Recag/C4_21 · Datasets at Hugging Face

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With two county commission meetings under his belt, Bonner said he was increasingly aware of the time commitment beyond twice-monthly board meetings.
Last week, for example, he spent a day at East Fork Fire & Paramedics Districts Station 15 and toured Valley water systems.
“There are not only the meetings, but a lot of time spent reading material. I want to be prepared to go in the meetings and make the best decisions,” he said.
The first meeting which involved appointment of new planning commissioners generated a lot of feedback – mostly negative – when former County Commissioner Don Miner was appointed along with Jeremy Davidson and Frank Godecke.
The new planning commissioners replaced Lawrence Howell, who narrowly lost to County Commissioner Nancy McDermid in November, Rick Ross and Bob Conner.
Bonner said he responds to his constituents’ questions and emails.
“As politicians, we answer to the people. If somebody sends me an e-mail, or writes me a letter, they’re going to hear back from me,” Bonner said.
Netflix predicted last year that it would grow its original programming lineup to more than 1,000 hours in 2017. What it didn’t say was that it would also do some pruning.
The streaming service last week canceled “Sense8,” an odd and ambitious drama series from Lana and Lilly Wachowski, just one week after canceling another expensive drama, “The Get Down,” from Baz Luhrmann. That meant four shows unplugged over seven months — which, for most programmers, would amount to restraint. But for Netflix, which had cultivated a can-do-no-wrong mystique with a near unbroken string of renewals, the decision to start swinging its ax is an indication that the streaming service is not impervious to at least some of the pressures felt by its linear competitors.
What remains unclear — and frustrating for some in Hollywood’s creative community — is the lack of transparency around what lives and dies at the streaming giant.
Netflix has been steadfast in its refusal to release viewership information comparable to the Nielsen ratings that are the currency for cable and broadcast TV, arguing that as an ad-free subscription service, it has no incentive to do so.
In the absence of that data, one common element of the four recently canceled Netflix series emerges — they were all among the most expensive on television.
As Variety originally reported, the season-one budget for Luhrmann’s “The Get Down” ballooned from $7.5 million per episode to roughly $12 million. The first seasons of “Sense8” and “Marco Polo” each cost a reported $9 million per episode. “Bloodline,” which just had its final season released, cost a reported $7 million per episode.
A typical hour of scripted drama on broadcast costs $2.5 million-$3.5 million — on cable, $1.8 million-$2.5 million.
For a company that claims a 2017 content budget of $6 billion, the price of each of those programs is a drop in the bucket. But together, they represent a very significant drop.
Netflix has promised a higher volume of shows, but while delivering on that promise, it has shifted aggressively into reality programming and stand-up comedy specials — two areas where production costs are dramatically lower than they are in scripted.
If Netflix anticipated a tapering off of international subscriber growth in the near future, it would make sense for the company to begin to try to put some controls on programming costs — while remaining an aggressive player in original scripted series.
“The Get Down” may have been a big swing-and-miss, but dramas such as “Stranger Things,” “13 Reasons Why” and “The Crown” appear to have captured the buzz that Netflix and all other programmers crave.
Analytics firm 7Park Data is one of several companies that use proprietary technology to attempt to fill the void that Netflix’s refusal to release viewership information creates. According to the company’s data for the 12 months ending in April, the most recent seasons of “Marco Polo,” “The Get Down” and “Bloodline” were the least streamed new seasons of any hour-long Netflix original series in the U.S.
Though Netflix has routinely dismissed such outside analytics, they lend credence to the universal truth that appears to be motivating the company — expensive shows work when people watch them, less so when they don’t.
Delaware's Gentleman Bandit was born on a cold night in 1979.
Delaware's sharp-dressed robber, whose story was almost too wild to be true, started with a 69-cent pack of buns.
Doris Clough stood behind the counter of the Oven Door Bakery and watched a middle-aged man stroll in alone and grab a 69-cent package of buns. She didn't give him a second thought, other than to notice he was sharply dressed in a dark overcoat and a fedora.
He dropped the buns on the counter and placed a $1 bill on top.
Clough, in her late 50s, didn't see the silver gun in his hand until she opened the register to get his change. She once got so nervous while being questioned by an attorney that she forgot her address. And now she had a gun pointed at her.
"Don't hurt me,'' the mother of five told the robber. "I have to work. I'm a widow."
