Chapter 6

RISE AND FALL OF THE SOUTH END GANG

By many accounts, including those of the gang members themselves, the South End Gang was organized by Steve Madaj, a World War I veteran, although his criminal career had started before his enlistment.

He and many other young men and teenagers often hung out in the South End’s Roosevelt Park or in a local pool hall. Madaj was older than most of the others, and they tended to follow his lead.

While he was the kingpin, it was a loosely organized outfit, and many of the young men went out on their own, as did Aloysius Nowak and Ramon Olejniczak, who were involved in breaking and entering homes or businesses, while others strong-armed people for cash. One of the more popular endeavors that occurred all the way into the Roaring Twenties was stopping cars in the street like modern-day highwaymen and robbing the occupants at gunpoint before sending them on their way.

However, according to Bay City historian and author D. Laurence Rogers, Madaj also involved himself in stealing cars simply for joyriding, using them to get them to places around town where they could pull some other jobs, including bank robbery and murder. At any given time, there were ten or twelve members who went out in twos and threes and sometimes larger crews to conduct their thefts and robberies.

One of Madaj’s early crimes was with pal Stanley Delestowicz in the robbery and murder of Franklin E. Parker, and both killers had escaped justice for nearly four years.

Madaj joined Michigan’s 128^th Ambulance Co. from Bay City after America entered World War I. Bay County Historical Museum.

One of the 128^th Ambulance Co. trucks is on display in the Bay County Historical Museum. Tim Younkman.

Madaj enlisted shortly after America entered the war in 1917 and joined the 128^th Ambulance Company of the Michigan National Guard—all Bay County men who went overseas to France and Belgium for the duration of the war. (One of the ambulances used in the 128^th is on display in the Bay County Historical Museum.) Madaj returned home with his unit in early 1919 and lost little time in retaking control of his gang.

The former Bay City Savings Bank on Broadway at Thirty-second Street now is abandoned and in disrepair. Tim Younkman.

While they had plagued neighborhoods with burglaries and some of the smaller shops with break-ins, they also went back to their old ways of stopping autos in the street and robbing the occupants.

The gang moved back up to the big time on Saturday, January 15, 1921, when four masked gunmen entered the Broadway branch of the Bay County Savings Bank, robbing it of $4,380 in cash and several liberty bonds. While inside the bank, one of the bandits opened fire, killing Martin L. Debats, a local grocer, and Labra M. Persons, an agent for New Era Life Insurance Co., both well-known residents of the South End.

Police said the men arrived at the bank in a stolen car and parked it along the Thirty-second Street side of the bank. The car was left running, and all four of the gang went into the bank. Witnesses told police that the four men entered the bank at about 8:25 p.m., just before the bank was to close. One of them, who also was the driver, stepped back outside to act as a lookout. Police suspected there might have been a fifth robber involved, but that never was verified.

Almost at once, gunfire erupted, and the robbers shot down the two men and grabbed any money they saw in the cash drawers before running back outside, jumping into the getaway car. The bandits kept firing as they left, shooting at pedestrians and anyone on the sidewalks, although no one else was hit. Witnesses reported that at least one of the men stood on the running board and kept shooting at people and buildings.

The car later was abandoned near St. James Church on Columbus Avenue. The car, a Buick “big six,” belonged to John M. Miller of Fifth Avenue and Birney Street, where it was stolen from his driveway at about 7:00 p.m. Police said when the car was found, there were two bullet holes in the back seating area that were made by the gunmen themselves as they all shot their guns wildly, waving the weapons in all directions.

Meanwhile, nearby store owners, hearing the gunshots, had called police. Two cars full of officers arrived, while other policemen were deployed to search for the getaway car.

Branch bank manager Fred M. Loll said neither shooting victim had a chance because the gunmen opened fire as soon as they walked into the bank. He said they scooped up coins and paper currency. At the time of the holdup, he and a bookkeeper, William Grimmer, were behind the cashier’s desk. He said Debats had come in with the daily deposit from his store across Broadway from the bank, and Persons had walked in to get change for a twenty-dollar bill. Both customers’ backs were to the door when the men came in and opened fire.

