Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 189, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 December 1928 — Page 1

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LIFER BREAKS k‘LOVE SPELL’; "denieskilling Leaves Cell to Accuse Old Mistress of Slaying Husband. PRISONER OF PASSION Locked in Closet 4 Months, is Charge; Saw Murder Through Knothoie. Bu United Press LA CROSSE, Wis., Dec. 28.—John G. Beier, 29, serving a life sentence in the state prison at V/aupun, today was prepared to face the farm woman who eight years ago “kept him for herself,’’ and to accuse her I of the murder for which he was imprisoned. Beier arrived here under guard and hastened to seek accomplish- I ment of the purpose for which ! . Governor Fred R. Zimmerman has l f granted him a five day “leave of from the penitentiary. According to his claims, Beier has,; ■fter eight years behind Waupun's j prison walls, shaken off the “spell’’ which Mrs. Helen Biesen Bartovitch cast about him when he was a boy, a spell which, he says, made him do the woman’s bidding from the time he was 14 years old until after his conviction for the murder of Nick Biesen, her first husband. Tired of Being Hero Now, he says, he is tired of being a “hero” and suffering life imprisonment for a crime which his mistress committed. He will seek while here to wring from her what he says is the truth about the murder and to send her to complete payment of the debt someone owes society for Biesen's death. Beier, who says he pleaded guilty to the murder charge when he “didn’t even know what the word ‘guilty’ meant,” because he was enamored of Mrs. Biesen when he was 14 years old and lived on a farm adjoining that of her husband. Locked in Closet The lifer who is making his fight for liberty tells an amazing story of how he was “hypnotized” by the farm woman, who was many years his senior, of a love affair with her that lasted more than seven years, of how she locked him in a closet and “kept him there for herself,” for four months, releasing him after she had shot and killed her husband. Beier decided to leave Wisconsin in April, 1920, he told the Governor and prison officials. He planned to go to Dakota and forget his love affair with his neighbor’s wife. After notifying his parents of his departure, he stopped at the Biesen home- to tell Mrs. Biesen good-by. Mrs. Biesen, he said, refused to allow him to leave and after a stormy scene locked him in a closet which she had built especially for ft|he purpose. She kept him there HHgl Aug. 26, 1920, the day her huswas killed. t r i Describes Murder ff On that day, Beier says, Mrs. ’n Biesen and her husband visited at til her mother’s house. They quarIVreled about the farm and returned rahome about noon with the quarrel du unsettled. re Through a knothole in his closet arprison, Beier says he saw Biesen attack his wife with a butcher knife. Mrs. Biesen ran into a bedroom he says and procured a shotgun. When Biesen started into the room she shot him, the charge almost blowing his head away. Beier claims that from his prison he could look directly upon the spot where the husband fell dead. After the killing, Mrs. Biesen released hi mand he returned home, later coming to Madison, where he Iwas arrested several w r eeks later. FAMILY LIFE FADING, SCIENTISTS ARE TOLD Affection Pointed Only Tie Remaining That Really Binds. Bu United Press CHICAGO, Dec. 28— Family life is racing toward decadence at a Aapid rate, Dr. W. F. Ogburn of the of Chicago told the American Socioligical Society in Convention here. / Dr. Ogburn said that originally there were ties that held families together—affection, economics, religion, protection, recreation, education and family status. “There remains of these original ties now only the tie of affection, which really binds,” he said. Accused of Embezzling $125,000 E.U United Press PITTSBURGH, Pa. Dec. 25. Enrico Coomune, 51, was arrested Jipre today, charged with embez||fling $125,000 from the Italian of Commerce, New York, than a year ago. Coomune secretary of the Chamber of jjHEllie cost is small—wherever you t , Hi. Basic rate by telephone to CHISfplGO only sl.os.—Advertisement.

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The Indianapolis Times Unsettled tonight and Saturday, probably rain; somewhat warmer tonight, colder Saturday afternoon or night.

