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Guests at the Sterling Hotel in the latter half of 1922 through the first week of January 1923 reported jewelry, watches, top hats, women’s undergarments and currency stolen from their rooms.
The break-ins and thefts came to an abrupt end when one particular guest, John C. Williams, also known as Earl P. Heckman, who billed himself as a traveling salesman, checked out on Jan. 7, 1923.
Williams, 22, boarded the Black Diamond Express train at the Central New Jersey Passenger Station on East Market Street, Wilkes-Barre, and traveled to Easton, where he attempted to sell the stolen jewelry at a jewelry store. With the thefts at the Sterling Hotel being reported in newspapers, the Easton jewelry store owner became suspicious and called police.
Williams was arrested and brought back to Wilkes-Barre by city Police Chief Michael Brown and Luzerne County Det. Richard Powell on Jan. 16, 1923.
“A series of clever robberies by which guests in Hotel Sterling have been robbed of cash, express company money orders and jewelry to the amount of $1,700 in the past three months is expected to be cleared up as a result of the arrest in Easton yesterday of J.C. Williams,” reported the Wilkes-Barre Record on Jan. 15, 1923.
The thefts happened when guests were away from their rooms either attending dinner in one of the hotel’s banquet rooms, shopping around Public Square or taking a leisurely walk along the river common.
The final theft occurred Jan. 6, 1923, when Williams targeted the room rented by an actor who was attached to a stage play at the Grand Opera House on South Franklin Street.
A day after Williams was returned to Wilkes-Barre, he pled guilty to six thefts.
Justice was swift back in those days as Luzerne County Judge John Montgomery Garman on Jan. 17, 1923, sentenced Williams to serve no less than 32 years to no more than 37 years at the famed Eastern Penitentiary in Philadelphia.
“The sentence was a staggering shock to the defendant. He seemed dazed as he was led to a seat and looked about him helplessly. One of the deputy sheriffs tried to cheer him by suggesting a hope that he might be pardoned after a few years but he only saw that his youth and his manhood would be spent behind prison bars and that 30 years imprisonment would leave him a broken old man,” the Times Leader reported Jan. 18, 1923.
It was revealed during Williams’ sentencing hearing that he arrived in Wilkes-Barre after losing all his money to gambling in Harrisburg.
“He was then induced by another gambler to get easy money by getting into hotel rooms,” the Times Leader reported.
Despite Judge Garman’s “unusual stiff sentence,” the Wilkes-Barre Record reported the judge wanted a county detective to investigate Williams’ life.
Known today as a pre-sentence investigation report, a short biography of Williams was presented to Judge Garman in early April 1923.
Judge Garman admitted he made a critical error in imposing the harsh sentence wrongly believing Williams was a hardened criminal from New York City.
“We have therefore concluded to revoke the sentence imposed and we now sentence the defendant, John C. Williams, to pay a fine of $100, the cost of prosecution, to restore the property stolen, if not already restored, or pay the value thereof, and to undergo imprisonment in the Eastern Penitentiary for a term of not less than three years nor more than five years from Jan. 17, 1923, and to stand committed until the sentence is complied with,” the Times Leader reported April 9, 1923.
Williams was pardoned in April 1925.