WILLIAM B TOWLE

Alias:

Specialties: DOCTOR'S OFFICE SNEAK

No: 106 Last Displayed: 9/14/2020

Description:

Twenty-eight years old in 1886. Born in Australia. Very slim build. Married.Height, 6 feet 1 1/4 inches. Weight, 160 pounds. Sandy hair, blue eyes, sandy complexion. Has scars on the left arm, near the wrist; freckled hands.

Record:

WILLIAM B. TOWLE makes a specialty of robbing doctors' offices. Twenty-seven physicians, all Towle's victims, were present in court in New York City on July 19 1884, to testify that he had entered their offices and stolen medical instruments, etc. His method of operating was the same at nearly all the places which he visited. Sometimes he would dash up to a doctor's door in a cab, and after hastily inditing a note, be left alone in the office and suddenly leave the premises with whatever he could lay his hands on. At one time he was a clerk in a drug store, there becoming familiar with the value of different articles used by physicians and surgeons. He was convicted and sentenced to two years in State prison on August 6, 1884, by Judge Cowing. Towle was recognized in court as a man who in January, 1884, was arrested for assaulting a man named Oliver, in Abingdon Square, New York. It was said at the time that Oliver had found his wife and Towle under suspicious circumstances. For this assault Towle was sent to Blackwell's Island, and was only a short time from there when arrested for robbing doctors' offices and sentenced as above. His picture is an excellent one, taken in July, 1884.