New Britain Herald Newspaper, March 29, 1930, Page 13

e I i “HER MAN" Toward This Man, Glenr Dague, Accused With Her, Irene Shroeder Has Displayed Deep Affection. It Was He, However, Who Broke Down First and “Talked.” I PLUMP, matronly woman with A dyed blonde hair and pale, un- steady eyes — a woman who might be any surburban housewife opening the door to the postman of a morning — waits behind jail b. Pennsylvania to face a jury on charg of murder, kidnaping and highway robbery. She is Irene Schroeder, sometimes called the “‘trigger woman,” She blazed a trail of crime across the continent, the police contend. Hundreds of police local deputies guarded the road through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Arka Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona but — the woman and her shadowy. companio. somehow got through the patrols. Al- though officers gere warned Lo shoot to kill at any of the trio, particular emphasis was laid upon approaching the blonde gunwoman with She was declared to be dangero highway and caut particula Always the police learned of the passage of the spceding bandit car— after it had gone. At last, however, definite word reached the authorities of Phoenix, Arizona, that the three so eagerly sought were somewhere in the vicinity, out in the cactus-studded, boulder-strewn desert By this time so many and varied were the crimes directly and indirectly connected with the two men and woman who first leaped into headlines with the sudden death of Corporal Brady Paul, Pennsylvania State hig! way patrolman, who tried to arrest Last Stand of theDesperate Trigger Woman ~ Ending a Trail of Crimes How the Posse, Aided by a Plane, Closed In onthe Mesa Where the Blonde Suspect . and Her Men TO JAIL After the Capture—Irene Shroeder, Accompanied by Chief Sunkirst, Arizona Indian Deputy Who Aided in the Round-Up, On Her Way To the Lock-Up On Horseback. re hold-up, that the police were somewhat confused. B the quarry was now almost in t. A large posse was recruited and the sandy Arizona w were combed tematically. Then, in front of a gasoline filling station at Florence, Arizona, Deputy Sheriff Joc Chapman saw a car draw up to the curb with a blonde woman and two men in it. The two men got out and walked toward the filling sta- tion. Chapman approached and en- tion. She them for a grocery themselve waged the woman in convers horn and the two men came running toward her. 8 Before Chapman could turn, one of them revolver against his side, barking, ““Get into the car!?’ The deputy obeyed, and then began the wors! htmare of his life, he said aft Qut of Florence they drove, commanding Chapman to djrect them by the nearest route south out of the State. Undoubtedly, he declared, ntended to make for *Mexico. icer saw to it that they drove through the desert, hoping that other searchers would find them sooner or At last they entered the town of Chandler and drove down the main strect, In front of the San Marcos Hotel a touring car full of deputy sheriffs bore down on the machine containing the kidnaped officer. Chap- sounded the pressed a A Quaint Nesting Place HE wandering photographer in present-day Germany can find some picturesque subject his lens. This pair of old boots wa out of use long before two ent ing bird couples moved in r and soon a startling spectacle res After all, the “little old lady who lived in a shoe” might have chosen a worse place. The birds, with some in- tinctive knowledge that a hard Winter vas ahcad, provided themsclves with her insulation against the cold heir home is snugger than they could have found anywhere else, with plenty of room for an expanding family. Some Dignified German Burgher Left This Pair of Old Boots Out a Few Days— and Found Them Tenanted by Two Feathered Families. man saw that his captors had aroused suspicion. he shooling began at once. Bul- lets whipped through the tonneau of the car, whizzing past Chapman’s face. He grabbed the blonde's gun wrist with one hand and that of one of the men with the other, forcing them up. Lead from their spouting guns riddled the roof of the deputies’ car. A charge of buckshot shattered the kidnaped deputy's wrist. Finding himself helpless, he pushed open the door of the car and flung himself to the strect. There another bullet wounded him in the shoulder. Mean- while, the woman and her companions were getting the better of the fray. Three deputies in the attacking car had fallen wounded. The bandit car —if, as police claim, it was the bandit car—suddenly swerved over the curb and sped away. Again the quarry had cscaped. But now the authorities believed they knew where to look for the fu- gitives. Scores of posses were orga- nized and the desert country took on a warlike atmosphere. An airplane was recruited into the hunt. It flew high above the rocky wildernesses, carrying police who swept the country below with powerful glasses. Across cight States the car, bearing the “trigger woman” whose skill with fircarms was believed to have been the cause of so much havoc, had scur- vied through vigilant patr into the Arizona desert lands. Now the search- ranchers, !Indians, veteran of the West, who could handle -shooter with deadly precision and who knew cvery inch of the terrain they were combing. It was a bad place for any bandit gang to be corncred. And the net of incriminating