Murder of John Barber

JOHN BARBER--FATALLY WOUNDED

John Barber, age 30, of Olean was shot and fatally wounded by two strange men at 9:30 a.m. on Wayne street near the corner of North Fourth street on Friday, May 15, 1925. John Tiber, age 25, was being held by the police as a suspect in the shooting.

According to the police, Barber was confronted near Fourth and Wayne by two young men, thought to be Italians, who emptied the contents of two .32 calibre Smith and Wesson revolvers and a double barreled shot gun into the body of Barber. The miscreants then dropped their guns and fled. Seven of the bullets took effect in Barber's brain. He was rushed to the clinic hospital, but died five minutes after being brought to the hospital.

Tiber, who was picked up at noon in the vicinity of the Empire Mills near the Erie railroad tracks, was acting suspiciously, police said. He was brought to the police station and held pending his identification.

The police were notified of the shooting by the residents of that vicinity who had been aroused by the sounds of the shots. Arriving on the scene, they found Barber laying by the sidewalk, shot though the head. The guns used in the shooting were found on the grass by his side. One of the guns had been fired six times, the other five. The shot gun used was found by the police on North Fourth street, around the corner from the scene of the shooting. Two empty shells and several that had not been fired were found with the gun.

The Olean police immediately took up the trail of the murderers and Sheriff Knight, who was in the city at the time, was notified.

The trail led north on North Fourth street to Coleman, where the men turned and crossed the Pennsylvania railroad tracks and climbed through a freight train standing on the crossing. They then went north on the tracks to a point where the railroad crosses Fourth street and continued along Fourth street.

Hayes Ingersoll, manager of the gasoline station of the Standard Oil company on Fourth street, and several clerks in the gasoline station saw the two men pass and noted their suspicious actions. They were evidently out of breath from running, according to the men in the gasoline station, and were continually looking back over their shoulders.

From this point the men were not noticed by any of the people living in the vicinity.

The officers spread out and thoroughly covered the houses in the district. Several buildings which police thought might be a hiding place for the fugitives were searched without results.

Barber, who was short and swarthy, was an Italian. He was well known about the city. He recently returned from Italy, where it was said that he had a wife and several children.
The police found a .32 calibre revolver on Barber after the shooting. The gun was in his right trouser pocket. No shots had been fired from it lately as all the chambers were found loaded.

When brought to the hospital the wounded man was beyond medical aid, hospital authorities said. The bullets in his brain caused such a pressure that he did not regain consciousness and died without making a statement.

Dr. E. B. Burdick, coroner, was engaged that afternoon in performing an autopsy on the body of Barber, which had been taken to the Heenan undertaking parlors. Several other wounds besides those made in the head were found on Barber. A shot had taken effect near the left ankle and another in the left leg near the knee. A third shot entered the body in the abdomen, emerging out at the back.

Otto Sparmberg, a fireman on the work train in the Pennsylvania Railroad Company yards, was brought to the police station shortly after 12 p.m. to identify the suspect held in connection with the shooting. Sparmberg, who the police claimed to have seen the termination of the shooting, said that Tiber looked "very much like" one of the men who shot and fatally wounded Barber.

On May 16th, the city and county authorities voiced the opinion that John Tiber was one of the two men who had taken part in the shooting. Tiber was captured by the closing cordon of police and county authorities on the same day of the shooting, on River street near the corner of Pine street in the vicinity of the Empire Mills. Tiber did not give any satisfactory statement to the police as to why he was in Olean.

One story that was given by the man was that he had come to Olean from Youngstown, Ohio, on Thursday night, May 14th on the Pennsylvania railroad. He said that he did not change cars from the time he got on the train in the Ohio city until he got off at the Olean station. This statement was immediately branded false by the authorities as there was no through train on the Pennsylvania system from Youngstown to Olean.

Friday afternoon Tiber was taken to a house on North Union street where he said that he had stayed Thursday afternoon. The owner of the place denied that he had given the man a night's lodging. Tiber later changed his story.

Tiber stated to Chief Dempsey that he left the house in question at 10 o'clock on Friday morning. As the police had searched the house before that time Friday morning in search of fugitives and did not find Tiber, this story was also proven false.

