Mrs. Caroline Wilson thought she was showing kindness when two rain-soaked men came to her kitchen door in the Bronx.
It was a wet morning in February 1900, and Wilson was at home with her two small children when the strangers knocked. They asked for another woman, then for a match, and Wilson, believing they were working on nearby street improvements, invited them inside to warm themselves by the stove.
Moments later, one of the men seized her from behind, forced gloves into her mouth as a gag, and tied her wrists with a piece of clothesline her little son had been playing with. As her frightened children watched, the other man broke open a chest and stole the family’s money and savings bank book.
Left on a bed with pillows over her face, Wilson managed to free herself, reach a window, and cry for help.
Within the hour, the two suspects were chased through the Bronx and arrested at gunpoint, with the stolen money recovered.
Robbed in Her Home
BRONX, New York. — While attending to her household duties early yesterday morning, and while her two little children were playing together on the floor, Mrs. Caroline Wilson, who lives in Inwood Avenue, near Belmont Street, Borough of the Bronx, was bound and gagged by one robber, while his companion forced open a chest and stole $227.89 in money and a savings bank book.
The woman fought to save her life and property in the presence of her frightened children, and was scratched and bruised.
Both men were arrested and in the Highbridge Police Station within an hour after they had left Mrs. Wilson apparently smothered to death, lying on a bed, her face covered with pillows and her oldest child, Thurston, a boy of three, lying by her side.
The prisoners gave the names of Jambrono Jacobs, 2 years old, and John Labone, 26 years old. Detective Hector Worden visited those localities, but no one knew the men. The prisoners wore working clothes, overalls, and jumpers.
Matthus Wilson, with his wife and children. Live on the second floor of a dwelling that is 50 feet back from the muddy roadway known as Inwood Avenue. Wilson was at his work at a quarter before 9 o’clock when Jacobs and Labone knocked at the kitchen door of the apartment.
Mrs. Wilson answered the knock. Jacobs asked for Mrs. Sherbo, and was told she lived in the next house Then he asked for a match. When he said it was a very rainy morning, Mrs. Wilson, believing the men were employed on the street improvements, asked them to be seated and pushed two chairs toward the kitchen stove.
Mrs. Wilson then went into another room and was caught from behind by a powerful hand that clenched around her throat. Slight of figure, the woman battled for liberty. Holding her down by main strength the robber forced a pair of woolen gloves into her mouth as a gag and then reached down with one hand and picked up a piece of clothesline little Thurston had been playing with and bound her wrists by two deft windings.
Still trying to make an outcry impossible, the assailant took the pillows, held them over the victim’s face and stood over her with an uplifted ax he had picked up in the room.
Labone gave no assistance, but with a cold chisel he forced open a wooden chest that stood in the room. From this he took a rosewood box that contained $102 in bills, $120 in gold, and $5.89 in silver.
Labone stuffed the stolen bills inside his trousers and divided the gold and silver in the legs of his rubber boots. A bank book of the Seamen’s Bank for Savings he put in his pocket. With the booty stowed away the two men ran from the house.
Mrs. Wilson managed to get her hands free and, pulling the gage from her mouth, ran to a front window and called for help. Daniel Brown heard her cries and, seeing the men turn the corner toward Jerome Avenue, gave chase.
Pursued by Brown, Jacobs and Labone struck into a piece of woodland at Featherbed Lane. Acting Captain James Gannon and Detective Seeley J. Brownell, who were driving down Jerome Avenue, sent Brown to the Highbridge Police Station with orders to Sergeant McGlynn to turn out Roundsman Frawley with 14 mounted policemen. This was done, but Acting Captain Gannon galloped his horse up Jerome Avenue to Burnside Avenue, which skirts the woodland on the north and leads down to Morris Heights at the river.
Gannon and Detective Brownell were just approaching the New York and Putnam Railroad track when Jacobs and Labone emerged from the woods. The two were chased across the railroad tracks, where the robbers hid behind a fence.
With drawn revolvers they were made prisoners. When searched at the station house, a knife with a blade four inches long was taken from Jacobs, and a razor, the blade of which was deeply nicked in a score of places, from Labone.
Mrs. Wilson identified her assailants in the station house. The money was recovered.
Source: The Evening Times. Washington, D.C. February 23, 1900.
