Herbert Foutz Arrested, Not Convicted in Car Theft Ring
Piecing life stories together through genealogy can seem like standing on the outside, staring through one grimy, cobwebbed window, trying to describe, in detail, rooms throughout the whole house.
Until the lights come on, the other windows are unboarded, the door opens and a welcome mat beckons you inside, you’re left with fragments, glimpses.
And so you come back again, and again, to the house, checking to see if something’s changed. If you’ve gained new access.
In the case of my great-great grandfather Jonathan Foutz‘s family, I’ve been creeping in corners and poking at clues for going on 15 years. We’ve gotten to know my great-grandfather Vance Foutz‘s branch of the tree well, and solved some other mysteries along the way. But there are some stories, no matter how you nudge and dig, that stubbornly refuse to yield the whole picture.
In these cases, even the passage of (more) time doesn’t loosen the grip of the unknown:
- the major players are deceased, or unaware of the answers, or far, far away in the world
- published newspaper stories cease following up on the case
- scanned records sit behind a paywall
- other records may be tangled up in impossibly bad transcriptions, waiting for a perfectly worded search
- still other sources have yet to be released, such as the 1960 census as the clock ticks, too slowly, through the 72-year waiting period
For the family and descendants of Vance’s closest brother, Charles Ross Foutz, all of these factors persist, in the midst of tantalizing clues: my grandfather Don Foutz’s memories recording “red-headed cousins from Canton visiting;” and descendants commenting on this blog, and contacting me through email to share what they know, and attempt to find out still more.
Today’s story is incomplete, but another fascinating one, concerning Charles’s son Herbert Ross Foutz.
September 15, 1955: headlines in nearly two dozen newspapers across Ohio trumpet “Auto Theft Ring Broken in Canton.” As followed up the next day by the Massillon, Ohio Evening Independent:
FBI agents arrested three men here Thursday night during a probe of an interstate car theft gang which specializes in big automobiles.
The investigation was focused mainly on Canton and Erie, Pa.
Arrested were Louis J. Christian, 35, who quit recently as credit manager of a jewelry store here; Herbert R. Foutz, 43, an auto dealer; and Paul Keatley, 28, a jobless truck driver.
They were charged with conspiracy to transport a stolen 1954 Cadillac coupe from Canton to Erie.
In Pittsburgh, an assistant U.S. Attorney, W.W. Stanton, told a reporter that the FBI had to act quickly “because we had information that one of the suspects, Christian, was about to leave the country.”
The three were taken to Cleveland where U.S. Commissioner H. A. Horn set the following bonds: Christian, $10,000; Keatley, $5,000; and Foutz, $10,000. Foutz posted his bail but Christian and Keatley still were held last night in the Cuyahoga county jail at Cleveland.
Prosecution of the charges probably will take place in Pennsylvania.
Friday, Sept. 16, 1955, page 10
Marriage, Seven Kids in Canton
Herbert was third of five children born to Charles Foutz and Rosie Belle White in New Philadelphia before Charles’s early death, at 32, of pneumonia in 1918.
When Rosie remarried a year later, to Thomas Clifford Colvin, the family gained two step-brothers, Clarence and Carl, and moved to Canton by 1922, where two half-sisters, Norma Jessie, and Betty Jane (known as Rose), were born.
By the 1930 census, only the youngest Foutz brother and sister, James and Margaret, live at home with their two young sisters and parents. By the mid-1930s through the 1940s, Canton city directories pick up Charles Foutz’s sons, John, Herbert and James, living with and working with each other: in 1936 at the same residence at 708 3rd St., NE, and for a time at Berger Manufacturing, where Herbert was a cabinet inspector.
By 1945, James is a driver for Mack Beverage Company, and Herbert is a salesman for Superior Dairy. And by the 1950s, after the deaths of their mother, Rosie, in 1948, and oldest brother, John Charles Foutz, in 1950, Herbert is a car salesman.
Early hits in the newspaper record show Herbert as potentially rounded up in 1932 with a Clifford Colvin (could it be his stepfather) for violating Prohibition. But another article in 1950 seems closer to his role in the auto industry in the 1950s and prior to his death — he is reportedly fired by the Ford Motor Company after a four-day union strike in Canton. In the census that year he is listed as a combustion analyst for an auto manufacturing company but “unable to work.”
In 1952, Herbert Foutz appears as a salesman for Shaffer Motors in Massillon in more than a dozen ads running in the Massillon Independent.
Strangely, the newspaper record doesn’t yield up any other ads featuring Herbert Foutz before or after. And then there’s the news of the day for Sept. 15 and 16, when the FBI brings him in.
The Akron Beacon Journal goes into more detail:
FIND AKRON LINK IN CAR THEFTS
FBI agents arrested three men in Canton Thursday as they continued their investigation of an interstate car theft gang specializing in big automobiles.
Taken into custody were Louis J. Christan, 35, who just quit his job as credit manager of a jewelry firm in canton; Herbert R. Foutz, 43, an auto dealer, and Paul Keatley, 28, a jobless truck driver. All three are from Canton.
