*Ø* Blogmanac | June 12, 1956 | Billy Dickson robbed the Centerville Trust
In 1965 Professor John McAleer of Massachusetts, USA received a letter from Billy Dickson, a convict, in response to an article the professor had written in the Boston Globe. The professor replied and a correspondence and friendship developed that lasted eight years; 1,200 letters passed between scholar and jailbird.

It was not till three months of correspondence had passed between the two unlikely penpals that the professor asked Dickson the reason for his imprisonment. It turned out that on June 12, 1956 Dickson had robbed the Centerville Trust and taken a woman hostage. This rang a bell in McAleer’s mind, as he recalled that his sister-in-law had been abducted on that date, and naturally enough had been traumatised by the event. The professor's penfriend was the villain who had caused his family so much grief.

After Dickson was stabbed to death in prison, McAleer helped to edit a Korean War novel, Unit Pride, that Dickson had written.