a dark, rainy day and-it put Mike
on edge. At 16 he was a veteran bur-
glar but the fact was that he was still
a kid. Other boys his age in Union
weren’t spending the day worrying
about a store in Verona, scared silly
that it would have a tricky burglar
alarm. They probably were watching
television, playing with their brothers
and sisters, or even doing their home-
work for Monday.

Homework was something that Mike
had little to do with. He was a high-
school freshman but what he’d learned
so far you could put in a thimble. With
the late hours he kept—he was crawling
around in dark roofs while other kids
were asleep—he could hardly keep
awake in school, much less learn any-
thing. He hardly knew a verb from a
noun and mathematics was a mystery
to him. He knew other things, things
that his father said were much more
important.

And ‘it wasn’t just vague. fear that
made the boy uneasy. He’d been scared,
terribly scared, ever since that day in
Elizabeth. Night after night he dreamt
about that bar and what happened
there, heard the noises again, saw the
glistening blood. He didn’t feel much
while it was actually happening. It was
after that he got the shakes and the

premonition that time was running out.

It wouldn’t be long, he felt deep down
inside, before he and his father would
have to answer for what they had done.

Mike hung back when night came and
his father was ready to leave.

“Let’s go to a movie, Pop,” he said.
“I don’t feel right about this job.”

Monahan laughed dryly. “It’s the
Weather, that’s all. But-it’s a break for
us—there ain’t gonna be many people
out on a wet night like tonight.”

The ex-con drove to Verona, dropped
Mike off in front of the store to be hit,
then parked around the corner. Mickey,
as usual, was in the back seat. The
boy was dripping wet by the time he
reached the roof. He saw the skylight

and made for it. But he stopped dead
in his tracks when he heard the crack
of a shot.

‘For a moment he couldn’t decide
what to do. He knew it was the cops.
They must have got his father. He
crept to the edge of the roof and
looked down. It was the cops, all right.
A dozen of them. His father was no-
where in sight.

The boy climbed down the water pipe
and gave himself up. He was taken to
the police station, which was right

across the street, and given a cup of ©

hot coffee. He asked for a cigarette
and a policeman gave him one.

By piecing together different things
the cops said, Mike was able to figure
out what had happened. Someone had
seen him climb up the water pipe and
had called the police, and when the
officers approached the store, his father
had driven off. One of the policemen

had pegged a bullet through the hood

of the car as it turned a corner. Later,
the machine was found abandoned three
blocks away, the dog still in the back

seat. 3
Mike knew he couldn't talk his way

out of this rap. They had him, but
good.

~ “Okay, kid,” a detective said. “Tell
us who the guy with you was.” ot

IKE LOOKED at the faces around
- him, took a couple of nervous puffs
of the cigarette, then poured out his
story. He told them how his father had
trained him and how scared he was

before the first job. He told about .

burglary after burglary, giving details
as he remembered them. In all, he

talked for four solid hours and con-

fessed to nearly 150 burglaries.
Verona police notified officials in
Union and detectives there picked up
Monahan at 2 a.m. Monday. The house
was searched, the investigators making
quite a haul. They found two rifles, two
pistols and six boxes of .38-caliber
shells in a closet. The cellar contained

a cache of loot—radios, typewriters, °

jewelry, adding machines, cases of
bonded whisky. .

“In another year they would have
had enough stuff to fill a warehouse,”
a detective commented. “Boy that kid

was slick. (Continued on page 75)

Young Mike dows officers and reporters where murder gun was thrown from
bridge. Before that te at. did his best to save ‘his ane from chair.


- said another officer,

doned the car in Pomona, hoping to
mislead police. Then he took a cab to
downtown Los Angeles, where he
switched to another taxi, this one tak-
ing him to Encino. He remained in that
general area, living in motels and mov-
ing every few days.

He had only $1300 left of the cash he
had taken out of the bank. He had
withdrawn it sometime before the
shooting, not because he had planned
a murder and knew he would need
money to avoid the police, but because
he felt Betty had no right to the money
he’d earned. It was a joint account and
he was afraid she might take every
cent.

“You must have thrown it away,”
detective commented. “You spent $6,-
500 in 46 days. That’s quite a pace.”

“Yeah,” Hanson agreed. “I knew my
days were numbered. I practically lived
in bars and nightclubs and handed out
real fat tips. I hope some of that tip
money did some good.”

Throughout the questioning he con-
tinued to insist the crime was not pre-

meditated but the result of an impulse.

You’d think he’d been at it for ten
years.”

“Don’t forget he got private lessons,”
“from his old
man.’

“Yeah, and it makes me boil to ‘think
about it. That lousy, crummy ex-con.
How low can a guy get?”

Newspapers ran the story on page
one and referred to Monahan as the
“Fagin” burglar. Nobody, it appeared,
was ready to waste any sympathy on
the petty crook who had initiated his
son into the ways of crime.

Police departments all over north
Jersey requested a copy of the list of
crimes, and during the next 72 hours
Mike and his father were questioned
in nine different cities. The boy did
most of the talking, his ex-con parent
apparently preferring to say as little as
possible.

By Wednesday morning the various
departments had confirmed almost 100
of the burglaries confessed by Mike.

-Late that afternoon the prisoners were

returned to Verona to await a neering
for the crime there.

Meanwhile, investigators in Union
were still occupied with the task of
checking the list of loot found ‘in the
Monahan home. One of the men thus
engaged was Detective Don Ebert, who
suddenly remembered something. |

“That’s funny,” he said, looking in-
tently at the list of items.

-He simply had wanted to talk to his
wife once again.

“It’s one of those terrible things for
which I’ll be eternally sorry,” he said.
“But why, why did she throw me
over?”

Lieutenant Meehan returned the
prisoner to Alhambra where he was

booked and placed in a cell. His tie and .

belt were taken from him to prevent
a possible suicide attempt.

The attractive girl with him when
arrested was a movie dancer who had
met him at a party three weeks before.
Hanson, who said she didn’t know his
true identity, told police he hoped she
wouldn’t be dragged into a scandal be-
cause of him.

