This was not your best criminal mind at work. At one o’clock in the morning of February 22, 1931, fifteen-year-old Paul Bryan entered Bill Lewis’ restaurant in Wendel. (It no doubt operated twenty-four hours day to accommodate the railroad workers.) He asked the night clerk for some onions. The clerk went into the store room to fetch the onions. When the clerk returned Bryan and the store’s slot machine were missing. In a short time Bryan returned for the onions. The clerk obliged with the onions and when Bryan left, the authorities immediately notified.
At daybreak, Sheriff Jim Leavitt spotted the young man in the railyards trying to board a freight train. He was arrested on the spot. About a mile from the restaurant the slot machine and bag onions were found. The slot machine had been chopped opened with an axe, the money all gone.