Mother Daughter Bandits Renner South Dakota

There were 2 sentences dedicated to this crime on the Village of Renner historical marker and I thought it was so interesting we better take a closer look. On November 27, 1925, a mother and daughter duo committed an armed robbery at the First State Bank of Renner, stealing cash and coins. Although they managed to escape initially, they were eventually arrested and served time for this brazen robbery. 

Lets set the scene 1925 is the year the Great Gatsby is published America seemed prosperous but we know now we were headed towards the great depression. 

Around 10 in the morning Friday November 27th 1925 Catherine Rogers and her daughter Zera entered the First National Bank of Renner. The mother Catherine, would hold a 38 Calibur gun to the head of the cahier HS Wilkinson while her daughter would raid the safe and drawers. The amount of money varies in reports anywhere between 90 and 500 dollars which would have thousands of dollars of buying power in 2025. One report mentions the women were wearing men's clothing specifically pants (gasp) when they robbed the place. 

After grabbing the cash they ran out the door to their car and drove towards Dell Rapids. A pose formed to chase them but they were able to get away at least that day however soon they would be trying to change a large amount of pennies into dollars at a downtown Sioux Falls department store that alerted authorities and they went to the home of the women to ask them some questions and without much the mom confessed explaining they did rob the bank and they "simply needed the money that's all". Her husband was a wounded veteran and they had fallen on hard times. The women were arrested they plead insanity for trial and were each sentenced to 3 years for their crime. The daughter Zera would be paroled about halfway through her sentence but that wouldn't last long because she would violate that parole by leaving the state and once again be arrested to serve the rest of her time. 

A few pieces of the story are tricky because reading about the past of the women they had a really hard life not that it explains why they turned to crime but it helps me understand their desperation a bit more. From living in a tent down at the falls to stealing from neighbors and liquor violations they just seemed like they needed a hand up in life, but they would not be getting one. 

Catherines Husband would later use the robbery as fuel for his annulment of the marriage but again though he was talked about in the paper as a shell shocked veteran its hard to tell how clean his hands were in this. 

The cashier of the bank would also mention that he would feel differently about the robbery if he had been robbed by men but it hurt his ego a bit to be robbed by women which to me makes the discrepancy in how much is taken sort of interesting too, is the bank trying to downplay the amount because it was women or are the newspapers just inflating the amount to sell papers? 

Never the less the robbery of this small town bank by two brazen women would make headlines across the nation and our Renner South Dakota would once more be on the map for an interesting piece of history.