Confessions of a Second Story Man

by Allen M. Hornblum

  Back on the streets 10 years later, Wigerman attempted to make a go of it as a conventional wage-earner. He got married, did construction work, and tried to make ends meet. He was soon supplementing his wages with a few burglaries on the side. He didn’t set the world on fire at either profession. One night, after picking up nothing but chump change in a few burglaries in the Northeast, Wigerman stopped in at a popular after-hours club. There he ran into Maury McAdams, an accomplished and experienced K&A burglar who seemed to be swimming in money. After a few hours and more than a few drinks, Wigerman accepted an offer to fill a vacancy in McAdams’ crew. By the end of the following week, Wigerman was hooked. Production work had seduced another Kensington street kid. Wigerman was making money like never before.

  “That was the end of me,” Wigerman told a newspaper reporter years later. “I never went back to work again.”

  Wigerman learned to appreciate the rudiments and subtleties of production work, but like many of his predecessors he believed he could do even better as a crew chief and eventually went out and put together a crew of his own. He developed a stringent work ethic, burgled hundreds of homes a year, and traveled to Massachusetts, Michigan, California, and Florida to practice his craft. North Carolina, too, was a recurring and lucrative part of the itinerary.

  Regrettably, Steven Schrieber, a new member of the Wigerman team, was tempted to pocket a few attractive baubles there. Trusting his team members to understand the importance of following the rules of the game, Wigerman never strip-searched them after an evening’s work, as the devious Willie Sears used to do. He never knew about the items Schrieber held back from his partners. They and others would pay dearly for their fellow crew member’s deceit and the cross-pollination that was so common among K&A Crews. (Some K&A men have suggested that Wigerman hired young, neophyte burglars because they would be more easily cheated out of their rightful cut from a score. More experienced players would know the value of merchandise and would be less gullible if Wigerman understated what the fence had paid him.)

  Wigerman gave Schrieber money to hire an attorney. It was imperative that he fight extradition back to North Carolina. A New Jersey judge, however, saw things differently and allowed Officer Williams to take Schrieber—who had no record at the time—down South to face burglary charges. During the long drive to North Carolina, according to Williams, “Schrieber didn’t want to talk,” and the officer didn’t press him. He extended several courtesies to his prisoner, and ultimately cop and captive developed a rapport. By the time they reached the county jail in Raleigh, Schrieber must have been having serious reservations about a career as an outlaw. His first night in a southern prison, along with the knowledge that North Carolina had some of the harshest burglary laws in the country, only underscored those concerns. A second-degree burglary (breaking into a vacant house after dark) could reward the convicted perpetrator with a life sentence. Moreover, in North Carolina there was no statute of limitations on burglary. Such draconian sanctions have a way of capturing the attention of even the most hardened criminals.

  It must have been a sleepless, soul-searching night for the young man, for when Williams returned to the jail the next morning he was given a five-page, handwritten account of Schrieber’s six-month career as a burglar. The prisoner named Wigerman as his crew chief, identified the other members of the ring, and detailed their exploits in North Carolina and Missouri. With the help of the novice burglar, the tide had turned.

  A ripple of concern shot through the Kensington burglary community with Schrieber’s arrest and extradition. His willingness to cooperate only exacerbated the concern. Junior was one of those put on notice that a significant problem had arisen.

  “I got a call one day from Steve LaCheen,” says Junior. “He says to me, ‘Do you know Stevie Schrieber?’ I say no, so he tells me, ‘Are you sure, ’cause you got a problem with him. He’s implicated you in 20 to 25 burglaries.’ That’s bullshit, I tell him. I never even heard of the guy. It was true. I had no idea who he was.”

  Fortunately for Junior, Schrieber’s information was all hearsay. The young burglar had heard numerous stories about Kripplebauer and knew that the much esteemed second story man had torn through North Carolina like a 150-mile-per-hour Nor’easter, but they had never actually worked together. In fact, they had never met. Law enforcement authorities would need something more concrete as corroborating evidence if they were going to bring Kripplebauer in and charge him with burglary. Unfortunately for Junior, young Schrieber wasn’t the only one willing to talk.

