Preview
Identifier
20127116
Description
Toy Pistol Bank Robber Held Under $10,000 Bond A $10,000 bond was set by U. S. Commissioner Van Orden Saturday for J. L. Henson, unsuccessful bank robber who Friday took $2,180 from the State Bank of East Fort Worth. Henson went to county jail in lieu of bond. The burly bandit nervously sucked at his thumb as the bond was set. He told the commissioner, "I don't have funds to get a lawyer." Henson was captured less than an hour after he held up the bank Friday. His downfall started when he dropped his toy pistol right in the middle of the robbery attempt. "I heard a rattle when it fell," explained Head Teller Frank Stidham, the victim. "I was pretty sure then that the pistol was a toy." Stidham disregarded the nervous robber's scrawled note instructing him to sit on the floor. He chased the bandit out of the bank, drawing attention to Henson's getaway in a pink automobile. Police captured Henson at his apartment three blocks from the bank. The loot, the toy pistol and the note were recovered. Stidham is an old hand at being robbed. Bandits using real guns took $3,325 from him at the bank in April. The men later were captured. "Some people go all their life without being robbed," Stidham mused. "It's happened to me twice in one year." In both instances, Stidham vaulted the counter and pursued the bandits. He admitted the action is strange for a bank teller. He added, however, that it works better than an alarm for attracting attention.
Archival Date
1958-12-26
Collection Name
Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection
Collection Number
AR406-6-182
Original Format
Negatives, Black & White
File Format
JPG
Rights
Rights held by The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections. Any use of content downloaded or printed from this page is limited to non-commercial personal or educational use, including fair use as directed by U.S. copyright laws. For more information or for reproduction requests, please contact UTA Special Collections by emailing spcoref@uta.edu.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Subjects
Robbery; Crimes
Names
State Bank of East Fort Worth; Stidham, Frank; Henson, J. L.
Subjects
Robbery; Crimes