Heber E. McCord

HEBER E. McCORD was born June 23, 1902 in Elverson PA to Sidney P. McCord and his wife Eleanor D. Pike McCord. He was named after his paternal grandfather. Sidney P. McCord was for many years Camden’s chief financial officer. After a brief stint as a minor-league baseball player, Heber McCord joined the Camden Police Department on April 22, 1924.

Heber McCord married in the 1920s, and lived with his wife Olive in East Camden. The 1936 New Jersey Bell Telephone Directory shows him living at 328 Boyd Street. In 1932 Heber McCord was promoted to detective, and was still in that post in 1947. He was then living at 432 South 6th Street with his father and brothers Merritt and William. Heber McCord moved to 804 W Kings Highway in Mount Ephraim in the mid-1950. By 1959 the McCord family included two sons, Robert and Michael E. McCord. After a 35 year career with the Camden Police Department, Heber McCord and family moved to Pinellas County, Florida in 1959.

Heber E. McCord eventually moved to St. Petersburg FL, where he passed away on October 25, 1974.

Heber E. McCord is remembered by his sons Michael and Robert McCord. Thanks to Michael McCord for his help in creating this page.

Husband Dismissed When Brunette of Sixth Ward Shooting Fails To Appear in Court

Back into the notice of Camden’s Police Court, but not into its courtroom, Katherine Rosalie came today.

The attractive 23-year-old brunette who was known as “Chick Hunt’s girl” during the investigation of the Sixth Ward Republican Club shooting affray a fortnight ago, was to have appeared before Judge Bernard Bertman today to press charges against her husband, John Rosalie, 30 years old, of 1956 South Sixth street.

On January 10, it was made known; Mrs. Rosalie swore out a warrant charging her husband with threatening to kill her. Rosalie was arrested Monday night by Patrolman John Hallowell and the case scheduled for a hearing yesterday. Katherine didn’t appear and the case was postponed until today.

Today when the case was called Katherine was again absent from the courtroom and Judge Bertman sent Motorcycle Patrolman Heber McCord to the apartment house at 311 Cooper Street where the young woman formerly had lived. The officer returned with the information that Katherine had moved, no one at the apartment house knew where. Accordingly Judge Bertman dismissed the complaint against Rosalie.

Police Character Jailed Without Bail; Another Questioned

JOHNSON SEES SOLUTION NEAR

Asserts Witnesses Link Suspect To Crime

Police Believe Bandit Gang Plans of Group Halted by Roundup

Police believed they had frustrated the formation of hoodlum bandit mob yesterday with the arrest of five South Camden youths after a holdup of a grocery store at Tenth Street and Ferry Avenue.

Two of the five suspects were identified by the grocer, John Jacobs, as the bandits who entered his store at 960 Ferry Avenue, held him up at gun point and escaped with $23.95. Jacobs told Detectives Heber McCord and Clarence Arthur that he recognized one of the bandits as Anthony Mona, 19, of 947 South Third Street, a former boxer, whom he saw fighting in the ring, McCord said.

A radio call was sent to all cars to pick up Mona. A short time later, District Detectives Leon Branch and John Houston arrested Mona as he was eating in a restaurant near Broadway and Kaighn Avenue.

After questioning by McCord and Arthur, Mona implicated the others. They are Dominick Spinagotti, 17, of 251 Mt. Vernon street; Vito Brandimorto, 20, of 245 Chestnut Street; Salvatore Martorano, 21, of 344 Cherry Street, and Victor Labato, 19, of 274 Mt. Vernon street.

Mona was searched in the detective bureau. Police found $6.65 in change in his pockets. The others were rounded up at their homes by Detective Sergeant Benjamin Simon and Detectives Joseph Mardino and Robert Ashenfelder.

According to Simon the youths were “just beginning to embark on a career of crime.”

When the others were brought to the detective bureau for questioning, all but $2 of the loot was recovered, Detective McCord said.

McCord said the youths signed statements saying Mona and Labato entered the store while the others waited in Mona’s car outside the store, all fleeing together after the holdup.

State Closes Case Against 2 Men Charged With Pay Swindle Plot

COPS READ STATEMENT

Two men who declare they were the unwitting dupes of a third, who is still at large, went on trial yesterday in Criminal Court before Judge Clifford A. Baldwin. The defendants are charged with conspiracy to defraud tradesmen and others through the use of counterfeit paychecks of the R. C. A. Manufacturing Company.

The defendants are Alfred J. Bittner, 25, of 892 Lois avenue and Benjamin Joie, 25, of Williamstown. The third man, accused by the others as the “brains” of the alleged plot, is George Hickman, now a fugitive.

