Camas Prairie chronicle. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1901-1917, 1909-12-03
CONFESSED TOCRIME
NAIL CLERK TELLS HOW MAIL
CAR WAS ROBBED.
rom L. Gordon says q. D. Howell Was
Coached by Him in Mail-car Holdup
-Robber got on car at Bonners Ferry,
representing Himself to be an Inspec-
tor-Left Train at Spokane.

Branding Charles D. Howell, formerly
rostmaster at Havre, Mont, as the dar-
inc bandit who, on March IS, 1908, in
the guise of postal inspector, held up
and robbed the mail car of the Great
Northern Oriental Limited at Boomers
Ferry, Idaho, Thomas L. Gordon, a rail
wav mail clerk of E1013 Thirteenth av.
epue, Spokane, has made written con-
fession to United States officials and
Special Agent John S. Delaney of the
Great Northern secret service with head
quarters at Spokane.
Howell is now in the King county jail
on charge Of being the Boomers Ferry
bandit and also of being the thug who,
on October 10, 1909, held up the Great
Northern express Office in Seattle and
made away with $4,000 loot.
Starting with the slender clue of the
mere mention of Gordon s name in a
letter written by Mrs. Howell to her
husband in Seattle last September
Special Agent Delaney, with the as
sistance of Postofice Inspector G. B.
Welter, attached to the Spokane of,
fee, worked the case up to the climax
which was reached when, according to
these officers, Gordon wrote down in
black and white that Howell was in
structed by him how to carry the role
of a postoffice inspector, what clerks
were on the mailcar of the Oriental
Limited and where to look for those
pieces of mail which were likely to con-
tain money. Howell, wrote Gordon,
afterward admitted to the latter that
he perpetrated the Boomers Ferry hold
up and that it neeeted him almost moth
ing. HIS spectacular work gave him
about 500, according to United States
officers.
Begged to Keep Wife Ignorant.
Immediately after the confession
Gordon was arraigned before United
States Commissioner W. H. Hare and
bound over to the federal grand jury
which convenes April 2. Bail was
fixed at $4,000 Gordon was then
locked up in the county Jail, charged
with being an accessory after the fact
Shortly before the steel doors swung
behind him he begged the officers not
to let his wife know of his disgrace.
Since his incarceration at Seattle
Howell has been identified positively by
four men as the Boomers Ferry ban
dit. These men are W. j. Nysteun and
Benjamin F. Stumpf, mail clerks, who
were on the car when it was held up;
James Hoagland, formerly a hotel man
at Boomers Ferry, and John Peterson
cook, who testified at Howell IS prelim'
mary hearing in Seattle that on the day
of the Boomers Ferry mail robbery he
saw Howell pacing up and down the de-
pot platform at Boomers Ferry carrying
the mail sack and postofice inspector e
bag which he threw into the car just
before he boarded it. Peterson testified
that he saw Howell throw these two ar
ticles into the mail car. The inspector e
kit was stolen. With the mail sack the
thief carried away scores of registered
mail.
The Robbery.
The holdup of the mail car at Bon
ners Ferry was one of the most spec
tacular robberies in the criminal an
nails of the northwest. The robber on
boarding car assumed all the air ano
authority of veteran postoffice lnspec
tor. After exchanging few WORDS
with the clerks he covered them with
revolver. One he locked in closet anu
the other he bound with ropes to
table. He then calmly sat down ana
lighting a cigar, proceeded to ransack
the registered mail. He rode into epo
kane thus occupied. He dropped OH tne
car just after the train entered the city
limits.