VOLUME 4a-NUMBER 189

EXTRA

Shumaker Must Go to Farm State supreme court today ordered the Rev. E. S. Shumaker, superintendent of the Indiana Anti-Saloon League, back to Indiana state farm to serve his sixty-day sentenee for contempt, thereby holding the pardon issued by Governor Ed Jackson to Dr. Shumaker Oct. 18, illegal. Dr. Shumaker was taken to the state farm the morning of Oct. 19. A telegram from the Governor, pardoning him, was waiting at the farm when he arrived in custody of the sheriff of supreme court. It took half a day to complete the technical matters incidental to the lelease at the farm, during which time Dr. Shumaker sat in the admitting room with a dozen bootleggers and others convicted of petty crime. Shumaker Held Guilty The annual report of Dr. Shumaker for 1925, published in 1926, in which some supreme judges were termed “wet,” was the basis of the original contempt action. Attorney General Gilliom filed an information, the court referred the matter to five leading lawyers acting as friends of the court and a majority of these lawyers held that Dr. Shumaker was guilty. On Aug. 6, 1927, the court found Dr. Shumaker guilty and later sentenced him to serve sixty days on the farm and fined him $250. A month later, Gilliom petitioned the court to increase this punishment, alleging, with the publication of correspondence between Dr Shumaker and Senators Arthur R Robinson and James E. Watson that he again had committed contempt through an alleged effort to get political pressure brought upon the supreme judges to free him. Court Reaffirms Action Almost a year later, the court reaffirmed its action in the original case, but did not add to the sentence. On Oct. 18, this year Dr. Shumaker’s attorneys gave up the fight to get anew hearing and the commitment to state farm was issued that day, with the subsequent denouncement the next day. Gilliom immediately filed a brief alleging the Governor had no power to pardon a person In contempt of supreme court in such a case as this and moved that the judgment be carried out. Dr. Shumaker’s attorneys last week, in a final effort, filed an additional brief, arguing that the superintendent had passed beyond the power of supreme court Dec. 18, when the calendar period of his sixty-days sentence, which he had started to serve when pardoned, expired. The attorneys cited a decision of Justice David A. Myers in support of the contention. Gilliom Hits Back Gilliom this week countered this with argument that there was no parallel between the Shumaker case and the case upon which Judge Myers ruled. He held that in the former case a court itself had had a hand in the releasing of the prisoner before his term expired, whereas in the Shumaker case Governor Jackson had pre-empted power and figuratively taken the prisoner away from supreme court, with no action whatever of the court to lend legal color. Denies Engagement By United, Press CANTON, 0., Dec. 28.—Miss Adelaide Chase, playing in “On Call” at the Waldorf theater, New York, denied today that she was engaged to Harold E. Righter, Albany bureau manager of the United Press. Her denial was contained in a telegram to her father, Russell C. Chase, here.

HISTORIANS OF NATION OPEN ANNUAL MEETING IN CITY

Stories of Convention on Pajre 15. Learned historians from throughout the United States were in Indianapolis today attending the forty-third annual meeting of the American Historical Association and allied bodies at the Claypool. The opening session, a joint meeting of the association with the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, got under way this morning. Some 600 savants, representing the history departments of almost every great American university, are on hand for the gathering, which will continue through Monday. Tonight at general session to con vene at 8:30 p. m., President James H. Breasted will deliver his annual address on “The New Crusade.” The noted scholar from the University of Chicago will be succeeded in the presidency by James Harvey Robin-

