Pennsylvania, T-U, 1824-1975, Undated

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STORY IS CHECKED:

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————— NM

Authorities Silent as to Sew,
ond Man Being Held ma"

toad gt

Material Witness =‘

afty, ,
police barracks, refuses, 7m
SS lice, to admit that Ba:
aed to ce which: killed tire panee”
officer,

‘tines his

Be anton aician for

r

for & ashot wound in the

pier ane neck, ge yg
- . Police

at 4 on
being detained

denice abooting the Assistant i
and eald that after he discarded hie °
ahoes be came to this city. Pe is
The man described as Miller "
who ie being hel’ as a material wits;
ness is eaid to have informed patien |
that Tawsa came to the
house on the morning of the mi,
jag without shoes and cost 4
fa aid to bave quoted Tawea o@.
saying that he had been shot :
fight and threw his coat and cheng
; 4 GIRS

Bet Re
“| whiew later disappeared enly
(Continued on Page 17)

16 | MISCELLANEOUS = +. Bi

TAUZA, Frank, white, BEX id;
Elec. Pa. (Luzerne) 6-30-1930

*

Suspeet Denies }
Fatal Shooting | =.
_. Responsibility

(Continued from Pagé 33)

found in a clump of bushes near
Luserne pdlice headquarters Rt
Tawss. The shoes show Imarks of
bunions and Tawsa is said to have
such growths on his feet. The shoes
found and the shoes worn by Tawsa

en first shown the shoes St is

gaid that Tawze denied ownership

claiming they were too tight - ‘but

lice say that under further ques-

_he-admitted that aoe | were

his and that he had discard them

after he had been shot through the
eboulder and neck.

municipalities. A large quantity of; Z
atolen goods is said to have been re-|
covered when police visited the man's,
room in the central city on Gaturday
afternoon. .- : ; t.,
It {s said that Tawza served a term)"
in Connecticut State penitentiary at).
Hartford for bargiasy and that, he
has a wife and o nest a. me. :
About a year ago, Towza police,
he conducted a cigar store in Ply-
mouth but was in inesa only for}:

a few months, wer?

oa


The two officers hurried back to their
fallen comrade. They. found him lying

slumped on the ground, badly wo

unded.

for they had cut the wire. It was the

*  girl’s scream that aroused the neighbors.”

Powell questioned the family himself.
But he learned nothing more of im-
portance. The burglars were dressed in

‘work clothes“and one was much taller

than the other. It was the shorter one who

: had murdered Kauffer.

In the autopsy, four bullets were re-.
triéved by the medical examiner and
turned over to Detective Powell. They
were from a .32 caliber gun, probably a
“police positive” revolver.

Powell immediately broadcast a: re-

.quest to all town constables for informa-

tion on suspicious characters picked up
when robberies occurred in their terri-
tories. In addition, a special patrol was
assigned by Maj. William Clark of the
Wyoming state police barracks to cruise
the small boroughs of Luzerne county on
nights after men working in the collieries
were paid off. But not one of these pre-
cautions brought results.

Naturally, as a matter of routine,
Mustache Mike was questioned. Patter-
son had taken the precaution to send one
of his men straight to. Mike’s boarding

-house in Plains when Kauffer’s neighbor
phoned in the alarm.

Mike was in bed. He protested that he

had been fast asleep. And there was no

one to dispute his alibi. But Mike would
have taken care of that. None would have
the courage to dispute it. And Mike would
not leave incriminating socks around.
Kauffer was murdered on Nov. 1, 1928,
and for awhile the Tiger lay low. Not
until Dec. 12 was another crime with the
Tiger’s trademark reported to the police.
On that date, John Shiva’s hotel in
Plains was held up and $63 taken from
the proprietor and several guests. Three
days later, Clarence James of Naugan-
gola was held up, shot and _ severely

wounded, near the Sugar Notch station

of the Hezleton and Wilkes Barre Rail-
road. For weeks, James hovered on the
brink of the grave. But when he re-
covered consciousness, he could give no
adequate description of the man who had
mauled and shot him, Confronted with
Mustache Mike, he said, “That’s not the
one. He was taller—heavier.”

| ae checked on all poolrooms,
shady resorts and gambling houses.
They were seeking patrons who flashed
suddenly acquired “big rolls.”

“The Tiger is known in some of those
places,” Chief Patterson remarked dis-
gustedly. “But we can’t get a trace of his
jdentity anywhere.”

_ Powell shrugged. There was little more
to do. Just keep plugging. And the Tiger
grew more brazen, slugging and mauling.

One month later, shortly after midnight
of Jan. 16, 1929, James McManamon, en-
gineer of the Central railroad, was shot
as he turned into the grounds of his home-
in Ashley, adjoining Sugar Notch.

News of this latest attack came to
Detective Powell as he reached his home.

“McManamon has a slim chance of
recovering,’ Corp. Cletus Baumgartner
told the county detective over the phone.

71


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i
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i
\
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;
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a
Te

So

SS eee

P)

noticeable. Drawers were open, their contents dumped out
on the floor. A large four-poster bed was stripped, its
blankets and sheets heaped in one corner, a knife-slashed
mattress in another. ‘

Spread-eagled on the floor was the body of middle-aged
Abraham Kauffer. His pajamas were stained with blood.
His right hand still gripped the leg of a broken chair, telling
a tale of heroic resistance against overwhelming odds.

Standing by the window was a slender man of medium
height—Police Chief Sidney Patternson who had put in the
call for assistance.

Patterson remained silent while County Detective Powell
advanced and made a careful examination of the room.
“Kauffer had the door locked,” he mused. “He must’ have
feared an intruder. A new strong lock. ‘ This hole—” fin-
gering a gap where the tumblers had been—‘“was made by
a heavy caliber bullet. Kauffer probably tried to brace the
door with a chair under the door knob. The burglars shot
at him through the panel—here.” He examined the splint-

ered wood at a spot about four feet from the floor. Turning ~

to the body, he noted the wound in the dead man’s chest and
then inspected the powder-fringed wounds in the skull.

His glance skimmed over a trail of blood that reached the
bed. “There’s where he had cached his money. The bullet
that smashed the panel wounded him, but not mortally. Maybe
he was trying to get at the money and throw it out the window
or something. But when the burglars finally rammed in the
door, Kauffer seized a leg of the splintered chair, There’s
a lump the size of an egg on his forehead—that’s where he
was slugged* when he attacked the burglar. To quiet him
completely, the killer emptied his gun into Kauffer’s head.”

‘
INISHED with his inspection, the county detective turned
to Patterson.

“Have you questioned the family?” Powell asked,

Patterson had. Though stunned with the horror of the
tragedy, Kauffer’s widow and children had been able to give
a graphic account of the burglars’ invasion.

The merchant’s 19-year-old son had heard a board creak
in the hallway at 4:30. m. He looked out and saw two masked
men walking stealthily in stocking feet toward his father’s
room. Hardly knowing what he hoped to do, the boy im-
pulsively threw a shoe at them. Instantly, a bullet whizzed
past his face, shattering the mirror of his dressing table.
Aroused by the noise, Mrs. Kauffer came rushing from her
bedroom. The taller of the burglars grabbed her shoulders
and hurled her into her son’s room. Two younger brothers
came pelting along and joined in the melee. They, too, were
thrust into the bedroom. :

Well aware of his father’s danger, the oldest boy made
one more desperate attempt to grapple with the murderous
intruders. A heavy blow on the side of the head staggered
him. The taller burglar fired a shot into the midst of the
terrorized family. No word was spoken by the gunmen. Their
actions were more effective than threats,

It was over in a matter of seconds. One man remained
guard at the bedroom while the other attacked Kauffer. They
heard shots that were thunderous in the small confines of the
narrow hall—then the crash of the door. Neither wife nor
children could help. Suddenly a girl screamed piercingly. The
guard wheeled, entered the bedroom occupied by Kauffer’s
young daughters. One look at that ghoulish figure with the
masked face, at the clumsy, lurching body, was enough. Both
girls fainted.

The burglar in Kauffer’s room did not hurry, There, were
nightmarish minutes during which the guard swiveled his
gun on children and mother when either made a move-to go
to the aid of the man they knew was being cold-bloodedly
murdered. .

Finally the leader returned. Not a word was spoken. Guns
trained on the family, the two men backed out of the window
and disappeared in the night shadows. Presently there was
the roar of a starting motor. The Tiger and his companion
had escaped.

“Tt was a cunningly planned crime,” Patterson said as he~

ended his recital. “The men knew the layout of the house.
They knew where Kauffer slept ; they knew he hada telephone

70

The two
fallen co
slumped q


~

accomplice is Mustache Mike himself,” _
Powell said softly. “The hoods worn for
masks by that team would be necessary
to concea} that bush that Mustache Mike’
wears on his upper lip. But I’m con-
vinced that the mustache is worn by de-

sign. If Mike ever wanted to drop out ©

DETECTIVE

iN }
of sight he could shave it off and have
a splendid disguise right there. He would

certainly look different without it.”
“Mike is as slippery as quicksilver,”
District Attorney Lewis remarked finally.
“Always has his alibis pat. He’s even
got a regular job in number fourteen
colliery. Well, they all slip tp some-
time.” He stood up to go. :

“And I'll be getting’ back to Luzerne,”:

“

Tom Krokoski said, yawning.

y
night’s not over yet.” :

He started for the door when the tele-

phone bell came to life, ringing eerily
through the pre-dawn silence. Krokoski
paused, his hand gripping the knob.

