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!
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Good afternoon readers!
I hope that you are ready to hear more about the Smith Conspiracy, because there is much more to come! Today we are looking at the headlines from the March 21st Perry Chief. The headline for this paper is “Smith Escapes Officers and Wife.” According to the paper, Mrs. Smith received a phone call from DeSoto at 6 p.m., in which a man identifying himself as a salesman of the Disintone company and asked her to meet him at 7 p.m. at the junction of highway 169 and 7. This intersection was more commonly known as Black’s corners, and is about 14 miles south of here. Mrs. Smith, thinking this was information concerning her husband, immediately notified local police asking for an escort. This opened an opportunity for the arrest of John Smith. Unfortunately, things were not going to go their way. Shortly before 7 p.m. Mrs. Smith left Perry. A car driven by Deputy Sheriff McCarthy, who was accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Chase and Perry night officer Grant Herrold, followed her. Deputy Burger of Adel was also notified, and was accompanied by Dutch Baldwin, the Adel marshal. These two officers reached the point first and took up a vantage point where they could see the entire intersection. As they watched, a yellow-wheeled Chevrolet coupe arrived, but they were unaware of who was in the car. Mrs. Smith came from the north, maintaining a quarter mile ahead of McCarthy’s car. When she finally came to the intersection, the yellow-wheeled car met her. Mr. Smith was driving this car and as he approached Mrs. Smith’s car, he slowed down so that he could talk to her. Upon identifying him, Mrs. Smith yelled to the officers, and the chase began. Smith took off, and Mrs. Smith and McCarthy turned to follow his car. Smith stopped his car just east of the end of the wide east turn, and Mrs. Smith stopped behind him. McCarthy stopped at the corner and picked up Deputy Burger, and Baldwin drove past both cars to stop in front of Mr. Smith. Noticing he was trapped, Smith again started east. McCarthy turned back in the road to head him off, and Officer Herrold got out of his car, but knocked a shotgun to the ground. As he bent to pick it up, Smith’s car blew past him, missing his head by about 8 inches and running over the gun breaking it at the stock. Because of this, McCarthy halted his car to avoid Herrold, and Smith was given the necessary room to make his escape to the north. Baldwin then got into Mrs. Smith’s car, and she started to give chase. When asked if she could drive, she replied, “I’ll drive it as fast as it will go to catch him.” Unfortunately, a driver in a passing Ford thought that the officers were chasing Mrs. Smith’s car, and so he blocked her car, causing her to go into the ditch. Mr. Smith then got away, and was still at large upon the printing of the paper. What happens next? Do the police find and capture Smith? Find out next week, when the headline is “Smith Must Face Trial in Dallas”! ![]() Hello once again readers, Today I have a very interesting story for all of you! This story is also rather long, and spans about a year, so I will be telling it to you in chunks. Without further ado, here is the first part of the story about John M. Smith. The year was 1931, and John Smith was 37. He had lived in Perry for 7 years, and was the owner and operator of the Farm Disintone, a manufacturing company that produced insecticide. On February 4th, an article about him appeared in the Perry Chief. The headline read, “J. M. Smith Burned to Death in Accident.” According to the news article, Mr. Smith had left Perry on February 3rd at 6:30 p.m., driving to Manilla to do some business with his brother, Otis Smith. John had turned south off the highway after leaving Carroll in an effort to take a short cut. Unfortunately, it was on this road that the accident occurred at around 10:15 p.m. The sheriff of Crawford County reported that upon examination of the scene, it “appeared that the car had struck a chuck hole in the road, causing a blowout, careened into a small cement culvert and ran down into a ditch where it caught fire.” Normally this would not result in the intense heat that almost cremated the body, but during the crash more than forty-five gallons of insecticide had spilled, and also caught fire, completely engulfing the car. The crash also knocked John Smith unconscious, and thus he could not escape the blaze. A young man who saw the crash attempted to pull Mr. Smith, who was seated upright in the driver’s seat, from the blaze, but was unfortunately too late. The only clues that survived the fire, and helped to identify the body, were a piece of paper that had the company name printed on it and the license plate number of the vehicle. The body itself was unrecognizable. Mrs. Smith was eventually called to determine her husband’s whereabouts, and she had confirmed he was driving to Manilla. This established the identity of the body, and she left a short while later to Denison, where the authorities had taken the body. So far, this story just seems like a tragic death of a simple man who went on a business trip. However, the story soon becomes much more complicated. For example, on March 13th of the same year, another article appeared in the paper related to John Smith. This one’s headline? “Body Exhumed Here Was Not That of John M. Smith Thought Killed in Accident.” If you want to know more, come back next week for part two of the story! ![]() Good morning readers! It’s late January now, and I bet that many of you are probably tired of the snow. It has started melting a little bit now, but it will be back come next week, if we are to believe the weather forecasts. Fortunately for us, we are not on the east coast where places like West Virginia got somewhere around 42” of snow. Thankfully, we have a lot better ways of clearing snow now than we did in the past. Now we have all our fancy snow blowers, plows, and other devices. However, imagine what it must have been like in the past, without these contraptions! It must have been much more difficult. Maybe the picture below can help you imagine what that would be like. The picture was taken in February 1961, and as you can see, the vehicle is rather stuck in the snow. According to our catalog, the truck belonged to Gene Hurd. He had been out during the day installing wiring in the town and came home during a blizzard, and his truck was stranded in the lane. Unfortunately, there was no easy way for him to dig it out since snow blowers were not easily available to the public. The first practical snow blower was prototyped in 1925 by Arthur Sicard, and most of these were big, car sized blowers. It was actually just during the beginning of the 1960’s that companies had started to introduce their own, smaller, human powered models. As evidenced by the picture, Gene definitely did not have one of these early snow blowers. In fact, it was not until the next morning that he even got his truck out of the snow and he had the help of Steve, age 12, and Dick, age 8, to accomplish his goal. It looks to have been a tough job too, as it seems like the entire car was covered with snow. Although this seems like it must have been more difficult, in reality things really have not changed that much. For instance, people in New York and other places hit by the recent storm still have to dig their cars out, as snow blowers are difficult to maneuver around in tight places. It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same! |
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