An earlier mystery man.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

AS ONE OF the hottest movies of the new year - and the No. 1 paperback book on the New York Times Best Sellers list - "Catch Me If You Can" has captivated millions.

Based on a true story, the Steven Spielberg-directed film - I give it two thumbs-up - is about a gutsy young con man, Frank Abagnale Jr., who passes himself off as a doctor, lawyer and airline co-pilot while using forged checks to fund a cross-country spree.

But years before Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio) began his adventures, the nation's most notorious check forger was a less flamboyant man known as "The Traveler." The Los Angeles Times called him a "mystery man ... the nation's No. 1 check-passing suspect." And in 1957, an FBI agent didn't catch up with the suspect as he does in "Catch Me."

Three Lane County law enforcement officers did.

Charles Robert Speedie, aka "The Traveler," was a mild-mannered former Sunday school teacher and law student who baffled authorities for more than a decade before being caught.

Born in Omaha, Neb., he tried conventional work. He opened a hamburger stand. He became a newspaper copy editor and - get this - a police reporter. But in 1942, at age 37, Speedie was arrested and falsely accused of check fraud, according to the L.A. Times. He was acquitted, but so embittered that he decided that he'd beat the system that had done him wrong.

For the next 14 years, he crossed and recrossed the country, leaving a trail of worthless payroll checks in his wake. Using quick-drying ink, he printed his own checks. Some had the names of actual firms, others fictitious names. They ran between $60 and $90.

"I was well aware of what I was doing," he would later tell a court in Los Angeles, "but it was a conflict between my conscience and expediency."

Speedie would make purchases and have them sent to his rented home in L.A. - expensive photographic equipment, tape recorders, records, electric guitars, small appliances, even food such as peanut butter and corn flakes.

He passed through 43 states, bilking businesses for an estimated $500,000 - or, in today's inflationary dollars, about $3.7 million. He used nearly 350 aliases. Numerous police agencies trailed him.

Then, for whatever reason, he arrived in the Eugene-Springfield area in July 1957. And his luck ran out.

LEROY CARSTENSEN of the Oregon State Police in Eugene, along with Claude Romaine and Jim Misner of the Lane County sheriff's office, had heard of Speedie through the national Burns Detective Agency.

Thus, when six bad checks surfaced in Eugene, the three notified an Indiana State Police officer known to be tracking the suspect. The "Charles Speedie" name and signatures on the checks matched in each state. Carstensen launched an extensive search of local motels, showing people a composite drawing of Speedie that had been sent.

At Morrison's Motel Apartments, just west of what's now the Albertsons on East Main Street in Springfield, Lenora Morrison told Carstensen that the sketch looked like a man who had checked in July 15. He had a pleasant manner, she said, and told her he wouldn't need any maid service because he was working in photography and his window blinds would be drawn most of the time.

He had registered as "Charles Speedie of San Fernando, Calif.," and was driving a 1949 Pontiac. After being contacted, the California Department of Motor Vehicles mailed a photostatic copy of his driver's license. The signatures matched.

By then Speedie had left Springfield. But because the Oregon trio had linked him to a vehicle, he could more easily be tracked. Speedie, 51 at the time, was arrested Sept. 5 in a Cleveland, Ohio, suburb, then extradited to Los Angeles, where more than 150 municipalities had warrants out for his arrest.

"I wasn't particularly smart," he told a judge.

At his rented home in the San Fernando Valley, police found stolen goods that, when restacked in a police property room, measured 6 feet wide by 6 feet high by 100 feet long. They also found a book called "How to Use Your Imagination to Make Money."

Speedie was sentenced to one to 14 years in prison.

I couldn't track down any of the local people involved; all may be deceased. But according to the Social Security Death Index, a Charles R. Speedie - the only person with that name listed in the index and one born the same year that our guy was, 1905 - died in the small town of Jesup, Ga., in 1988.

Was The Traveler in the small town of Jesup, Ga.?

Was The Traveler dead at 82? Probably. But, then, he has eluded folks before.

Bob Welch can be reached by calling 338-2354 or by e-mail at [e-mail].