Her story was substantially the same.
She knew Hanson as Jay Hills, a writer,
and had no idea he was wanted by the
police. She was released after making
a statement. She was, as a detective
told reporters, an innocent person who
had been completely fooled by the

suave Hanson.

On November 24, 1954, Hanson ap-
peared for arraignment in Pasadena

HOW LOW CAN YOU GET?

(Continued from page 45)

“What's funny?” his chief asked.

“Well, the kid said he and the old
man got a Marlin rifle and a 9-milli-
meter pistol in that store job in Mil-
burn two months ago. We found the
rifle and a clip of 9-millimeter ammo
in Monahan’s house, but there wasn't
any pistol of that caliber.”

“So?”

“Just this— A 9-millimeter Luger
was used in that Elizabeth killing last
month.”

Seven weeks had passed since the
two men had been found dead in the
Elizabeth bar and no headway had
been made in the investigation. If
Ebert’s hunch was right, the case was
as good as solved.

Ebert drove to Verona early the next
morning, talked to the local officials,
then went to Eugene Monahan’s cell.
The balding, heavy-eyed ex-con
looked glum as he sat on the edge of
his cot.

“What do you want now?” he mum-
bled. “You want the story of my life
again?”

“Take it easy,” Ebert sinick roaiirind

that his task would be far from simple. .

Monahan knew he was headed for a
long stretch and was in no mood to help
the police clean up odds and ends. He
stared at the floor waiting for the offi-
cer to get down to business.

“You and your boy pulled some jobs
in Elizabeth, didn’t you?” Ebert asked.

Superior Court and entered a double _.
plea:

not guilty and not guilty by
reason of insanity.

Examined by psychiatrists, he was
found not only to be sane but to be the

- possessor of a keen intelligence—his IQ

was close to that of the genius level.

On January 11, 1955, after con-
siderable discussion among opposing
counsel and Superior Judge Kenneth
C. Newell, Hanson withdrew both
pleas and substituted pleas of guilty to
murder, and guilty to assault with a
deadly weapon.

Judge Newell then ruled the killing
of Betty Hanson to be murder in the
second degree and sentenced Hanson
to two indeterminate terms in the state
prison. They were the approximate
equivalent of a term of from 14 years
to life, with no chance of parole until a
minimum of ten years had been served.

Hanson was lucky. If he had been
convicted of first degree murder, he
might have got death. It was believed
that the prosecution settled for the
second-degree charge because the
crime was essentially one of passion.

Monahan grunted. “We told you all
about them.”

“Did you? Did you mention a stick-
up in the Shamrock Bar?”

The ex-con seemed to stiffen for a
moment but that was his only reaction.
“We didn’t pull any stickup there. We

_ only broke into joints, remember?”

The detective took a typewritten

sheet from his inside pocket. “This is a
list of the stuff you and your boy stole
at various places. One of the items is a
9-millimeter pistol taken from a store
in Milburn. That pistol wasn’t with the
other guns in your house. Where is it?”

“Stolen,” Monahan answered prompt-
ly. “Somebody hooked it outta the
car. I don’t know where it is now.”

Ebert continued to press the ex-con
for another hour but could get nothing
out of him.

“Okay, Monahan, have it your way.
But now we'll see what your son has
to say. Maybe he remembers what aR
pened to the gun.”

At Verona headquarters Ebert sat

down with Mike in a small room. He
wasted no time with preliminar-es.

“Mike,” he said. “We know you and
your father pulled that stickup in
Elizabeth. Don’t you think you’d better
tell us about it? It. would be a lot
easier that way.”

The boy sighed and looked earnestly.

at Ebert. “I didn’t think you knew
about that one. I guess you're right. I

75

a guess I’d better get it off my chest.”

He paused a moment, then said: “I
did the shooting. Pop was there, too,
but I did the shooting.”-

Ebert called for a stenographer and
then Mike proceeded with his story in
a calm, somewhat tired, voice. He said
he had to report to his parole officer
that Saturday morning and that his
father drove him to the county court-
house in Elizabeth. Monahan stopped
in at the Shamrock Bar for a few
beers. Mike joined him there shortly
after 10.

“Pop decided it would. be an easy
place to stick up on account of the
package store in the front,” the boy
said. “We waited till the place was
empty, then I jumped the old guy be-

_ hind the bar. He looked at the gun and

laughed, so I let him have it.” He made
a mock gun with his hand, pointing his
finger at Ebert. “Bang, bang, bang! I
let him have three shots and he fell to
the floor.”

He and his father ran outside, Mike
said, and drove around the block. When
they saw no one had been attracted to
the bar, they returned and emptied the
register of $53.

“While we were there, this guy came

walking in. Pop gave me the signal to
shoot, so I did. I hit him twice. Then
we walked outside.”

His father figured it would look sus-
picious to drive away, the boy said, so

they mingled with the crowd that gath- .

ered when the bodies were found. They
even went inside again and watched
while the police examinéd the dead
men. They finally drove away, tossing
the gun into a river.

ONAHAN WAS told of the con-

fession and, to the officers’ sur-
prise, showed some genuine emotion.
He almost cried. He gave a statement
that coincided with his son’s, except for
one detail. He claimed that he had
done the shooting, not Mike.

Two days later, Saturday, the police
were still faced by the two conflicting
admissions of guilt. Union County
Prosecutor H. Russell Morss, Jr.,
brought the father and son together in
the hope the meeting might have some
effect on them. It did. Mike began to
cry.

“['m sorry, Pop,” he said, sniffling.
“T had to tell them. I had to.”

Monahan sadly patted the boy on the
shoulder. “That’s okay, kid. You had

to. Now can you tell them the whole
truth. Don't try to cover up for me
any more.’

In another room Mike altered his
confession. “I only said I did it because

of Pop. Pop said he’d burn in the elec- ~

tric chair if anyone ever found out he

had done it. I didn’t want that to hap- zz

pen.”

with first-degree murder.

Next day Mrs. Monahan came to the 4
jail and asked permission to see her =~

husband and Mike, and she was told ©

that the rules allowed her to visit only 4 ¥

one of them. She chose her son.

“T’m sure that Mike needs me most, ¥

she said.

should not pay the extreme penalty.

