Robbery of the Rozier Bank of Ste. Genevieve

Shortly after ten a.m., November 1, 1939, two men stopped their car outside the Rozier Bank of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, left the engine running, and entered the bank. Unmasked and armed with shotguns, they ordered four bank officials into the vault, and two customers, who strode into the bank about that time, were also forced into the vault. While one of the bandits stood guard over the hostages, the other began ransacking the tills behind the cashier cages. One of the bank officers was able to sound an alarm located inside the vault, and the robbers fled with about $2,200.
Sheriff Lewis Ziegler and Ste. Genevieve city marshal Henry Drury responded to the alarm and took up the chase as the robbers fled south out of town. In an effort to outdistance their pursuers, the bandit pair ran their car into a ditch just as they turned onto a farm-to-market road on the outskirts of town. The officers came upon the car almost immediately, and Drury jumped out of the lawmen's car with Ziegler right behind him. The bandits opened fire with a shotgun and a rifle, and Drury returned fire with his revolver, but Ziegler's revolver jammed. Drury was struck by a shotgun blast, and he and Ziegler both fell back. Seizing the opportunity, the robbers jumped into the officers' car and took off. Drury's injuries were considered severe at first, but a few days later he was on the road to recovery after numerous buckshot were removed from several parts of his body at a St. Louis hospital. The abandoned bandit car was identified as having been stolen the previous night from a citizen living about five miles south of Ste. Genevieve.
Meanwhile, the robbers continued their flight, and area law enforcement officers were alerted to be on the lookout for the two. They were spotted an hour or two after the holdup as they sped into Arcadia, about fifty miles southwest of Ste. Genevieve, and turned south on Highway 21 (present day Highway 72). Two state troopers gave chase, and a running gun battle at speeds exceeding 70 miles an hour ensued. The robber who wasn't driving hopped into the back seat and exchanged fire with the trooper who was riding shotgun in the pursuing state patrol car. About thirteen miles south of Arcadia, the bandits ditched their car and took to the rugged woods and hills near Glover.
A manhunt was organized, and the next morning a railroad signalman reported to authorities that he'd seen a man who was walking along the tracks near Piedmont take to the woods when the train approached. The man was arrested about noon at the depot in Piedmont, where he was trying to buy a ticket to Poplar Bluff. Identified as 34-year-old Patrick Palmer of Cape Girardeau, he admitted under questioning that he had participated in the bank holdup. He implicated ex-con Clifford Pyles of Ste. Genevieve as the "fingerman" in the robbery, and the 29-year-old Pyles was arrested the same day. Pyles admitted that he had suggested the Rozier Bank as a target and helped plan the crime. The man who had actually helped Palmer pull off the holdup was identified as Eddie "Red" Haggert, but he remained at large.
On November 4, Palmer pleaded guilty, and later in the month he received a sentence of 15 years in prison. Pyles initially pleaded not guilty but later changed his plea to guilty, and he also received 15 years in the big house.
Meanwhile, it was learned that Haggert's real was Marvin Atkeson, and he, like Pyles, was an ex-con. Atkeson was arrested on November 6 in Augusta, Arkansas, for carrying a gun, but he was not identified as a participant in the Ste. Genevieve bank robbery. Put on a detail to work off his fine, he escaped and was not caught again until April of 1940, when he was taken into custody at Fort Dodge, Kansas, on a public drunkenness charge. Identified as a wanted man, he tried to slash his throat while awaiting extradition to Missouri, but the suicide attempt was foiled. He was then brought back to Missouri, where he pleaded guilty to the robbery charge and, like his cohorts, received a 15-year sentence.
Newspaper stories at the time of this incident pointed out that it was the first bank robbery in Ste. Genevieve since May of 1873, when the James-Younger gang had held up the Merchant's Bank of Ste. Genevieve, which was principally owned by the Rozier family, the same family that still owned the Rozier Bank in 1939. So, in a sense, the same bank that had been robbed in 1873 was also robbed 66 years later, although it had changed its name and relocated to a building about a block away from the original bank.