YUBA  COUNTY

Crimes & Criminals

(pre 1924)

THOMAS BRICE

            Strangely in keeping with a belief that for a long time was held in Marysville, to the effect that a murder is committed in the city every twenty years on Christmas Day, Edward Raymond, a painter, shot and killed Thomas Brice, orchard owner, at the intersection of the F Street levee and Second Street, on December 25, 1891.  The men had a dispute over a dollar loan made while both were drinking and gambling.  Witnesses said Raymond was trying to induce Brice to accompany him to Yuba City, when Raymond suddenly drew a revolver and fired.  Brice died in a short time.  Raymond was arrested by Police Officer F. B. Crane and Joseph Heyl.  He was held to answer to the Superior Court on a murder charge, but escaped from the Yuba County jail by scaling the wall with a rope.  The officers contended that Raymond received help from the outside.  He was never retaken, although reports came in frequently that he was in hiding in his native State, Texas.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles

ROBBERY Of The OREGON EXPRESS

(Brady and Browning)

            Marysville has never experienced a more exciting day than Saturday, March 30, 1895.  Shortly after midnight of that day, the Oregon Express train was held up and robbed by two handsome bandits, who turned out to be Jack Brady, alias McGuire, and J. W. Browning, erstwhile farm hands who for several months had been employed on ranches in Linda Township, and had attended dances throughout the countryside, and caused many a female heart to go pit-a-pat.  The train made a short stop at Wheatland en route north, and at that point the two robbers boarded the blind baggage.  When the train was within four miles of Marysville, Fireman Nethercutt was surprised at having a revolver thrust in his face by one of the robbers.  The other man gave orders to Engineer Bowser to stop the train, which was done.  The engine force was compelled to accompany the robbers to the express car, which was broken into.

            Unsatisfactory returns from their search in the express car determined  the robbers to visit the day coaches.  After forming a sack from a leg of an old pair of overalls, the robbers forced the fireman to enter the first day coach with them, and the engineer to follow behind them.  At the point of revolvers, the passengers were compelled to place all their coins and valuables in the sack, among their victims being several men from Yuba and Sutter Counties.

            The robbers next visited the smoker.  At this juncture Brakeman Simmons recalled that Sheriff John J. Bogard of Tehama County was sleeping in a Pullman on the train.  He remembered also that Bogard, than whom there was no more fearless officer in California, had adjured him some time before that if ever a train hold-up was attempted, and he was on the train, Simmons was to apprise him.  Simmons accordingly got word to Sheriff Bogard through the Pullman porter.  Partially dressing himself, Bogard made his way to the smoker.  He entered one end as the robbers entered the other.  Crouching behind a car seat, Bogard took deliberate aim and shot the taller of the robbers through the heart, killing him instantly.  In less time than it takes to write it, a shot rang out from the doorway the sheriff had just entered.  The bullet entered Bogard’s back in the region of the kidneys, and in a short time he was dead from loss of blood.  As the source of the shot which killed the sheriff was never definitely determined, many believe to this day that there was a third robber in the gang, and that when he heard the shot which killed one of his pals he took revenge.

            Brady, the surviving robber, immediately left the car after the death of his partner, Browning, not even waiting to take a purse containing $51 which had been dropped alongside Browning’s body.  Brady, it was afterward learned, made his way to Marysville on a bicycle, two of which were in hiding under a wagon bridge near the scene of the robbery.  Clerks in Marysville hotels recalled that two young men, purporting to be farm hands and answering the descriptions of the train robbers, had frequently taken lodgings with them, and from this clue the officers worked.  The hotel clerks, on viewing the body of the dead robber, had their suspicions confirmed, and officers took up the trail of Brady, who proved more than elusive.  It was not until the following July that he was apprehended in the jungles near Sacramento.  He was convicted and sent to the penitentiary for life.  One juror saved him from hanging.

            The train robbery was the signal for extra editions of the Marysville papers, and this city received nation-wide notice through press reports of the crime.  For two days throngs visited the Marysville morgue to view the remains of the brave sheriff and the handsome young robber.  The pistol with which Sheriff Bogard killed Browning was one that the people of Tehama County presented him in recognition of his faithful service in office.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles

JULIUS PIER

            On the night of May 1, 1895, Julius Pier, aged Hebrew second-hand dealer on C Street, between Second and Third, was murdered at the rear of his store, where he slept.  He was found next morning gagged and hog-tied, and showing signs of having made a fight, against odds, for his life.  Police Officer Hugh McCoy, who worked on the case with City Marshal J. A. Maben, discovered in a toilet bowl at the rear of the premises a portion of the shirt which was used to throttle Pier to death.  This clew led to the apprehension of Stuart A. Green, alias George Dunroy, a young electrician, who a few days before had installed an electric bell in the police station for the city.  He was wearing the shirt at that time, and McCoy remembered it on account of the flashy pattern.  Shortly after his arrest, Green confessed and implicated a barber, at the same time admitting that his was the master mind, and that he had planned to rob Pier for his money.  When Pier resisted, the pair murdered him, slowly strangling him to death.  Green was well connected in the East.  His father came to Marysville and employed counsel who saved him from the gallows, the jury voting for life imprisonment.  Marshall J. Miller, his barber accomplice, who conducted a shop on Second Street, near C, went into court and pleaded guilty.  There was nothing for the court to do but pronounce the death penalty.  He was executed at San Quentin prison on September 28, 1896, after the supreme court had affirmed the judgment of the lower court.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles

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