Sile Doty - Criminal Methods and Tactics

Criminal Methods and Tactics

Doty typically entered a town with one or more associates, who would pretend not to know Doty in order to gather intelligence about whether he had been detected—and if so, what actions were being taken to pursue him. If he had counterfeit money, Doty would go on a spending spree, all the while scouting out where stores kept their money. If a tempting prize was guarded by a watch dog, Doty would feed it poisoned meat. At night he and his associates would break into homes, places of business, and stables using skeleton keys and relocking doors after leaving. He would deposit his loot with a confederate. By the time Doty was ready to leave town, he would have scouted out a fast horse to steal, in order to make his getaway. A favorite tactic was to have an associate show up at the location of the horse to be stolen with a legitimately rented horse. Doty would steal both the horse and a sulky, wagon, or other rig, which would be attached to the legitimate horse and driven by the associate in the opposite direction from that taken by Doty and the stolen horse. Several miles out of town, the stolen rig would be abandoned and the legitimate horse returned to its owner. It never failed that when the theft was detected, the aroused citizens would pursue the tracks of the stolen rig.

Each year, Doty would go on a campaign of crime through the towns and cities of New York State and New England. He was part of an extensive network of criminals with whom he cooperated and to whom he could sell his stolen goods. During the summer of 1822, Doty learned sailing by working on a boat traveling up and down the Saint Lawrence River, and in the process managed to fill a trunk with pilfered valuables. In the fall, Doty made use of his new sailing skills by stealing a pleasure boat in Kingston, Ontario, loading it with stolen property, and sailing it down the Saint Lawrence to a place near Ogdensburg, New York, where he unloaded the boat and sank it.