Pre-Job Investigations Do Pay:
by John Rose
A train robber named Oliver Perry operating strictly in New York and usually worked alone but on the evening of November 30, 1891 he sneaked aboard a New York Central train in Albany with a young recruit named Billy Conrad. Conrad was to cut the air hose to the brakes stopping the train at a pre-designed location near Utica. Perry sawed a hole through the door to the freight car, crawled across the freight to rob the express car of five thousand dollars. The guard jumped to pull the bell cord but Perry shot him in the shoulder, causing the guard to return fire. Several shots were exchanged. Billy hearing the shots inadvertently cut the air hose causing the train to stop several miles too soon. Perry jumped from the train expecting to find his horse and buggy waiting. Instead he cursed Billy as he raced down the tracks and was caught within minutes. On May 19, 1892, he was sentenced to 49 years in the State Prison at Auburn.
Billy escaped and a short time later was on a freight train heading west. Thoughts of easy money enticed him to throw in with Perry and the same idea was in the back of his mind when he jumped off the freight in Kansas City, broke, cold and hungry. He 'mooched'g a few handouts but trying to sleep in an alley wasn't to his liking. While roaming the streets looking for something to steal, panhandling under the pretense of asking for work he stopped in a pool hall to rest and get warm. There he learned of a poker game going on in the back room. He waited in an alley for one of the well-dressed gambler to leave, pounced on him with a club only to find he had rolled one of the losers. The man had twenty-seven bucks left. With that money, Billy equipped himself with a revolver and respectable clothing, rented a cheap hotel room, ate and returned to the poker game. Under the pretense of playing he got inside … pulled the pistol and left the game with sixteen hundred dollars.
To Billy'gs surprise, there was nothing in the paper the next morning. The cops were not on his trail. In fact, the robbery was not reported to the police. Billy had found a perfect way to fulfill all his financial dreams. The following Saturday night, during the early morning hours he went back to that same pool hall, broke in, waited in the attic until the game was in progress and robbed it again. This time he took eleven hundred dollars and used it as traveling money. A few days later robbed a poker game in Omaha and moved on to Denver. Billy decided to work a circuit around the country. The next score was in Dallas where he learned Texas gamblers do not like to part with their money - when he said, "This is a holdup!" They started shooting, he shot two of them and left Dallas fast with a little extra weight in his left shoulder.
He found a barber, horse doctor, undertaker and con-artist in Fort Smith who removed the bullet and for a little extra cash allowed him to sleep in a back room while recovering. During that time, the 'Doctor'g told Billy about a big game in Bossier City, a little town near Shreveport. The game was located in a beautiful old brothel house. The architectural design was that of a great plantation mansion. The house was open to the public and so was the game. Billy could not believe all that money was right there on the table for the taking. At 9:42 PM on April 13, 1895 in a moment of greed, without any investigation, Billy pulled his revolver, said, "This is a holdup...!" A 'Pinkerton' guard stationed on the balcony, shot Billy right between the eyes with a rifle! Had Billy spent a few minutes on a pre-job investigation he could have learned about the guard from any of the sixty prostitutes or the two dozen bartenders. Yes, pre-job investigations do pay!