The efforts of the police department have already reached to Chester, S.C., where safe-blowers sought to get to a safe of the Southern Railway, but dropped their tools and a cost and took flight when about to be discovered. The lay-out of tools will be sent to Police Chief Walter B. Orr here for inspection.
Chief Orr also has in hand tools left by the yeggmen who entered the Ivey Company safe. The tools include a brace and bit, a cold chisel and a box opener, besides a blue handkerchief, a black slipon tie and an empty cigarette box. The yeggmen also left a baby coat-hanger, wrapped and died up, just as it was taken from a store, presumably Kress’ or Woolworth’s.
The yeggmen entered the safe without blowing it, but by the process of boring a hole just above the combination, then picking the combination. The interior doors to the safe were not locked. Soap was used to fill the hole bored for purpose of picking and the safe was closed an apparently untouched when G.A. Eichelberger, department manager, arrived at the store Monday morning.
Yeggmen went to the second floor of the Ivey building with papers from the safe. These were laid n two piles and sorted. Papers which the yeggmen believed to be worthless to them were left there. Some of the valuables taken included Liberty bonds belonging to employes of the store, though the loot consisted principally of currency. Several hundred dollars in cash was overlooked n a compartment not usually for the keeping of money.
Entrance to the store was effected through a second-story window, after the yeggmen had climbed to the roof at the rear by way of barred windows on an adjacent store building. A chisel was used in opening an unbarred window. After getting in the store, the yeggman went down a short flight of stairs to the mezzanine floor, on which is located the safe. While the safe is near the front of the mezzanine floor and within sight of the front door, a typewriter desk and railing partly obscure the safe.
Mr. Eichenberger said the shades to the front doors were down when he entered the building Monday morning, though they were not down Sunday morning when he went into the store to look after refrigerators in the dining room department. He told Chief Orr that was his reason for knowing the safe was not entered before Sunday morning. Chief Orr said that the safe could have been opened during Sunday without detection, though the presumption is that the yeggmen did not enter the building until after dark Sunday night.
“It is one of the best pieces of work I ever knew a yeggman to do,” said Chief Orr. “The men showed that at least one of them has had experience as a safe man or has had long service in the safe-picking business. Evidence points to their being two men doing the job, and the cake of soap they left shows that they were prepared to blow the safe in case they had failed to get in by boring.”
Chief Orr said the work of the yeggmen differed from that of the crew which blew three safes some nights ago. The first crew used an electric drill and worked n and out of the way sections of the city. The chief is of the opinion that the crackers who tried to get to the Chester safe are those who “worked” Charlotte recently.
The presence of the baby coat hanger somewhat baffled the police officers. Chief Orr said he could account for a yeggman’s going into a store and purchasing a coat-hanger as a ruse to get a view of a safe, but he did not know why he would want to carry it out on a job. His only suggestion was that the yeggman thought it might be necessary to turn the wire coat-hanger into a sort of pick to go through the bored hole and work the lock within the door of the safe.
‘It is a most difficult case,” said Chief Orr, “and we will be lucky to get the men responsible for the robbery. They did their work quietly and got a long lead before the robbery was discovered.”
From the front page of The Charlotte News, Monday evening, March 14, 1921. Yeggmen were safe crackers.
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