It was January 11, 1979. Outside, winter was tightening its grip all around northern New Castle County. The Twin Lakes ponds off Kennett Pike in Greenville had finally frozen enough for hockey players to brave the bumpy surface.
National news was a dreary as the weather. President Jimmy Carter's brother Billy was embarrassing his older sibling again. This time, before escorting a delegation from Libya through Atlanta, Georgia, Billy urinated on the runaway at the airport.
With temperatures expected to plummet into the upper teens later, and snow likely to fall over the weekend, hunkering down at home seemed the sensible thing to do.
This police sketch of the Gentleman Bandit appeared twice in The News Journal in 1979.
Clough likely would have preferred to be in her Cranston Heights home. It was around 7:30, a Thursday night, and many people were spending the chilly night under a crocheted blanket waiting for "Mork & Mindy," "The Waltons," or "What's Happening!!" to come on TV.
Those brave enough to fight the cold could catch Christopher Reeve flying across the screen in "Superman The Movie" at Concord Mall.
Then-Delaware Attorney General Richard S. Gebelein.
The store, one of seven in Delaware owned by a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, company, sold fresh sandwich bread for 41 cents a loaf – five for $1.89. The company's surplus stores sold cheaper day-old breads and pastries.
It had seemed like just another winter night.
Then there was the gun. The "fella," Clough would recall later, apologized for scaring her.
"I wouldn't do this, but I need the money,'' he said before taking $47 from the register. He vanished as quickly as he came, leaving no fingerprints behind.
Clough was the robbers' first victim. She wouldn't be the last.
Little did Clough know she would have a small role in one of the most extraordinary cases in Delaware criminal history.
Over the coming months, there would be more robberies, an arrest that would shock the world, and a courtroom twist that Hollywood couldn't dream up. It all became part of the drama that started that cold night with Clough and a 69-cent package of buns.
“If you read this as fiction, people would just say ‘Oh yeah. That would never happen,’ " said Richard S. Gebelein, who at the time served as Delaware's Attorney General, the state's chief law enforcement officer.
“I don’t think there’s been anything quite like it."
The relative ease of the Oven Door Bakery robbery emboldened the man in the fedora. Five days later, he struck again.
His targets weren't cash cows like banks. He would focus on small businesses, mainly along a 5-mile stretch of Kirkwood Highway. Low-hanging fruit.
"What would you do if you had the choice between getting $10,000 and getting caught and a couple of hundred dollars and not getting caught?" the robber would later say.
"Young boys. Young girls. Old men. Old women. They were just the kind of people where you pull a gun and they go 'Ahhh!' and jump back."
His next target was Tri-State Meats in the Meadowood Shopping Center near Newark.
The items for sale at the brightly-lit store in the strip center off Kirkwood Highway ranged from breaded flounder to Italian meatballs. It was part of a local chain that had two other locations in Penny Hill and Brookside.
Here the man in the fedora and dark, full-length overcoat repeated his method. He picked up a 29-cent package of cupcakes and headed to the counter.
He handed a quarter and a nickel to manager Robin Reed Bush who was ready to ring him up at the cash register. As she took out his penny change, the robber stood an arm's length away from the 25-year-old and pointed a small, silver .25-caliber gun at her.
Bush stayed calm and studied the bandit's face. She noticed his two front teeth were slightly bent backwards.
He snatched $265 from the store and ran out. The easy cash was irresistible.
His next stop that same evening was Haverbeck's Hardware near Prices Corner, less than 4 miles away.
Old Capitol Trail near Prices Corner in 1965. Newport Gap Pike intersects at the bottom of the photo, while the Prices Corner Shopping Center can be seen in the upper right hand.
There, the black-clad bandit asked owner Carroll E. Reynolds if he could look at a caulking tube stored behind the sales counter. Reynolds, who had purchased the small store at 3411 Kirkwood Highway five years earlier from the Haverbeck family, obliged.
The 49-year-old veteran storekeeper especially enjoyed assisting do-it-yourselfers with their home repair projects. He helped them pick out yard supplies and had a friendly, willing ear when it came to listening to their needs.
Reynolds also had a storekeeper's habit of looking directly at the face of every customer he served. He patiently waited while the man read writing on both sides of the tube.
“I don't think I can use this caulking," the man said, politely, "but I would like you to open this cash register."
"You've got to be kidding," Reynolds answered, continuing to stare straight into the man's eyes.
No joke, the robber said. And to emphasize the seriousness of the situation, he flashed the small silver pistol at the shop owner.
