A Book of the Saint Paul Police 1838 - 1912 — 10

On March 13th, 1902, the body of a beautiful young girl was found on the railroad tracks and this discovery gave the St. Paul police one of the strangest unaccounted for mysteries in its history. Her face had been badly crushed by the car wheels and her hair was matted with blood. The police spent weeks and the reporters months trying to ferret out the mystery. She was finally buried in a lot donated by charitable people, so that though she went into her grave unknown she does not lie in the potter’s field. She was given a beautiful funeral, even a fine casket being donated, and the charitable people of St. Paul piled her coffin high with floral tributes.

In the summer of 1902 Edward O'Malley, Charles Trimble and John Wilson, all with Ohio penitentiary records started out one night to commit a series of holdups. From all sections of the downtown district reports came to the central station that holdups were being perpetrated and from descriptions furnished the work was that of one gang. Fifteen minutes after the first report came in Officer Blonek ran across the gang at 13th and Grove streets. A pistol fight ensued and Trimble and O’Malley made their escape, but the plucky policeman held tightly to Wilson, who was taken to the Central Police Station. Chief O’Connor had a few minutes interview with Wilson who confessed everything. O’Malley and Trimble made their escape to the upper flats where Detectives Daly and Frazer found them. The two men started to run away with Daly and Fraser following. The desperados climbed to the top of a flight of stairs and here O’Malley, deliberately stretching himself on the land, cooly emptied his revolver at Detective Frasier who was running up the stairway. Fraser undaunted by the pistol fire kept on up the stairs, reached O’Malley and after a struggle took his gun away from him and placed him under arrest. Trimble escaped to Barnesville, Minn., where he hired himself out to a farmer. Chief O’Connor trailed him to Barnesville and by means of a letter decoyed him into coming to Barnesville to the post office to get his mail. When Trimble asked for his mail one day Detectives Daly and Sweeney of St. Paul slipped the handcuffs on him and the next day Trimble was brought back to St. Paul. The trial of the three men was very brief and it took the jury but a few minutes to find a verdict of guilty. O’Malley was given a ten year sentence, Trimble eight and Wilson five years.

On October 19th, 1902, Jim Younger committed suicide in his room in the Reardon block by shooting himself in the head with a revolver. Grief over the terms of his parole which did not permit his marriage to Miss Alix Mueller caused his rash act. Cole Younger who was a protege of Chief O’Connor’s after the Younger brothers had been paroled was lying sick in bed at the time when the news of his brother's suicide was brought to him. Cole took the blow like a stoic. After a brief service at O’Halleron & Murphy’s chapel the remains of the famous bandit were taken to Lee’s Summitt, Missouri for burial. Soon after this Cole Younger was given a full pardon.

On October 26th, 1902, half a dozen West Side residents and a gang of Italian laborers engaged in a pitched battle. Dell Robarg was killed and a half a dozen others injured. The Grand Jury ordered five Italians arrested for the crime, but the Grand Jury ordered them released.

On October 19th, 1902, Charles Petzold, a despondent teamster jumped from the high bridge and his body was found soon afterwards at South Park.

On October 30th, 1902, the police arrested Otto Maager, posing in St. Paul as a photographer. Maager was one of the best known forgers in the world. He was given a prison sentence. The police department ushered in the year 1903 by arresting Benny Cates, one of the world’s famous diamond thieves.

On April 11th, 1903, Patrick Keefe was tried for killing Joseph Jacques and acquitted. The two men fought on the Jackson street bridge while quarreling over the merits of a union strike in the Great Northern boiler shops.

On April 23rd, 1903, Governor Alexander Ramsey, first territorial governor of Minnesota died and was buried with civic and military honors.

On May 5th, 1903, John Carr, aged 18, a non-union plumber was shot by Jos. Kohler, a union plumber in a fight on Front street. Kohler had borrowed the revolver from John Licha a saloon keeper on Front street and deliberately set out to kill Carr. Through a novel plea of drunkenness attorney Thomas C. Daggett procured Kohler’s acquittal. On May 29th, 1903 James Manarino was given a four year sentence in state’s prison for shooting officer Pugleasa during a fight that the officer had with a party of Italians while trying to arrest one of their number. Patreao Villely was given a four year sentence for participating in this fight. In June, 1903, a crusade against the keepers of disorderly houses resulted in a half dozen convictions, one man being sent to prison and the others to the workhouse.

On June 19th, 1903, the Skidmore block at 5th and Minnesota streets fell in, but through almost a miracle no one was injured.

On July 27th, 1903, John Reagan attempted a murderous assault on Patrolman Frank Smith. Smith recovered and Reagan went to the penitentiary.

On Sept. 13, 1903, J. A. Ennis, cashier of the Loftus Hubbard Elevator Co., was reported missing and a shortage of $5,400 found in his books. On August 18th, 1903, John G. Hinkel, one of the best known characters about the city was found dead with a bullet hole through his head self inflicted.

On Sept. 8th, 1903, Otto Kirchoff, a cigar maker, was hit in a fight with four men on the street by a rock thrown during the melee. Kirchoff died in the hospital, but the police were unable to convict any of his alleged assailants.

On Sept. 10th, 1903, Henry Nichols, a prominent merchant of the city shot himself apparently while cleaning a revolver at his home, 138 Summit Avenue.

On August 24th, 1903, a city railway work car going at the rate of 20 miles an hour collided at 7th and 6th streets with truck No. 1 of the fire department. Truckman Patrick Flemming was instantly killed and three of four firemen injured.

On September 10th, 1903, Judge Charles E. Flandrau one of the best known jurists and attorneys of the West and a former member of the Supreme Court bench, died in St. Paul.

On October 11, 1903, L. S. Bryant, a veteran conductor of the old Great Western motor, suicided by drinking carbolic acid.

On October 30, 1903, Kasper Ernst was arrested charged with defrauding a number of priests. He was given a 15 year penitentiary sentence of which he served about six years and is now on parole. Ernst made a number of small mortgages in the outlying district of St. Paul and then assigned the same mortgages to various priests throughout the United States. Ernst obtained in this way immense sums, they aggregated anywhere from 200 to 500 thousand dollars:

William Notter, a Minneapolis traveling man leaped to his death from the high bridge November 9th, 1903.

On November 12, 1903, John Ewald made a second attempt to shoot Barbara Jacomet, his sweetheart, and then killed himself. The girl recovered.