Loll said each of the gunmen held pistols and wore black masks of a shiny material. They ordered Loll and Grimmer to get face down on the floor. After the bandits left the bank, Loll said he immediately called for medical help from nearby doctors. Drs. Roy Perkins and Edward Huckins arrived quickly but found Persons had died, and once they started working on DeBats, he survived only a minute or two before expiring.

Police also said they talked to eight men who were in the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) meeting room in the same building and who had rushed outside to see what was happening as soon as the first shots were fired. They immediately encountered a lookout on the sidewalk who began firing in their direction. Some of them retreated, but two others advanced and ran across the street, bullets flying over their heads. No one was hit, but the bullets penetrated the front wall of a pool hall.

Bank manager Loll said he believed the robbers may have been known to the two victims and surmised that was why they were shot. He said the two men, because of their businesses, knew just about everyone in the South End. It was likely they might have recognized one or more of the robbers, and the robbers knew it.

The police investigators noted that neither of the dead men was robbed and both had their wallets intact in their pockets.

Nuns from a convent near St. James Catholic School told police that they saw the Buick pull up between the school and their new convent and watched five men get out of the car. When police arrived, they said they found the motor was still hot and the doors open. The nuns said the men had run south on Jackson Street.

The Bay City Times-Tribune reported that about the time police found the Buick, a number of self-appointed vigilantes began a search for the bandits. The civilians all were armed with pistols and rifles and recruited more and more people in the South End to join them. All took to their cars and began a block-by-block scouring, looking for anyone out of place or who appeared suspicious.

The problem was that these robbers all were South Enders and resided within a few blocks of one another. Even if the vigilantes saw them, they wouldn’t have been out of place. Police said there were at least one hundred vehicles involved in the vigilante patrols, much to the chagrin of local officers.

The victims were known and well liked by residents in the South End and elsewhere in town. It came as a terrible shock when word spread that they had been killed. They had worked hard all their lives, and to have had their lives snuffed out in an instant on a cold winter Saturday night was intolerable. That’s why the vigilantes took to the streets, even though they hindered police working on catching the bandits.

Martin DeBats, sixty, was one of the best-known businessmen in Bay City, operating his grocery store at 1823 Broadway. He had served as a city councilman and was president of the Valley Home Telephone Co., past president of the Bay City Grocers and Butchers Association, and a member of the Masons, Elks and Odd Fellows. By faith, he was a Methodist. He was married and the father of two sons and a daughter.

Labra M. Persons, sixty-nine, had worked as a young man at a general store in the South End, and then was a traveling salesman for fifteen years before going into the insurance business. He also was a Mason and Knights Templar and attended the First Church of Christ Scientist. He was married and the father of one son.

A reward set up by the banks in town totaled $4,000, and it was raised to $8,500 a day later with pledges from the city and county governments and the Bay City Rotarians.

Still, leads followed by the police had dried up, although they fully suspected the South End Gang of Steve Madaj as being involved. Nothing bad happened in the South End without some or all of the hoodlums from the pool halls and Roosevelt Park being involved.

Bay County circuit judge Samuel Houghton presided over the South End Gang’s hearings and sentencings. Bay County Historical Museum.

It hardly seemed a coincidence that on the day after the robbery, circuit judge Samuel G. Houghton and County prosecutor William A. Collins wanted Madaj brought back to the city.

As it happened, Madaj wasn’t one of the bank robbers because he was serving a sixteen-month sentence in Jackson Prison after having been found guilty in December 1920 of stealing an automobile. Authorities then linked him with an armed robbery of the Standard Oil gas station on Center Avenue and Jackson Street. To expedite the idea, Judge Houghton wrote to Michigan governor Alex J. Groesbeck seeking an executive order to turn Madaj over to the Bay County sheriff to be brought back for trial.

He noted in his letter that most people believed the South End Gang headed by Madaj was responsible for the murders and that if brought here, he might be persuaded to give up the names of those involved.

Meanwhile, the reward was raised to $15,000 with the additional contributions of the Masons, Knights Templar and Kiwanis Club.

Instead of dragging things on with a trial in which the outcome was certain, Madaj decided to plead guilty, or perhaps he made a private deal with prosecutors to disclose information about the bank holdup murderers. In any event, he appeared before Judge Houghton on Monday, January 25, 1921, and admitted his guilt in the holdup of the Standard Oil Station on Center at Jackson on November 19 and the robbery of Breen’s Hardware Store on Washington and Columbus Avenues on November 7.