CY

Powell lifted the receiver, his geniai
face assuming the inflexible mask of an
ace homicide cop. “I'll be right over,”
he said quiétly after listening to the rush
of words from the other end. Cradling
the phone, he reached for his overcoat.

“Phat was Sid Patterson,” he told Kro-

‘koski, “the police chief out at Plains.

Abe Kauffer’s home was burglarized half
an hour ago. Two thousand in cash and
three thousand dollars worth of checks
stolen. But that’s beside the point, now.
‘Abe was murdered.” He paused for a
moment and then his glance met that of
the young officer and he nodded. “It
was the Tiger again.”

They were already walking swiftly
through the cold morning air toward the .

‘parking lot. Tom Krokoski’s voice held

a husky note. ‘“Abe’s been sort of Santa
Claus to the miners. Gave them credit
all through the strike. Now that the
mines are open again, they’re paying o
their loans. That would account for the
amount of cash and checks he had on
hand. And the Tiger knew all about ite
He clenched his fists. ‘Sometime I’m
going to tangle with that guy.”

Powell nodded. “I hope you get the
chance, Tom. If it comes to shooting it
out with that pair in the dark my money’s
on you. Sid said there was no doubt
that this was the Tiger’s work. A big
hulking guy and a short one—both with
black masks covering the entire head.

. Other members of the family were slugged

~

isin olive dhan bias oie asia 3S iis snl hate ae cea

by the shorter bandit.”

Krokoski kicked moodily at a stone.
“That sort of lets out our suspect with
the feathers on his socks—he couldn’t
have been over there breaking into Abe’s
house and back here being questioned by
us at the same time. But I’m charging
him on that attempted job anyway.”

The two officers separated, Krokoski .

going reluctantly back to Luzerne to fin-
ish his night’s beat. He had known Abe
Kauffer intimately for years but the ter-
ritory in which his friend lived—and
where he had been so brutally murdered
—was out of his jurisdiction.

Pairings parting with the young assist-
ant chief, Powell set out for the
address given him by Chief Sidney Pat-
terson. It was on River road, Plains—a
three story brick building set into the hill.

Opening directly on the road was the
entrance to a small store. Above were
the living quarters, with an entrance on
the side.

Powell met State Trooper Benjamin
Lee at the front door.

“Get anything ?” Powell asked him.

“Maybe.” Lee jerked a thumb at a
‘side window on the third floor, easily
accessible from the hillside. “That's
where they broke in. I got some smudged
prints on the frame.”

Powell continued in, climbed two
flights of carpeted steps. At the top of
the stairs he found two terrified young
girls who whispered that their dad was
“in. there.”

Powell paused on the threshold of the
room indicated.

The odor of exploded powder was still

69

aerate aaa ea


“I examined McManamon’s house on
Ashley street. Somebody entered the
kitchen window. Looks like the Tiger.”

McManamon’s life was despaired of,
but slowly and painfully he fought his
way back and after several days was at
last out of danger. However, he was un-
able to give the officials any accurate
description of his attacker or clues which
would justify making an arrest.

Spring passed into summer and sum-
mer became fall before the Tiger’s old
methods again ear-marked bold bur-
glaries.

Shortly before daybreak of Sept. 24,
1929, an insistently ringing telephone on
his night table awakened Detective
Powell.

“Chief Thomas Ford of Luzerne talk-
ing,” the caller said huskily. “I’m at
the General hospital in Wilkes Barre.’
Tommy Krokoski’s in a bad way. He was
shot in a duel with an escaping burglar—”

Dropping the receiver on its stand,
Powell dressed in seconds. In minutes he
was speeding from his home in Kingston
across the river from Wilkes Barre.

“He. was shot through the eye,” the
house surgeon said bluntly: “There’s not
a chance of saving him. The bullet is in
the brain. Operating would mean instant
death,” :

Powell raced up the stairs and entered
a small private room where his young
friend lay motionless. His one un-
bandaged eye stared unseeing at the
ceiling.

Powell advanced, leaned over the bed,
picked up his friend’s lax wrist. The pulse
was barely discernible.

“We thought,” said Chief Ford, stand-
ing at the head of the bed, “your voice

‘might bring him back a moment for a
description of his killer. He thought a
heap of you.”

Powell put his lips close to the dying
man’s ear. “Tommy, this is Dick. Dick
Powell. Can you hear?” His grip became
a vise that would have brought a scream
of agony from a conscious man. But the
injured brain had almost stopped func-
tioning. Already all sense of hearing
was dead.

“It’s no use,” the surgeon said. “He

may linger for hours. But that bullet in
his brain is fatal.”

Powell put personal grief from him,
He followed Chief Ford to an office where
the two remaining officers of the Luzerne
force were on hand to give their state-
ments. Meantime, a state trooper had
taken over Luzerne borough during their
absence.

“This is Gordon James and Peter
Zelinski,” Ford said, introducing the
officers. “They were with Tommy in the
battle. They’ll tell you all about it. I'll
have to get back.”

“T can’t tell you much,” James began,
“but because the recent burglaries have
all occurred after midnight Tom thought
it would be a good idea for the three of
us to sleep at the fire engine house where
our headquarters is. Word was passed
through the borough that we’d be found
there, and for anybody noticing anything
suspicious—like shoes on the porch and
that kind of thing—to drive over and
notify us or phone us there.”

James pulled out a notebook and con-
sulted it for details.

“At three-thirty this morning a milk-
man drove up. He said he was delivering
milk on the back porch of a house on
Union street. He found a window open
and a miner’s pick, with the cross piece
uppermost, holding it up. Near the pick
was a pair of Oxfords.”

James closed his book. “We piled in
the patrol wagon and drove to the house.
The folks were on the porch, excited. One
of them had seen the burglar rummaging
in the parlor. He had lammed just a few
minutes before we got there. ‘Which way
did he go?’ Tom asks.”

They had pointed toward the railroad

_ [Continued on page 105]

The blond giant who bore the nickname of “The Tiger” is shown above, left. At right is a police photograph of the redoubtable

“Mustache Mike.” Down this street
72 s

officers chased the burglar who killed Assistant Chief of Police Tom Krokoski.

DARING

MHE On
sultry
young

his wife, his
brother-in-lay
in his recent
The brother

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down to the knees. A rape attempt clearly
had been made, but it had not succeeded,
Dr. Sanders said.

One foot was bare, the other sheathed
in a faded pink sock. The second sock and
one shoe were turned up in the brush near-
by, but the other shoe could not be found.
Her schoolbooks and pencils were scattered
only a few feet from the makeshift grave.

Not far away the searchers came upon
the blade of a common kitchen paring
knife. It had no handle, and from its ap-
pearance no handle had been attached in a
long time.

“Not a very likely weapon, a blade with
nothing to hold it by,” Zvonar said. “It’s
probably just a coincidence it was lying
here.”

Authorities both in Aliquippa and in
Cambria County instantly realized the
possibility of a connection between the
murders of Helen Jean Bryant and little
Karen Mauk. The slayings had been within
the same week, only about 80 miles apart,
and the method and motive very similar.

“And if they’re both the work of the
same maniac,” said State Police Sergeant
John Krzton when he reached Aliquippa,
“then God knows where he may strike next.
If he’s traveling East, he may be heading
for a big city, Philadelphia or New York,
where it’s easier to get yourself lost.”

Dolores Bryant, the dead girl’s younger
sister, however, was sure she knew who
had slain her sister. “That fellow down the
hill,” she said, pointing to a second dwell-
ing perched on the steep slope about 75
yards below where Helen Jean had been
found in her scooped-out grave.

“We were both afraid of him,” the 14-
year-old girl revealed. ‘‘He used to come
out and shake his finger at us when we
went by. We always ran till we got beyond
where he lived.”

“That fellow down the hill,” the officers
soon learned, was 22-year-old Elijah
Thompson, who lived with his dad, a rail-
road brakeman, and three brothers in a
ramshackle dwelling that stood just off the
hillside trail.

They found Elijah at home. He came to
the door wearing a four-inch square of
gauze taped over a wound on his head. In
the bedroom which Thompson pointed out
as his, the officers found a bloodsoaked pair
of trousers wadded on the floor of a closet.

“You want to tell us about it?” Sergeant
Krzton said.

“Sure, [ll tell you,” young Thompson
said. “Only I thought you fellows already
knew all there was to know about it.”

“Not all,” Krzton said. “Go on, tell your
story.”

“T went over to my wife’s Monday night,”
Thompson began. “I wanted her to fetch
the kids and come back to me, that’s all.
I had me an old knocked-down .22 rifle. I
meant to scare her a little, nothing more.

“Then she lit into me and made me mad.
I hauled the rifle outa my pants leg, where
I was carryin’ it, and I guess I blazed
away two or three times. At the wall,
though. I wasn’t shootin’ at anybody.

“This neighbor, he came in somehow. He
grabbed the gun away and batted me one
on the head. I don’t remember good after
that, but they say I fell through a window
and that’s how I cut my arm so bad.”