Late Friday night Tiber was taken to the home of Mike Russo, located on Vine street between Water and Elm, where he claimed in a later statement that he had spent Thursday night. Police believe that this story was the most plausible. Russo, in a statement to the police, said that the man held in connection with the murder of Barber stayed in his house Thursday night and ate breakfast there on Friday morning. Russo was unable to say what time the suspect left the house on the day of the shooting.

Police said that Tiber is not the name of the man, and that his Italian name is Gelandi Lioi. When the man purchased a Ford sedan in Canton, Ohio, recently the bill of sale was made out to Joe Tiber. The police disclosed that he also used the name of John Lioi and Joe Lioi. (It was learned that Joseph Lioi was the man's real name.

The fact that Lioi had been in Olean for ten days or two weeks was now thought to be established by the police. Several persons had made statements to the police that they had seen the man in Olean during the past two weeks. He was also said to have worked here more than a year ago at which time he stayed in the city for about ten months, working in several different places.

Positive identification of the man as one of the two strangers who shot Barber was thought to be established at this time by one person whose name the authorities would not divulge, who claimed to be an eye witness to the whole shooting. This man was expected to be a star witness in the case should Lioi be held by authorities for the grand jury which was to convene in Little Valley on Monday, June 1,1914.

Five or six other persons, who it was said saw the men running from the scene of the murder had been secured by the authorities in efforts to identify Lioi.

The car for which Lioi had a bill of sale and license had been secured by the authorities and was being held pending investigation of its purchase. The auto was found in a garage on North Fifth street where the suspect lead the officers. The license for the car was evidently secured in Olean on May 11th, the date on which the license found on Lioi was made out. This fact and the statement of a man who rode from Allegany to Olean on Sunday night lead the officers to believe that the suspect came to town on Sunday, purchased the license Monday and had stayed in Olean since that time.

Lioi, being held as a suspect, had proved to be an enigma to the police. He rested in his cell without the least signs of nervousness, apparently not concerned with the efforts of the sheriff's department and Olean police to establish the fact beyond a doubt that he is one of the slayers of Barber.

He was a well built man, gave his age as twenty-one years. His clothes, although now soiled from his confinement, are of good material. When taken into custody on Friday as a suspect his appearance was neat and orderly. Time after time Friday afternoon and night the man was lead forth from his cell to face groups of persons brought to identify him. Never excited, never confused, he walked forth as told to by police officials. When told to walk back and forth he did so with a firm and even step. Also when told to put on his hat he unfailing straightened his hair with his hands before doing so. Without a murmur he allowed the officers to place him in various positions, turning his head and body so as to give a full view of the man from every side.

The funeral of Barber was to be held Monday morning at 9 a.m. at St. John's church. His body had been removed to the home of Joe Romeo, a brother-in-law of the dead man, who lived at 516 North Seventh street.

The autopsy disclosed the fact that three of the eleven bullets fired at Barber had taken effect in the brain, according to the coroner. Two others made scalp wounds. Another bullet had passed through the abdomen from the front but did not reach the vital organs. A bullet which entered the left leg below the knee emerged on the opposite side above the knee. The fact that this bullet came out above the place where it entered lead the authorities to the conclusion that it was fired after Barber fell, mortally wounded, after the fieriest fusillade of bullets.

The shotgun used in the shooting was found by the police to have one choked and one open barrel. The shot from the choked barrel of the gun was found in a space two feet in diameter in the wall of a nearby building (Roger's store on Wayne street.) Some of them had gone through the wall and struck the interior wall on the opposite side. The shot fired from the open barrel was scattered over a space twenty feet high on the wall.

Lioi would be arraigned on Tuesday morning, May 19, 1925, before Justice Pratt at Little Valley, according to the sheriff's department. The county authorities expressed the opinion that they have enough evidence to indict Lioi for murder, as one of the two strangers who had emptied two .32 calibre revolvers into the body of Barber and fled.

The funeral of John Barber was held on Monday May 18, 1925, at St. John's church on North Union street in North Olean. It was one of the largest funeral ever held in Olean. There were more than fifty cars in the procession to the St. Bonaventure cemetery.

On June 5, 1925, Lioi was indicted by the grand jury at Little Valley and was charged with murder in the first degree. The trial date was set for July 13, 1925.

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