Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1912 — CAUSES MAN'S ARREST [ARTICLE]

CAUSES MAN'S ARREST

Mrs. Jennie Conrad ,of Oak Dell, Near Conrad, Lands Employe, Lowell, Ind., May 18. Mrs. Jennie Conrad, the famous widow of the Kankakee farm lands, one of the wealthiest in this part of the state, succeeded in landing her missing butler in jail in Chicago. I'nder the name of Ferdinand Meschede there is locked up today at Central Detective Bureau a man who, the police believe, can clear up a score of Chicago robberies in which "trusted” servants made away wfth jewels and plate. He is accused specifically of forgery In connection with the looting of the home of Mrs. Jennie Conrad, owner of the Oak Dell Farms, near Conrad, where he was employed as butler. The loot at that time consisted of all Mrs. Conrad’s son’s clothes, all the family silverware and the most serviceable of the furniture. Meschede had been left in charge while the family went io Eunojte.

Mre. Conrad also found two canceled checks of >4OO, which she had not written, cashed by the butler at the Northern Trust Company’s Bank in Chicago. She still trusted him. At the instigation of the bank detectives shadowed him. For six months the chase lasted, Involving several ’ homes in Highland Park and Lake Forest, where the butler had worked under as many different aliases. Finally he was arrested at the Loyola Academy, Hayes amd Winthrop avenues.