Wicked Terre Haute by Tim Crumrin

Author:Tim Crumrin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2019-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

A HAUTEAN ROGUES’ GALLERY

Ralston “Blackie” Linton was born in Mississippi and became a pretty good bank robber after moving to Terre Haute. On November 6, 1923, he and a gang pulled off spectacular bank robberies in Spencer, Indiana. With a carload of accomplices, he executed a well-planned heist. Lookouts were posted on street corners as Linton cut the lights and phone lines in the banks. The take from the robberies was $17,000. On their way out, the gang was spotted, and gunfire raked the streets. Three locals were wounded as the gang escaped.

Linton and four of the gang, including William Highfield, were arrested in a Terre Haute roadhouse in May 1924. They were sent to the Owen County Jail in Spencer. It was not the most secure jail in the state. That December, Linton and Highfield sawed their way out of the jail. It seems they were left alone at the jail when the sheriff and his deputies stepped out. They may have gotten the saws when Highfield’s wife and kids visited him. His wife was searched, but the children were not; they might have slipped daddy a saw or two. Linton and Highfield rushed out of jail, hopped into a high-powered car and sped west and out of Spencer.

Linton surrendered to police in Terre Haute in January 1925. In early April, he was sentenced to fifteen to twenty-five years in the state prison and sent back to the Spencer jail. Again, he escaped, this time with keys provided by his wife, Pearl. He was not on the loose for very long. A week later, he was captured in Clinton, Indiana, after more than fifty shots were fired. He was again returned to the Spencer jail, but this time he was under twenty-fourhour guard until he was taken to the state prison.

Meanwhile, his wife, Pearl, whom he had married in 1922, returned to running her Terre Haute roadhouse. It seems that Pearl got lonely with her husband away from their marital bed. In December 1926, there was a little party at the roadhouse when two men, Joe Donham and Ralph Henry, vied for Pearl’s affection. A brawl broke out, with Pearl tossing dishes, Victrola records and furniture as her weapons of choice. When the police arrived, Pearl tried to stop them at the door. A deputy pushed his way in, and gunfire erupted. Fern House, wife of gangster Al Donham, and another hood named Fred Henry suffered mortal wounds. Pearl and the others were taken to jail. The incident was one of the reasons that Blackie and Pearl later divorced.

Homer Wright was a tough man. A madam who knew both Wright and Joe Traum well said that Wright was the only man who could make Traum jump. Traum was afraid of his one-time bodyguard. Wright was a top-rank rumrunner who could be counted on to pick up and deliver a load of illegal booze. But he was also arrested many times for bootlegging, gambling, bank robbery and other crimes. He

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.