"Peninsula Crime: Bad Men ... and Dumb Ones"

PENINSULA CRIME: BAD MEN … AND DUMB ONES

2009-2011

The Bumbling Bandit

Sometimes it is painfully obvious when someone has not planned ahead. Such was the case of DeWain Roscoe Bess, Jr., when he selected a cold winter night to rob the establishment in which he had been drinking.

According to state police reports (written about in The Cheechako News), Bess entered Eadie Kummert’s Last Frontier Bar in North Kenai on the night of Friday, Feb. 10, 1967, sat down and had a drink or two. He then grabbed bar employee Roberta Hopkins, took out a revolver, and held Hopkins in front of him as he demanded all the money from the cash register.

Bartender Michael Rhoads complied with Bess’s demands, and then Bess released Hopkins and told her to go out into the parking lot and start his car. Hopkins told Bess that she didn’t even know how to drive, but Bess told her to go out there anyway.

Released from her burden as a hostage, Hopkins decided that freedom was more to her liking. Once she was out the door, she ran off and did not return. Eventually, Bess tired of waiting and ordered another customer to go out and check on Hopkins. The other customer left the bar and also did not return.

At this point, Bess grabbed Rhoads, and he demanded that another customer go outside and start his car. Another customer left the bar, but this one hurried to a nearby bowling alley and borrowed the telephone there to call in law enforcement. The time was 10:50 p.m.

When the police arrived a short time later, Kummert met them outside and told them that the situation was under control. Apparently, while Bess was waiting for his car to warm up, Rhoads had grabbed the robber’s gun, eventually wresting it away and then holding it on Bess until authorities arrived.

Bess was arrested, arraigned in Kenai, and jailed in Anchorage. His bail was set at $5,000, and his car never did get warm.

The Meat of the Issue

In the early morning hours of Monday, Dec. 11, 1967, the Alaska State Troopers were alerted to a possible shooting at the Hilltop Bar & Café (current site of Good Time Charlie’s) on the Seward Highway. When they arrived, according to a brief account of the incident in The Cheechako News, they found two wounded men and an odd explanation.

Lying on the floor of the bar was Wilford L. “Bill” Hansen, the Hilltop’s owner and bartender, who had been shot at least twice in the stomach and was in critical condition. Lying on the floor of the dining room was Elbert M. “Marshall” Dorsey, the café cook, who had been shot in the left shoulder. Early reports indicated that Hansen and Dorsey were victims of a gunfight with two other men, who had fled the scene.

On the lam were Harvey D. Hardiway, an employee of the Chemical Construction Company of North Kenai, and T.L. Gintz, whose last known address was at the Port Inn on the North Road. According the news story, Hardiway and Gintz, who were both also injured, had driven through Soldotna and Kenai and gotten as far as the Wildwood Air Force Station when they realized that their need for medical attention could wait no longer.

They drove onto the base, and from there were taken by an Air Force ambulance crew to the Central Peninsula Clinic in Soldotna. Gintz had a minor head wound, and Hardiway was suffering from unspecified injuries, according to the newspaper.

Back at the Hilltop, the Kenai Volunteer Fire Department readied Hansen and Dorsey for transport to the Soldotna clinic, where they were treated by Dr. Elmer Gaede. Later, the paper said, Hansen, Dorsey and Hardiway were all flown to Providence Hospital in Anchorage for further treatment.

Authorities had been alerted to the scene initially by the Hilltop’s daytime bartender, C.L. “Smiley” Newton, who was living in a trailer behind the bar but had not heard any of the gunplay. In fact, Newton might have slept longer, the Cheechako implied, if he had not been awakened by the “cleanup boy.” When he entered the establishment at 3 a.m., he discovered Hansen and Dorsey, and he then called for law enforcement.

Troopers reported that the gunfight, which had started at about 2:30 a.m. and involved three revolvers, was apparently an escalation of an argument concerning hamburgers. The news story contained no further details on the cause of the conflict.

There is, however, more to the story—from Funny River Road resident, Eugene Hansen, the son of Bill Hansen.

According to Eugene Hansen, the Cheechako story was fraught with errors. He said recently that there was only one gun involved (not three), that neither of the fleeing suspects were injured, and that the conflict centered not so much on food but on the payment for the food.

