Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 97

imm.wm"1 ii'i" 1 1 j. J. I ii i i ii 111 i i -n innmniMiuuiniuuku uutu.i ft mt $xtt mm mi i fcSKtfiifcJ iiU Sunday, January 8, 1928 tetffWt fPoke 3 I ''f 1 i '4 fc "i I Silenced Guns of Gang Leaders, Whose Owners Are In Prison or In Graves, Give Eloquent Testimony to Earnestness and Success of Fight; Ten Gunmen Killed To Every Officer of Law. Collection of Murder Weapons of Assistant Prosecutor Chenot Presents Gory Record. Above Assistant Prosecuting Attorney James E.

Chenot and Police Captain John W. Worden, of the Highland Park department, checking over Chenot's gun registrations. At left Silenced guns in the collection of Assistant Prosecutor Chenot, each with a murderous record, have no terrors for this young lady. to resume operations. But the Croul order was still in effect it was destined to bring the quarry to bay.

One wintry night Detective Lieutenants Patrick O'Grady and Joseph Quinn, doln? their overtime duty, happened in at Cv Hooper's place, a Cass avenue cabaret just to "look the joint over." Their arrival was timely. The rla- was being stuck up by Bunker's gang sters. Scarcely had Bunker ai 1 his men recognized the well-known faces of the law officers before a terrible battle started. The officers were four. The gangsters were four.

The spectators and erstwhile holdup victims were a dozn or more. From behind tables and chalvi and posts and counters eight revolveis, four against four, belched a leaden hail During the height of the battle a spectator escaped and called the police flyer. When, a few minutes later, two dozen bluecoats burst into the place they found both factions out of ammunition and about to close in upon one another in a hand-to-hand struggle. One man, Frank Webster, 62 years old, a Grand Trunk railway switchman, was dead BncI one or more of the bandits were seriously wounded. O'Grady and his men miraculously had escaped injury.

Bunk, er, with his dreaded nickel-plated gun draine of its bullets, and his men were taken prisoners. All five of the Bunker bandits were brought to trial before Judge Harry B. Keidan, charged with murdering Web ster. As in his previous trials in Philadelphia and Boston, Bunker pleaded in sanity. John Rollo, Howard Mullen and Joseph Lenahan, the other three mem bers of his gang, pleaded not guilty on the ground that It was O'Grady's gun that killed the aged switchman, who had In his dying statement.

Burger said th men were considerate of him until they found the badge. Then one then said: "This man's a dick. bet's burn him up." "Please don't kill me, boys," pleaded Burger, "I have a wife and two children, and they need me." But Hardy's gun was ablaze and Burger breathed but a few minutes more. Three of the Negroes were sentenced to life terms In Jackson prison. The fourth got from 15 to 30 years on a second degree murder charge, and a fifth man, arrested and identified as driver of the bandits' automobile in the Burger drug, store hold up, drew the same penalty.

A nickel-plated "3S" revolver, one of the most beautiful weapons in Chenot's collection, and probably the deadliest, was for months wellded by Jesse Bunker, leader of the notorious Bunker gang, who terrorized the city about four years Bu'nker now Is spending the rest of his lifo behind the gray walls of Marquette prison. So great was the reign of terror Inflicted upon the city by Bunker and his gang that. Frank H. Croul, then commls. sioner of police, ordered all officers of the department to put in four hours daily over and above their regular eight hours patrolling the streets and visiting and his cohorts had visited the Allen Dale Inn, a well-known Detroit road, house, robbed the patrons of several thousand dollars in money and jewelry, shot several of the patrons who dared to protest, and sped away toward Toledo.

A short time later, during the small hours of the morning they passed through Monroe. A motorcycle officer attempted to halt them for speeding. When the officer drew up alongside of the speeding Bunker machine, the nickel-plated "38," in the hand of the gang's murderous leader, ejected a volley of lead. The officer, with a bullet In his brain, pitched headlong from his motorcycle and Into a roadside ditch. He died instantly.

The Bunker gang stayed but a few days in Toledo, then returned to Detroit rendezvoux of known criminals in order to bring the dreaded gang to justice. Leaving a long trail of crime behind him in the east, where he twice had been tried for murder and escaped the penalty In each case on a plea of Insanity, Bunker and his bandits descended upon Detroit late in 1323 and began operations here. Within a few weeks his name and that of members of his outfit were known to practically every resident of the city. Hundreds of oil station operators, drug gists, grocers, roadhouse operators and cabaret owners knew of him, many of them having experienced the fiendish gleam of his steel gray eyes, and looked up, the barrel of his death-spilling pistol. Two weeks prior to his capture Bunker By JOHN T.

