The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-07-15
DOCTOR IN DAY
BURGLAR BY
NIGHT
Physician Of Gainesville, Pa
Said to Have Confessed
Ills Mr.. Hyde Side.

COATESVILLE, Pa, July 15.-
Coatesville folk are astounded at the
arrest of DR.. Benjamin Holbrook, one
of its leading lights, for a series of bur-
glaries and thefts. They can scarcely
realize that the man now in a cell al
West Chester is the same they have
known and respected for years.
DR.. Holbrook is said to a con-
fessed to Detective Dague, of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. whose head
quarters are at P~arl5ersburg, the
crimes laid to his account. They began
several months ago, and so far as is
known were confined to a territory
within a radius of a few miles of the
young physicians home. The possessor
of a smart driving team, of which he
was very font he knew intimately
every road and every town, village and
hamlet in that portion of Chester
County, and in his drives, whether
with feminine acquaintance, which
was his frequent habit, or alone, he
took careful note of the possibilities of
indicted depreciation.
The robberies were, of course, COM
mitted at night, and always the doctor
drove to the scene in his buggy, and
the booty was carried off to the swift
pace of his spanking team of sorrels.
Thus industrious at night, at a pur-
suit n~efarious, but not as brutal as
that of a Mr.. Hyde, he was in the day
time a suave, well-bred practitioner, a
specialist in eye, nose and throat treat
ment, who. though never overrun with
patients, was yet proud of his profess
sion, the well-mannered, sympathetic
DR.. Jekyll of local society, and an es-
pecial favorite with the families of
good standing in the town in which
there were manageable daughters.
One of the things hal this singular
exemplar of the double life said to De-
tectlve Dague in the course of his con-
fession was that he was engaged to
marry two young women, one a very
charming Philadelphia, the other liv-
ing in Gainesville.
The doctor has been a widower for
about four years, and his having
turned from the path of integrity is
attributed by those who know most
about his history to three causes:
First, a cloud that has hung over him
since his birth; second, the loss of his
young wife, and, third, the reckless
euudIld0I lIi6 - d llIOO1A Wy ~ 1890
which he received by bequest. He told
Detective Dague thai the first thought
Of criminallty came to him when, de-
string to remarry, he found himself
confronted with imminent bankruptcy.
A shadowy romance envelopes the
birth of DR.. Holbrook. He is the son of
a once noted physician of Philadelphia,
now dead, and both he n his three
brothers were placed. in their early
childhood, at school in the vicinity OF
Ercildoun, a few miles from Coates
Vile.
The father, at his death, left by
legacy to each Of the boys between
$3.50 and $780, 600. Benjamin took the
degree of doctor of medicine at a col
lege in Philadelphia. He married a
daughter of Owen Collins, Of Ercil-
doun.
Up to the moment of the arrest. no
bodv who knew DR.. Holbrook socially
had the slightest suspicion that he
might be a thief.
In April last the station at Wye
brooke, on the New Holland branch
of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was
broken into and 4.000-mile mileage
books and some jewelry and silver
ware were stolen.
Suspicion was first directed to DR..
Holbrook through his attempting to
make use of one of the mileage books,
to which he had signed the name of
George Smith"
At the Cliff farmhouse. where DR..
Holbrook boarded and had a kind of
office. search by the law officers re-
vealed a large variety of plumber.