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| Dominic Gapinski, as published in the Milwaukee Journal |
By all appearances, the evening of
April 3, 1908 should have been quite uneventful for the Board of the
Skarb Sobieski Building Loan Association. It started out as
every other Thursday evening with members of the Association coming to make their weekly deposit. The deposit was usually a small
amount hoarded from the family budget, often only a dollar.
Sometimes, after a good week, a few precious extra pennies could be
added. But no matter how small the deposit, it was always made with
the hope that, eventually, with hard work and persistence, enough
could be set aside to qualify for a loan to buy or build a house of their very own.
That week, about 400 men had come to make their deposits. The Association used as its quarters the
basement of the Mitchell Street Savings Bank so there was no safe
available to it. All the money it had collected that evening, about
$230 in cash and $380 in checks, sat in a strong box on the meeting
room table. After the deposits had finished, the members of the
Board and the officers sat down for other business. Maybe it was to decide
who would be lucky enough to qualify for a loan. Maybe it was
some other matter. Along with the Trustees and officers were two
shareholders. The men were seated around a “T” shaped table.
They included Frank Mucha (President), Michael Szymborski (Vice
President), Frank Poznanski (Corresponding Secretary), Stanley Maternowski (recording secretary), and Trustees Michael Tomaszewski,
Michael Anczak, John Paszkiewicz and Vincent Lewandowski.
Dominic Gapinski was the
brother-in-law of Walter Celichowski (Featured Profile #13) and his
partner in the business of Celichowski and Gapinski. He was also the
Treasurer of the Association, and on that fateful evening, he was
seated at the head of the table with his back towards the door. He
was making out a receipt for Michael Salaty, and thus, he
did not see three men enter the room. The others seated around the
table looked at the new men with an inquiring expression. Were they
shareholders with some new business? The oldest of the three men was
about 24. He had blond hair and mustache and was wearing a light hat
and light overcoat. The other two were perhaps 20 or 21. They were
clean-shaven. They wore dark clothes, but no overcoats.
Suddenly, two of the men drew
revolvers. They pointed them at the officers and cocked the hammers.
“Sit down, be quiet, hands up,”
they ordered in “Russian Polish.” The last command was probably
unnecessary. Everyone was in stunned silence. They were trying to
comprehend exactly what was happening. Was this some kind of joke?
In a matter of seconds, it became all
too clear. The eldest robber snatched the cash box from the table
and headed for the door. This was something Dominic could not allow.
He sprang into action. The door to the room opened inward, and
Dominic threw his weight against it to prevent the robbers from
escaping. Then, he grabbed the cash box and tried to wrest it from
the robber. The two men struggled for a few seconds. Then the thief
swore in anger, and in a flash Dominic collapsed to the floor, a
bullet to the brain. The robbers fled, but the Association men sat
stunned in their chairs. When they did finally take action, some
tried to aid Dominic while others tried to chase the robbers, but
they were too late in both cases. Dominic was dead and the robbers
had disappeared without a trace, (However, the cash box and all but
$200 in cash was eventually found in different places nearby.)
The police were notified “by
telephone”, an event so new it was still noted in the newspaper.
Within a short time, a description of the culprits had been
circulated and police had been sent to the depot and the interurban
trains to stop the felons from leaving the city. That very evening,
Patrolman Kelly saw two men matching the description at First Ave.
and Lapham Street. They fled when he approached. Patrolman Kelly chased
them for a half mile until they disappeared into the maze of track
and switching trains at the Northwestern Railroad yard. However, the
game was still afoot, and other police were out chasing down other leads.
Before the night was out, five men had been pulled in for
questioning. In a cunning move, the police placed an informant, one
who spook Polish, in a nearby cell. Soon, the informant heard two of the
suspects make incriminating statements, and they implicated a third
man was also already in custody. They were F. Szymeczak (20), Joseph
Marusik (19) and Jacob Zajaczkowski (20). All three were Poles from
Russian-controlled Poland and Szymeczak was just recently arrived
from Cleveland. It was Marusik who was accused of doing the actual
shooting. Szymeczak confessed almost immediately. (Perhaps he did
not realize that committing a felony in which a death results can
carry a murder rap, even if you don't pull the trigger.) By way of
explanation, Szymeczak said, “I was hungry and I had nothing to
eat. I had to do something to keep from starving to death.”
A fourth man was also implicated in
the scheme to rob the Association. John Tarasinski, who resided in
the same boarding house with the other men, was the supposed
mastermind. It was said that he had been a depositor with the
Association, but that he had withdrew all his money the week before
the robbery. When he had done so, he had gotten $5 less than he had
expected, and he had threatened to “get even.” In the end, all
defendants were either convicted or plead guilty and sent to Waupun. However,
Tarasinski continued to argue his innocence. He appealed his
conviction all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court where it was
upheld. The decision in Tarasinski v. State became a leading case in
Wisconsin criminal law for a time. Concomitant with his appeals,
Transinski asked the governor for a pardon, but was also disappointed
in that cause. However, he did eventually get his sentence reduced from 25
years to 12 years.
At the time of his death, Dominic
Gapinski was about 40 years old. He was married with six children
who ranged in age from 17 to less then a year. His oldest son,
Bernard, would eventually join the priesthood and serve in several
local parishes. He became the principal pastor of St. Alexander's
parish in 1958 and served in that capacity until his retirement in
1968. By coincidence, St. Alexander's is the same parish at which
Bernard's uncle (and Dominic's brother-in-law), Bronislaus Celichowski, was serving as pastor at the
time of Dominic Gapinski's death in 1908.
As an interesting coda to this story,
the Tarasinski defense team was comprised of the husband-wife law partnership of Charles Peterson and Antionette Jankowska-Peterson. One suspects that Antionette's probable ability to speak Polish may have played a factor in why they were retained. However, she was not relegated to the mere role of translator. In fact, it was
Jankowska-Peterson who gave the final argument to the jury. In doing so, she may have become the first woman attorney to take part in a murder trial in the state of Wisconsin.
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| Antionette Jackowska-Peterson, as published in the Milwaukee Journal |
Sources (all page references in the Milwaukee Journal are to the page on Google News):
"Alleged Slayer Makes Threat," Milwaukee Journal, April 7, 1908, p. 6.
"Fiends' Plot is His Reply," Milwaukee Journal, May 25, 1908, p. 1
"First Woman Lawyer to Argue in Murder Case in Wisconsin," Milwaukee Journal, May 27, 1908, p. 1
"Governor Will Refuse Pardon for Tarasinski," Milwaukee Journal, July 27, 1910, p. 1.
"Police Say They Have Murderers," Milwaukee Journal, April 4, 1908, p. 1
"Sheriffs Dodge Polish Throngs," Milwaukee Journal, April 8, 1908, p. 4
Tarasinski v. State, (Wisc. Supreme Court, 1911) 146 Wisc. 508, 131 NW 889.