He was placed in a state reformatory —

*

for an indefinite term.

The father and son were charged _ : 3

cay

Bs

aa ;

¥ Re t
%
“pig 4

Monahan was sentenced to death but 4

by legal maneuvering he held off his
fate for a year and a half. He was ex-.
ecuted early in 1955. Witnesses said he
broke up complétely as he was
strapped into the chair. He was a scared
little man to the very end. i

Be,

THE RIDDLE OF RECKLESS ROSE

Elton, had been bringing his boat in

with a load of fish when he saw a
light-colored object ona cliff near
Sheppey. “I got out my glass and
squinted at it,” Elton said. “Blimey, if
it wasn’t a man. He was lying on a little

_rock shelf about halfway down the

76

cliff. We got in as close as we could
and hallooed and sounded the foghorn.
He didn’t budge, that. fellow. ’m won-
dering if he’s dead.”

Two constables were sent out to the
Channel cliffs. After some search they
found the man. He lay inertly on a ledge
about 50 feet below the top. The offi-
cers’ shouts failed to arouse any sign
of life in him.

At length they secured ropes and one
of them scaled down to the ledge. The
young man, clad in trousers and a white
shirt that had made him so easily
visible from the. boat, was only semi-
conscious. He was hoisted up and

rushed to a hospital, where a physician

examined him and could find no injury.

“He’s badly sunburned,” the doctor
pointed out. “Evidently he’s been lying
out there for some time. I think he’s
suffering from exposure and malnutri-
tion.”

The young man, who was delirious,
was given stimulants and food. In his
delirium he sometimes muttered dis-
jointed phrases, most of which was

(Continued from page 54)

unintelligible except for a woman’s
name. ;
“Rose,” he groaned. “Rose... .
A wallet had been found in his pocket
which contained no identification. It
seemed that his identity would have

”

to remain a mystery until he recovered —

consciousness. That is, it seemed that
way until another officer of the Kent
constabulary wandered in to look: at
the patient.

“T say!” he exclaimed. “He looks a
bit like that young chap we got a cir-
cular on. Wot’s his nyme again? Brain
—that’s it.”

He did bear a remaskable resem-
blance to George Brain, wanted for the
murder of Rose Atkins, except that he
was somewhat less heavy than Brain.
This was believed due to the starva-
tion he had undergone while lying on
the ledge. Next day, when he had re-
vived sufficiently to be questioned,
Deputy Chief Sands was at his bedside.

“Well, Brain,” he suggested, “suppose
you tell'me why you murdered Rose
Atkins.”

“That’s not true!” Brain cried.
had nothing to do with it.”

“Then why did you run off this way,
young fellow?” |

The patient’s voice was weak but
clear enough. “I was afraid. I was with
Rose that night, and when I heard she

“sy

had been murdered not long after I left Be
her, I was sure I'd be suspected. I lost ~

my head. It was foolish, I guess, but =

all I could think of was being accused

of a murder I didn’t commit.”

RAIN SAID he had taken a Bees

in Kent and tried to decide what
to do. Eventually he became so terrified Br

at his predicament that he decided to_
commit suicide. He had gone to the ©

cliff with the intention of hurling him- )

self into the sea. However, he saw the

ledge 50 feet below and was fearful £

that he would strike the ledge and in- © |
jure himself instead of ending his life. ¢

ag?

“So I climbed carefully down to that
ledge,” he went on. “I intended to jump

into the sea from there. I tried again —

and again to do it, but couldn’t quite

get up the nerve. Then I discovered 1g

couldn’t climb back up again. rt was.
el

imprisoned there.”

He thought he had been lying. there
three or four days before he was res-
cued. At first he had shouted wildly
for help, but no one was near that re-
mote place and finally he had lost con=
sciousness. Brain, indeed, had lost
some 15 pounds during his ordeal. Be

Still proclaiming his innocence, he
was taken to London when bea 3
covered. i

“T still think he’ s our man,”

EP,

He

ad


« aed .
aS fancy enlaries to
matters of politics) type
paetvice tn reture."
with

“ Ile snid
are allowed to tay
“fe Goge until the ane
7e™ up. and ineiates
a es ould ; have a
4 4 ‘ed deputment
gt nd of the tun-
art. de of it.
Aline eid that he
7 where a Man vee
r the ground’ for ¢«
gce of time and die-3
Fe hospital. is

—] Of the tunnela te not
ePlic at large.” he said.
dly gases and those

Rete iia

——

legal department to look into the mat-
ter. bed

Mr. Midlidge, th his address on the
mew. telephone company, said that
the States: were honeycombed with
independent companies, and that
cheaper rates would follow the eatab-
Hahment of its service in thia city. He
said that the Rell people had a mon-
opoly in this city, New York and
Boston, and regulated the prices to
pay. dividenda on watered stocks.
He said that there were 5,000: inde-
Pendent exchanges in the United
States, representing 6.000.000 @b-
scribera,. and over §$900,000,000 was
invested tn them. In response to»a

uestion he anid that he. believed
that the Hudson Telephone Company
Was under the centrol of the. Bell
people. A committee was appointed
{> walt upon the company's officials
and look further.in the matter.

anes ar erg ttonmeaiiitet

INSFER

2 | Sergeants

ckhardt and Rounde-
gvest New York, who
Mayor Ord Darling
“a uniforms and do

ise their rank aa

Should they comply

to don patrolmen’'s
will,

ry

he of their higher

he town come under
act, and it is claim.
‘gnot be removed or re-

Feet

rs

BS i a a ie a a iam

simply says: -
ahead. J know what
ghey are doing police
they will) continue to

”

Oe tn bead

| With Stealing on

»

: years old, aad Rob-
rs old, of 412 Spring

bo ‘Were arrested
Union Hill police
ny. The

ceny. compiain-
Fincke, 114. New
Jrion . Hill, charges
tole an overcoat
_ The“ twe, young
some time at the
nd the other night
that they stayed 4
was their custom, In |
discovered that her
with all thetr be-
they owed for
COmt. will be
; before
ay.

