Robert Daniels and John West, a pair of 1940s spree killers, cut a trail of devastation in the Buckeye State in 1948 that left six dead. Daniels was born in Nelsonville on April 8, 1924, the son of Robert Sr. and Gertie Daniels. A sheet metal worker by profession, he was initially convicted in juvenile court of vehicle theft at 17. Daniels committed an unarmed robbery of a Waverly grocery store in 1943, was convicted of that offense, served four years, and received parole from Mansfield Reformatory on September 25, 1947. John West was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia on October 25, 1925. He was estimated by psychiatrists to have an IQ around 60 and was arrested in Cleveland three times in 1946 on suspicion of robbery, but in two of them there was insufficient evidence to charge him with anything. That October 23, West was convicted of one count of burglary and got a suspended sentence. He was turned over to Akron authorities three months later and jailed for vehicle theft.West served one year in Mansfield for the vehicle theft. He was paroled March 12, 1948 and intended to head home to West Virginia, but before he did he called Daniels, whom he had met in the prison, then later wrote him inviting him to come visit. Robert Daniels Sr. warned his son that West was bad news, but he dismissed his protests. He left home on June 20 despite his mother's pleas to not go. A mother's intuition proved sadly correct.
On July 3, Daniels and West stole a '47 Pontiac sedan from a parking lot in Columbus, swapped its plates with the plates from Daniels' own car, a '36 Chevy, got a gun, and started drinking together. They next robbed a gas station, beating the attendant over the head to prove they meant businessm and stole $50. Another gas station was robbed for $75, this time with no one being hurt. Deciding they'd better get out of Columbus before getting caught, the duo managed to pass a OHP roadblock without being noticed. They drove out of Ohio and went on a circuitous route through the Midwest, staying in Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Nashville before returning to Columbus once the heat had died down.Late at night on July 9, Daniels and West headed into a restaurant on West Broad Street. Several customers saw their guns and fled. West fired his .45 pistol as a warning shot before they robbed the safe and cash register and fled. They next entered a bar on 5th Avenue through the back door and yelled that this was a robbery. The bar owner, Earl Ambrose, tried to flee, but was shot three times in the back and killed. A female bar patron was shot in the stomach but survived. West and Daniels made off with $8,000 (more than $106,000 in 2025 dollars) from the robbery of the bar (it had a lot of money because the place also cashed checks), but some passerby outside wrote down their license plate number and reported it to police. So far they had gotten away with everything and things were about to get much much worse.
After the July 9 robberies, Daniels and West left Ohio again and went on another circuitous trek around the Midwest that took them to St. Louis, Nashville, and north through Kentucky and Indiana and up to Michigan. Most of this time was spent drinking, picking up girls in bars, and doing small time robberies to support themselves. In Michigan, they decided to enact a plan they'd conceived back when they were in the Mansfield Reformatory. To be specific, Daniels and West wanted revenge on several correctional officers at the prison that they didn't like, especially a certain C/O named Willis Harris. However, they didn't know his home address and figured they could get it from his supervisor John Niebel.It was now July 20 and late at night when they arrived at Niebel's house. Daniels knocked on the door; Niebel answered, and Daniels told him his car broke down and could he please use the phone? Once inside, Daniels took out his gun and West ran in behind him. They ransacked the house and woke up Niebel's wife Nolanda and their 21 year old daughter Phyllis. The original intent was to obtain Willis Harris's address from Niebel and then kill him, but they needed several hours of time before Niebel could inform police. They decided to take the Niebel family across town to a farm field, tie them up, and gag them, which would buy plenty of time. Before leaving the house, Daniel raped Phyllis Niebel and ordered them to their car at gunpoint. Driving west through Mansfield, they ordered the Niebels to undress and throw their clothing out the car window. Once at the cornfield, Daniels realized he had no rope to tie them up, so they marched them way out to the center of the field and shot them execution-style. John Niebel was shot twice in the head, Nolanda in the stomach and head, and Phyllis in the head.
Niebel failed to show up to work at Mansfield Reformatory the next day, so co-workers went to the house and realized something obviously bad had happened. The house was ransacked, furniture overturned, clothes scattered about, and cigarette butts ground into the carpet, although none of the Niebels smoked. More cigarette butts were found behind a clothes hamper. Their next-door neighbors recalled that they heard a car pulling up outside. It was a sticky hot July night and they had been unable to sleep. The car parked about 50 feet from the house; it was a nearly full moon out and in the bright moonlight they could see it was a late model blue and gray Pontiac sedan. Due to shrubbery being in the way, the neighbors couldn't see much else. At 2:00 AM they noticed the car was gone and it was all quiet outside.Police began dusting the Niebels' house for prints and a manhunt was searched for them, but the bodies were found in the cornfield later that morning. Aside from being shot, they had been extensively beaten and it was also apparent that Phyllis had been raped. She lay on her back, face-up while her parents were found in a kneeling position, suggesting they prayed for mercy when they were shot. Shoe prints were found nearby. The murders were quickly connected to the robbery of Earl Ambrose's bar as the same car had been seen at both. Police had the license plate number, but when they ran it, the tags turned out to be for a '36 Chevy. It was thought the plates were been stolen; surely a man committing a crime spree like this couldn't possibly be stupid enough to steal a car and put his own vehicle's plates on it, could he?
