Bootlegger Shot in the Back by Dry Agents
The Little Chicago Chronicles
The on-going battle between bootleggers and amateur dry agents resulted in another death on September 4, 1924, when two officers shot at a man fleeing from a still in a cornfield along the river south of Trenton.
Arnold Skinner and Henry Anderson, Middletown steel-workers who moonlighted as Prohibition agents for the mayor of Trenton, had received a tip from Clem Radabaugh, a farmer working the old Augsburger place in Woodsdale, that someone had built a still on his property. They had even drilled a well so they wouldn’t have to haul water. On Wednesday, September 3, 1924, they investigated the site, found a 100-gallon still and twenty barrels of corn mash. No one was tending the distillery, at least as far as they could tell, so they left it, going back the next morning to find it still unattended.
Around noon, they dropped in on Patrolman George Williams of Middletown, who had helped them out on previous raids. Although he had worked the midnight shift and had not slept since he he got off duty at 6 a.m., Williams decided to go along.
Williams was a bit of a celebrity in Middletown. A couple of years earlier, he single-handedly thwarted the robbery of a Middletown drug store, killing two of the bandits and clipping a third one’s ear with a bullet. For his effort, Williams was rewarded with a bullet in a lung and an adoring community that raised nearly $2,000 to see him through his convalescence.
The trio left Middletown around 1 p.m., stopped to gas up Skinner’s Hudson, and arrived at the cornfield a little after 2 p.m.
They climbed a fence and made their way along the edge of the cornfield. When they reached the clearing where the still had been set up, they saw two men tending it. But the men saw them, too, and they started running in different directions. Williams and Skinner both yelled for the men to halt. Williams followed one. He would testify that he was about fifty yards into the race when he heard shots fired. Another hundred yards and he decided to give up the chase and return to the scene. There, he saw a wounded man lying face-down on the ground about 40 feet from the still. The other two dry agents were standing over him shouting questions, asking him who the other man was and who owned the still. The wounded man, Tony Sundo, 29, refused to answer.
They carried Sundo to the road. Williams went to fetch the Hudson and he and Skinner drove Sundo to Mercy Hospital at the wounded man’s request, even though the Middletown hospital was closer. Sundo also requested that they not drive fast because of the pain. Anderson stayed behind to look after the scene.
Sundo, an Italian by birth and by trade a papermaker in a Franklin mill, had served in the United States Army and had fought in France during the war where he had been gassed, which had compromised his health. His brother would testify that Tony could only work seven or eight months at a stretch before he would “swell up” and would have to lay off until he got better.
It was not the first time Sundo had been shot by Prohibition agents. In July 1921, he tried to interfere with a raid on a still allegedly operated by his brother Joseph, and in a grapple with Coke Otto constable Dave Spivey, a bullet went through his arm and through the roof of a car. Sundo preferred charges against Spivey, but when the case was called in court, neither party responded.
Skinner and Williams delivered the wounded man to Mercy Hospital 3:30 p.m.
Coroner Cook, who happened to be in the hospital at the time, removed the bullet from the man’s abdomen, just below the ribs, about six inches higher than the wound of entrance. The bullet struck him just above the hip and just to the right of his spine. Because the bullet had traveled in an upward path, Cook determined that he was either crouching or lying down when it struck him.
The bullet was .32 caliber, the same as Skinner’s gun. Skinner admitted to Cook that both he and Anderson both fired at Sundo but told him, “I don’t know which one of us shot him but I am willing to take the responsibility,” and gave up his gun. Anderson’s gun, as it would turn out, was never handed over for evidence.
Mayor Daub of Trenton informed Sundo’s brother John and John’s wife Georgia of the shooting. John Sundo said the mayor told him his brother was not seriously wounded and that “it was good enough for him.”
“They shot and one of the bullets grazed my arm, and I dropped because I saw they had me. Before I could get on my feet, they shot me again while I was down.”
He also told her that they would “finish him” if he did not reveal the identity of his companion. “You might as well finish me,” he said. “I am dying anyway.”
Sundo would testify that his brother thought he was going to die, but John tried to reassure him. When he came to the hospital the next day he said, “Boy, you look better.”
“No,” he replied. “I am getting weaker. I can hardly see you now.”
When Skinner and Anderson delivered the still to Mayor William Daub at the Trenton jail, “the whole town turned out,” one man said, and the two agents stood around and chatted for a while. Someone asked who they shot. They said they didn’t know. Another man asked: “When you shot, did you shoot to stop or to kill?”
“We don’t shoot to stop,” Skinner said. “We shoot to kill, and we shoot first. We don’t take any chances with anybody.”
