Murder And Robbery in Adel Iowa

 

Orlando Wilkins pointed a shotgun at Cashier A.W. Leach and demanded the cash

Orlando Wilkins and Charles W. Crawford walked into the Adel State Bank on the morning of March 7, 1895, figuring they could scare one cashier, snatch the money, and be gone before anybody knew what hit them.

 

Instead, they kicked off one of the wildest bank robberies in Iowa history.

 

The Iowa State Bystander called it “unparalleled in the criminal annals of the state.” It sounds like newspaper thunder, but the facts backed it up. Wilkins ended the day dead after taking three bullets. Six townspeople were wounded, and for a few minutes, the streets of Adel sounded like open war.

 

Two men walked into the bank around 8:45 a.m. They told cashier A. W. Leach they wanted to make a deposit. Leach turned toward his desk, expecting coins, paper, and another dull morning. He got a rifle shoved in his face instead.

Wilkins pulled a repeating rifle from under his coat and leveled it at Leach’s head, telling him that whether he lived or died depended on how well he obeyed orders. Crawford stepped in with a canvas sack and told Leach to fill it. Fast.

 

The robbery turned into a full-scale battle in the middle of town

Leach dumped a tray of silver into the bag. Wilkins then ordered him to open the vault and bring out more cash.

 

That was the plan. Then C.D. Baily walked in at exactly the wrong moment. Wilkins spun and fired. The bullet smashed into Baily’s jaw. Before anybody could move, Wilkins wheeled back and shot Leach in the shoulder.

 

From there, the whole thing blew apart.

 

Cole F. Noel, the local Justice of the Peace, rushed in after hearing the shots. Wilkins fired at him and missed. Then Dallas County Sheriff J.D. Payne fired several shots through the front door.

 

Glass shattered. Smoke rolled. Men yelled. Folks nearby hit the dirt or ran for cover. A quiet bank robbery was now a gun battle in the middle of town.

 

Wilkins and Crawford escaped among a hail of bullets from Shreiff Payne's posse.

Wilkins and Crawford burst through the door firing as they ran, jumped into a waiting buggy, and raced off. Witnesses said at least fifty shots were fired at the rig as it tore down the street.

 

For a little while, it looked like Wilkins and Crawford had made a clean getaway. Then everything went sideways.

 

The buggy slammed into a log and smashed both front wheels. The posse shot one horse, and the getaway ended right there in the road.

 

The two men ran in different directions.

 

Wilkins grabbed his rifle and sprinted into the nearby O’Neal barn. Crawford bolted for a stand of timber and tried to hide behind a pile of logs. The posse caught him almost immediately.

 

What happened next was pure 1895.

 

They marched Crawford back, carrying a jug of oil and surrounded the barn. Sheriff Payne shouted for Wilkins to come out, telling him that if he stayed inside, the barn would be burned with him in it.

Wilkins waited as long as he could, but when it got too hot, he ran into the woods.

Wilkins said he’d rather die. Payne took that as an answer.

 

He told Crawford to pour oil around the barn. Somebody struck a match. A minute later, the barn was in flames.

 

Wilkins held out as long as he could. Then he burst through the door and ran for a nearby grove.

 

A dozen rifles cracked. Witnesses said he leaped into the air and dropped less than twenty feet from the barn. Dead.

 

That ended the chase, but not the excitement. The posse recovered all the stolen money—$11,000 in gold and $30,000 in currency.

 

Back in Adel, hundreds of people packed around the courthouse demanding that Crawford be shot or hanged on the spot. Payne ignored the crowd, shoved Crawford into a cell, and locked the door.

 

Wilkins’s body was placed in a chair in front of the bank so townspeople could file past and stare at it.

Wilkins's body was propped in a chair outside the bank as a reminder to robbers.

At his trial, Crawford claimed Wilkins had threatened to kill him if he refused to help. They had first talked about robbing a bank in Indianola before changing plans. The buggy used in the holdup had been stolen from Crawford’s uncle, W. W. Crawford, in Madison County.

 

Later that month, Attorney General Remley considered prosecuting posse members for taking arms and ammunition from the Company B Armory during the chase. He admitted they had good reason to grab the weapons, but said necessity didn’t make it lawful. In the end, no action was taken against the posse. 

 

Charles W. Crawford served twelve years in prison. After his release, he returned to Adel and quietly lived out the rest of his days.

 

Orlando Wilkins stayed in Adel, too. Six feet underground in Oakdale Cemetery.

Stuff like this is what I always end up chasing—the little lines in old newspapers and magazines, the parts most books skip over.

I pulled a bunch of those stories together into Iowa Crime Time if you want more of it.

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