Thompson rolled up his sleeve, showing
a thick bandage covering most of his fore-
arm. “Anyway,” he continued, “that’s how
I came to wake up in the hospital. They
wanted to keep me there, but I signed a
paper and left by myself.”

Krzton looked at Zvonar, Zvonar at the
sergeant. What was the man talking about?

They soon found out. On Monday night,
Thompson had gone to the home of his es-
tranged wife in Rochester, about five miles
down the river-—the Ohio here flows almost
directly north—and the fight had occurred
as he related it.

Rochester police and hospital records
bore him out. He had suffered a head in-
jury which surgeons feared might be a
skull fracture, and he had lost so much
blood from a severed artery in his arm
that for a time the doctors believed he
might not live. It was against their advice
that, on Wednesday, he had signed him-
self out of the hospital and returned home.”

“That’s where the blood on my pants

came from,” Thompson told the officers. He ©

disclaimed all knowledge of what had hap-
pened to Helen Jean Bryant. He admitted
that on several occasions he had shaken an
admonishing finger at Helen Jean and
Dolores as they scurried down the path to
catch their school bus.

“But I didn’t mean nothing by that,” he
explained. “I was just sort of kidding ’em
about being late for school.”

Their first likely suspect seemingly in
the clear, Krzton and Zvonar looked for
another.

“One thing’s a cinch,” the state police ser-
geant said. “That girl never got off that
hill last Monday morning.”

Zvonar agreed. “Elijah’s got a brother,”
he said. “He just got out of the federal pen,
over in Chillicothe. We might try him.”

The brother was not at home, but the
two officers camped in the Thompson
dwelling until he returned, only a few min-

BAD TIMING

A rubber check artist in Columbus,
Ohio, presented his phony forgery to
a local merchant. An old hand at it,
his check looked authentic: drawn on
the Monticello, Arkansas, Farmers and
Trust Bank. But this time it bounced the
artist right into jail. That bank went
out of business in 1911,

— Charles H. Pettay

utes ahead of his father, Elijah Thomp-
son Sr.

The younger brother quickly offered an
alibi for the supposed time of the mur-
der, 8:15 a.m. on Monday. “I was down-
town already,” he said. “At an employment
agency, lookin’ for work. Dad was asleep
when I left. Lije was the only one up.”

Krzton noted the bitter look young Eli-
jah shot at his brother. On a quick hunch
the sergeant turned to the father. “You got
a paring knife in the kitchen, Pop?” he
asked.

“Sure,” the old man replied. He moved
toward a table and hauled out a drawer.
He pawed in it for a moment, then turned,
shaking his head. “’Taint here,” he said.
“Not that it’s any loss, an old knife like
that, without no handle.”

“Without a handle?” Krzton echoed. He
turned to Elijah Jr. “Son,” he said, “I
guess you’d better come with us.”

For four hours young Thompson held
out against their questioning. But by then
they could tell him that the blood on his
pants was not of his own type and that he’d
worn another pair of trousers when he
called on his ex-wife Monday night.

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ioggedly for the
ver tragedy was
ove Johnstown,

William Mauk
iren at 232 Fifth
Conemaugh—the
ervice, attending
re, Maryland.

d Karen Mauk
sidewalk to her
breathless and

begged. “Can I,
night,” Margaret

Karen protested.

“Can’t I go out now? ‘You let me go out Monday night.”
“That was your birthday,” her mother reminded her.
“But Paul’s going out, right away. All the kids are.

Just a little while. Please, Mummy.” -

All week the neighborhood youngsters, costumed and
masked, had been traipsing from door to door, gathering
Halloween loot. If Paul Lindenberg, Karen’s 6-year-old
cousin who lived just up the street, and with whom her
curly-haired little girl had been playing the last half-hour,
was going “trick or treat,”’ well, then, she supposed, Karen
must go, too.

Mrs. Mauk got out her little girl’s costume hat and pinned
it to Karen’s blond curls. She adjusted a kewpie doll
mask to the pretty, smiling face, found the child’s “loot”
bag and thrust her out the door,

“Don’t be out long, darling,” the mother admonished,
more out of habit than concern, for Karen, when she was
allowed to play out of doors after dark, never did stay late.

Mrs. Mauk thought no more of Karen’s absence, having
to.rush to get to a PTA meeting, leaving her husband at
home to sit with Jeffrey, the baby, with little Cindy and
with Donald, the twins, who would be 9 the next Monday
and whose birthday the family, as it always did, would
celebrate together with Karen’s, over the week end.

When Margaret Mauk came home from the PTA session,
she found her husband absorbed in a magazine. Auto-
matically, the mother checked her brood. She was back
in the living room almost at once, pale and frightened.

“Where’s Karen?” she demanded.

“In bed, isn’t she?” the father replied. “Didn’t you tuck
her in before you left?” :

“Good heavens, no!” Mrs. Mauk exclaimed. “She went
out with Paul, at seven o’clock, to trick or treat. You
mean to say she didn’t come home? Oh, merciful God,
where could she be?”’

Bill Mauk already was shrugging into his coat. “Now
don’t worry, Peg,” he said. “She probably went home with
Paul. I’ll run up and fetch her back.”

But as he ran down the steps to the walk, Bill Mauk
knew the hope was dim that little Karen was at her cous-
in’s. It was 9:30. The Lindenbergs would have seen to
it that Karen was home long before now.

Young Paul said he and Karen had parted at about 7:30
near his home. Karen, he added, her bag loaded with
goodies, had gone tripping homeward—a matter of only
100 yards or so, as he entered his own dwelling.

“Then where,” her father moaned, “could she possibly
be now?” °

He called at the homes of neighbors, up and down the
street. No one had seen Karen, though several remem-
bered that a little girl wearing a kewpie doll mask and a
purple coat had rung their bells early in the evening.

At 11:15 Thursday night, the town’s fire siren wailed,
summoning the members of the Conemaugh Volunteer Fire
Company. to join with police in a search for the little girl.

Word spread of Karen’s disappearance. Boy Scouts and
private citizens swelled the ranks of the searching party
to more than 150.

The hunt was less than half an hour old when Karen’s
costume hat was found, lying in front of a private garage
in Coulter Alley, a bare 100 yards from her home. How it
got there, the family living at the address had not the re-
motest idea. No one had seen or heard anything suspicious
in the alley near the garage.

Police Chief George Fetsko was genuinely alarmed. At
7:30 that night, at about the time Karen must have van-
ished, a tall, husky, shabby man with a scar on his cheek
had leaped upon a 14-year-old girl on First Street, only
a few blocks from the Mauk home. :

The girl had screamed, dodged and escaped, and police
who rushed to the neighborhood had found no trace of
him. Could it have been, ‘Chief Fetsko wondered as
searchers combed the entire community for little Karen
Mauk, that this man had fled to Fifth Street, had chanced
upon Karen alone, had seized her and carried her away?

“Get some of your boys to scout around the outskirts of
town,” he said to George Peyton, veteran president of the
volunteer fire company. “If he’s got the kid in a car, they
still may be out on some lonely back road.”

The volunteer firemen responded willingly. And it was
only a few minutes after midnight when Steve Steffish
and Dick Barkley nosed their car up a byroad which
climbed steeply to the back service gate of St. Petka’s
Cemetery, atop a hill two miles west of Conemaugh.

From the windswept crest they could look down upon
the lights of the town. Here, both men knew, was a spot
long known as a lovers’ lane. Their headlamps swept the
narrow thoroughfare to its end.

“No car here tonight,” Steffish said, backing to turn
around.

The yellow band of light made a slow circular sweep in
front of the machine as Steffish nosed forward again,
wrenching at the wheel.

“Steve!” Barkely shouted. ‘There! In the grass!”

The hunt for Karen Mauk was ended. The little gir]
lay, unclad in the chill night, in the weeds just off the lane.
Her kewpie doll mask and her clothing were strewn beside
the pathetic little body, and her trick-or-treat bag spilled
an apple, a handful of cookies and candy almost into her
wind-tossed curls.

Deputy Coroner Richard P. Wilkinsin examined the body.
The little girl had not been attacked, he said. She had
died of suffocation.

“Not of strangulation,’ Dr. Wilkinsin said. “I’d say
something like a blanket or a coat was wrapped around
her face so tightly she was smothered.”

“The big, scar-faced man!” Chief Fetsko growled. ‘The
guy who tried to grab the other girl. He’s the man we’ve
got to find.” :

Five state troopers, with Sergeant James A. Blair at their
head, were rushed to Conemaugh to assist the local police
and county detectives in charge of their chief, John W.
Reed.

That little Karen had been taken alive to the hilltop,
and there slain, was evident from the handfuls of grass
still clenched in her tiny fingers. (Continued on page 98)

Karen’s grieving family, her brother Bill, mother, father


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Elsa

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gave foolproof alibis for Thursday night.

Vagrants, loafers, ex-cons, all such in
the community were checked. Neighbors
of the Mauk family, and particularly those
male residents near the alley where little
Karen’s hat had been found, were thor-
oughly investigated.

