GANG OF MOTOR BANDITS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 May 1916, Page 3

GANG OF MOTOR BANDITS.

CAREER OF MURDER AND ROBBERY. Operations of an automobile bandit ring that perpetrated three murders in San Francisco and Seattle and eleven hold-ups in Pacific Coast cities last November and December, are detailed in a signed confession held on March 23 by the San. Francisco police. The story of the crimes was told at night from a cot in the county hospital by Howard Dunnigan, one of the bandits, who was arrested in Los Angeles recently as he sought medical aid for a wound received in a revolver duel following a cafe hold-up. Dunnigan is said to be a scion of a prominent Maryland family Police Corporal Frederick Cook, who was killed by the bandits after /they held up a beach cafe on November 24, was the first to die at their hands. In the running fight that followed the hold-up Cook killed Harry Wilson, one of the ring. KILL SEATTLE POLICEMAN. The remaining bandits then went to Seattle. There they killed Policeman Lawrence Kost when he caught them robbing a drug store. They then returned to San Francisco, and killed James H. Shade when he discovered them looting his home on Christmas Eve. There were five in the original ring, Dunnigan said in his confession. Two of the bandits, Thos. Green and James Murray, are now in San Quentin prison, serving sentences for robbery committed in Los Angeles. Another member, Jack Manning, alias Duncan, is in gaol in San Fram-isco. Wilson, the fourth member, was killed by Cook. Dunnigan saTrhthey always rode to and from their crimes in stolen automobiles. The robberies and hold-ups occurred in Seattle, Sacramento, and San Francisco. An unknown man who was held up near the Panama-Pacific grounds was the first to lose his life at their hands. A beach cafe was their nex't objective. HELD UP FIFTY PERSONS. Thgn they went to Sacramento, and on November 22 robbed a saloon there. Returning to San Francisco, they robbed a cafe and held up fifty patrons. Their next crimes were in Seattle, where, in December, they held up a negro gambler and robbed a saloon and drug store. Again they returned to San Francisco, and robbed two saloons, a grocery store, and Shade's residence; Dunnigan's father, who is an attache of the Supreme Court of Maryland, has employed attorneys to look after his son's interests. Dunnigan is 23 years old, He admitted participation in the robberies, but claimed that he had no part in the murders.