’LEGGER SLAIN BY HIJACKERS; WITNESS HELD Check Story of Shooting Told by Urban Pope, Victim's Companion. KILLED ON HIGHWAY Attacked While Driving Liquor Load Here, Police Told. Police today checked bootleg circles and the story of a hijackers’ battle told by Urban Pope, 31, of 1125 Shannon street, for clews to the slaying of Benjamin Franklin Whittington, alias James Carroll. 1321 North Pennsylvania street, formerly of Clinton, Ind. Pope, rum-runner who was sentenced to twenty months In federal prison in March, 1927, as the leader in the Pope liquor conspiracy case, declared that several men in a blue Stutz sedan shot Carroll, alias Whittington, twelve miles north of Lebanon on the Lafayette road as they were returning from Chicago with a load of liquor. Find Body in Car Carroll fell from the car during the shooting. Pope said. He escaped. Pope said, with the use of a device on his car with which he could leave such a heavy smoke screen behind him on the road that pursuers had' to slow down to drive through it. After shaking off the hijackers, he turned around on a side road and got Carroll’s body, he said. Then he drove here, throwing away the liquor load as he drove, and called police. Police, however, are working on the possibility that Pope and Carroll were doing the hijacking and that Carroll was hanging on the running board of the car when shot. Pope denied he ever carried a gun in his car, saying he used his smoke screen to escape hijackers, but police found some revolver cartridges in the car and a clip of automatic shells in his house. Sergeant Oral Chitwood and squad found Carroll’s body huddled in the rear seat of Pope’s Auburn sedan in front of his home when they answered the call at 11 p. m. Pope at first said he and Carroll had been visiting friends southeast of the city when Carroll was shot. Lawrence J. Donahey, rooming at Pope’s home, and Pope were held on orders of Coroner C. H. Keever, pending investigate of the slaying. Pope said the hijackers who killed Carroll shot from the right side of his car. Police found two bullet holes in the right door of Pope’s car which they reported seemed to have been fired from the left side or from inside the car. Sought by Police Detectives Emmett Englebright, George Hubbard and Clarence Golder, who Vove to the scene of the shooting as described by Pope, found blood and glass on the Lafayette road a short distance in Clinton county. Bloodstains and footprints lead ninety feet into a wheatfield, where there was a large blood spot as if someone had been laid there. They found auto tracks in the field 150 feet north and several unexploded and several exploded 30-30-caliber mushroom rifle cartridges. Police believe the slain man is a man federal men have been seeking for several months as “Jimmy, the king ” a booze gang leader. He is survived by a bride of seven months, Mrs. Lorene Whittington, or Carroll, a waitress in a downtown coffee shop, who said she had not seen her husband for several days. She said she knew her husband had been a rum-runner and had urged him to stop. Smoker Fatally Burned By United Press LOGANSPORT, Ind., Dec. 28. Charles Wilson, 32, farmer, was burned to death after he had fallen asleep with a cigarette in his mouth. The body was found today by a brother who stopped at the home to call Wilson for work.

son, author of “The Mind in the Making.” Among the outstanding plans to oe taken up and pressed forward is the $1,000,000 endowment drive for financing historical research. Ivy Lee, New York, is chairman of the committee in charge. Charles W. Ramsdell of the University of Texas presided at the joint meeting this morning. James A. James of Northwestern university presented a paper entitled “Oliver Pollock, Financier of the Revolution in the West”; Charles Roll, Indiana State Normal school, Terre Haute, one on “Indiana’s Part in the Nomination of Lincoln in 1860,” and W. H. Stephenson, Louisiana State university, one on “James K. Lane,” this morning. Sectional meetings on “English History” and History and Other Social Studies in the Schools,” were

INDIANAPOLIS, FRIDAY, DEC. 28, 1928

YEGG GANG LOOTS PETTIS STORE; 2 WATCHMEN BOUND AND GAGGED; ROBBER HAUL ESTIMATED AT 57.000

Yeggs Bind Watchman; Crack Safe

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Two victims of the cracksmen who looted the Pettis Dry Goods Company store of $7,000 this morning are pictured here. They are Everett M. Garrison, 60. of the Denison hotel, night watchman at the store, and the store’s huge, partially burglar-proof

ARMED GUARDS KEEPING WATCH AT BANDIT TRIAL

Vanished Search by Whole Town for 4-Year-Old Boy Fails.

