Robbery at Elon College!
Miriam Pace – volunteer in Archives
July 29, 2011
Time: 3:00 a.m.
Date: Monday, December 1, 1952
Place: Elon College Business Office
The sound of breaking glass and loud banging on steel…what was happening? Thieves were trying to break into the safe! At 8:00 a.m. when Mrs. E.B. Huffines (acting treasurer of the college) came to work, the break-in attempt was discovered. The business manager, W.E. Butler, called the sheriff who soon arrived at the scene.The sheriff said the job had all the earmarks of two or more professionals. They gained entry by breaking a window in the office of the treasurer. They knocked the knobs off the big steel door, and then tried to punch out the works inside the lock. The thieves never got the door open into the vault, which they thought contained receipts and money from student registration for the new semester. However, the safe was virtually empty—as all the money had been deposited the previous Friday afternoon, and what was left had little value (for a thief). Maybe the thieves needed to be better educated in their chosen profession and this was as close as they could get!
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