Black Sheep Sunday: To Identify Bank Crooks

Source: Wabash Plain-Dealer, Wabash, Indiana, April 3, 1925

TO IDENTIFY BANK CROOKS

Detroit suspects not same as entered Laketon Bank say cashier and assistant

     The Detroit bandits who have been identified as the robbers of the Kokomo bank and who are being brought to Kokomo, are not the men who robbed the laketon bank, according to a telegram received from Sheriff Summerland, now at Detroit, by the Plain Dealer.

     The message read as follows:  “Am leaving for Kokomo tonight with Pierpoint, Skeer, Louise Brunner, and Hayes.  All identified by Kokomo bankers.  Recovered $5200 Liberty bonds and $850 cash taken from Kokomo.  Bright and Miss Ogden cannot identify these men on Laketon job.  Two Kokomo officers with me.”

Failed to identify Men

E.L. Bright, cashier of the Laketon bank, and Mrs. Violet Ogden assistant cashier, accompanied Sheriff Summerland and the Kokomo men to Detroit yesterday afternoon.  A.E. Gorton, cashier of the South Kokomo bank which was robbed, and Vernon Shaw, a customer in the bank, went to Detroit and easily identified the men as those who did the Kokomo robbing.

     Those taken to Kokomo are:  Harry Pierpoint; alias Frank Mason of Indianapolis; Thadeus “Ted” Skeer, 24, of Fort Wayne; Miss Louise Brunner, 22 years old, Skeer’s sweetheat, also of Fort Wayne.

Loot is Found

     Pierpont was found with $1,000 on his person and bonds and securities totally $5,100 were uncovered in the apartment where the trio was found.  The loot originally amounted to $9,100 in negotiable securities and about $2,000 in Liberty bonds.

     Suspicion was directed toward Skeer, it is said, when it was learned that the machine used by the bandits had been stolen in Ft. Wayne a few days before.

     He was suspected of the automobile theft, and when  the robbery was reported, police began working on the theory that he was implicated.  The machine was tolen from John L. Anguish, Boy Scout executive here.

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This follow up article to the robbery of the Laketon bank, highlights that the cashier failed to identify Harry PIERPONT (1902-1934) as one of the robbers.