The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-08-14
Walter WincheII
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train to rob the dead and wound- ed. They had killed in cold blood little boy who came into saloon with a tin "growler" for beer, as they were robbing the joint.
 They were tried before Judge George Kersten, for whom I named my first son.
 Roeske, who was a stooge, got life. The other three were sen- fenced to hang-and I saw them all swing in one morning.
 The night before the execution, Neidermeier, at three o'clock in the morning, swallowed the heads of a whole box of sulphur matches. Dr. Francis McNamara, the jail phy- sician, was awakened and he pumped him out. Niedermeier was badly shaken, green; I saw him, for I was on the all-night death watch.
 John Whitman, the kindly jailer, talked to him, begged him to set himself right with his God. Pete promised he would, asked for penecil to write farewell note to his mother (Who was as tough as he was and who assaulted all of us reporters with an umbrella at his gravel.
 Pete broke the pencil and, with the jagged edge, cut into his wrist. He tried to shove the piece of pen- eil under his main artery, to break it and bleed to death He tainted from loss of blood Again McNa- mara was called. He forced some thing down the bandits throat that revived him.
 When Charlie Peters, the chief deputy sheriff, came to Nieder- meiers cell to ask him, in the name of the law, whether he had any thing to say before his execution, Niedermeier Snarled:
 You bet. I wish could live 1ong enough to croak one more copper"
 He was too weak to walk, so they carried him to the galloWS on a stretcher. He was hanged as he sat in chair, strapped to the legs.
 Van Dine was the son of woman whose lifeWork it was-and re- mained, during the trial and after the eXecutions-to save young boys from lives of crime!
 Roeske, who got new trial, was in the jail for some months.
 On the memorable day of the Iroquois Theatre fire, he was caught on the roof, about to de- scend a ladder, into wagon his brother had stationed in the alley.
 l got to know the four we'll, dur ing their confinement.
 Niedermeier had never worked 8 day, had been a hoodlum and rob- Der since he wore knickers. Van Dine had been soldier. Marx a houSe-painter. Roeske was always 2 bum.
 Niedermeier told me;
 q knocked off a man when I was 10. I seen him come out of store and he was putting some bills in his pocket. l followed him and shot him through the head and went through him. What stiff! All he had was four bucks.
 Well, I bought & bottle of whis- key and went in under a wooden sidewalk, like they had then, and got drunk. I was young then. l never drank much after I got some sense.
 Gus did. If he hadn't, we wouldn't be here. That shows you how wrong it is to drink. Why, every time we clipped a saloon, I felt like we was Boy Scouts, doing our good deed"
 Niedermeier organized it as a trio. Roeske was forced in later; the three were plotting on a Lin- eoln Park bench when they heard a rustic; they saw Roeske on the ground, behind. Niedermeier pulled gun and was going to kill him i because he had overheard their conversation. But Roeske pleaded to be taken in.
 Niedermeier laid down the rule for action:
 Shoot, grab and run in that order get me? We're bound to kill somebody, anyhow, sooner or later. They can't hang you any harder for killing 50 than for kill ing one. And if there are no wit nesses, maybe they won't hang us at all-for while."