The State closed its case late yesterday when Detective Thomas Murphy read a statement made to him by Bittner at the time of his arrest. James Mulligan and Heber McCord, two other detectives, said they were present when Bittner made the statement.

According to the document Murphy read to the jury, Bittner said Hickman came to him and asked him to do a printing job. When Bittner heard it was a check job, he refused to take it, saying he did not want to get into trouble.

Refused Printing Job

Hickman went away, returning several days later with material which he asked Bittner to look over. Bittner said he told Hickman the material could be used in a check printing job. Again Hickman asked Bittner to do the work, Bittner said, and again he refused.

According to the statement, Bittner’s reply each time was: “Not interested.” Hickman again appealed to him to do the job, asserting “no one will catch up with you, if you do it.” Finally Bittner said he would tell Hickman about the printing business.

Hickman promised Bittner money for the information, and then came to Bittner’s home and started using his press. Bittner noticed Hickman was printing RCA checks and asked him where he obtained the trademark.

The reply, Bittner said, was: “In Philadelphia.”

Bittner told Murphy he watched Hickman print the checks until about 100 were printed. Several days later, Bittner said, he heard Joie was arrested, and a couple of days later he, himself, was arrested.

Murphy testified under cross-examination a search of Bittner’s home resulted in discovery of four pieces of blank paper “that looked similar to the paper used in the forged checks.”

Murphy also testified Joie said he had been paid $25 by Hickman for the use of his car one day, but that he knew nothing about Hickman’s business or any conspiracy to use the paychecks to swindle victims.

Photograph Identified

James Bennett, Oaklyn grocery clerk, was the first witness. He identified a photograph of Hickman as the man who came in and cashed one of the counterfeit checks. Bennett said he saw no one else in the car. He said he wrote down the license number of the car on the sleeve of his white coat.

Others who identified the photograph of Hickman as the passer of similar checks were: Charles Brodson, 1220 Empire avenue, owner of the Central Liquor Company; Albert Drell, employee of a meat store at 1192 Yorkship Square; David Raphael, chain grocery employee at Haddon and Kaighn avenues; Jules Rosenberg, grocer, of 618 West Maple avenue, Merchantville, and Samuel Kaplan, of a chain store at 1068 Kaighn avenue. Cecelia Rosenberg, wife of the proprietor of a liquor store at 2320 Federal street, was the only victim who could not positively identify Hickman’s picture.

Edwin Bigger, assistant paymaster of the RCA Manufacturing Company, testified the checks were not those issued by his company. Lawrence M. Crowther, an executive of a Philadelphia firm that prints the RCA checks, also testified they were counterfeit.

The trial is expected to continue for several days.

Engraver Testifies

John S. Quirk, 218 North Tenth street, Philadelphia, a designer and engraver, said he had done some work for Bittner. He told how County Detective James Mulligan came to his office when he showed the detective a copy of an RCA trademark cut on which he had worked for a man he said may have been Bittner. Under cross-examination Quirk said the copy shown him in court and the copy also presented for examination, bore no relation.

Edward H. Fritsch, office manager for Ruttle, Shaw and Wetherill, typesetters, said Hickman came to his establishment for type set on three occasions. Joie, he said, picked up one order. He identified some of the type shown him in court as set by his firm. He also identified a style book shown him as coming from his company’s offices.

E. Irving Silverstein, 5503 Pine street, a photo engraver for the Atlas Photo Engraving Company, identified a border on the checks which he said he made up for Hickman.

Chief of County Detectives Lawrence T. Doran told of the investigation. He said he had gone to Bittner’s printing establishment, where he found the stylebook shown in evidence, as well as four blank sheets of paper similar to that used for the bogus checks.

Charged with stealing brass fittings worth $700 from the Noecker & Ake Shipyard, Twenty-eighth Street and Harrison Avenue, Frank Benson, 18, of 637 Linden street, was held in $1000 bail for the Grand Jury by Police Judge Mariano yesterday.

Benson was caught Wednesday by a shipyard employee who told police he waited two hours in the rain for the suspect.

Detectives Heber McCord and Donald Swissler were commended by Judge Mariano after they reported recovering most of the loot.

Camden NJ, July 18 (AP)— New Jersey police scoured the Delaware River waterfront today for two men who shot to death Harry C. Armstrong, 63, a Pennsylvania ferry toll collector, in an attempted holdup Sunday morning.

Detectives Clifford Carr and Heber McCord said Armstrong was shot down as he stepped on a foot button in his ticket office, sounding a siren which brought police and frustrated the robbery.

A watchman said he heard the siren and then a shot, and saw two white-shirted men dart from the ferry gate and disappear up a waterfront street.

Sleuths Vainly Try to Grab Florida Man Who Asked About Status