Landed in the Pen at Last
JOHN B LOWRY JR.
Shorn of the thin red mustache he is now wearing, John Lowry, the desperado captured by police here Saturday afternoon, would look very much like this photograph of him from the Norfolk rogue’s gallery. He is somewhat thinner now, but is the same John, resembling very much is father, J.B. Lowry Sr. of this city. He is 29 years old, and started on his career of crime at an early age some 120 years ago.
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Slipping back home under cover of darkness, prowling around in the old town, visiting familiar scenes, getting the lay of the land, and probably plotting for more crimes, John Lowry Jr., convict and fugitive from justice, came to grief here Saturday afternoon, after evading the law for more than six years.
Lowry was taken by a squad of police after they had fired a bullet thru the calf of his right leg. Driven from the home of his mother where he was in hiding when police, acting on a tip, surrounded the house, Lowry was desperate and made a hasty flight thru the back lot, followed by a fusillade of bullets from the guns of policemen who have been hungry for months for something to shoot at. Making his way from the Pearl Street home of his mother, Mrs. John Lowry, across the yard of Geo. Smith on Poindexter Street, and suffering with a bullet hole clear thru the calf of his leg, he dived under the house of Mrs. C.C. Clark on Burgess Street.
Policemen dragging the rat-like figure forth, and started with him to jail. A wild barrage by Lowry against a Pearl Street girl who he alleged had informed the police was cut short when Chief of Police Charles A. Gregory struck the outlaw a telling blow on the forehead with his billy. The brave act which has been the boast of the Chief of Police all week took place while Lowry was handcuffed, held firm by a policeman on each arm, and liming his painful way to jail with a long .45-calibre bullet-hole bearing an upward course thru the muscle of his right leg. “A dirty trick,” declared several of the bystanders, who, in spite of being bitter against the dirty career of the desperado, think an officer of the law, thus strike a helpless creature, should be dealt with and that severely.
But there was nothing crestfallen about the desperado who once with his brother Fulton Lowry were the terror of the citizenry and the pest of the police for many months until they were captured. While sitting in the jail yard waiting for a physician to dress his wound, he was at first defiant, boasting of the strong friends he had made in this town and elsewhere, promising that someone would pay dearly for his capture, but later calming down, and in jovial mood proclaiming to all about him that he had led a straight life in the six years he had been a fugitive from the law.
A Globe-Trotter
With his wound dressed, Lowry stood on one foot before the bars of his cell and told a lengthy story of his adventures since he made his way out of the jail in March, 1918. He had gone to Canada, enlisted in the Canadian army, he declared, and served on the battlefields of Europe. He said he had been pursued from Germany across the border into Holland and making his way back to America, he had spent much of his time trapping in the Hudson Bay region, making a good profit from the hunting and buying of furs. His earning last year had been more than $4,000, he said, and wit thise, he had come to Baltimore, where he met an Elizabeth City girl of his acquaintance in a questionable house, and there discussed with her the possibility of coming home to see his folks. He declared that thru her connivance, he had quietly returned to Elizabeth City, and that following a dispute with her, she had told the police of his whereabouts.
Doubtful Statements
Lowry’s statement that he had been roughing it in the wilds of Canada was not born out by his appearance. His hands and face were soft and white as one who has been spending much time in jail, and his nervous manner and excited speech betrayed the bearing of a drug addict. His hesitancy at replying to questions as to his career in his absence, evidenced a man cramped and at a loss for words. He wore a thin red moustache.
He would not say how long he had been back in Elizabeth City, but related incident after incident which proved he had kept up with affairs at home and had seen considerable of the night life of the city in the past few days. He even had a key to the car of Dr. Zenas Faring, and told Sheriff Reid that he had stood nearby and watched friends talk to the Sheriff on his own porch. “Why a man says to me, ‘Now’s your chance, why don’t you shoot him,’” Lowry said, “and I replied, ‘What do I want to shoot that old man for?’
“Now Sheriff, you know very well I’m not going to tell you who it was, don’t you,” he said in reply to a question from the Sheriff.
Lowry contended that he had been going straight, that he just came back to see the folks, and that he had behaved himself while in the city. But suspicion points to him as being the man who peered in the window of S.N. Dulin, a tenant of the Perry Apartments on Church Street one night last week. Mr. Dulin fired thru the window, but missed his mark. Lowry admitted being out on the streets late at night and said he had even talked to members of the police force who failed to recognize him. Another instance attributed to Lowry’s homecoming was several nights ago when M. Leigh Sheep, a West Main Street resident, saw someone striking matched in the home of a neighbor who was away for the evening. When he went over and made inquiry, the man upstairs gave a very plausible and modern answer that: “I just dropped in to bring some booze.”
Believe Fulton Near
Fulton Lowry is believed to have been in Elizabeth City last week, and possibly near the Lowry home at the time the policemen drove up in front swarmed out of an automobile and started shooting. “the raid was not well planned and no one thought of searching the house until after John Lowry had been captured and jailed. Then when police went back, they found only a suit case bearing the initials F.W.L., which of course they considered a possible tip, although it is not likely that an outlaw of Fulton’s resourcefulness would use his own initials.
