Hi, it’s Brenda from Vintage Texas Crimes. I’m here to tell you another crime story from old Texas headlines.
Today, we are going back to the fall of 1960, where we will take a peek into events happening around Central Texas. Specifically, we are stopping in at Giddings, Lexington, Thornton, Schulenburg, and a little town named West (near Waco).
Let’s get to the story.
On November 5 and November 12 that year, two rural Texas banks were robbed at gunpoint.
Thornton is on State Highway 14, nineteen miles southwest of Mexia in southwestern Limestone County. On Saturday, November 5, a dusty, black Ford sedan drove toward the little town of Thornton with its radio tuned to the Waco station. As it pulled up in front of the Thornton State Bank, Marty Robbins’ smooth alto voice crooned, “Out in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl…”
Thornton State Bank (Actual old building)
The middle-aged driver liked the song, but for at least 100 reasons, he couldn’t sit and listen to it. He cut off the car’s ignition and went into Thornton State Bank.
Mrs. Laurene Barnett, the bank’s vice president, looked up when the man entered the small bank lobby. Later, she would recall that he was neatly dressed, looked to be about 35 to 40 years old, and wore a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a dark blue cap with a bill; he also had the brown leather strap of a Brownie-Hawkeye camera case slung over his shoulder. She would never forget that detail as long as she lived.
When asked how she could help him, the man told Mrs. Barnett that he wanted a short-term loan. Vice President Barnett, wife of the president of the bank, gave him the papers required to apply for the loan. In an office behind Mrs. Barnett’s desk, Jack Barnett looked at the man; he looked familiar to him, but the bank’s president was sure he didn’t know him.
The Bank Robber
A few feet away, Mrs. Lola Jackson, the bank’s bookkeeper, noticed the new bank customer didn’t remove his cap or his sunglasses, as a gentleman normally would. That was her first clue that something was off. Instead, he glanced around at her, looked at her nameplate on her desk, then seated himself, cap, glasses, and all, into the chair in front of Laurene Barnett’s desk and used its surface to scribble for a moment on the forms she had given him.
Lola Jackson could not help but notice that he was glancing around the whole time he wrote. The man put down his pen, folded up the papers, and stowed them in his jacket pocket. He stood and produced a .38 pistol and a cloth bag from within his jacket. Gesturing toward Jack Barnett who still sat in his office, the man told him to fill the bag with money. Backing away so that Mrs. Jackson, Mrs. Barnett and Mr. Barnett were all in view, he pointed the .38 at them saying, “Mrs. Jackson, get me the bank ledger and all of you go into the vault.”
“Get in the Vault!”
Jack Barnett thought the robber asking for the bank ledger was an unusual request—it meant the robber knew the ledger would say exactly how much money was on hand that day.
Holding them at gunpoint, the robber told Mrs. Barnett and Mrs. Jackson to disrobe partially. Once they had removed the clothing, he used a knife to cut away more of their clothing. He then took the Brownie camera out of its case and took pictures of the women, saying he would publish their pictures if they ever said who he was. Afterward, the man shut the vault’s door and locked it and walked out with $1,744 in cash and got into his black car, whereupon he swapped his cap for a hat, according to someone who witnessed him leaving and heading toward Highway 14.
The crime was discovered about 30 minutes later when the Barnetts’ 19-year-old son came to pick them up for lunch. Because the young man’s mother and Mrs. Jackson were partially disrobed, his father sent him to get Mrs. Mary Black from Black Brothers Drugs down the street to open the vault door.
Law enforcement soon learned that after the robber left Thornton, he headed to Bryan where he ditched the car in a field north of Montana Ave. and hurried south for six blocks over to State Highway 6 where he caught a ride to the bus station on Main Street in Bryan.
Buildings in Schulenburg (not actual bank building)
A week later, the robber did the same thing in the Farmers State Bank of Schulenburg. He came in wearing a green plaid shirt and carrying a military-type duffle bag. From the Schulenburg bank, he took away $4,873 in cash and $11,000 in unissued government bonds. There were differences in the Schulenburg heist, however; he used a .45 caliber revolver this time, and he had flashbulbs for his camera. He probably needed the duffle bag to carry the sizeable flash attachment for his Brownie.
The Tyler Morning Telegraph and several other newspapers speculated using the flash attachment in Schulenburg was because he was not pleased with the way his lewd photos from Thornton turned out; they must have been too dark.
Also, after the Schulenburg robbery, the culprit left in a cream colored Volkswagen.
After the Schulenburg bank robbery, a nationwide manhunt kicked off. The robber was described as being about 5’7” tall and weighing 180 to 185 lbs. Although the bank employees in Thornton had said he seemed to be 30 to 40 years old, witnesses in Schulenburg thought he was closer to 45 or 50 years old. He reportedly had a full head of dark hair with gray streaks and pallid skin, with prominent blue and red blood vessels on both cheeks. He was said to be clean-shaven, neat in appearance, with heavy jowls, tight skin on his face, short neck, and that he had tarter between his teeth.
A quick side note: I don’t know about you, but reading that description about myself in the newspaper would have been enough to end my bank-robbing career.
When people heard the description on the radio and saw the composite picture of the robber circulated in the newspapers and on television, it rang a bell. Now, where had they seen that face before?
Composite Drawing of Bank Robber
Coincidentally, just previous to those events, Huntsville native Lawrence C. Pope had been a banker in the small town of West, near Waco. But suddenly, in the fall of 1960, he changed careers and bought two newspapers, the Giddings Star Newspaper and the Lexington Enterprise. The Pope family moved to Giddings at the same time.
Now, before that, Larry Pope was what you might call a “banker’s banker.” He knew the banking business backward and forward, having been an official in several banks across Texas. He had also been a U.S. bank examiner for three years. In fact, Larry came from a family of bankers in Huntsville, Texas. Both his father and grandfather were bankers.