“It seems pretty clear,” Chief Fetsko ob-
served, “that Karen, out for as much ‘loot’
as she could get on her ‘trick-or-treat’ ven-
ture, was enticed into a car very near her
home. The guy probably offered her candy
or gum or maybe even money, got her into
his car and sped away. There was not too
much transient auto traffic through Fifth
Street at around 7 or 7:30 Thursday night.
It could well have been some neighbor’s
car she climbed into.”

On Saturday morning, the chief learned
about Harry Grossard, a 39-year-old ex-
merchant seaman who, since May, had been
living with his mother only a few doors
from where the little victim’s Halloween
hat had been found.

A 6-foot, 200-pound man, Grossard had
been twice wed and twice divorced. He was
a mild-mannered, bespectacled man who
had been a salesman before going to sea
after his second marriage broke up.

Fetsko and Reed went to his mother’s
home and found that Grossard had left
Conemaugh that very morning, bound for
Philadelphia.

“Sudden trip?” the county officer asked
a brother of the absent sailor.

“Oh, no,” the brother replied. “He’d been
planning to go all week. He had an errand
to do for our sister.”

Grossard, the officers learned, had re-
turned to his mother’s home after a severe
injury to his back while working on a
tanker. He still wore a brace.

“Which in itself doubtless lets him out
as a suspect in any crime of violence,”
Fetsko said as he and Reed journeyed back
to report to Sergeant Blair. “A guy wearing
a brace isn’t apt to go in for rough stuff.”

“And he wasn’t running away when he
went to Philly,” Reed added.

Nevertheless, Fetsko ordered a record
check on the man. A short time later, the

_ the finding of Helen Jean, dead or alive.

chief phoned Sergeant Blair.

“Harry Grossard,” he said. “Five arrests.
Two of them on sex complaints.”

On that Saturday morning, back in Ali-
quippa, Police Chief Zvonar organized a
large search party and returned to the hill
on which the Bryant family lived. News of
the Conemaugh murder lent urgency to

He spread his men in a tight skirmish
line and moved with them slowly, carefully
up the rough, wooded knob. They covered
every foot of ground, beat through every
thicket, peered behind and around every
boulder.

It was Regis Yarnell of Clark Manor who
almost stepped upon the body of Helen
Jean Bryant, lying in a shallow grave only
about 100 yards from her home. Wednes-
day’s searchers had passed by this very
spot, but had seen no sign of the girl then.
Within a matter of minutes, Chief Zvonar
knew why. The body had been covered
with dirt and leaves. Heavy rains Friday
night had washed the earth away, and
high winds had scattered the leaves, baring
the corpse.

Helen Jean had been bludgeoned to
death, probably with one of the rocks with
which the hillside was strewn, in the opin-
ion of Dr. Margaret Sanders, deputy cor-
oner, who examined the body. In addition
to the severe head injuries, the girl had
suffered a gash on the throat which had
barely missed the jugular vein, and there
were scratches on her face.

Her short coat was pulled down from
her shoulders, pinioning her arms. Her
white bra and white blouse had not been
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A moment later, the girl came by. He
called to her softly, the statement taken
by police continued. The moment she
entered, recognizing his voice, he put his
strong hands about her throat and forced
her to the floor. She was dead before he
arose. He went to the door and closed it
before returning to disrobe and criminally
assault her.

Taken to the scene to re-enact his con-
fessed crime, a short time after breaking
down, the youthful killer was confronted
by his victim’s husky stepbrother, 26-year-
old Philip De Rose. As young Makarewicz
pointed to the spot where he’d attacked
the girl, De Rose lunged toward him shout-
ing, “Let me at him! Let me at him! Let
me kill him like he killed my baby sister!”

State and local police, at the scene to
hold back the crowds of angry neighbors
collected to watch the re-enactment of the
murder, restrained the grieving De Rose.

From the crowd came a woman’s angry
scream: “Kill him! Kill him! We wom-
en should be the ones to kill him!”

Peter Makarewicz was rushed to the
Norfolk County jail at Dedham. On the
way he told Chief Folan and Lieutenant
Delay of the State Police, “I had nothing
to do with the attacks on those other girls
and women. Gerry was the only person
IT ever loved. I don’t know what made me
choke her and I can’t remember much
about what happened afterward. But I do
know I never attacked any other girls. I
never did anything really wrong before in
my life.”

A further check on the youth’s back-
ground seemed to confirm his words. The
Reverend Hippolyte Zawalich, pastor of
St. Peter’s Polish Church where Peter had
attended Masses regularly for years and

received the sacraments every month, said:

“Peter served Mass only last Sunday. He
was one of the nicest boys I’ve known. He
developed a slight inferiority complex as
he started to gain height so rapidly, but I
talked to him and we straightened things
out. Any time he had a problem he’d come
to me and talk it over.”

He had not, however, gone to Father
Zawalich with the greatest problem of his
young life—his brooding unhappiness over
the rebuffs of the pretty dark-eyed girl
he’d loved since their grammar school
days together.

On Monday, November 8th, Peter was
taken before Judge Gilbert W. Cox in Dis-
trict Court at Dedham and arraigned on
a charge of first-degree murder. As we go
to press, Peter’s defense attorney presented
a motion to the court requesting that the
boy be arraigned in juvenile court from
which the public and the press are barred.
The defense made this request “so that
nothing might be published which could in-
flame the minds of prospective jurors.” In
granting the motion District Judge Gilbert
W. Cox asserted that the statute granting
juveniles arraignment without publicity
“does not exempt a capital case.”

In the meantime the tree-lined streets of
the little town of Norwood will.continue to
be patrolled after the 10 o’clock nightly
curfew, and women and girls of the com-
munity are warned to remain behind closed
doors unless accompanied by males. Chief
Folan is satisfied with Peter Makarewicz’s
confession and the boy’s statement that he
had never molested another girl. The chief
believes there is still a sex-crazed man
at large, the man responsible for the other
reported crimes, and that he may strike
again at any time. o¢¢

Halloween Horror

(Continued from page 45)

“The poor kid!” Blair sighed. “Tried to
put up a fight.”

There was one clue at the murder scene,
a clear set of tire tracks, left in bare earth
which had not entirely firmed after recent
rains. Blair paced up and down the lane,
an electric lantern in his hand. No other
tracks had been left in the road since the
rains. The tire prints must be those of the
killer’s car.

Corporal David A. Drenning made casts
of the tracks. In the meantime, Sergeant
Blair set up a headquarters in the Cone-
maugh Firemen’s Club. There he, Chief
Fetsko, Detective Chief Reed, Coroner
Joseph Goveker and District Attorney Fred
Fees mapped the first moves to ferret out
the killer.

As a result of this brief meeting, state

‘police threw up roadblocks on the few

highways leading out of the area across
the mountains. City officers checked the big
railroad yards in the city and began sifting
their files to cull out all men with past rec-
ords of arrests for sex offenses. In Johns-
town, only a couple of miles .to the south,
Police Chief Charles R. Griffith set his de-
tectives to work on a similar task.

In Conemaugh High School on Friday
morning, County Detective Chief Reed
talked with the girl who had escaped the
clutches of the big scar-faced man the
night before.

“He passed me several times,” she said.
“Then, all of a sudden, he jumped at me,
but I got away. He’s someone I never saw
around town till a couple of days ago.”

In questioning other pupils of the high
school, Reed found no less than a dozen

who had seen the scar-faced man in Cone-
maugh during the past two or. three days.
All agreed he was a stranger in town.

Shortly before noon on Friday, a state
police detail scooped up a husky young
hitchhiker, trying to thumb a ride on the
outskirts of Johnstown. A trooper asked
where he had come from, where he was
going.

“Who cares?” the youth responded. “It’s
a free country, ain’t it? I can go where I
please, can’t I?”

“It’s a free country, all right,” the
trooper answered. ‘We intend to keep it
that way—and safe, too, safe for little kids
to be out of their homes. What’s your
name?”

“Bill Jones.”

They took him to Sergeant Blair’s special
headquarters in Conemaugh and searched
him, finding papers that identified him as
Roger Eichorn, with an address in Pitts-
burgh. When he learned he had been
picked up for interrogation as a possible
suspect in the murder of a little girl, a
slaying which had the steelmen, the rail-
roaders and all the rest of the community
ready to lynch the killer, young Eichorn
talked fast and freely.

He’d quarreled with his girl friend back
in Pittsburgh, he said, had swiped $20 from
his dad and left home. Thursday night, he
claimed, he’d been in Pittsburgh, leaving
the city at Friday’s crack of dawn. He had
stayed off the main highways leading east,
he said, fearful his parents would put out
an alarm on him and he would be picked up.

Chief Fetsko let the youth cool his heels
in the lockup while police in Pittsburgh
checked both his address and his story, and,
certain that Eichorn was not their man,
they pressed their hunt for the slayer in
other directions.

There were not many men in Conemaugh
with records of previous sex offenses. All
these were tolled off, one by one, as they

AT LAST—an etic
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70

several customers he’d visited in New
Castle that day.
Hildebrand and Krzton reported back

- to Chief Zvonar. A telephone call to the

New Castle police, then a two-hour wait,
and then the officers knew that Metz had
told them the gospel truth.

Late that afternoon, Elijah Thompson
Jr. was brought in.

He insisted that, like his brothers, he
was familiar with Helen Jean only to
the extent that he saw her passing his
house.

