New Britain Herald Newspaper, October 27, 1928, Page 12

“DR. JEKYLL.” Here Is the Clinton S. Carnes That Atlanta Knew and Respected Solid Man,” Zealous Church Worker and ion Board Treasurer. business-like, respected man in At- lanta, ., not long ago. A pillar of the church, treasurer of the Baptist Home Mission Board, successful finan- cier, with a socially prominent wife and two sons in college, this thin-visaged, gray-haired man was the type that more worldly citizens might seek counsel of in their sin and tribulation. Then came a shocking, an almost un- believable, revelation. For Clinton S. Carnes suddenly disappeared. A short- age of a million dollars in piously con- tributed mission funds was discovered— and a strange tangle involving two pretty girls whom he had “financed” in their search for movie fame was laid bare. Carnes made good his escape from the United States, but a few weeks later was arrested in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Can- ada), on a warrant for his capture and the detective forces of the entire world were on his trail. Carnes admitted his identity and agreed to waive extradition proceedings, so his trial will probably take place in Atlanta. In the meantime it has been learned that Carnes's history was not as stainless as had been supposed. For no sooner had his peculations come to light than he was discovered to have served two prison terms, and to be an old “con- fidence man” and swindler. Moreover, he had been in prison right in Atlanta. He had not even taken tne trouble to change his name. Yet no one apparently knew. For more than a decade Carnes had enjoyed the confi- dence and respect of all those with whom he came in contact. No more surprising case was ever re- corded in the annals of Atlanta police history. How the respectable-looking ex- convict managed to conceal his “stretch” for so many years from those who knew him best, the precise part the pair of pretty young girls played in the affair, are matters that have not been com- pletely unraveled. ) Then arose the more important and annoying question of where Carnes was. The police of the United States, Europe and South America kept their eyes peeled for him for weeks without avail. Seem- ingly he had vanished with the same effi- ciency which characterized his other operations. h . When Lois Griffin, Sonia Norida and # Mrs. Louise Pope popped into the case police eagerly sought them out in ar effort to learn the details of Carnes’ amazing double life. Mrs. Pope, i seemed, was the manager, or chaperone, for Sonia in California, while she and Lois were learning to act and mounting the rungs of the ladder to flicker fame. But all three women protested at once that their relationship with the ab- iconding treasurer had been a purely business one, and that they wcre as muc eurprisd and shocked as anyone else the money he sent them was dishon- CLINTON S. CARNES was a grave, girls, in both instances, Id case of stenographic the tempting gl “the celluloid racket ming motors, je bungalows to can give : and fifty-room anointed. Lois was quic tine after leaving cleri ated wit h office rou- school } 10k o Pope and the ome and visit her, with an eye to d 7 her theatri- cal talent and T she did so, despite the prot widowed mother. Then she met Carnes—just how and where is not r he ed to he her “ange provided she’ ov fifty per five years Sonia Norida, sfenographer and when latter ask sought suc r to him gross earnings for the other girl, was a and only recently an immi- grant to this country from her native Norway. She was quick to accept Carnes’s offer on similar terms. None of the three women could give any information to the authorities as to the mission worker's whereabouts. They had not seen or heard from him since he disappeared, and, more distressing, their “allowances” had abruptly ccased. So detectives intrusted with the case went far back into the man’s career. What they brought to light forms a story more engrossing, more fraught with crime and rectitude, respectability and misdemeanor, than any Jekyl-Hyde con- coction of the fictioneers, Here is the official chronicle in the files of the Atlanta Federal Prison, dat- ing from the time of Carnes’s first joust with the law fifteen years ago: “C. 8. Carnes, aliases: Clinton 8. Carnes, S. C. Carnes, George Harris, Lindberg Real Estate Company. “Description: Age, about 37; height, 6 feet 1 inch; weight, 147 pounds; slim built; dark complexion; good teeth; black