It was summer 1942 and the two young girls, ages nine and six, were bubbling over with excitement. School was out and the girls had ridden the train from Pittsfield, Massachusetts to Buffalo, New York and arrived in Niagara Falls just this morning to spend the week at Grandma and Grandpa Reilly’s home. Their grandpa was a hero to them. He was a tall, handsome detective working for the Niagara Falls Police Department and had been involved in solving some of the most notorious crimes in the United States over the past 25 years.
Terrence Matthew Reilly was born in Ossining, Westchester N.Y. on September 27, 1875. From the time he was a schoolboy Terrence was interested in police work. He moved to Niagara Falls initially to take a job with the Niagara Falls Power Company but by 1907 he was walking a beat as a patrolman. It wasn’t long before the town’s criminals learned that to cross paths with Patrolman Reilly was to feel full weight of the law come down like a gavel on a sounding block.
As a border town, Niagara Falls attracted pickpockets, confidence men, and other small-time crooks that preyed on the many tourists and foreigners that visited. When the prohibition of alcohol became law in the United States in 1920, a whole new set of criminals descended on the city. Trafficking the illegal substance across the US-Canadian border was big business.
Helen and Abigail sat at the breakfast table. Helen pleaded with grandpa, "Please tell us the story of when you chased the bank robbers all the way to Cleveland and captured them."
"Girls, I have to go to work this morning, but I promise I will be home for dinner. Before bedtime we can tell stories. Now go and cut me a carnation from the garden so I can wear it in my lapel and remember you all day long while I chase the bad guys."
Helen and Abigail jumped down from the table and headed out the back door of 1321 Niagara Avenue to the garden. Grandma Ellen called after them, "Now don't run with scissors in your hand. And be careful to only cut one from the trellis near the fence."
Terrence Reilly was the youngest member of the original Detective Bureau. He and his partner John L. "Bucky" Roader had been working together since 1922 when the bureau was formed. The other members of the unit were George "Dugan" Callihan, James Keenan, and John Downs. Together they were nationally recognized for solving cases like the Niagara Falls Trust company robbery, the American Express company and the National Carbon Company payroll holdups. In the Niagara Falls Trust company case five civilians were shot and one policeman was seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head. In the case of the National Carbon Company payroll robbery the paymaster was murdered in cold blood by the gangsters. In each case these five detectives were brave defenders of the law and protectors of innocent civilians that were unfortunate enough to be caught in the crossfire.
Dinner time came and true to his word Grandpa Reilly drove up in his 1938 Ford. Grandma Reilly and the girls had spent the day cooking, cleaning, and playing. Supper consisted of ham, potatoes, green beans from the garden and a big juicy watermelon from the market. As good as the meal was, it was excruciating for the girls to wait for it to be over. Story time was the best part of the day. Once Grandpa Reilly pushed back from the table the girls jumped down from their chairs and began to help clear the dishes. 
The family moved to the back porch where it was cooler. Grandpa and Grandma sat in the big wicker chairs. Helen and Abigail took their places on the porch swing. "So you want to hear the story of the bank robbery. It was the called Niagara Falls Trust company back then and the gangsters got away with nearly $12,000."
"But you didn't let them get away with it did you Grandpa?"
"You are right, we did not let them get away with the crime, but they did hold up the bank and escape with the money at first. They pulled up in front of the bank in broad daylight. Slim Miller, Augie Reid, Shotgun Larry, Joe Principano, Red Brennan, and Gospel Pat Toca jumped out of their car and charged into the trust company like they owned the place. They started shooting at anything that moved. Two women were shot in the street by the bandits guarding the front of the bank. Two of the tellers were wounded before they could pull money out of the safe. Luckily no one was killed. The robbers ordered the bank manager to load all the money into a bag.
"Officer George Holohan was on patrol that morning. He heard the shots being fired and ran toward the bank to see what was going on. As he turned the corner he took a bullet to the head and fell out onto the street. The gangsters figured it was high time to leave and burst back into the street through the front door. The chaos ended as abruptly as it had started for the people in the bank. Officer Holohan spent the next three months in the hospital but fully recovered. He still has the scars from the bullet." 
"Tell us the part about how they drove their getaway car and were shooting up the whole city as they drove away," cried Abigail.
"Are you sure you want me to tell you this story? You seem to know an awful lot about it already."
"Oh, please Grandpa," the girls exclaimed together.
"Okay well, Slim Miller drove the car right down the middle of the street while Gospel Pat and Shotgun Larry took aim with their guns and shot back down the street toward the bank just to make sure no one would follow them. When they got a couple of miles out of town they ditched their car because they knew it would be spotted. Augy Reid flagged down a local farmer who was hauling hay and forced him at gunpoint to hide them under the hay in his wagon until the heat was off.
