CRIME: Dodging Dynamiters

On the night of Dec. 12, 1926, two men rang the doorbell at the home of Joseph Adams, 300-pound mayor of West City, Ill. The mayor, incautious, unsuspecting, opened the door. His callers took hasty shots at the 300-pound target, ran for their machines, left Mayor Adams dying across his threshold. Now the State of Illinois holds Charles Birger, gunman, gangster, as accessory to the murder of Joe Adams.

With the imprisonment of Charles Birger, the two gangs which have for ten months terrorized the district in and around Williamson County, Ill.—"Bloody Williamson," ill-famed for Herrin killings—are leaderless. Birger himself captained one gang; now he plays pinochle with himself in a jail cell at Benton, Ill., while eight armed deputies patrol the corridors. The other faction, led by the three Shelton brothers, also "mourns leaders' absence," for recently, Carl, Earl and Bernie Shelton entered Leavenworth Penitentiary, began 25-year sentences for robbing U.S. mails in Collinsville, Ill., on Jan. 27, 1925. Perhaps there may be a lull in Williamson County battle, murder and sudden death.

And doubtless this battle-scarred area would appreciate a respite. Since last April, 16 people have died by bullet or dynamite, a state highway patrolman has been murdered and his wife kidnaped, probably killed, though her body has not been found. Two other women have been killed—one of whom is said to have begun the Shelton-Birger feud when both gang-kings courted her favor. Law-officers for the most part life-loving, peace-seeking, have shut eyes, stopped ears, waited for dog to eat dog.

As in all wars, each party has its victories to boast, its defeats to alibi. The Shelton adherents slapped thighs, exchanged felicitations over the destruction of "Shady Rest", an old roadhouse fortified as Birger headquarters. In November, some of the Shelton gang, progressive, modern-minded, bought an airplane, dropped bombs, scarred the landscape, missed "Shady Rest." Undiscouraged, they waited for a dark January night, crept close up under "Shady Rest's" steel-barred windows, stacked dynamite against its walls. A roar, a glare, and "Shady Rest" was a flaming ruin, tenanted by four dead bodies—three men, one woman. But Gunman Birger, fingers-crossed, rabbit-footed, was away when the dynamiters called.

Less than a month later, Birger more than evened the score. For it was his evidence that convicted the Sheltons of the Collinsville robbery. Allied with the law for the duration of the Shelton trial, Charles Birger, sleek, suave, smartly-tailored, stepped into the witness' box, said, "Howdy, Sheltons!" spent 20 minutes swearing away 25 years of three men's lives. Beneath his well-cut coat he wore a steel-vest, bulletproof.