HEA AE

3

St bay Se es 8G ay shy

Spee ort ay Sake

EXONERATED

PROPS tig hse

eidhicMiekiie yu ws

1 reputation has brought some calls for

there ie oe

a

MURDACO WAS.
: VAN HISE’S 75TH

Some Feete About the New Jersey
ef Hangman's Strange
\4 - Career,

James’ Van Hiss, who officiated at
to-day’@ hanging in the County Jalil,
iwac ter by trade and has a side
line speciality of hanging criminals by
the heck until they are dead. There ts
nothing peculiar about his appearance.
He looks just tke thousands of other
Jerseymen of German descent. uniess
you happen to know about his side
line laity. In that case hie pres-
ence amt to send a chill creeping
along your spinal column.

He is below the average height and
a bit squatty in build, with shoulders
that Bave a pronounced stoop. This is
the only evidence that he has paseed
the age of three score and ten, as his
steel-gray eyes are as clear and plierc-
ing, his tread as firm and his hand as
steady as those of a man-in the prime
} of life.. His: career asa profeasional
;hangmen has certainly not affected
this nerves, and there is nothing to
| indicaté that bis sleep is haunted by

the spirits of those he has put to
death. : : : Sri

His list of executions number nev-
enty-five, mose of which were per-
formed in New Jersey, though his

his services from other States.

Van Hise wan born ja New Jersev
in 1884, and has been @ hangman for
half a century. Hie father was a shin
carpenter and received an order to

in New Brunewick. Young Van Hise
manifested such a great tnterest in the
Preparations thar he was asked to as-.
sist at the execution. From this very
modem beginning he rose ay aap whhle
others dropped, until to-day he is ro
ably more clever at shirring up a h
cap and adjusting a noose than
other man_in the country.
He always uses his own
lows, which. he has
yeare of . experience, and which, he
says, cost him S800, If he hands you
his business card you will find that it
reads “James Van Hise, carpenter ani
shaft-hanger.” There is no mention of
the other kind of hanging. but as he
recetves $250 from each execution th-
from the side Hine enable him
to exiat quite comfortably, even if |

any

He claims it is not always neccesary
for him. to. take the trouble to look at
condemned prisoners..““Not necessary,'’
he says. “All I need to know ta thets
height. The weight makes no differ-
st Pap besieging Gomis

Gtrange to ony, Van Hise
to have capital punishmem abolished,

murderers are inyprisoned for

le without a chance of pardon: out
he le unalterably opposed te the intro-
of the electric chair. in New

“| sew the fret exBution by elec-
tricity ‘that ever took place tn. New
York,” he mys, “and for a while they
coulén’t get enough current througn
the wires to kill a mouse. The rope ts
quicker and surer and does not require
@ tig expense upon the taxpayers for
ted machinery and gome one

to keep it im order. But all prieoners

Tee, a8 “gt i e CaP
with the etrapa with which to bind
the doomed man’s arma. The: black
cap was piaced bveck of the head
and at the conclusion of the reading
of the warrant Father Monteleone
gave the doomed man extreme une-
tion, according {o the rites of the
Catholic Church. and Murdeco was
asked if he had anything to say. -

The priest translated the question
and Murdaco replied that he would
like to see hig sister. He wae asked
where she was and sald in New. York.
Father Monteleone told Murdaco that
the time had come when he must
meet the punishment fixed by law,
and he replied in Italian that he was
not afraid to die, but feared to meet
his Maker. ;

Hangman. Van Hise stepped for-
ward and in a twinkling he had the
doomed man’s arms: strapped behind,
During this part of the arrangementa
Murdaco looked on ailently. For. a
moment he aewayed, and: fearing that
he might collapse, Sheriff Kaiser call-
ed two of the keepern and: advised
them to keep close behind the con-
demned man in order to carry him
to the scaffold, should be weaken. at
the last moment. :

Murdaco, however, surprised all, as
Father Monteleone placed the scapular
about his neck. and a string of rosary
beads in his hand. Murdaco seemed
to brace up and he walked to the gal-
lows unflinchingly.. As the procession
entered the death chamber the prieet
held in front of. the doomed man a
crucifix, and in a low tone repeated
the dying prayer, “Inexplratione,” in
Italian. Murdaco’s Itps were tightly
compressed and he walked sturdily to
the scaffold and stood erect beneath
the rope, With 4eft hands Van Hise
strapped the doomed man‘s legs to-
gether and pulted down the black cap.
The snap catch at the end of the
nooee was sprung and at a no4.of the
head. from Sheriff Kaiser the mur-
Gerer's body shot upwards about five
feet. As it |. Father Monteieone

made the sign 6f a crow. The body
dropped back two feet and the noose
was observed: to be behind. the left
ear. From the position of the head it

was apparent thay tha. neck was
broken. . There was but:one convulston
and then the pyopnered without a
tremor. of & musc ; : :

. After Murdaco was pronounced dead
Hangman Van Hise said that the
hanging was successful. He attrib-
uted the collapse of Tapley to the de-
lay at the scaffold and was pleased
that Sheriff Kaiser aided him by
iimiting the religious service and pre-
liminartes to the doomed man's cell.
Murdaco spent his jaat day on earth
talking only of his troubles. He ap-~
peared tna highly nervous state, at
one moment praying and the next mo-
or oe watte ths ° : ‘ @ cs

night and also this morning. His sup-
per vonsisted of roast veal, slice@ ham,
apple sauce, mashed potatoes, aad he
drank ey yy 8H see : ere break-
faat he _sphagetti,. \
mackerel and toast. When he Cad, re
this morning after sleeping since mid-
night, he was given his new sult of

its rightful price.  1f- the
price as originally atated ts
‘efurwerde reduced ~~ it
proves that the house fa
willing to get more than
the rightful price and does
eo where the custumer doce
act know. plano value,

should be sent to one place lor execu- eS

With us you do. not peed

se te eer

CUTTING DEE

P,

Special Reductions in Price on
~ WINES and LIQUORS

HENRY F. DR

FAMILY SUPPLY WINED
STORES IN HUDSON CO.

nm ticell AVENU
126 BERGENLE:
367 CENTRAL e
Drewes’ Reputation for Pure, Reliable Gq
* < Stands forthe Past Ten Vears.

ae REAR
372 COMMUNIPAW AVE.
118 DANFORTH AVE.