NEVILL. WHEN a lion hunter bags a trophy of which he is particularly proud he usually has the skin mounted and hung somewhere about his abode. When a military aviator brings down an enemy airman after a hard-fought battle in skies he generally strips off the enemy plane's identification marks or some other souvenir. The same is true of policemen in their gun battles with the underworld of prize fighters in their victories over highly-rated opponents, or even of reporters after a big "scoop" over the opposition papers. One of the most interesting collections In Detroit, and probably the most significant, Insofar as the welfare of society Bt large Is reposes In the home of Chief Assistant Prosecutor James E.

Chenot. Hi Is an assortment of nearly a dozen pistols, all with histories in cases prose, cuted by himself in the courts of Detroit and Wayne county. Besides serving as "scalps" In his many court battles, Chenot's trophies, piled neatly in a box in his home, are mute witnesses that the pursuit of crimn does not pay. Viewing them, one immediately thinks of the odds foolishly taken by men and women of the city's under-world In their attempt to override the law. The original owner of each weapon either Is dead or in prison.

These odds, written indelibly on the police records of the city, show that for every officer slain by a criminal's bullet during 1327, ten members of the under, world fell to rise no more. During the first 11 months of 19H7, four police officers met death at the hands of law-breakers, and 14 officers were wounded, later to recover. During that same period 40 men who thought 1 they could defy the law, and get away with it, met death, and 74 others were wounded by police bullets, Police engaged in more than 200 gun battles with criminals during the year. Gun That Killed The person viewing Chenot's 'collection for the first time invariably asks about a particularly long-barreled "45" that projects Its menacing muzzle from tfie prosecutor's pile of weapons. "That gun," explains Chenot, "is the most recent to be added to my trophies.

was the property of Clement Lett, au 18 ear-old Negro who now is doing life in Jackson prison. With this gun clenched in his hand -Lett shot down Patrolman Henry Puffer, of the Vinewood avifu station, when Puffer intervened in the holdup of an oil station at Vine wood and Warren avenues on the night of November 8. "Lett and three other Negroes were chared with murder following the killing of Patrolman Puffer. The officer had accidentally arrived at the scene just as the bandits were leaving the oil station. After he had called upon them to halt, of the 'Negroes, whom we proved to Lett, opened fire with-this gun and f'uffor dropped to the pavement with a billot thrnuch his body." Subsequent to his arrest, several days the murder of TufTer, Lett con.

ed to the shooting and named ona pf three other Negroes, arrested with tim as the murderer of Hussell Burger, clrk in a drug store at 1500 State Fair aonue, during1 a holdup of the drug store, staged by the quartet just one Wpek before. The gang, according to confession, had participated in 14 cer holdups of oil stations, drug stores aat milk wagon drivers In- Detroit dur-ln" the month previous to their arrest. Ls't said Paul Hardy, another 18-year-'A member of the quartet, shot the fi'rk to death after they had found a special deputy sheriff badge on him. MEMORIAL HONORS EARLY GOVERNOR been shot to death while sitting alone playing solitaire. Chenot, then an assistant prosecutor, sat In the courtroom for five long weeks, prosecuting one of the men after another.

He proved that It was not O'Grady's gun that ended Webster's life, but that it was the gun he now has among his trophies the gun then in possession of Jesse Hunker. At the beginning of the long trial Runker was ordered brought Into court. But when the officers went to his cell at police headquarters to carry out the or-der they found him stripped naked. Ho refused to pet dressed to accompany them. Faced with this predicament the officers returned to the courtroom with, out him.

'Bring him in this courtroom," orderad Judge Keidan, "even if you have to drag him through the street naked. If he wishes to sit through this trial nakec" he may, but he must be here." A dozen officers then went to Bunker's cell, overpowered him, and dressed him. Bunker, fully dressed and quite tame was led Into the courtroom. Bunker and his three companions were convicted, all of them drawing life terms In Marquette prison. Another gun among Chenot's treasures, and which helped him to convict a holdup man and attempted murderer, is the weapon wielded by Harry Young, 24 years old.

one of two bandits who on June 14. 1925, held up a haberdashery store 5015 Cass avenue, and seriously shot Ed. ward McCutcheon, 20-year old son of the proprietor. Following the holdup young McCutch. eon ran through a rear door of the establishment and overtook Young on the street.

