“Five Counts Against Pair,” Windsor Star. March 28, 1938. Page 09.
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Alleged Kidnap-Bandits Elect Jury Trial at Brockville
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GIVEN REMANDS
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Charge Assault, Seizing, Shooting, and Two Robberies
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BROCKVILLE, March 28. - Five charges were laid against two alleged kidnap-bandits when they appeared in court today and elected trial by jury. They were remanded to Wednesday.
CHARGES LISTED
ACCUSED were Orville Hannon [BOTTOM] and Howard Jackson [alias Schuyler, TOP], alleged to have been the pair that terrorized the Grenville countryside Saturday by kidnapping two Maitland men, holding up a provincial constable, shooting at one of their prisoners when he escaped, and robbing a merchant at Algonquin.
The two were captured after a long chase across country. They were charged with assaulting Constable Johns, forcibly seizing Douglas Dalgleish and James Tarbutt of Maitland unlawfully shooting at Tarbutt when he escaped from them at Algonquin, stealing gasoline from Harold Dawson of Algonquin and robbing Daigleish of $13.
Hannon and Jackson appeared before Magistrate G. A. Wright and pleaded not guilty.
Dalgleish, youthful proprietor of a Maitland garage, five miles east of here, was back on the job today after experiencing perhaps the most exciting episode of his life Saturday.
While chasing two men who had failed to pay him for helping them start their stalled car, Dalgleish was captured by his quarry and forced at the point of a gun to drive them all over the countryside until the car he was driving finally broke down on a muddy road between Millar’s Corners and Heckston.
Owner of the car, James Tarbutt, also of Maitland, was in the car for part of the wild ride but managed to escape while the robbers were hplding up Harold Dawson’s gasoline station at Algonquin. One of the bandits fired one shot at the fleeing Tarbutt but it missed its mark.
At the point of the breakdown, the pair gave Dalgleish $2 off the $3 they had taken from him and ran away. They later were captured by provincial police near Millar’s Corners, 30 miles south of Ottawa. After leaving the garageman they had engaged G. W. Gilroy, a farmer, to drive them to Ottawa. They were arrested while riding in his car.
REMANDED IN JAIL
The two, who did not resist arrest, gave their names as Orville Hannon, 28, and Howard Jackson, 25, both of St. Thomas, Ont., were taken to Prescott, where they appeared before Justice of the Peace Fred Howe, charged with armed robbery. Both were remanded to jail until today when they appeared here before Magistrate G. A. Wright. Police said Hannon was in possession of a revolver when arrested.
Both men were before the courts here in 1935, at which time they gave their addresses as London, Ont. At that time Hannon was sentenced to six months in reformatory on a charge of obtaining money by false pretences. A similar charge against Jackson, an Indian, was dismissed.
Hannon and Jackson, driving a car said to have been stolen in London, were unable to start the machine after having parked in a Maitland school yard all Friday night. Dalgleish was called and when he got the engine going asked the men to call at his garage to pay for the work.
DALGLEISH GAVE CHASE
The men drove past his place without stopping. Dalgleish then phoned Motorcycle Officer C. Johns at Prescott, eight miles east of Maitland, and at the same time started after the men himself in Tarbutt’s car.
First to come in contact with the men was Johns. But when confronted with a revolver in Hannon’s hands, he stopped. The pair then halted an eastbound car and forced the policeman to enter it. The driver being instructed to continue on his way. Johns went only as far as the nearest farmhouse, however, and phoned to Prescott for help.
In the meantime Dalgleish and Tarbutt reached the scene. They also were covered with the revolver. The bandits abandoned their own car and entering Tarbutt’s machine, ordered Dalgleish to drive them back to Maitland. From there they proceeded north to Algonquin, where they obtained gasoline at Dawson’s store. It was there where Tarbutt escaped.
SOUND GENERAL ALARM
With Dalgleish covered from behind, he was forced to continue driving. He was ordered to go in an easterly direction over a rough country road. Near Spencerville No. 16 highway was reached and after going through Millar’s Corners they headed for Heckston.
The car clutch finally burned out and further progress was impossible. Here the bandits and Dalgleish parted company. Meanwhile a general alarm had been sent out and police were patrolling all district roads.
It was Constable Johns who made the arrest, he being stationed near Millar’s Corners when the bandit pair drove up in the farmer’s car.
DODGED POLICE CORDONS
LONDON, Ont., March 28 - A two-man crime wave in Western Ontario for the past two weeks came to an abrupt end, in the opinion of authorities, wth the arrest of two gunmen who abducted two men and were captured after a wild chase Saturday.
The men, Orville Hannon, 28, and Howard Jackson, 25, Indians, both giving St. Thomas as their homes, had been sought in this district for some days, but using allegedly stolen cars and markers had dodged several police cordons.
London police said today they would not be brought here to face charges.
They are held in Brockville jail on armed robbery charges as a result of the escapades attributed to them in Eastern Ontario, but will probably be faced with a half dozen charges in Western Ontario, in connection with an armed hold-up at Staples in Essex County.
They allegedly were driving a car owned by Dr. N. A. Henderson of London when they are said to have abducted a garageman and car owner and abandoned the London car for that of a Maitland man.
London police were notified that the car stolen in London is in Maitland and it will be brought back here. It is expected that a car theft charge in this connection will be laid.
BLAME FOR MANY CRIMES
With the series of crimes, holdups, safe robberies, desecration of a church, service stations break-ins, spread over a wide area of Western Ontario police in the past few days had been on constant patrol for the culprit but believe that they caught up with them in the arrests in the Brockville district.
In this series was robbery of the Kingsbirdge Catholic Church where the safe was stolen along with two golden vessels, March 17. The following Sunday a safe was stolen from a Goderich garage. There were also thefts from Amberley Pine River, Bernie, Mildmay, and another Clifford service station break-in in rapid succession.
A convertible ambulance hearse stolen at Blenheim was found abandoned near Southampton and not far from one of these raids and is thought to have linked them with a series of car thefts in London and St. Thomas district. This car as deserted by the two men when a constable attempted to question them. They fled into the field and shortly afterward another car was taken.
This car was later traced to Guelph district but there it was lost despite a cordon set for its capture.
CLAIM AMBULANCE USED
In the armed hold-up at Staples March 22, E. J. Churchill was held up in his store shortly after he opened his store in the Essex County village and he was robbed of $85 in cash. The robbers are reported to have used an ambulance-hearse in this raid owned by the Needham funeral service in Blenheim.
The ambulance aided the gunmen in making their getaway as a passing truck driver aided the ambulance from the ditch when it was stuck.
Several cars had been stolen in the St. Thomas district and one of these was abandoned at Blenheim near where the ambulance was stoln and is believed to have been used by the hold-up men.
Dr. Henderson’s car was stolen from his garage at Dufferin avenue and Clarence street, Thursday night. Despite notifications of district police it was untraced intil abandoned in Eastern Ontario.
[AL: Some of these robberies, notably those in Essex County, were not actually committed by Jackson and Hannon, and several robberies in eastern Ontario not reported here were later admitted by the pair. Both men were members of the Munsee-Delaware First Nation. For their sentencing a week later, see here.]
