I had just got to a sound sleep when the phone rang. I awoke with a start and barked a hello into the phone.
Curley Andrew’s voice said, “Tom Baker, hurry to get dressed and watch two bank robbers coming in that direction in an old Model T Ford.”
I got up and dressed in a hurry. I got my car started and headed in the direction they were coming from. But I didn’t see any Model T Ford. All I saw was a nice Pontiac with two men and a woman in it. So I didn’t stop them. After I had passed about a half of a mile, I got to thinking I better follow them. So I turned around and went back
I met Curley Andrews. He stopped and asked if I saw them. I told him, no. All that passed me was a nice Pontiac. It was black and white with two men and woman in it, so I didn’t stop it. They were driving about sixty miles an hour.
Curley said come on, it may be the one we are looking for. So we went in their direction about two miles and saw a car parked on a side road. We stopped and went up to the parked car.
“Who are you?”
It was two youngsters from our little town, Black Ridge. Curly told them they would have to go back for questioning. So we went back. They wouldn’t tell where they were earlier in the night, so we locked them up.
We went home to wait until morning to look for the Ford.
Then the next morning there was another bank robbery and a filling station robbery. We still had not found the Ford or the two men. Curley said let us go back and go over the ground where we found the young couple along the side of the road in the woods. We did just that. We found the Ford but not the men. We decided they had left the car and went on foot from there.
We asked the young couple we had locked up about the Ford. They said they saw two men a woman come out of that road and climb into a Pontiac. Curley asked what color was the car. They told us it black and white.
I said, “That’s it, Curley. That’s the one I saw. Now I know they had the Pontiac parked here, then drove back here and left the Ford and took the Pontiac. They had taken more than $3,000.00 from the bank.”
Curley said we will just keep looking until we get them. There had been more holdups and more cars stolen and found abandoned. Still no fingerprints nor anything else to go on until we found a glove near the parked car. So we waited near the car for about three hours. A man came, climbed in the car, sat down and waited. After awhile a woman came out of the woods and climbed in the car and sat talking to the man. A second man came and got in the car. They started the engine to go. We went around the side road to come out behind them.
Curley said, “Hello. We have stalled car back there. Would you guys have time to get it started?”
One of them said, “Sure. We are on our way to see our mother and just stopped here to rest.”
I asked, “ Where does your mother live?”
“Oh, she lives in Texas. She has a big oil well and, boy, has she got the money.”
We visited with them awhile so they would not get on to what we were doing. I thought I might get them to tell us something about what they were doing, but I couldn’t. So we talked them into going back with us to see what a nice little town it was. We planned on going to the theater the next evening. Curley got the girl interested in him so she would go back with us.
All the time we knew they were the ones we were looking for. Curley told them a wheel had to fixed on his car before he could drive it back to town. I said can we borrow a glove as it was cold to work with the wheel. So they dug around in the old car and gave us one -- a perfect mate to the one we had found by the car. They told us to keep it as they lost the mate to it.
We got back to town and found a room for them at the hotel. We left them saying we would see them in the morning. We left there and called the sheriff and he was soon to hear our story.
He was there soon to take them in. They told him the same story, that they were going to see their mother. They were passing for sister and brothers.
When the sheriff had a hearing the next morning, we found out that they had been all over the United States on their criminal career. They had enough stolen things to start a store, besides $120,000.00 buried in the woods alongside the road where we had found them that rainy night.
Well, they went to trial and were found guilty. One man got ten years and the other seven and a half years. The girl got five years in the Women’s House of Correction.
Curley and I received the reward money, which was $10,000.00 for the capture of the three.
