LOOKING BACK 1917: Bank robbers get away with a haul from small town bank
Around lunch time on a nice May day, three men walked into Charles Spragne’s restaurant in Kitzmiller. Their faces were blackened with cork and they wore miner’s caps. They were unfamiliar to Charles and his wife, but they were used to seeing new miners in town from time to time. Spragne’s wife spoke to one of the men, “thinking he was a local miner but did not notice that either of them were masked,” the Republican reported. The men finished their lunches, paid their bills, and then walked across the street to the First National Bank of Kitzmiller around 11:45 a.m. As they entered, the men drew large revolvers. One of the men stepped around Cashier Barclay V. Inskeep’s desk and pointed his pistol in Inskeep’s face. Sue R. Laughlin, Inskeep’s assistant, screamed. A second man pointed his pistol at Read more…
1924: Cop killer attempts prison escape, caught and executed
Philip Hartman knew he needed to pay for his crime and that he would have to pay the ultimate price. “Fight the case? No, I am guilty of the charges. I made my mistake. I am sorry,” the 24-year-old Hartman told reporters after he was arrested for murder and bank robbery. After robbing the Abbottstown State Bank on October 14, 1924, Hartman had shot Private Francis Haley of the Pennsylvania State Police shortly thereafter. Haley had died almost instantly on the highway where he had fallen from his motorcycle, becoming the 11th state trooper to die in the line of duty. Following an intensive two-day manhunt, Hartman surrendered to police in Reading and was returned to the Adams County Jail to await his trial. Hartman spoke to reporters, “In broken phrases, like a man repenting a wrong deed, struggling in Read more…
1924: Pennsylvania state trooper murdered in Adams County
This is the first in a series of articles I wrote for the Gettysburg Times about the murder of Pennsylvania State Trooper Francis Haley and the hunt for his killer. With just five months with the Pennsylvania State Police and only two days at the substation in Chambersburg, Private Francis Haley could still feel a sense of newness and wonder with the job. It was a feeling he would lose all too soon. Around 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 14, 1924, the report came in to be on the lookout for a lone man in a touring car with New York plates who was wanted as a suspect in the robbery of the Abbottstown State Bank. Upon fleeing the scene, the bank robber had last been seen heading in the direction of Gettysburg along Lincoln Highway. Around 2 p.m. that day, Read more…
Embarrassed wife has doctor killed in 1851
It’s been said that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Such fury cost Oakland, Md., its first doctor. When Dr. John Conn stepped off the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad train in 1851, he was a pioneer. Oakland hadn’t yet been incorporated as a town and the region was still frontier for Maryland. The town only had a few hundred citizens and they needed a doctor. The next-closest doctor was Dr. John H. Patterson in Grantsville, Md. To get there and back to Oakland would have taken a full day. Conn set up his office at Second and Oak streets where it quickly flourished. “In the days before the convenience of a well-stocked pharmacy, it was said that the ‘young doctor’ either had on hand the correct medication, or could prescribe a suitable home remedy Read more…
Zodiac Killer identified?
In another case of 20/20 hindsight, there’s a retired California Highway Patrol officer, who says he knows who the infamous Zodiac Killer is. The Zodiac Killer was linked to five murders in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960’s and 1970’s, though he claimed to have killed 37. He sent coded messages that used symbols to the police, which is where his moniker came from. Lyndon Lafferty, the former CHP officer, says that the killer is now 91 years old and is a recovering alcoholic who lives in Fairfield, CA. He won’t name the man, though. To me, this says he’s probably not totally confident of his identification of the killer. Lafferty has written a book that say, the killer was enraged by his cheating wife. Because of this, a judge who was having an affair with the wife, Read more…
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