“All right,” Chief Zvonar said, “we
know where you were late Monday.
Where were you Monday morning?”

“Home, in bed. I always sleep late. I
haven’t lined up a job yet.” :

Chief Zvonar decided to try a long
shot. “Come on, Elijah, you knew Helen
Jean Bryant more than by sight.”

The suspect shook his head vigorously.
“I didn’t even know her name,” he pro-
tested.

Chief Zvonar rubbed his chin. “Now,
isn’t that funny? She sure knew yours.
Even told a schoolmate how you pestered
her when she was on her way to school.”

Elijah Thompson fell silent a moment.
He licked his lips. “Well I don’t know
how she could know my name. And I
never pestered her none. A few times I
did waggle my finger at the girl and
tease her, saying she was going to be
late for school. That’s all there ever
was.”

It was a damning admission, and Chief
Zvonar began to scent a break in the
case. He motioned the other officers to
follow him out of the room. .

“We'll let him stew a while,” he said.
“You know there’s an angle to this case

that’s been bothering me. And that is
opportunity. In other words, who had the
opportunity to waylay Helen Jean on
that path?”

“Anyone who used it,” Lt. Hildebrand
put in.

The chief shook his head. “No, it had
to be someone who knew she was on the
path alone that morning. More often
than not, Helen Jean would be on the
path with a sister or two. This Monday
morning, she was alone. We’ve been too
concerned looking for a stranger who
happened to come along on just the day
that Helen Jean happened to be on the
path alone. If there had been somebody
else with her, the killer wouldn’t have
dared to attack her. It’s just too much
of a coincidence. It’s far more likely that
Helen Jean’s killer was a person who
often saw her accompanied by someone
else, and took advantage of the situation

when he found her alone.”
“There’s only one person like that be-

tween the Bryant house and Iron Street,
and he admits being in that area at the
time,” Lt. Hildebrand observed.

The chief nodded. “Now let’s go back
in there and wrap this up. I think a
little bluffing will finish him off.”

When the sleuths returned to the other
room, Elijah Thompson Jr. was holding
to his pose of innocence.

Chief Zvanor looked at the ‘suspect
questioningly. “You know Elijah there’s
one thing troubling us,” he said softly.
“We had some officers out at your place
trying to find that paring knife in your
kitchen. You know the one with the
handle off.”

Thompson opened his mouth a second
and clamped it shut. He looked at the
faces around him. “I ain’t seen that knife
for a long time,” he said finally.

Chief Zvanor produced the blade knife ~ a
from his desk. “That’s too bad,” he said.
“Not finding yours we have to think this e
one is it. We found it near the body of ae
Helen Jean.” ‘

Thompson looked at the blade. “That’s
—that’s not the one,” he said i

Lt. Hildebrand laughed. “Sure that’s
not your knife? And all that blood on
your pants is yours, even if there are two se 4
different types on them—yours and Helen =
Jean’s.” ae

That was a bluff by the lieutenant. a4
The blood sampling report had not been ~
completed yet.

But Elijah Thompson sagged. He was
beaten. “I prayed they might be the same
type,” he said. “Yes, I killed the girl. 434
Crept up on her from behind and hit her. —
in the head with a rock. Then I dragged.
her into the brush.”

Elijah went on to admit he tried to Ee
rape the girl, but was unsuccessful. “So —~
I went home, got the knife and a shovel
and went back to the woods. I cut her a
up some. I put my hands around her A
throat but she was dead. I dug a grave a
the best I could, put her in it and cov-.
ered her up.” er

Later, in a mixed-up state, he said he
went to the home of his estranged wife.
He claimed he had no idea why he took _
the rifle with him. “Then when that fel- —
low bloodied me up, I realized that might
be a cover for me. It didn’t work _
though.” ig

The following Monday, a week after on
the murder, Elijah Thompson Jr. was.
arraigned on the murder charge. At the ~
very moment Thompson faced the judge, ©
an ex-seaman named Harry Gossard was

arrested for the brutal slaying of little -
Karen Mauk in Conemaugh. Both sex
killers were convicted and sentenced to *
die. Elijah Thompson Jr. burned in the
electric chair on July 25, 1955, at Rock-
view State Penitentiary. Gossard died —
some months later, ringing down the ie
curtain on two vicious crimes perpe-
trated by two equally sadistic individ-
uals. Indeed, little in extenuating cir-
cumstances could be said for either |
which would make one seem less warped _
than the other.

Editor’s Note: The name Oscar Metz is

fictitious. THE END

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TEEN-AGED NUDE
(Continued from page 10)

that were heavily and darkly stained.

“Whose are these?” he demanded.

“Our brother Lije’s,” one of them re-
plied.

“They've been soaked with blood,”
Krzton said grimly. “The stains are
several days old.”

“Aint no wonder,” a second brother
said. “Not after the mess Lije got him-
self into Monday night.”

Their 22-year-old brother, the other
youths explained, was estranged from
his wife who was living with their two
small children in Rochester, about five
miles downriver.

Early Monday evening, Elijah
Thompson Jr. went to her home to insist
_ she and the kids return to live with

im.

“He meant it, too,” one of his broth-
ers said. “He had an old .22 rifle with-
out any stock, just the barrel and firing
parts. He stuck it in his pants leg before
he went.”

“They got in a fight,” another brother
chimed in. “Lije lost his temper, pulled
that old gun out and started shooting
up the place. He didn’t mean to hit any-
body. Just wanted to scare her, that
was all.”

“Only one of the neighbors heard the
shots,” the first brother continued. “He
ran in, grabbed the rifle and whacked
Lije over the head with it. Like to have
busted Lije’s skull. Lije fell through a
window and cut his arm, cut it real bad.
They took him to the hospital. They
were afraid for awhile he was going to
die.”

“So I guess his pants would be bloody,
wouldn’t they?” the second brother
finished. “That’s why Lije ain’t home
now. He’s downtown, getting his head
and arm looked at.”

Chief Zvanor checked with. hospital
officials and the police in Rocliester. The
story they had heard was true. Be-
lieved severely injured, Elijah Thomp-
son Jr. had signed himself out of the
Rochester hospital on Wednesday,
against the advice of staff surgeons
there.

“So that is that,” Zvonar said.

“As far as it goes,” Sergeant Krzton
conceded. “It explains blood on a pair
of trousers belonging to the guy, but
that fight in his wife’s house was around
five or six in the evening. It’s no alibi
for eight-fifteen in the morning.”

Two officers were sent to stake out the
home and to bring Elijah Thompson Jr.
in for questioning when he returned.

Meanwhile Chief Zvonar found him-
self thinking again of a possible con-
nection between the slaying of Helen
Jean Bryant and the murder of little
Karen Mauk in Conemaugh.

These two crimes had all of Western
Pennsylvania in terror as Halloween ap-
proached.

Zvonar was struck by the coincidence
that in both cases a sexual assault was

the obvious motive, but in neither crime
had the victim actually been raped.

He phoned the police in Conemaugh,
and learned that they had, thus far, only
One possible suspect in little Karen’s
death, He was a tall, husky, shabbily
dressed man with a scar across his face,
who, just before Karen was kidnaped
from a street almost in front of her
home, had tried to seize a 14-year-old
girl a few blocks away.

This girl had escaped his clutches, but
had got a good look at the man. She and
several other girls in the little town had
seen the scar-faced man, a stranger,
around Conemaugh for the past two or
three days.

All up and down Beaver Valley, and
in Pittsburgh, as well, police files were
searched for a scar-faced man with a
record of sex offenses.

“It’s very possible,” Zvonar said, “that
he killed Helen Jean here in Aliquippa
last Monday, then skipped out and land-
ed in Conemaugh. The time of his ap-
pearance there would be about right.”

Lieutenant Hildebrand worked this
angle of the probe. He had not been
long at the task before another lead
came in, this one from detectives who
were canvassing dry cleaning shops in
Aliquippa, hunting for any bloodstained
garment brought in since Monday.

They came upon a gray suit with
suspicious stains in a small tailor’s shop
on the northern outskirts of town.

Here the proprietor handed the suit
over to Sergeant Krzton and Chief
Zvonar.

“Fellow brought it in Wednesday,”
he said. “It wasn’t hard to tell he’d tried
to clean it first himself, but once blood
gets set in cloth, it ain’t easy to get
out.”

Zvonar impounded the garments, to
be sent, along with Elijah Thompson's
trousers, to the police lab in Pittsburgh
for microscopic and chemical tests, and
then asked the tailor to produce his
records, which might show by whom the
suit had been left in the establishment.

Half an hour later, Zvonar, Hoyman
and Krzton rang the bell of a second-
floor apartment in downtown Aliquippa.
A tall, trim young man in his 20s, clad
in trousers and singlet, his face half-
lathered,. admitted them.

Yes, he said, he was Fred Nordchen.
He owned a gray tweed suit. It was in
a cleaning shop.

“Stained with blood,” Zvanor said.
“Why?”

“Simple enough,” Nordchen said. “I
get nosebleeds, They hit all of a sudden,
though generally I can get out my
handkerchief in time. is once, I
didn’t.”

“Where were you around eight
o’clock last Monday. morning?” the po-
lice chief queried.

Nordchen thought for a moment.

