© 2022, Christian Cassidy
June 23, 1934, Winnipeg Tribune
The Portage and Arlington branch of the Royal Bank of Canada made national news in June 1935 when a man described by one police source as "one of the most nervy stick-up men ever seen in Winnipeg" walked into the branch posing as a telegraph messenger just before closing time and made off with $3,223 in cash, (about $65,000 in today's dollars.)
The young man closed the staff in the vault, with the exception of a ledger keeper who he made fill a bag with bills and silver for him. He then calmly walked across Arlington Street to a maroon coloured sedan and drove off. Police later found the car, which had been stolen the day before, abandoned at the side of the road.
The robbery set off a province-wide manhunt and put neighbouring provinces and states on alert for a well-dressed, well-built man in his early 20's with a dark tan and dark hair.
A couple of days later, a tip was called into police headquarters from a resident of a boarding house on Colony Street. He told them that a recent arrival to the house had suddenly come into money and was flashing it around. The information was passed along to detectives but before they could act on it a second tip came in that the man had paid his bill and was loading his trunk into a cab.
The new information was passed along to Detectives Cafferty and Mercer of the Winnipeg Police Department who contacted the cab company and learned that the man had been dropped off at the CPR Depot on Higgins Avenue. They raced to the station and managed to stop a passenger train bound for Vancouver that was mere seconds from pulling out.
They searched the carriages and found the man they were looking for. He had a loaded .45 calibre pistol strapped to his leg and around $3,000 cash in his case.
July 6, 1934, Winnipeg Tribune
Back at the police station, the suspect told police that he was John Ercheeson, a surveyor from Halifax en route to Vancouver.
When presented with evidence that he had actually been at living at a boarding house on Colony Street and only boarded the train in Winnipeg, "Ercheeson" admitted to giving a false identity. He said he would be happy to wait in jail while they sent his fingerprints to Ottawa to confirm who he was.
The shocking news came back a week later that Ercheeson was actually Judy Jordan, 22, a convicted
murderer serving a life sentence in Florida.
On the night of March 13, 1930, Jordan and Jack Jackson, 19, both of Scranton, Pennsylvania, held up a gas station at gunpoint in Holly Hill, Florida. They ended up killing owner George Kuhn, 43, and seriously wounding his son, Andrew, when they resisted the robbery.
Police around the state were put on alert and two officers patrolling a checkpoint on the outskirts of Jacksonville, Florida stopped the car the two men were driving. They seized three guns and arrested them on suspicion of robbery. Back at police headquarters, Jordan and Jackson claimed to be Chicago gangsters who lived in New York and knew nothing of the crime.
The men were put in cells until they could be questioned further.
Wichita (Kansas) Daily Times, March 14, 1930
Mayhem broke out early the next morning when Jordan and Jackson's suitcases were being searched.
According to an Associated Press story that ran in many U.S. papers, Jordan snatched a gun "from his bosom" and ordered the seven officers and a few assembled reporters to "Stick them up, you ____". He fled down a corridor, through an empty courtroom and jumped out a window to the ground below. It turned out to be a sealed passageway between two buildings with no access to the street. "Tear gas bombs brought him out coughing and begging for mercy."
The situation could have been worse. As Jordan fled, one of the officers turned just in time to see Jackson making for one of the seized guns on a desktop. The officer pistol-whipped him before he could reach it.
Jordan confessed to the crime after his recapture though both men pleaded not guilty at their trial.
On May 31, 1930, a jury found the pair guilty with a recommendation of mercy. This spared them the death penalty but it meant life in prison.
This should have been the last anyone heard of Judy Jordan.
Jordan was one of three inmates who escaped from the Ponce de Leon camp whilst serving in a chain gang in January 1933. Two of the men were arrested in Tuskeegee, Florida the following month in a stolen car but Jordan was not with them. A $25 reward was offered for his capture.
How Jordan ended up in Winnipeg more than a year later is not known, though it was not uncommon for American criminals and fugitives to make their way here. The most famous example is likely that of the serial rapist and murderer Earle Nelson, a.k.a. the Gorilla Man, who was hanged in Winnipeg in 1928.
In fact, the Winnipeg Police Commission voted to allow Winnipeg police officers to carry arms in August 1911 after a series of crimes including armed robberies, shootings and the wounding of a policeman by American criminals who had fled to this city.
Jordan was described in local papers as small, pale and soft-spoken - a far cry from
the original description of the suspect pieced together from numerous
eye-witnesses. It was reported that he was well educated and from a good
background.
The suspect was also a bit of a complainer. At his
first hearing after a week in the city jail, Jordan groused about the
poor conditions, cold temperature and thin blankets. He complained at his second court
appearance that due to a lack of daily exercise his kidneys
were upset.
Jordan pleaded guilty to the robbery. He tried to
cut a deal that would have prevented him from being sent back to the
U.S. after his sentence was completed. That was, of course, denied.
July 5, 1934, Winnipeg Tribune
On July 5, 1934, Magistrate Graham sentenced Jordan to five years at Stony Mountain Penitentiary plus ten lashes to be administered in two sessions after he had served at least thirty days. (Corporal punishment in Canada wasn't abolished until 1972.)
The Winnipeg Tribune reported that Jordan "took his sentence quite calmly and seemed chiefly interested in getting away from the police jail."
What became of Jordan is unclear as his name does not appear in local papers again. He would have served some, if not all, of his sentence in Manitoba before being given over the U.S. authorities and living out his remaining days in a Florida prison.
Update: For those wondering how the fingerprints were searched, see the above page from Fugitives. The whole process took just a week - not bad for the 1930s version of the information superhighway.
Update: A fellow researcher found Jordan in the 1940 Florida census at Florida State Penitentiary. He was listed as a "student", presumably taking classes while he was incarcerated.
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