Prosecutor William A. Collins was quoted as saying Madaj still wasn’t cooperative, claiming that the men with him in those holdups and robberies were from Saginaw and that all he knew them by was their nicknames. Collins said investigators, including himself, did not believe him but held out hope that he would reveal some useful facts.

However, only a week later, the Bay City Times-Tribune trumpeted a break in the bank robbery case with the banner: “Four Local Suspects Taken by Police.” All of them belonged to the South End Gang, and police named them. They were identified as Aloysius “Long Legs” Nowak, twenty, of 1221 South Monroe Street; Ramon “Ole” Olejiniczak, twenty, of 1116 South Monroe Street; Stephen “Cub” Kubiak, twenty, of 1112 South Jackson Street; and Edward “Stinky” Walkowiak, nineteen, of 1306 South Monroe Street.

Authorities said they had tabs on several of the suspects and had followed up on their activities since the robbery, acting on tips that added to the certainty that they were the ones involved. They noted that a couple of the suspects had begun spending money even though they were out of work.

Police said the first one they wanted to take into custody was Nowak and got word to him that the police investigators wanted to talk to him. Seemingly unconcerned, he went to the police station, where he was questioned and then put in a cell. Among his effects was a ticket to a high-priced performance at the Washington Theater that night. Thinking that the other killers might show up at the theater too, officers were sent to find them.

Bay County prosecutor Chester Collins, later a circuit judge, filed the charges against South End Gang members. Bay County Historical Museum.

The police learned from an usher that there was someone in the seat next to Nowak’s vacant one, and officers asked the usher to inform that man that someone in the lobby wished to speak to him. The usher followed instructions, and a minute later, Olejniczak stepped into the lobby and was arrested.

Kubiak was arrested at his home the next morning, and the last of the four, Walkowiak, was arrested while he sat sipping a “soda” in a soft drink bar in the South End.

Two other men also were detained, but no charges were filed, presumably because they were willing to talk. One of them might have been a fifth robber, as police suspected.

In conducting searches of the robbers’ homes, police found many items from a number of robberies in the area, including that of a South End hardware store. Police said the suspects spent money on expensive watches and clothing.

On Wednesday, February 2, detectives, including a private detective from Grand Rapids, elicited confessions from both Nowak and Olejniczak, who were being housed in the Saginaw County jail, keeping them away from the other two in custody. Authorities said Walkowiak, who was housed in the Tuscola County jail in Caro, also confessed to other detectives but that he pointed at Nowak as the leader of the four.

When he was told of Walkowiak’s statement, Nowak admitted to being the shooter, claiming it was the fault of the two victims because they did not put their hands up fast enough. He spoke matter-of-factly about the crime and even said he talked about the news of the robbery with his parents over the dinner table the next night. He laughed when he related how his parents were so angry that they said whoever did the killing should be strung up.

Walkowiak was named as the actual driver of the car because he knew how to operate the high-powered vehicles.

It later was determined by police that Walkowiak entered the bank with the others but then stood in the doorway as a lookout and opened fire on the Odd Fellows members when they emerged from the side door of the building.

Police said the married sister of one of the men came forward with money her brother had given her for safekeeping. She said she told him to put it in a bank, but he said he couldn’t because the police would suspect something was wrong. She told police that bothered her and then she connected the dots, realizing it was the stolen money from the bank robbery. The bag contained about $800.

Nowak said each of the men got $1,000, and Walkowiak was given an extra $100 for driving the car.

Kubiak, aware that the others were talking, finally confessed to Bay County sheriff Theodore Trudell and described the details of the robberymurder, corroborating much of what investigators had learned from the others and from their own probe. He said:

I got acquainted with Steve Madaj at the Lewis Manufacturing Company’s plant where we both worked for about a year. In the latter part of last August we met Walkowiak and Olejniczak, we talked things over and decided the world owed us a living and we were going to get it. All of the boys were out of a job but me and we started out one day feeling gay and someone said we should go on a joyride. We all agreed to this and we went. Nothing happened to us so we thought we would take some more automobiles and were stealing them right along until we decided to do some holdups and wake the town from its slumbers.

