Early Life and Crime Career
Jarman was born to Julius and Amelia Berendt, the youngest of eight children, in Sioux City, Iowa. She married and had two children with a man called Leroy Jarman. When Jarman left the family, she moved to Chicago, Illinois and worked in odd jobs until she met George Dale. Dale supported her, although Jarman later claimed that she did not know Dale did it by robbery.
On August 4, 1933, Dale, Jarman and Leo Minneci tried to rob a clothing store in Chicago's far West Side. In a struggle with the shop owner, Gustav Hoeh, Jarman clawed at him, but then Dale shot him.
When the robbers drove away, several witnesses noted the license plate. That led police to Minneci, who blamed the other two, who were soon arrested. Dale blamed Minneci for the robbery. Jarman said that she did not know which one did it. She claimed she was in the back room looking for clothes.
However, witnesses described how Jarman and Dale had entered the store and claimed she had threatened the clerk. Press made her a major player in all of Dale's crimes, dubbed her “the Blond Tigress” and compared her to Bonnie Parker (of Bonnie and Clyde).
Jarman was not tried for robberies but for complicity in Hoeh's murder. Her defense attorney was A. Jefferson Schultze. The prosecuting attorney, Wilbur Crowley, called for the death penalty.
George Dale was sentenced to die in the electric chair. As his last wish, he wrote a love letter to Jarman. Minneci and Jarman were sentenced to jail, Jarman for 199 years, one of the longest criminal sentences ever imposed at the time. Her children were sent to live with her older sister and her husband, Hattie and Joe Stocker, in Sioux City, Iowa.
Read more about this topic: Eleanor Jarman
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