The trio has been charged with conspiracy to transport a stolen 1954 Cadillac coupe from Canton to Erie, Pa.
Stark County sheriff’s deputies also have been working on the case which reportedly involved an unnamed used car lot in Akron. Deputies said the gang’s operations may involve the disappeaance of 34 blank auto title forms from the Stark County courthouse last Summer.
One of the blank forms, filled out to match a car, turned up in Akron. The man who brought the car in to sell fled when he became frightened. He forgot the title and car.
H. O. Hawkins, FBI chief in Cleveland, said the Cadillac coupe was stolen in Canton Feb. 16 and found two days later on a used car lot in Erie.
…
Foutz posted his bond but Christian and Keatley were still held in Cuyahoga County Jail.
In Cleveland Loren E. Van Brocklin, assistant U.S. attorney, indicated the three men probably would be prosecuted in Pennsylvania where the warrants for their arrest were issued. Foutz, father of six, already has agreed to face charged in that state.
Sept. 16, 1955; page 23
Ringleaders sentenced, Foutz goes free?
From then on, there is seemingly no mention of Herbert Foutz in the newspaper record — no ads, no further updates on the FBI case — until his death in January 1963 at age 51. The obituary in the Mansfield, Ohio News Herald reports “ill health had forced him to retire from his job of auto salesman,” but when? I haven’t found city directory records of his occupation after the 1955 arrest, and there is no 1960 census released yet to check.
But about a month after the FBI brought Christian, Foutz and Keatley in, the story picks up in The Pittsburgh Press, where on Oct. 7 two new conspirators are indicted, and no mention is made of Foutz:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it is investigating the gang on the possibility it may have stolen 450 autos throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.
Working with efficiency, the thieves took nothing but the finest model cars, changed the motor numbers and allegedly used an Erie auto dealer as the “fence.”
Those Indicted
Indictments were returned today against:
James Timpe, 30, an Erie auto dealer.
Louis J. Christian, 35, former credit manager of a Canton, Ohio, jewelry company and alleged ring leader of the gang.
Earl S. Carrington, 29, of Canton, described as a fugitive from the charges leveled today.
Henry P. Keatley, 28, of Canton.
The grand jury said Christian apparently hired both Carrington and Keatley to steal the autos in the Cleveland area between last November and February.
Still Investigating
The four men are specifically charged in the theft of five cars, but the case is still under investigation and it appeared other arrests might be forthcoming.
Officers described the gang as specialists who preferred to steal the latest Cadillacs and Oldsmobile 98s, with emphasis on the “hard top” models.
Christian offered his ring members from $100 to $500 for stealing the cars, investigators said.
Changed Numbers
These were taken to an undisclosed Ohio garage where motor numbers were changed and new title certificates were drawn up, according to testimony.
The probers said the autos then were taken to Timpe, who sold them in the Erie area for ab out $3500 for the Cadillacs and around $2500 for the Oldsmobiles.
Conducting the grand jury probe into the auto ring was Assistant U.S. Attorney W. Wendell Stanton.
Mr. Stanton said Christian was arrested in Cleveland last week, on a complaint growing out of his activities and now is lodged in County Jail there.
Friday, Oct. 7, 1955, page 1
The twists and turns are recorded by Pittsburgh and other area newspapers throughout the Fall and following Winter, with highlights including:
- Timpe pleading guilty, and choosing to stay in jail rather than have his father-in-law, Wilbert W. Boyd, bail him out
- Keatley was found to already be serving time in the Ohio State Pentitentiary “on similar charges”
- Christian was first to be sentenced, on Dec. 1, for one year in prison. By then the charge involved transporting 5 stolen cars to Erie, Pa. (Quite a few less than 450)
- Timpe was next to be sentenced, on Dec. 16, to 19 months, again with the report that the ring handled five stolen cars before the FBI shut them down
- Finally, the law caught up with the fugitive Carrington, who was sentenced on Jan. 27, 1956 to three months in County Jail for his part in transporting two of the stolen cars, with the term in addition to two and half months already served.
- Keatley’s sentencing was left for later, after he finished his term in the Ohio pen, but I found no hits in my search.
So, it seems, the caper is concluded, with no further mention of Herbert Foutz. Did he end up sharing evidence with the Feds? Was he mistakenly taken in? Did he ever return to selling cars, or was his “ill health” more a case of ill association with the likes of Christian and Timpe and Carrington and Keatley?
He was buried in Willoughby Village Cemetery, far from his twice-remarried wife, Eleanor, who is buried with third husband Howard Dennis at North Lawn Cemetery in Canton. (Interestingly, her second husband, Ralph Buxton‘s headstone, at still another cemetery, Forest Hill, in Canton, bears her name and birth year, but no death year.) There are no other Foutzes reported as being buried in Willoughby Village Cemetery.
Whispering Across the Campfire 
