Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1904 — BANDIT TRIO HANGED [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BANDIT TRIO HANGED

CHICAGO CAR-BARN MURDERERS DIE ON SCAFFOLD. Niedemeyer, Marx and Van Dine Executed in the Order Named— Chief Is Carried to the Gibbet Youni; Despcradoes Pay Penalty for Crimes. The Chicago ear burn bandits were hanged Friday morning, one at a time, in the county jail. 'They wer.e.takeu to the scaffold at half-hour intervals between 10:30 o'clock and noon, and by 1 o'clock the black coffins had been shouldered of a side exit and carried away to morgues. Niedemeyer the boastful, Was the most-craven" of the three. He was carried, limp and half unconscious, to the gallows, and the trap was sprung as he was sitting on a chair. His death'was njo'r’eTibrribleTEan that of either of his Companions. No clergyman accompanied him to whisper words of consolation to him at the last, and his death struggles marked an excess of agony not equaled in Chicago executions of many years. Van Dine was the last to be hanged. The possibility that his mother’s pleas to the Governor might result in a reprieve led Sheriff Barrett to delay his execution until after both Niedemeyer and Marx had been cut down and wheeled away to the jail hospital. He died, like Marx, with prayers on his lips and a priest on either side of him as he dropped. Aside from the pitiful spectacle of Niedeineyer’s last moments the execution was devoid of more than the usual awful scenes. Marx and Van Dine said nothing to their attendants either on the death march or on the scaffold, and they died quickly. Niedemeyer, as he was wheeled along the corridors, tried to beat his head against the walls and wrest himself loose from his shackles, and the guards were forced to hold him until he was strapped in his chair. It was nine minutes after the trpp fell before his heart stopped beating, and he was in convulsions for that length of time. Guilty of Many Crimea. Although the bandits confessed to the commission of upward of a score of murders, only eight hgve been fastened upon them certainly by the police and the State’s Attorney’s office. It is believed, however, that Niedemeyer had been involved in other crimes and that Marx, possibly, was guilty of murders other than those unearthed in Chicago. The red career of the “automatic trio”

began when the members were schoolmates together. Niedemeyer, being the ringleader, guided the others in a series of petty robberies, some of which came to light and resulted in minor punishment being- givenrto the offenders. Before Van Dine became a “rough rider” all three wore wont to frequent a boys’ club which held meetings in a vacant school building. It was there that they became proficient in pistol shooting through unceasing target practice. The boldest and bloodiest of the raids and the one i'or,which the trio were convicted was that at the Sixty-first and State street car barns of the Chicago City Railway Sunday morning at 3 o’clock, Aug. 30. Without warning Van Dine, Niedemeyer and Marx entered the barns, killed Frank D. Stewart and James B. Johnson, wounded William B. Edmond and Henry Biehl and escaped with $2,257 of the company’s money. It would have been months, possibly, before Niedemeyer, Roeski and Van Dine could have been arrested had not Marx murdered Detective Quinn about the middle of November and then, after he was arrested, confessed all the crimes he and his companions had committed. Policemen by the score were put out on the trail of the three men, and finally through information given the department by an Indiana school teacher they were located in a “dug-out” near Miller’s Station, Ind. jOf the first posse of police who tried to arrest them Detective Driscoll was killed and Detective Sheahan was shot in '.he head by Nbdkrneyer. Re-enforce-ments were then summoned and -scores of armed men were sent from Chicago to the scene. Meantime the three men had left the dugout, captured an engine on the Lake Shore Railroad, killed John Sovea, a brakeman, and had fled east with it. They abandoned it soon, however. and, after hiding behind a com ■hock not far from Tolleston, surrendered to’half a dozen farmers with shotguns. All of them were wounded. Roeski escaped, but was captured exhausted in one-of the way stations along the road, and is now serving a life sentence in the Joliet penitentiary

Van Dine, with Niedcmeyer’s consent and approval, made a confession to Chief of Police O’Neill soon after his arrest, in the presence of many witnesses. It was this confession that resulted in their conviction. Judge Emory Speer in the federal court at Savannah, Ga., sentenced Harry Olsen to five years' imprisonment and to pay a fine of $5,000 for kidnaping one of the eight negroes deported from Savannah on the Russian bark Alice to Bristol, England. William and Thomas Combs, It is reported, have confessed that they murdered Sam Jones, whose body was found burned in Breathitt County, Kentucky. The Combs family was prominent in the BreatMtt County feuds and Jones’ father called the jury to try Jett and White.