Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 299, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1920 — CONFESSES TO $3,000,000 THEFT [ARTICLE]

CONFESSES TO $3,000,000 THEFT

Negro From Akron, 0., Arrested at Chicago, Admits Mail Robbery at Omaha. 9 MEN AND WOMEN IN GAND Says He Was Robber Who Looted Mail Sack at Kokomo, Ind., and Escaped With $70,000— Engaged in Other Hold-Ups.. Chicago, Dec. 16. —Edward Valentine, 30 years old, of Akron, 0., confessed at the detective bureau to being one of the bandits who engineered the $3,000,000 Omaha mall robbery last month. He is declared tp be the mail robber who looted a mail sack at Kokomo, Ind., last Friday, escaping with between $50,000 and $75,000 in money orders and negotiable checks. Part of the loot was found in his rooms, according to the police. • Valentine is also believed to have engaged in mail robberies in Sycamore and West Chicago, 111., and St. Louis, Mo. Woman Also Held. Valentine was arrested In the home of friends at 4521 Evans avenue. With him was a colored woman, Miss Hazel Grubbs of Indianapolis, who is being held at Detention home No. 3. * High lights of Valentine’s confession were: That there were six white men, one white woman and three negroes in the bandit gang that executed the robbery. That a William McDougall, formerly a wealthy business man of Des Moines, la., was their leader. That he rode into Omaha on the robbed train and walked away unnoticed and unquestioned. Woman Picked Up Bags. According to Valentine’s confession, he was in Cleveland several days before the robbery and there met a number of acquaintances, \>ho Invited him to join them in looting the mail train. Valentine accepted, he said, and they went to Des Moines, where the whole thing was planned. Valentine said that he was one of the men who were aboard the train. The woman, who Valentine named aS “Thornton’s sweetheart” was with a number of men in an \ automobile which drove parallel with the C. B & Q. tracks, picked up the mail bags as fast as their confederates tossed them from the moving train. Says Others “Squealed?’ “After the robbery I went into the regular coaches and sat down.” Valentine averred. “When we pulled into Omaha I got off. Nobody bothered me. “We all met in Des Moines and divided up the stuff. There was $900,000 in cash. Then we all scattered. “I understand that Brooks and Morris and the woman were arrested and sent to the ’pen.’ I suppose that’s how you got me —they squealed.” The raid oh the Evans avenue house was the result of a “tip-off” given to the detective'bureau Monday. Boy Tells of Other Thefts. Council Bluffs, la:, Dec. 16.—Fred Zoffenbarger, 19, who was sentenced last week to 18 years at the federal prison at Leavenworth for being the “brains” of the great $5,000,000 mall robbery, has been identified as the leader In several” criminal escapades. Thousands of dollars worth of loot from box cars was found at the Poffenberger home. His mother complained that he often came home drunk and whipped her.