  As Bill Skarbek of the FBI has said of the critical event, “The dominoes began to fall at that point and would keep on falling for some time. Schrieber was the missing piece of the puzzle. He provided the corroboration and the smoking gun. He was it.”

  Because of Schrieber’s arrest in New Jersey and the gang’s extensive operations around the country, authorities in North Carolina allowed the FBI to prosecute the burglars in federal court for the interstate transportation of stolen property. The government cut a deal with Schrieber: if he testified against his former associates in front of grand juries in Raleigh and St. Louis, he’d be admitted to the federal Witness Protection Program and relocated to another part of the country.

  In fairly short order, Schrieber’s confederates were arrested and either forced to cut deals and talk or brought to trial and banged with incredibly stiff prison terms. For example, George Llanos, another novice burglar, chose to cooperate and received a lenient five-month sentence. Anthony Roche, a more seasoned practitioner of second story work, was loath to rat out his partners. He decided to fight it out in court and was hit with a staggering 40-to 60-year sentence. Wigerman put up a good fight at his trial in St. Louis, but was convicted and given a 12-year sentence. By the time the authorities in Raleigh put him on trial, he was out of both cash and energy. He pled guilty and was handed an additional five years.

  Wigerman thought his ordeal was over, except, of course, for the time he had to serve, but the cities of Greensboro and Winston-Salem wanted their shot at the Philly burglars as well, and particularly crew chief Joseph Theodore Wigerman. Each town had suffered dozens of burglaries over the years and wanted a little revenge of their own. They took no solace in the fact that the wily Kensington burglar had already been convicted in St. Louis and Raleigh. Moreover, the federal penalties were thought mild in comparison with what the state of North Carolina could dish out. More than one Tar Heel town wanted to exact justice on the Yankee invaders. D. C. Williams calculated that “60 to 80 burglaries in each of North Carolina’s four major cities ....ere attributed to the Hallmark Gang just between 1971 and 1975.” For Wigerman, the disaster he feared when his young crew member was arrested and lost his extradition hearing in New Jersey had come to pass.

  Faced with additional burglary charges and the corroborating statements of Schrieber and Llanos, Wigerman—now in his mid-forties and serving a lengthy sentence at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary—was looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars. Reluctantly, this K&A man who hated informants agreed to cooperate and talk with the authorities.

  The significance of getting one of the main culprits in North Carolina’s annual burglary festival to flip was not lost on the state’s law enforcement community. As Wigerman identified the many affluent properties he had burgled and named associates who had worked with him over the years, police officers had difficulty hiding their satisfaction. After a decade of frustration, they couldn’t be blamed for enjoying the moment.

  As D. C. Williams says of the event, “Wigerman rolled right quick when he saw what was facing him in terms of a series of life sentences. He wanted to be first on that train out of the station.”

  Wigerman’s willingness to name names was about to set off a new round of prosecutions, for one of the people he offered up was a Kripplebauer crew member. His name was Tommy Seher.

  WHEN JUNIOR ARRIVED at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station, he was met by Troy McEntee, who drove h
im to a safe house in North Philly where he would hide out for the next two weeks. On the short drive to the mostly African-American working-class neighborhood, Troy brought Junior up to date on Mickie’s case. Steve LaCheen had gotten Mickie out of jail by putting her Cherry Hill home up for bail. Texas and North Carolina were both seeking to extradite her for an array of outstanding burglary charges. Tommy Seher, now being held in protective custody in some North Carolina prison, had given both of them up on a silver platter. No one was sure when the extradition hearings would be held. That and bail had given Mickie a window of opportunity if she wanted to take it.

  McEntee went on to say that cops and federal agents were aggressively moving through Philly neighborhoods searching for Junior. He had become a desirable catch, a big-ticket item for lawmen hoping to raise their visibility and departmental profile. Texas and North Carolina were extremely anxious to get their hooks into him as well—especially North Carolina. Learning that the infamous Hallmark crowd was actually the K&A Gang out of Philadelphia, nailing one gang member after another, including Wigerman, only whetted their appetite for Kripplebauer, one of the perceived instigators of North Carolina’s annual theftcapade.