When the youth, a former football star of Northwestern High school and Ohio Wesleyan university, practiced his most effective tackle on the fleeing bandit. Young shot him. McCutcheon hovered between life and death for several weeks, but recovered and was able to testify against Young when the latter was brought to trial. Young's companion escaped. Gun experts proved that the hullet taken from McCutcheon' body had been fired from the gun found near the scene.

Furthermore, it was proved that the gun bore Young's fingerprints despite the fact that he claimed he bad never seen it. After one of the shortest deliberations in the history of recorders' court. Young was convicted and sentenced to from 15 to 30 years In prison. Gun Is Muta Witness. Still another weapon Jn Chenot's possession is the gun found near the body of Sam- (Monk) Meyers, well-known Hamtramck resort proprietor, who was found shot to death in front of bis plsce several years ago.

The murderer never was revealed. An opinion of Michigan's new gun registration law coming from one whose position as a lawyer and a prosecutor demands almost an expert knowledge of the guns their purchase, possession and usage, no doubt would be an opinion worth while, so was asked. "Michigan's new gun law," Mr. Chenot said, "is a very definite forward step toward the elimination of gun-play In crime. Criminals will find guns much harder to procure.

My only regret that the law is not uniform in every state, thereby making It Impossible for members of the underworld to smuggle weapons into Michigan from neighboring states. "The registration of guns belonging to respectable citizens will do much to uncover many burglaries and holdups. Just the other day a Highland Park dry goods store was burglarized. The thief stole among other things a gun, legally registered. A few days later police picked up a man on the street purely on suspicion.

A search of his person revealed the gun registered in the merchant's name. The suspect immediately was charged with the burglary. "1 never have carried a gun," Mr. Chenot concluded, "and probably never will. But I take much pride In my collection simply through the fact that I know I had something to do with sending their former owners to places removed from society." "for 5 hi I I I MSMSSasMSSMSSSMSMSMSasMSMM ss Left Pictures show late Governor Charles M.

Croswell, pioneer state Croswell house, Adrian, and Mrs. Frank P. Dodge, Adrian. In New York state. Records show that the house became the property of Mr.

Croswell in 1853 by deed from Mary E. Hicks, administratrix of the estate of Daniel Hicks, for the sum of $1,700. At that time Mr. Croswell was register of dee'Tls. The notary who witnessed the deed was Hon.

Thomas M. Cooley, later a member of the state supreme court bench. The restoration of the house has retained all the original simplicity and beauty In Interior finish and the furniture is made up of early authentic pieces loaned or given by members of the chapter. The Interior woodwork Is white with wide paneling below the many-paned windows, the floors are painted and the wallpaper is similar to that used In the colonial period. Modern conveniences In way of plumbing, heating and lighting have been added and the lighting fixtures simulate old-time lamps.

Young Croswell learned the carpen- nance as a permanent memorial to Governor Croswell. The house, built two decades before the Civil war, stands on Broad street, one of the finest residential avenues of the city, and has been restored inside and out to its original state. The building, shaded by huge elms, Is of red brick with white blinds and white trimming. The mala section Is a story and a half with a one-story wing. The main doorway Is a graceful and Interesting colonial design and throughout, the house is reminiscent of New England architecture which has been adapted to midwest needs.

i According to Mrs. Frank P. Dodge, of the Adrian chapter of the D. A. the house was built by Daniel Hicks, an nncle of Charles M.

Croswell, and with whom the future governor came to Michigan as a boy from his birthplace ter's trade In Adrian and began the study of law when be was 21 years old. He held many positions In the city and county and served two terms in the state legislature, during which time he drafted the act by which Michigan ratified the Thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. He was elected governor on the Republican ticket and the new capltol at Lansing was dedicated during his administration. He died In Adrian In 18S6. The chapter of the D.

A. R. which Is now housed In its permanent and historic home was organized April 19. 1909, with Louise Barnum Robblna as regent. Mrs.

Harriet C. Clark Is seventh and present regent A bronze tablet dedicating the building to Governor Croswell's memory will be placed upon the house and the formal dedication of the building will take place In the near future. SrwHal to tho Free PrM. Adrian, Jan. 7.

Through the generosity of a Michigan woman, widow of one of the state's governors, the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution has tjeen provided with a permanent and eminently fitting home and the memory of the late Charles M. Croswell, governor of Michigan from 1877 to 1SS1, has been honored. Mrs. Thomas Merrill, of Duluth, widow of Governor Croswell, has presented tff the Lucy Wolcott Barnum chapter of the D. A.

of Adrian, the house, built nearly 100 years ago, in which Governor Croswell lived when he first came to Michigan. Mrs. Merrill has deeded the house to the chapter and has supplied a generous trust fund for Its mainte.