BRAINERD DISPATCH — The year was 1933, and in the midst of the Great Depression, a slew of bank robberies swept the Midwest, and Minnesota was not immune.
Newspaper headlines in bold black letters tell of five gunmen robbing First National in Brainerd; $5,000 is taken from a Starbuck bank.
And in May of 1933, in the southwestern Minnesota city of Okabena, a team of four — two men, two women — made away with nearly $1,400 from the First State Bank of Okabena.
In the coming years, three people would be tried and convicted for this crime. Three people who, after two years of research, St. Cloud State University Professor Brad Chisholm believes didn’t have a thing to do with it.
