Two Men Locked Up at DeWitt-Abduction 1901

PUTNAM, JOHNSON, MCMAHON, CROUCH, PETERS

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 12/12/2016 at 20:00:09

Dubuque Daily Telegraph – March 2, 1901

A SERIOUS CHARGE
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Two Men Locked Up at DeWitt
Charged With Abducting a 16 Year
Old Boy
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Clinton, March 2. - Gene Johnson and Jake Putnam are locked up at DeWitt charged with the abduction of Willie, the 16 year old son of John McMahon living near the Wapsie. Information was filed before Justice Crouch Wednesday and a warrant for the arrest above parties executed by Marshall Peters. Willie was attending the parochial school here. He was possessed of $25 or $30. It is believed he was prevailed upon to leave his home and studies and strike out in the world. Putnam and Johnson are both young men, aged respectively 22 and 18. On February 14 the three boys left together, McMahon was well dressed and in the possession of a snug sum of money. The following Saturday Putnam and Johnson returned and accounted for Willie’s absence, saying they had left him at Savanna, Ill., engaged in cutting ice. Hearing nothing of him by Tuesday last, nearly two weeks after his disappearance, the suspicions of the McMahon family were aroused and Julia, a sister of the missing boy, went to Savanna and learned that no one of her brothers description had been employed by any of the ice packers there. She returned home, and information was filed, charging his two companions with abduction. They refuse to tell anything about the missing boy.