LONG CAREER OF CRIME.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2118, 22 April 1920, Page 4

LONG CAREER OF CRIME.

AMERICA’S WORST MAN.

MURDERS AND ROBBERIES

Gordon Fawcett Hamby, the bandit who recently expiated his crime in the death chair, was arrested in Tacoma, ■Washington, last June, under the name of “Jay B. Allan,” after killing a man there in a revolver fight. He was later identified as one of the two robbers who, on December 23rd, 1918", held up the East Brooklyn Savings Bank', and, after killing two of the employees, escaped in an automobile with 13,000 dollars.

Extradited to New York and tried for this crime, Hamby stood revealed as a self-confessed participant in the robbery of thirteen banks and two trains, and many killings. He steadily refused to tell anything about his family. He said he preferred to be known as “Allan,” and that he was born in 1893, in Alberta, Canada. He declare' dthat his parents were dead, and that he had two brothers whom he had not seen for five years.

He said lie was a college graduate, and had specialised in psychology. After Hamby’s conviction, his attorney, disregarding the prisoner's wishes, lodged an appeal and obtained the appointment of a commission to determine the bandit’s sanity, bar the higher Court affirmed the verdict, declaring him to be “'normal.”

He freely admitted his crimes, and said ho was wanted in Chicago, San Francisco, and other places. “I was surprised the California police did not get me,” he said, shortly after being brought east. “When in Tacoma 1 got in that political row with ‘Bob’ Davis, and killed him. ‘Bob’ was a game fellow, and I’m sorry I shot him; but I was afraid he was going to get me. After that I was all ready iu beat it to Shanghai, China, and now, here I am.

“I expected to got AO,OOO dollars out of the Brooklyn ‘.job,’ ’’ ho continued, and I was greatly disappointed at the little we did get. -This was because 'my partner did not carry out my instructions. I. had ordered him to jump over the rail the minute we entered the place, but he was an amateur, and wasted too much time. It took him about four minutes to pick up what money we did get, when it should not have taken more than a minute.” “Who was your partner in the Brooklyn robbery?’’ be was asked, “I do not care to say. I do not want to implicate him. lie is married, and I think by this time has left the country. I met him first in Norfolk, Va., a short time before the Brooklyn ‘job.’ ” Hamby said he had never had any women accomplices in any of his robberies, “because they talk too much.” The day he was brought to Sing Sing the prisoner was asked what interest he had in life. Ho lighted a cigarette and watched the match burn itself down and go out before be replied.

“The only interest I have is to see that I spend the time from now until 1 go to the electric chair in smoking, reading, and making myself comfortable. I know there is no possible chance of acquittal. I am guilty, ami that is all there is to it.” At another time lie said: “Nothing ever bothers me at all. The sooner the end conies the belter. It’s immaterial to me. I’d sooner have it all over with than have this fuss. This place is nice; everything hero is very nice. There isn’t anything 1 I want that I haven’t got here." Judge Fawcett, of Brooklyn, who sentenced Hamby, said he was the worst criminal of .0,000 who had come before him in his entire career on the Bench. Hamby’s philosophy of life was embodied in the following statement lie made jlist before being sentenced to die; —

“It is nothing for me to die, because I am coming back. It may take a few years, or it may Bake several thousand years, of coarse, but time does not count. Being brought into this world is like being placed in a class of small children, with each trying to compete with the other. Some of us are successful, and some are not. As for myself, I have ‘funked.’ ”