Reynolds, an Army veteran, knew a man with a gun wasn't fooling around. He didn't stop the bandit from stealing $99. His only surprise was the man didn't use profanity.
"He wasn't rough. He just demanded money – and he got it," Reynolds said.
The robber said he wasn't looking for confrontation or violence.
"I just wanted to get the money and leave. There was none of this taking a shotgun and pressing it against the side of their head and smacking them around a bit to let them know you're serious," he would say later.
The thief's final stop that Jan. 16 night was Ulmer's Hardware, a 33-year-old Elsmere store at 1702 Kirkwood Highway.
The shop, a stalwart of the community, was known for supporting Little League teams. New owners had acquired it eight years earlier.
The bandit walked out with $100. Perhaps feeling jovial from the loot received from the trifecta of hold-ups that night, he said he might return.
“I’ll be back to buy a snow shovel," he casually told a clerk on the way out.
The armed robbery spree would continue for another month, always between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Always on Tuesday and Thursdays.
The area and stores he chose weren't very far from each other. "He's not very innovative in his approach," a police investigator would say.
The bandit, described as a white male, also wasn't interested in hiding his appearance. He wore no mask, though often he had on eyeglasses. His hat, sometimes described as herringbone, had the brim turned up in the back.
A composite sketch was drawn by Delaware State Police Sgt. Rolf Wysock after he talked to Bush, the Tri-State Meats manager, for 2½ hours.
The thief, in his 40s or 50s, was about 6-feet tall. He weighed about 175 pounds and had blackish-grey, ear-length hair. He was impeccably groomed with a hat and an overcoat. His front teeth seemed to be slanted inwards.
And his calling card, so far, was always the same: A polite demeanor and a shiny pistol.
When the drawing of the man and reports of his friendly interactions made their way to The News Journal, Virginia Delavan, a headline writer and copy editor, decided to come up with the catchy nickname that would resonate to this day.
“He seems like a gentlemanly sort. Let’s call him the Gentleman Bandit,” Delavan said.
"It was golden," former News Journal reporter Kathryn Canavan remembers.
A week after the Kirkwood Highway hold-ups, the Gentleman Bandit changed locations.
And this is when his courteous nature began to slip.
At about 7:20 p.m. on Jan. 23, he walked into the fabric shop at Mitchell's, a family-owned department store on Concord Pike in the Fairfax Shopping Center known for selling Halloween costumes, toys, greeting cards and Boy and Girl Scout uniforms.
The robber didn't like what he saw. The girl at the counter had a pair of scissors and looked at him suspiciously. He then walked through another door of the store and approached a 19-year-old clerk.
The tall, 50ish man wearing glasses followed his usual pattern: he picked up an object, this time a 59-cent, black-and-white fuzzy magnet shaped like a dog, and brought it to the counter.
He gave the clerk two quarters and a dime. But when she opened the register to drop in the coins, he reached in.
"Give me the money," he said, trying to clutch onto the $10 bills.
"‘What are you doing?’" said the teen, grabbing the cash back. He then tried snatching the $5 bills. She grabbed them back.
Kirkwood Highway looking west from near Limestone Road about 14 years before the Gentleman Bandit "prowled" along the highway.
The struggle ended when the teen noticed a scary flash of silver.
"I saw the gun." she said.
The bandit's upper hand lasted only seconds. Another customer walked through the front door and scared him off.
He left empty-handed. But he wasn't ready to end the crime spree.
Nearly two weeks later at 6:10 p.m. on Feb. 8, the Gentleman Bandit circled back to his familiar hunting grounds – Kirkwood Highway.
Wearing that familiar, stylish overcoat and what was described as a "walking hat," he entered The Clothing Warehouse in the Astro Centre. The shop sold men's clothes, including sports jackets and three-piece vested suits. It stayed open weekdays until 9 p.m.
After browsing the store for a bit, he approached 17-year-old Francis Chudzik and aimed his semi-automatic pistol at the McKean High School student.
The robber himself was puzzled by the Gentleman Bandit nickname. He said he was no more a gentleman than anyone else.
"Robbing people is not my normal pastime. I didn't know how robbers generally conduct themselves. I just wasn't abrasive,'' he would later say.
"Maybe people are used to being held up in a different way," he said. "I imagine I said 'thank you' a few times."
The publicity didn't stop the thief.
A teenage clerk, who attended St. Mark's High School, was working Feb. 8 at Van's Country Maid deli at 2011 Kirkwood Highway when a tall man with a pock-marked face who wore cheap-looking, thick plastic eyeglasses, came into the store.
He paid for a 30-cent blueberry pie and then grabbed $40 from the cash register.
The Midway Plaza Shopping Center on Kirkwood Shopping Center in 1965, more than a dozen years before the Gentleman Bandit "prowled" along the highway.

