Young Love, Serious Crime
True Crime Historian
Richard O Jones
4.4 • 729 Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2023
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 215 is dedicated to True Crime Historian listener Virgil Kay, who sent me the case file on this story of a pair of bandits on the run, a 27-year-old exhibitionist and his 17-year-old moll, a tough girl who was said to be the brains behind the operation, such as it was.
Listen to this and other episodes from the True Crime Historian Vault at the Safe House.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.
You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.
We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:
If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!
For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with two new stories every week.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Popular.com |
| 0:03.5 | Cleveland, Ohio, June 8th, 195. |
| 0:14.5 | Elusive Lewis Teller and his 17-year-old gun mall, Laura Tony Rittenauer, were accused of bank robbery by both federal and |
| 0:23.3 | state officials, as detectives linked them to stick-ups at two west-side branches of the |
| 0:29.3 | Cleveland Trust Company. It was a toss-up, according to Detective Chief James E. MacArthur, |
| 0:35.3 | as to whether Teller, 28, or his girlfriend was the real |
| 0:40.0 | brains behind the criminal forays that have so far resulted in the imprisonment of six young men, |
| 0:47.0 | two of them teenagers. Inspector MacArthur tagged Mrs. Rittenauer as, quote, a vicious person, unquote. |
| 0:56.6 | He said she once threatened to murder a member of the gang so she and Teller could get as part of the loot from the January 14th robbery. |
| 1:06.0 | She was married at 16 after a whirlwind courtship with a young Marine. |
| 1:14.0 | Tony appeared to be just a country girl from Strasbourg, Virginia, but she had big city ideas. She quit high school in her second year, |
| 1:20.9 | revealed her mother. The mother, Mrs. Ruth Ellicott Davidson, 40, said today, quote, |
| 1:28.3 | My daughter was a real church and schoolgoer, but there never seemed to be enough excitement for her. |
| 1:34.5 | All this stuff started after she ran off to get married. |
| 1:38.5 | The curvy Tony, who has a craze for dyeing her hair, |
| 1:42.6 | went to Cleveland last September to babysit with three |
| 1:45.7 | children while their mother, a friend, returned to Strasbourg to have a fourth child, her mother |
| 1:51.8 | added. She turned out to be a slovenly housekeeper and a poor cook. After several visits |
| 1:59.4 | back in Virginia, Tony returned to Cleveland for good last fall. She got a job |
| 2:05.1 | as a filing clerk and then reportedly met Teller and his gang via a street pickup. Now she's |
| 2:13.0 | considered a professional bank robber. She carries a gun and Cleveland police say it's a toss-up |
| 2:19.5 | whether she or tell her is the brains of the gang. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Richard O Jones, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Richard O Jones and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.