By United Press ORRVILLE, 0., Dec. 28.—A continuous search by virtually all of Orrville’s population failed today to reveal a trace of 4-year-old Melvin Horst, who vanished suddenly Thursday night, possibly the victim of abductors. Melvin disappeared from in front of his parents’ home about 5:30 p. m. Three hours later no trace of him had been found and the village firebell, sounding an alarm, was rung. Almost every man in town turned out. Carrying torches and lamps, the searchers tramped fields and gulleys within a radius of three miles looking for the lad. Melvin was last seen playing in front of his home when his father, Raymond Horst, returned from work. After searching the neighborhood, Horst summoned police. Radio station WADC, Akron, broadcast a description of the boy. CONFISCATE BAD FOOD SIO,OOO Spoiled Goods Hauled From Wholesale Grocery. By United Press ST. LOUIS, Mo., Dec. 28. City food inspectors confiscated and destroyed SIO,OOO worth of spoiled canned goods and other foods from Nathan Comensky’s wholesale grocery here, then sent him the bill for hauling the stuff to the city dump.

also on the morning program. Arthur L. Cross, University of Michigan, presided at the former and William E. Lingelbach, University of Pennsylvania, at the latter. Papers in the English history division were read by Frederick G. Marcham, Cornell university; John U. Nef, University of Chicago; W. T. Morgan, Indiana university, and Thomas P. Martin, library of congress. Those on the program in the sec-, tional meeting on history and other social studies in the schools included August C. Krey, University of Minnesota, and J. D. Hicks, University of Nebraska. The latter led the discussion on a paper presented by Krey, entitled “Thirty Years After the Committee of Seven.” The paper told of the $50,000 gift from the Carnegie Foundation to finance a year’s research.

safe. Garrison was bound and gagged, while the exterior door of the safe was blown to bits. The ruined doors are shown in the photo, as is the intact interior door, which balked the yeggs in their attempt to obtain more than $15,000 inside.

Policemen on Stand Tell of Bloody Gun Battle in Hohlt Robbery. While policemen described the bloody gun battle they fought with two bandits in the F. W. Hohlt & Son dry goods store the morning of Dec. 8, half a dozen guards continued to maintain vigilance in criminal court during the trial of Lloyd Amos In criminal court today. Amos, 25, of 617*4 North Illinois street, was captured in an automobile outside the store while other police were shooting it out with Otto Price and Carl Kittrell, whom they killed. Guar*! State’s Witness Presence in the courtroom late Thursday of a suspicious character, who had followed Herman Armfield, Kokomo, star state witness, for three days, caused the extra precautions by the guards who were prepared to battle with any gangsters so bold as to attempt to wreak vengeahee on Armfield, the former member of the gang, who informed police of the holdup plot. Over objections of Amos’ attorney the 9tate, through Detective Arthur Field, introduced a confession and statements made by Amos immediately after his arrest in which he was purported to have admitted he suggested the raid, that they met the night before at the home of Kittrell and completed plans, met at Kittrell’s early the next morning and that he drove Kittrell, Price and Armfield to the store, 1239 Kentucky avenue, the next morning. May Rest Today According to the confession, Amos let the trio out a block from the store, cleaned his windshield and then drove slowly along. He had just reached the front of the store when the battle inside started, and other police swarmed toward him and made him surrender. Amos’ lawyer, A. G. Manning of Kokomo, repudiates this confession and contends that Amos did not know a holdup was planned, but merely drove his friends to the store as an accommodation that morning. The state was expected to rest this afternoon. Other witnesses today included W. F. Hohlt, one of the store proprietors; Lieutenant Roy Pope, who was slightly wounded and Detective Harry Irick, who told details of the holdup attempt. GAS MEETING DELAYED Trustees Postpone Parley Because of Board Member’s Illness. The conference of Citizens Gas Company directors and trustee? scheduled for Thursday afternoor was postponed indefinitely because of the illness of Robert Lieber, a trustee. The officials desired that all trustees be present at the session whic -’ was called to discuss the personal stand of directors preliminary to their re-election Jan. 14.

My Ma, Kid!’ Uncle, 9, Takes 18-Months-Old Baby on Long Train Trip.

