The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-04-05
SALESMAN SLAIN
ASBANDITSLOOT
new YORK BANK
Gunner Escape With
$4,000 After Locking
Up Three Employees

NEW YORK, April 4.-With the
same cruel disregard for human life that
marked the famous bank messenger
murders in Brooklyn last autumn, six
gunner, apparently aliens, raided a
bank in, drowsy Long Island suburb
of New York city Friday and shot down
father of two children without giving
him a sporting chance for his life.
The robbery occurred at Bellmore,
Long Island, at an hour when most of
the business men of the community were
at home for lunch. The bandits es-
capped in an automobile with $4,000.
Miss Marion Umhauser, assistant
cashier of the First National Bank of
BeIlmore, Haemsntariis Ia charge of the
business, looked up from her books at
the paying window and smiled pleasant
ly at swarthy man wearing a cap, who
had entered quietly, followed closely by
two other men of similar dark counte-
nance. Some furtive quality in the ex-
preston of the first man as he prOffered
$40 bill and asked for change caused
Miss Umhauser to edge away from the
window, cropping with one foot for a
burglar alarm button on the floor, with
out daring to look down.
''Stand still and put up your hands"
Pistol Aimed At Heart
Miss Umhauser stopped as a pistol
was thrust through the grating close
to her heart.
Three more men came in, generally
resembling the first group. They COW
cred Miss Ralston, another employee, as
she became uneasy about the presence
of so many men of forbidding aspect
and made for another of the concealed
alarm buttons.
Just then Rudolph Jowalke, book
keeper, poked his head out of a rear
compartment to see what was happen
ing. Several shots splintered the wood
work of the partition near his head,
and he made a dash across the range
of fire for shelf where he kept pts.
toll. Two more shots whistled past his
head and he stopped.
Then the gunner herded all three
linto the basement and slammed a door
with a spring latch.
The imprisoned employees had tried to
step on other alarm buttons as they
were herded toward the door, but were
not sure whether they had succeeded in
sounding the gong, which is kept in a
garage down the main street. In the
gloom of the cellar they heard the men
rushing about the bank, slamming desks
and cash drawers.
The alarms gone off," they heard
one of, them exclaim. Lets co.
Caller WantOnly Slain
Then came five more shots. The
three people in the basement didn't
know what those reports meant until
they were released. Then they learned
that Ernest L. Whitman, bond sales
man, regular caller at the bank, had
CHANGED to enter the door just as the
robbers were leaving. AS he innocently
stepped through the door the departing
gunner shot him three times in the body
and twice in the head, then stepped
over his body, tumbled into an automo-
bile that was standing at the curb, with
a seventh man at the wheel, and tore
through the street toward the Merrick
road in the direction of New York city.
In fact, the alarm gong had run in
the garage and as the murderers' car
roared past that building a group of
men intercepted. But all of them were
without arms and could only duck for
cover as some of the robbers broke the
rear window of the machine and fired
back at them to discourage pursuit.