The morning of November 15, 1923, was out of the ordinary at the Bank of Patterson in Wayne County. The cashier, Clacy T. Kinder, failed to appear. Kinder had been cashier of the bank since it was organized four years earlier. He also had an interest in an unsuccessful sawmill and sold automobiles on the side. A check with Kinder’s wife revealed that while she was visiting her parents in Piedmont the previous evening, he left a note saying he expected to be away on business for several days. A witness saw him and another man leave in a car about 6 p.m. the previous evening. He notified none of the bank officers of an absence.
Kinder’s disappearance coincided with suspicions by the bank officers that all was not well at the bank. They began an audit and investigation that included sources at Poplar Bluff. The bank promptly closed its doors and determined a shortage of $13,500. The bank was capitalized at $10,000 and carried no surplus. Further, the cashier’s bond had expired the previous month. The search was on for Clacy Kinder.
Authorities finally located him on December 6 in Fresno, California, where Sheriff Wilcox and deputy retrieved him. Earlier, Kinder’s friend Elmer Black returned in the car in which Kinder had left Wayne County, so the sheriff arrested him as an accessory. Kinder wrote a letter to Black, which allowed the sheriff to find him and request that Fresno law enforcement officers arrest him.
Kinder waived a preliminary hearing on embezzlement charges and was released on $5000 bond. He and his wife signed all their property amounting to about $4500 to the bank, including land, a house, and debts owed them. Further investigation revealed Kinder had forged documents at the bank on four occasions as part of manipulations related to the embezzlement. Each resulted in another count and required another $8000 bond for release. The charges of embezzlement and forgery eventually totaled 11.
Presumably because of local sentiment, Kinder’s trial on six of the charges moved to Potosi in Washington County on a change of venue and occurred April 28, 1924. The other five moved to Jefferson County on a change of venue. The jury in Potosi returned a guilty verdict on the first count of forgery, for forging the name of Samuel Fowler, a farmer living near Patterson and depositor at the bank, to a check for $1000. The jury also found Kinder guilty on a second count of forgery. This count involved forging the name of Kate Chilton to a check for $800. Mrs. Chilton was also a depositor at the bank.
His sentence was seven years imprisonment on the first conviction and two years on the second. The jury acquitted Kinder of embezzlement on the first charge, Kinder pled guilty to a charge of receiving deposits when he knew the bank was insolvent, and the state then dismissed the other charges. The state also dismissed the charge of being an accessory against Elmer Black.
Kinder served the two-year sentence, but the State Supreme Court reversed the seven-year sentence on the ground of defective information. By that time, the statute of limitations barred further prosecution. So, Kinder was freed.
Clacy T. Kinder learned his lesson after he served his time. After his first marriage ended, he married his second wife Julia Moore in 1926 in St. Louis, returned to Wayne County, and later moved to Marquand. He was an active member of Baptist churches where he lived. He went into business as a merchant, retired in 1964, and died in 1972.
