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Walnut street, where he started two fires Monday and Tuesday nights. In his pocket was a piece of card board on which he had scribbled another warning to the Gaits family to leave the city. A similar note which he had placed on the rear door of the Gatts home Tuesday night, was held there by an ice pick.When asked if he was acquainted with Mr. Gatts, who is a highly respected citizen and former trustee of Van Buren township, Robert replied in the negative, but said he was peeved at Mary Gatts, a student with him at. the junior high school. He said Mary had gone to the teacher with a tale about him and that she had made faces at him in school.According to Robert’s story, he applied matches to buildings in all parts of the city but not all of them burned. Instead of seven fires last Friday night he had expected twice that many, but failed to get the others going.‘After starting a fire 1 would wait sometimes half an hour expecting to see a big blaze but often the fire went out and when T would go hack to rekindle it, someone would come out a back door end then 1 would go to another part of town. No, T did not have an automobile and would not know how to drive one if 1 did,” he-replicd. “When I traveled, I traveled fast, and did not need a car.”Robert admitted that he has been into mischief ever since his mother died two years ago leaving him and three other children, Bessie, 11; Ver-nie, 9; and Albert 1, He said he and his father and the. children lived together on the Maxwell lane and he and the other children had beenj the truthfulness of his story. He said he set fire to the Hays woodshed on south Rogers street Friday night and then came up the Monon railroad track to the Carl Breeden residence where he fired the garage, causing damage amounting to $500 or $600.“1 knew they would catch me but j I intended to keep on starting fires (until they did,” the boy said. “Satur-j day night I never saw so many extraIpolicemen out. It looked to me as though there were about four to every ! block.”I Robert resumed work Saturday eve-I ning at 7 o’clock by igniting an out-i building at the Hill grocery on south (Washington street. He said he ran ! aevoss to Lincoln street and laid down | on the ground in the garden of Dr. i Hershey where he intended to watch the blaze, which was quickly put out. After the fire department had return-| ed to headquarters, he visited the old bottling works a block south and applied the torch there, running down the street and crossing over on Second to Walnut where he visited the home of his aunt, Mrs. Ethel Prince. He had started back up toward the city when the officers became suspicious because of tbp large veil he had tied around his head, and took him into custody. He did not deny his guilt, and was the least worried of anyone in the party as he sat in the car that brought him to the city hall. At no time has ho shown any feeling of remorse, nor does he seem to have the least realization of the seriousness of his acts. He does not have the appearance of a brazen criminal but rather that of a boy whose home training has been sadly neglected. His j father has been in Ohio the pastCardinal Daugherty of Phila-delphia, sent a wireless that hewould arrive Wednesday. Inthe early balloting, CardinalsCaspar! and Merry del Val wereleading and the election of Cardinal Ratti was a compromise.Bweek attending a court trial in which he is a witness and does not know of his son’s plight.Robert was missing from home more than a week last summer and it was feared then that he had been drowned in some of the ponds around Bloomington. After a time he returned and said he had been spending the week at Weimer’s lake and that he had lived on dry corn and anything he could pick up in the fields and woods. He is a student of the junior high school in the 7th grade and played hookey from school Tues-jof day and Thursday. He said he did Avtopl;T(ffi tic bn wl ni w: c a at in ef Alt; bvfryhiFiinMnot dislike to go to school and that his teachers were kind to him.All last summer Robert earned money each day on the university golf links where he was a caddy for Bloomington business men.The only wonder is that he was not killed in some of his incendiary escapades, with so many persons armed and on the lookout for him. Although only 13 years old the boy is largesized and could easily pass for a youth of 16.He succeeded in causing more genuine excitement arid terror in Bloomington in a single week time than has been experienced in the city in a year.AinSc!osepiofofthaitvfttewtr.fibi
Newspaper Details
Bloomington Evening World
Bloomington, Indiana, US
Mon, Feb 06, 1922
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Indiana U.
IN, USA 05 May 2022
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