Importance of Being on Guard.
One night in 1873, at Chicago, while Mr. Pinkerton was on his way home, he recalls seeing Walter Sheridan, "Philly" Pearson and Charlie Hicks on a street car. He followed them to the Chicago & Alton Railroad station, where he saw them purchase tickets for Springfield, Ill. The following day the vault of the First National Bank of Springfield was robbed of $35,000 by Pearson, while Sheridan engaged the attention of the bank officials, and Hicks remained on guard outside. Later Hicks was arrested, taken to Springfield, convicted and sentenced to eight years in Joliet prison. Pearson fled to Europe. Later Sheridan was arrested at Toledo, O., for this robbery, at which time Mr. Pinkerton identified him, and $22,000 of the stolen money was recovered. Sheridan was mixed up in a great many crimes, but in the last years of his life was looked upon as being cleverer as a first class bank "sneak" than in any other line, although he has been a successful leader of bands of note counterfeiters.
"Billy" Coleman, undoubtedly one of the most expert "sneaks" of modern times, who, between 1869 and 1904 was arrested thirteen times, and who spent almost half of his lifetime in prisons, is now serving in the Auburn, New York, state prison, a four and one-half-year term for the theft of $30,000 worth of jewelry from a safe in the Clark Estate building at Cooperstown. The stolen jewelry belonged to Mrs. Ambrose Clark, a daughter-in-law of Mrs. Potter, wife of Bishop Potter.
Looked Like Coleman's Work.
Mrs. Clark arrived at Cooperstown to spend the summer only a few days before the robbery, and placed the jewelry in a safe in the Clark Estate building for safety. Investigation showed the thief had entered this building, which in many respects resembles a bank, at the noon hour, when all the employes were absent, opened the vault, the lock of which had been left on the half-turn, taking therefrom a tin box, which he carried to the cellar of the building and pried open with tools found on the premises, taking therefrom all the jewelry and also valuable papers. From descriptions of the thief we obtained from witnesses who had seen him loitering in the vicinity of the Estate office, and from the manner in which the robbery was committed, we believed it bore the earmarks of Coleman's work. Subsequent developments satisfied us that our conclusions were correct, and we caused Coleman's arrest, two weeks after the robbery, in New York, by Police Headquarters' detectives.
The tin box left by the thief in the cellar was covered with blood. From this an incorrect inference was drawn, that the thief had cut his hands with one of the instruments used to open the box. A careful examination of Coleman showed no cuts or bruises of any kind, on any part of his person, from which blood would have flowed. The grand jury refused to indict him for the crime.
On his release, knowing that Coleman had most mysterious ways of hiding the proceeds of his robberies, he was placed under surveillance, which continued for some time without result, but eventually he was traced and found quite early one morning, digging at the side of a building through the snow into the ground, whereupon he was re-arrested and, in uncovering the spot where he had been digging, most of the stolen jewelry was found in an ordinary fruit jar, buried in the ground about two feet.
Diamonds Buried in Jar.
In the jar were found several settings from which some of the diamonds were missing; sixty-nine of these were found in Coleman's home, hidden in a small pasteboard box in the earth at the bottom of a rubber plant jar, and one of the largest diamonds removed from the ring was found sewn in a ready-made four-in-hand necktie. After his second arrest Coleman acknowledged committing the robbery, and explained that a year previous he had made a tour through several New York State counties to locate a bank which would not be difficult to "sneak" in the daytime. He found the Clark Estate building in Cooperstown, which he believed was a bank. He visited it at that time, while the employes were absent, but did not obtain anything, although he made a note of it as an easy place to rob some time in the future.
When he did commit the robbery, and did not find any money in sight, he picked up the tin box, little suspecting it contained a fortune in valuable jewelry. When Coleman was questioned about the blood stains on the tin box, he explained that, as the day of the robbery was very hot, and he had to work quick, in his great excitement his nose bled freely, covering the tin box as it was found. Coleman has been a professional bank "sneak" all his life, and in times past was renowned for entering bank vaults and paying-tellers' cages in the day time without being observed. He never used firearms, and there is no record of his having shed blood of anyone in the commission of a crime. After all of his years of successful stealing, he is again in Auburn (N. Y.) prison, without means.