Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Police Sgt. Joseph Daniel had a big surprise when he went to the room of Mrs. Bessie Molde in the Union Hotel to serve a subpoena.

He found Nick Sholdra, 25, in the room, prowling through Mrs. Molde’s belongings – and wearing one of Mrs. Molde’s dresses.

Sholdra was caught in the act of stealing a bird cage and some furniture and setting them on the roof through a window.

His reasons for wearing the dress were not specified. He was arrested for disorderly conduct and robbery and locked up on “heavy bond.”

From the shooting beat: Police still were seeking two suspects in the shooting of a police detective the day before. 

Two suspects had been taken off a freight train, yet now police were not convinced they were the two men who had engaged in a gunbattle after a grocery store robbery.

Police now believed that the two bandits were still at large and were with a “party of highwaymen, yeggs and other criminals moving from eastern cities to San Francisco.”

Also on this date

1983: In a case that drew much notoriety, a woman was gang-raped atop a pool table in a tavern in New Bedford, Massachusetts, called Big Dan’s. Four men were later convicted of the attack.