Good Afternoon Readers!
 
Today I have another exciting crime story! Small town Iowa may seem like it is not a very lively place, but crime does happen. Sometimes, as you will see today, there are even bandits!
 
Thursday, July 23, 1931. The paper that came out that day told a frightening story under the headline “Bandits Shoot Marshal”. Early in the morning that day, between 3:30 and 4:00, three bandits robbed several business firms in Minburn. Gottschalk, E. H. Shaw grocery, a Minburn Oil company station and Butler’s garage were all hit during the robberies. In total, they stole some tires, tubes, and $205.00 dollars from all for places (that is worth about $3,011.65 today!) The bandits, however, did not quite get away clean. Mrs. Henry West, a night telephone operator in the building next to the Gottschalk store, heard the men moving around. She quickly spread the alarm, calling Bill Hagenstien, who called J. C. Untied and S. R. Gottschalk. Together, these three went to Virgil Untied, the marshal. A stranger who had heard the excitement joined the four men to confront the criminals as well. Together, all five went to the business district.
 
Once in the business district, the five men decided to split up to cover more ground. The marshal and Hagenstien were together when they were surprised by one of the bandits! The bandit commanded the men to back down or he would shoot. It is unknown if Untied refused to comply, but unfortunately for him the crook started firing at him with a sawed-off 12 gauge shotgun. Untied fell under the gunfire, and the bandit made off to a waiting car where he and his accomplice were whisked off. Presumably the third bandit was the getaway driver. The Minburn men exchanged shots with the fleeing vehicle, but the bandits made their getaway without any believed injuries. The car they were driving was either a Dodge or a Ford with a Polk County license plate.
 
Virgil Untied, the wounded Marshal, was immediately rushed to the Kings Daughter hospital. Upon arrival he was taken to the operating room, where Dr. Pond operated on him. The doctor unfortunately gave little hope for his survival. Virgil had his right eye shot out, the bullet entering the brain. He also had a slug in his abdomen, cutting the colon and making two perforations through the bowels, and a slug enter his left arm and one in his left leg. The article does not reveal more on Virgil’s condition, but one can assume that with such wounds he did not make it.
 
Sheriff Davis of Green County and Sheriff Knee of Dallas County began working on the case that day after the shootout. Based on their evidence, the bandits had also robbed places in Jefferson and Rippey. They had little other evidence to go on. No description of the men was provided, and the scene of the crimes left little evidence. There was a crow bar found, but no prints were left on it, meaning the men were wearing gloves. Brass shells were also found, but they proved to be no help either. Evidence from Rippey showed that a crow was used to get into the places that they robbed.
 
Despite all the tragedy, there was a slightly humorous moment in Rippey. The manager of the Hanson Lumber Company unwittingly left the card containing the safe combination on the dial of the safe. The bandits had found this and wrote a note on the back reading “We thank you for the combination but where in Hell is your money?” Only fifty cents in pennies was taken from the lumber office.
 
Were the bandits ever captured? Even I don’t know, as the article ends with a confirming that Virgil Untied’s condition has not changed. However, come back next week and I will find out if the story continues in another article!

Happy Wednesday readers!
 
I hope that you are all surviving out there in the rain. Today we will be continuing the Smith Conspiracy Case, drawing ever closer to its conclusions. This week’s paper is from September 7, 1931, and it contains a big break-through in the case: a confession from Mrs. Smith that she was indeed involved in a conspiracy with her husband!
 
According to the paper, County Attorney George Sackett released portions of a signed confession from Mrs. Smith after she had been grilled for more than five hours. This session occurred at the statehouse in Des Moines, and was conducted by Attorney Sackett, State Agent Tullar, Sheriff C. A. Knee and James E. Risden, the chief of the state bureau of investigation. Sackett did not release the full confession, but the portions that were released were sufficient to unquestionably incriminate both Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
 
Two particular portions were quoted directly in the paper. First, after admitting that she had conversations with her husband about life insurance, Mrs. Smith goes on to describe one in particular. She said that “In one of those conversations he told me that he would disappear and that it would be up to me to bury him and collect the insurance. Then, after I had collected the insurance, we could communicate in some way and then go back together and live together again after a year or two. Under our plan I was to collect the insurance or accept it when paid and then meet John when he got into communication with me, which might be any time from one to two years.” Clearly, Mrs. Smith knew of the conspiracy, and was quite willing to go along with it.
 
