About ten years ago the city of Syracuse, N. Y. became highly conscious of a lively young man named La Verne Moore. Son of a churchgoing steel mill worker named Matthew Moore, whose other offspring were two beautiful daughters and a son who lived up to his name of Harold, La Verne was nicknamed "Bull" because of his phenomenal physique, his excellence at games, his unruly disposition.
For strength, Bull Moore was marvelous. He could fight three men at a time, toss a waiter across the bar of a lunch counter, lift the front wheels of an automobile with one hand. With a slight edge on his appetite, he would break a dozen eggs into his mother's frying pan and eat them in six mouthfuls.
At games, there was no one like Bull Moore. He was the best pool player in town. He could throw a baseball so fast it became invisible. He pitched for the St. Patrick's Church team and went south for a tryout with the Boston Braves. A big-time football coach saw him and sent him to preparatory school. Golf was Bull Moore's forte. His brother Harold, a church organist, was also a golf professional and had taught Bull the game. Bull would drive a ball out of sight and make any kind of trick shot with any kind of club. His short game was eccentric but he was plenty good enough to earn a living as a professional.
It was in his attitude toward earning a living that Bull Moore particularly charmed the streetcorner, poolroom and blind-tiger high-school set of Syracuse in the Prohibition era. Work did not appeal to him. Just where this adventurous buck got his money was something of a mystery but his pockets always seemed to be well lined.
Among the exemplary things about Bull Moore was his response to drink and women. Bull was a man's man. Doubtless, he could have held more liquor without showing it than anyone else in town, but no one ever saw him drunk. He could have made a conquest of almost any girl he wanted but his dealings with the other sex were notable for old-fashioned chivalry. Bull would not even let his friends boast about their conquests in his presence.
If Bull Moore was above any kind of mix-up that concerned a girl, his dare-deviltry sometimes brought him to the edge of other kinds of trouble. In 1927, a grocer accused of selling liquor complained that a young bully posing as a policeman had walked in and taken $50, promising to have the accusation quashed. Bull Moore was tried for this offense. He got a six-month sentence which the judge suspended.
On the night of Aug. 5, 1930, one Kin Hanna, owner of an inn near Jay, N. Y. had a painful experience. He and his father-in-law Matt Cobb were beaten, gagged and bound by four men who then took $750 from the till and made their getaway.
In the getaway, the robbers ran their cars off the road and one hit a culvert.
The cars were going fast. One of the gang, John Sherry, was killed. Two of the others, Roger Norton and William Carleton, were caught and jailed. The fourth man disappeared. Soon after the robbery Bull Moore ceased to be seen in upper New York State and the police began to look for him. . . .