  Junior was pleased to hear that Mickie was back on the street but dismayed that the extradition hearings were as yet unscheduled. His plan to get Seher depended on the rat’s appearance at the extradition hearing. Without that information, it would be difficult to impossible to determine where the Feds were holding Tommy for safekeeping.

  Junior quickly arranged for a brief liaison with Mickie at a Jersey motel. Although events of the past year had strained the marriage and he had begun seeing other women, he still cared deeply about her and blamed himself for getting her into such a mess. He believed he had wrecked her life. Junior knew that the FBI would be vigorously looking for him in the Philly area, especially anywhere near his wife. He wasn’t wrong; the Feds had him high up on their priority list.

  “Kripplebauer was a major problem,” says Bill Skarbek. “His escape from Atlanta didn’t really surprise me. Nothing really shocked me about Kripplebauer. He was that kind of guy. In fact, for that whole group [the K&A Gang] it was par for the course. The FBI had spent a lot of time on him and now he had broken out of prison and was on the street again. When I was notified he had walked out of Atlanta, I basically said, ‘You gotta be shitting me.’ We had done our job and now we’ve got to do it all over again.

  “Earlier, when the federal judge had made the mistake of giving him 30 days to get his affairs in order before reporting to prison, he jumped bail on us. His case was one of the very few times someone had been prosecuted for jumping bail, but we eventually got him. Now he had gotten out again. We wanted to bring all the pressure we could muster to get him back. He was one of the top jewel men in the country, a real main player. We couldn’t afford having him back on the street again.

  “We immediately notified our cooperating witnesses [informants] on the street to keep a lookout for Kripplebauer. We told people to be careful. Although Junior didn’t have the reputation for being a violent, dangerous felon, he wasn’t exactly a docile person. He could do some serious damage if he wanted to. He had broken out of Atlanta, he was on the run, and we knew his connections to some nasty folks in Pittsburgh and Youngstown. He wasn’t going to be brought in that easily.”

  Junior met Mickie at the Sandman Motel in Bordentown, New Jersey, a small roadside inn where they stayed after their wedding in Elkton, Maryland, just a few years before. The atmosphere was infused with both tremendous joy and lingering sadness. Their universe had spun out of control; they had changed from the fun-loving couple who relished both the excitement of pulling hundreds of burglaries together (not to mention the occasional bank job) and the good life it brought to desperados forced to hide in the shadows of an ever-grimmer world. Junior was a desperate fugitive on the run, and Mickie was facing terrifying trips to Texas and North Carolina. Long prison terms and years apart were assuredly in their future.

  Conversation drifted from reminiscences of better times to Junior’s insistence on getting Tommy for ratting on them. His mind was concentrated on one task. He wanted Seher.

  “I’m gonna take him out,” said Junior. “I’m gonna kill him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mickie. “There’s going to be agents all over Tommy. You’d never get within 50 yards of him.”

  “I’m gonna bomb the courtroom,” said Junior matter-of-factly.

  “What are you talking about?” Mickie was unsure she had heard correctly. She, unlike her husband, was resigned to her fate and skeptical about any plan to get Seher, her one-time friend, periodic houseguest, and partner in crime.

  “I’m gonna kill him,” said Junior. “I’m gonna bomb the courtroom.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” asked Mickie incredulously. “They’re not gonna let you get inside the courthouse, much less inside the courtroom. Forget about it. It’s done.”

  “I’m gonna kill him,” repeated Junior.

  “How?”

  “When your extradition hearing date is set,” said Junior, “I’m going to find out what courtroom it’s scheduled for. The day before the hearing I’m going in the building. I’m going to find a hiding place, and then during the night I’m gonna plant a bomb under the witness chair. I’ll have it wired so that when Tommy is called to testify, I’ll flip the switch and blow his lousy, rattin’ ass to pieces.”