The second portion that was quoted in the paper indicates that Mr. and Mrs. Smith had indeed been in communication since his disappearance. Mrs. Smith said, “I received a note asking me to meet a certain party near Fremont, Nebraska, on the 19th day of June. On that day I together with my son drove to Fremont and met my husband, John M. Smith and spent the afternoon with him.” Most surprising about this meeting was that it occurred exactly four days before Mr. Smith was found on a side road near Garner, Iowa. Perhaps the two decided the conspiracy was in danger and they needed to take some kind of action. At this point, it is unclear.
 
Unfortunately, no details were secured about how the couple procured a corpse to use in the conspiracy. Other details also remain untold, but authorities said they would be released when the proper time arrived. Another unfortunate matter is that the case against the two does not seem to be moving ahead as fast as hoped. Sheriff Knee of Dallas County said that he expected no developments on Monday, as the court in Adel was not in session. In addition, although Smith has claimed he would tell all to a grand jury, he has not appeared willing to appear before them.
 
Despite this set back with the grand jury, it appears we are finally getting to the heart of this conspiracy! Come back next week to see if Smith and his wife finally go before the jury!

Good afternoon readers!
 
I hope that you are all ready for yet another exciting installment of the John Smith Conspiracy! Today we will be looking at the Perry Chief for September 5, 1931. In this issue, the mental health of John Smith is once again called into question, and Mrs. Smith is returned to her home only to be questioned for four hours!
 
The main headline of September 5’s paper reads “No Report on Smith’s Sanity.” Dr. Donohoe, one of Smith’s alienists (psychiatrists) apparently would not testify unless the court called for his appearance. Dr. Donohoe was the superintendent of the State Hospital for the Insane at Cherokee, and at the time of that paper, he was withholding his report on the matter of Smith’s sanity. In a different meeting between the doctor and the principals in the John Smith Case, Donohoe declined to discuss his findings. Meanwhile, Risden of the State Bureau of Investigation revealed a telegram in which “Dr. Donohoe claims he [Smith] is insane. I have also been advised that he was discharged from the army on the account of being insane.” If Smith was insane, Risden believed that he would be transferred to the state hospital for the criminally insane until he was declared fit for trial.
 
Another article in the September 5th paper is about the four hour questioning that Mrs. Smith was put through. According to the article, Mrs. Smith was taken from Des Moines to her home, where Court Attorney Sackett, Sheriff Knee, and deputy sheriff Burger, Chase, and McCarthy had her open a private safe. Inside the safe were dozens of business letters and a number of letters written by Smith since he had been confined in Clarinda Hospital. They questioned Mrs. Smith of the papers for four hours, but she maintained she did not know the businessmen in the letters well enough and she still upheld her position about the fraud conspiracy. Sackett claimed that nothing of exceptional importance was found, but they kept a large amount to use as reference if it was found to later pertain to the trial.
 
What will happen next? I bet many of you are wondering when the trial will actually start and if any progress will ever be made. I can ensure you that next time, when we will look at the September 7th 1931 paper which has the headline “Mrs. Smith Confesses Part in Conspiracy”, things will start moving. Return next week to found out what she says!

Welcome back readers,
 
Today we are continuing the story of John M. Smith. They are many questions that remain from last time: What are the charges that he faces? Will he be proven innocent or guilty? Where did he get the body that he burned? Find out some of the answers to these questions and more today as we head toward the beginning of Mr. Smith’s trial!
 
The date is September 2, 1931, and shocking new information has come forward in the Smith case even before his court case officially begins. The newspaper that day read “Smith May Face Bigamy Charge.” According to the paper, Eauline Shaw of Chautauqua, Kansas identified Mr. Smith as the man she married on March 11, 1931. Mrs. Clayton, with whom Mrs. Shaw lives, saw a picture of Smith being fingerprinted at Garner and wrote to the sheriff expressing her suspicions. Her case was turned over to Sheriff Knee of Dallas County, and State Agent Myron Tullar (who had been on the case since it was discovered that the burned body was not Smith’s) started further investigation into the matter. Tullar went to Kansas with a more recent photo of Smith in order to confirm the identification.
 
