A few days prior to this occurrence another detective was shadowing a man in Waco, Texas, who was spending money freely, and who answered the description of one of the train robbers. Following him to Dublin, Texas, the man was ascertained to be Brock, and here the detectives, comparing notes, found themselves in possession of abundant evidence upon which to arrest Brock. Before this was done, however, the important disclosure was made that Brock had two companions, Rube and Jim Burrow, and as these men answered the descriptions of the men who committed the robbery at Genoa the detectives felt quite sure that the names of all three of the robbers were at least known. Further investigation, however, developed the fact that Rube and Jim Burrow had recently gone to Alabama, and the immediate arrest of Brock was determined upon.
At three o’clock on the morning of December 31, 1887, twenty-two days after the robbery, Wm. Brock was arrested at his home near Dublin, Texas. The detectives demanded admittance and Brock surrendered without firing a shot, although he had a forty-five caliber Colt’s revolver and fifty cartridges in a belt under his pillow, and also one of the Winchester rifles used at Genoa. The prisoner was taken to Texarkana and confronted with engineer Rue, who thoroughly identified him. He was also identified by parties who saw him in the immediate vicinity of Genoa. Brock could not stand the pressure brought to bear on him by the wily detectives, and in the course of a few days made a clean breast of his participation in the Genoa, Ark., robbery, confirming the information already in possession of the detectives as to the complicity of Rube and Jim Burrow in the daring adventure.
From Brock it was learned that Rube and Jim Burrow had, about November 15, 1887, gone to Lamar County, Ala. By agreement, Brock had joined the Burrow brothers at Texarkana on December 3d, where all three registered at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Brock in his own name, and Rube and Jim as R. Houston and James Buchanan, respectively, each using his middle name as a surname. They had robbed the train at Genoa on the night of December 9th, and while walking toward Texarkana in the early morning of the 10th had been fired upon by the sheriff’s posse. Taken by surprise, he and Jim Burrow had dropped their coats, while Rube had lost his hat. After going a few miles south of Texarkana they separated, Brock going into Texas and Rube and Jim making their way into Lamar County, Ala.
On the 29th of December Rube wrote the following letter to Brock, which was received by Mrs. Brock, and turned over to the detectives after her husband’s arrest:
Dec. 20-29-87.
Mr. W. L. Brock:
All is well and hope you the same Bill notis everything and let me know Bill eye will sell you my place ef you want it at 7 hundred let me here from ef you want it eye will have all fixt right and send you the tittle in full let me here from you soon.
R. H. too W. L. B.
The figures 20-29-87 meant that Rube and Jim reached Lamar County on the 20th and the letter was written on the 29th of December. William Brock detailed to the detectives the history of the Bellevue and Gordon robberies, as gathered from Rube, and of the Ben Brook robberies, in which he himself participated. He seemed thoroughly penitent over his crimes, and, after reaching Texarkana, disclosed the fact that he had about four hundred dollars of the proceeds of the Genoa robbery, which he proposed to and did restore.
Brock was a rough, uncouth-looking fellow, about five feet eleven inches high; weighed about 180 pounds, and was a strong-chested, broad-shouldered fellow, whose forbidding features made him a typical train robber. He was about thirty-one years old, and although born in Georgia, his parents moved to Texas when he was quite a child. He was wholly illiterate, not being able to either read or write, and the environments of corrupt companionship tended to fill his untutored mind with evil only. Brock made an important witness in the trials of the participants in the various train robberies in Texas, and was afterwards given a comparatively light sentence as a punishment for his offenses.