Word: birger
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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There was a strange trial at Benton, Ill., last week. Three men- Charles Birger, Art Newman and Ray Hyland, gangsters all-were on trial for murder. The state claimed that they had paid Harry Thomasson, 19, and Elmo Thomasson, 17, $50 apiece to kill Mayor Joe Adams of West City, Ill., last winter (TIME, Feb. 21). The jury was chosen, the prosecution made its case, it was time for the defense to offer its testimony. But, one after the other, attorneys for Messrs. Birger, Newman and Hyland announced that their clients would not testify. Neither did they offer any other...
...petty criminal, Moneymaker Mayes kept four gangs of bootleggers and counterfeiters busy putting $800,000 of his currency into circulation. Prominent among his outlets were the Birger and Shelton gangs whose activities (TIME, Feb. 21) have heightened the ill-fame of Williamson and Herrin counties, Illinois. Birgers and Sheltons, feuding cutthroats, machine-gunners, hijackers, in their liquor deals, used to dupe each other and be duped by Mr. Mayes's money...
...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...
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...
With Sheltons disposed of, with Birger awaiting trial, optimists hope for peace in "Bloody Williamson." Pessimists, dissenting, point out that Birger gave himself up only to escape being shot down in the streets, that when he first surrendered he was allowed to take into his cell a pistol and a machine gun, that he could raise his $42,500 bond overnight if he were so inclined. Then, too, lieutenants, ambitious, quick-firing, are ready to step into departed chieftain's shoes, ready to prolong the same feuds with the same weapons. Meanwhile Leader Birger, answering no doorbells, dodging...