Monday Mystery: Camp Hancock Army blanket theft scheme unravels after murder threat

Augustans in 1919 were presented a story of many parts.

It featured purported theft on a grand scale, an attempted murder, fake identities, military deserters and women who may have betrayed them. There was also a blackjack in there somewhere.

It not only began with a mystery but ended with one.

And it seemed to be about blankets.

Augusta was changing in April 1919. The Great War in Europe was over. The boys were marching home. The Spanish flu quarantines had ended and the U.S. government was closing down its sprawling Camp Hancock Army base out on Wrightsboro Road.

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In March, The Chronicle reported that the Army had "enormous quantities" of military clothing and dry goods it wanted to get rid of. There was so much, the city's Board of Commerce met to discuss its competitive impact on local merchants.

It was considerable.

The Chronicle reported the stash included: 170,000 pounds of flour, 50,000 pounds of beans and 40,000 pounds of sugar. There were also canned peaches, canned tomatoes, canned peas and cheese.

But wait! There's more!

They also had 40,000 pair of men's underwear, 52,000 pair of gloves, 3,000 rain slickers and 50,000 wool blankets.

Army blankets were popular because they were useful, versatile and they lasted.

You can still buy a 1918 Army wool blanket on eBay and they don't cost that much. Produced by government contractors under general specifications, the 5-foot-by-7-foot olive drab blankets became common in many homes.

Enter the criminals.

Authorities would say three former soldiers with Camp Hancock connections began to deal in black market bedrolls. They were initially identified as Richard G. Jones, Edward H. Neiditch (spelled three different ways in newspaper stories) and Army Lt. R.J. Dietz. The latter had hired a cab driver named F.C. Edmiston, and had run up a taxi bill over $300. The driver wanted his money.

Dietz said they had to get the cab fare cash from a man he called "Lt. Roy," later identified as Jones.

He asked the cabbie to take him and Neiditch to a house on Greene Street, but "Roy" wasn't there. They had better luck at a rooming house on the 600 block of Broad Street where they found him. The three men then got into the taxi: Dietz in the front with Edmiston, and the other two in the back. They asked the cabbie to drive back to the Greene Street rooming house, so they could "square up" with his fee.

That's where Edmiston said he took them, and just as he parked his cab, he was struck from behind with a blackjack, courtesy of "Lt. Roy."

Edmiston later told police he was dazed and semi-conscious as they dragged him into the back seat, then drove around town discussing how to kill him.

When the vehicle slowed to turn down the isolated Lovers Lane in east Augusta, Edmiston bolted from the cab, ran into the woods and made his way back to town to alert the law, and the law moved quickly.

'Very clever sleuth work'

The cops soon found Edmiston's abandoned cab. The taxi driver also took them to the Broad Street rooming house where they found "Lt. Roy," who turned out to be Richard G. Jones. With him was his new bride, the former Thelma Mole whom Jones had married in Recorders Court the day before. The cops took her to jail, too, but then let her go after deciding Jones had only involved her as part of an alibi.

Using what The Chronicle called "very clever sleuth work," the police captured Neiditch as he walked down Ninth Street. A search of his rooms at 1010 Broad St. turned up a just-delivered trunk and it was filled with Army blankets.

That left only Dietz on the lam and it looks like the jailbirds were singing.

Police now told The Chronicle that Dietz was not a discharged Army officer, but a Camp Hancock deserter implicated in some bad check business and the thefts of "several thousand" Army blankets.

Neiditch and Jones were both described as officially discharged Camp Hancock soldiers who had stayed in Augusta after their service ended.

A few days after the attempted murder of the cab driver, The Chronicle would later report, Dietz sent an unidentified woman driving a Cadillac to the Camp Hancock military police office with a message for a "Sergeant Doyle." Dietz needed money and the sergeant was to bring it to him. The newspaper said the sergeant played it straight and reported this request to his lieutenant, who advised him to go through with the meeting.

He did, dropping in on Dietz at 109 Watkins St. on Saturday night, April 19. The sergeant took a squad of military police with him and invited several Augusta cops, as well.

Dietz was quickly arrested and the Army turned him over to local police, who said he confessed to the incident involving the cab driver, but knew nothing about the thefts of thousands of Army blankets.

A week later, Jones, the man said to have wielded the potentially lethal blackjack, was released from jail on $1,000 bond, while Dietz and Neiditch remained prisoners.

Many questions remain

By now we've reached the end of April 1919 and we are ready for some answers.

What happened to Dietz, Neiditch and Jones? And why did the newspaper spell "Neiditch" three different ways?

Who was the woman in the Cadillac? Why didn't Dietz use it instead of hiring a cab?

Did the cab driver know more than he let on? He said he was owed more than $300. Using the standard 30 cents per mile scale of a Chicago taxi in 1920, that comes to more than a 1,000 miles.

Why did Dietz think the sergeant at the camp police station would bring him money?

What was Jones' courthouse marriage to Thelma Mole really about?

That brings us to our final mystery. After April 1919, the newspaper's digital archives don't mention the case or any of its participants.

There are many stories about Hancock hijinks: morphine missing from the camp hospital, vehicle thefts that ended up in federal court, but nothing about the blanket bandits.

It's a mystery or perhaps a century-old coverup.

Bill Kirby has reported, photographed and commented on life in Augusta and Georgia for 45 years.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Army blanket theft scheme unravels after murder threat: Monday Mystery