Catch & Credit

Near Somerville, N. J. one day last month Trooper William A. Turnbull of New Jersey's State Police sighted a blue sedan scorching down the highway, gave chase, forced the speeders to stop. While he was arguing with the driver, another man and a woman got out of the automobile, poked pistols in his back. In the car they stripped, bound and wrapped him in a blanket, drove 50 miles to a spot near Bethlehem, Pa. where they dumped him out with his wrists bound, lips taped.

In New York City's rogues' gallery Trooper Turnbull identified his abductors as midwestern bank robbers named Harry Brunette and Merle Vandenbush. Because they had carried him across State lines, breaking the "Lindbergh Law," the Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified.

One day three weeks ago two New Jersey troopers appeared at a police station in Manhattan's upper West Side, reported that a repair bill from a nearby garage had been found in the kidnappers' abandoned automobile. Police promptly notified local G-men, offered to cooperate with them on the case. The G-men preferred to work alone. New York City detectives and New Jersey troopers then discovered that Brunette had lately married a resident of upper Broadway, set a watch on her family's house. At this point, according to police, the G-men offered to join forces with them. Together they traced Brunette's wife to a ground-floor apartment on West 102nd Street. Two New York detectives, one New Jersey trooper and one G-man were planted in the same house and in an adjoining house. Plans were made to seize Brunette, a daytime sleeper, one afternoon last week.

The two city detectives had gone around the corner for a cup of coffee at 1:15 a. m. on the appointed day, when Chief John Edgar Hoover suddenly appeared with ten G-men, proposed an immediate raid. Refusing to wait for police headquarters to be notified, the No. 1 G-man and his squad rapped on Brunette's door, got a splatter of bullets for answer. For an hour they pumped revolver, rifle and submachine-gun bullets, tossed tear gas bombs into the apartment. Its Venetian blinds ignited. Firemen came, and were caught in the cross fire between desperado and G-men. Shot in the thigh, Brunette's wife staggered out of the smoking apartment. His pistols empty, Brunette soon followed with hands in air.

That afternoon the old friction between local and Federal law enforcement agencies flared up at its hottest. First anonymously, then in the person of hardboiled, up-from-the-ranks Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine, New York's police officials filled the newspapers with charges that G-Man Hoover had broken his agreement with them and, purely to make headlines and grab all the credit, had endangered the lives of bystanders and firemen by his unnecessary gunplay.

"Kindergarten stuff!" snorted Chief Hoover, denying that his Bureau had entered any agreement with New York police. The F. B. I. story: a G-man touring the district on the night of the capture had spotted Brunette and his wife leaving a drugstore, followed them to their hideout, notified his headquarters. Other G-men had promptly proceeded to the spot, picking up Chief Hoover at his hotel on the way. They had struck at once because that is their habit. The Jersey trooper had been invited to join the raid. Only reason the New York detectives had been omitted was that they had left their posts.

Snapped Attorney General Cummings: "If someone were complaining that the F. B. I. had let a desperate criminal escape, I might be interested. I am not interested in small matters about which the small minds of small men dispute."

Down piped Commissioner Valentine when G-men disclosed that the only person who had fired from the street during the fracas was his young favorite, Sixth Deputy Police Commissioner Byrnes MacDonald, 27.

In 20 minutes, in Trenton, N. J.'s Federal District Court, 'Napper Brunette pleaded guilty to "everything in the record," was sentenced to life imprisonment, started off to the Federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pa. Designated by Chief Hoover as Public Rat No. 1 was 'Napper Merle Vandenbush, still at large.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.