The American public regarded the ‘60s as our most divisive decade. Young people expressed themselves unlike anything ever witnessed in past decades. Americans opposed the Vietnam War, fought for civil rights and watched a man walk on the moon. Although Cincinnati was the birthplace of Charles Manson, there are other heinous criminals and crimes associated with Cincinnati. For example, the Cincinnati Strangler prowled the Queen City around the time when someone murdered the Bricca family. Today, authorities still don’t know who killed the Briccas. 
For this story, I refer to an appalling crime in Cincinnati annals referred to as the Delhi bank robbery. It involved three bank robbers who brutally murdered four women. One victim was married to a Cincinnati police officer. On September 24, 1969, Raymond Kassow, Watterson Johnson and John Leigh sat outside the Cabinet Supreme Savings and Loan Association at 5162 Delhi Pike in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The three men sat in a convertible Chevy Malibu and waited for the right moment to rob the bank. The trio entered the bank after they saw the bank manager leave for the day. Kassow figured it would be a simple robbery. According to his plan, the teller would be alone. They would take the bank’s cash and then execute the teller. Kassow was adamant about leaving no survivors. But there would be a significant change in plans. A man named Joe Huebner brought his wife Helen to the bank to cash her paycheck. Additionally, two sisters-in-law named Henrietta and Luella Stitzel also entered the bank. They planned to spend the day shopping.
After the three robbers entered the bank, they forced the three customers and teller Lillian Dewald into the vault and viciously executed them. Each woman was shot in the head. Dewald was also shot in the back four times. The men stole $275 and fled.
Joe Huebner sat outside waiting for his wife. He wondered why it was taking so long. He saw the three killers leave the bank and noticed they were carrying the victim’s purses. After recognizing his wife’s purse, he entered the bank and found the four mortally wounded women. During the investigation, police learned Lillian Dewald’s husband was a Cincinnati police officer named Walter Dewald.
Lillian had told her husband about an unusual incident that left her uneasy. She said two men opened accounts and then withdrew the money. The men scared her. She considered the men suspicious and thought they were going to rob her.
After the unusual incident with the men, she had identified Kassow as one of the suspicious men. The police focused on Kassow and arrested him immediately. After his two accomplices fled to New Mexico, authorities arrested them four days later. Leigh admitted to being the shooter. He also shot Dewald in the back four times because she wouldn’t stop screaming.
The men were tried, convicted and received death sentences. However, the sentences were commuted to life. Over the years, all three killers have since died in prison. Although Kassow came up for parole, Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters made sure Kassow never left prison. In 2015, Kassow died while incarcerated. Deters made his sentiments known about Kassow. “Good riddance, he was a piece of crap.”
The victims left behind husbands, children and grandchildren. The Cabinet-Supreme Savings and Loan Association is now only a memory. Today, an O’Reilly’s auto parts store occupies the location where four innocent women were viciously murdered over five decades ago. Cincinnati has changed a lot since 1969, but there are still people who remember the four murdered women and the three monsters who killed them.
Marc is a longtime resident of Clermont County and an avid reader. Contact him through his website at www.themarcabe.com or through Facebook: www.Facebook.com/themarcabe or his Twitter account @themarcabe. Marc also has a podcast called Catch my Killer where he interviews family members seeking justice for their murdered loved ones. You can listen at www.catchmykiller.com.