Jackson County IL Archives News.....HIGHWAYMEN THREATEN AND ROB BAISDEN April 1, 1925
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Karima Allison quest@insightbb.com July 9, 2006, 3:43 am

Murphysboro Daily Independent April 1, 1925

    Four highwaymen in a Ford sedan appeared at the Charlie BAISDEN farm house
on Hickory Ridge eight miles southwest of Murphysboro at 11 o'clock Tuesday
night, took BAISDEN, a poor man, a quarter of a mile away from his home,
threatened to kill him if he did not furnish them with money, and finally broke
down his will to resist.

    Sure the men would kill him in the lonesome countryside and hide his body as
they threatened to do, BAISDEN finally sent two of the highwaymen back to his
home with word to his wife to get the BAISDEN savings and turn them over.

    Convinced the word from her husband was straight, the terrified wife found
$60 in the home and turned it over to the highbinders.

    The four returned BAISDEN to his home, pulled the coils out of his ford,
threw them into a field, thus making his car useless as a trailer and drove
rapidly back to the main road and disappeared.  

    "Ho, BAISDEN," the robbers called from the highroad at 11 o'clock.  "Ho,
Charlie."

    BAISDEN slipped on his overalls and opened the front door.  He was
confronted by the robber crew.  A high-powered rifle and revolvers covered him.
 He was told to fork out all the money he had in the house.  He denied having any.

    The helpless farmer was grabbed, forced to the sedan and carted a quarter of
a mile away to the main road off which he lives.  There the highroad bandits
delivered their fiat.  They said they knew BAISDEN had money in the house.  He
would get this money to them or they would kill him and hide his body from his
people.  Thus they threatened, driving home their threats with terrible oaths
and brandished guns.

    The farmer, convinced finally that the men were desperate and would do
murder, sent word by two of them to his wife.  The word told her it was a case
of giving up his life or giving up their money.

    The wife gave the money.

    BAISDEN described the four men as best be could.  One was tall, one short
and two of medium height.

    The highwaymen expected a big haul.  The BAISDEN's had told of plans to go
to St. Louis and buy seed sweet potatoes.  They had gone and just returned home.

    BAISDEN is a hard worker, has toiled for years for a living out of his
ground out on the ridge, and a neighbor friend of his declares the $60 meant
much to the honest couple.

    It is the belief of the Hickory Ridge neighbors that the robbery was the
work of men who knew the BAISDENs and knew that they had cash in the home.


Additional Comments:
Transcribed by Mary Riseling <riseling@insightbb.com> from her grandfather, Dr.
C. E. Riseling's collection of old newspapers.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/jackson/newspapers/highwaym23nnw.txt

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