Larry left the West bank under strained circumstances. Before Larry had become president of the West bank, he had worked at the Gulfgate State Bank in Houston as vice president. During that time, Larry and three other investors put together a deal to invest heavily in the West National Bank.
In 1958, supported by three other investors, he became part owner and president of the West National Bank. Unknown to Pope, however, his partners sold their stock shares to a Dallas swindler and the West bank soon experienced serious financial difficulties. After bank examiners uncovered marginal loans and other questionable practices, the board fired Pope in 1960.
After leaving the West bank, Larry put together a group of banking friends who said if he would publish common bank forms, they would purchase them from him and that’s why Larry purchased the Giddings Star Newspaper and the Lexington Enterprise. He began printing bank forms, as well as publishing. Unfortunately, all those who said they would buy forms from him backed out. By the fall of 1960, Larry’s finances were toast from being backstabbed twice by his friends in the banking world. That seemed to have put him over the edge.
Lawrence C. Pope
As soon as Larry bought the newspapers, his picture was published on the front page of both newspapers, announcing new ownership. Well, you see where this is going … too many people had recently seen a picture of the newspaper publisher. It was about a month after Larry’s smiling face appeared on the front pages of his newspapers two weeks in a row that the composite sketch of a bank robber came out.
Soon, the front pages of Central Texas newspapers ran a story like the one in The West News:
“The nation-wide manhunt for Lawrence C. Pope, Giddings newspaper publisher and former president of The West National Bank ended at 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning when Pope was captured by FBI agents in San Antonio.
The arrest was made after authorities received a phone call tip, that a man answering Pope’s description was seen driving a 1961 Volkswagen in the Alamo City which has been linked to Pope. He was charged with the robberies of the First State Bank of Thornton on November 5 and the Farmer’s State Bank of Schulenburg on November 12.”
Clint Peoples, Texas Ranger Hall of Fame
Texas Ranger Captain Clint Peoples of Waco had warned that the bandit who robbed the two banks of nearly $7,000 on successive Saturday afternoons was dangerous and said,
“He appeared to be a sexual deviate; had torn clothing off bank employees and had pulled a knife in the Schulenburg robbery.
In the two robberies, women employees of the banks told police the gunman forced them to disrobe partially and pose indecently while he photographed them.”
However, FBI agents reported that Pope surrendered without opposition, and said he was not armed when arrested.
Pope told the agents that he had thrown away the weapon he used in the robberies, and also the pictures he had taken of his victims.
When asked why he did this, at first, he said, “For the usual reasons.”
Later, however, he would expand on that.
“It was not so much a matter of me being desperate for money as it was just being real damn mad at banks and bankers.”
Disillusioned and angered at what he regarded as fraudulent and unethical practices, Pope argued that “bankers have stolen more than all criminals have stolen.”
The FBI’s files on Pope described his course of action during the bank robberies:
“The modus operandi used by the subject in holding up the two banks was to force the bank employees to perform lewd and obscene acts at the point of a gun and then to photograph them while these acts were being performed. He informed the bank employees in each of the banks that if the robbery was reported by them, these lewd photographs would be published in the newspapers and distributed throughout the area.”
Tourist Court in San Antonio
He was caught in San Antonio when a woman working at a tourist court phoned the FBI with a tip that a man meeting Pope’s description was staying in one of the tourist apartments in her tourist court. Pope tried to plead insanity, but the federal courts would have none of it.
Lawrence C. Pope was sentenced to 25 years in the federal penitentiary, and 50 years in the state prison. But that’s not the end of Pope’s story. Just looking at Pope’s business profile picture, you would not think of him as being one to stand up to authority in prison.
He looked soft, but he was tenacious. Pope exposed corruption and poor living conditions in the federal prison and didn’t back down in the face of retaliation by the prison system.
He advocated for better treatment of prisoners. Prison officials and guards would have him placed him in solitary confinement for weeks at a time, where he received no food but bread and water; he also suffered broken ribs after a beating.
Some called Pope a “con artist,” but on the website of the Texas State History Association Handbook (Online) a section is dedicated to him regarding the last part of his life and his contributions to prison reform.
Clint Peoples, Texas Ranger Hall of Fame
Texas Ranger Captain Clint Peoples who appeared in this story also plays a significant role in my book coming out this summer, “Unlikely Victims,” an account of the 1965 Austin murders of the University of Texas Students, Susan Rigsby and Shirley Ann Stark, whose killer was an ex-boyfriend of Shirley’s, and also a student at UT, James C. Cross, Jr.
It’s always my hope to weave a bit of Texas history and pop culture from the day when I tell a story. Hope you enjoyed this one! I loved sharing it! Brenda at Vintage Texas Crimes
SOURCES
The Mexia Daily News, Photo of Thornton’s Bank, March 22, 1968; https://www.newspapers.com/image/12138092/ (Pay Wall)
Paul M. Lucko, “POPE, LAWRENCE CHALMOUS,” Texas State History Association; https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/pope-lawrence-chalmous
“Former West Bank President Charged with Armed Robbery of Two Texas Banks,” The West News (West, Tex.), Vol. 70, No. 29, Ed. 1 Friday, November 18, 1960; https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth590872/m1/1/
“Lawrence C. Pope, Fugitive,” the Files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Memo to Director, FBI, from SAC, San Antonio (67-115), Collection: Thomas Bishop; https://archive.org/details/ThomasE.Bishop/Bishop%2C%20Thomas%20E.-5/mode/2up?q=%22Lawrence+C.+Pope%22
“Loan Gunman Takes $1700 in Thornton Bank Robbery,” Fort Worth Star Telegram, November 1960, https://www.newspapers.com/image/639724067/(Pay Wall) .