Officer Robert Lee Jester

Robert Lee Jester

Officer Robert Jester was shot and killed by two bank robbers in a shootout in downtown Miami.

He and another officer recognized two men wanted for a bank robbery in Reading, Pennsylvania, as they entered the Seminole Hotel at 53 E. Flagler Street. When the officers ordered the men to stop they turned and opened fire fatally wounding Officer Jester. Officer Jester's partner returned fire killing one suspect and wounding the other. That wounded suspect escaped but was apprehended one hour later.

The captured suspect, a 17-year-old boy, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1938 he was given the nickname Houdini after he escaped three times in one year. Each time he was captured within a few weeks in Colorado, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. In 1952 he was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list after he escaped from a prison work farm. He was apprehended one year later in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. He was released from prison in 1958.

Officer Jester had served with the Miami Police Department for 10 years.