Agent Baker's First Case

In 1933 Wayne W. Baker, 27, of Yuma, Ariz. entered the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a law clerk. Recently he decided to be a G-man, so he took the Bureau's three-month training course for investigators. Having graduated, he was assigned to the bureau at Kansas City, Mo. Last week he was at work on his first important case. He and two other agents went to the post office at Topeka, hung around for three days waiting for Alfred Power (alias Gerald Lewis alias Thomas Malley), New York bank robber, to claim a package at the general delivery window.

Month ago the Northern Westchester Bank of Katonah, N. Y. was stuck up. The robbers got away with $18,000. In Manhattan, Thomas Malley had registered a black Plymouth coupe, license 4Y-7607. That was the car in which a man had been making calls at the post office in Topeka. If he came back, the general delivery clerk was to give the tip-off to Agent Baker. On the third noon of Agent Baker's vigil, the clerk gave the signal.

Agent Baker stepped up, drew his gun and ordered Alfred Power to put up his hands. Blam! A bullet struck Agent Baker in the back, he spun around to face the bandit's unnoticed companion, Robert Suhay, began to fire. Another bullet struck him in the chest, two in the legs. He crumpled. An innocent bystander, hit in the foot, flopped under a writing table beside a scared little Negro woman. Twenty rounds were exchanged before the two bandits fled, vanished.

That evening in Plattsmouth, Neb., Sheriff Homer Sylvester received word to look out for the fugitives who might be heading toward Omaha. Sheriff Sylvester and his brother Cass grabbed their rifles and drove a few miles south of Plattsmouth to a filling station. Waiting there they soon saw a car racing along at 60 m. p. h. They let it pass and followed it. Soon the bandits slowed down, began to drive a weaving course pretending they were drunken drivers to tempt their pursuers alongside. The Sylvesters refused to be tempted, finally cornered their men at the dead end of a street in Plattsmouth. Sheriff Sylvester and his brother had them covered. Power and Suhay surrendered without a shot, were disarmed and handcuffed. A few hours later, Federal Agents had them in jail in Omaha. Some $12,000 in cash was recovered. Agent Baker's first case was successfully concluded. He died in a Topeka hospital.

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