Convicting the Innocent: Errors of Criminal Justice
(1932)
by Edwin M. Borchard
Case #44
Thorvik and Hughes
MINNESOTA
On the morning of July 23, 1921, the Farmers State Bank of Almelund,
Minnesota, was held up. Five strangers had been seen driving through
Almelund in a green Nash touring car. Soon two of them came walking back
through town, followed by two more. These four – all dressed in dark suits
and straw hats – entered the bank. A few minutes afterward, the green
touring car pulled up in front of the bank, and the four men ran out. The
car dashed off and all escaped. Money and securities had been stolen.
A posse was organized and groups stationed on various roads, especially at
the Interstate Bridge between St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, and Taylors Falls,
Minnesota. The robbers got through the posse, however, and disappeared.
Rewards were posted for the apprehension and conviction of the criminals.
In October, 1921, one George Hughes was arrested in St. Paul for having a
stolen automobile in his possession. The authorities were on the lookout for
men answering the description of the Almelund robbers. Hughes attracted
their attention. The cashier, Lindquist, and customers, witnesses of the
robbery, were called to St. Paul, where they identified Hughes. He was
placed on trial the same month in the District Court at Center City before
Judge J. N. Searle. Because of a prior criminal record, Hughes preferred not
to take the witness stand in his own defense. He was convicted and sentenced
to life imprisonment at the Stillwater penitentiary.
In May, 1922, Deputy Sheriff M. L. Hammerstrom appeared before the Chisago
County Grand Jury and testified that one Louis Thorvik of St. Paul had
confessed to him that he had taken part in the holdup. The Grand Jury
thereupon returned an indictment against Thorvik. Thorvik, an uneducated
hodcarrier with a Scandinavian accent, heard that he was wanted at the
police station upon some charge and went there to find out about it. He was
promptly arrested. Witnesses from Almelund went to St. Paul and identified
him as one of the robbers. He was taken to Center City and placed on trial
before Judge Searle in July, 1922.
At the trial Thorvik was identified by Cashier Lindquist and a bank
customer, Bloomquist. Another customer, Carl Wiberg, did not testify for
either side. Thorvik was likewise identified by several townspeople who said
they had seen the men as they walked through town. The principal remaining
testimony against Thorvik was that of the deputy sheriff, Hammerstrom.
According to his testimony, Hammerstrom, who had been an itinerant laborer,
was made a deputy sheriff of Chisago County in September, 1921, shortly
after the holdup of the bank. He said that he had been given Thorvik's name
by Hughes when the latter was being taken to the penitentiary after his
conviction. He had thereupon gone to St. Paul and frequented the lunchroom
and drinking establishment where Thorvik occasionally stopped. There he said
he got acquainted with Thorvik, who boasted of the part he had taken in the
robbery, related where the gang later went, and stated that the loot had
been hidden under a wire screen in a small swamp near the railroad water
tank at Bald Eagle. A party went to Bald Eagle in search of the loot, but
found nothing save some loose sod. This was ten months after the robbery.
Thorvik in his own defense related his life history from his birth in Norway
through his coming to St. Paul, his serving in the army, and his return to
civilian life as hodcarrier for the contracting plasterers Nolles &
Sapletal. He denied having had anything to do with the Almelund robbery,
knowing anything about it, ever having seen Deputy Sheriff Hammerstrom
before he was in jail, ever having made any statement in regard to the
robbery, or ever having been in Almelund. He testified that on the day of
the robbery, July 23, 1921, he was at work for his employers on a house
being built for Mr. Strange on Randolph Street in St. Paul, evidence which
was corroborated by his employers and others; and that he knew he hadn't
left St. Paul that day because it was the birthday of his landlady, Mrs.
Martha Johnson, and he joined in the birthday celebration that afternoon
with the family. In that he was corroborated by the whole group present.
In rebuttal the state had nothing to contradict the birthday-party
testimony. As to the work on the morning of July 23, Mr. Strange was called,
and he testified from his private records that the plastering work on his
house was done on August 19, 20, 25, 26 and September 1. Furthermore, the
state produced one Anderson, who testified to having heard Thorvik's
confession to Hammerstrom. This, Thorvik absolutely denied.
The case was submitted to the jury, which returned a verdict of guilty;
and Thorvik entered upon his life sentence at Stillwater on August 2, 1922.
He doggedly maintained his innocence. He had neither money nor influential
friends, however, and could not take an appeal. The very first week he was
in Stillwater, Thorvik discovered Hughes, who had been convicted of the same
crime, and had also consistently denied his participation in it. Neither had
ever seen the other, both stated. For several years no further persons were
convicted as participants in the Almelund crime, and Thorvik and Hughes
were forgotten.
