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HEIRS FIGHT FOR MALM THIEFDeath of Bill the Brute, Clark Parker of Pasadena, StartsContest for $1,000,000.m• New York.—'Wllat would the old cronies in crime of Clark Parker, once internationally Infamous as BUI the Brute, burglar, thief and receiver; of stolen goods, say If. they.-knew he left an estate- of $1,000,000 for eminently respectable relative^ and heirs ;to. squnbbla, over? , *What might be the comment of his^ one-time pal, Eddie Gjuerln, had mun from the West who achieved no end of notoriety as the only man ever to escape from dread Devil’s Island, the French penul colony where Dreyfus' and untold otjher unfortunates languished? What would Eddie think of that cool million, Eddie who robbed -the silk-lined Bank of Lyons of 200,-000 francs with Bill the Brute, but who had to be sentenced to.a British jnil at sixty-one in 3920 for filching Iiennles from a pedestrian?Dijsd a Recluse,Clark Parker died in.lt;Pasadena, Cal., .in January, 1922, a reel use billionaire, aged -eighty. For many years he was well known to the police of America and Europe, but suddenly sett,led down to respectability in Boston.His brother, Benjamin Parker, was at the time a.resident of Boston and one respected alike in business ami society. He was the Molasses King and he bequeathed his entire fortune in trust, to-the reformed Clark. ClurU quadrupled it‘by careful investments —honest investments—and in 1910 moved to the Pacific coast, living in seclusion until his wife's death, alone after she was taken from him. , ..Bill the Brute did not win his brother’s fortune without a bitterly foughl legal contest. Dr. Frederick P. Gay.I now a member of the University of-! California faculty, his nephew, led a bund of relatives In a joint attack on the will and its benefactor on. the ground that Benjamin Parker had beer unduly, influenced. ' fNow Clark Parker is dead and'his will divided the greatly enhanced fortune of Benjamin Parker among -the Masons and Elks of Los Angeles and Pasadena and* a long list of one-time friends. A birthday gift” of $1,000 Is all Doctor Gay is supposed to get. Again Doctor Gay leads a flght ons the will. He and Jefferson H. Parker of Boston are the nearest blood relations left by old Bill the Brute. And they have filed a contest on the ground that the will and Its codicils arc Illegal, that the deceased was unduly in-1 liuenced In drawing up the Instrument, and furthermore incompetent.Many interests will be represented in tlie defense of the will. The Masons and Elks'are, naturally enough, mosl | prominent, for between them they are . to receive $375,000 if the will stands unbroken wv- ^'Began by Killing.Parker begnn his criminal career when he was still In his ’tefens, killing a seaman in a brawl aboard a sailing vessel* 'He served a term In a Massachusetts penitentiary for the cr^ne and It started him on it series of de^reda-| tions In America, England, France and ; Canada. 2i» each of those countries heserved time, , ’ ’All kinds of burglaries and thefts received bis attention and be committed them under all kinds of names— Clark Park,er, Charles Parker, William Stetson, George Goodman. Bill Brute was the title bestowed upon him by envious rivals of his nefarious profession when his career was at Ha height. Later, when lie had lost bis nerve and contented himself with act*' ingas a fence for stolen goods, that Imposing nickname was changed to plain English Bill.Parker’s biggest coup was the robbery of the.'Blink of Lyons in .1891, planned and executed with the daring ‘Eddie-Guerin, then the boldest and shrewdest criminal in Europe, not ;to say the most dapper. Eddie liire«l a French eljanteau and lived in it with n dazzling blonde from Chicago \WiiIe they planned the robbery; that’s the kind of a crook he was.The robbery was nccompjitihed easily enough and Parker and Guerin went into a cemetery nearby to divide the spoils. A sharp quarrel ensued anlt;l In a moment of excitement and anger Parker s^ot Guerin, seriously wounding him. No sooner bad he fired, however, when he repented and at the i’FsK of ciJptufe assisted Guerin to London. Parker fled to Boston.W/iBolt;W/' \\ Ha:W1 ■ h 10 70C BlaFO.bFO]l*FOioEgrajWdeniingtheTIn fexqiitsspeibeaisky,proiheat~HCl svltli as tter=LotoJv Effort
Newspaper Details
Atlantic News Telegraph
Atlantic, Iowa, US
Tue, Mar 20, 1923
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
NA, 12 Nov 2019
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