hair; brown eyes; straight nose; thin face. “Peculiar mark: Scar on right cheek. “Carnes was indicted March 6, 1913, at Birmingham, Ala., for using the mails to defraud at that place during 1911. In this scheme he advertised in one of the Birmingham papers that he wanted a POOR MAN. In This Unassuming Apartment and Started Upward with the Baptist Mi ission Board. husiness partner with $1,000 to join him in discounting the salaries of employes of a mining camp. Carnes was a time- xeeper for the Railway, Light and Power C: and he repre- sented taat by virtue of his position he was ahle ely to discount the salaries rge number of empleyes of that that such a business inthly dividends, with ¢ persons gave him aggregating about med D ) With this money he dis did nc ! peared, and turn f 3 rs—until his 1t operations in con- his “Lindberg Real Estate Company. He w entenced in Clinton, Mo., to four mc s in the county jail, and as soon time was up there he as rearre and sent to Atlanta for irteen mon confidence game That was Car which no one susp Birmingham crimical record, d when he was em- Building Carnes Rented a Flat, Remarried His Ex-Wife “MR. HYDE.” s Stran ployed by the Atlanta Baptist Home Mis- sions Board to audit its books. So well did he manage this job that the church organization gave him a permanent po- sition. Soon he professed conversion to the Baptist faith (he had previously been a Methodist) and was duly baptized. From that time on his career was one of con- stantly increasing eminence among church folk and in the community. He inaugurated a new method of bookkeeping, which proved vastly more efficient than the one formerly in use, and displayed marked executive ability As the years passed he grew steadily more valuable to the Baptist Home Mis- sion Board, until at a meeting of the directors he was finally made treasurer and given carte blanche in the matter of negotiating loans for the board. Meanwhile there had been devclop- ments in Carnes's domestic sphere. When he had been arrested fiften years before he had left destitute a wife and two sons. Mrs. Carnes had instituted a suit for divorce, and was granted a decree on grounds of cruelty and the fact that he had misappropriated the funds of a liter- ”t; society of which she was treasurer, subjecting her to deep humiliation. ‘The pastor of Carnes's Atlanta church learned of the estrangement, although he 1he 900000 Girl Mystery of the Missing jssion orl(e How an Ex-Convict Lured Pretty Stenographers with Bait of Movie Fame After His Great Front and Side Views of Clinton S. Carnes, Taken in the Atlanta Penitentiary at the Beginning of the Hidden Chapter in , Double-Decked Life. Board, composed largely of pastors, with a sprinkling of laymen, had in- trusted to him the power to negotiate loans without super- n or coynter- signature. A man of Carnes’s business acumen was, they thought, admirably fitted to take care of their money. At first hi volved juggling in- relatively small sums. He would borrow, on the firm's note, say $10,000 from some bank in another city. Of this amount he would withdraw all except $2,000, request- ing that the interest on the whole loan be deducted “ANGEL CHILD.” Sonia Norida, the Norwegian Beauty for Whom Carnes Agreed to Pave a Golden Road te Movie Fame. RICH MAN. The Bungalow That the Rising First did not learn its cause. Through his efforts the couple were reunited in marriage and Carnes was joined by his family just as his fortunes began to wax. The sons had never know of their father’s criminal record. From a modest apartment the mission treasurer moved his family, first into a snug bungalow, and later into a home of ample proportions, with a wide lawn, where fountains played, a car and ser- vants. No whisper of suspicion was directed toward him during these years. The Baptist Board considercd him invaluable and trusted in him implicitly. And all th_u time Carnes was signing notes for the Mission Board, obtaining money from banks and diverting it to his own uses. His sudden access to fortune was ex- plained by “a killing in a soft drink stock.” How Carnes re i his employers of the monecy, maintaining an untorn veil of secrecy around his methods, and the circumstances of his disappearanc two interesting features of the His scheme was simple and yet ing brazen. Y arc amaz- The Baptist Home Mission Mission Worker Bought When “Easy Money” Began to Come In. from this deposit. When the term of the note was about to expire he would borrow from another bank a larger sum, making the same ar- rangements, and repaying the money bor- rowed from bank number one. If the sccond loan was for fifteen or twenty thousand it can be seen how this in- debtedness, in the name of the Mission Board, amounted to a high total as the years passed. And there must have come a time when Carnes saw ahead of him the end of the road. He was too deeply involved to go on. It was at this juncture, apparently, that he decamped. 