Have women been obsessed with true crime and bad boys for 100 years? Just ask the 'Dakota Desperado'

Jul. 3—He hardly looked like someone you'd call "The Dakota Desperado."

With blondish/red hair, a boyish face, and just 140 pounds on his 5-foot, 9-inch frame, Edwin Rust was not a scary-looking guy. But around Independence Day 1923, he had people in North Dakota and Minnesota nervously looking over their shoulders while they were lighting their fireworks.

His short life began in Grand Forks but ended in a barrage of bullets following a crime spree through the upper Midwest that summer of '23. Even his funeral was intriguing and attracted hundreds of women he had never met.

Little Edwin Rust was born in the heart of Grand Forks in November of 1899, the son of a Norwegian immigrant laborer and sometimes railroad foreman and a Wisconsin-born mother who took in other people's laundry to help make a living. The family was large. He was the sixth of seven children.

Life couldn't have been easy. Many mouths to feed and not much money coming in. Newspaper reports suggest Edwin, who now called himself Eddie, hit the road when he was still a teenager and headed for Boise, Idaho. But soon after he moved he got into trouble. He was just 19 when he pleaded guilty to grand larceny for stealing cars. He was sentenced to up to 14 years in prison but was paroled after only a year.

When he was 20 years old, he and his new bride Lavon set off for California and perhaps a fresh start. But it wouldn't last long. While he was working as a machinist, he once again dabbled in automobile theft, just like he had done in Idaho. He was caught, prosecuted and sent to Folsom Prison in San Bernadino in April of 1921 to begin serving his multi-year sentence.

However, the prison made famous by

Johnny Cash's 1955 song

wouldn't be his home for long. He was paroled by 1923, but obviously not reformed. He was back to his old tricks. Authorities say he stole a car and headed back home to the northern plains.

By the early summer of 1923, Rust was back in the Dakotas, specifically Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he was attracting a lot of attention for his brushes with the law.

Newspapers called him a "Desperado" who was terrorizing Aberdeen with a number of nighttime holdups. He was eventually captured and sent to jail, charged with five robberies. But according to reports "he sawed his way to freedom," cutting the bars of his cell and hitting the road again. Authorities eventually tracked him down in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, where his wife Lavon had moved in with his mother Caroline.

Brown County Sheriff I.C. Fulker traveled up to the northern Red River Valley himself to bring his fugitive back to Aberdeen. Rust was wanted for larceny, jailbreaking, forgery, and violating his parole. According to one newspaper report, "Rust was regarded by Aberdeen authorities as one of the most dangerous men ever held in jail there." They believed he was the leader of a gang of gunmen.

Sheriff Fulker took extra precautions to arm himself as he took Rust back into custody and back to Aberdeen. The two men boarded a southbound train out of Grand Forks.

The trip to Fargo was uneventful, but shortly after the train pulled out of town, Rust took action.

Around 10 p.m. near Wolverton, south of Fargo, Rust, shackled in handcuffs, hit the sheriff on the back of his head, crushing his skull. When the sheriff fell to the floor of the railcar, Rust grabbed the lawman's gun and shot him through the heart. The sheriff was dead.

He then turned the gun on another passenger, a traveling salesman, demanding the man grab the handcuff keys out of the sheriff's pocket. Later, the man said he did so, but because he was nervous, hands shaking, he couldn't get the shackles off of Rust. So Rust, still handcuffed, just leaped off the train, setting off a manhunt that would last the rest of the summer.

About a half-mile east of where Rust is said to have jumped off the train, he held up Fred Olson, a milkman from Dilworth. Olson said he didn't know how Rust had gotten out of his handcuffs. But when he got in the milk truck, Rust said, "I'm not going to hurt you." But he demanded the money Olson had on him ($1.50 in change) and his hat since Rust told him he left his hat on the train. He also demanded that Olson take him back to Moorhead.

Olson said Rust got out of the car about a block from the Moorhead Police station and disappeared into the night. Olson went to the station and reported the crime. Posses were organized in both Dakotas and Minnesota.

They suspected Rust might hang tight in Moorhead for a while or walk north along the banks of the Red River to go back to his wife and mother in East Grand Forks. Another theory was that Rust would hop on a train to the Twin Cities and disappear into the big city. People all over the region were frightened and maybe just a little curious about what "The Dakota Desperado" would try next.

