Nebraska's Missing Public Enemy by Brian James Beerman

Author:Brian James Beerman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2019-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

A newspaper clipping showing the five women arrested in the Kinney raid at their trial in April 1935. National Archives and Records Administration.

The trial came to a sudden end on April 26 when Judge J.A. Donohoe directed a verdict in favor of the five women. The verdict followed a statement by Dan Jackson, who said he did not think the facts bore out the charge beyond a reasonable doubt and that the government would not resist if the defense moved for dismissal.

“We are placed in a position,” said Jackson, “of proving beyond a reasonable doubt by circumstantial evidence that these defendants had knowledge that the men named in the indictment were bank robbers. We have the stories of these women, and whether true or not, we cannot disprove them. As officers of the court we are bound to protect the innocent as much as we are to prosecute the guilty, and I do not think we would be justified in asking the jury to return a verdict of guilty.”166

Judge Donohoe stated that from the evidence there might be drawn an inference that was not consistent with innocence, and suggested that if the women did not know, they were “dumber than they appeared to be,” but that no one could be convicted merely on suspicion. He complimented the prosecution on its stand in the case, and with that, the women were free to go.167

The next day, Judge T.C. Munger sentenced Hugh Berry to thirty days in the Adams County jail at Hastings. Berry had recently pleaded guilty to harboring fugitives. Unable to make bond, however, he had been sitting in jail for nearly five months.

ON THE AFTERNOON OF May 3, 1935, a produce merchant from Indianola, Nebraska, named Edgar Frank drove into the nearby town of Bartley and pulled up in front of the State Bank of Bartley just before the 4:00 p.m. closing time. As he walked toward the bank with his deposit of $490 in cash and checks, he noticed two men loitering outside. One of them carried a black leather satchel. The two men followed Frank into the institution and, once inside, pulled pistols from their overcoats and ordered assistant cashier Dan Mitchell, the only other person inside the bank at the time, into the back room. Edgar Frank started to back out the door, but one of the bandits stopped him and told him to join Mitchell.

Just then, cashier Art Wood returned to the bank from the post office and headed for his office. Frank jabbed Wood with his thumb, hoping the cashier would grasp the situation and duck back out through the door. Wood, however, saw the black case that the men were carrying and assumed they were merely there to repair the typewriters and adding machines. He was confused when one of the bandits, a blond young man neatly dressed in a gray suit, said, “Come right in here, mister, and join the party.”168 The bandits apparently did not know Wood was an official of the bank.

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