He said they broke into Breen’s Hardware to steal guns and ammunition before embarking on the holdup plan. They stole a car at Sixth and Van Buren Streets, and Madaj took the wheel and certainly was in charge of the gang. He said the next night they robbed the Standard Oil station, and afterward, Madaj warned them if any of them got caught to keep quiet—or else. He said they were afraid of Madaj and believed he would kill them if they talked.

A little while later, Madaj was arrested, and all of them were afraid that he might finger them as the robbers instead. With Madaj in custody, Nowak assumed control of the gang, and they decided to hit a bank, debating which one until all agreed on the Broadway bank.

They stole a car and went to the bank, with Nowak jumping out and running up to the door, but he found it locked. They had to wait for the next day.

The gang members stole another car, the Buick, and went back to the bank, but when they looked inside, they saw a number of women in the lobby. Fearing the women would scream, the robbers circled the bank until the women left; however, there still were three men, so they waited another ten minutes. Finally, they could wait no longer since it was near closing time, so they prepared to go in.

He said that Nowak noticed one of the men in the bank was DeBats and that he knew him. He quoted Nowak: “I’ll teach DeBats a lesson for hanging around the bank when I want to transact some business.”

This statement alone seemed to show that Nowak killed DeBats on purpose with premeditation.

An extraordinary court session occurred in the early morning hours of Friday, February 4, 1921, as circuit judge Houghton arranged to hold an arraignment at 1:30 a.m. Given the events of vigilantism right after the bank robbery, the judge wanted to avoid any idea of a lynching and to prevent other gang members from interfering or attempting to break their friends out.

Houghton ordered Nowak, Kubiak and Olejniczak to be brought before him with their attorneys. All three entered pleas of guilty to charges of first-degree murder and were sentenced immediately to spend the rest of their lives in prison at Marquette.

Walkowiak also pleaded guilty to the charge but since he was the driver of the getaway car, Houghton said he would consider the sentence at a later time.

As far as addressing the other three, Houghton pulled no punches: “You know, and knew at the time that you killed the men, that it was a serious crime, and from the statements that some of you have made, it was the most deliberate, cold-blooded offense against humanity ever committed during my connection with this city.”

Once the sentence was handed down, the three felons were taken to a waiting police car, and they were driven to Kawkawlin, where, by prior arrangement, the 2:10 a.m. Michigan Central Railroad train was stopped and waited for the three men to be taken aboard with armed guards.

Even though it was supposed to be a secret session, word had leaked out, and there was a crowd gathered outside the Bay County Courthouse.

The judge clearly was upset at the gangsters’ demeanor since the men smirked and mumbled to one another throughout the hearing. Houghton also brushed aside a complaint from Kubiak’s attorney James McCormick, who said he was not allowed to talk to his client prior to the hearing because no one would tell him where the prisoners were being housed. He was told he had to request a client meeting through the judge because the men were being held secretly to avoid a mob taking them out and hanging them. McCormick was upset but realized there wasn’t much he could do about it.

On the trip to Marquette, Nowak talked to a sheriff’s deputy guarding him, and that’s when he pointed the finger at Steve Madaj as the killer of lumberman Franklin E. Parker in 1916. The deputy reported the accusation to the Bay City police.

On February 5, a day after the early morning court hearing, police chief George V. Davis and prosecutor Collins revealed the arrest of four more gang members in connection with the August 8, 1919 burglary of the Bay City Iron Works in which $4,250 worth of liberty bonds and war savings stamps were stolen from a safe.

Police chief George V. Davis pursued all of the gang members, gathering evidence in numerous robberies and murders. Bay County Historical Museum.

The four men were identified as Joe Pletniak, brothers Steve and Leo Dukarski and Ignatz Nowak, and all of them confessed to the police, Davis reported prior to their arraignment.

The confessions indicated that the crew leader, Steve Kubiak, who had just been sentenced to life for murder in the bank robbery case, had planned the Iron Works job and got a large chunk of the money once the bonds were fenced.

Police said Joe Dukarski was not involved in the actual break-in, but did supply the gang members the combination to the safe and accepted some of the stolen loot.

Only Pletniak waived a hearing and agreed to have his case sent to circuit court. The other three were to face a hearing on the evidence. Bond of $10,000 was set for each man, and all were sent to the jail.

At about this same time, another gang member, Stanley Delestowicz, had been arrested on some petty crime but confessed to police that he was an accomplice in the slaying of Parker in 1916 and named Steve Madaj as the shooter.

