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HENDERSON BROS.–BAD MEN WERE HERE

Erickson & Kisro Clothing Store in Comfrey In October, 1916.

Have Long Record.

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R. HENDERSON CHARGED WITH POSTAL ROBBERY

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Being Held at Madison, Wis, for Complicity

in $17,000 Superior,

Wis., Burglary

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Robert Henderson, who was charged with complicity in the robbery of the Drickson & Kisro Clothing store in Comfrey in October, 1916, and gained his freedom on an alibi, is the same daring robber, who is being held at Madison, Wis., charged with being a party to the robbery of the Superior, Wis., post office, when $17,000 was obtained November 21, 1924. He was taken to Madison Friday from Sioux where he was captured by City, Ia., postal inspectors after a daring escape from Chicago United States marshal in the St. Louis union depot, April 3. He awaits a hearing at Madison on May 17 in connection with the Superior post office robbery.

A United States commissioner at Madison set his bond at $50,000 which was not furnished. He is one of four men indicted by a federal grand jury at Madison in connection with the Superior robbery.

Henderson is alleged to be a lieutenant of Terry Moran, who is serving a 25-year sentence at Leavenworth federal prison for his part in the South St. Paul mail robbery of April 17, 1924, when $35,000 was obtained. Henderson is wanted in connection with that job.

If found not guilty of connection with the Superior robbery, Henderson will have to travel to other cities and prove his innocence of other charges. Next in line after the Wisconsin city stands Denver, Colo., where the authorities fain would query him in regard to his alleged part in an incident of June 2, 1924, when several men, under the leadership of Terry Moran, took nearly $12,000 from messengers of the Home Savings and Merchants bank — without giving a receipt.

Captured in St. Paul.

Following the Comfrey robbery Sheriff W. J. Julius ascertained that three suspects were in St. Paul. They had passed through New Ulm in an automobile following the job at Comfrey enroute for the Twin Cities. Three men were arrested in St. Paul by plain clothes men and turned over to Sheriff Julius. They were Robert and Arthur Henderson and James Burns. Robert Henderson was liberated upon establishing an alibi, as stated above, but Art. Henderson and Burns stood trial. Art. Henderson was tried under the name of James Murphy. Both were found guilty and were given indeterminate sentences in Stillwater.

Ailed in Omaha

Art Henderson was shot to death in a gunbattle with Omaha police on the night of November 27, 1924, when two officers discovered him and two companions attempting to break into a Piggly Wiggly store in an Omaha residence district. The two others were believed to have been wounded, but were never apprehended.

Omaha Officer Shot.

One of the officers was shot in the head in the gun battle, but recovered. The shooting, however, stopped the operations there of a gang which had robbed a dozen Piggly Wiggly stores in a few months.

Arthur Henderson’s body was identified by his wife, Latonia Henderson. She was questioned by police, but refused to answer questions about herself or any members of the gang. She is a woman of beauty and won the title of “The Tiger Lily” because of her defiance of the officers’ attempts to elicit information from her. She had come to Omaha with her baby, Virginia, then 3 years old, from Kansas City. Omaha police say she was the cleverest woman ever arrested in Omaha. She was in New Ulm during the time Henderson was held here for trial.

Woman Protected Gang.

In the desperate game of wits she checkmated the officers at every turn through long hours of grilling, and kept police from learning the whereabouts of members of the gang until they had had time to escape.

Henderson’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Henderson, and another 0brother, James Henderson, now are believed to live on a small farm near Council Bluffs, Iowa, across the Missouri river from Omaha. Elmer Henderson, another supposed member of the gang, and Dorothy Daugherty,”Bandit Queen” were arrested in Omaha in November, 1925, and returned to Kansas City for trial in connection with the theft of a carload of potatoes.

Brown County Journal

April 30, 1926

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