DEEP, DEEP!

Will Only Cost

$2.40.

Bea's Reavy Ribbed
s’ and Obildrea’s . Clething Prices | éerweer, regeias 75¢
Deva to Depta Rover Be | Stoa's Suid Bisa
fore Resebed ia say Btore Anywhere. | 1 "1, se: vegules GL. 50
WE CHALLENGE ANY STURE IN _| Mena Bochrwene, t 0
THE WHOLE COUNTY TO-MORROW

4

NL

Po She
‘ 6 year ol4 rt or ry
; Miner bedored to . per gallon.

v old rich California -Port
Wine. per bottle, 40c.; per gallon,
$1.00).

3.0) per

For a gowti emovt
the 6 year old Libe

gallon.

12 year old Golden Gate or
gation, $2.00.

Our Whiskey at 2
a pure, pelatabie

Muscatel, Angelica, Madeira, me

; Catawba, per bottle, ee
rik BOe.; per gallon, 1.25, 1.530,
2.00. 3 .

Table Clarets, %Oc., The.
1.00. 1.25 Jeg gallon; per bottle,
Qe., Be., 5

Wines, per bottle, @c.,
Bonn tke.; per gallon, 100, 1.25.

1.50, 2.00.

Our lu

per gallon, 4.00.

year old

Otd Cabinet Whisikgs
reduced to The.

Gray's

Per dottle, 1H

Old Heath

Becotch

duced to

Whiskey,
232

Full assortmeht of Bottled Table Beer, 1.00) per case of

“Wine Free.

Notice—To every purchaser of L.UU worth of guvods we 6 ee

Clothes, purchased by Bheriff Kalser,
He eyed them dubdlously, but seemed
with himealt when he had been
attired. After donning his new gar-
menta he was closeted with the priest
who prayed with him until the arrival
of ‘Sheriff Kaiser and Under Sheriff
Erwin, who read the death warrant.

Pather Prnest was with Murdaco
until a late hour last night, and when
he left the condemned man'‘p cell Mur-

pray. -He resented ‘every interruption
and showed temper and then resumed

praying.

Murdaco was aware that hie end -

was approaching: fast.. The presenve
of the eitire death watch advised him
that. his last dey on earth. wes at
hao. “Me no afraid to die.” he satd
49 Connolly... .‘l-eee my wife always.
1 don't care if 1 die, I Une ae. 1

4 afretXd after | die.” AB Murdaco Spoke
The kept bie hands to bis throat and} kiied wonen, Five

and that the taw wou
Purdacos yv

}

Among
was a del
nevoient

raised fun
and have
bei <3
sunilertake

daco knelt at hie cot and proceeded to |

mains
undertake
bond that

{the eourt
medical ¢

| morning

j Murdacm was the
+ derer fo aufersthe &

Hudeon
Ke rgen,

sociely

Rraua

Sherlff Kal

on eahibition,
Under the law gove
tion of bodies hanke

claimed direret that
Ur Pee a.
forthe funeral will

renee a

egation fr
4
ds for the
retained

swick 8t
r to take

roweould fh
the body
as rete

inay. if

County o«
at the thu

Big


‘actions in Price on Holiday

y

1

S and LIQUORS at

FE. DREWES’

LY SUPPLY WINE
ESIN HUDSONCo. |©&
2 Prices Within Reach of Everybody.

iMonticello Avenue

BAR MARRIGON AVENUE.

AW AVE. | 125 BERGENLINE AYE,

i AVE. 367 CENTRAL AVE.
; ere tor Pure, Reliable Goods,

a Madeira, To-

nde for the Past Ten Vears.
For a good smooth Whiskey try

the 6 year old Liberty Bell Brand,
3.) per gallon.

Our Whiskey at 250 ig a winner,
® pure. palatable Whiskey.

he per, <b UY, rte. BAL.

‘Our 10 year ote eecels, ee

Bbottie, Be, f- ! 00,
ps 1.50, per gallon, 4.00

W pottie, dc.
. io,

Oa Cabinet Whiskey; full quart,
teduced ta The.

pee “bottle, “T Gray's O14 Heather Dew Scotch,
Mi per bottle, 100.

123 » Beotch: Ayaan le stone jugs, re-

of2 doz. botties
a bottle of

er. [and that the law would take Ite Course.

\seemed | Among -Murdaco'» visitors tast nigh:
Ai deen | waa a delegation; from an Italian be-
hiaonew gar-'| nevolent society) The. society. hat
rith the priest | ruised funds for the burtal of Murdaco

Stil the arrival | and have retained A. Bcatuorchivs of

Under Sheriff {116° Brunswick Street, an Itallan
th warrant. “j undertaker, to take charge of the re-

@with Murdaco | mains. Sheriff Kaieer pated that th:

ght, and when | undertaker Mould have toyput up A
B.an’s cell Mur- | bond that the body would not be put;
4

ed to.jon exhibition. ab required) by law.
interruption Under the law governing the disposi-
then resumed «tion of bodies hanged for euch a crime
| the court may.if the body ts not

‘will do

ia ofl) Preserve the Complezion Whites
the Hands, Cleanes the Scalp and Beaw-
tify the Hair.

3ieltl poodese wllies claaner clothes
from your laundry thas any other pro
paration end with leas labor, ©

tt will cleanse every erticte in your.
““hitechén or Sfattig’ “Feat *mKake tt

~ bright—snd for silver or pewter give «
high polish. = j

It will sterilise, when need with het
- water, all articles of clothing, ecting e8
an antiseptic in preventing contagion, —

i will prevent pests when sprinkieg
about ia epen pase aad when applied te
epen Grains, cesapeois er sinks, KILLG

ask for and Incist 00 90 Male Teans
like fas-eimile package abeve. If your
dealer hacat it—doa't buy :
| beraz. Write to us, tell ue his aame,
enclosing Se. and we will send a pach-
age direst te your home, and will alse
-.eend you a cake of 20 Mule Teams Lau. !
ésy Scap Sree fer your treubie,
Aédree, Dept. B,

* Pacific Coast Berax Co.