He was secretly housed in a jail outside Bay City pending further investigation and court action. It didn’t take long to get warrants because authorities already had the statement by Nowak also accusing Madaj of the murder.

Delestowicz was to be the star witness against Madaj when he went to trial in March. The trial ended with a conviction of first-degree murder, and Madaj was sentenced to two life terms in Marquette.

At the time of his sentencing, Judge Houghton also sentenced Walkowiak to twenty-five to fifty years in prison for stealing at least five automobiles. All other charges against him were dropped.

Gang member John Poinkowski, eighteen, confessed and pleaded guilty to armed robbery charges in connection to several cases in which citizens were robbed and at least one was wounded. Poinkowski said Aloysius Nowak was the leader in the holdups and break-ins of several stores.

But the gang wasn’t finished. On April 23, 1923, Madaj and fourteen other inmates instigated a daring escape from Marquette Prison, and he made his way back to Bay City. Despite the fact that authorities were on the lookout for him, he eluded police.

Two months later, on June 18, Madaj and his gang struck. At 2:15 p.m., he and another gang member walked into the Bay County Savings Bank branch on Kosciuszko Avenue and announced it was a holdup. A third gunman acted as a lookout near the getaway car.

They tied up the cashier, identified as Michael Dardas, using a piece of wire and ordered two clerks and four customers into the bank’s vault, and the door was closed. Reports indicated Madaj got away with about $4,000 in cash. Later, Dardas told police one of the robbers was Madaj, whom he recognized. Several of the customers also identified him.

The bandits fled in a new Hudson touring car, speeding away east. Madaj probably didn’t realize that the vault door didn’t lock. Once they had left the building, those inside the vault opened the door and called the police. The car was spotted by a number of people, so police were able track part of the getaway route. The Hudson traveled east on Columbus Street to Ridge Road and continued out several miles turning onto Vassar Road before the trail grew cold. The Hudson was believed to have been stolen from a residence on Hamilton Street in Saginaw a day earlier.

Once the word was out that Madaj had robbed the bank, several friends and relatives told police they had known he was in town, with some indicating it was only for a few days. Police believed he had been in the area the entire time since his prison escape.

Police chief Davis said investigators believed Madaj and his pals were responsible for stealing a number of cars in recent weeks and possibly several break-ins.

As the days and weeks passed, there was no report of Madaj being seen locally. It was possible that he had left the city to lie low in Saginaw or on one of the farms where he had worked as a youth.

Meanwhile, life continued in Bay City, where more news was generated as Christmas approached. Bay City’s history was filled with violence, especially during the lumbering era, but in all those years, not one police officer had been killed. Several had been wounded, but none died.

That laudable record was shattered in the early hours of December 18, 1923, when Patrolman Frank Kowalkowski was gunned down as he was about to call in an arrest in Bay City’s South End.

That area of town had been dominated by the South End Gang for years, but since so many had been arrested, the gang’s stranglehold on the community seemed to have loosened.

The district was a nearly self-contained neighborhood row of shops and businesses including drugstores, butcher shops, grocers, engine repair and other services and retail operations. Kowalkowski himself lived in the Polish neighborhood at 717 South Farragut Street, not far from St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church.

Traditionally, policemen would walk the business areas at night, checking to make sure the doors were locked and no one was hanging around closed businesses.

Broadway today still contains rows of commercial buildings that appear much as they did on the fateful night Patrolman Kowalkowski was murdered. Tim Younkman.

Kowalkowski was a thirty-one-year-old family man, with a wife and eightyear-old daughter, Germaine. He was a lifelong resident of Bay City and had been employed by the city’s Parks Department before becoming a police officer. He had been on the job for only a month, with almost no training or experience. Still, his job was not complicated. He patrolled the Broadway business district, which really started at Fremont Street and ran south for five blocks. At the end of another block was Cass Avenue, where other businesses were located.

On that cold December night, Kowalkowski was on patrol near the Harris Drug Store on the corner of Thirtieth and Broadway. It was after midnight when he noticed movement down Thirtieth Street toward the rear of the store. He hurried along the side of the building to an alley where he saw two men loitering near the door. They had no explanation as to what they were doing there and acted suspiciously enough that he pulled his weapon. He told them that they both would have to go into the police station for questioning. He said they would walk with him to the nearest police call box for a car to come and pick them up.

