Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 311, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1920 — [?]BANDIT IS SLAIN IN TRAIN HOLDUP [ARTICLE]

[?]BANDIT IS SLAIN IN TRAIN HOLDUP

’assengers on I. C. Fast Mail Robbed by Twin Brothers » Near Kankakee, 111 SECOND OUTLAW CAPTURED Brakeman and “Neysie” Forced to Search Victims for Money and Valuables—Robbers Taken by Posse at Aroma Park Station. Chicago, Dec. 30.—For the third time within a year robbers last night hn'aded the New Or'eans-Chlcago fast mail train of the Illinois Central railroad, took possession of the rear Pullman sleeper and robbed twenty-five passengers of SSOO and jewelry valued at $1,500. There were two of them. At 9:30 o’clock they boarded the train at Gilman, 80 miles south of Chicago, and. pressing a flagman and a newsboy into service to search tlielr victims, rode for 30 miles to the crossing of the fetate Hospital for the Insane, one mile south of Kankakee, where they leaped off. Captured by Posse at Aroma. The robbers, botlr mere boys, were raptured shortly before iuldinght at the Aroma Park station of dire Big Four, four miles east of Kankakee, by a pcsse hastily organized by Tim Healy. special agent for the Illinois Central at Kankakee. One of the robbers was seriously injured in a revolver duel fought with Special Agent John O’Neil through the closed door of a washroom, where the youth ha((T taken refuge. The wounded robber uied shortly afterward. y The Big Four station agent at Aroma Park, had been warned of the holdup, became suspicious when one s os the boys irftjuired concerning a train for the East. He notified Healy, and the posse, reinforced by Kankakee policemen, rushed to the scene in automobiles. Robber Makes Daring Break. Th£ boys were captured at first without a struggle, but as the Big Four train for which they had been waiting pulled in one of them jerked ‘away, leaped aboard the train, and dashed through the coaches. He darted into the washroom and locked the door. O’Neil ordered him to come out. Several bullets whizzed through the panels past O’Neil’s head. He ducked to one side and emptied )|is revolver through the closed door. was then broken' open and the wounded robber rushed to a hospital in Kankakee. He died there at 12:30 o’clock. The other prisoner gave his name as Joe Scott and said his wounded companion was his twin brother. Jake ■Scott of Greenville, HI. Overlook Much Plunder. All the passengers declared the rob- % bers were amateurs and extremely nervous. " Their Involuntary helpers —the flagman and tlie newsboy —proved derelict, furthermore, to the robbers’ trust and as a consequence the passengers retained more money and valuables than they lost.

Scott Tells of Downfall. Scotty in an anguish of boyish remorse, told the Kankakee police of the big city lures that had attracted his brother and himself from the prosaic life at Greenville. A visit to St. Louis had done it, he said. They had hoped to rob the train of enough money to buy diamonds and other presents for some girls they had met there. Trainmen and passengers described their initial attempt to crime as ludh crous. They refused to take any of Rowe’s money on the ground that he was a workingman. They took only the company’s money from the Pullman conductor. They ordered their unwilling assistants to return $25 to Clemens Pienczykowski, a soldier of the Fiftythird infantry, traveling in uniform. £ ' "