Desperate burglars steal door knobs

“Burglary reached new heights,” wrote the Chicago Daily Tribune when it reported the theft on February 20, 1963 of door knobs and door controls – valued at $8,000 – from a storeroom on the 56th floor. A carpenter superintendent told police that every storeroom from the 48th to the 56th floor had been forced open, as prowlers apparently searched for the equipment.

Marina City was the last taste of freedom for the accused mastermind of a car theft ring. The FBI chased 66-year-old George J. Soeder for ten months before catching up with him on April 9, 1963 as he was visiting a Marina City resident.

The resident was a 67-year-old widow that Soeder had met two days earlier on a flight from California. It was believed that Soeder had duped two other women out of thousands of dollars – telling one victim he needed $12,000 to pay claims from an automobile accident – and that the Marina City resident was an intended third victim.

On January 12, 1964, while Bert Silverman was away, someone pried open the door to his apartment on the 55th floor of the west tower and stole $8,755 worth of jewelry.

Residents of the west tower got a rude Christmas present later in the year. 90 storage lockers on the 20th floor were broken into. Suitcases and boxes were found on the floor of the storage room. Next door in the laundry room, a coin box and soft drink machine were also looted. It wasn’t immediately known how much was taken because many residents were away for the holidays.

Then shortly after the holidays, a 65-year-old widow, Frieda Meyer, reported a theft from her Marina City apartment. Taken were furs, cash, and a diamond ring, collectively valued at $5,588.

Swibel home invaded

It didn’t happen at Marina City, but Charles Swibel was himself a crime victim when he and his family were robbed at gunpoint in April 1963. Five men broke into their home in south Chicago. They stole $15,000 worth of furs, jewelry, and cash. The family was woken up between 3 and 4:30 a.m., and Charles was bound with his own neckties.

You can hear the fear in his voice when Howard Swibel retells this story 44 years later. He was 13 at the time of the home invasion. “It was one of the most frightening experiences,” he says. “I was paralyzed. I could not breath. I was so afraid.”

In his bed, facing a wall, his back to the doorway, Swibel says he could hear people in the house. “I could hear the noise. I was afraid someone would come in, notice I was awake, and hurt me somehow. Kill me, shoot me, beat me. So I was afraid to move because I was afraid it would draw attention to me. It seemed like an eternity.”

After the burglars left, Charles Swibel was able to work the necktie off his mouth and started shouting at Howard for help. Howard says he had to get a steak knife to cut the neckties.

“Here’s my father, being considerable of other people – he didn’t want to wake the neighbors. He actually went out in the middle of the street in his bath robe to try to stop an automobile to get somebody to call the police because he didn’t want to disturb the neighbors at three in the morning.”

Howard says his father tried to get people with mob connections to track down the burglars. “The stolen items were fenced. They were never caught.”

It was the second time the Swibel home had been robbed. The previous September, while the family was away, burglars got furs and jewelry valued at $30,000.