Popped Out Of Corn Crib With A Gun

DOTY

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes
Date: 7/27/2013 at 07:59:05

The Grinnell (IA) Herald-Register
July 5, 1945

POPPED OUT
OF CORN CRIB
WITH A GUN

Abel Doty, Brooklyn
Farm Boy Meets
Mysterious Stranger

Lane Cowell, deputy sheriff, was called to Brooklyn Thursday by Glenn Doty, a farmer living northeast of here, who said over the phone his son, Abel, had been held up. But upon questioning, Lane found that it was a stick-up, not the ordinary kind.

Mr. Doty had told his son, a lad of 17, to drive the truck to the field and get a load of corn. As it happens, this corn crib was a good half mile from the house. Abel had to drive a half mile down the road, and that far into the field.

Everything was going per usual, so the lad states. He saw what he thought was a rat in the corn. He gave it a hearty poke and to his surprise, a man raised up and pointed a revolver at him and said in very broken language, "Don't move or make any noise." Mr. Doty's son said he thought that is what he said, as the man was a foreigner. "The barrel of that pistol looked as big to me as a headlight on a car."

The foreigner then crawled down out of the corn and ran out of the crib, down the hill and disappeared.

Abel described the man as about 45 years of age, a good 6 feet tall, around 175 or 180 pounds, blue bib overalls, grey shirt, grey felt hat, and the peculiar part -- no shoes.

Deputy Sheriff Cowell made the rounds of the farmers in that vicinity, and no one had seen any strangers. Now, the question is: just who is this man who speaks such a broken language? Could it be an escaped prisoner of war?--Montezuma Republican.