With two county commission meetings under his belt, Bonner said he was increasingly aware of the time commitment beyond twice-monthly board meetings.

Last week, for example, he spent a day at East Fork Fire & Paramedics Districts Station 15 and toured Valley water systems.

“There are not only the meetings, but a lot of time spent reading material. I want to be prepared to go in the meetings and make the best decisions,” he said.

The first meeting which involved appointment of new planning commissioners generated a lot of feedback – mostly negative – when former County Commissioner Don Miner was appointed along with Jeremy Davidson and Frank Godecke.

The new planning commissioners replaced Lawrence Howell, who narrowly lost to County Commissioner Nancy McDermid in November, Rick Ross and Bob Conner.

Bonner said he responds to his constituents’ questions and emails.

“As politicians, we answer to the people. If somebody sends me an e-mail, or writes me a letter, they’re going to hear back from me,” Bonner said.

Netflix predicted last year that it would grow its original programming lineup to more than 1,000 hours in 2017. What it didn’t say was that it would also do some pruning.

The streaming service last week canceled “Sense8,” an odd and ambitious drama series from Lana and Lilly Wachowski, just one week after canceling another expensive drama, “The Get Down,” from Baz Luhrmann. That meant four shows unplugged over seven months — which, for most programmers, would amount to restraint. But for Netflix, which had cultivated a can-do-no-wrong mystique with a near unbroken string of renewals, the decision to start swinging its ax is an indication that the streaming service is not impervious to at least some of the pressures felt by its linear competitors.

What remains unclear — and frustrating for some in Hollywood’s creative community — is the lack of transparency around what lives and dies at the streaming giant.

Netflix has been steadfast in its refusal to release viewership information comparable to the Nielsen ratings that are the currency for cable and broadcast TV, arguing that as an ad-free subscription service, it has no incentive to do so.

In the absence of that data, one common element of the four recently canceled Netflix series emerges — they were all among the most expensive on television.