According to Mrs. Clayton, the man who married Eauline Shaw used the name McJay Smith. He had arrived in town in February, and soon took an interest in Ms. Shaw. When he proposed to her, Mrs. Clayton began to ask questions. McJay Smith said that he had recently invented a “Miteless Chicken roost” and received $35,000 for the patent right. He also claimed to be a manufacturer of chicken stock food and disinfectant, and was fully capable of earning a living for a wife. The marriage was performed on March 11, two days before it was discovered back in Iowa that the burned body did not belong to John Smith. It is also said that upon his arrival in Chautauqua, McJay Smith was driving a yellow wheeled Chevrolet with a Minnesota license, which compares favorably with the car supposedly driven by John Smith on the night he met his wife near Black’s corner. Kansas officials say that no warrant had been issued for bigamy against John Smith, but a warrant had been issued for removing mortgaged property (an automobile) from the state of Kansas.
 
Upon positive identification, the charge of bigamy would be added to the charge of conspiracy to defraud. The defrauding charge is the one that Smith would face when he came before the grand jury later in September 1931. What will happen during this court case? Will the charge of bigamy be added? Join us next time, as John Smith and his wife, Mrs. Smith, face charges!

Hello Readers,
 
I hope you are all ready for a ride, because we are continuing the story of the Smith Conspiracy today! This part of the story comes from the June 23, 1931 Perry Chief, which had the headline “Smith Must Face Trial in Dallas.”
 
Early in the morning of June 23, 1931, cries and whistles coming from the road near his home, near Wilson Highway No. 15 on a byroad, attracted Charles Grau, a Hancock county farmer. He went to investigate, and what he found was quite the surprise. Lying at the side of the road was John M. Smith. His hands and feet were bound together with wire, and were connected with a rope. There was no car nearby, and Mr. Grau had not heard any car in the vicinity, so how Mr. Smith ended up there was a mystery. Grau released him, took him to his home, and called Sheriff Hanson. When the Sheriff arrived, he found that Mr. Smith was in a dazed and semi-sane condition, bordering on hysteria or insanity, but physically seemed in good condition. He was unable to give details about how he got to the vicinity, any about the apparent attack, and only talked about his wife and the truck. Sheriff Hanson did indicate, however, that Mr. Smith’s bond were loose enough that it “might not have been impossible for the man to have wired and tied himself.” The sheriff arrested Smith that day, on a warrant charging him of “conspiracy to defraud” insurance companies.
 
Upon reaching Garner, Iowa, positive identification that this man was John Smith was provided. Harold Gesell, a fingerprint expert identified him using fingerprints from his army records. Unfortunately for authorities, Smith was not very helpful. He continually referred to his wife and his car, but appeared unable to talk about his disappearance or the incidents prior to and after the finding of the car and burned body. He claimed that three men knocked him unconscious with a blow to the head, bound him, and threw him to the side of the road, and that he had been kept in a basement for the past 5 and a half months. However, a physician failed to find any head injuries, casting doubt on the story. According to a Chief representative, Smith had lost considerable weight, was haggard in appearance, and seemed to have aged much in the five months he was missing. His mental state still appeared to be in disarray, as he was irrational and still semi-dazed. His reappearance resumed the investigation into his affairs by local insurance companies, and a question of where he was to be taken arose. The accident and burning of the other body occurred in Crawford County, but Dallas County officers carried out the case. County Attorney George Sackett stated that he would endeavor to have Smith brought to Dallas County to face charges unless Crawford officials decided to prosecute. As of the night of June 23, there was no decision on who would get custody over Mr. Smith.
 
As you can see, the plot of this story only continues to thicken. Was John Smith actually kidnapped and held in a basement? Is he just delusional and going insane? Find out next week as the charges are laid against him!