Search Is On for Bank Robber Murderer

June 6, 1965 - The FBI ordered a nationwide search today for a young college graduate it said committed Friday’s $1,500 robbery of a Big Springs, Neb., bank in which three persons were slain and another severely wounded.

Duane Pope, 22, described by the FBI as a “personable, neatly dressed” gun enthusiast who was graduated last week from McPherson (Kan.) College, was named in the charge filed today by FBI agent Robert Kinsey before U.S. Commissioner Richard Satterfield in North Platte, Neb.

Pope was charged in absentia with robbing the Farmers State Bank. The Federal statute provides a possible death penalty when a bank employee is injured or killed during a bank robbery.

Pope was the co-captain of the McPherson football team and played clarinet in the college band. He had a C-plus scholastic average.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover warned that Pope was “very dangerous and probably armed.” A rented 1965 car believed used in the robbery was found by peace officers at Salina, Kan., about 410 miles from the robbery scene.

The bandit fled from the bank with about $1,500 in cash after slaying the bank president, Andreas Kjeldgaard, 77, and two cashiers, Glen Hendrickson, 59, and Mrs. Lois Ann Hothan, 35, the widowed mother of two young boys.

Franklin Kjeldgaard, 25, a nephew of the bank president was listed as “improving” today following surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital in Denver to ease pressure on his spinal cord. 

The younger Kjeldgaard was shot once in the neck and once in the upper left side of his back, near the heart, as was each of the other victims. He was reported paralyzed from the waist down.

A spokesman for the American Bankers Association in New York called the robbery the “bloodiest” bank robbery of modern times.

Autopsies ascertained that the three dead probably died instantly if the bullets fired into their backs as they lay spread-eagled on the floor were the first shots. A pathologist said the neck wounds would probably not have been fatal.

Hoover disclosed that the bullets were fired from a .22-caliber Ruger automatic pistol with a silencer.

The description of Pope provided by the FBI closely matched that given by Otto Mauser, 74, a wheat farmer, who said he saw the gunman emerging from the bank after the shootings. The man offered Mr. Mauser a polite “how do you do” and walked calmly to a parked car.

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