Source: Wabash Plain Dealer, Wabash, Indiana, April 2, 1915
ROBBERY SUSPECTS ARRESTED
Two men and women nabbed in Detroit may solve both Laketon and Kokomo thefts
There is every reason to believe that the bandits who robbed the Laketon bank have been captured. A United Press dispatch this afternoon told of the capturing in Detroit of two men and a woman who were identified with the robbery of the Kokomo bank, and Sheriff Summerland with other officials who have been on the job are fairly well convinced that the same men that visited at Kokomo also robbed the Laketon institution.
A United Press dispatch received by the Plain Dealer this afternoon stated that private detectives today arrested Louise Brummer, 22, Fort Wayne, with Frank Mason, 24, alias Harry Pierpont, and Thadius Skeer, 23, in connection with the robbery last week of a Kokomo bank.
When taken Mason had $850 on his person.
These are the names that local officials got at Kokomo on a recent trip there in connection with the Laketon robbery investigation since they were strongly of the opinion that they were after the same group because the robberies were so much alike.
Same Methods
“They took exactly the same methods at Laketon as they did at Kokomo,” said Sheriff Summerland. “They went in unmasked, proceeded the same way in the actual robbing and took pennies, dimes and quarters just as they did at Laketon.”
SHERIFF TO DETROIT
Sheriff Summerland and E.L. Bright, cashier of the Laketon bank, are to join the Kokomo bankers and officials on the 4:50 train to Detroit this afternoon to try to identify the men.
Kokomo is of the opinion that the same men are connected with the Laketon job, according to Sheriff Summerland who telephoned this afternoon to Kokomo.
Bright, the Laketon man, and the Kokomo bank officials are the ones who will identify the bandits since they are the only ones who got a really good look at them.
Story of Capture
Mr. Summerland was in the police offices at Kokomo when the officials there got on the trail of the woman and two men. The clue began when Detective Pappert at Fort Wayne telephoned to the Kokomo officials, saying that he had a tip that the woman, Louise Brummer, had left Fort Wayne on a certain train, saying that she was going to meet her friend, Thadius Skeer, who was in trouble.
A Pinkerton detective was in the Kokomo office when the message came in and he at once telephoned to his headquarters in Indianapolis asking if he might trail her. Permission was given and the man from Kokomo started. He got into communication with a Pinkerton man at Detroit and the latter got on the train out of the city. A note to the conductor was a means of identifying the Brummer woman for the Detroit detective and when she alighted at the Detroit station both men trailed her.
Get All Three of Them
In the apartment at Detroit, to which she went they found her and the two men. They were arrested and are held on a charge of robbery.
The man Pierpoint is said to have been the leader of the gang that robbed the Marion bank and he was the only one that was not captured. There were seven of them in all and every man said that Pierpoint was their leader. Sheriff Summerland has a picture of Pierpoint and got information regarding him at Kokomo.
“Kokomo officials will go to Detroit at once to get the bandits,” said Sheriff Summerland. “As soon ass they bring them there we will go over at once and see whether we can connect them up with the Laketon robbery. If so we will get them when Kokomo gets through, but that may be ten years.”
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This article details capture of Harry PIERPONT (1902-1934) and his gang who robbed banks in Indiana during the 1924-25 period. Harry later rose to fame as part of the Dillinger "Terror Gang". He was suspected in the robbery of the Laketon bank.
