The record-union., 1897-03-20
DETECTIVE FISHERS WORK.
He Made Two Very Clever Captures
Yesterday.
Runs Down the lien Believed to Have
Robbed an Old Man at
Rio Vista.

Patrick McGinness and James Rey-
nolds were arrested last night and con-
fined in the County Jail for the alleged
theft of 81 100 in gold coin, the prop
erty of an aged German hunter and
fisherman of Rio Vista, named ChaS.
Denecke.
Denecke is y years old, and has
fished and hunted on the lower Sacra-
mento River for over thirty-five years.
Within the last five or six years, how
ever, his eyesight has become to weak
and his hand too unsteady to longer
bring down the mallard and the teal,
so the old pioneer has made very little
money since then. Realizing that
sooner or later this very crisis would
set in, and being to proud to ever think
of living on charity, he had put away
a penny for a rainy day, whenever he
could, and by strict economy had man
aged to save up 81 100.
This money which was to be his
staff in the evening of his life and was
to act as a barrier between him and
the poorhouse or starvation, he kept
hidden in a can in the scow in which
he SO long had lived. This scow, hav-
ing become worn out, the old gentle
Honest Charlie" concluded to have it
repaired, and therefore moved it across
the river from Rio Vista to the shore
of Wood Island, at the extreme lower
end of this county, and engaged car
penters to rebuild it.
On September 10th last, about 6
o'clock in the evening, after the men
had quit work ana returned to Rio
Vista in their boats, old man Denecke
had occasion to row over to Rio Vista,
and not deeming his now open scow
a safe place for his lifetime savings,
he buried it in the sand in a clump of
willows close by.
He was absent only a short time, and
on his return at once proceeded to dig
up his money. But alas, it was not
where he had put it. His little all'
WAS gone. 1t had been stolen during
his absence.
The old mans despair at this discov-
cry can better be imagined than de-
scribed, as it left him without dollar
in the world in his declining years,
without means to pay for the lumber
and labor for the remodeled scow, his
humble home. For days he would dig
in the sand with his hads, unable to be-
leve that man could be so base-so
utterly devoid of feeling as to rob him
of his savings-but the can of shining
twenties had vanished
District Attorney Ryan and Sheriff
Johnson were appealed to, and they at
once responded, but for the time being
TO clew was struck, and it seemed as
though the money would never be
heard of again.
Several months ago two fishermen,
Pat McGinnis and James Reynolds,
who had their scow anchored close to
old man Denecl2e, offered a $50 piece
at a saloon in Rio Vista and drank and
treated all day till the money was gone.
Constable Henry Harding of Rio Vista
learned of this fact soon afterwards
and knowing that neither McGinnis
nor Reynolds had ever before been in
possession of so large an amount of
money at one time, as they were in the
habit of drinking up what little they
made as fast as they earned it, kept
watch on the men. He ascertained
that they spent nearly $50 in a three
days debauch, but before he could Sc
cure enough evidence to verify his now
thoroughly aroused suspicious the men
had left the neighborhood with their
boat and went UP the San Joaquin
River.
He notified District Attorney Ryan
and Sheriff Johnson of his suspicious,
and the latter detailed Deputy NJ. p.
Fisher to work on the case.
Fisher soon discovered that there
was every reason TO believe that the
suspicious of Constable Henry Hard
ing We're correct, and both officers then
worked with a will Fisher learned