As Variety originally reported, the season-one budget for Luhrmann’s “The Get Down” ballooned from $7.5 million per episode to roughly $12 million. The first seasons of “Sense8” and “Marco Polo” each cost a reported $9 million per episode. “Bloodline,” which just had its final season released, cost a reported $7 million per episode.

A typical hour of scripted drama on broadcast costs $2.5 million-$3.5 million — on cable, $1.8 million-$2.5 million.

For a company that claims a 2017 content budget of $6 billion, the price of each of those programs is a drop in the bucket. But together, they represent a very significant drop.

Netflix has promised a higher volume of shows, but while delivering on that promise, it has shifted aggressively into reality programming and stand-up comedy specials — two areas where production costs are dramatically lower than they are in scripted.

If Netflix anticipated a tapering off of international subscriber growth in the near future, it would make sense for the company to begin to try to put some controls on programming costs — while remaining an aggressive player in original scripted series.

“The Get Down” may have been a big swing-and-miss, but dramas such as “Stranger Things,” “13 Reasons Why” and “The Crown” appear to have captured the buzz that Netflix and all other programmers crave.

Analytics firm 7Park Data is one of several companies that use proprietary technology to attempt to fill the void that Netflix’s refusal to release viewership information creates. According to the company’s data for the 12 months ending in April, the most recent seasons of “Marco Polo,” “The Get Down” and “Bloodline” were the least streamed new seasons of any hour-long Netflix original series in the U.S.

Though Netflix has routinely dismissed such outside analytics, they lend credence to the universal truth that appears to be motivating the company — expensive shows work when people watch them, less so when they don’t.

Delaware's Gentleman Bandit was born on a cold night in 1979.

Delaware's sharp-dressed robber, whose story was almost too wild to be true, started with a 69-cent pack of buns.

Doris Clough stood behind the counter of the Oven Door Bakery and watched a middle-aged man stroll in alone and grab a 69-cent package of buns. She didn't give him a second thought, other than to notice he was sharply dressed in a dark overcoat and a fedora.

He dropped the buns on the counter and placed a $1 bill on top.

Clough, in her late 50s, didn't see the silver gun in his hand until she opened the register to get his change. She once got so nervous while being questioned by an attorney that she forgot her address. And now she had a gun pointed at her.

"Don't hurt me,'' the mother of five told the robber. "I have to work. I'm a widow."

It was January 11, 1979. Outside, winter was tightening its grip all around northern New Castle County. The Twin Lakes ponds off Kennett Pike in Greenville had finally frozen enough for hockey players to brave the bumpy surface.

National news was a dreary as the weather. President Jimmy Carter's brother Billy was embarrassing his older sibling again. This time, before escorting a delegation from Libya through Atlanta, Georgia, Billy urinated on the runaway at the airport.

With temperatures expected to plummet into the upper teens later, and snow likely to fall over the weekend, hunkering down at home seemed the sensible thing to do.

This police sketch of the Gentleman Bandit appeared twice in The News Journal in 1979.

Clough likely would have preferred to be in her Cranston Heights home. It was around 7:30, a Thursday night, and many people were spending the chilly night under a crocheted blanket waiting for "Mork & Mindy," "The Waltons," or "What's Happening!!" to come on TV.

Those brave enough to fight the cold could catch Christopher Reeve flying across the screen in "Superman The Movie" at Concord Mall.

Then-Delaware Attorney General Richard S. Gebelein.

The store, one of seven in Delaware owned by a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, company, sold fresh sandwich bread for 41 cents a loaf – five for $1.89. The company's surplus stores sold cheaper day-old breads and pastries.

It had seemed like just another winter night.

Then there was the gun. The "fella," Clough would recall later, apologized for scaring her.

"I wouldn't do this, but I need the money,'' he said before taking $47 from the register. He vanished as quickly as he came, leaving no fingerprints behind.