As it turned out, it was all that. The '36 Chevy was registered to Robert Daniels and a background check revealed his prior prison record. They visited his parents and they tearfully told them that he had sold his car on June 20 and left "for parts unknown." It was also not long before police received reports of the stolen Pontiac and quickly deduced that it was Daniels' getaway car. They learned from his parents, additionally, about his friendship with John West. The biggest manhunt in the Midwest since John Dillinger 14 years ago was launched and the crime spree made national headlines.Daniels and West meanwhile knew they'd better get out of Mansfield as fast as they could. They went to Cleveland, took a rest there for a day, and headed to Akron where they bought a .30 rifle, then headed to Tiffin on the way to Indiana. On the afternoon of July 22, they pulled into Tiffin looking for a bed & breakfast (in the 1940s these were referred to instead as "tourist homes"). They stopped at a tourist home operated by a Clarence Patterson but he didn't have any spare rooms. His wife called another tourist home on West Market Street and they had some vacancies. Renting a room, Daniels and West slept until 5:00 PM and then ate dinner at a downtown restaurant. After that they went to Hedges-Boyer Park and attended a play called "A Gay Nineties Revue."
By this point, Daniels and West also figured it was time to switch cars and they weren't wrong in their suspicions because a number of people around Ohio had reported seeing the gray and blue Pontiac. They wanted a Buick in particular and after stopping at a root beer stand just north of town on State Route 53, spotted one but a carhop girl got in their way before they could make their move. Across the way was another Buick in which a young married couple, Jim and Rita Smith, were enjoying a root beer together. The Smiths finished their drinks and started off down the road, Daniels and West following behind. A few miles later, they drove in front of the Smiths and forced them off-road. Daniels and West dashed outside and ordered Jim Smith to hand over his wallet. He obeyed and West immediately fired a bullet into his head, killing him instantly.Rita was screaming in a hysterical panic as Daniels forced her into the back seat and jumped in behind her. The Smiths' car had had issues with a sticking left rear door and Rita was afraid she was trapped. She yanked the door handle and it came open, so she bolted from the car and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. West had accidentally left Daniels behind, but he returned to pick him up. Rita ran to the house of a school principal named W.W. Martin and they called police. Detectives arrived and found her in a state of nervous panic; it was some time before she could pull herself together and tell them what had happened. The '40 Buick and her husband's body were 100 yards or so from Martin's house; close enough that he'd heard gunshots. Jim Smith's face was shot half away.
Since the attempted heist of the Smiths' Buick had failed, Daniels and West needed to find another car. Still in the Pontiac, they continued down SR 53, through Old Fort, and over the Sandusky River. It was late now and nearby was a rest stop called the Ironside Inn. There they spotted a carrier truck with five new Studebakers heading for a dealer lot. The driver, Orville Taylor, was asleep in the cab. Daniels woke him up and West led him into some tall grass and shot him in the head. West got into the cab while Daniels got into one of the Studebakers on the carrier. They drove south, back to Tiffin, and west on SR 224 where they stopped at a roadside diner outside Tiffin and had a quick meal. They then stopped at a truck stop for the night.Police meanwhile found the abandoned Pontiac at the truck stop. It was completely out of gas, but the engine was still warm, suggesting the fugitives weren't far away, and John Niebel's driver's license was found in the glove compartment. Someone also found Orville Taylor's body in the grass nearby, clearly dead only a short time. A man who lived across from the truck stop had heard noises outside, like a motor running. The owner of the diner that Daniels and West had just eaten in was interviewed by reporters the next day and said if he saw them in his place, he had a gun under the counter and would "pop them." When the reporters showed him their pictures, his face turned white as a sheet when he realized he'd served them only a day earlier.
