The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-01-03
Chicago GangSter Nabbed
as Brains of Gang;
Arrest Others Here.
COPS CLOSE ON TRAIL
WorIey Refuses to Give Out
Details; Think Inside Man
Aided YeggS.

With the arrest of three men
in Indianapolis and one in
Chicago, city detectives today
were believed close to the
roundup of eight or ten men in
volved in the blowing of a safe
and theft of $4,000 in the Pettis
department store here last
Thursday night.
A Chicago dispatch disclosed that
Detectives Claude F. Johnson and
George Stone of Indianapolis had
captured James E. Burke, alleged
gangster and thought to be the
brains" of the gang and were close
on the trail of another man. They
have information there we're others
from Chicago and about four Indi-
annapolis men involved, it is under-
stood. According to- the dispatch
Burke has confessed.
Meanwhile police here held three
men.
Two of the men we're arrested sew
eral days ago and the third was
taken into custody today, and inn
mediately grilled by Police Chief
Claude M Worley and Detective
Chief Jerry Kinney.
Details Are Refused
Police Chief Worley said publicity
would hamper the roundup and
declined at this time to make pub
lie complete details of the plot, but
it is believed the officers have the
whole story pieced together.
Postal Inspector A. G.. Garrigus
said postal authorities had been
working with police on the case, but
gave police credit for the captures
Statements have been taken from
the local men first arrested, he said.
The entire gang probably will be
indicted in federal court, but the
indictments not pressed unless they
escape heavy sentences in the state
courts, he said.
Postal officials are interested in
the robbery because the loot in
cluded $25 cash, 5000 worth of
stamps, and 102 unsigned money
order blanks from the Pettis post
Office substation.
According to unverified reports
the local and Chicago gangstsrs
were given the description of the
interior of the Pettis store by an
s"inside man."
Detectives Roy Petts, AL Schulz.
John Marren and Donald Tooley
have been working on the case
locally.
The robbers apparently had in
side help, because they knew the
exact location of 27 A. d. T. alarm
boxes in the store and that one of
them was blind, which if pulled,
turned in an alarm instead Of
notifying the A. D. T. office that all
was well, as the other boxes did.
The yeggmen carefully pulled" all
of the boxes the nightwatchman
regularly operated in making his
rounds, during the three hours and
a half they we're in the store.
Safe Is Looted
The gang got into the store last
Thursday night apparently by hid
ing one of their number in the gar
age across Pearl street from the
store. This gangster admitted his
confederates, who apparently drove
a car into the garage.
Then they got into the store
through a passageway, wayIaid
Everett M. Garrison, night-watch-
man, and James Hughes, Negro,
custodian, in different parts Of the
store, bound and gagged them ami
taped their eyes shut, and then
leisurely blew open the front part
of a buTglar-proof safe in the base
ment.
Three attempts to burn into the
heavily protected inner safe, where
$4,000 was kept, failed and the
bandits went back to II garage ard
drove out in their car, leaving the
door open behind them.
The employees worked loose and
notified police few minutes after
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