“I’m a salesman,” he explained. “I’m.

on the road usually two weeks at a time,
then here in Aliquippa four or five days
getting my orders straightened out. Last
Monday—I was up in New Castle then.”

He gave the names of several busi-

Shisha anes

nessmen in New Castle to prove he had
been there early Monday. Within an
hour, Zvanor and his colleagues knew
Nordchen was telling the truth.

Elijah Thompson was brought in just
before dusk. Like his brothers, he said
he knew nothing whatsoever about how
Helen Jean Bryant had died. He retold
the story of his trouble in his estranged
wife’s home in Rochester—showing a
four-inch square of gauze covering his
head wound—to explain his bloody
pants,

“Now, where were you at eight-fifteen
last Monday morning?” Chief Zvanor
asked.

“Home, in bed. I always sleep late,
now I’m out of a job,” Elijah said.

Detectives learned it was true that
Elijah Thompson Jr. usually did sleep
until ten o’clock or later. But no one
could say if Elijah had been sleeping on
Monday morning at eight-fifteen.

Sitting in on the interrogations, Dis-
trict Attorney Richard Steward sug-
gested that a certain girl view the suspect
to see if he was the one who had fright-
= Helen Jean along the lonely hillside
path.

The girl promptly pointed to Elijah.

“What’s she talking about?” Elijah
said sheepishly, “that wasn’t nothing. A
couple of times. I did sort of waggle my
finger’ at the girl and tell her to hurry
up or be late. That’s all. Nothing more.”
, Sergeant
Zvanor and Detective Chief Hoyman
aside.

“There’s an angle to this case we've
maybe paid too little attention,” the state
policeman said. “Opportunity. Who had
the opportunity to waylay the girl on
that path?”

“Anyone who knew she used it,”
Zvanor said. “That could take in a lot of
territory.”

Krzton slowly shook his head. “Nope,
Matt, you’re wrong,” he said. “It had to
be someone who knew she was traveling
that path alone that morning. He’d never
make a move as long as Helen Jean
and her friend were together, because
he couldn’t keep at least one of them
from screaming out an alarm. So you
see, it had to be somebody who knew
his victim was alone.”

“Surely not someone in her school
crowd?” Hoyman said. ;

Krzton shook his head. “Elijah

Thompson,” he said. “He haunted that

path to watch the girl go by. When he
saw Helen Jean was alone, he moved
in to make his play. Our job now is to
get him to confess, I’m going to take a
shot in the dark. Let’s hope it hits.”

The sergeant faced Elijah Thompson
Jr., an earnest man who seemed anxious
to help in any way he could.

“Tell me,” Krzton said. “You got a
paring knife in your kitchen?”

“A sort of one,” Thompson admitted.
“Handle come off a while back, I been
meaning to get a new one, first time I
came shopping down in the town.”

Krzton produced the blade found
near Helen Jean’s body. “This yours?”

Thompson peered closely at the blade.

“Looks like it. But I couldn’t say for
sure.”

“The knife without a handle, it’s
gone from your kitchen, isn’t it? You
left it out in the woods, after you killed
that girl.”

“I never—”

“Lying won't help,” the sergeant con-
tinued, his voice calm and confident.
“We've got the lab report on your
trousers,” he bluffed. “There were two
kinds of blood on them. One kind was
yours. The other was from Helen Jean
Bryant.”

“I_was afraid,” Lije Thompson said
simply, “you might find that out. Yes, I
killed the girl. Crept up on her from
behind and hit her in the head with a
rock.”

Lije said the first blow knocked the
girl unconscious. He said he then
dragged her off into the brush, about
three hundred yards down the path from
her own home, about a hundred yards
up the trail from his house. There he
tried to rape her, but could not.

“I went home, got the knife and a
shovel, and went back to the woods,”
he said. “I cut her some. I put my hands
around her throat. But she was dead. I
dug a grave the best I could, put her
in it and covered her up.”

Later, in a panic, he claimed, he went
to his estranged wife’s home. He said
he could not explain taking the stripped-
down rifle with him.

_ After the fight in which he was badly
injured, Lije said, he believed his own
blood on his trousers would provide a
Perfect cover-up for his crime.

He made and signed a full confession.
On Monday he was arraigned on an
information charging murder before
Justice of the Peace Rudolph Schwartz.
He waived a preliminary hearing, and
was ordered held without bond for
grand jury action.

A few hours after Lije Thompson
faced the magistrate, the arrest of an
ex-seaman named Harry Gossard solved
the brutal slaying of little Karen Mauk
in Conemaugh. Both sex killers were
found guilty and sentenced to die in the
electric chair. Elijah Thompson Jr. sat
in the hot seat at Rockview State Peni-
tentiary on July 25th, 1955. When on
June 4th, 1956, Harry Gossard took the
same seat, the brief reign of terror in
Western Pennsylvania was at an end. *

Editor's Note: The name, Fred Nora-
chen, is fictitious

Krzton beckoned Chief’

MURDER AFTER MIDNIGHT
(Continued from page 19)

‘said there he suffered chronically from

migraine headaches. When he was re-
leased he had been in the custody of
the police for' 23 hours.

During the long interrogation, Chap-
man’s detectives discovered that Mrs.
Montague had once had difficulty with
an Indian in her social welfare work.
The suspect was quickly run down,
but was able to prove his complete in-
nocence in the case, A former inmate
of St. Louis State Hospital was also
picked up for questioning, but came
up with an alibi and was released.

As the coroner's jury inquest in the
murder was set for Friday morning,
Chapman and O’Neill’ pushed their
aides ruthlessly in an effort to produce
conclusive evidence for the hearing.

On Friday, Montague came into the
inquest wearing a heavy tan overcoat
and did not once remove it despite the
over-heated climate of the room. With
him at that time was Public Defender
Milton Metz. During the hearing, Mon-
tague was asked a few preliminary
questions, but was not quizzed any
further when Metz told Deputy Coroner
Joseph M. Quinn that “this man is ill
and has been a ward of the Veterans
Administration. It is my firm belief he
should not be questioned.”

At the inquest, the officers first on
the scene gave their versions of view-
ing the body of the slain woman, and
the findings of the post mortem were
disclosed. After the testimony the jury
deliberated 25 minutes and returned a

verdict that the cause of Mrs. Mon-
tague’s death was “strangulation suf-
fered at the hands of party or parties
unknown.”

FTER THE INQUEST verdict,
Captain O’Neill took Montague
to police headquarters accompanied by
Metz. An attempt by O'Neill to ques-
tion the husband of the slain woman
was frustrated when the lawyer advised
Montague to refuse to answer. Mon-
tague became mute and O’Neill allow-
ed him to leave. Chapman, O’Neill and
other top officers went into a huddle.
Rehashing developments in the
complex case, they noted obvious dis-
crepancies in the husband’s story. One:
Montague had said repeatedly he didn’t
know where his wife had gone to the
party on that fatal night. Yet, in plain
sight on the kitchen wall in his apart-
ment was the posted invitation with
name, date and address of the sorority
meeting. Another significant factor
was the auto keys found inside the
murdered wife’s purse. Mrs. Montague
had obviously driven away from the
Brookman residence after the party.
Yet the car had turned up an hour or
so later in front of the Columbus Ave-
nue address. Where had it been driven
in the interim?

“My guess is,” Captain O'Neill
said, “that Mrs. Montague drove home,
was murdered there, her body dragged
back into the car, and another set of
keys used to drive it back to the Brook-
mans.”

It was decided to hold Montague for
“investigation, suspected of homicide.”
The machinery was put in motion for
the suspect’s arrest, and that night two

41


%& BEFORE A MIRROR, 16-year-old Helen Jean Bry-
ant swiped a brush petulantly through her strawberry
blonde hair again and again. There was deep resentment
in the shapely teenager’s glittering blue eyes. Her full,
red lips tightened in a thin, bloodless line with each new
stroke of the brush. Outside the ramshackle little house
a gray fog hovered on the hill, thick, sodden and cold.
It seemed to press tightly against the window panes,
bringing an atmosphere more intolerable than usual.

It was the old, old story. The younger kids underfoot,
crying, fighting, squalling. Her mother clucking like a brood
hen over half a dozen boys and girls who had to be clothed
and fed and sent off to school.

There was the steamy smell of too much cooking and
scrubbing of hands and faces; too much noise and con-
fusion and, this morning, the fog, with one girl boredly
announcing that she didn’t feel well and wasn’t going in

Ee Tin teas |

Pag ga OS

A

“The SE}
Ind.

i tee a
ef
Fe #s

to her classes in Aliquippa High School. That meant Helen
Jean must scurry alone down the half-mile path, twisting
through brush and woods until it came out on Iron Street,
where the school bus passed, far below.

Deep inside her, Helen Jean realized it was no one’s fault
that they were on relief and forced to squeeze into the
cramped dwelling atop the shaggy hill, far removed from
neighbors and friends and movies and coke joints and
parties in her schoolmates’ homes.

But. that realization was not enough to overcome a
teen-age girl's rebellion at having ‘to live so, and_ before
she left the house that Monday morning of October 25th,
Helen Jean snapped at her family, and another quarrel
erupted. :

Helen Jean broke .off the spat abruptly, turning on the
threshold. :

“I’m not coming home!” she flared. “Just remember that—
I'm not coming back!”

