Nineteen years not guilty : the Leonard Hankins story in his own words / as told to Earl Guy

110 Pages·1956·4.143 MB·English

by  Hankins, Leonard, Guy, Earl

Nineteen Years Not Guilty

The Leonard Hankins Story in His Own Words
NINETEEN YEARS
NOT GUILTY
AS TOLD TO
EARL GUY
EXPOSITION PRESS * NEW YORK
EXPOSITION PRESS INc., 386 Fourth Avenue, New York 16, N. Y.
FIRST EDITION
@ 1956 by Earl Guy. All rights reserved, including the right of
reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Manufactured in
the United States of America. Library of Congress catalog card
number: 55-12282.
Foreword
Leonard Hankins gave me this story on a tape recorder, and
my main concern has been to keep it his, to maintain the simple
directness of the narration. It would have been easy to over-
dramatize it. It would have been easy also to pile detail on
detail, to glamorize and pretty it up, to add in short another two
or three hundred pages. But the real Leonard Hankins would
have been lost in the verbiage probably, and it seems to me
about time for the individual to have a chance to speak for him-
self, without the writer interpreting his experiences or inflating
them unduly. Now and then, the narrator knows more about
what is real and important. I have tried, therefore, to let Leonard
speak his own mind in his own words, to add only the detail
and atmosphere which will bring out his feelings and give the
book continuity and order.
EARL Guy

Contents
Foreword 5
Nineteen Years Not Guilty 9
Epilogue 99
Appendix: Report of the Claims Commission 101

I
I am fixing to tell you of a crime for which I did nineteen
years, a crime I had no knowledge of-the robbery of the Third
Northwestern National Bank of Minneapolis.
When it happened, I was in a barber-shop on Wabasha in
St. Paul, getting a shave. As a matter of fact, I shaved myself
because both barbers were busy. After I had finished and had
started out of the place with a friend I'll call Jack, a bunch
of squad cars passed, rushing toward Minneapolis, their sirens
wide open. The traffic wheeled over, came to a stop. The
police disappeared toward the dome of the capitol, that looked
over the town. It was an accident, I thought, or maybe a fire.
But at the house where I was stopping, the lady ran to
the door to tell us that the bank had been robbed, and that the
bandits had killed a couple of policemen. And inside, just as we
were about to get seated, a second broadcast came in over the
radio, saying that the mob was believed to be surrounded in
Como Park. We heard nothing further that evening. But we did
note by the paper that a curious motorist had been killed in the
park, and that the robbers had all got away.
The next day, Jack came over to St. Paul-he was living
in Minneapolis-and we played a few hands of cards, drank
some beer and walked down to a place to see a man about
a game we were interested in. There was still a lot of talk about
the holdup, of course. But there were no new developments,
10 NINETEEN YEARS NOT GURTY
and we didn't think a great deal about it. We finished our busi-
ness and returned to the apartment.
By then, Jack figured he ought to start home, for his wife
had just got out of the hospital and he had to pay a woman
to stay with her. He said too that his cash was getting down
pretty low. So I told the lady at the house to give him fifty
dollars out of some money she was holding for me. She went
to get it, discovering that it was gone; that another boy who was
stopping there was also gone. I couldn't believe it. He hadn't
lived far from me in Kentucky. All we found in his room,
though, was an old gun which I stuck in my belt, thinking I
might be able to peddle it. I turned back through the door, sure
he would try to leave town.
But we checked the bus stations, the depots and all trains
and buses running south. We got no line on him at all. We
wound up at Jack's apartment, where I spent the night.
The following morning, we heard in a newscast that one of
the bank bandits had been caught in St. Paul with part of the
loot. But I didn't think too much about it, because I was in a
hurry to get back, and Jack still had to get the woman to stay
with his wife again. So we stopped at a filling station around the
corner from her place, and while Jack ran up to get her, I had
the car serviced. He hadn't returned by the time the attendant
had finished. I waited maybe another twenty-five minutes, but
he still didn't show up. I cut around to this apartment to check
on him, see what had happened.
When I knocked on the door, the woman there said, "Just
a minute." And within a minute, I'd say, she told me, "Okay,"
and opened the door, and I stepped in to find myself covered
with guns. The room and the hallway were swarming with police-
men. They ordered me to get my hands in the air. I just stood
there kind of numb and surprised.
But I wasn't scared in particular. I remember thinking, What
the hell is this? Then I thought of the old gun. I knew that was
bad. I pulled the thing out and handed it, butt-first, to a
policeman.