Brady Gang

Like the late John Dillinger, Al Brady is an Indiana bad boy who got in trouble young, was let out of jail on parole. Also like Dillinger, he took to cracking banks and shooting police as soon as he got out. At 27, he and his three henchmen--James Dalhover, Clarence Shaffer, Charles Geisking--are wanted for nine stickups, robberies and jail escapes, for murdering an officer in Anderson, another in Indianapolis, a clerk in Piqua, Ohio. Like Dillinger, Brady has staged a spectacular jail break, and last week Brady, Dalhover and Shaffer added a fillip to their record by lifting $2,500 from the bank in Brady's home town, Goodland (pop. 978).

Captain Matt Leach, head of Indiana's State Police, says that "because of their viciousness and the way they operate, the Brady mob is going to make Dillinger look like a neophyte." This sombre testimonial was justified shortly after the Goodland bank robbery. Pursued by two policemen, Brady & friends hid behind a church at a crossroads. When the officers drove up, the gang opened fire with automatic rifles and shotguns. Trooper Paul Minneman fell out of the car. Brady walked over to him. "This------------'s dead," he said.

Deputy Sheriff Elmer Craig was badly shot while trying to crawl away from the wrecked automobile. "Shall I let him have it?" asked one of Brady's men. "Nah," snarled Brady. "He'll die."

A year ago all four Brady gangsters were in jail, indicted for murder. They secured a change of venue which transferred three of them to the county jail at Greenfield, Ind. There last October they clubbed Sheriff Clarence Watson, made a daylight escape. Linked to them last April was a $11,400 bank robbery at Farmland, Ind.

G-Men (called in because the mob had previously taken some loot across a State line), local officers and police from four States were out in force after the Brady mob when two mornings later they rolled up to the Indianapolis fair grounds, held up a watchman while they made a telephone call. That afternoon they lunched at a restaurant a block from the Marion County jail, where their colleague Geisking was being held for killing the gang's second policeman. If they intended to "spring" their friend, they did not do it that afternoon. Instead, Brady & friends vanished.

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