It wasn’t reported if they had anything in their possession, although it seemed clear they had been attempting to break into the store. It wasn’t known if he checked them for weapons, but common sense and normal procedure would indicate that he did, meaning that neither was armed.

Kowalkowski confronted the two suspicious characters in this alley behind the Broadway businesses. Tim Younkman.

Patrolman Kowalkowski was a rookie, but he grew up in the South End in a tough ethnic neighborhood, many of the youths being first-generation Americans of immigrant parents. However, as tough as he might have been, he was inexperienced and in situations where lawmen are confronted with law-breakers even today, they depend on their training and experience to have the confidence about how to handle them.

It was likely he did not know the pair, but it was odd that he did not write down their names or at least ask them to identify themselves.

Standard procedure today would have required the two in custody to at least be handcuffed together, but they were not. Instead, he marched them back up to Broadway and began the trek south six blocks to the police call box at Cass Avenue. On that route, they would have passed three blocks of businesses and a few apartment houses and then the east edge of Roosevelt Park between Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth. The park was a well-known hangout for the South End toughs.

At about 1:10 a.m., they had reached Thirty-fifth Street, a block from the call box, when, it seems, one of the men lagged for a few seconds. As Kowalkowski slowed down to allow the suspect to catch up, someone moved up behind him with a .32-caliber automatic pistol and fired at least seven shots. Four of the bullets struck Kowalkowski, one below each shoulder, one in the heel and the fourth in the side. Another shot hit a metal button and didn’t penetrate through. Officials later said two of the bullets were steeljacketed and went through his body.

This is where Kowalkowski fell at Broadway and Thirty-fifth Street after being shot four times. Tim Younkman.

Kowalkowski, with four bullet holes in him, wasn’t killed instantly and staggered all the way across the street before he fell. He had the energy to raise his own weapon and fire at the men running away from him, but the bullet missed. He then fell back down in excruciating pain, unable to move.

A woman living nearby heard the gunshots and looked out her window. In the dim street lighting, she could make out someone on the ground and called the police station to report it. When officers finally arrived, they helped get him to Mercy Hospital on South Water Street, where he was treated by Dr. V.L. Tupper. Kowalkowski lingered for a few hours but expired at 8:25 a.m. with his wife at his bedside.

Prior to his death, Kowalkowski had remained conscious much of the time and was able to say he had two youths in custody, though he had not gotten their identifications nor could give a good physical description of them. He said he wasn’t sure which building they had broken into, but he thought they had been into one of them in that block.

Police began searching the neighborhood but turned up no suspects. At dawn, they began retracing Kowalkowski’s steps from Thirtieth Street, where he had encountered the two youths.

Operating on the belief that there had been a burglary in that block, officers discovered Hohes Hardware Store had been entered through a skylight. They removed the frame in hopes of finding fingerprints. It was learned that a number of .22-caliber cartridges and some pliers were stolen.

Police chief Davis searched the area of the shooting and discovered seven .32-caliber shells. He said he also found one of the steel-jacketed bullets that had hit the button on Kowalkowski’s jacket and was stopped.

Neighborhood residents said they heard shots—some said five, some more—and that they heard men running away to the east and then north. Once again, people looking out their windows might not have seen much. Streetlights were on, but they were spaced out and didn’t provide as much illumination as today.

Officers found three youths in the area and brought them into the station for questioning after finding one had a .22-caliber pistol on him. However, the police did not believe these three were involved and released them.

Police chief Davis spoke of Kowalkowski’s character: “He was a clean young man and a very good officer. He was anxious to become a police officer and was developing into a very capable and able patrolman. He died in the performance of his duty.” Other officers on the force also praised his work ethic. In his memory, the flag in front of city hall was lowered to half-staff.

At first, it was believed Kowalkowski had been struck three times; it wasn’t until Coroner Henry M. Simon had conducted an examination of the body that it was learned that Kowalkowski actually had been struck by a fourth bullet, entering the body on the right side and passing through to the left breast.

A friend of the officer told reporters that Kowalkowski remarked on the day before the shooting, possibly in a joking matter, about his assignment: “I’ve got a bad beat now. I’m liable to get shot up.”