In the newspapers that week of Independence Day, news of a "murdering bandit at large" was printed alongside news of July 4th festivities. (As is the case with many crime stories from the past, newspapers didn't seem to follow the "innocent until proven guilty" principle by using words like "alleged" or "accused of." ) Not knowing exactly where Rust was might have made some people a little nervous as they tried to mark the holiday.

As the days and weeks wore on, the posses had little luck finding Rust despite some reliable sightings, one of which was in Little Falls, Minnesota, just two days after the murder of Sheriff Fulker.

Deputy Hubert Frissinger noticed a man lying down on top of a car of a freight train. He climbed on top of the car to investigate. When he flashed a light, the man opened fire. A bullet whizzed through the deputy's hat but did not hit him. The lawman fired back and later said he believed he struck the man in his shoulder. A second bullet appeared to knock him off the train, where he then fled into the woods.

Newspaper reports said witnesses confirmed it was Rust.

"Several hoboes taken from a Northern Pacific train were shown pictures of Rust and absolutely identified him as the man who rode with them into Little Falls."

It's believed Rust, now wounded, somehow stole a car in Little Falls and again alluded authorities.

The next reliable sighting happened in Detroit Lakes on July 14, when a farmer named John Andreasen said he talked to a man who looked like Rust. When he asked him if he was looking for work, the young man took off running through a cornfield.

Other sightings were reported in Mankato and Albert Lea.

By July 24, the U.S. government got involved in capturing the fugitive that some were comparing to Jesse James. The Department of Justice issued an order to capture Rust "Dead or Alive." Agents were assigned to find him and tens of thousands of "Wanted" posters were printed.

By Aug. 17, Rust's luck was starting to run out. And in a stroke of dumb luck, law enforcement got a big break.

Authorities in St. Paul had just arrested a young couple who had driven into a garage in what they knew to be a stolen car. What police didn't know was that the young man they arrested was Edwin Rust. Reports indicate Rust was using aliases including Roy James, Peter Thorson and Peter Carson.

While sitting in the back of the police car en route to the police station, the handcuffed Rust managed to bolt out of the car and flee into an alley. The police didn't find him. But they did find the handcuffs from which the Houdini-esque Rust managed to free himself.

But Rust's female companion, a woman that newspaper stories said he was attempting to woo, started talking. She told police who Rust was and even where he was living.

When St. Paul police officers pushed open the door to Rust's Dayton Avenue apartment, they were met with two gunshots, but neither hit the officers. They shot back, hitting Rust in the neck, chest, and hip. He died almost instantly. He was just 23 years old.

Upon seeing him, it was clear why he had alluded the law for so long. The reddish/blond baby-faced Rust had dyed his hair black and after weeks on the run appeared more haggard.

His father told authorities that they would not attempt to bring Eddie's body back to East Grand Forks. He would be buried in St. Paul. But Edwin Rust's story, even in death, continued.

Rust is buried in Elmhurst Cemetery in St. Paul, in an unmarked grave, which is interesting considering how popular and well-attended his funeral was that late August day in 1923.

According to a story in the Minneapolis Star from Aug. 23, 500 women flocked to Rust's funeral, despite the majority of them not knowing him personally.

"The crowd of women, morbidly curious, filled the undertaking parlors to overflowing, and then crowded the street from curb to curb until police had to clear a way for the volunteers."

As Rev. A. Norden read scriptures over the casket, the unknown women reportedly wept alongside the burial plot as Rust's wife might have wondered why they were there.

"They did not know Rust, but they shed tears over his bier as though he were a relative and the young wife, sorrowing, wept the more bitterly for their intrusion."

What was it about Edwin Rust that attracted the 500 strange women to his funeral? It's hard to say. Were the women attracted to the handsome young man with the bad boy persona or did his boyish face make them feel motherly toward him? Maybe it was a little bit of both. Perhaps, these women were the Dateline-loving true crime junkies of their day. It's hard to say.

The funeral was also notable for a crisis averted.

During the service, a car parked on a nearby hill began to roll down the hill toward the crowd and the grave. It started picking up speed and crashed into a drainage ditch just a few feet away from Rust's grave and the huge crowd of mourners.

People were frightened, but no one was injured. It might have even added to the intrigue of his legend.

Maybe Eddie Rust, the boy from Grand Forks, who chose a life of crime from Idaho to California to the Dakotas and Minnesota, "The Dakota Desperado" just wanted to go out with a bang.