YOUTH ADMITS SLAYING MAN
Robbers arrested in Erie, Pa., have long string of crimes to answer for
Warren, Sep. 29--Joseph Higgens, a youth of 16 who claims Rochester, N.Y., as his home and who was arrested in Erie last Friday in company with Mrs. Ida Baker, alias Miller and Everetts, has confessed to the county officials his complicity in a murder and also in a long string of robberies.
Higgins was one of a party of three men and one woman who rented two rooms in Erie last week and also a stall in a garage there, where they kept their automobile. In the room the party lived and had a large number of suit cases filled with swag from numerous jobs. They also possessed an automobile of the 1919 model which resulted in their arrest. They kept the car in a stall of a private garage and had it in front of their rooms when Motorcycle Policeman Carl Althof had his attention attracted to the party as they worked with the car. He asked them concerning its ownership and they stated they had their papers up in their room. Here the woman of the party was found and she said, "You know I left those papers in New York." The elder of the men kept digging into a suit case and finally turned like a flash and ordered the officer to hold up his hands. The patrolman, however, sidestepped and drew his own gun. The bandit fired but his bullet missed the officer and the man ran away.
Officer Althof then covered the others of the party and ordered them all out into the street where help was secured and the prisoners arrested. Telephone communication was established with Warren and Sheriff W. W. Muir and Officers Adams and Olson went to Erie. There they identified a quantity of auto robes as property of the Abbott and Haggerty store and brought the trio to Warren.
Saturday morning Deputy Sheriff Paul Brockway of Rochester arrived in the city and told the story of the outfit. Most of the gang hail from Rochester and the man who escaped is knows as Howard Miller, 20 years of age. He is a son of the woman arrested, and Hiram Tiffany is alleged to be her lover, while the Higgins boy is a wayward boy who has been with the gang for several weeks.
Saturday afternoon young Higgins was asked to tell his story and he broke down and did so. In and about Rochester there were a number of jobs pulled off. At Oswego the gang while engaged in robbing a clothing store were interrupted by the entry of the proprietor and in the shooting that followed he was killed. On the Atlantic coast the gang traveled in its automobile and robbed garages and stores of thousands of dollars worth of automobile tires, which were easily disposed of. In and about Akron, Ohio, numbers of robberies were committed and no crime writer in his dizziest moments could rival the tale the boy told.
Howard Miller, who escaped in Erie after firing at Officer Althof, is regarded by the authorities as a most desperate criminal. Suspicion points strongly at the gang as being those who committed a series of robberies in and about Conntaut during the past few weeks during which a prominent banker was shot and killed.
A hearing will be given the trio Monday before the local justice and it is expected that their bail will be placed high, because the money may be sent them and they would undoubtedly jump their bond.
The Higgins boy will undoubtedly be turned over the the Wayne County New York authorities where he will be tried for murder done at Oswego.
Here we find my great-grandfather to be a good cop; he was observant and quick on his feet and brought down a nasty set of criminals. I wonder if Howard Miller was ever caught and what kind of sentences these individuals got. Again, thousands of dollars in 1919 would have been an extraordinary amount of money. Can you imagine?
Paper is located in Olean, NY, on the southern border of the state, not too far from Erie, PA.
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