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Look Back: Southwest Bank Robbery, 1953
Date: 4/22/2011 Album ID: 1231661
Photos by Post-Dispatch photographers
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By Tim O'Neil --- On April 24, 1953, three masked men rushed into the lobby of Southwest Bank, Kingshighway and Southwest Avenue. Swinging a sawed-off shotgun, ringleader Fred Bowerman jumped onto a counter and shouted, "This is a holdup! Everybody stand still!" Police quickly rushed to the scene, and despite 40 gunshots and tear-gas shells, no one other than the robbers was hurt. In 1959, a movie called "the Great St. Louis Bank Robbery" hit the theaters. In the cast was young Steve McQueen.
The scene outside Southwest Bank, at Kingshighway and Southwest Avenue, about 10:30 a.m. on Friday, April 24, 1953. Three robbers burst into the bank at 10:19 a.m. and announced a holdup. They had planned and knew their target well -- the neighborhood bank had $200,000 ready for cashing paychecks. Alice Ruzicka, a teller, tripped the first of several alarms. Police officers Melburn Stein and Robert Heitz, patrolling two blocks away, were first to the scene. Post-Dispatch photographer Jack January heard the radio broadcast and followed a police car at 70 mph to get there in time for his photographs. On the sidewalk between the two cars are officer Stein (left) and the gang's ringleader, Fred W. Bowerman, who had used a female customer as a human shield to try to escape. Stein saw and opening and shot Bowerman. When this photo was taken, two robbers still were inside. More than 40 shots had been exchanged, but none of the customers or employees was injured. Before January arrived, Heitz and Stein exchanged shots with the robbers inside, and Heitz was wounded with a blast from Bowerman's sawed-off shotgun. The case is regarded as one of the St. Louis Police Department's finest moments. In 1959, a movie called The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery hit the theaters. Among the cast was a new actor, Steve McQueen, who played one of the robbers. (Jack January/Post-Dispatch)
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A photographer and a detective crouch behind a car in the middle of Kingshighway. (Jack January/Post-Dispatch)
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Officers stand over critically wounded robber Fred Bowerman. He had been felled by shots from officer Stein, who was behind the newspaper box at left when Bowermen came out of the bank holding his shotgun into the back of Eva Hamilton, a customer. She fell to the sidewalk, breaking her wrists, but was not more seriously injured. Bowerman died May 2. (Jack January/Post-Dispatch)
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Officers and a detective take bank robber William Scholl to a vehicle. Scholl, 26, was the only one of the four with a clean record. A disabled Army veteran from World Ward II and a bartender in Chicago, he had met Bowerman in the tavern and became part of the gang on Bowerman's promise that he'd make $5,000 in five minutes. Scholl suffered a wound to his back in a gunfight with officers, and he surrendered inside the bank. A third robber, Frank B. Vito, 25, shot himself rather than be sent back to prison. The fourth, getaway driver Glenn Chernick, drove off when the first police arrived, and was captured in Chicago three days later. Scholl, Vito and Chernick were from Chicago and Bowerman was from Niles, Mich., but often plied his trade in Chicago. (Jack January/Post-Dispatch)
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Police officers help a bank employee out a sidewalk entry to the basement, where many employees hid when they heard shots upstairs. (Post-Dispatch)
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Mr. and Mrs. Armand Cantino, of 5523 Pershing Boulevard, leaving the bank with police escort. They were inside the bank transacting business when the robbery began. When the robbers realized they were trapped, Bowerman ordered his accomplices to Grab a woman. Scholl picked Mrs. Cantino, but let her go when she began crying that she was a mother. Mrs. Cantino described the events during Scholl's trial the following December. Scholl received a 25-year term. (Post-Dispatch)
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Alice Ruzicka (right) and Mrs. Francis Valenti, both tellers at Southwest Bank, wipe the effects of teargas from their eyes shortly after the ordeal was over. Ruzicka turned in the first alarm. (Post-Dispatch)
