[2] According to newspaper accounts, the gang had evidently studied the situation, knew the surroundings, and carried out their job with clockwork precision and uncanny accuracy.
Sixteen towns in a fifty-mile radius of Marion were notified of the robbery, and to be on the lookout for a Nash car with yellow license plates.
[3] Grant County Sheriff Bert Renbarger and his deputies stopped a Nash car matching the description at Sweetser, Indiana but the occupants were found to be out of town businessmen.
[3] Initial reports indicated that based on the description of the bandits, they were believed to be the same gang who had robbed the Farmers National Bank at Converse, Indiana the week before.
[3] Just before closing time on December 16, 1924, seven unmasked bandits made an unsuccessful attempt to rob the Citizens State Bank.
The bandit's car drove up to the side of the bank and six men leaped to the sidewalk and ran into the building, brandishing revolvers.
[6] Boone County, Indiana Sheriff Joe C. Cain notified Grant County, Indiana Sheriff Renbarger of the list of items stolen from the Lebanon store and stated that the robbers were driving a Moon sedan, with the license 443–554, which was stolen from Indianapolis the night of the Lebanon robbery.
[7] After getting all the money in sight, they quickly left the bank and hopped into a waiting automobile, in which the sixth bandit sat, and departed north out of Upland, where it was reported they turned west.
[7] The automobile used by the bandits of the Upland State Bank and the Lebanon hardware store was found abandoned in the mud at Kempton, Indiana on December 27, 1924.
Carrying shotguns, rifles, revolvers and satchels, the men changed their minds and asked to be dropped off at the edge of town at Lebanon, Indiana.
[12] At the time of his arrest, police found two army rifles, a shotgun and a revolver with 150 rounds of ammunition in Bridgewater's possession.
According to an AP report, "Less than five minutes was required for Judge John Marshall to hear the plea of guilty and to pass sentence," with Bridgewater to spend at least 10 and no more than 21 years in prison and sent to the state reformatory at Pendleton.
On July 4, 1925, Clifford Roth was arrested in Indianapolis as the fourth member of the gang who robbed the Galveston Bank under $5,000 bond on a vagrancy charge.
[18] Witnesses at the trial identified Bridgewater as the trigger man who fired several shots at store employees as they attempted to flee.