Safe Burglars Kill Former World Champ
In the early morning hours of August 5, 1933, four safe burglars broke a window at the Marshfield Brewing Company in Marshfield, Wisconsin. The burglars knocked a dial off the safe and removed $1,550.00 in federal stamps. In 2024 dollars, the burglars stole over $37,000.00.
The same burglars successfully took another $1,000 in federal stamps from the Wausau Brewing Company in Wausau, Wisconsin earlier in the overnight hours. Wausau and Marshfield are approximately 43 miles apart.
Fred Beell posing for the camera in the early Twentieth Century from the Public Domain
The burglar’s luck ran out in Marshfield as a citizen saw the four men enter the brewing company. 35-year-old Art Schrieder phoned the Marshfield Police.
Regular police officer George Fyksen and reserve police officer Fred Beell, the former world heavyweight wrestling champion, travelled to the brewing company to invesigate the possible burglary. After Beell retired from the ring in 1919, Beell served as a reserve police officer from 1921 to 1933.
Beell stayed with the police car watching the front door as Fyksen tried to enter the brewery. The burglars saw Fyksen and fired at him. Fyksen returned fire and started a running gun battle.
Beell heard the gun shots and started around the car to head to the front door. The four burglars burst out the door, saw Beell, and shot Beell in the head four times before Beell could fire. The shots killed Beell instantly. Fyksen found Beell with his service revolver in his hand.
Fyksen hit at least two of the burglars. The burglars took their car and Beell’s police car north on Highway 13. The burglars abandoned the police car a mile away from the brewery.
Fyksen or Art Schrieder, who fired at the burglars with his rifle, fatally wounded one burglar. Police discovered the body of Edward “Speed” Gabriel in a shallow grave on the side of a road in Minnesota. His accomplices buried Garbiel after he died on the trip out of Wisconsin.
Police found a link between Garbiel and Joe “Sleepy Joe” Hogan. Prosecutors convicted Hogan of murder and burglary. The judge sentenced Hogan to 25 years in prison.
Prosecutors believed Elmer Dingman shot Beell. The judge sentence Dingman to life in prison for murdering Beell.
To this day, Fred Beell is still the only officer killed in the line of duty in the history of the Marshfield Police Department. The 57-year-old Beell served in the Spanish-American War. The U.S. Government provided a full military funeral. Mrs. Anna Beell survived her husband.
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Sources: Wausau Daily Herald (Wausau, Wisconsin) August 5, 1933, p. 1
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