The Safe-Crackers of Princeton
After a string of brazen robberies in Princeton and Coulee City, detectives use decoys to bait a trap for the thieves.
San Francisco, May 9.—Detectives are now on the trail of two men wanted for robberies committed in Coulee City and Princeton, where two safes were blown open. A small sum of money was taken in the first instance. On the night of April last, the safe of Nelson Butler, in Princeton, Colusa County, was blown open and $10,000 in coin and all the valuable papers of John Bouss, amounting to $12,000, were stolen. Through the persistence of the police of the surrounding country, some of the parties were suspected. Detectives agreed to pay the parties if they were caught, provided certain information was furnished. The thieves were shadowed by detectives, and by the aid of dummy letters, $7,000 of the plunder from the Butler and Bouss safes was recovered. $760 of the stolen money was returned to Butte, Mont., and a portion of the $10,400 taken has also been recovered.
“The thieves were shadowed by detectives, and by the aid of dummy letters, $7,000 of the plunder from the Butler and Bouss safes was recovered.”
Long before modern digital security, physical safecracking was a headline crime in the West. This story highlights the reliance on 'dummy letters' and detective informants—a precursor to the sting operations still common in today's investigations into high-stakes theft.
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