A Vivid Series of Fact Articles

WEIRD CRIMES No. 2. HE thief who would "steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes" is proverbially the meanest crook in the world. T Judged by present-day standards, he is also a piker; for, with post-war infla- tion, like everything else, mortuary thiev- ery has increased its ante. Robbing the dead, or, more accurately, stealing from the bereaved, is so mean a form of crime that it is, fortunately, sel- dom met with. Yet a few crooks have spe- cialized in this despicable thievery and found it while it lasted-exceedingly remunerative. Late in 1921 and early in 1922 the po- lice of Chicago began to receive com- plaints from recently bereaved residents of the city's West Side. The articles stolen varied in kind and value, but the circumstances surrounding the crimes were invariably the same. A family which had lost a member would attend the interment, and when they returned they found their home had been burglar- ized and rifled of every valuable of an easily portable nature. For three months this funeral burglar carried his flashlight and jimmy in the wake of death in Chicago's West Side. More than fifteen complaints were lodged with the authorities-and the burglaries went merrily on. At last the police department decided to set a trap for the thief. Special offi- cers were detailed to the case. and when a prominent resident died they asked permission to attend the funeral services. When the friends and mourners had entered the waiting limousines and driven off to the cemetery the officers re- mained behind. Scarcely had the last motor in the funeral procession disap- peared when the telephone began to ring imperatively. The officers glanced sig- nificantly at each other and let the bell continue to jangle. Five minutes pussed. Again the 'phone rang, and again the officers ignored it. Another five minutes, and the telephone rang again, longer this time, as if the The Grave Robbers By SEABURY QUINN party on the line were urging central to make an extra effort to get the family. A attempt to practice the same spe- Again the detectives remained mute. cialty was nipped almost in the bud in New York early in 1922. Samuel Deutsch, a four-times offender against the New York burglary statute, was caught red-handed by a young woman who happened to remain in the house to "straighten up" the rooms while the family was attending the burial of a de- ceased relative at Woodlawn Cemetery. Hardly enough time to allow a rapid walker to travel from the corner drug store to the residence elapsed before the police heard the sharp click of a rear window being forced, and a neatly- dress young man stepped briskly from the butler's pantry to the dining-room, making with unerring instinct for the sideboard where the family silver was stored. At the station house he gave his name as Benjamin Shermerkey, aged twenty- one, and admitted being the perpetrator of the series of burglaries which had cost bereaved Chicagoans thousands of dollars. His system, he told the police, was a simple one. Each morning he searched the obituary columns in the daily papers. When the names of people living in pros- perous sections of the city appeared, he made careful note of the day and hour of the funeral, noting whether services be from the home, church or undertaking es tablishment. After allowing a reasonable time for the obsequies, he would ring up the fam- ily residence. If anyone answered, he would announce himself as a friend of the deceased and offer condolences. Then, after another interval, he would call again. If he received another an- swer he would repeat the farce of tender- ing sympathy, and bide his time. When his telephone call was finally un- answered, or his first ring brought no response, he would go to the house, force a window and make off with silverware, jewelry and anything else easily carried. His genteel appearance averted suspi- cion, even if he were seen leaving a pros- perous neighborhood with a bundle. A speedy trial followed, and resi- dents of Chicago's West Side will have to defer the doubtful pleasure of enter- taining Mr. Shermerkey until he has ex- hausted the hospitality of Joliet Peniten- tiary. When discovered, Deutsch told the young lady, "It's all right; I'm the un- dertaker." "You're a thief!" replied the courage- ous girl, and grabbed him, calling loudly for help at the same time. He shook her off, but was captured before he left the block. "You've got me right," he admitted to the policemen. "I used to look up the obits., and when I seen a bunch of 'em in the same neighborhood, I'd grab me jimmy an' do me stuff." Had Deutsch used Shermerkey's pre- caution of telephoning, the chances are he would still be at liberty. As it is, he had been made very comfortable in his old cell at Sing Sing, where he will con- tinue for twenty years, less time off for good behavior. No less ingenious, and decidedly safer for its perpetrator, was the scheme con- ceived by Samuel F. Ware, a negro un- dertaker of Atlanta, Georgia, for mulet- ing relatives of persons he had buried. Ware's plan had for its basis the prin- ciple of the "Indian gift." He would sell a casket, then steal it back again. Doctors' and undertakers' mistakes, and often their profits, are usually per- manently screened from public view by several cubic feet of earth, and Ware's dereliction might have gone unsuspected indefinitely had it not been for his de- sire to secure the last split-cent of pro- fit from his perfidy. An expensive casket might be sold, stolen back and resold two or three times, but after its fourth or fifth interment it began to look shopworn. A little time and expense spent in refinishing it would 81