Burglars Tools and Chloroform 1869

MURPHY, REYNOLDS

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 2/23/2016 at 11:02:09

The Herald, Dubuque, September 25, 1869

BURGLARY
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The Apartment of Two
Gentlemen Robbed
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Burglars Tools and
Chloroform
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Our city is infested with thieves and burglars. For more than a week the scoundrels have been prowling about and with one or two exceptions have escaped detection. Until Tuesday night, their labors did not yield a very large profit.

John Murphy, section-master on the division from the city of Dyersville, of the Iowa division of the Illinois Central railroad, and Eugene Reynolds, master-mechanic Place’s clerk at the car shops, occupy a room on the second floor of the building, corner of Main and 3rd Streets. On Tuesday evening they retired about ten o’clock, as usual locking the door and leaving the key in the lock. They are accustomed to arising at 5 o’clock in the morning, Wednesday they did not awake until seven o’clock, both feeling queerly in their heads, and Mr. Reynold’s complained of being quite sick at the stomach, - Arising they found the door to their room wide open: Reynold’s pantaloons taken from under his pillow and the pockets turned inside out, Murphy’s breeches’ pockets turned inside out his pocket-book rifled and laying on the floor, and his vest taken from under his pillow where it had been placed overnight with his watch, and the watch gone. An examination showed that the room had been entered by burglars in the night, they having unlocked the door by means of nippers. The marks on the large iron key are quite plain.

Mr. Murphy had about $110 in his pocket-book, all of which was taken. His watch cost $.50, and was a very fine silver timer. Mr. Reynolds had no money in his pantaloons' pockets, but had about $40 in his over coat hanging against the wall. This was not disturbed. Clothing hanging about the room, and two trunks unlocked, did not appear to have been molested. There is little doubt that the burglars administered chloroform to the gentlemen, as otherwise they could have not escaped discovery. The fact that they overslept in the morning, and when they were sick when they awoke, was probably the result of the drugging.

It was a bold burglary, and shows with what impurity, the scoundrels infesting the city are operating.