William Fabian
When he was eight years old, William Fabian nearly burned to death. “The boy’s clothes had been soaked in gasoline by playmates, who then set them afire”, the newspaper said. A passer-by heard him screaming for help and beat the flames out, saving him from “almost certain death as a ‘human torch’”. William was taken to hospital with severe burns, and the two boys who had been with him -- Benjamin Byro and Walter Krausm, both six years older than William -- were arrested. They explained that they hadn’t set William on fire; they’d been playing with matches, setting fire to a pool of gasoline, and William had been standing too close to the flames. The police released them the next day.
William didn’t learn to keep away from older boys. In 1942, when he was 16, his best friend, John Linonis, was 19. John had a car, and the two boys would spend dark evenings cruising through the towns near their hometown of Sharon, looking for dimly lit homes to burgle. They’d pull up at likely looking targets, knock on the door and break in if no one answered. In New Castle, they stole money and jewellery from E B Hawkins on Moody avenue; a watch from Attorney J W Rhodes on Highland avenue; and jewellery from J A Gilkey on Rhodes place. They threw some of the loot into the Shenango river and pawned the rest in Youngstown. Altogether, they stole thousands of dollars-worth of valuables, from which they made only a few hundred dollars.
The pair were arrested in Franklin, and were sent to New Castle to be charged there, too. They confessed to the string of burglaries and the New Castle police sat them in the back of a patrol car and drove them around town so they could point out the houses they’d hit.
The boys might have hoped that their admission of guilt and co-operation with the investigation would earn them a lighter sentence, but we don’t know if their plan worked; the New Castle News didn’t follow up the story once the boys were returned to Franklin to stand trial.
William was one of three William Fabians in western Pennsylvania who were arrested for larceny in the 1940s. I have photographs of two: the one on this page, and William Henry Fabian, who was arrested in 1947 for stealing grain. The third William Fabian was caught stealing chickens in January 1942. The jewellery thief lived in Mercer county, which is directly above Lawrence county, where the grain thief lived; and Lawrence county is, again, directly above Beaver county, where the chicken thief lived. The three men do not appear to have been related.