OLD NEWS: Shorty (or whoever he was) gave ’em the slip, time and again

Clippings from Arkansas Democrat editions of 1916 (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/CELIA STOREY)
Clippings from Arkansas Democrat editions of 1916 (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/CELIA STOREY)

George Jacobs, alias Shorty Jacobs, alias Shorty Williams, alias Charles Williams, alias Robert McKillips, alias George Finley, alias Edward Burke, alias Joe Snyder — also known as "Little Rock's Polite Burglar" also known as "Little Rock's Pet Prowler" — slipped away from the Tucker Prison Farm on the evening of Oct. 12, 1919.

Slipped away, and it appears, slipped clean out of the archives of the Arkansas Gazette or Arkansas Democrat. That could be because he was an interstate man of mystery. Surely his recapture would not have been overlooked.

He had endeared himself to reporters in 1916 with a bloodless, six-month crime spree characterized by mastery of method and evidence of good taste. And then his capture — in Texarkana — involved a small child, which newspaper people always like. And he added value by escaping briefly while in custody there and not harming anyone.

The Arkansas Democrat christened him "Pet Prowler" in 1916 as his audacious break-ins mounted. "Pet" in this instance was an ironic use of the word as an adjective meaning "favorite."

One time, he ransacked a living room while most of the family sat on the front porch and their father was indoors taking a bath — directly across the hall from the living room. Another time, he picked through the Alex Keith household tableware, passing up silver plate for the solid stuff and taking only the cut crystal, not the pressed glass.

He did not steal engraved watches, focusing instead on cash or valuables less immediately identifiable. One time, he slipped in the front door of a house while two women chatted on the first floor, crept up the stairs to a second-floor bedroom and poked around at his leisure. He took two solitaire diamond rings, $3, a silk dress and a pair of women's shoes.

He often took clothes. He also took guns, food, a suitcase, a violin. He burgled the home of the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, E.A. McCulloch, at 1900 Wolfe St., and carried away a $115 or $125 gold watch and chain (the value rose between its mentions in news reports).

Sometimes he took all the food in the icebox. Sometimes he broke into grocery stores. He was blamed for 24 break-ins.

Late in August 1916, the Democrat began reporting his "nights off" — no houses robbed.

During this crime vacation, Little Rock Detective Lt. James A. Pitcock sent out circulars that included a mug shot of Shorty from the Nebraska penitentiary he had long before escaped.

According to a stringer's report in the Oct. 10, 1916, Gazette, the circulars mentioned that he was wanted in Little Rock and in Kansas City — but whether that was the one in Kansas or the one in Missouri the Gazette's stringer didn't say. Missouri's a strong candidate because in 1911 he had married a woman there, Velaska Godbolt. Possibly they divorced, because in 1915 — after he absquatulated from Fort Smith, where he was George Jacobs and defrauding his employer at a furniture store — he moved to Oklahoma City. There he passed bad checks and married another woman, Kittihe Saunders (as she was spelled in the Gazette).

Little Rock police had his five-page record dating to 1892.

The circulars also mentioned that Shorty had posed as a champion Coca-Cola drinker. He liked to swill five bottles in a row without stopping. He had cards printed up and distributed to soda shops, presumably so they would feel honored to have the champ in house and hand over the bubbles for free.

In October 1916, a small boy who worked in a soft drink emporium at Texarkana recognized him from the circulars after he ordered several Cokes at one time. The boy ran to fetch a patrolman. A footchase ensued. Texarkana Chief of Police John Strange found Shorty in an abandoned house and charged him with burglaries at a residence and two stores.

Shorty checked in to the Miller County jail under the names Charles Williams and yet another alias, Charles Strong. Fellow prisoners say he slipped a bit of wire into the lock as he passed through the cell door, and as soon as the jailer departed, so did he. But after an hour, Strange tracked him to a hayloft near the train tracks.

Strange graciously allowed Little Rock to try him first, and so the Democrat reporter who'd nicknamed him "Pet" was able to chat him up in city jail. And he was chatty: He promised to track down the Supreme Court justice's watch and to take police to his hidey-hole near Austin in Lonoke County where the Keith collection was stowed.

He was 5 feet, 5 ½ inches tall, 37 years old and gave his occupation as "collector."

He told the Democrat he hadn't left Little Rock to elude the police — although:

"You were close on my trail," Williams told detectives. "Several times within a few feet of me, but I had all the advantage. I knew my game and you didn't."

No, he'd caught fever and chills. One of his rules of procedure, as he put it, was not to stay in "gossipy" boardinghouses. So in Little Rock, he slept in weeds near the tent of Tom Brannon, fisherman, who lived with his family along Fourche Creek.

Shorty also explained his thefts of food and clothing:

"When they take you in and shield you, and you find their kids are hungry, you feel like doing something for 'em," he said. "I found Tom Brannon's kids hungry. I told 'em to get the fire ready because we were going to have some breakfast."

Then he cleaned out a grocery store on High Street (today's Martin Luther King Jr. Drive). When he got sick, Shorty decamped for Malvern and then Texarkana, where he could sleep indoors while he recovered. He refused to name his accomplices.

He was also acting as a big brother to a family of ragged kids in Texarkana when he was arrested.

It was all so nice that the Gazette took to calling Shorty the "Polite Burglar" and "Raffles" after A.J. Raffles, a fictional "gentleman thief" created in the 1890s by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law.

I am not making any of this up.

He told the Democrat that he'd had some good laughs over the paper's teasing of the police, but they were up against a "hard proposition" in trying to find a man who didn't hang out in saloons or red-light districts.

"The public doesn't realize what a handicap police work under in towns which don't have 'em. Your police here would find their work much easier if there were saloons and houses, because the average 'grafter' and crook makes 'em his hangout."

In other words, Little Rock could take a burden off its cops by rebuilding its brothels and letting saloons proliferate, jus' sayin'.

In 1920, a few months after Shorty escaped from Tucker, house burglaries picked up in Little Rock. The newspapers wondered aloud if he was back in town. But if he was recaptured, that story still escapes me. He remains on the loose.

Email:

cstorey@arkansasonline.com

Style on 10/14/2019

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