Crime: Burnice Comes Home

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For years Mrs. Burnice Iverson Geiger played Lady Bountiful to the little town of Sheldon, Iowa (pop. 4,251). Daughter of the president of the Sheldon National Bank, Burnice could always be counted on to help a needy family or befriend a deserving cause. It seemed as if half the folks in Sheldon could have testified to her generosity.

They did not, in fact, when Burnice admitted in 1961 that during the more than 40 years that she had served as the bookkeeper in her father's bank she had embezzled $2,126,859.10 of their funds—more than John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Ma Barker and all her boys together stole at gunpoint from bank coffers in the '30s. Most of the money, it turned out, had gone into Burnice's unsuccessful speculations and investments.

Last week Burnice Iverson Geiger, now 63, returned to Iowa on parole, after serving five years of a 15-year sentence in the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, W. Va. It was not much of a homecoming. Her husband had died shortly after her trial; her father and mother, 89 and 84, were living in retirement—Burnice had broken the bank. As for her capital gains, wherever they were, both federal and state governments were still waiting for Burnice's release to claim at least $900,000 in unpaid taxes.