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IANA DAILY STUDENTFEBRUARYICLEI* V'ells ofrersityYOUTHFUL FIREBUGSANE, TEST SHOWS(CONCLUDED FROM PAGE ONE)*Indiana in 1820,y Cham-ty publi-irrent is-Letail thene small id Greek extent of r higher ma Uni-e honors honor as rho wentmd “thatsacrifices ents and'ollars to stadium.s one ofclass in ig in theist sem-boy told him he had read of a case that was worse than his. He then produced an old copy of a magazine and leafed thru the pages until he came to a story entitled, “TrainingCats as Firebugs.”. The juvenile officer said he believed this storyprompted the boy to enter upon his destructive work.Davis had added three fires to his list of 13 blazes Saturday night when the police captured him at 8:30 o'clock near the corner of South Walnut and Smith streets. A blaze in the Hill bakery on South Washington street began Saturday evening’s fire activities, and was followed by fires at the Charles Wylie home and a bottling works on South ^Washington street. He was taken to police headquarters, where he admitted he had started 16 fires and had failed in nearly double that number of attempts. He declared he had no accomplice.Explains Gatts’ Fires.Hatred of a girl-schoolmate, Mary Gatts, led the Davis boy to single out the Gatts family for two blazes and three warning messages, the lad said.He was a pupil in the 7-A grade of junior high school, and when the Gatts girl reported him to his teacher and teased him, he said he resolved to make her cry. “I made the whole family cry,” he is said to have declared. The police found another message intended for the Gatts family when they searched him. The words “Yellow-Mask” were scratched on a cardboard placard with ap ice pick. “They say there were 14 men with guns watching the Gatts house, and I expect I would ’ve been shot when I tried to put the note on their door,” Davis said last night.Davis declared that it was greatfun to see the police and fire departments make runs to the fires he started. He hid and later watched the fighting of nearly all the fires, according to his confession. He allayed suspicion by putting his cap under his coat, making it appear as tho he had run out of a nearby house to watch the fire. He was stopped and questioned by the police shortly before his arrest Saturday evening. He was allowed to walk away when he said that he was on his way to visit his aunt. The lad carried out his“name” of “Yellow-Mask” by wearing a yellow cloth about his neck.Robert Davis is the son of Scott Davis, a former member of the police force, who is now in Ohio. His mother died two years ago. The boy has given juvenile authorities troubleon other occasions.He seems rather glad that he is to be sent to Plainfield, altho he would rather remain in the local jail. “They will make me be good there,” he asserted.Robert Davis, 13, incendiary 'who. has terrorized Bloomington for the past two weeks, was formallycharged in an affidavit filed with County Clerk John P. Fowler by Prosecutor Q. Austin East yesterday afternoon.The case will come up before Judge Herbert A. Rundell in the juvenile court, but before the boy can be tried, his father, Scott Davis, who is now in Ohio, must be notified, the prosecutor says.The witnesses for the state are Orville Thomas, Chesley Hoover, Roy Stephens, Willard Parr and Walter Peterson.nsospitalAasHISTORI
Newspaper Details
Bloomington Daily Student
Bloomington, Indiana, US
Tue, Feb 07, 1922
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Indiana U.
IN, USA 05 May 2022
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