Clough was the robbers' first victim. She wouldn't be the last.

Little did Clough know she would have a small role in one of the most extraordinary cases in Delaware criminal history.

Over the coming months, there would be more robberies, an arrest that would shock the world, and a courtroom twist that Hollywood couldn't dream up. It all became part of the drama that started that cold night with Clough and a 69-cent package of buns.

“If you read this as fiction, people would just say ‘Oh yeah. That would never happen,’ " said Richard S. Gebelein, who at the time served as Delaware's Attorney General, the state's chief law enforcement officer.

“I don’t think there’s been anything quite like it."

The relative ease of the Oven Door Bakery robbery emboldened the man in the fedora. Five days later, he struck again.

His targets weren't cash cows like banks. He would focus on small businesses, mainly along a 5-mile stretch of Kirkwood Highway. Low-hanging fruit.

"What would you do if you had the choice between getting $10,000 and getting caught and a couple of hundred dollars and not getting caught?" the robber would later say.

"Young boys. Young girls. Old men. Old women. They were just the kind of people where you pull a gun and they go 'Ahhh!' and jump back."

His next target was Tri-State Meats in the Meadowood Shopping Center near Newark.

The items for sale at the brightly-lit store in the strip center off Kirkwood Highway ranged from breaded flounder to Italian meatballs. It was part of a local chain that had two other locations in Penny Hill and Brookside.

Here the man in the fedora and dark, full-length overcoat repeated his method. He picked up a 29-cent package of cupcakes and headed to the counter.

He handed a quarter and a nickel to manager Robin Reed Bush who was ready to ring him up at the cash register. As she took out his penny change, the robber stood an arm's length away from the 25-year-old and pointed a small, silver .25-caliber gun at her.

Bush stayed calm and studied the bandit's face. She noticed his two front teeth were slightly bent backwards.

He snatched $265 from the store and ran out. The easy cash was irresistible.

His next stop that same evening was Haverbeck's Hardware near Prices Corner, less than 4 miles away.

Old Capitol Trail near Prices Corner in 1965. Newport Gap Pike intersects at the bottom of the photo, while the Prices Corner Shopping Center can be seen in the upper right hand.

There, the black-clad bandit asked owner Carroll E. Reynolds if he could look at a caulking tube stored behind the sales counter. Reynolds, who had purchased the small store at 3411 Kirkwood Highway five years earlier from the Haverbeck family, obliged.

The 49-year-old veteran storekeeper especially enjoyed assisting do-it-yourselfers with their home repair projects. He helped them pick out yard supplies and had a friendly, willing ear when it came to listening to their needs.

Reynolds also had a storekeeper's habit of looking directly at the face of every customer he served. He patiently waited while the man read writing on both sides of the tube.

“I don't think I can use this caulking," the man said, politely, "but I would like you to open this cash register."

"You've got to be kidding," Reynolds answered, continuing to stare straight into the man's eyes.

No joke, the robber said. And to emphasize the seriousness of the situation, he flashed the small silver pistol at the shop owner.

Reynolds, an Army veteran, knew a man with a gun wasn't fooling around. He didn't stop the bandit from stealing $99. His only surprise was the man didn't use profanity.

"He wasn't rough. He just demanded money – and he got it," Reynolds said.

The robber said he wasn't looking for confrontation or violence.

"I just wanted to get the money and leave. There was none of this taking a shotgun and pressing it against the side of their head and smacking them around a bit to let them know you're serious," he would say later.

The thief's final stop that Jan. 16 night was Ulmer's Hardware, a 33-year-old Elsmere store at 1702 Kirkwood Highway.

The shop, a stalwart of the community, was known for supporting Little League teams. New owners had acquired it eight years earlier.

The bandit walked out with $100. Perhaps feeling jovial from the loot received from the trifecta of hold-ups that night, he said he might return.

“I’ll be back to buy a snow shovel," he casually told a clerk on the way out.

