Indictment and court papers, United States v. William P. Colbeck et al. (S.D. Ill., September term 1924)
The digitized court papers of the Colbeck case. The indictment charges fourteen men, several under nicknames, with robbing two custodians of a mail pouch at Staunton, Macoupin County, Illinois, on 26 May 1923; the registered packages held $45,000, $5,000 and $4,134.
- Date
- 1924/1952
- Kind
- case-file
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- NAID
- 292316476
- Docket
- Case No. 25, United States District Court, Southern District of Illinois, Southern Division
- Rights
- A record of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois held by the National Archives at Chicago (Record Group 21). A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105; the catalog marks the parent file "Use Restriction: Unrestricted." The stored images are the first and second pages of the indictment.
An item of 636 digitized images in the Colbeck case file: the court papers other than the testimony. The first image is the file jacket; the next two, read for this archive, are the first pages of the indictment. Nothing further in the item has been read.
The indictment is headed “In the District Court of the United States, in and for the Division and District aforesaid, at the September term thereof A.D. 1924.” The grand jurors present that “WILLIAM P. COLBECK, alias “Dinty” Colbeck, OLIVER DAUGHERTY, FRANK EPPELSHEIMER, alias “Cotton” Eppelsheimer, GUSTAV B. DIETMEYER, alias “Gus” Dietmeyer, FRANK HACKETHAL, JAMES J. HENNESSEY, alias “Stickey” Hennessey, CHARLES LANHAM, alias “Red” Lanham, IZADORE LONDE, alias “Izzy” Londe, alias Eddie Cox, STEPHEN RYAN, alias “Steve” Ryan, DAVID ROBINSON, alias “Chippy” Robinson, CHARLES SMITH, alias “Red” Smith, LEE TURNER, RAYMOND RENARD, and THOMAS H. SAATKAMP, on the 26th day of May A. D. 1923, at Staunton, Macoupin County, Illinois,” by force and violence and putting in fear George A. Roberts and Harry Kuehnan, who had lawful charge of the mail, robbed them of “One mail pouch containing three (3) registered letters and packages.” The page lists register number 100849, containing $45,000 in Federal Reserve Bank notes and National Bank notes, register number 100856, containing $5,000, and register number 2431978, containing $4,134.
The second page, also stored here, says the first two packages had been mailed by the Federal Reserve Bank, St. Louis, and the third by the State National Bank, St. Louis, all for delivery to the Staunton National Bank, the third “for the use of O. C. Jasper, Cashier, Consolidated Coal Company, Staunton, Illinois.” The second count begins on the same page. An indictment is a charge. The Seventh Circuit’s opinion gives the outcome for the nine men who appealed; the indictment itself does not mention any gang.
