The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-05-14
FINAL DAYS IN Howell
NOTED THIEF ENDING HIS DAYS
NEAR HOUSTON, TEXAS.
Charles Beeler Stole Fifty Thousand
Dollars From Wells-Fargo Com
pany; while He Served Sentence
Another Person Made Away With
Roll; Detectives Now at Work on
a Clew as to Who Secured Cash.

Houston, Texas, May ll.-With health
shattered from prvation and worry,
with but short time to live, Charles
Beeler, who stole $4,000 from the
Wells Fargo Express company twelve
years ago, is dying in howell close to
this city.
Beeler was money clerk in San An
tonic for the Wells Fargo Express COM
pany when he stole the money. He
pleaded guilty to the charge of taking
package containing $4,000, but he
refused to tell where the money could
be found He served a sentence OF
seven years, working from dawn until
dark in summer on Texas penal farms,
and twelve hours out of twenty four in
the iron mines of Rusk during the win
ter. Since his release, five years ago,
he has led the life of a hunted man,
| travelled from place to place in an en-
deavor to shake off the express com
pany detectives, who are seeking to
find the hidden money.
No longer able to travel Beeler de-
clares to the detectives that the $4,000
which he stole was in turn stolen from
him. They are now beginning to be-
lieve the story, and officers are work
ing in New York for a relative of
Beeler's former wife, who had prom
ised to take care of the plumber for
Beeler until his release, retaining $25,-
600 of the amount for his trouble.
81 was robbed he declared to the
officers; robbed of the money | spent
seven years in the penitentiary to earn,
and now | hope you will catch the
man who took that money from me,
just as you caught me after | took
| it from the Wells-Fargo. l would kill
him if | found him myself, but | can
hunt no longer"
The money stolen from the Wells
Fargo had been shipped by the South
ern Pacific to the Mexican border,
where he crossed the boundary line.
He had a long start on his pursuers.
Leaving the railroad he hired a wagon
and cut across into the wilds of a land
that had seldom before known a white
man toward the mountains in the
interior.
| Time after time agents for the eX-
press company lost the trail, only to
recover it again. Weeks passed and
months, but still the hunt continued
while the human bloodhounds never
ceased their work Provided with UNI
limited funds, buying new ponies as
those previously ridden gave way be-
meath them, bribing magistrates, en-
listing the help of soldiery, purchas
| ing boats as great rivers were crossed,
the detectives never stopped.
Found Him Asleep.
At last Beeler was caught. Detec-
tives fighting their way through
thicket in the heart of the widest
section of Mexico found their man
alone and asleep as if utterly exhaust
ed, in his temporary camp. Formalit
les were waived and the calvacade
made for the border with Beeler hand
cuffed in a covered wagon. From the
| first he refused to tell the officers
where the money could be found, and,
| still preserving his secret, he went to
the Texas penal camps to serve his
seven years.
There Beeler worked in his effort to
earn" $4,000 in stolen money. An
| epidemic of strange sickness broke ont,
and at night the convicts buried their
own dead or prepared bodies for ship
ment back to homes that had been
! left. One of the convicts who had died
had come from little town in the
interior part of the state where a re-
! lative of Beeler's wife was the only
undertaken. Into that rough box the
man who had stolen $4,000 slipped
! note, in which the secret of the buried
money was laid bare. The note was
tied about the dead mans ankle
Note Told His Secret.
According to Beeler's own story, this
was more by impulse than part of
carefully considered plan Until then
he had expected to serve his time and
then get the money, but that night
he suddenly changed his mind He
was whipped without mercy for delay
| ing at his burial task, but the body
was sent without inspection. The note
conveyed the information that the
money was buried beneath the railroad
depot at Uvalde, which was some dis
lance from town.