Branding the story told by Guy Freas regarding how he came to be in possession of the T. E. Robinson Ford sedan, five miles east of Rochelle early Sunday [12/26/1920] morning, as a wild fairy tale, and after both he and State’s Attorney R. W. Besse had given Freas ample opportunity to tell all the facts regarding the matter, Judge I. L. Weaver bound Freas over to the action of the grand jury under $3,000 bonds, in the preliminary trial held in his court on Monday afternoon. Until noon today he had been unable to furnish bond.

On Christmas night the T. E. Robinson sedan was left near the moose Hall on West Third street by his son, Revoe Robinson, who was attending the dance. When he went to get the car about 12 o’clock it was gone. Phone calls were put in to the surrounding towns giving a description of the car and the police at Rochelle remembered the car had just passed thru that city. The sheriff was summoned and a car was secured from the garage and started in pursuit. The sedan was overtaken about five miles east of Rochelle, the pursuit car passing around the sedan and blocking the way. Freas was driving the sedan. He was taken back to Rochelle and lodged in jail and the police here were notified. Mr. Robinson and son went to Rochelle and secured their car on Sunday and on Monday G. Haglock went to Rochelle and brot Freas back for trial.

When he appeared in court he asked for a continuance in order that he might secure several persons whom he named, whereby he could prove that he was about the city until after midnight, and that it would have been impossible for him to have stolen the car. Judge Weaver stated that he would continue with the case and that if Freas could show where a continuance was necessary he would grant it.

When asked how he came to be in possession of the car Freas stated t hat on Christmas night he had gone to Dixon with a party of young men in an Oldsmobile. He had known the young men, who were from Dixon, for three or four years, but did not know the names of any of them. He met t hem in a local restaurant and said he would ride t o Dixon with them, which he claims he did. He asked that Chester Edwards, night clerk at the Sterling Inn, be placed in the stand to prove that he was in the hotel after midnight and that he had informed Mr. Edwards that he was going to Chicago on an early train. This Mr. Edwards stated was a fact.

After arriving in Dixon he states that he went into a restaurant there and got something to eat and then went out and walked down the street in order to kill time before the train arrived. He says he noticed two cars in front of a Dixon hotel, one of them a Ford touring car with wire wheels and the other a sedan. Before he got to the two cars he claims that the men who were around the car ran and jumped into the touring car and drove off. He walked up and looked at the sedan and believed he recognized it as the car owned by T. E. Robinson of this city, so he says he got in it and started out after the other car, and that he never got much closer than a block of the touring card any of the time and a number of times the other car was out of sight. He said that he lost track of the other car he claimed he was pursuing at Rochelle. When asked why he didn’t turn around and come back he exclaimed, “That’s It.”

State’s Attorney R. W. Besse informed him that he had given him more time than was usually given persons in his position to tell a straight story, but that if he did not wish to do so, he would be given the opportunity of telling the grand jury. Freas insisted that he was telling the truth about the matter.