Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 225, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1920 — BANDITS LEAVE RIDDLED BODY [ARTICLE]

BANDITS LEAVE RIDDLED BODY

Gang Vengeance Clew Follows Attempted Robbery at t Franklin Grove. VICTIM CHICAGOAN, BELIEF f.• » - J Found Shot Twice at Close RangeHad >l,lOO In Cash in Pocket— Chicago Factory Foreman Io Murdered. Aurora, 81., Sept 16.—Gang vengeance left a gruesome clew to the identity of bandits who attempted te raid the Franklin Grove State bank at Franklin Grove, Hl. The clew was the body of a young well-dressed man, found behind an automobile repair shop which the bandits raided at Leland, HL In the pockets was a letter addressed to George L Miller, 1851 Park avenue, Chicago, and 1 >l,lOO in cash. . The victim had been shot twice at close range, apparently by Ms companions. Leland is 30 miles from Franklin Grove on the Lincoln highway.’ It wt s the.road which the bank bandits tock vytHwy pursued by a rifle fusillad' they fled from the other town. They c were headed toward Chicago, a ct*cumstance confirming the police in the belief that all concerned were from the gunman circles of that city. Uss Too Much Dynamite. The attempted raid on the Franklir Grove bank took place a little after midnight The bandits, who evidently were inexperienced, loaded the safe with enough nitroglycerin to blow up a battleship. As a result the explosion rocked every building in the little village and set the residents running toward the bank with rifles ready for action. The bandits reached their automobile just as the vanguard of the citizens arrived, and sped away in a rain of bullets.

The bandits secured nothing. Seemingly determined not«to be entirely balked, however, they robbed a store at Chadman on the way to Leland. Then came the descent on the automobile repair shop. Here there was evidently a quarrel between the bandits which halted the robbery before they had taken anything, and ended in the shooting of one of the members. Landlady Identifies Body. . Chicago, Sept, 16.—The Park avenue address is a rooming house. Mrs. Frances, Barney, the proprietor, identified the dead man as a former lodger, and told of the start of the automobile ride. Miller, she said, kept an automobile in' a garage behind the rooming house. < “At five o’clock Monday afternoon, she said, “he took the automobile out, saying he would not be back until late. I did not notice whether he had any friends with him.” Mrs. Barney thought it possible that Miller had been hired by the bandits as. a chauffeur, and that they had shot him when he refused to implicate himself further in their operations. The man. she said, had lived at the rooming house with his wife, a nephew And a niece for several months. He left early in July, she said, and moved to 17 North . Lincoln street, leaving his automobile, however, at the Park avenue place. , . Factory Foreman Murdered. Another killing bearing the marks of robbers was discovered in the factory of tfie William H. Jackson company at 1529 South State street. The victim was John Kolkokskl, a manager for th.e company. His body was found In the washroom, the skull crushed by repeated blows and to® pockets rifled.