jlowry@bbnccv.UUCP (John Lowry) (09/26/85)
From _The_Berkshire_Eagle_ 9/16/85, without permission.
_Goofed-up_getaways_foil_crimes_
by Stephen Fay
On the night of Nov. 24, 1974, a 26-year-old Lee man fleeing from
the police facilitated his own capture by crashing into a tree.
And though there's nothing so unusual about people fleeing from the
police crashing into trees, most of them do so while in cars. This
particular man had been on foot when he ran into the tree and knocked
himself cock-eyed.
Ignominious as his capture was, he at least has the consolation of
knowing he is not alone. For Berkshire County appears to be something
of a capital of goofed-up getaways.
From the killer who telephoned the Pittsfield Fire Department (which
records all calls) and pounded on the doors of sleeping neighbors asking
directions to the home of his victim to the bank robbers who got caught
when they got snarled in North Adams's rush-hour traffic to the lady who
robbed a liquor store and fled in a taxi, Berkshire County malefactors -
homegrown as well as transplants - have much to learn in the getaway
department. A little research into criminal activities in the
Berkshires turns up a whole gang of crooks who blew their getaways.
_Stuck_in_snowbank
Take the case of the 40-year-old multimillionaire who was convicted
of torching his Richmond summer home one snowy, cold morning in January
1983. Not only did he increase the insurance on his $200,000 house to
$400,000 shortly before the fire, but while setting a blaze in the rear
bedroom he managed to touch off the fire alarm, not once but twice. At
getaway time, he did not get far. His car got stuck in a snowbank near
his Woodlot Road home. Firefighters responding to the alarm saw him as
they rushed to the fire scene. He was charged shortly after the event.
The most quickly solved bank robbery in Pittsfield's history
occurred Dec. 3, 1974. A 33-year-old city resident forced his way into
the West Housatonic Street branch of City Savings Bank at 9:40, 20
minutes before the bank was to open. An alert teller observed two of
her colleagues approaching the door and asked the robber if she could
tell the approaching "customers" that the bank wasn't open yet.
The teller went to the front door and, using a codeword that meant a
robbery was in progress, sent her two co-workers dashing for a phone to
call police.
In the meantime, the robber had gathered up $9,600 and, discovering
he hadn't thought of transportation, asked one of the tellers inside the
bank for the loan of a car. When police arrived, shortly after the
robber departed, the teller was able to provide an exact description of
the vehicle.
Meanwhile, two detectives investigating a burglary at Crystal
Creamery a mile away, heard the description of the car and driver and, a
minute later, watched in awe as the very same car went right by them.
The bank robber still had the money bag in his hand when they nabbed
him a few blocks later.
It was only last January that a 25-year-old North Adams woman
pointed a gun at the owner of the Liquor Mart at the Artery Arcade in
North Adams and scooped $320 from the cash register, half of which she
dropped on the ground while leaving the store. Then she used a taxi as
a getaway car. The ower of the store took down the cab's number and
police quickly found the driver, who knew nothing of what his passenger
was up to. Twenty minutes after the robbery, the robber was arrested at
her home.
_Caught_in_traffic_
"You gotta know the territory," said the man in Meredith Wilson's
"The Music Man."
It is advice that would have spared a visitor from Waltham
considerable grief on the afteroon of - when else? - April Fools' Day,
1982.
The 32-year-old bandit stuck up the South Adams Savings Bank on
Route 8 in Cheshire at about 4:30 p.m. With $635 in cash stuffed into
bank bags and a .22-caliber pistol in his hand, the robber roared away
in his black Ford Mustang. He made the big mistake of heading north,
however. A half-hour later, he got snarled in a 5 p.m. rush-hour
traffic jam on State Street in North Adams. The police closed in and he
gave in.
The Indiana Jones award goes to the 25-year-old North Adams man who
broke into a woman's apartment in March 1983. The woman kicked him and
ran shouting out the door. The attacker jumped out the window, perhaps
forgetting he was on the second floor. He broke his left ankle, which
was still in its cast during the trial three months later.
Then there were the two men charged with the Feb. 13, 1979, killing
of a Pittsfield man. The victim lived on Hungerford Street, a rather
hard-to-find road off West Housatonic Street. At their trial, it bacame
evident that the two defendants were themselves victims - of a profound
lack of planning.
It seems, first of all, that they did not know where Hungerford
Street was. So one of them called the Pittsfield Fire Department to ask
directions, unaware that his call, like all calls to the department, was
recorded. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, the two wandered
around West Pittsfield, banging on the doors of sleepers, asking where
Hungerford Street was. The fire dispatcher and several of the awakened
neighbors were to testify at the trial.
One of the men - the gunman - was found guilty of the killing, the
other was let off.
_Dropped_money_
That North Adams liquor store bandit who dropped half her take
brings to mind the case of the unluck crook who didn't get what he
ordered at the old Majestic Restaurant in Pittsfield.
The case goes back to Jan. 22, 1974. An armed robber wearing a ski
mask grabbed the cash box from behind the bar of a North Street eatery.
But the gray metal box wasn't latched. It fell open and all the money
fell on the floor behind the bar. The crook headed for the door, still
hanging onto the empty money box, and took a blast of tear gas in the
face from a little aerosol can brandished by the owner.
Perhaps the most inept attempt to commit a crime was illustrated by
one Adams man.
The individual in question, age 23, tried to extort exactly $7,045
from A.H. Rice Co. of Pittsfield. The money demand, written on a piece
of Howard Johnson's guest stationery, was accompanied by a bomb threat.
The extortionist demanded that the sum be sent to his home on Burt
Street in Adams. Cleverly, he thought, in order to throw authorities
off, the extortionist said the people at that address knew nothing of
the plot.
"It reminds me," his lawyer, George B. Crane, told the judge, "of
the old saw about the kidnapper sending the kid home with the ransom
note."