300 WILLIAM STRERT, NEW TORE

eee

After the toa
@aced A. J.°L
ent. of pubdifo
speaker. I: fe!

mM te make t

ie stil» ¥%
Ue @ ‘ ui

; that his end : claimed; direct that tt be dissected for | a = oa = :
The prerence.| medical purposes. The arrangements HAIR <= tac Peat
h advised him. for the funeral will be completed Apis and pron RAY’ H an Use ;

; eyrth was. at {| morning. ‘
> die.” he said Murdaco was the fourteenth. mur-

wife always. ! derer to suffer the death penalty aince
IOMke Ge I} Hudeon County was divided from
aaco spowe Bergen. Of the fourteen all but four
nis throat and | killed women. Five of them, George
14, “Me getta | Disque. Henry Ebert. John Ceech,
John Mackin and Murdaco.: were wifé

sla yers; two, bulward Hallltuger and

Kaward Tapely./ both. colored, kliled

their’ common law wives, and three,

Bernard Altenberger. MMartin Kan-

kowski and Pau! Genz, killed their

sweethearts. The four who killed

men were John Mechella,.who killed

('. &..-Marshal Stevenson; William

Heed) who killed Andrew Henry in

Hoboken: James K. Brown, who kill-

ed Officer Gedhart in Hoboken. and

Edwerd Clifford, who killed Wiliam

L. Wareon. There has been no woman

He told ths | hanged in this county. The nearest

4 that Mur-° xpprosch war that of Jennie Smith,
Blair reviled who with “Cove” Bennett was found
a Peak ni cite oe mt

oienaa Harry Sunith, in tahymins ,

but at a new trial both were ee
. Ad@urgaco killed hin wife on.

last. In a fit of Jealous rage an
the presence of his five-year-old son,
he’ felled and aimost’

with aw sx at the

Street. Murdaco.


~

MERA PR

Sergeants
and Rounde-
4”. York, who

Ord Darling |

|
1

their: higher

ond it te claim-
moved or. re-
- made before
Pgn de given a
@rees have eo
pyented against
aim that they
ynen are being |

eens Liehck eibdacnee ia eens
rs

} says:

‘11 know what
7 Going police
al) continue to

er ta ee aes te Cee

i
&
7.
ia
¢
by
VU “4
3
Pa.
*
>
.
$
£.
wy

come under {"

?

~ Hangman's Strange ~
“Career,

Jamee Van Wie. who. officiated at
to-day’s hanging In the County Jalil.
is @ carpenter by trade and has a aide
line speciality of hanging criminals’ by
the heck until they are dead. There is
nothing pecultar abowt his appearance.
He looks just lthe thousands of other
Jerseymen of German descent. wnieas
you happen to know about his side
line speciaity. In that cace his pres-
ence ie apt» to send a: chill creeping
along your: spinal column.

He is below the average height and
a bit squatty in build, with shouldera
that have a pronounced stoop. This is
the only evidence that he has Tr ase}
the age of three score and ten, as his
ateel-gray eyes are as clear. and plere-
Ing. his tread as firm and hia hand as
steady asithose of a man inthe prime
of life. His Career as a: professional

m has certainly not affected
his nerves, and there ts nothing to
Andicate that his sleep is “haunted by
the apirits of thoee he has put to
death. t
x ctila list) of executions number sev-

“five,; most of which were per-
formed jin New Jersey, though his
reputation has brought some calle for
his services from other States.

Van Hire wan horn in New Jersev
in 1884, and has been a hangman for
half a century. His father was a shiz

Carpenter and received an order to
) ah. dale

in. New B ck Y

New Brunewic oung Van: Hise
Manifested such a great iniereat in the
Preparations that he was asked (o as-
siat at the execution. From this very
modem beginning he rose rapidly while
others dropped, until to-day he is proo-

,{ ably more ciever at shirring up a death

cap and adjusting a noose than any
other man in the country. _

He always uses his own vate gnrl-
lows, which; he has - ected after
years of experience, and which, he
says, cost him 800, If he hands you

shaft-hanger:" There

the other kind of ‘hanging. but as he
receives $250 from each execution th»
from the side line enable him
quite comfortably, even if

He claims it fe not always |
for him to take the trouble to look at
condemned prinoners. “Not necessary,”
he ears. “All I need to know is thet:

proceeds
to exist

;
3
iH
a

i
A
}

i

if
g

{

E

his busiriess card you will find that it |.

Father Monteleone placed the scapular
about his neck and a string of rosary
beads in his hand. Murdaco seemed
to brace up and he walked to the gul-
lows unfiinchingly. As the procession
entered the death: chamber the priest
held in front of the doomed man «4
crucifix, and in-s. low tone repeated
the dying prayer, “‘Inezpiratione,.” in
Itallan.  Murdaco's lips were tightly
compressed end he walked sturdily to
the scaffold and stood erect beneath
the rope. With deft hands Van Hiee
strapped the doomed man’s legs to-
gether and pulled down the black cap.
The snap catch at the end of the
noose was sprung and at a no4 of the
head from Sheriff Kaiser. the mur-
derer’s body shot upwards about five
feet. As it “did Father Monteieone
made the sign of @ cross. .The body
dropped back two feet and the noose
Was. observed to. be behind the. lett
ear, From the position of the head It
was apparent. thet tha neck was
broken. There was but one convulsion
and then the body swayed without @
tremor of a muecie.

After Murdaco was pronounced dead
Hangman Van Hise said that the
hanging was euccessful.’ He attrib-
uted the collapse of Tapley to the de-
lay at the scaffold and was pleased
that Sberiff Kaleer aided him» by
limiting the religious service and pre-
liminaries to the doomed man's cell.

