{"id":7088,"date":"2016-12-22T00:11:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T05:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=7088"},"modified":"2016-12-22T08:28:48","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T13:28:48","slug":"the-day-bank-robbers-invaded-tiny-new-middlesex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2016\/12\/22\/the-day-bank-robbers-invaded-tiny-new-middlesex\/","title":{"rendered":"The day bank inept robbers invaded tiny West Middlesex"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cashier <\/a>
Cashier Ernest L. Clinger and the safe in which he and several others were trapped. (Post-Gazette) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The First National Bank in West Middlesex. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div>
\"Detail <\/a>
Detail of previous image, showing newspaper photographers and a young girl peering at the scene. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Main <\/a>
Main Street in West Middlesex. The bank is the two-story brick building on the left. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div>
\"Main <\/a>
Main Street as it looks in 2016. (Steve Mellon\/Post-Gazette) <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bookkeeper <\/a>
Bookkeeper Kathleen Mitchell counts money to determine how much was stolen. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Margaret <\/a>
Margaret O’Neill noticed muffled voices when she walked into the deserted bank. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Chief <\/a>
Chief Thomas Hogue, the town’s only police officer, guards the front door. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"John <\/a>
John Walker, left, and Daniel Grundy rescued the trapped victims. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\nMargaret O\u2019Neill walked into the First National Bank in West Middlesex to make a deposit and saw papers and cash scattered across the tiled floor. Telephones rang at empty desks. No one was in sight. That was strange, especially on a Monday morning. Then O\u2019Neill heard a muffled voice. It seemed to come from nowhere.<\/p>\n

Alarmed, she exited the bank and ran across Main Street to the local grocery store. West Middlesex is a town of 1,200 residents near the Ohio border in Mercer County. Big city newspapers called it a \u201ccountry village.\u201d Nothing ever happened there. Until this day, March 22, 1954.<\/p>\n

The local grocer served as bank president. He wasn\u2019t in when Mrs. O\u2019Neill arrived, but an employee summoned John Walker, owner of a nearby hardware store. Walker was a bank director. He rushed to the corner gas station to get owner Daniel Grundy, and the two hustled to the bank.<\/p>\n

Once inside, the two men heard a voice calling from inside one of the bank\u2019s two vaults. It was Ernest L. Clinger, the cashier. A heavy calculating machine blocked the vault door. Walker and Grundy quickly pushed it aside. Clinger shouted a warning: Don\u2019t touch the combination. He then gave Walker and Grundy instructions: Turn the wheel to the left. That will release the bolt.<\/p>\n

The vault door swung open. Clinger and six others emerged from the stuffy four-foot-wide room.<\/p>\n

News that something odd had occurred at First National Bank quickly spread through West Middlesex. Soon, curious residents gathered outside the front door. The town\u2019s only police officer arrived on the scene. He was followed by the state police, the FBI and a gaggle of newspaper reporters and photographers.<\/p>\n

Investigators learned that two men had entered the bank around 10 a.m. and approached bookkeeper Kathleen Mitchell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a stickup,\u201d the men announced. Mitchell laughed. \u201cAre you kidding?\u201d she said. One of the men answered by pointing a gun at her face.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo what we tell you and nobody will get hurt,\u201d the man said, sounding like a character in a James Cagney movie.<\/p>\n

The men ordered Mitchell into the bank’s main office, where two other bookkeepers and Clinger stood at their desks. All were ordered to walk into a vault in which records were stored.<\/p>\n

Clinger placed his foot on the vault door to keep it from closing completely. Clinger was 47 years old and lived in an apartment above the bank. He wanted to keep fresh air flowing into the vault.<\/p>\n

One of the robbers scooped up money from the main cash drawer. The other took up a position just inside the bank’s entrance\u00a0to deal with unsuspecting customers. Three arrived during the robbery. All were ordered into the crowded vault.<\/p>\n

The bandits pounded on a safe containing more than $40,000, but the safe refused to open. After approximately eight minutes inside the bank, the two frustrated robbers decided it was time to go. They slammed shut the vault\u2019s heavy iron door and locked it in place with a bolt operated by a wheel mechanism, thus trapping seven people inside. Luckily, the two men did not spin the combination wheel, which would have made the victims\u2019 release much more difficult.<\/p>\n

Before fleeing, the robbers pushed the calculating machine in front of the vault door. No one noticed the two as they exited the bank and drove away.<\/p>\n

The men made off with approximately $4,000. In their haste, they failed to notice $2,300 lying in plain view on a counter.<\/p>\n

State police quickly set up roadblocks throughout Western Pennsylvania but had no luck in capturing any suspects. The bandits seemed to have simply disappeared.<\/p>\n

Finally, a year and two days after the robbery, the FBI announced it had arrested and charged two men: Walter E. Skiba, 37, and Edward Albert Townsend, 32, both of Cleveland. They were being held in other states on bank robbery charges in Indiana and Michigan.<\/p>\n

The 50-year-old bank was torn down in the late 1950s, and a new bank built in its place. Years later, it too was torn down. A modern bank with a drive-through window now occupies the site.<\/p>\n

These days, few people in town know anything about the day more than 60 years ago\u00a0when two inept criminals put tiny West Middlesex on the front pages of newspapers throughout the region.<\/p>\n

— Steve Mellon<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bandits trapped employees and customers in a vault, then disappeared.<\/p>\n

Look at the picturesThe day bank inept robbers invaded tiny West Middlesex<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[947],"tags":[961,1360,1361,980,1359],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/20161222_WestMiddlesexBankRobbery006-1-of-1-1.jpg?fit=3900%2C3095&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":588,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/06\/06\/cleaning-herron-hill-reservoir\/","url_meta":{"origin":7088,"position":0},"title":"Cleaning Herron Hill Reservoir","date":"June 6, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"It\u2019s centered in the Upper Hill and offers equally impressive views to the north, south, east and west.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/tumblr_n6pshzqi461rr5swxo2_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C713&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":640,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/05\/21\/1974-same-sex-couples-fight-for-their-right-to-marry\/","url_meta":{"origin":7088,"position":1},"title":"1974: Same-sex couples fight for their right to marry","date":"May 21, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"For a long time, nothing happened.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/tumblr_n5w4gk1NKG1rr5swxo8_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C925&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":746,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/04\/21\/sculptor-selma-burke\/","url_meta":{"origin":7088,"position":2},"title":"Sculptor Selma Burke","date":"April 21, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Born into poverty in Mooresville, North Carolina, Ms. Burke dug her fingers into riverbank clay as child.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/tumblr_n48bvqJHlg1rr5swxo2_1280.jpg?fit=864%2C834&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8959,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2018\/07\/03\/the-brief-and-troublesome-life-of-club-51\/","url_meta":{"origin":7088,"position":3},"title":"The brief and troublesome life of Club 51","date":"July 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Here\u2019s a combination that\u2019s guaranteed to sow chaos: teens, nightclubs and suburban Pennsylvania. 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