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Police take the body of robber Frank Vito, 25, of Chicago, who had shot himself in the head rather than surrender. Vito had said he was afraid he'd shot an officer during the exchange of gunshots. A felon, he already was on bond for a liquor-store robbery in Chicago when he agreed to rob Southwest Bank. Witnesses said they heard Vito tell Scholl, We'll get 99 years. I can't take a pinch, and shot himself in the head. Next to his body was the canvas bag holding $140,769 in loot. (Post-Dispatch)
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The scene outside the bank after the incident was over. In the foreground is Kingshighway. (Post-Dispatch)
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Bank employees, some still wiping tear gas from their eyes, gathered on a sidewalk outside the bank. (Post-Dispatch)
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Detective James Fitzgerald carries Bowerman's shotgun and one of the pistols used by the gang during the robbery. (Post-Dispatch)
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I.C. Smith, executive vice president of Southwest Bank, describes to assistant police chief Joseph E. Casey how the board was meeting in a side room when shots rang out in the lobby. (Post-Dispatch)
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Police inspect the getaway car, which had been driven away from the bank when the first officers arrived. They found it six blocks to the east on Northrup Street. The car had been stolen from Illinois. A towel covers the license plate to protect any fingerprints. The plate had been stolen separately in Illinois. (Lou Phillips/Post-Dispatch)
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Eva Hamilton, the bank customer who was used as a human shield by gang leader Fred Bowerman, awaits treatment at City Hospital. (Post-Dispatch)
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Detective William Armstrong of the Police Department laboratory shows the arsenal carried by the three robbers. He is holding Bowerman's sawed-off- shotgun. Each robber carried two pistols. (Post-Dispatch)
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Officer Melburn Stein, who fired the shot that brought down Fred Bowerman. For his bravery, he was promoted to corporal. Stein played himself in a speaking role in the 1959 movie, The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery, that also featured a new actor named Steve McQueen. Stein retired from the department in 1973 and, at age 97, is its oldest living retiree. (Post-Dispatch)
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Sgt. Robert Heitz after his promotion for bravery at Southwest Bank. He and Stein were the first officers to respond to the alarm. Stein took the front door and Stein went through the side entrance. Heitz exchanged pistol shots with the robbers and was wounded by a blast from Bowerman's shotgun. Heitz died in 1993. (Lloyd Spainhower/Post-Dispatch)
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Post-Dispatch photographer Jack January was able to take a gallery of close-up photos of the action at the bank because he drove behind a police car from downtown at 70 mph to reach the scene. January joined the old Globe-Democrat as an office boy in 1925 and two years later became a photographer for $16 per week. He moved to the Post-Dispatch in 1934. He photographed gangsters, bootleggers and other bad guys and characters during 48 years with a news camera, including three years in the Coast Guard during World War II. Assigned to the cutter Spencer, he photographed the sinking of a German submarine in 1943 in the Atlantic Ocean. Back at the newspaper, his big moment was the Southwest Bank robbery in 1953. He retired from the Post-Dispatch in 1975 and died in 1986. (Post-Dispatch)
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Fred Bowerman, leader of the four-man gang that tried to rob Southwest Bank on April 24, 1953. Bowerman, 60, was a veteran stick-up man who had reached the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for a bank holdup in South Bend, Ind., the previous September. Bowerman tried to escape Southwest Bank by using customer Eva Hamilton as a human shield, but officer Melburn Stein shot him at close range as he pushed her out the front door. Bowerman never talked with police and died in City Hospital on May 2. (Post-Dispatch)
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Frank B. Vito, 25, a convicted felon who was free on bond from a liquor-store robbery when he took part in the Southwest Bank robbery. When police surrounded the bank, Vito told fellow robbers, We'll get 99 years. I can't take a pinch, and shot himself to death on the lobby floor. (Post-Dispatch)
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