Detectives Tom Gribble and Ed Pittman brought to a close Saturday afternoon an investigation which they have carried on for a week in the arrest of several prominent boys of the city, James and Kelly Vest, Ben Steadman and W.M. Jennings, who are accused of being principals in a ring of automobile thieves that have been operating in the city for some time past. Jennings is accused of being inthe plot to the extent of operating his garage in Seversville as a place whre cars could be so changed and camoflaged that the owners would not know them. The men mentioned were locked up at the police station awaiting arrangement of their bonds. A bond of $2,000 was required of Jennings and a bond of $1,000 of the others, young men around 19 and 21 years of age.
It is also charged that the Vest boys and Steadman were implicated in the entering of the Stonewall Pharmacy on West Trade street December 1 and the Independence Drug Store at the corner of Graham and Eleventh streets a few days later. It is said the young men, other than Jennings, have confessed to having stolen a Dodge car belonging to the Lambeth agency here. It is charged that Jennings, at his garage in Seversville, changed the body of a Ford sedan that was stolen by putting a Ford touring car body on it.
As to the Vest boys and Steadman, it is charged they entered the two drug stores mentioned above and took a number of pencils, razors, cigarettes and other goods. All the young men are said to be well connected in the city and the police were somewhat surprised when the clues they obtained pointed to the young men they arrested at their respective homes Saturday afternoon as the guilty parties.
From The Charlotte News, January 1, 1922
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