The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-11-17
STARR DID IT.
Kansas Oklahoma Bandit Ad-
mits Colorado Bank Robbery.
Confession Came as Surprise to
Prosecuting Officials.
LAST OF HIS KIND.
Romance and BrayadO Enter
into Life of Desperate.
Is Suspected of RObbing Two
Kansas Banks i'm Recent Years.

Lamar. Colo, Nov. 17.-Henry
Starr, the bandit, surprised court
room full of spectators here by plead
:ng guilty to the charge of having par
.icipated in the robbery of the bank at
Anity. Colo, last spring
Since his capture some months ago
starr has insisted he was innocent and
that an attempt was being made to
convict him on his past record. He
said he had reformed previous to the
Amity robbery. Starts wife and baby
were in court and Mrs. Starr wept bit
.erly when her husband pleaded gull
t.. Starts baby was named after ex-
President Roosevelt.
Is Last of His Kind.
Henry Starr is the last of the free
End wild class of clever desperadoes,
fearless, murderous and cruel, but not
without a flavor of dashing bravado
and a leaven of romance. He is a hit
follower of the James and Younger
Toys, precise duplicate of that
earlier boy bandit BILLY the Kid, -
and an able able successor to his dis
tant kinsman, Tom Starr, an Indian
desperate, whose exploits were the
ihrillers of other days not so long
Hast.
In the early 90s, when Henry Starr
was still a boy in his teens, evil COM
panions led him into his first crime
the selling of. whisky to the Indians.
But the genius of Starr was destined
for more thrilling field than the
petty bootlegging of delectable fire
water" In 1891 he and companions.
said to have been his brother. "Bill,'
who was later caught and hanged for
murder, and his sister, Belle, robbed
the express office at Nowata and fled
with the spoils. This adventure i'm
mediately placed him in the outlaw
for If followed CLOSELY
by the murder of deputy United
States marshal, Floyd Wilson.
Murder a United States Marshal.
Wilson and another marshal named
Dickey set out after Starr and follow
ed him into his haunts on Wolff
creek, only to find him gone. They
pursued him to x. y. ranch on Cali
fornia creek and came up in time to
see him leaving. Wilson got a horse
and set out after the fleeing outlaw,
Dickey following some distance be-
hind. Wilson finally caught up. and
fight in which Wilson was killed. Starr
escaped on Wilson's horse.
The killing of Wilson was the begin
ring of the most bold and desperate
soldups, bank robberies and murders
since the times of the Jameses.
Implicated in Many Robberies.
In surprisingly rapid succession
bandits, said to have been led by Starr,
Tell upon the Bentonville bank at Ben
t5nville, Ark, the Chelsea railroad
station. the Missouri, Kansas & Texas
rain at Pryor Creek Okla, stores at
Nowata and Choteau, Ok, the bank at
hldrich, Mo, and the Caney Valley
bank at Caney, Kan, the last of which
finally proved the undoing of the out
Jaw. Three thousand dollars was OBJ
tanned at Aldrich and $4,000 at Caney.
After the Caney robbery supposed
friend of Starr betrayed his where
abouts. and six heavily armed officers
entered his room in Colorado Springs.
A fter a struggle, in which the officers
were nearly overpowered, Starr and
enc of his most desperate companions,
Kid" Wilson, were taken captives.
The money was found in the room.
starr was returned to Arkansas and
convicted of the Bentonville robbery
He was released from prison in 1906
after serving nearly thirteen years.
Starr was suspected of the robbery of
the bank in Tyro, Kan, in March, last