Trooper remembered
SHENANGO TWP, Lawrence County — Old Butler Road runs parallel in the shadows of Route 422, but it once served as the main artery between Butler and New Castle. On Dec. 27, 1929, it was the site of Trooper Brady Paul's death in a shootout with an outlaw couple.
Daniel Vogler, chairman of the Lawrence County Commissioners, recalled Paul's last moments during a wreath-laying ceremony at noon Friday, a ritual he and others have held for at least six years. This year marked the 90th anniversary of Paul's death.
“It's indeed an honor for you all to join us,” Vogler said to a group of more than a dozen participants. In attendance were members of the Brady Paul Lodge #54 of the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents troopers in Butler County and the surrounding counties. The ceremony was also attended by all four of Lawrence County's common pleas judges.
“A couple robbed a store in Butler and they came down this road to go to New Castle,” Vogler said. “Corporal Paul and his partner set up a roadblock here to stop them. A gun battle ensued and there was one mortal injury. The people who did the shooting came into New Castle afterward and hijacked another car, and then engaged in a nationwide crime spree.”
The couple, Glenn Dague and Irene Schroeder, were later caught in Arizona. They were then sent back to the state, tried in Lawrence County and executed in 1931.According to the state police's memorial information, Paul was 25 years old at the time of his death. He was born in Washington County and he had joined the State Highway Patrol, a state police precursor, in 1926.Schroeder and Dague met in West Virginia, where they became romantically involved, according to a historical account from Lawrence County Memoirs. After a tour of downtown Pittsburgh, the two eventually made their way to Butler and spent a night in the Arlington Hotel on South Main Street, where they stayed under assumed names.The next day, they robbed the nearby P.H. Butler Company and then set off for New Castle. State Highway Patrol officials in Butler alerted Paul that the couple was likely heading in his direction.Paul and his partner, Ernest Moore, headed east toward Butler on Old Route 422 riding a motorcycle with an attached sidecar.
The roadblock he and Moore set up was located three miles east of New Castle. The troopers stopped Dague, who was driving, and Schroeder. Schroeder's 4-year-old son was also in the car. Accounts differ on how the incident unfolded that led to the shooting, but while Paul approached the driver's side to speak to Dague, the couple began shooting at the officers.Paul was taken to a hospital in New Castle, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Moore, who apparently fainted during the gunfight, recovered from his wound.The couple was later caught out west, returned to Pennsylvania for trial, and found guilty. They were put to death by electrocution at Rockview Penitentiary.Schroeder was the first woman to be executed in Pennsylvania.At Friday's ceremony, Lawrence County President Judge Dominick Motto celebrated the speediness of the couple's execution “considering how our system is now.”“It's been a great honor to come here over the years,” Motto said. “We have to appreciate all the men and women serving us.”Vogler said the monument dates back to the 1930s, and he and Motto decided to mark the commemoration stone with a wreath-laying ceremony annually.“It's always been a very brief and solemn affair,” Vogler said. “Our primary reason is to remember and honor Corporal Brady Paul for his sacrifice for our safety.”Vogler then promised, “We'll be here next year.”
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