Ex-Undergrad Admits He Is Check Looter

Complete confession by 27-year-old Albert B. Parkhurst, two-term College student, and son of Irving B. Parkhurst, assistant business manager of the University, in the downtown Boston offices of the Secret Service last night, closed out the mystery check thefts amounting to $5000 from House mailboxes.

Special agents trailing him made the arrest yesterday afternoon outside a Newton liquor store, as their unsuspecting quarry, whom they had patiently followed for several days, tried once too often to turn a pilfered GI check in folding money.

Almost simultaneously a quick municipal police raid on Parkhurst's suite in the Back Bay Apartments on 1572 Massachusetts Avenue yielded not only stacks of his fellow students' bursars cards, which he used as false identification to cash his looted checks, but "two truck-loads" of stolen property, according to Chief Inspector P. F. Ready.

Typewriters, tennis rackets, male jewellery, and clothing can be claimed by owners at police headquarters in Central Square, Chief Ready added.

Interviewed in his home last night, Irving B. Parkhurst, the confessed felon's father, who has served Lehman Hall for 21 years, said he knew of no motive which could have prompted his son to go wrong.

His sister added that Albert Parkhurst had been independent of his family for many years, and that it was weeks after his return from Army Service, and his registration last February that they knew he was attending the College.

He was in residence through last summer, but for reasons uncertain last night, he did not enroll for the fall term. In early September he took an apartment on Massachusetts Avenue opposite from Sargent College dormitories, presumably as a base for his larcenous operations.

Social Life Needed Funds

Acquaintances of the arrested youth, however, were able to shed some light on his possible pressing need for funds. They recalled that he had been keeping "rather steady company" with a millionaire's daughter, now a college co-ed, for many months.

M. R. Allen, supervising agent of District No. 1 of the secret service, explained Parkhurst's method in check cashing last night. His forged checks were always endorsed in pen and ink, frequently under the alias-signature "John F. Lyons."

Parkhurst had in his possession a driving operator's license in this name, as well as a Coop credit card as "Lyons." according to Allen's bulletin issued yesterday morning.

After smashing in a mailbox and getting the $65 check, Parkhurst would usually head for a liquor package, haber-dashery, or speciality shop in metropolitan Boston. With his brown hair neatly slicked back, and always nattily dressed, he gave the perfect appearance of a well-to-do college man.