Santa Clarita Valley History In Pictures
> 1929 SAUGUS TRAIN ROBBERY   > LAW ENFORCEMENT
Tom Vernon
Saugus Train Robber

CAROLENA REZENDES PHOTOS OF TOM VERNON 1957-1958

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Webmaster's note.

This report references one or more of the enduring lies that the inept horse thief and train robber Thomas Vernon told about himself: that he was "Buffalo" Tom, the rodeo star; and that he was Thomas Averill, the fantasy love child of Jim Averill and Cattle Kate. He was neither.


According to Carolena Rezendes of Citrus Heights, Calif., this is a photograph of Saugus train robber Tom Vernon, aka Tom Averill, at her family home outside of Sacramento in 1957-58.

Rezendes specifically refutes the ending of Jerry Reynolds' story about the Great Saugus Train Robbery of 1929, where Reynolds says the bandit was released 35 years after his 1929 incarceration (i.e., 1964), and describes him as a "small, nervous, aged, gray-haired man, who died shortly thereafter of a 'social disease.'"

Vernon was indeed pardoned by Gov. Pat Brown in 1964, but he was paroled more than a decade earlier; he shows up in Idaho in 1953 as seen here.

Rezendes writes (Aug. 31, 2004): "I know for a fact that he was Not in prison in 1957/1958 because he was living with my family in Sacramento, California, in 1957 & 1958. As to how he died, it was TB. Our family buried him."


CR5701: 19200 dpi jpeg from 1200 dpi jpeg courtesy of Carolena Rezendes.
1929 SAUGUS TRAIN ROBBERY

THE ROBBERY

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Passengers / Earliest Known 11-10-1929

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Daybreak 11-11-1929

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Newsreel Footage

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Loren Ayers x5

THE MANHUNT

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Boynton Story

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Pollack Story

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LAT 11-11-1929

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Vernon Captured

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Mugshots 12/1929

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Extradition 12-12-1929

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AP 12-19-1929

THE FAKERY

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REAL: Tom Vernon Prison Records

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REAL: Horse Theft 1920

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BOGUS: Tom Vernon Letters 1929-1963

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BOGUS: Tom Vernon's Fake Photo ID 1962

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BOGUS: Vernon's Own Story in 3 Parts

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BOGUS: Cattle Kate Story 12-7-1929

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BOGUS: Vernon Retells Story in 1953

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BOGUS: Sweetwater Incident 1967

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BOGUS Sideshow: Lester F. Mead
'Confessor' 11-1929

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REAL: Buffalo Vernon 1884-1939

THE AFTERMATH

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1957-1958 x3

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Pardon 1964

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Death Cert. 1967

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After the Wreck
No. 5042 x3

• A New Ending (Now Obsolete)


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