And she slammed the door and stomped off down the hill .

until the fog swallowed her up. She had said that before,

He saw the pretty, shapely
/ blonde going down the path.
Py nat Rape would be too easy!

Helen Jean Bryant, 16, vowed she wasn ¢ coming back
home. And she didn't — her slender body found naked
from the waist down — slashed by a maniac’s knifel

Ang)

at:

oe anc

mo)

Formal charges of murder are read to the
accused (left, above) in killing of high
school sophmore. Brought in (r.) because
of head and arm wounds, for which he had
an alibi, intensive interrogation and a
cop's shrewd bluff forced him to confess.

but knew she’d come home, like she always did before.

Helen Jean did not return that night. The girl had a
couple of dollars, at least, in her purse. Perhaps Helen Jean
had caught a bus to Corapolis, ten miles away, to stay
overnight with a grandmother whom she adored. Helen Jean
would be home on the morrow.

One girl checked at school on Tuesday, and there dis-
covered that Helen Jean had not appeared in her classes
the previous day. Nor was Helen Jean present among the
sophomores in Aliquippa High on Tuesday, either.

That night the family got in touch with the grandmother
in Corapolis. Helen Jean had spent her summers and as
much of her other leisure time as possible, with her grand-
mother, but she had neither seen nor heard from the girl.

Thus, on Tuesday night, Helen Jean Bryant was reported
as a missing person to the Hopewell Township police, whose
bailiwick encompassed Aliquippa and several other com-
munities in the Beaver Valley district of Western Penn-
sylvania, some twenty miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

Police Chief Matthew Zvonar called in Lieutenant William

ss
S
Hildebrand. ‘

“The girl has threatened to run away several times before,”
Zvonar said. “It looks like she actually made it this time.
We'll cover the usual places—depots, bus lines, roomin oO
houses. You backtrack on the kid. Find her jumping-o a
place.” bad

From the superintendent of schools Lieutenant Hildebrand
learned that Helen Jean was regarded as “a good girl, a B
B-average student.” She was not given to frequent absences ‘
from school. ye

Her classmates were certain she had no “steady” boy
friend. Indeed, Helen Jean hadn’t had many dates. She was od
popular enough among her schoolmates, but somewhat re- a
served, doubtless largely because of the isolation of her @
home life, they believed.

None of the regular riders on her school bus had seen o
Helen Jean on Monday morning. ae
Hildebrand located the driver of this bus. He clearly re- we
called having stopped on Iron Street where the Bryant sisters Q

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always boarded his vehicle, but neither was at the curb on
Monday morning. The lieutenant reported this ‘to Chief
Zvanor.

“I’ve been up that hill,” he added. “You've got to be half
mountain goat to follow the path. Almost anything could
happen along it.”

“Something obviously did,” Zvanor said. “Get as many
men as you can and comb over that knob. From here it
looks as if the kid never got off that hill yesterday morning—
and I don’t like thinking why.”

Hildebrand assembled a search party of sixteen auxiliary
cops and led them up the steep slope on the outskirts of
Aliquippa, beating through thickets, struggling around out-
jutting rocks and pushing through brush-choked ravines.

His party worked around the hill, on the side opposite °

the Bryant home, while another group of volunteers, num-
bering several of the missing girl’s relatives among them,
toiled up the knob on either side of the torturous path that

_ led to the Bryant dwelling.

All day Wednesday both parties hunted in vain. ‘There
was no sign anywhere of the missing girl.

Hildebrand went up and down Iron Street, questioning
residents, shopkeepers, service station attendants and others
who were much on the thoroughfare, most of whom knew
Helen Jean by sight. No one had seen the girl on Monday
morning.

In the meantime, Chief Zvanor and officers of his regular
force checked every possible means of exit from the city and

_ every place in it where a girl might hide, but turned up no

trace of their quarry.
_ “T still say,” Zvanor declared after this chore was done,
“that the girl never got off the hill.”
The next night.a tragedy in the little town of Fenemau ah.
e

_ on the outskirts of Johnstown, some eighty miles to

east, struck new fear into the hearts of the people and the
police in Aliquippa. nee

At midnight Thursday, less than six hours after she dis-
appeared while out on a merry tour of Halloween “trick or
treat,” 6-year-old Karen Mauk was found slain, her body
left on a windswept hill beside a cemetery, overlooking the
town.

The crime was clearly the work of a sex maniac who,
although he had not raped the child, had molested her.

Had Helen Jean Bryant likewise been waylaid by a sex
killer? Was her body lying somewhere in the tangled woods
on the hill whose crest looked down on a broad sweep of
railroad yards and a huge, smoking steel mill on the bank
of the Ohio River?

Was it possible, Chiet Zvanor found himself wondering,
that Helen Jean and little Karen Mauk had been the victims
of one and the same murderous pervert?

Torrential rains and high winds bore down on the Ali-
quippa region Friday and Friday night, making further
search on the hillside impossible. However, on Saturday
morning, their ranks swelled by workers from the rail-yards
and mills, the hunters returned to the hill, led now by Chief
Zvanor himself:

Slowly they worked their way up the slope, leaving no
yard of ground. uncovered. Shortly before noon, as the line
of searchers passed the half-way mark, a shout brought the
men rushing to a clump of woods just off the narrow path.

There, about 20 feet off the trail, two auxiliary policemen
stood above a shallow grave. In the hole was the body
of a girl. No one nurtured a shred of doubt who she was.

Helen Jean Bryant lay in the depression, her strawberry
blonde tresses darkly matted with blood from an ugly wound
on the head. Both cheeks were slashed.and a long gash across
a throat had narrowly missed the jugular vein.

Her short coat. had been pulled down from her shoulders,
forming a straightjacket that pinned her arms helplessly
against her body. Her white blouse and bra were undis-
turbed, but her skirt had been tugged above her waist and
her panties stripped down to the knees.

One foot was bare, the other shod in a pink sock. The
second sock and one shoe were nearby, together with her
schoolbooks, pencils and fountain pen. The other shoe was
found in the brush about ten yards away. __

A neighbor of Helen Jean stared unbelievingly at the
dead girl. °

“There’s something mighty odd about this,” he said to the
chief and the circle of men. “I came by here Wednesday,
right within a couple of feet of this very spot. Funny I
didn’t find her then.” ;

Zvanor squatted by the grave. “I’ll tell you why,” he said.
“The guy who killed her didn’t have the time, or maybe the
tools, to dig a real grave. He scooped out this hole, put her
in it, then covered her with dirt and leaves, We probably
wouldn’t have found her today if it hadn’t been the rain
washed the dirt away and the wind blew the leaves off the
grave.”

-Dr. Ralph M. Weaver, pathologist at the Butler County |

Memorial Hospital, performed an autopsy and reported
death from a skull fracture.

“She was struck down with a blunt weapon,” Dr. Weaver
said, “Probably with one of the stones right there on the
hillside. The knife wounds were inflicated later. There are
oa to indicate an effort also was made to strangle the
girl.”

Dr. Weaver added that Helen Jean had not been raped,
although the condition of her clothing pointed clearly to
an attempted sexual assault as the motive for the crime.

“But who,” Lieutenant Hildebrand wondered, “would

have been lurking up on that hill at eight-fifteen Monday .

morning, waiting for the girl to come along the path?” -
Helen Jean, one yirl revealed, had been afraid to use the
woodland path. The reason for this fear was somewhat
vague.
“There was that fellow, living down the hill,” the girl
related. “He used to come out and stand by the path and
shake his finger at her. She always ran down the path to
catch the bus to school.” :
The nearest neighbors were a family who lived some four
hundred yards down the slope.
“I know one of the boys,” Hildebrand said. “Just got out

of the federal reformatory, over in Chilicothe, Ohio, a few

weeks ago. Did a bit for auto theft.” ;

“Which doesn’t necessarily qualify him as a killer,” Chief
Zvanor said, “But we'll talk with the boy. We sure enough
will.”

Before visiting the family down the hill, Zvanor heard the
report of the men to whom he had assigned the task of
searching the ground around the grave for any clues.

They came up with but one item of possible interest, the
five-inch blade of a common kitchen paring knife, found
thrust into the earth several yards from the shallow grave.

“Without a handle,” the police chief observed, “the blade
of a knife wouldn’t make a likely ‘Weapon, would it? But
hang onto it, boys, you never can tell.”

Chief County Detective M. D. Hoyman and Sergeant John
Krzton of the Pennsylvania State Police joined the local
officers as they made their way to the neighbors’ home.

Although one brother was absent, three of the family were
at home when the officers arrived.

They readily admitted having known Helen Jean Bryant,
by sight only, as the result of her having daily passed up
and down the wooded trail.

All three, however, immediately and emphatically denied
all knowledge of her death. Two had been at work at eight-
fifteen a.m. Monday—when the girl stormed out of her house
on her way to school—and the third said he had been on his
way to an employment agency at that time, arriving there
just before eight-thirty for an interview for a job.