1 on a business trip for his em- ployers, Carnes was supposed to be gone a few days on a tour of Eastern citics. When he did not communicate with his family or put in his appearance for ten days his wife grew alarmed and notified the Board, \ ident sent telegrams to the various banks which Carnes was supposed to have visited. None of them had seen him. ‘then auditors were put to work on the treasurer’s books, though no one suspected Oeyright, 1926, Internstional Festurs Service, Isc. Great Britala Rights Rescrvem. PROTEGEE. The Smiling Loveliness of Griffin, Former Stenographer, Would, She Hoped, One Day Grace the Silver Screen with the Aid of Carnes’s Fuads. suggested were slin—to put it mildly. His hope, then, of cashing in financially on the contracts signed with them could not ave been very great. Why, n, did he do it? From all at the police have been able v> learn, the relationship be- tveen the middic-ago. 3 g ulter and his ~i <:as strictly a b s After they had signed the papers they immediately left for the Coast and he did not see either of them again. These bizarre documents, duly attested before witnesses, are perhaps the strangest part of the entire episode When the two girls—Sonia, with her dclicate Scandinavian beauty, and Lois, a chic bru- nette, received word that their “angel” had absconded, their only comment was: “To think that Mr. Carnes would do a thing like that! He was such a fine man, too.” And not improbably: “Now we'll have to go back to work in an oflice, hang the luck!” Meanwhile the ex-“good man” of Atlanta’s assets were being liquidated, hi and car sold, missed, to rep: little of the missing million, It is a sardonic turn of fate that again Jlaces the long-suffering wife of the mission worker in such circumstances. “When I came back to him with the boys,” she sobbed, ‘‘he told me he was going to wipe out the past, to live as if THIEF! This Palatial Home with Its Fountains and Gardens Was the Culmii Years of Systematic Self-Advancement for Carn the distinguished Atlanta citi a mere formality. The resulting report, however, showed a deficit of nearly $1,000,000 and made the entire business v en; it was Loath his co-workers in the church society were to believe that Carnes had been guilty of “re-arranging” the books to his own gain, the facts spoke eloquently for themselves. The money was gone— and the treasurer was gone with it. Another feature of his hidden “other life” was his strange pact with the two girls. A formal contract was signed be- tween hi mand the chaperone and her charges. Complying with its terms, Carnes sent the would-be stars some $13,000, though up to the time of his ppearance the girls had apparently missed the magic talisman to movie money and celebrity. At this point centers a novel and baf- fling question. Carnes was unquestionably a man of considerable shrewdness and knowledge of the world. He must have known that the girls’ chances of attaining moving picture eminence through the channels he there never had been such a person as the man who spent more than a year in Atlanta. And now comes this, the worst tragedy of all—" The younger of Carnes’ sons was scheduled to return to college this year, but the sad turn of events made it im- possible. The older son is a college graduate and his earnings, of course, will aid the family which a few short months ago was considered wealthy. Mrs. Carnes has intimated that as soon as her affairs are put in order she plans to take her two boys away to some re- mote city where they will be unknown— where once more she can make an at- tempt to build for permanence on the ruirs of her twice-shattered happiness. The capture of her husband in Canada not so long ago may influence Mrs. Carnes’ plans, and it certainly raises an interesting question as to whether ‘she will stand by him again, after two dis- illusionments. All Atlanta awaits the trial and the possible further light that it may throw on the personality and character of this strange man.