"We knew they would be on the run so we enlisted the help of the state police and sheriffs from the surrounding area. We found their car but couldn't find them. It wasn't until the next day that we began to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The first break in the case came when one of the tellers at the bank described his assailant as a slender man of average height and sandy blond hair. It wasn't much to go on but someone matching that general description had been locked up for vagrancy the week previous. We had a name and a hunch to go on.
"Clues led us to Cleveland, Toledo, and Lima Ohio but in each case we came up empty. We finally dug up information about an apartment owned by Gospel Pat Toca in New York City. We spent a day watching the apartment. Three members of the gang were believed to be staying in the place. We waited until nighttime when we could approach the door of the apartment without being seen. With the help of the local authorities we stormed the place breaking down the door and surprising them as they slept. It didn't take long before they revealed the names and locations of their cohorts. We headed to the Pittsburgh area and caught up with two more of the gang and took them without firing a single shot.
"Slim Miller had been hiding out in Buffalo the whole time practically under our noses. On our way back from Pittsburgh we apprehended him as he was walking down the street with his girlfriend."
"Tell us about the reward Grandpa."
"Well, the Niagara Falls Trust company was so grateful that we had solved the case and recovered most of the money that had been stolen that they gave the head detective Dugan Callinan $10,000. Dugan in turn split the reward with each of the detectives that helped solve the case."

Here are the obituaries for Terence M Reilly.
Veteran police officer retires after 37 Years
The Niagara Falls Gazette (date???? 1943)
Lieutenant Terrence M Reilly was member of Original Detective Bureau.
With 37 years of active police service behind him, Detective Lieutenant Terrence M. Reilly terminated his career as a law enforcement officer today and retire on pension from the police department.  
The last surviving member of the original police detective bureau whose exploits attracted nationwide attention, starting at the turn of the century and continuing through the turbulent period of the lawless days of the prohibition era, has been on sick leave for several months.
At his home, 1321 Niagara Avenue, today, still racked by the sickness which compelled his withdrawal from active police work, Lieutenant Reilly looked back over the years of his long service and confided to members of his family and bid friends that he thought it was time to “call it a day” and pass on the work of crime detection and prevention to the younger fellows of the force.
Born in Ossining, N.Y. on September 27, 1875, Lieutenant Reilly is 69.  He came to this city in his early manhood and for a time was employed by the Niagara Falls Power Company.  From his schoolboy days he was interested in police work and on January 15, 1907, he attained a boyhood ambition when he was appointed a patrolman under the late Police Chief John J. Maloney.
Of strapping physique and a student of what were then modern methods of police work, he soon won the recognition of his superiors and the public as a fearless and competent officer.  Reward for his service came on March 5, 1917, when he was promoted to the rank of detective sergeant and later became under civil service regulations a detective lieutenant.
With his transfer from the uniformed department to the detective bureau, Lieutenant Reilly became an associate of the late Chief of Detectives George H. Callinan and Detective Lieutenants John L. Roeder, John Downs, james keenan and others, all of whom have passed on.  The old detective bureau, functioning through the troublesome days of the early part of the century when pickpockets, penny-matchers and crooks of other categories made Niagara Falls their stamping grounds, made a name for itself in the police annals of the nation and young Reilly, the baby of the department then,  was in there pitching with the more experienced men.
As the pickpockets, penny-matchers and others of the small-time crooks started to shun the city as “too hot a ground” for their work, the prohibition era, with its hi-jacking and gang slayings, banditry and bank and payroll holdups engulfed the Western New York area and the local detective bureau played an active part in the constant effort to keep order and protect the life and property of the public.
Lieutenant Reilly was active in the arrest and conviction of the Niagara Falls Trust company bandits, the American Express company holdup and the National Carbon Company payroll holdup and murder of the concern’s crippled paymaster.  He served throughout the days of the Aluminum company strike riots and many other lawless events of the period.
For many years of his service in the detective bureau Lieutenant Reilly was “teamed” with the late Detective Lieutenant John L Roeder and during the latter years of their co-partnership they were assigned to department store work in tracing and arresting shoplifters and phony check-passers.
“Lieutenant Reilly’s service in the police department was outstanding,”  Police Superintendent Martin T. Considine said today in commenting on the retirement of the veteran officer.  He was a member of the detective bureau when its members were called upon to combat crime during a period of the city’s history that was featured by some of the outstanding crimes of the century.
“For years bank holdups had been frequent throughout the country and the arrest and conviction of the Niagara Falls Trust company bandits here was the first break that law enforcement officers got in the solution of a holdup.  Lieutenant Reilly took an active part in that excellent police job and later in the roundup of the National Carbon Company bandits.”
