Police Nab Thief For Observatory Crime; Seek Aide

"I wanted to pick up some fast money," Lawrence Epps, a 20-year-old Cambridge resident, told police yesterday afternoon when arrested for three holdups at the Harvard Observatory over the Yale weekend.

Epps admitted that he had threatened two Harvard students and a girl with a 45 automatic on the night of November 20, and stated that his only loot was $7 taken from the couple. At the time, Frederick G. Torrey '49 and his date, Martha Bixler, daughter of the president of Colby College, reported a loss of $19. The other victim, Carl P. Josephson '51, claimed that $7 was stolen from him.

The self-confessed robber refused to name a "knife-wielding" accomplice, and police announced that the 28-day-old investigation would continue. Epps will be arraigned tomorrow noon at the third district court of Cambridge.

Coming at a time when several prowlers and mysterious holdup men were reported in the Radcliffe area, the Epps incident caused Dean Sherman's office to advise Annex dwellers to walk in pairs after sundown.