  Though Mickie certainly had no love for Seher, who was going to put her away for more years than she cared to think about, she felt that Junior’s plan was a stretch at best. She never underestimated her husband, and she appreciated his single-minded resourcefulness, but she saw no benefit in making the situation worse. The burglary charges were bad enough; they didn’t need a murder charge on top of them. Besides, she reasoned, they had only a few brief hours together; who knew when or whether they’d have a rendezvous like this again? She didn’t want those fleeting but reassuring moments colored by anger, talk of revenge, and plans to exterminate a one-time friend.

  They both realized that the Feds and local police would use Mickie as a magnet to capture Junior, so he would have to stay away from her. They briefly discussed her joining him on the run, but abandoned that idea. She would have to stay and fight it out in the courts. She had a son and did her best to be a good mother. Mickie expected to spend some time away in prison, but at the end of it she could return home. The life of a fugitive was endless worry, never any downtime. And a prison cell or the cemetery always awaited you at the end of the run.

  “I knew what I was facing,” says Junior of the lengthy Texas and North Carolina prison sentences he could expect. “Texas was gonna try me as a habitual offender. I was looking at a life sentence. For Mickie, it was different. Besides, she had a kid to take care of. We both knew she couldn’t cut out.”

  With no date set for the extradition hearing and Seher in protective custody somewhere in North Carolina, the decision was obvious: Junior would have to leave the area. Hanging around the Philadelphia vicinity would only guarantee his capture—sooner rather than later. Junior said he’d keep in touch, send her some cash periodically, and come back when Mickie’s hearing date was set. Though events had fractured their relationship and he was now involved with another woman, he wouldn’t abandon her. Nor would he abandon his goal of getting Tommy Seher.

  JUNIOR GOT A FRIEND, Georgie Flynn, to drive him out to Pittsburgh. He told Richard Henkel, the tipster from the Lee’s Trading Post burglary, that he was in a jam and needed a place to hole up for a while. Henkel drove him to Youngstown, Ohio, where Henkel’s elderly uncle lived alone. Junior could stay there and help take care of the old man. It didn’t take Junior long to reacquaint himself with Jake and the other members of the Youngstown crowd.

  Junior and Jake did dozens of burglaries together, mostly upscale homes in suburban Ohio communities. Occasionally, they’d hit a jewelry store and once would have pulled off a score equal to the
Lee heist if an electrical failure hadn’t tripped the alarm system and forced them to abort what could have been a sizable payday.

  Sometimes Henkel would join them on these break-ins, but he had long ago embarked on far more grandiose and deadly moneymaking schemes. Burglaries were okay for pocket change, but he was after the big score now. And as Junior would eventually learn, Henkel would do whatever it took to get it. The K&A principle of never hurting anyone was totally alien to the Pittsburgh bar manager. Over the years a number of Henkel’s associates and acquaintances were discovered in a permanent state of rigor mortis, but Junior was either oblivious to Henkel’s connection to the carnage or wrote it off as part of the collateral damage that results from choosing a life on the edge.

  A perfect example of Henkel’s ruthless moneymaking schemes was his plan to kidnap Art Rooney, Sr., the beloved owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Henkel would often see Rooney at the Meadows, a racetrack in a suburb of Pittsburgh, and it got him to thinking. The prospect of picking off and holding for ransom the affable and affluent team owner was more than a little intriguing.

  Impervious to the practical obstacles and legal consequences of such an undertaking, Henkel mulled over plans for some time until he came up with what he thought was a sure-fire winner. Sophisticated, audacious, and multifaceted, the plan was indicative of a criminal mind that had severed itself from legal boundaries and moral restraints.

  Henkel planned to scoop Rooney up one afternoon as he left the racetrack. Once off the racetrack grounds, they’d transfer the old man to a specially adapted van, securely restrain him, and place around his neck a bomb designed to explode if anyone tried removing the device without precise directions and the required technical know-how. They would then drive their valuable human cargo to a safe house in a mountainous and uninhabited section of upstate Pennsylvania, contact the FBI, and demand $5 million for the team owner’s safe return.