The news spread throughout the state, and three men were arrested in Flint. When detectives went there to interrogate them, they discovered the three were black and had no connection to the Bay City crime. Officers also were informed that three Bay City youths were picked up in Lansing, but it turned out that they had gone there looking for work and also had nothing to do with the murder.

Bay City investigators were convinced that it was a youth or two who had broken into the hardware store because they found the stolen items stashed in a woodpile in the Hansen-Ward lumberyard. The determination was made due to the type of cheap things stolen, including safety razors, two cheap and one better-grade harmonicas, fifteen small jackknives, several hundred rounds of .22-caliber bullets, a couple flashlights and a mantel clock.

It was likely that the youths apprehended by Kowalkowski had broken into the hardware store, taken their loot to a prearranged hiding spot and returned to the alley to break into the drugstore.

On December 22, more than one thousand people attended the funeral service in St. Stanislaus church and, in long lines outside, offered comfort to Kowalkowski’s wife and daughter. They all traveled to St. Stanislaus Cemetery on Columbus Avenue for the burial. Observers remarked on the large contingent of police officers from the area in the funeral procession, along with many city officials.

Kowalkowski was raised in the South End and attended St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church and school. He was the son of John and Rosa Kowalkowski of 2419 Fraser Street. He had two brothers and a sister.

The investigation dragged on as Christmas came and went. So did Easter Sunday 1924 and the Fourth of July. Another Christmas went by. There were no suspects and no solid leads.

All the police had was a belief that the youths most likely belonged to the South End Gang.

A half century later, the police were called by a man who said he was dying and wanted to clear up the policeman’s murder. He claimed it was his brother who committed the crime, although the brother was deceased. Police checked into the claim, but nothing definitive came of it.

However, another theory has been forwarded by Bay City author D. Laurence Rogers, a former newsman who has penned a number of books on local history, including a study of the famous Birney family. He also has delved into the stories of the notorious South End gang.

So, who was in the park that early December morning? Who was so vicious as to shoot a police officer not once but seven times in the back, mortally wounding him?

Rogers said he believes Kowalkowski was gunned down by Steve Madaj, who still was the boss of the South End Gang, even though he had been sent to prison for murder in 1921.

“I think it was Madaj who came up behind Officer Kowalkowski and shot him numerous times,” said Rogers pointing to his considerable research into Madaj.

The scenario could very well have been that the two youths Kowalkowski had in custody were gang members and knew where Madaj was hiding after his prison escape and the bank robbery.

Rogers said he believes Madaj saw the policeman marching the two youths up the street and realized that, if they were taken into the police station, they could very well spill the beans about him, which could lead to his capture. The easiest way to stop that from happening was to take out the policeman before he could get to the call box to phone in the arrest and get backup to come to the South End.

Madaj certainly would have had the steel-jacketed bullets needed to take down a man, even with the smaller-caliber .32. After shooting him repeatedly, knowing he hit him four or five times at least and seeing him drop, Madaj and the others ran off. Although Kowalkowski managed to fire a round at them, they had to believe he would be dead before anyone reached him.

Rogers said the scenario is just a theory, although it fits with everything that happened that night. It also matches Madaj’s vicious reputation. The fact that Madaj was a coldblooded killer, Rogers said, just adds fuel to the idea that he could kill a policeman without a second thought.

In any event, Madaj eventually found his life of crime in Bay City coming to an end. He was captured at the home of a relative on October 17, 1924, nearly eighteen months after his escape, and was the last of the fifteen men who broke out of Marquette prison. He also was suspected of killing a Munger farmer before his capture, although he was not charged.

Madaj wasn’t done making news. On July 10, 1931, he and another inmate, Detroit gangster Eddie Weisman, who helped him break out the first time, were caught attempting another prison escape.

Authorities said the two men had improvised explosives and several guns but were found out before they could make use of them.

In 1962, Governor John B. Swainson granted a request to release Madaj from prison after serving forty-one years. Swainson was lobbied by former army buddies of Madaj to release him since he had served in World War I. It was an election year and Swainson agreed, perhaps hoping for some veterans’ votes and those of Michigan’s Polish community.

Bay City’s Violet Eichorn, who was a teenager when Madaj was captured in 1924, wrote to him in prison and waited for him to be released. They were married following his release, and both lived into the 1980s. They are now buried side by side in Elm Lawn Cemetery.