Identity Theft in 1928
Before there were computers and cyber crimes, there was a wily cowboy named Walter A. Timbrell, who turned the world upside down for an unsuspecting stranger…
There was no reason for Uncle Roger to board a train in Northampton, Massachusetts for Nevada in the early 1920’s. However, he was an adventurer at heart and the West was calling him. His family was sad to see him go and though Roger wrote regularly and returned to Northampton several times over the following three decades, in the last years of his life, he lost contact with the family. Roger’s disappearance from their lives was a mystery that was often discussed among members of my generation.Through Ed Murch, a distant cousin and genealogy enthusiast, I learned that Roger served in the Spanish-American War. It was by way of Roger’s military pension file, I was able to piece together the events of his life and the story of a fateful meeting with a criminal in 1928, who stole his identity in an attempt to collect his military pension.
A military affidavit written in Roger’s hand, places him in Reno, Nevada in January 1928. According to the affidavit, it was there that he met ex-convict Walter Timbrell. Roger wrote:
Jan.1928. I was living in Reno Nevada. While there I first got acquainted with Walter
A.Timbrell, We got to talking, and I told him I was in the War with Spain, he asked, me
many questions about my service, where and when I enlisted, in fact all about my enlist-
ment, he even took down notes of what I told I saw him many times for about six months.
He told me that he also served, but I never saw his discharge and have no way of knowing
In 1930, Roger applied for a military pension. By then, he was residing in Stockton California. The response which was forwarded to Roger’s attorney was stunning. It stated the claim had been rejected and that he was aware of the rejection, by way of a letter sent in 1928 to Walter Timbrell, who served as Roger Cashman.
Timbrell’s bogus pension application filed on 10 January 1928 was among the papers in Roger’s file. Though crafty, Timbrell was not an intelligent man. The phony application contained testimony regarding his personal status. According to his statements, he was married at the time he made the application and was divorced from Ilah P. Crigler of Chadron, Nebraska.
While I was appalled by Timbrell’s gall, I was intrigued that he was capable of conceiving such a scheme. The information regarding his former marriage was all I needed to launch a investigation of him.
I was able to obtain a copy of Criglers petition for divorce, filed 9 August 1899 from the Clerk of Courts in Broken Bow, Nebraska. This document contained intimate details of her marriage to Timbrell. The petition stated:
… that he was a habitual drinker of intoxicating liquors and gambled away all of his
earnings,therby being guilty of extreme cruelty to this plaintiff; that since the said
defendant so abandoned the plaintiff he has been convicted and sentenced to a term in
It was apparent to me that Timbrell was no stranger to crime. I queried the Wyoming State Archives and much to my amazement, I received a copy of his inmate file, which included a mug shot, a physical description of Timbrell, his occupation (rancher) and the reason for his incarceration; the crime of Grand Larceny with a one year sentence at the State Penitentiary in Rawlins, Wyoming. The physical similarity between the two men was so strong, that I wondered if Roger and Timbrell were one in the same.
I was able to put that theory to rest, when I located an obituary for Timbrell, who died in 1941 in Lander, Nevada.
It took years and many hours of Roger’s life to untangle the web Timbrell spun. His pension file is filled with affadavits and letters to the Veterans Administration. In 1947, he enlisted the help of Senator E.P. Carville, who intervened on his behalf. With Senator Carville’s influence, the application was accepted and Roger received a pension of $300 per month.
The older I get, the more I believe there is nothing new under the sun. Roger’s story of victimization and the many years he spent struggling to regain his identity is as old as time and can be summed up in one sentence.
Once upon a time, before there were computers and cyber crime, there was a wily cowboy named Walter Timbrell, who turned the world upside down for an unsuspecting stranger, who by serendipity, looked like him.
Postscript: I will never know why Roger ceased contact his family. However, the military pension file provided letters and affidavits conceived by him and written in his hand. There were details of his life contained in those pages which I am sure were unknown to his family. When he died on 10 March 1955, the many telegrams sent to the family from the Veterans Administration were undeliverable, probably due to the misspellings of names and the lack of complete addresses. His sister Mary, who often spoke of him and cried over his disappearance, died just five days after he passed, never aware of what became of her brother. A brother-in-law tried to convince Roger’s sister Julia to contact the VA about his disappearance, but she remained resolute in her belief that he would walk through the door any minute. So sad, one phone call may have brought their lost brother home.
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