COUNTRY GIRL TO “VAMPIRE”

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1921, Page 12

COUNTRY GIRL TO “VAMPIRE”

MEN DUPES LURED INTO ROBBERS’ HANDS. p KISS FOR EACH VICTJM. As audacious as she is attractive, a twice-married girl of twenty has just been run to earth by the New Yc»rK police after an amazing series of exploits, in which she played the part of decoy to a gang of robbers. Known to the police as ‘‘The Lure of the Loop,” Cleopatra Hurtzman lured many men into the clutches of the gang, who stripped them of their money and valuables, and in some cases even of their clothes. She played her desperate game successfully, largely because, as she says, she found that all men were “easy,” and married men were the easiest. It took three months for the police to run her down, and she was only captured after she had fought three policemen, and a fourth had to come to their assistance. She declared that it was weight of numbers that had subdued her, adding that if there had not been so many she would have “vamped her way to freedom.” According to the Central News’ New York correspondent, Cleopatra spoke frankly of what she had done. Her victims, she said, included some “mashers” who were old, and most of them were married. “I always kissed them once,” she went on, “before we left them alone after robbing them, tied up in a room in a strange place.” She told of an early life, of how when a simple country girl in Marlow, Oklahoma, her father married her to a farmer when she was only 13. The farmer, according to her, “was not much good,” and she had to get away to Chicago. She asserted that all men were “mash-

ers” who hounded her everywhere, but when she met Kurt Hurtzman she found hint different to the others. In spite of the fact that he told her he was a drunkard she married him so that she could look after him. It was in order to secure his freedom when he had been fined £4O when she first, on the suggestion of a male acquaintance, lured a man who spoke to her in the street to a room v'here he was assaulted and robbed by two men. Two more similar jobs enabled her to get her husband free, and having found that money was so easy to obtain lie agreed to work with her. They kept it up because her husband was always getting drunk and going “broke.” “Two weeks ago,” she continued, “we

had enough money to quit, when a man 1 had no intention of luring followed me and insulted me. “I made up my mind to punish him. I took him to a place where Kurt beat him almost to a pulp. “This man is married, has a son in the army, and is a grandfather. He is the superintendent of a Sunday school. When fve left I thought Kurt had killed him, but we didn’t take any money from him.” Speaking of her victims whom she met at dances, restaurants, theatres and cabarets, she said she could remember most of their names if she wanted to, as she had, kept a lot of cards. Some promised her furs, diamonds, and even motors, but she just laughed to herself as she led them into the clutch of the gang, because all felt how soft a woman was, and all were perfectly fooled.”

According to her husband, iTlic had not started to talk. “You may,” he said, “have got us with the goods, but she has the goods on a bunch of big men in this town, .hist wait till she faces the complainants! That kid is clever. I only pushed a gun in their faces, took what they had and hauled them away, but she used to collect business cards, and she kept a diary, too.” Amongst the men who made charges

against Cleopatra was one who alleged that he was robbed of £4OO in jewels and stripped of his clothing. He said he could only identify the girl, as the light was out in the flat. The robbers even took his clothes. As

he said this Kurt Hurtzman interposed: "Oh. don’t you .remember that when we started to drag yoiuinto the automobile without any clothes on you said you had a cold, and asked us for an undershirt?” The victim agreed, and said that he recognised the man’s voice.