Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1912 — “BLAGKHANDER” CAME TO GRIEF [ARTICLE]

“BLAGKHANDER” CAME TO GRIEF

Attimpl to Exhort S7OO From B. Forsythe Ends In Arrest. “HARO UP” FROM GAMBLING Eddie Karnatz, a Crippled Tailor, Employed By B. K. Zimmer* man, Tries Blackhand Methods for Raising Money. ' The attempt to extort S7OO from B. Forsythe, the well known retired mere hart of Rensselaer, which bias been kept from the general public in order to apprehend the “BlaickhiaindeTs, ’ ended Wednesday evening ait Hinsdale, lil., in the arrest of Eddie Karnatz a crippled tailor, perhaps 25 years of age, who has worked for B. K. Zimmerman more or less for the past four or five yeiars. On Tuesday, July 30, Mr. Forsythe received the first letter, in which he was ordered to place S7OO in a cigar box and leave it in a pile oif stone on the Swaney Makeever Vacant lot immediately east of the jail. The rock pile is about 50 feet in from the sidewalk and the dense shade mak£s it very dark there at night. On failure to comply with the demand, his fine large brick house was to be blown up with dynamite, and himself with it. The letter was signed, “One of the Gang,” and there was some attempt to disguise the handwriting. Mr. Fo-reythe was naturally worried over the matter and men were fibred to try and apprehend the party or parties who were trying to extort money from him. He also offered, quietly, a reward of $l5O, through Mayor Meyers, for the capture of the guilty ones. In the first letter—all were mailed in the night box fastened on the inside of the postoffice door in the Rensselaer poetoffice—which Mr. Forsythe recevied Tuesday, July 30, he was ordered to place the money there on Thursday night following, and after notifying the officers and having six men on watch, E. P. Honan, J. J. Montgomery. Mustard, Constable Parks, Sheriff Hoover and Gus Grant, stationed at points of vantage so that anyone going to the rock pile would be surrounded, a dummy package was placed there, as directed, by Mr. Forsythe.

Karnatz, who boarded with Mrs. John Medion s only two dooms i-jouith of the vacant lot where the money was to be left, is said to hiave walked by the pllace several times thereafter ini the fore part of the night, but Ms nerve failed him and he did not go after the “money,” although in Ms confession he said that he followed Mr. Forsythe to within a short dtatafnice of the place and saw him pllace the package there. Ab a matter of fact the dummy package was fastened with a slack wire to a small bax containing an electric bell and batteny, and had the package been taken hold of the wire would hiave sounded the alarm and J. J. Montgomery, who was the originator of the device and was on watch in the house just south of vacant lot, would hiave turned on an electric search light and the blackmailer would have been caught dead to rights. Two other letters soon followed ■the fl'rtfei —.these three have been sent to the postoffice department—making siniiliar threats unless the money was forthcoming. The dummy package was removed each time after no one approached to secure it, it having been placed there each time again in compliance with the demlatnd made in the subsequent letters. Watch also was kept at the postoffice several nights and any letter mailed there in the night box, after the office was closed, was examined and the party mailing it noted, but nothing came of it. In the vigils at the postoffice, J. J. Montgomery lay on the floor by the mail box and with the aid of a tiny electric light was able to see the address on each letter as it was dropped in the box. A wire leading

to the basement where Constable Parks was stationed could instantly be used to mmmon him if a letter addressed to Mr. Forsythe was dropped in the box and he could rush out and nab the party who mailed it before he had any possible chance to get away. Strangely enough no letters were mailed to Mr. Forsythe during the nights this vigil was kept, but one night that they skipped the vigil a letter waH posted.