The armed robbery spree would continue for another month, always between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Always on Tuesday and Thursdays.

The area and stores he chose weren't very far from each other. "He's not very innovative in his approach," a police investigator would say.

The bandit, described as a white male, also wasn't interested in hiding his appearance. He wore no mask, though often he had on eyeglasses. His hat, sometimes described as herringbone, had the brim turned up in the back.

A composite sketch was drawn by Delaware State Police Sgt. Rolf Wysock after he talked to Bush, the Tri-State Meats manager, for 2½ hours.

The thief, in his 40s or 50s, was about 6-feet tall. He weighed about 175 pounds and had blackish-grey, ear-length hair. He was impeccably groomed with a hat and an overcoat. His front teeth seemed to be slanted inwards.

And his calling card, so far, was always the same: A polite demeanor and a shiny pistol.

When the drawing of the man and reports of his friendly interactions made their way to The News Journal, Virginia Delavan, a headline writer and copy editor, decided to come up with the catchy nickname that would resonate to this day.

“He seems like a gentlemanly sort. Let’s call him the Gentleman Bandit,” Delavan said.

"It was golden," former News Journal reporter Kathryn Canavan remembers.

A week after the Kirkwood Highway hold-ups, the Gentleman Bandit changed locations.

And this is when his courteous nature began to slip.

At about 7:20 p.m. on Jan. 23, he walked into the fabric shop at Mitchell's, a family-owned department store on Concord Pike in the Fairfax Shopping Center known for selling Halloween costumes, toys, greeting cards and Boy and Girl Scout uniforms.

The robber didn't like what he saw. The girl at the counter had a pair of scissors and looked at him suspiciously. He then walked through another door of the store and approached a 19-year-old clerk.

The tall, 50ish man wearing glasses followed his usual pattern: he picked up an object, this time a 59-cent, black-and-white fuzzy magnet shaped like a dog, and brought it to the counter.

He gave the clerk two quarters and a dime. But when she opened the register to drop in the coins, he reached in.

"Give me the money," he said, trying to clutch onto the $10 bills.

"‘What are you doing?’" said the teen, grabbing the cash back. He then tried snatching the $5 bills. She grabbed them back.

Kirkwood Highway looking west from near Limestone Road about 14 years before the Gentleman Bandit "prowled" along the highway.

The struggle ended when the teen noticed a scary flash of silver.

"I saw the gun." she said.

The bandit's upper hand lasted only seconds. Another customer walked through the front door and scared him off.

He left empty-handed. But he wasn't ready to end the crime spree.

Nearly two weeks later at 6:10 p.m. on Feb. 8, the Gentleman Bandit circled back to his familiar hunting grounds – Kirkwood Highway.

Wearing that familiar, stylish overcoat and what was described as a "walking hat," he entered The Clothing Warehouse in the Astro Centre. The shop sold men's clothes, including sports jackets and three-piece vested suits. It stayed open weekdays until 9 p.m.

After browsing the store for a bit, he approached 17-year-old Francis Chudzik and aimed his semi-automatic pistol at the McKean High School student.

The robber himself was puzzled by the Gentleman Bandit nickname. He said he was no more a gentleman than anyone else.

"Robbing people is not my normal pastime. I didn't know how robbers generally conduct themselves. I just wasn't abrasive,'' he would later say.

"Maybe people are used to being held up in a different way," he said. "I imagine I said 'thank you' a few times."

The publicity didn't stop the thief.

A teenage clerk, who attended St. Mark's High School, was working Feb. 8 at Van's Country Maid deli at 2011 Kirkwood Highway when a tall man with a pock-marked face who wore cheap-looking, thick plastic eyeglasses, came into the store.

He paid for a 30-cent blueberry pie and then grabbed $40 from the cash register.

The Midway Plaza Shopping Center on Kirkwood Shopping Center in 1965, more than a dozen years before the Gentleman Bandit "prowled" along the highway.