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In the year 1925 a man named James E. Laughlin, also known as Red Stanton,
was brought back to Minnesota from North Dakota, where he had been in
prison, to stand trial for the robbery of the bank of Almelund, and he was
identified by witnesses as the driver of the car used by the bandits. He
offered to plead guilty to robbery in the first degree, but the authorities
would not agree to it. He went to trial and was convicted and sentenced to
life imprisonment in the Minnesota State Prison at Stillwater.
The night Laughlin was sentenced, he told the authorities at Center City
that the two men, Hughes and Thorvik, who were serving life sentences for
the robbery, had not participated in it. After being taken down to the
penitentiary he asked to be taken before the county attorney of Chisago
County and Mr. Charles Brown, head of the Minnesota Bankers Protective
Association. In a detailed sworn statement, he gave all the particulars of
the crime, admitting his connection with it and disclosing that the four
other men
who were with him were known as Shine Allen, J. B. White, Curley Wheeler,
and Bill Bailey. He also told the full story about the bandits' adventures
following their escape. It is not known what was done with this confession
when it was made.
Early in 1926 Thorvik succeeded in enlisting the help of Mr. M. F. Kinkead,
who later became county attorney of Ramsey County. For five years Mr.
Kinkead worked upon the case and uncovered convincing evidence which
corroborated all the important details of Laughlin's confession. The full
narrative of Mr. Kinkead's activities would make a romantic story, were
there space to recount it. Each of the men named by Laughlin was accounted
for. White was in prison in Walla Walla, Allen in Waupun, Wisconsin. White
made a complete confession. Wheeler had been killed in 1922, but his widow
helped by showing that Hughes had been mistaken for Wheeler. Only Bailey
could not be traced, after an arrest and release in Iowa. Several witnesses
testified to the hotels the guilty five had stopped at, the route taken, the
place where the loot was divided, and incidental robberies committed on the
way to and from Almelund. The witnesses were taken to Stillwater, and all
maintained that Thorvik and Hughes were not among the culprits.
Unquestionable evidence was found establishing the truth of Thorvik's alibi
that he had been working in St. Paul at the time of the robbery, but that
he had been mistaken in his testimony as to the house upon which he had
worked that day, it being, in fact, a house at 75 Douglas Street. A study of
the trial testimony identifying Thorvik as one of the gang brought out
clearly that prior to Thorvik's arrest, the bandit who guarded the bank
door, supposed to be Thorvik, had been described as tall and dark, whereas
Thorvik was clearly of average height and a blond. It was proved beyond
question that on July 23, 1921, the day of the robbery, Hughes had
registered at the Rogers Hotel, Des Moines, Iowa, six hundred miles from
Almelund. All of this evidence was submitted to the Minnesota Board of
Pardons, a distinct point being made of the fact that Deputy Sheriff
Hammerstrom and the witness Anderson had manufactured the tale concerning
Thorvik's alleged confession and all the other incidents supposedly
connected therewith.
In July, 1931, after the third hearing on the cases by the Board, pardons
were granted to both Thorvik and Hughes on the ground of innocence. Hughes
had served approximately ten years, and Thorvik, about nine.
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This is not an unusual case of mistaken identity by the victims of a crime. As already observed in many cases, such evidence is most unreliable. Fortunately for Thorvik and Hughes, Laughlin confessed the entire details and named his confederates. One cannot but admire the efforts of Mr. Kinkead in verifying that confession. But for Laughlin's temporary sojourn of four years in a North Dakota prison, he might have been instrumental in having Thorvik and Hughes released some years earlier. The truth of Laughlin's confession induced a reexamination of Thorvik's alibi, which, though mistaken as to the identity of the house on which he worked, was accurate in every other respect. Thorvik seems to have had an unfortunate facial resemblance to one of the bandits, but no other physical resemblance at all, so that his identification by the cashier and a customer would be strange were such mistakes not so common. Hughes injured his cause by failing to take the stand; he also bore some resemblance to one of the bandits. According to Mr. Kinkead, Deputy Sheriff Hammerstrom committed rank perjury.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Transcript of the record in the case of the State of Minnesota v. Louis
Thorvik, District Court, Nineteenth Judicial District, Chisago County,
Minnesota. 193 p.
2. Copy of Thorvik's application of March 28, 1928, to the Minnesota Board
of Pardons, and the extensive exhibits attached thereto.
3. Washington Star, July 22, 1931.
4. Acknowledgments: Hon. M. F. Kinkead, Ramsey County attorney, St. Paul,
Minn.; Hon. Wm. H. Lamson, Secretary, Minnesota State Board of Pardons,
Minneapolis.