Convict's Dream

CRIME Convict's Dream

In two decades as a professional burglar, gaunt, nervous Steve Rumnoch had done nicely at his specialty--breaking into houses. His score: 800 jobs, no arrests. But he had been caught four times for breaking into stores, had spent 15 years in prison. Life behind walls was intolerable to him and he grew morose and hopeless in "stir." Nevertheless during his last stretch, 34 months at the Iowa State Penitentiary, he forced himself to plan a better life for the future.

He kept a voluminous notebook, jotted down things for which he yearned. Among them: Oregon mountain meadow preserves, Edam cheese, a drink made with rum mixed with gunpowder from a .22 short cartridge. He also filled pages with snatches of his philosophy on women and life in general.

Believe the Opposite. "A woman alone at a bar usually expects to meet someone --anyone," he wrote. "Pick girl who wears glasses. Start off by asking a woman what she thinks is the most beautiful thing in the world . . . Believe just the opposite of what people say, especially men, and you will be right 98% of the time . . . Gambling diverts men faster than lechery . . . Love, luck, etc. return in cycles . . ."

In years of reading newspapers and magazines he also collected a fat list of prospects and some dope about them, not all of it straight. He noted that Gretchen Fraser, Olympic ski champion, had a 6-oz. gold trophy worth $210, that Movie Star Ann Sothern collected white Meissen figurines, that Joseph Toth, a Mansfield, Ohio gun collector had 35 fine machine pistols, that Schwab's Drugstore in Beverly Hills, Calif, stocked $200 gold lighters, that the E. L. Doheny home in Los Angeles had gold bathroom fixtures, and that "rich people live in Ten Hills, Baltimore, Md."

He also mulled ways & means of getting the boodle, set down a sort of burglar's handbook: "Bend end of small screw driver to get between glass and putty . . . Buy diamonds with cash from Cartier's--when I want to sell a hot one show the receipt . . . Dogs love the smell and taste of cinnamon . . . Scotch Tape stuck on a pane of frosted glass enables one to see through, but not out . . . use bulb in toilet bowl to hide diamonds . . . Leave phony overcoat button at scene . . .

"Always carry the daily papers when on the prowl early in the evening ... it looks like a person coming home from the office . . . wear Moose, Elks or K.C. ring . . . Pose as blind with dog and dark glasses while prowling . . . use white skins of eggs over eyeballs . . . Good clothes to be inconspicuous . . . live in best hotels ... It is easy to commit a crime, as the police never prevent ... Do not lose the sense of danger while prowling ... on the day a criminal decides he is smarter than the police, he moves that much closer ... to capture . .."

Sudden Prosperity. Last month Burglar Rumnoch was turned loose with a prison suit and $11. He took a bus to Omaha, got a cheap hotel room and five candy bars with the rest of his money. He was broke, hungry and homeless the next day. That night he smashed a window of the Hilltop House, a fashionable residential-district cafe, broke in, stole $400. The day after that he bought suits, cologne, new shirts, a new wallet, a handsome Gladstone bag. His new getup made him look suspiciously prosperous. The cops grabbed him. The judge said: "Eight years."

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