By United Press Kansas city, mo., Dec. 28. The once popular tune, “You’ve been more than a mother to me.” had a realistic meaning today for 9-year-old Edward Hurley of Grand Island, Neb. Edward was traveling from Grand Island to Cove, Ark., with his 13-months-old niece, Barbara Jean York, as his companion. Edward and Barbara Jean boarded a train here for the last lap of their trip which will end late this afternoon. Somehow, he managed to get on the train carrying Barbara Jean, her pillows, blankets and a large hat bag. All this luggage was only part of his troubles for the baby niece had a cold and was inclined to cry. During a short stay here between trains, he obtained medical aid for the baby and also an allday sucker, which was bought with money given him by passengers. Edward will visit his aunt, Mrs. W. T. Plunkett, at Cove, Ark., until spring. The baby’s father, Louis York, works in the oil fields at Big Springs, Tex., and next spring the boy and the baby will make the trip to Texas. MOST PRECOCIOUS FROG FOUND BY EXPLORERS Species Discovered in Bermuda Skips Tadpole Stage. By United Press CHICAGO, Dec. 28.—The world’s most precocious fog, one that emerges directly from the egg as a froglet, omitting entirely the tadpole stage through which other members of its family pass, has been found In Bermuda by the Crane Pacific expedition of the Field museum.

HUSBAND OF ‘GUN GIRL’ CHARGED WITH SLAYING

By United Press CANTON, 0., Dec. 28.—Wilbur C. Heldman, Lorain, furnace salesman, formally was charged with murder today in connection with the death of his wife, Margaret, the phantom gunwoman, who was shot to death after she confessed killing Vernard Fearn, Waco coal dealer. Feam, with whom the gun girl admitted intimacies, was shot to death on the night of Dec. 6, according to the husband’s story. A week later, Mrs. Heldman confessed and her husband bundled her in his car

Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice, Indianapolis

Expert Cracksmen Work Leisurely for Hours; Blow One Safe, Foiled in Efforts to Open Two Others. SI,OOO POSTOFFICE MONEY IS TAKEN Thieves Apparently Familiar With Operation and Interior of Business Offices and Workings of A. D. T. Boxes. A gang of three or more yeggs, working expertly for more than three hours, bound two watchmen, blew a safe, and obtained $7,000 in the Pettis Dry Goods Company store Thursday night, but failed to obtain the big prize ot. their venture, the store’s Thursday receipts and Ihe pay roll, estimated at more than $15,000. They also failed to burn their way through the store’s jewel safe, whi'ch contained diamonds and other gems valued at thousands of dollars. After using nitroglycerin to blow the double exterior doors of the huge, supposedly burglar-proof safe, which contained the pay roll and receipts and obtaining the $7,000 in boxes and money bags ou shelves just inside the door, the yeggs burned three holes in the strong box proper in their effort to get the big prize.

Included in the $7,000 loot was SI,OOO of substation postoffice receipts. The burglary came just eight months after the store’s safe was looted of SIO,OOO, May 13, and the new safe which withstood the mai i assaults of the yeggs was installed. Familiar With Store Apparently familiar with the Interior of the store and the working., of the business office, the yeggs went through the carefully planned burglary with machine-like precision. They apparently hid one membei of the gang in the store’s garage and gained entrance when he unlocke.l the side door on Scioto street. Pushing away a store truck, they apparently drove their own car int •• the garage, closed the doors and descended to the store basement on a freight elevator. Then they hid behind a stairway in the engine room until Everett M. Garrison, 60, of the Denison hotel, watchman, passed them on his rounds of the building. This was about 1 a. m. Watchman Bound, Gagged Two yeggs stepped into his path, leveled pistols at him. and marched him into an adjoining room, where they bound his feet and hands with picture wire and gagged him by wrapping adhesive tape over his mouth and eyes. During the binding operation, the other member of the gang joined his two accomplices and he and one of the other gang members went to the main floor of the store, leaving one man to guard Garrison. In the optical department on the main floor they surprised James Hughes, 48, Negro, 1148 West Twenty-fifth street, the custodian, covered him with a pistol, and marched him down the stairway to the basement, where he received the same treatment as Garrison. Blow Safe Door * Telling the bound watchmen that seven members of the gang were working in the store, two of the men went into an adjoining room, where the huge safe is located. Using a large quantity of nitro glycerine, which they exploded with battery and wire attachments, the yeggs blew the outside door of the safe to bits, pried open the interio; steel doors with crowbars, obtained the $7,000, and sorted and pocketed it leisurely before their attempt to gain entrance to the safe’s interior A huge pile of checks was sorted from the money and left on a nearby table. With acetylene torches, the yeggs then resumed their task of gaining entrance to the safe’s interior. So secure did they believe themselves that they used nothing to deaden the sound of the blast and the clang of crowbars. After burning three huge holes in the top of the safe, the yeggs gave up their attempt and went to the store’s main floor, where' they made their unsuccessful effort to get into the jewel safe. Burning three holes in this safe, and apparently attempting to blow