Since large tire tracks were found near the Pontiac, it was obvious that they'd gotten away in something bigger than a simple passenger car, although what sort of vehicle it was remained unclear. Orville Taylor had no identification on him and police initially assumed it was the body of Daniels, but after it was taken into the coroners' office and rolled for prints, they proved to not be his. Taylor's proper identification was established a little bit later. Police meanwhile set up roadblocks everywhere along Ohio roads and byways. One reporter for the Advertiser-Tribune found himself stopped at five different roadblocks.And so, it wasn't long before a carrier truck pulled up to a roadblock manned by Sheriff Roy Shaffer of Van Wert County. Shaffer thought something was not right about this. Carrier trucks would typically make deliveries from the Studebaker plant in South Bend, Indiana by going east through Van Wert, but this one was going the wrong direction and heading back towards the Hoosier State. The cars were covered in canvas tarps and Daniels was inside the vehicle on top of the trailer while West drove the truck. He wasn't too worried as he'd already passed three roadblocks today. Sheriff Shaffer asked West where he was from and he replied "Tiffin." Shaffer asked if he had anyone else with him and he said no, but he looked visibly disturbed. Shaffer asked Van Wert PD Sgt. Leonard Conn to cover him with a machine gun while he climbed to the top of the truck and walked the catwalk searching each car.
The Studebaker on the top of the carrier had a slit cut in the covering tarp and Shaffer saw a man inside, several guns in the passenger seat next to him. He yelled "Here's one!" Daniels replied "You have me! Don't kill me, I'll do anything you want!" Down below, shots rang out. West got out of his seat and ducked behind the truck door firing at Sgt. Conn and other officers manning the roadblock. Conn was hit in the chest and fell over, but managed to get off a burst of machine gun fire. One shot hit West's forehead. He was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead one hour later while Daniels was taken into custody.When word got out that he'd been captured, reporters swarmed the Van Wert jail. As police were taking him in, he told reporters in graphic detail about how he and West killed the Niebel family and why he did it. He also confessed to the other murders they'd done. The crowd was angry and began calling for Daniels's head, so the police quickly brought him inside the jail to safety. He was later transferred to the more secure Mercer County jail for fear of a lynching. A total of three jurisdictions wanted Daniels but Richland County was considered the best and most likely choice to get a conviction.
His trial in Mansfield began September 14 and he waived his right to a jury trial; his fate would be decided by a three judge panel instead. The trial was a huge spectacle and most of those in attendance were young women. On one day, a newspaper reporter counted that 87 of the 100 seats in the courtroom were occupied by females, all of whom hung on the handsome-looking Daniels' every word as he egged them on by smiling and winking throughout the trial. However, he quickly came to his senses and realized he could end up in the electric chair so he began changing his story to put the blame for the murders entirely on the now deceased John West. Still later, Daniels claimed he had no memory of shooting the Niebels. His public defender could only offer insanity as a defense. Daniels's parents claimed he had suffered head injuries as a child from being struck by vehicles and was known to stare off into space for hours. His father also blamed everything on the media romanticizing John Dillinger and making a life of crime seem glamorous.On September 18, the three judge panel found him guilty of first degree murder and he was sentenced to death. The execution date was set for January 3, 1949; an appeal was filed a week earlier but the sentence was upheld. Daniels ate a last meal consisting of grape juice, orange juice, coffee, fried chicken, fried oysters, chili, potatoes, limburger cheese, bread & butter and vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, which he split with another inmate. He converted to Roman Catholicism, the switch on the chair was thrown, and he was pronounced dead eight minutes later. Daniels's parents took him to be buried in Union Cemetery in Columbus.
Rita Smith collected a $250 reward from a local newspaper for providing information that led to Daniels and West being identified, but chose instead to give the money to the widow of Orville Taylor and the couple's four young children. She remarried and died in 2004 at age 80, still living in Tiffin.
>>18282842That is a small carrier compared to modern ones.>>18282837Oh well, at least she was ok and lived a good long life.
>>18282847They don't let cops use machine guns anymore.
>>18282851>The trial was a huge spectacle and most of those in attendance were young women. On one day, a newspaper reporter counted that 87 of the 100 seats in the courtroom were occupied by females, all of whom hung on the handsome-looking Daniels' every word as he egged them on by smiling and winking throughout the trial.Kill all women.
>>18282852Imagine living 80 years of your life in fucking Ohio.
>>18282847this was pre-Miranda rights so i don't think today he'd tell a crowd of reporters about all the stuff he did
if they were black this thread would have 97 replies by now
And no good music in 1948 either, just really boring crooner sleepytime tunes.
>>18282837that bitch was ugly
>>18282851Reminder that this psychopathic rapist/killer repented his sins so he will go to Heaven while a just, moral, law-abiding atheist will burn in Hell forever. This is what Christians actually believe.
>>18283535>while a just, moral, law-abiding atheistdoesn't exist
>>18282837>>18282818So this was when America was based and 90% white, huh?