Eugene Hansen recalled that when Hardiway and Gintz paid for the food, the payment was made with an inordinate amount of change, which was not appreciated by Dorsey and Bill Hansen. Tempers flared, and a gun appeared.

At the trial several months later, Eugene said, “Marshall (Dorsey) wouldn’t I.D. the shooter. I think they must have gotten to him or something.” Kenai magistrate Jess Nichols said that, without Dorsey’s testimony, there was not enough evidence to continue the trial, so he dismissed the case, and Hardiway and Gintz went free. Bill Hansen, who was still recuperating, did not testify.

Bill Hansen, who had been involved with the Hilltop for years, was 69 at the time of the shooting. In the hospital, said Eugene, his father was “recovering great” from his wounds when he apparently developed a blood clot and suffered a stroke, which robbed him of his ability to speak and left his right side paralyzed until his death in the early 1980s.

Eugene Hansen said that Bill’s family tried to continue running the establishment after the stroke, but finally they sold the place to “Good Time” Charlie Cunningham.

Overlooking the Obvious

When vandals disabled most of the school buses in Soldotna on a cold January night in 1972, they may have thought they were clever, but they failed to notice one obvious drawback to their actions.

On the night of Tuesday, Jan. 11, two individuals parked a vehicle on the far side of the chain-link fence that surrounded the bus lot behind the bowling alley in town. As determined by Soldotna Police Chief Charlie Decker—who examined the clear tracks they had left in the snow at the site of their crime—they cut a hole in the fence and climbed through. They then walked among the buses, cutting off heating-cable connections so that the buses would not start on Wednesday morning.

Decker postulated that the vandals may have believed that they would be gaining an extra day off from school through their actions, and they were correct—up to a point. Since not enough buses could be started the following morning, school in Soldotna was, indeed, cancelled.

In fact, since someone in Kenai —Decker thought it might be the same pair—also jerked out the heating cables on one of the buses serving that city’s schools, attendance for some students in Kenai was also disrupted.

Burton Carver, the area bus contractor, said that repairs would cost hundreds of dollars. The police announced that they had a lead and were asking for more information. Also, the school district reminded students that schools were required by the state to make up missed days, and it was thought most likely that the make-up day would be plucked from an upcoming vacation period—say, Easter or Spring Break.

Putting the “Juvenile” in Juvenile Delinquent

On the surface, the crime seemed like so many other incidences of vandalism perpetrated against area schools: Over the weekend in mid-June 1980, someone had broken into Sears Elementary in Kenai and damaged numerous classrooms.

Then, when more details emerged during the following week, the public learned that the damage was far more extensive than usual: Access was gained through a broken window in the back of the school on a Saturday. Some of the destruction was performed at that time, and then the vandals returned on Sunday to inflict more damage.

According to Kenai police, 19 of the school’s 20 classrooms were vandalized, 26 mostly interior windows were broken, and virtually every book in the library was knocked to the floor. Additionally, the vandals emptied cans of spray paint on classroom walls and blackboards, poured glue on floors and some office equipment, and spread ink on carpeting. Officials estimated the damage at as much as $10,000 (plus the cost of clean-up).

Ten thousand dollars in 1980 had about the same buying power as $27,400 does today.

And yet, the most surprising aspect of this crime was probably the criminals themselves, who might not have been caught if not for the mother of two of them growing suspicious about what her boys were up to.

Before this parent escorted her sons to the Kenai police station and forced them to tell their story, all that police were certain of was the last day that the vandals had been in the building. On June 15, the Sunday custodian noticed the broken exterior window when he arrived, and when he entered the building, he heard a noise—the sound of the vandals fleeing. He notified the police, who began an investigation.

After the mother and her sons put in their appearance, according to The Cheechako News, police questioned nine “youngsters.” By the time that the story went to press on Friday, June 20, police had determined that four or five of them had actually caused all the damage.

The oldest of the vandals was 11. The youngest was four, and police said of him that he had mostly just “tagged along” to watch.

Crime Does Not Pay … Much

Two relative newcomers to the local crime-fighting scene needed less than an hour to nab a pair of burglars who hit one Kenai and three Soldotna businesses in one night and hardly came away with a big haul.

It was early Sunday, Jan. 7, 1962, and Jerry Hobart—recently hired as a night officer to assist Kenai Police Chief “Red” Peavley throughout the Christmas and New Year’s seasons—was on late-night patrol, making the rounds of local business establishments, checking to make sure they were secure. When he reached George’s Coffee Shop, he encountered a problem.