and started for Canton to surrender her. En route the gunwoman was shot and killed. Heldman claimed she committed suicide. After an investigation he was held under $25,000 bond as a material witness. The warrant was sworn out by Coroner T. C. McQuate, before Donald Smyth, justice of the peace. The county grand jury will receive the charge when it convenes on Jan. 7. Heldman, meanwhile, is still held in lieu ol bail

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the doors with a charge of “soup,” the yeggs gave up the effort. While working on the gem strong box, the yeggs took pains to deaden the attending noise by obtaining | expensive blankets from the coun- ! ters and covering the safe with i them. Several of the blankets were burned by the explosion or the torches. Little Jewelry Taken Unable to gain access to the Jews' strong box, the yeggs went to the stores jewelry department and swept a quantity of inexpensive | jewelry from a counter and returned to the basement. The entire .vmount ! of jewelry taken is valued at not more than SIOO. After tightening the thongs that bound their two prisoners the yeggs ! left the store in the same manner | they had entered, driving their ma* ; chine casually from the garage ! without bothering to close the door. While in the store the cracksmen had' registered the twenty-six A. L, T. watchmen’s boxes in the store regularly and showed their familiarity with the store by leaving untouched the twenty-seventh box, which would have sounded a burglar alarm. A discarded Chicago newspaper, on which were figures describing the order in which the A. D. T. j boxes should be registered and setting forth the location of the burglar alarm box, also pointed to their knowledge of the store's interior. Six Other Safes in Store For ten days, until last night, the entire store receipts had been taken to the bank and virtually no cash had been left in the safes at night. Six other safes in th store, none of which contained money, were left untouched. A seventh safe, however, contained a large amount of money. Soon after the yeggs had departed, the bound Negro custodian twisted loose enough to reach a knife in his pocket, with which he cut himself and Garrison free. Garrison telephoned police at 5 a. m., half an hour after the yeggs departed, and an emergency squad sped to the store. To Sergeant Leroy Bartlett and members of his squad, Garrison and Hughes told their story of the hurglary. Garrison, who has been a watchman at the store for more than twenty-three years, was making his 1 o'clock rounds when the two bandits accosted him. “Stick ’em up,” the yeggs, both short young men, ordered. “I could do nothing but obey,” Garrison said. Told He Wouldn't Be Hurt Ordering him to “keep quiet and you won’t be hurt,” the yeggs began their work of binding him. The bandits said little until after Hughes was brought to the engine room and bound. Then the two short men left, and the tall yegg, left to stand guard over the prisoners, proved quite a conversationalist. "We have seven men in this gang, and we're going to clean up big. We came to this burg in an airplane and we’re going to be in one again before any one knows what’s happened here,” he said. “I used to work here about four years ago,” he continued. “I got only sl4 a week salary then, and I’ve come back to get the rest of it now. Say, we had a man in this store all day yesterday,” he volunteered. Eefore leaving, the yegg-guard took a pocketbook containing S6O from Garrison. Hourly Tenmeratures 6 a. m 32 10 a. m 43 7 a. m 33 11 a. m 46 8 a. m 35 12 (noon).. 51 9a. m 38 Ip. 52