Murdaco spent his laat day on earth
talking only of his troubles. He ap,
peared in a highly nervous: state, at
one moment praying and the next mo-

ment. cursing... ; :
night and also this morning. His eup-

per consisted of roast veal, slice@ ham,
apple sauce, mashed potatoes, and he
drank two coupe of tea. For breek-
fast he had. sphagelti. boiled: eggs.
mackerel and toast, When he awoke
thie morning after sleeping since mid-
night. he was given his new guilt of

Special Reductions in Price on Hol

“WINES and

LIQUORS at

HENRY F: DREWE

[|

372 COMMUNIPAW AVE.
118 DANFORTH AVE.

FAMILY SUPPLY WINE
STORES IN HUDSON CO.
The Places and Prices Within Reach of Evers bode

98 Monticello Avenue

NRA HARRISON AVEXNT

125 BERGENLINE
367, CENTRAL AVE.

Drewes’ Reputation for Pure, Reliable Goods,
Stands for the Past Ten Vears.

Pure 6. year old Port or Sherry
Wine. reduced 20 00c. per gallon.

For a good smooth Whis
the @ year olf Liberty Bell
310) per. gallon.

~ Nery. old crich California. Port
Wine, per bottle, 40c,; per gallon,
$1.0.

Our Whiskey at 250 ta a

2 r O14 Golden Gete Port or
‘ F peetho, Bie, ges
-gelion, $2.00.

Muscatel, Angelica, Madeira, To-
kay, Catawba, per: bottle, = 2hic.,

Our-10 year old Monticel®
per gallon, 4.00.

c.,. S0c.; per gation, 1.25, 1.50,
2.00. ;

Old Cabinet Whiskey, ful
reduced to a

te z
Gray’s O14 inate a
per bottle. 1U0. x5

Bcotch Whiskey, etone jr
duced to: 3.25.

0

“Fullvassortment of Bottled Table

> Notice—To every
«, Wine Free. |

purchaser of LUO worth of guods we give a b

Reer, 1.00 per case of 2 doz.

a

NY 3
One Price

price a@ originally stated is
efurwarte = reduced ~~ It
proves that the house: ie
willing to get. more than

urns teh aS

ight ies 2. eet
clothes, purchased by Sheriff Kaiser.
He eyed them dubiously, but seemed
with himealt when he had been
attired. After donning his new gar-
ments he was closeted with the priest
who prayed with him until the arrival
of Sheriff Kaiser and Under. Sheriff
Erwin, who read the death warrant.
Father Prnest was with Murdaco
unt! a late hour last night, and when
he left the condemned man's cell Mur-

daco knelt at his cot and proceeded to}

pray. He resented. every interruption
and showed temper and then resumed

praying.

urdaco’ waa aWare that” his cna!
“medical purposes,

was approaching fast. The presence

rand that the law would take

Among Murdacos vieltors
‘was @ deiegation from an]
nevolent society. The soc
raised funds for the burial «
and have retained A Mcatu
108 Brunswick ~ Street; a
undertaker,to take charge

mains. Sheriff? Kaiser pat
Undertaker afoul have to
bond that fhe body would
on exhibition, as required

I'nder the jaw governing t

< tion of bodies hanged for #ur

the court..may. if the bd
claimed, direct that tt be d
The arg

of the entire death watch advised him (for the funeral wili be com

that. his last: dey on earth was. at
han. “‘Me no afraid to die,” he said
to Connolly.: “lI eee my wife siways.
1. don’t care if I die, I lke dic. 1
afraid after I die.” As Murdaco spoke
he kept bie han@s to his throat and
and as he fintehed he said, “Me getta

terday. approached Judge Bair.
who was.on the besch, aiid asked tha:

He told the

morning.

Murdaco was the fourt
derer to suffer the death per
Hudaon) County was divi
Bergen. Of the fourteen al
killed women. Five of the
Disque. Henry. Ebert... Jon
John Mackin and Murdaco,
elayere; iwo, Kiward
Edward Tapely. doth colo
their common law wives,
Bernard Altenberger, MMa
kowski and) Pau! Gens, k
sweethearts. The four
men were John Mechella,
U.> 8 > Marehal Stevenson
Reed. who killed Andrew
Hoboken: James K. Brown
ed Officer Gedhart in He
Edwerd Clifford, who kil
L. Wateon. There has been

hanged in this county.
® ch wes. that of.
who with “Core” Bennett
guilty of the murder of

a pure. palatable Whiskey Ba

np RA

Sead ncieebdtahed titles Shocks ene See ptae™

W wonday,

ie

and
will
meeting

4 for the

tie Club at
mhe home

z

drishic

Pxhis mat-

must “go.
3 4 an outrage in a city the size of Jer-

c. | should communicate with Postmaster

jernment is paying fancy eslaries ‘o

J allewed to He on the ground for 4

J were apathetic.

{| @amps between Franklin 8treet and

‘| when up in the country in New. Yora

‘tthe @uggertion that another impurt-

| pel tor those hurt inside of it.

*

THE

“ |CALL TUNNELS HUMAN
_ SLAUGHTER HOUSES

hae!
Jf

This Was Alleged at

’ Officials
Soma-criticiam was launched by
the Tentp Ward Improvement Asso-
elation “last night at. ite regular
| meeting at: Turnpike’ Hall, on the
local’ postal sérvice, “und demands
Were aleo mede for a Grand Jury tn-
vertigatin into the dangecoue con:
dition of the Erie and Lickawanns
Raliroad tunnels.” The meinbers cr't-
‘ permitting de

te ran Be OM, ; ae ad
the ball roiling by stating tmat the
people were lax in the ma't?r of im-
Prvvements, and that officials had
the game habit. He sad the streets
[were in a frightful condition

ed by saying that the departments

Mr. Reilly said that Smith Street
‘was an eyce@ore. a mire and ina
Wretched condttion. : .
| Mr. Barnes followed with a roast
On the postal facilities, iis enid that
there was no place to xt pomage

ahe Five Corners, that the firs: maii
was eeidom delivered on the Boule-
vard before noon; and the sceond
after °S o'clock, which he said) wne
eey City. He eald h: got hie mail
York State a:great deal quicker. He
said thet there was a need for mere
letter carriers. . é

“Postmastera are selected because
of their political. work and not. be-
cause of thelr ability," 211 a. inem-
ber. “We never had a postmaner
yet who would. recog it:e « map of
the. city if he had seen one. We'

