THIEF REFORMER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4718, 30 June 1924, Page 2

THIEF REFORMER.

— 30 YEARS IN UNDERWORLD. WOMAN’S £400,000 FROM CRIME. Sophie Lyons, the famous thief reformer, died recently in the Grace Hospital, Detroit, a victim, it is believed, of foul play by three criminals whom she had befriended. For 30 years .the queen of the underworld, Lyons, atfer she had served sentences in 50 gaols, decided that honesty is the best policy and wrote her celebrated book “Why Crime Doesn’t Pay.” Born in New York 76 years ago, Sophie, at the age of six, was taughtj by her mother to pick pockets. Ten, yeirs later she travelled extensively in Europe in the company of .gangs of noted thieves. One of these thieves, Ned Lyons, she married. AMASSED £400.000. For years the couple conducted an international safe-blowing and swindling business which is said to netted them at one time £400,000. -c After her release, 40 years ago, from the House of Correction in Detroit, Sophie decided to live honestly. She married Jimmy Burke, another reformed criminal, and moved into a little cottage. Her married life was happy and prosperous. . Both parties to it kept their vow to live honestly, and in 1919, when Burke died, theyhad amassed a fortune from estate dealings. Rich and respected as an honourable business woman, she devoted her life and money to persuading criminals to eschew crime. She was visited three days before her death by three criminals whom she had befriended and tried to reform. Their names she kept secret. Yet they had accuseil her of “squealing to the police," and threatened to “get her.” The value of her estate is estimated at about £70,000. Her will provided for the establishment of a Sophie Lyons memorial home for children of two to four years of age, one or both of whose parents are in prison. Twenty-five pounds a year is left to provide delicacies for the sick and persons condemned to death.