Crime is a running theme in this Dash to the Past: a high schooler brushes off a mugger, the police investigate a theft most fowl, and a former Kennett man is connected to violence in two states.
__Jan. 17, 1924__
• High schooler Frank Giambelluca proved himself to be “hard-boiled” last night (Jan. 16). A man with a handkerchief over his face and a gun tried to jump Giambelluca on Homer Street as he walked home. AThe teen reportedly told him “Go to h---, I haven’t any money,” and went on his way without a problem.
• People weren’t the only passengers on a ferry frozen in the Mississippi river. Yesterday’s edition reported four people made it to shore after their boat was stranded by ice floes south of Cape Girardeau, but now a new rescue is being mounted for mules left stranded in the boat.
__Jan. 17, 1949__
• Burglars at the Lidenton Produce Company in Poplar Bluff stole 20-25 chickens from their coops last night. The poultry are valued at $40.
__Jan. 17, 1974__
• The Greater Poplar Bluff Area Chamber of Commerce endorsed plans to construct a $400,000 parking garage on the sites of the old Post Office and defunct Gibbons Hotel. The city has pledged $100,000 toward the project and approved $300,000 in revenue bonds be retired from garage and parking meter revenues.
• A former Kennett man was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona in connection with 11 armed robberies and three murders.
Richard Allen Benfield, 26, was charged in the robbery cases and is being questioned about the slayings, one in Arizona and two in Texas. Phoenix police said Benfield gave statements connecting him to the killings of Eddy McCormick, 28, and Ernest Johnson, 18, whose bodies were found 75 miles apart along Interstate 20 in west Texas. The third killing was that of Stanley Sandage, 33, who was found in the cab of his truck at a rest area near Flagstaff, Arizona.
Benfield is also wanted on criminal charges in Missouri and Tennessee.
Benfield was previously incarcerated in Arizona State Prison for forgery. He escaped and was recaptured in 1969, and paroled in 1970 on the condition he return to Missouri.