Sheriff Laubach arrested Skinner and Anderson on charges of shooting with intent to kill. He brought them to Hamilton for arraignment without taking them to jail. They were arraigned on bonds of $1,000 each, furnished by their lawyer. The newspapers noted those bonds were very low for a situation in which the victim was in critical condition.
After they furnished bond, Desk Sergeant Earl Welch explained that the bond was “day to day” and that Sundo was liable to die. Skinner replied, “Yes, and he is liable to live. We are all liable to die.”
When reporters pressed Skinner for a statement, he said: I haven’t anything to say. Write what you please.”
A reporter asked: Why did you shoot him in the back?
Skinner said, “He had mash and a still.”
Anderson didn’t say anything. Reporters learned that Skinner and Anderson both worked as steel rollers at the American Rolling Mills and only worked as dry agents as a side hustle.
When reporters asked him about the $1,000 bond, Skinner replied, “Why, I got $20,000 myself. I own two houses and a farm.
Skinner showed police a badge indicating he was a deputy marshal of the Trenton court.
It also came out that Anderson and Skinner had been involved in a shooting earlier that year when a squad of Mayor Daub’s officers shot a man in the back while he was handcuffed. The agent involved in that incident was tried before the mayor he worked for and was given a suspended fine.
Going into the weekend, Sundo seemed to be rallying and was resting easily Saturday morning, but a hemorrhage began Saturday evening and he was taken to surgery. Dr. Cook came to the hospital and was preparing to operate, but Sundo passed before he could begin.
John Sundo, the dead man’s brother, went to the police station and signed warrants charging Skinner and Anderson with second degree murder.
The public was outraged. The Evening Journal ran an editorial screaming with a lot of capital letters decrying the death of a veteran soldier at the hands of dry officers: “The Journal is in no sympathy with law breakers, we hold no brief for bootleggers and yet we protest the action of ‘dry’ enforcement agents who ‘shoot to kill’ for such a law violation... IT IS HIGH TIME THAT THE INDIGNATION OF THE PUBLIC TAKE SOME FORM THAT WILL BE EFFECTIVE IN PUTTING AN END TO THE KILLING OF MEN IN THE NAME OF THE LAW.”
Although Coroner Cook charged the dry officers with second degree murder, the October session of the grand jury returned indictments of manslaughter against both men. They plead “not guilty” and went on trial December 8 in front of Judge Clarence Murphy.
The defendants were represented by C.D. Boyd of Middletown and Edgar A. Belden of Hamilton, a former common pleas court judge. County prosecutor P.P. Boli was assisted by former prosecutors M.O. Burns and Ben Bickley.
The morning of the first day was spent selecting a jury, then the state presented and closed its case in the afternoon.
The first witness was George Williams, who had since been promoted to Middletown chief of police. He said that he heard Skinner order Sundo to stop and the shots being fired when he was about 50 yards into his chasing the unidentified fugitive from the scene. He could tell that they were from two different guns, one small caliber, one large. When he returned to the site of the still, he saw Sundo lying on his stomach, face down.
Q: Did he make any statement?
A: He just said he was shot and asked to be taken to the Hamilton hospital.
After testimony from the coroner, several Trenton residents were called to the stand to tell the story of the conversation at the jail when the town turned out to view the still.
The judge allowed John and Georgia Sundo to testify as to Tony Sundo’s statements during his dying days about his treatment at the hands of the dry agents and that he did not believe he would get better.
The state rested its case after Georgia Sundo’s testimony, and former Judge Belden moved for a directed verdict acquitting the defendants on the grounds that the state had not proved its case. When Belden finished his argument, Burns took the floor and began to rebut, but Judge Murphy stopped him, saying no arguments were necessary. He denied the motion, saying that there had been sufficient evidence to show that Skinner had fired shots and that because Sundo was on the ground when shot, he had “ceased to flee.”
Skinner took the stand that afternoon and Anderson the following morning. They both admitted firing shots, but they could not see the fleeing man once he disappeared into the thicket of corn and morning glories. They both said they “shot at the ground” as a warning for him to stop, and both admitted they did not know if Sundo was the owner of the still or not. They were the only witnesses for the defense.
In his instructions to the jury, Judge Murphy said that because only one bullet contributed to Tony Sundo’s death, that only one of the two defendants could be found guilty and that it was up to the jury to determine which one. The only other possible verdict, he said, would be the acquittal of both men. He did not give any instructions as to any other possible charges regarding the incident.
The jury deliberated twenty hours before reporting back to Judge Murphy that they were in a deadlock, seven-to-five in favor of conviction.
When a second jury the following March reached an eleven-to-one deadlock, this time in favor of acquittal, Boli decided to not pursue the case any further. Skinner and Anderson went back to being part-time dry agents.
Originally published in The Hamiltonian, June 2022