Tuesday, August 8, 1944
Officer Reilly Checks Out
When Terrence Reilly died this morning there passed the last of a famous quartet of policemen who served this city in the turbulent days when its industrial life was taking form and substance.  Men, tough in fibre and ready to battle at the drop of the hat, were imported to labor in the hydro development.  To keep this element within due bounds required policemen of courage and ability.
Conspicuous in this work of maintaining the peace were George (Dugan) Callinan, later head of the detective department, John L. (Bucky) Roader, James Keenan and Terrence Reilly.  This quartet worked as a unit and so efficient were they that their fame as peace officers spread far beyond the confines of the city and became a source of fear to evil doers.  Many lively tilts with reckless and fearless gunmen highlights the record of these four officers who knew not the name of fear.  Reilly participated in a number of battles that tested both his courage and acumen as an officer.  As his pals on the force slipped off, one by one, Reilly began to grieve.  When he was left as the last of this group he had not the stamina to fight off the ailment to which he finally succumbed.
Terrence Reilly was a good officer with a clean record.  He was greatly interested in the welfare of his home city and contributed to its progress in ways that he could.  His brother officers on the force are paying him deserved tribute today, as they recall his service and the thrilling incidents of his career as a fighting cop.
TERRENCE REILLY, VETERAN RETIRED DETECTIVE, DIES
 Niagara Falls Gazette – Tuesday, August 8, 1944
Long Illness Fatal to Police Official; Aided in Solving Major Crimes.
Terrence M. Reilly, of 1319 Niagara Avenue, veteran retired detective lieutenant of the Niagara Falls Police department, died this morning at 8:45 o’clock in Mt. St. Mary’s hospital after a long illness.  A native of Ossining, N.Y. where he was born September 27, 1875, Lieutenant Reilly was 68 and had been a resident of this city since early manhood.
During the early days of his residence here he was employed by the Niagara Falls Power company and was appointed a patrolman on January 15, 1907, and reported for duty on January 21, 1907.  His career as a detective Lieutenant began on February 16, 1916, when he was promoted to the detective bureau, serving with the late Detective Chief George H. Callinan and the late Detective Lieutenants John L. Roeder and James Keenan.
One of the members of the quartette of veteran police officers who manned the detective bureau during the turbulent days of the Prohibition era and what is now often referred to a the “roaring twenties,” Lieutenant Reilly participated in the solution of many of the major crimes of that period, including the Niagara Falls Trust company holdup, the American Express company holdup in which the notorious Gerald Chapman was the brains and the national Carbon company holdup and murder.
He had been in ill health for more than a year and before his retirement May 31, last, had been under treatment in Mt. St. Mary’s hospital on several occasions.  He was last admitted to the hospital July 6.
Surviving Lieutenant Reilly are his wife, Mrs. Nellie F. reilly; a son, Fire Captain Edward C. Reilly, both of this city; a daughter, Mrs. Edward Wallace, of Pittsfield, Mass., and a sister, Mrs. Catherine Stauble, of Ossining.  Seven grandchildren also survive.
Funeral services for Lieutenant Reilly will be held Friday morning at 8:30 o’clock from the Otto redanz funeral home, Michigan Avenue at Tenth street, and in the Church of the Sacred Heart at 9 o’clock.  Burial will be made in Gate of Heaven cemetery.  
Terrence Reilly Is Laid at Rest
The Niagara Falls Gasette, August 11, 1944
Quiet funeral services were held this morning from the Otto Redans funeral home at 8:30 o'clock and in Sacred Heart church at 9 o'clock for retired Detective Lieutenant Terrence M. Reilly, 68. of 1319 Niagara avenue, who died in Mount St. Mary's hospital last Tuesday. 
Despite Lieut. Reilly’s own last request that the funeral service be not pretentious, a large group of his friends gathered at the church where a Requiem High mass was sung by the Rev. Herbert Engelhart. Assisting at the Mass were j the Rev. John Rochford, pastor of Sacred Heart church, and the Rev.
Thomas Carey, chaplain of the Niagara Falls Police and Fire departments, A large offering of flowers banked the casket at the home, where It lay in state prior to the funeral service this morning.
Officials of the police and fire department and friends of the detective served as pallbearers. They were Police Superintendent Martin T. Considine, Fire Chief James H. O'Neill, Lieutenant Charles Dineen, Fire Captain Joseph McMahon, Francis Curry and Daniel S. Dolan. Interment was In Gate of Heaven cemetery. Father Carey gave the last blessing at the grave.     

From the Police Journal of 1920
Reilly the Terror. Detective Reilly is the terror of all Falls' evildoers. He and Detective John L. Roeder head what is sometimes referred to as the vice squad. In his work Reilly displays a bulldog tenacity and an aggressiveness that strike fear to the heart of the criminal. He has the reputation of never giving up until he has exhausted every means of bringing a criminal to justice. His appearance in certain sections of the city where wrongdoers are said to seek shelter is the signal for an exodus of that class of persons.