Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1912 — Man Arrested at Lafayette Will Be Returned to Reformatory. [ARTICLE]

Man Arrested at Lafayette Will Be Returned to Reformatory.

. . —r .... • f , - Fred Hlx, 26 years of age, who was arrested at Lafayette Sunday and who Is believed to be the man who robbed several Monon railroad stations near Lafayette, Is believed to have figured extensively as a kid glove burglar. His arrest was caused Sunday by the presence of mind of a boy named James Cowgill, of Battle Ground. Cowgill is only 12 years of age. He saw Hix in a cigar store and recognized him as the fellow who ran when the marshal at Battle ground tried to place him under arrest some three months ago. The boy went at once to the jail and informed Sheriff John Fisher, who, by the way, was a member of the old Battle Ground football team and who frequently came to Rensselaer. Fisher did not belittle the boy’s claim, but accompanied him to the cigar store. Hix bad left hut he was soon found and taken into custody. He denied that he had even been in Battle Ground but he was held until other people from that town could be called and they all identified him. He then confessed that he was the man who had run away from the marshal. He also admitted that he was,a paroled convict, having been sentenced only a little more than three years ago from Crawfordsville for a term of 2 to 14 years. He maintained that he had never robbed the stations at Battle Ground, Brookston or Chalmers. A druggist named Jennings at Brookston later identified him as a man who had bought cigars in his . store the day the Brookston depot was burglarized. Hix had been living at the Y. M. C. A. and had been considered an exemplary young m an and had broken into good society. He was a stylish dresser and the officers found his room In the Y. M. C. A. building to be 'si model of neatness. He had several suits of clothes, all hung on metal hangers; he had two new cravanettes, eight pairs of shoes and other articles of wearing apparel In proportion. He had a desk filled with correspondence with girls and evidently he was stringing a big lot of susceptible damsels. The only tools that he might have used in the business he is supposed to have followed found in his room were a combination pry-bar and a tack hammer. Lafayette detectives and policemen have been working on his case and have decided that' he is the person guilty of several residence burglaries in the society districts. He seems to be a modern Raffles and save for the shrewd action of the boy that recognized him, he might have gone ahead unmolested for a long time. He will now be returned to Jeffersonville to serve out his unexpired time, eleven His arrest caused a big sensation about the Y. M. C. A. and cigar stores where he loafed and at places he had passed as a high-class young man.