Dapper Dan Collins

February 4, 1922
LONG BEACH TELEGRAM
Gun Man Sought

Los Angeles--"Dapper Dan" Collins, two gun man, master blackmailer, is"wanted for questioning" in connection with the murder of William Desmond Taylor.
This was revealed to the United Press exclusively today by private investigators at work on the mysterious slaying of the famous motion picture director.
"Dapper Dan" is now at large, detectives said, with a price of $5000 on his head following the shooting in New York last May of John H. Reid, well to do manufacturer, at the home of Hazel D. Warner.
"Dapper Dan" has been traced from New York to Denver, from Denver to Salt Lake City, and from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, the investigators asserted.
He recently escaped a trap set for him when a motion picture actress whom he was attempting to use as a tool in another blackmail project, informed on him.
Detectives are attempting to establish whether or not this blackmail scheme involved Taylor's mystery shrouded past. Underworld acquaintances of "Dapper Dan" told investigators, according to the latter, that Collins had boasted his intention of "finishing this deal single handed, since the come on girl had crossed him up."
The detectives believe that "Dapper Dan's" intended victim was some one obviously possessed of considerable wealth, who was connected with the motionpicture industry, they informed the United Press.
This belief is based on the fact that the blackmailer was attempting to use a film actress as a lure.
Collins, it is believed, was very probably intimate with the details of Taylor's past in New York, bits of which are now coming to light for the first time...

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