dis coveries was drawing in from several other angles. A four-year-old boy, little Donnie Schroeder, had been found at the home of his relatives in Bellaire, Ohio. When Corporal Paul had been killed, his brother officer, wounded in the scalp, had revealed hat a child was in the car with the runwoman and her male companions. ‘H'lo,” Donnie greeted the police who came to question him, “my mamma shot two cops like you.” The authorities were sure, they re- vealed, that the woman they wanted was Mrs. Irene Schroeder, and that Donnie, her had been in the car at the time of the first slaying. They believed she had left him with relatives and (hen procceded acrpss the continent to Arizona with her men accomplices. The spying airplane, alter cruising about for several days, now spotted an abandoned auto- mobile—and then three people, two men and a woman, ensconced on a mesa, or flat-topped hill. They had apparently fortified themselves in an advantageous position, prepared to shoot it out son, LETTER OF THANKS The Above Letter Was Written by Irene Shroeder To a “Mr. and Mrs. Dawson,” Who Declared They Had Steadily Prayed for Her Soul. It Thanks Them and Is Signed “The Trigger Woman.” with all comers. . Some of the posse picked up & trail of footprints and followed them along the Gila River, around treacherpus quicksands and finally across and up toward the last stand of the suspected bandits. Soon members of the search- Copyright, 1930, Iaternatiomal Feature Bervics, Ine., Great Britain Rights Basarred. Waited “The spying sirplane spotted two men and a woman ona mesa, pre- pared to thoot it out. Three of the deputies olimbed up from behind.” KIDNAPED Recovering From Wounds Received While a Captive of “The Trigger Woman,” Deputy Sheriff Joe Chap- man Is Shown in Hospital Bed. ing parly came in sight of the threr cmbattled suspects, concealed be- hind large boulders, guns drawn in the traditional guerilla manner of the W The shooting began For an hour it continued. Phree of the deputies worked their way around the hill and came up from behind. They ap- rroached stealthily to within thirty feet of the trio. “Hands up!” cried the leader of the deputies. The three, taken by surprise, wilted at last and obeyed. The blonde was clad in a dress very much the worse for wear; her stockings were torn to shreds and her hennaed hair had faded to a streaky mouse color. One of the men gave his name as Joe “Red” Wells, and is believed to be a former convict. The other main- tained he was “Mr. Winthrop” and that the woman was “Mrs. Winthrop,” L L] ACCUSED Study the Photograph of Irene Shroeder Above and See if You Can Detect the Ruthless, Bloodth Traits With Which She Charged. but both were identified in the Phoe- nix holdover jail as Irene Schroeder and Glenn Dague. Dague, it was claimed by police, had run away from a wife and child in another State. All three denied any knowledge of the shooting in Pennsylvania, whither they were soon cxtradited to stand tri Charles H. Wright, sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, who took part in the capture, said that the blonde’s first query was: “How's Don- nie,”” but she later denied this and dis- claimed motherhood of the child. When the little boy was put on the ’phone over long distance to talk to her in Phoenix, the accused gunwoman re- fused to respond and murmured: “Why don't you find his real mother?” All those who questioned the trio in the Phoenix jail were struck by their “hard-boiled” stubbornne: when it came to answering quer They re- fused to talk for several days. Dague did break down to some extent before leaving Phoenix, according to his jail- ors, and told a long, rambling story about the Pennsylvania shooting. He and Irene were identified by many people, Patrolman Ernest Moore, who was with Corporal Paul when the latter was killed. ™ ice will mete ouat a fate very soon to Irene Schroeder and the t{wo men captured with her. It has not yet been established just what connection Wells, the third suspect, has with the murder of the policeman, if any. He says he joined Ircne and Glenn Dague in Texas, No one avould Irene Shroede she sat placidly in her g, praying or playing vic- for a desperate gun- 1 ev once flinched or wavered in her contention that she did rot shoot Brady Paul. Onec policeman claimed she said to im: “I'm an animal, just an animal, self-preservation the including ever take first in- " But, despite her steely exterior, s believed that her love for Donnie led her to the first exclamation which proved her iden ‘Donnie—what's happened to my b She takes a fatalistic situation time comes, whether T talk or not,” she repeats. “I'm ready for anything, even death.” Officers and jailers were astounded to find her repudiating her child, which they were convinced was indeed her own, during the tense moments of her first grilling. She stuck to Glenn Dague, urging that little special atten- tions be shownshim, insisting that he be allowed to shave and tidy him- self up. But nowadays Irene is beginning to manifest some of the mother-love which at first she seemed utterly to lack. Whenever Donnie’'s nsme is mentioned_her eyes flash and fer lip quivers. She may be the demoniacal “Trigger Woman”—but she has a good many human traits, after all. view of the whole Ill dic when my. D O e P % RPN Z N IR AN BRIV I W R A0 3 P00 bt