CLEAR LAKE – A loosely organized group of thieves that are high on a powerful drug have some Clear Lake residents on edge as they perpetrate a rash of burglaries in the community.
Sources are telling NIT that Lake police are on high alert, looking for a group of possible drug abusers who are undertaking burglaries and essentially stealing anything they can get their hands on.
Citizens have already been warned to put away or lock up anything of value as evening sets in every day. As late as Thursday night, August 14, a patron of a Clear Lake bar who lives on South Shore Drive said he was leaving early to go home and protect his property by sitting on the front porch with a loaded shotgun.
The trouble started when some gutsy burglars hit the summer home of a prominent Mason City professional late last month, NorthIowaToday.com has learned. Clear Lake police were alerted in the early morning hours one night in late July by Dr. and Mrs. Paul Gordon that thieves had invaded their unit at the lake’s historic Outing Club. The Outing Club, which dates to 1895, is located on several acres on both sides of the city’s South Shore Drive. It’s long been one of the midwest’s most exclusive private clubs, with an elite membership drawn from the ranks of wealthy doctors, bankers, businessmen, the politically connected, and socially prominent. Many South shore homeowners are shocked about this robbery, but are as seemingly as secretive, and close-mouthed about it as the club’s membership. In fact, few people that NorthIowaToday.com contacted regarding it were even willing to talk. Police are being tight-lipped.
According to a source, the Gordons were home on the second floor of their cottage when a person, or persons, entered their summer home. Stolen from the Gordons was a MacIntosh laptop computer. NorthIowaToday.com made efforts to obtain information regarding this theft from Dr. and Mrs. Gordon, but no one answered a call to their cottage. NIT also contacted another Outing Club member, Todd Blodgett, who said, “No comment.”
NorthIowaToday.com then made several attempts to contact some members of the Outing Club, and was able to actually speak with a close friend of the wife of an owner of a unit at the historic private club. This source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, has been at the club as a guest on what she said are “many occasions, including this summer.”
The source said that “They’re all extremely upset over this. I’ve been told that it’s caused several club members to arrange for expensive burglar alarms to be installed. The husband of a good friend of mine there says he’ll be bringing a gun over there next week. Already, some members have guns there.” The exclusive club is actually a privately-owned corporation which operates as a co-operative. It has only 20 registered shareholders, according to documents on file with the Iowa Secretary of State. Each member family lives in its own, separate unit, with all cottages connected on the lake side by a winding, 1,100-foot-long, screened front porch. The club features a sweeping, beautifully manicured front lawn, a boat dock, swimming dock, members dining room, library, a professional kitchen, private tennis court, bricked BBQ pit, salaried staff, approximately 800 feet of prime shoreline, and other valuable amenities.
Clear Lake police are investigating the case, and the word is that there is a suspect in jail at this time that has confessed to stealing the expensive MacIntosh laptop from the Gordon’s. Some Clear Lake residents are speculating that the thieves may be among some residents of the Silver Boot Motel, which is also located on South Shore Drive, on the street side. Local police and county sheriff’s deputies are called to the motel on a regular basis. However, it’s rare for law enforcement officers to be summoned to the South Shore Outing Club.
Over many decades, it has been home to prominent, wealthy, Midwestern families. The late actor Marlon Brando and his parents vacationed there in the 1930s and early ’40s, according to documents contained in the Lee P. Loomis archives at the Mason City public library. Mr. Loomis, who was the CEO of Lee Enterprises, Inc., was a longtime Outing Club member, and also owned a unit. According to a June, 2004 article in the Mason City Globe-Gazette, in the early 1970s, the late J. Neil Reagan (brother of Ronald Reagan) and his wife, Bess Reagan, were frequent vacationers at the Outing Club. NorthIowaToday.com has learned that the break-in at the Gordon cottage occurred via an unlocked door to their screened-in back patio. Thieves then broke the locked door to the cottage, which was dark. After Mrs. Gordon heard noise coming from the downstairs, Dr. Gordon was going downstairs as the burglars made a rapid exit. “The thief, or thieves,” our source told us, “ran out of the street-side door, hopped the chain-link fence, and got away. They were just so inconsiderate. As they made their getaway, they even trampled some lovely cannas that had lined the fence.”
Burglaries at this club are “extremely rare”, according to a Clear Lake resident who is acquainted with the Outing Club caretaker. According to him, “whoever broke into Paul and Marsha Gordon’s unit are lucky they didn’t pick some other cottage to steal from. There are members over there who are avid shooters, and can legally carry firearms.” The sources we spoke with emphasized that there’s nothing of any value stored at the Outing Club during the off-season. From what NorthIowaToday.com learned, most cottages are occupied between Memorial Day and to around end of September of each year. A full-time caretaker who works year round has undertaken extra precautions to protect the club from any further potential robberies or home invasions. According to our source, the garages owned by Outing Club members are equipped with alarms, video surveillance cameras, and other anti-theft devices. “Anybody tries breaking into a garage will get photos of themselves taken, right on the spot,” the man told NorthIowaToday.com.
According to an article from ‘The Iowan Magazine’ and information obtained from a property search of the Cerro Gordo County web site, present or past owners of Outing Club cottages and members are people with prominent names like MacNider, Hormel, Pappajohn, Blodgett, Bergo, Loomis, Beck, Laird, and Ramaekers.
As for the potential burglar ring, sources tell NIT that police believe that the crooks use bicycles for transportation and are definitely users of the powerful drug methamphetamine. As police have squeezed these junkies in recent weeks, they have become more and more desperate for cash or goods to sell so they can get more meth. The source claimed that on the night of August 14, as many as 10 more locations were burglarized in Clear Lake. To accomplish these crimes, the group of lawbreakers are listening to scanners so they know where the cops are, and cops are going around the scanners by communicating via computer. Police know who the perpetrators are but are seeking proof so charges that can stick can be brought but in the meantime, the crimes will go on so the druggies can satisfy their craving to get high.
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