The Parker post., 1917-12-15
SANTA FE'S
SAFE CRACKED
BOLD BURGLAR DYNAMITES AND
ROBS SAFE AT DEPOT WHILE
THREE PERSONS SIT IN AN
ADJOINING ROOM.

The office of the Santa Fe railroad
company was entered last Wednesday
morning, the safe dynamited and
$77.9O in cash and SIS in scrip taken
! therefrom. The cracksman must
have been a bold character, for the
job was committed while three peo-
ple-Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Packard of
Blythe, and Thomas Williams of
Riverside, who had come in on the
early freight train, were by the stove
in the waiting-room, with nothing
but a thin partition separating them
from the room in which the safe was
cracked.
The burglar had evidently secreted
himself in the freight rooms when
the doors were opened upon the ar
rival of the early morning freight
train and permitted himself to be
locked in, then, as soon as the night
operator left the premises to go home,
which was about a. M, went to
work. The people in the waiting
room said they saw the night opera
tor, Billie Ray, when he put out the
lights and went home, and that it
seemed like only few minutes there
after when they heard the sound of
the explosion. However, they
thought nothing of it, believing that
the noise was caused by some of the
| other employees handling heavy pack
ages of freight in the adjoining
room.
When the company's attaches ar
| rived about o'clock to begin the
day shift, they found all the doors
in the Office and freight rooms either
unlocked or open, and the safe blown
open and rified of it's contents. A
mail bag had also been cut, it's con-
tents. examined and three or four
letters opened, but no money was
secured from that source
Constable Roberts was at once in
formed of what had happened and
dispatch was sent to the postal in
spector at Los Angeles who arrived
here Thursday and went to work on
the case.
An examination of the safe show
ed that the cracksman had filled the
crack of the door, all around, with
soap that had been sOftened with
water, leaving one small aperature
on the top into which the explosive
soup had been poured A good
job was made of it, showing that the
fellow understood his business thor
oughly.
Later in the day Constable Roberts
found some Of the company's papers
belonging to that safe, and hammer
and a couple of drills that had been
taken from the railroad shop, in the
lot between Bush's garage and the
old barber shop, where they had
been hidden by the marauder. This
discovery was made by following a
certain track leading from the depot
to the spot.
From various facts gathered about
town Mr.. Roberts came to the con-
clusion that suspicion pointed quite
strongly to certain young man
named James Nelson who arrived
here about ten days ago, so he was
placed under arrest An examina-
tion OF the tracks leading from the
railroad office to the place where the
booty was found, showed them to
correspond exactly with those of the
suspected man, and in fact he ad-
m1tted that they were no doubt his
tracks, stating that he had been
thereabouts during the day, but de-
MED positively that he had anything
to do with the robbery.
On Thursday afternoon Nelson was
examined before the local justice of
OF the peace. Besides the matter of
the tracks as evidence against him,
1t was shown that the man was
"broke" on the day before the rob-
berry from the fact that he had
"mouched' from different parties the
price of meal, while at the time
OF his arrest he had $22.77 in his
pocket, nearly all of the money cor
responding in denomination with
that which had been placed in the
safe. The soap used on the safe was
Identified as certain brand known
as "Fells Naphtha Soap, and an in
dividual much resembling the ac-
cused was known to have purchased
bar of that soap at the CONNER
cial cOmpany's store a couple of DAYS