The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-11-24

The capture last Saturday of Benjamin F. Brown, t42-year-old confessed sender of threatening and obscene letters to Chase Com panies' officials over period of al- most five years, illustrated again the near-impossibility of getting away" with crime on the sleuths of the post office department. Brown was nabbed by Inspector Tennyson Jefferson, ace operative after a hunt that is as interesting in its behind d-the-scenes atmosphere as any detective story ever written.
 Not only in tracing major crimes, like the ones of which Brown IS accused is the post office depart ment relentless and thorough; 1t is just as relentless and thorough :n locating a sneak thief who steals stray stamps from sub-statlon. From railway train robbers to mial box pilferers-always the postai inspectors are on the hunt; some times it takes years and years, but almost invariably comes the cap tufe of the culprits.
 Mir Chase Threatened
 The story of Browns capture and confession reads like a novel. Four and a half years ago, in the late spring of 1880 there came to Frederick s. Chase, wealthy pres ident of the Chase companies, a letter made up of pasted pictures and pencilled notations, ridiculing and villifying him. Thought to be the whim of a crank, the incident was forgotten, but not for long Soon other Chase officials began tc get similar missives, sometimes they were pencilled notes, other times they were huge pieces ol wrapping paper Gone measured eight feet by two feeD and the re- cipients began to feel a bit per turbed.
 The matter was placed in the hands of Walter Jarvis, personnel manager of, the Chase companies, who was told to handle the situa- ton in any way he saw fit. MT Jar wis took up the matter with the Waterbury postoffice and the gov ernment was on the trail, there to stay till the end. Little could be accomplished at first, but the search went on for the writer of the threatening and ecenric letters.
 Police Notified.
 Waterbury police were called in. meanwhile, and they did some val uable work, but like the postal workers, were not able to get their fingers actually on the. poison pen" writer. Months went by, and still the letters kept coming. They were letter which praised radical ism, denounced capitalism, threat ened death unless general raises were put into effect. The pictures, ut of bio. etaoinshrdlucmfW- cut from books and magazines, were often ones with gory and bloody subjects. Some were bibli- cal scenes, others were pasted in the messive apparently without reason. Then, changing from the picture and note theme. the sender forwarded to one high official a Chinese dagger, later discovered to be almost 100 years old, and to an- other, several bullets.
 Aroused, MT Jarvis, accompan- jed by Postmaster James T. Kel- ley, went to Boston, head of the northeastern postal section and took up the matter with high off, cials. They were promised full in- vestigation.
 Letters Collected
 The letters were all gathered to- gether and sent to Boston, there studied for flngerprints in vain and sent on to Washington, where they were studied further. The bullets were scrutinized by a famous bal listics expert, but nothing came oi this lead. Handwriting experts were called nj, and then the case began to take definite form.
 Inspector Jefferson, who had made several important capture! for the P. O. department, was as. signed to the investigation, mad made several trips to Waterbury i during the summer. Meanwhile | the Chase companies had assigned several of their men to the hunt | and they aided Postmaster Kelley and Inspector Jefferson in tht search.
 The evidence by this time point | ed in Browns general direction but the real "break" came witt | dramatic suddenness. A Chase c, veteran employe died and condol ences were sent to the widow b! his fellow-workers. The widow sent a card of thanks, which wa posted on a bulletin board. Th' card, several days later, was miss ing, but nothing was thought of 1t until the card turned up in one Q the threat letters, pasted on one o the poison pen missives as al "omen" to the recipient.
 Extra Help Recruited
 Inspector Jefferson came to Wa terbury and laid the plans for tn capture of the letter-sender. Tn letters, it was found. were mailed on Saturdays, usually in the after noon. Extra box-collectors wer' nut on duty Saturdays. and tn mail from all the central boxe were then all bundled. to see if on of the threat leters was amonl | them.
 Brown, all this time, was em
 ployed regularly at the Chas' Comna nies, receiving comparative ly high pay. One of the letters however, referred to losing ; home, and it was found that Brow had lost his some years ago. An ether reference was made to none, --A- A-