At 2:29 a.m., he discovered that the front door of the café had been pried open since his previous check on the eatery at 2 a.m. He entered the building and found that the door connecting the coffee shop to Kenai Pharmacy had been kicked open.

Hobart hurried quietly to his vehicle and radioed his findings to State Trooper Wayne Hagerty, who had been assigned to the peninsula only a month earlier and had been stationed in Soldotna because Trooper Wayne Morgan was already stationed in Kenai. Hobart issued Hagerty a description of a Volkswagen sedan parked nearby.

The details of the vehicle matched a description that had earlier aroused the suspicions of the Kenai Police, so Hagerty, acting on a hunch, decided to set up a roadblock at the Y-intersection in Soldotna. (It is important to remember that in those days, Bridge Access Road did not exist, and neither did many of the backroads in Soldotna. In fact, both Kenai and Soldotna had incorporated as cities only two years earlier.)

At 2:43 a.m., the Volkswagen passed through town, just as Hagerty had suspected it would. At the Y, he made the stop.

Inside the vehicle were David Eugene Gibson, 23, and Larry Dean Puddiecombe, 24, both of whom gave their address as Arctic Trailer Court in Anchorage. A search of the car yielded nine new wristwatches, three boxes of coins, and a new Polaroid camera with a flash attachment.

Gibson and Puddiecombe were placed under arrest and became the first residents of the recently completed new Kenai Jail.

Further investigation revealed the scope of the two men’s questionably successful criminal escapade. On the night of Saturday, Jan. 6, and the early morning of Sunday, Jan. 7, Kenai Pharmacy and three businesses in Soldotna (the Sky Bowl, the National Bank of Alaska, and Lou’s Market) had been broken into.

From the pharmacy, they had made their only decent haul: the wristwatches, the camera and some cash. From the bank—obviously the location with the most money—Gibson and Puddiecombe had taken nothing. From the Sky Bowl, they had pilfered coins from pinball and vending machines. And from Lou’s Market they had come away with only a single quarter, the sole coin in the container used to raise funds for the Alaska Crippled Children’s Association.

Authorities estimated the total value of their loot to be $1,000, and as a reward for their efforts, Gibson and Puddiecombe—who were suspected of having participated in a number of other burglaries in Palmer, Anchorage, Seward and Soldotna—were arraigned quickly by Deputy Magistrate Jess Nicholas and hauled to the federal jail in Anchorage on Monday, Jan. 8. Their bail was set at $10,000 apiece.

These Criminal Minds not ‘Einsteins’

On Friday night, Jan. 16, 1970, thieves made a successful haul when they broke into the Peninsula Medical Center in Soldotna and escaped with drugs. At least that’s what the thieves themselves must have thought. A second look at their escapade, however, casts its “success” in a more dubious light.

To begin with, the two burglars struck at 9 p.m., when most folks aren’t in bed yet and, moreover, two boys who had been hired to clean the upstairs of the center were still at work. Additionally, the burglars made so much noise in the process of their break-in that the cleaning boys could hear them over the sounds of their own labor.

One of the boys locked himself in a bathroom for safety while the other sneaked outdoors and downstairs to check on the disturbance. Seeing evidence of a crime in progress, the boy raced through the night to the nearby home of one of the center’s physicians, Dr. Donald P. Mersch. The boy led Mersch to the scene of the crime just as the first of the thieves was exiting through a first-story window.

Mersch and the boy ducked out of sight, and the thief ran past them with his haul. A few seconds later, the second thief followed suit, giving the two witnesses an excellent view of both criminals.

The Soldotna Police Department was notified and received solid descriptions of both perpetrators. Police Chief Russell Anderson then took a look at the damage and assessed the losses. After his inspection was complete, he told the local press that the evidence demonstrated “the stupidity of drug users.”

If the perpetrators had any hope of inducing highs from their swag, he said, they were going to be mostly disappointed.

Included in the thieves’ haul was a small amount of mild tranquilizers; other than that, the booty wasn’t exactly a bonanza: a supply of penicillin in vials and some pre-mixed penicillin in disposable syringes; three types of cortisone, various B-complex and B-12 vitamins, and four to five types of estrogen.