Waneer or go to Wasning:o1," ne
Mr, Stevens eald thag the situation |
Wae outregeous.. “I Yre near Christ
Hospital,” be eaid, “and canno: buy
stamps except at rome drug store;
where you sare noc alwava suse of
getting what you want. The ticv-

s lot of postmasters of politic :l type
and we get no e@ervice in return.”
“Mr AdeMinger interposed with

ant matter sh uid he considered, the
condition of the tunnels on the Erie
ond lackewanna Railroads. ile said
that injured men are allowed to tay
on the grov@i like doge until the a:a-
buiance picks them up. and insistel
that the cc @oould have a
fiest ali to the injured deputment
and shelter at either end of the tun-

President Mullins uid thet “he
knew of one case where @ Man ¥ #4:

‘considerable ‘epece of tine and

died
oo his way to the hospital = =.

tion Meeting—Federal and City.

end)
-[ that. the sewers were wore? co nduct-

Tenth Ward Associa-

a

Pea

Rapped.

working inside for any } h of time i
are overcome or. stu “and fall)
easy victimes to the traine.”” He sald ;
the tunnel is filled with smoke. and}
dark as pitch, and that few cecape the ;
gaseous fumes 2 : ; 4
"Tr knew every tunnel trackwalker ;
for fifty years past.’ said Mr. Adel- ;
finger, “and only‘one J know ever ce- ;
caped the: trains.”
Manyyof the deaths,” supptemented !
ullina, “are really murder, The |
MuUnity te-esleep, and so are the}
ithoritiee when they neglect looking
into thesé matters."

cases of this kind,” sald Mr. Stevens, ;
“instead of some of the trivial things |
they do take up," oo

“In past yeara,” said Mr. Mullins,
“the polical bosses had all they could
Go to save the’companies from indict-
ment’. . ;

“They should have a first aid to the
injured etaff.”” said Mr. Barnes. “Acci-
dents are hushed up and many acci-
dents néver come to light. The tun-
nels are veritable slaughter howvses,”

It was finally decided that Seeretary
Bleyle communicate with the Grand
Jury requesting “that it investigate
into the matter. ;

It was called to the attention of the
association that a public hearing
would be held at the City Hall in the
matter of the. Clif, Magg and Spruce
Street - sewers on Monday afternoon
next. It was suggested that as many
ag ble attend. :

tr. Stevens, who was chairman of
the cheaper gas committee, reported
that the Public ice Corporation
hed reduced: the ice of: gas. from
$1.10 to $1 per 1 feet. :

/President Mullins criticised the de-
lay jn the Erte cut. project, and said
that the company now. occupied Bar-
num Street; welfth, . Thirteenth,
} Fourteenth ang Fifteenth streets, but
had taken no steps as yet to fill ita
part of. the contract by constructing.
the proposced street on the north aide
“ot the cut, from Summit Avenue to
the Boulevard. It was decided to send
Mayor. Fagan a jetter requesting the
legal department to look into the mat:
ter. ot . ae

Mr. Miditdge. ta hia addrese on: the
new. telephone company,” eald that
the States were haneycombed with
independent companies, and that
cheaper rates. would follow the eatab=

Hahment of its service in this city. He
said that the Bell people had a mon-
opoly in this city, New York -and
Boston, and regulated the prices to
pay. dividends on watered stocks.
He said that there were 5.000 Inde-
pendent exchanges in the ~ United
Btates, repreeenting 6,000,000 @ub-
-acribers, and. over. $200,000,000- was
invested in them... In’ response to. 8

uestion. be sald that he believed
that. the: Hudson Telephone Company

Was under the®* control. of ‘the Heil

= The Condition of the tunnels fa not:

“The Grand Jury ought to look into :

MURDACO
FORFEITED —
HIS LIFE

(Continued from First: Page.)
demned man started .at 10:20¢o'ciock.
Tn tesa than a minute the-doomed man '
wae under the scaffold. and at’
10:20. Hangman Van° Hise pull-
ed- the. catch “trepe. and = Mur-
daco” was launched: into eternity. !
There was but one. convulsive twitch
of the body after the doomed man’
dropepd back the knogth of the rope
slack allowed by the hangman.) The
body ewayed back and forth without

| any movement whatever on the part.

of the aying man. : {
\ Five minutes’ after. the body was,
lowered sufficient’ to’ enable’ Doctors
Walechied,: Farr and: Smith to. iaten ;
for the last beat of the heart ans at}
10:33 the “doctors pronowrced Mur- :
dacu: dead: He’ hag deen

just fourte@h rmtnutes. The doctors
announced that Muraaco'’s neck was
broken ‘and Kajieer © officially

Shertyt
| anounced ‘that the judgment of the

law had beter executed:

The. execution of  Murdaco was
marked by almost a deathlike silence. :
Beyond the. alight shuming of the
feet ae the murderer entered the cor-
ridor where death awaited him, the
snap of the catch at the end of the
hoose as it was alipped into the eye |
doit; the low muttered of the
Gttending priest, the click -°of
Son one the low, 2 0 Rh as.

w Gropped into the sand i
pit in the corridor delow, there was
M0 nolee and even these sounds were
audible only to an acute ear.

jaurore Ried into the
Geath ward, the Sherl@ and
Sheriff went into the cell of the f
Gemmed man, which was located in

vision, Hangman Van Hise stand
with. the straps with which to bind
the doomed man’s arms. The biack
cap was placed back of the head
and atthe conclusion of the reading

: and Murdeco was

asked if he had anything to say.

‘The priest translated the question
and Murdaco replied that he would
Vike to see hig aiater. He was asked
where she was and sald in New York.
Father Monteleone told Murdaco that
the time had come when he must
meet the punishment fized by. lew,
and he replied in Itallan that he was
not sfraki to die, but feared to meet
his Maker. at :

«Hangman “Van Hise: stepped for-

‘people, A’ committee was appointed

‘ wileate

we

the business. No
have nearly every.
liberal offerings.

merchandise in suck
DISASTROUS winter

ward and’ in a twinkling he had the


Trasuctione , N.S 9!- Bags
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