But it is very likely that Fulton was here, for shortly after the capture of John, police received a phone message from Camden County, stating that a man looking like Fulton Lowry had just crossed the Norfolk Southern Railroad bridge over Pasquotank River, running away from Elizabeth City, and that upon seeing himself observed, he had pulled his cap down over his eyes and quickened his pace.
John was taken to Raleigh Sunday night by Officer Twiddy, and Deputy Sheriff Pritchard, and the gates closed on him at last after he had cheated the law for more than six years.
A Hectic Career
The story of John and Fulton Lowry and their escapades would read like a Diamond Dick novel, or some other of the less-elevating pieces of literature. For years they were the most annoying and persistent thieves in eastern North Carolina, committing robbery after robbery, right under the noses of the police, and laughing at the officers. It seems their greatest joy to outwit the officers, laugh at the clumsy attempts to detect them and swoop down elsewhere and commit a new crime. Scores of mail robberies, store and residence burglaries, and robberies of country post offices were laid at their door, and during the spring and summer of 1917. They operated for six months under the very noses of the police, without showing their faces on the streets.
It was in September 1917, after robberies of the homes of Mrs. Fred Davis, Mrs. John Glover, S.H. Johnson and G.F. Derrickson, that C.R. Pugh, an Elizabeth City lawyer, assumed the role of detective and helped to effect their capture. Concealing himself in an old shed at the rear of the Lowry home on Pearl Street, Mr. Pugh observed that the boys were making it headquarters under the protection of their mother. A posse was organized, the house surrounded and the police were called. After the boys were caught, a search of the premises brought to light many articles of jewelry concealed in a cache under the Lowry home, between the plaster and weatherboarding, and in the backyard. Many of the articles were identified and recovered by the owners.
Warrants were issued against the boys on several counts of burglary and their mother was indicted as an accessory to their crimes. she was subsequently acquitted. So desperate were the criminals and so well were they known for chiding the officers, that they were taken to State’s prison and held handcuffed together in the death cell for six months until they were tried in Pasquotank Superior Court in March 1918. They were found guilty of burglary, and John was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and Fulton was sentenced to 15 years.
Sentence having been passed, they were turned over to the Sheriff for safekeeping. He held them in jail over Friday and Saturday. Relatives and friends of the convicts were allowed to visit them, and during Saturday night, John Lowery sawed thru the bars of his cell and got outside, where he concealed himself in the jail.
Fulton Remained
When Sheriff Charles Reid went in the jail on Sunday morning and left the door open, John Lowry walked out the door behind him. Fulton remained in the cell, telling Sheriff Reid that he would wait and make his getaway after reaching state’s prison. And he made good his promise.
John Lowry Jr. on Saturday told bystanders that he sawed thru the bars of his cell with a piece of steel from the soles of his shoe. He contends that he made his way from this city by walking down the Suffolk and Carolina railroad tracks, and that he was seen and hailed by W.E. Watson, brother of J.J. Watson of this city. When hailed by Watson, Lowry said that he told Mr. Watson that the judge had suspended the judgment on condition that he leave the city, and thus effected his escape without suspicion.
Fulton Lowry, taken to State’s prison, was not confined in a cell, but was set to work unshackled on a prison farm near Raleigh. Three months afterward, he got almost beyond rifle shot of the guard, yelled “goodbye” to him and disappeared behind a pile of lumber. And so in the Summer of 1918 he outwitted his prison guards completely and was not heard of again for many months.
Joined The Navy
Free from prison, Fulton Lowry went through life for three years as William Fulton. During this time he served an enlistment in the United States Navy under his assumed name, acquitted himself honorably and was discharged when his enlistment expired. In touch with some trusted confederate in Elizabeth City he kept informed as to doings in town, and is believed to have come back to this city about Thanksgiving 1921 when the automobile of J.J. Watson, resident manager of the Richmond Cedar Works was stolen. Still later, on Christmas night, the home of Dr. A.L. Pendleton was robbed and many valuable articles of jewelry and furs was taken.
In January 1922, he appeared with a companion and stole an automobile in Tarboro. Detectives on his trail made the chase hot and in Hamlet a few days afterwards he was apprehended while attempting to steal the tires form the automobile of the chief of police in that town in broad daylight. His companion proved to be someone else than John Lowry. But Fulton went back to State’s prison, with an extra 10 years for stealing the automobile.
After four months in prison, Fulton Lowry effected his escape in May 1922. And officers have not been able to locate him since. His brother John contends that he has not seen him since he sneaked out of the Pasquotank County jail in March 1918, but that Fulton is now in Melbourne, Australia, and doing well. How he keeps so well posted on his brother’s whereabouts when both have been living under an assumed name, he does not explain.
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May Be Close at Hand
FULTON W. LOWRY
Twice escaped from State’s prison where he was held on sentences aggregating 25 years, Fulton Lowry is believed to be in the vicinity of Elizabeth City. Police searching the Pearl Street home of his mother found a suit case bearing the initials F.W.L. last Saturday, and while this might not be a clue to the whereabouts of a criminal who goes under an assumed name, officers have had a tip that he was in the city last week.
From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, August 8, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83025812/1924-08-08/ed-1/seq-1/#words=AUGUST+8%2C+1924
and
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