Nightwatdh Critser during all this time was also on the lookout for the guilty one, but while Karnatz was under suspicion, nothing could be got on him that would strengthen this suspicion to any great extent until the decoy letter fixed the evidence beyond all question of doubt. Kairoiaitz was suspicioned, and aitKiorney Mose Leopold who was working on tihe case with the officers, tried to get hold of some of has writing to compare it with that of the blackmailer's letters, all of which wore written on the same kind of paper and the fame quality of envelope used. The assessment sheet of Karnatz in 1909, where he had aligned the sheet, was the Only thing that could be found 1 . Last week, after two more of the ’letters—wlhiich we reproduce here with—were received by Mr.. Fortythe, Karnatz went to his .home in Hinsdale, 111., 18 miles west of Chicago, and Mr. Leopold had a decoy letter sent him/by a party who pretended he wanted to hire him, and the reply received supplied the missing link—ythe paper and envelope were precisely the same and ’the handwriting in almost every instance corresponded with that of the letters received by Mr. Forsythe. t Aiecordingly Maiilial Mustard went to Hinsdale Wednesday and as Karnatz, wlho had gone to Chicago, stepped off the train on his return home at 8:30 that evening, he was nabbed by the nightwatch there who turned ’him over to Marshal Mustard, who was prepared with requisition papers to bring him back should he not come will! ngly. Karnatz, however, agreed to come, and after stoutly denying all knowledge of the matter, finally, in the presence of his father and the chief of police, made a clean breast of the whole thing. He said that he had played poker with a bunch in Rensselaer and had lost all the money earned; he owed a board bill to Mrs. Medicus pf some $125 and had some other debts, and not wanting his father to know his financial condition, he had resorted to this manner of raising money. He did not have the nerve, however, to go to the stone pile after the packege the first night it wais put there—or succeeding times, it would appear. But he must have gone there in the day time after it had been removed. He was considerably broken up over the affair, but seemed scarcely to realize the enomrity of his crime, as he asked Mr. Forsythe after being brought back here Thursday

morning if he couldn’t fix it up with him in some manner? to this the latter replied that he had no powpr to fix anything up; that he had had him pretty badly toaired and he projtosed tp let the law take its course. The two last letters received by Mr. Forsythe read as follows: Envelope. ' - Mr. Ben Forsythe, Rensselafer, Indiana. Po-itmiarked August 10, 7 a. m.

Mr. Forsythe this time without fall. We come to your tto/wir last Monday and found that you had left we came back this Friday and made up our mind that we wore going to stay until you came back w'e seen you this afternoon and we are sanding you final notice we heard you donated an organ to the church so we are going to ask you for S4OO instead of S7OO we can’t monkey with you any longer so put $4 00 in box and place Lt near board by stone pile by Saturday Aug 10, 1912.

Th’e last one was received August 12. This was after Karnat’z father had came here and had paid sll9 board bill to Mrs. Medicus. The father is a poor working man, owns his little home and that is all. Yet he came here Sunday, August 14, and settled his son’s board bill. The same night, evidently the last letter was written, as Mr. Forsythe got it Monday, August 12, and it bore postmark of 7:30 a. m., that date.

Envelope. Mr. Forsythe ■ Rensselaer , Indiana. Postmarked Aug. 12, 7:30 a. m. Mr. Forsythe: The other boys say you have failed to put the money at the stone pile, so we have come to finish the job. We will give you until tomorrow night to put the SSOO in a cigar box and put it on ’top of the stone pile as close tio the end of that piece of board as you can. If you don’t put the SSOO there between the hours of 9 and 10 o’clock tomorrow night (Tuesday) Aug. 13, 1912, you know what is coming to you and you will sure get it, we only warn people once then it is either the money or you Two more of the gang. it is Up to you now, either the money ($500) or you. For five niighte Mr. Forsythe had six men hired to wabch for the blackmailer, but without success. He paid these men for watching, and also expects to pay the reward of $l5O to Leopold and Marshal Mustard, so that he is out about S3OO in cash in his efforts to land the felllow.

Mr. Foreytihe is entitled to much credit in the part ’he played in refusing to be blackmailed and in

running the blackmailer down. It is probable the federal authorities will take Karnatz to Indianapolis and he will be tried before Judge Andert-orP of the federal court, and little leniency is likely to be shown in matters of this kind. No doubt a long term in the federal prison awaits him.

Umablq toprocure bail, Karnatz Unable to procure bail, Karnatz at ter noon he wan arrailgned before Squire Irwin when he waived arraignment and in default of SSOO bonds was turned over to await the next term of court.