Missing money, a gunshot and a bank collapse

[Trigger warning: suicide]

I've recently located several news articles related to $137,000 of missing funds believed to have been stolen by Arnold Wiebener, a first cousin three-times removed. Arnold's aunt was my great-great-grandmother, Annie Wiebener Schwager.

Below are newspaper clippings from the Davenport, Iowa Daily Times on July 25, 1931. Arnold was a cashier at the Farmers' & Merchants' Bank in Durant, Iowa. It's believed that over many years he stole money from bank deposits and applied the funds against bad loans. Believing that his fraud would be discovered, Arnold shot himself in the basement of the bank, dying several days later. The bank could not sustain the loss, and was closed down permanently. Following his death, his widow also endured a legal battle regarding title of their property and deeds that were signed over to the bank after Arnold was shot but before he died. A time period that the widow aruged was under duress.

In my career, I've audited banks and performed procedures to attempt to uncover any bad loans that could have been hidden. I've looked at segragation of duties to ensure that a person approving a loan has no deposit authority for loan repayments. I found the whole story very interesting, and was surprised that the story didn't survive in the myths and legends of our family lore.

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