While his colleagues questioned the trio, Sergeant Krzton
prowled through the little house. He emerged from a bed-
room with a pair of trousers (Continued on page 40)

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY. 48]

in retributive justice was inherent with the New Englanders,
they promptly responded. On one occasion a stranger appeared
to the people who had gathered for worship, and stated that he
had been robbed in the woods by a ruffian who had fled by the
Harmony road towards the State line. As a man answering to
the description had passed that way early in the morning, it
was thought possible he might be overtaken before reaching it. .
Mr. B. mounted his horse and gave chase, overtaking him just this
side of the New York line; and without aid or assistant, arrested
and pinioned him, marched him back through a ten mile forest,
and. delivered, him_to-the authorities.

Upon that same road, at a later period, the murder of Olive
ITarper was perpetrated, for which Jason Treadwell suffered the
severest penalty of the law. ‘I'he last house the victim entered
was Ilezekiah Bushnell’s; he asked of Mrs. B. and received a
piece of mutton-tallow with which to rub his chafed and weary
limbs.

When Harper's body was found, the news spread like wild-
fire, “A man murdered and the murderer at large!” Every
muscle was strained to procure his arrest. Roads and bridges
were guarded, men on horseback and on foot scoured the woods
for several days, and great was the relief when the supposed
criminal was lodged in Montrose jail,
~ A similar excitement was occasioned a few years afterwards
by the ery, “a man murdered this side of Belmont, and the mur-
derer in the woods coming towards this settlement!” Again
nearly every man was engaged in the search; and while the
husbands and fathers were thus absent, the mothers pressed
closer their little ones in fearful suspense, Jest the villain should

\y pounce upon them in their helplessness. Finally he emerged

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from the woods, and under false pretences found shelter with

mes Dunn, a hospitable Scotchman, who lived in a secluded

rt of what is now Ararat township. His wants being supplied
he went to bed; but soon alter a posse of men effected a sudden
entrance, and surrounding the bed captured the wretched crea-
ture without resistance. Ile was taken to Bethany, tried, sen-
tenced, and hung. This was Matthews, murderer of Col. Brooks.

en a

Among the inventions by the residents of this ta¥nsbip, has
been a felloe-dowel-pin (of metal and tubular), by E. Denison
Tyler, and for which a patent has been issued.

[Most of the material for this chapter was kindly furnished
by J. C. Bushnell, Esq.]

31


ie ey, Paty be HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

‘ “ At the age of nineteen I had an invitation to teach school at Grreat Bend,
accepted ; went there and found po school-house, but @ vacant dwelling on the
farm of Jonathan Dimon was obtained, and, having passed » forinnl exuminua-
tion before said Dimon and Adam Burwell, | was duly installed in my new
domicile, a written agreement drawn up by which each was to pay for what be
signed or sent, pneciied terme, three months, four weeks each, five und a half
days each week, at the exorbitant price of cight dollars per month. Settlers

aa being scarce, scholars came quite a distance, from as far up the river as Cap-
tain Ichabod Buck's. 1 recollect boarding there, but the names of the chil-
dren have escaped my memory. Silas and Hiram Buck, of another family, I
well remember. ‘hey were somewhat my senior, and were very agreeable
™ Ms companions, especially Silas, whose mild and genial temperament would win
friends st all times and in all piaces. I was much pleased when I saw the
notice of a surprise party at his widow’s for her benefit.' My services being
appreciated, the proprietors agreed to build a school-house if 1 would serve
the ensuing winter---wages raised to ten dollars, I did so, and the house
being located farther down the river, brought a new set of scholars from both
ae sides of the river, enlarging the circle of my acquaintances and friends. ”

i pee Early in 1831, the Bowes Mansion was converted into a fe-
male seminary and boarding school, the first Principal of
which disgraced the ‘ Rev.” prefixed to his name. In the fall
4 , of 1832, James Catlin and Miss Lucretia Loomis had charge of
’ the institution. When tbe latter Jeft for Moutrose, it was
changed to an academy, and only male students were invited,
J. Corwin, Principal.

A good normal school is now sustained in Great Bend Bo-
rough,

“In Great Bend there are five public burial places. The oldest,
called the ‘Potter’s Field, on the south side of the river, was
so named because many strangers have been buried there. It
was given as a free ground by Robert IL. Rose, one of the first
land-bolders of the township, then known as Willingboro. It
contained ten acres, and was given to Charles Dimon and Wm.
Thomson astrustees. Next, the ground known as the Newmah
burying ground, one mile southeast of the Erie Depot. This
isa beautiful spot, well laid out. Jason Treadwell, the murderer
of Oliver Harper, the only person ever executed in Susquehanna }}
County, lies in this ground, with nothing but the senseless tarf |
|! tu mark the spot. There are churchyards adjoining the Pres- |
& be | byterian and Episcopal churches, where many of the oldest in- |
a : ‘ha : | habitants are buried. The ground near the Presbyterian church
}was given by Dominicus (Minna) Du Bois, and that near the

Kpiscopal charch by Wm. Thomson. The only really attractive
place is Woodlawn Cemetery, one mile east of the town.”

bi ' Mr. Backus refers to the following newspaper item :—
a “A party of eight old ladies, all widows, made Mrs. Silas Buck an old-fashioned
ae visit on Tuesday of this week. Their united ages were six hundred and forty-

one years, the eldest being ninety-two years of age, aud the youngest seventy-
seven. They were all of Great Bend.”


Biv Rak , HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY. 97

sone man's tax was but: six cents, another's seven, and another's

) ms\ eight cents. The heaviest tax-payers were John Hilborn and
Bes hindu ; ee Martin Lane, but even they paid less than nine dollars. Still, mea-
y eee =6sgeras such sums seem beside those now demanded of property-
holders, there was not wanting, at least a few years later, plenty

' of grumbling, as is witnessed by a political document forwarded
by Mr. Hale, which was circulated for campaign effect, and in

x which is the followi ing: ‘' Year after year THOUSANDS OF DOL-

ae By > \~LARS are wrung from the pockets of our citizens in the shape
i ie TAXES, and what have we obtained in return? Nothing, com-
B : paratively speaking, NOTHING!” But all this was expected to

= ...° be rectified, if the candidates then offered, viz., Horace Willis-
. ~ ton, Esq., for Congress, and William Jessup for Representative,
could be elected. Alas! they were defeated.

On the old Harmony road abotit one and a half or two miles
from Lane's, Oliver Harper was murdered by Jason Treadwell,
May 11, 1824. Travelers are still shown the poplar tree near
the fatal spot, on yolek the initials ‘O. H,” are rudely carved ;

Iso, ‘' Pot-rovk,” e
Jobn Rogers Foanied Sept. 1825, on an elevated spot just
Bs ) } south of the river road, near where it turns abruptly north, and
~y 2 West of the Canawacta; and still occupies the same farm, a part
1 4 of the old Wharton tract.

In 1825, David Lyons occupied o house four miles up the
Canawacta, which was the only oné between the mouth of the
érevk and Collins Gelatt’ 8, seven miles south,

Joseph Austin soon alter located near Mr. Lyons. The latter
is now on a part of the old Lane farm.
: Lane’s Mills, rebuilt in part, are now run by Elias Youngs
“SS and Hf. Perrine.

ire) aa

Ay ae : ' The first public movement towards the erection of a bridge

across the Susquehanna at Lanesboro was made in the summer
4 of 1836. It was built in 1837, and was destroyed by a freshet.
Bes ; As late as 1846, the town consisted of but one hotel, the
mills, one store, and a cluster of houses; but during the con-
struction of the great works of the Erie Railroad at this point,
it became quite a business place. From the time of the com-
pletion of that road, which passes over the Canawacta bridge
above the houses of Lanesboro, its business has been in part
transferred to the depot one mile ‘south of it. Twenty-five years
- ago, the vicinity of Lanesboro, and especially that of Cascade
Creek, was a favorite resort for partieg of pleasure. Its trout
were unsurpassed, and its falls a charming feature of otherwise
picturesque scenery.

The traveler does not now find the locality as attractive as
. formerly. The practical demands of the age have invaded its
Bea, 3 | | seclusion, cut down the tangled wildwood, thrown an embank-

7


HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
turns abruptly to the west, making in fact the great bend, which
_hame, strangely enough, has been given to the point in the
“township where the river turns northward at a less-marked
angle. The spot is one of the few localities in our county where
indisputable evidences have been found of its preoccupation b
the Indians. On the draft of a survey made by a Pennsylvania
agent in 1735, six small wigwams are marked at the point of
land just below the western abutment of the old bridge, to
designate an old town of the Tuscaroras. Here were found by
Mr. Westhill the poles of the wigwams and several pits con-
taining charred corn and an immense quantity of clippings,
showing that arrow-heads were manufactured here on a large
scale,

William Smith had twosons, Arbaand William. All removed
to Cincinnati, Cortland County, N. Y. Willian Greek Jocated
very early on the south side of the river, at the mouth of
Drinker’s Creek. He sold his improvements some years later
to Marmaduke Salsbury, who married Clarissa, daughter of
William Smith, and after her dot) marries t her sister Lydia
(the widow Rouse), They tiad a ogee fan oy,

John Stid also settled ver, earivc ths o> or in front of what
is now known as Shutts’ place, and ist | ‘ the point where
the railroad reaches the northern bank. Root opposite, at the
mouth of the Third Run, John Travis was located. He claimed
the island just below Lovers’ Island, and his older brother,
Ezckiel, the whole of what has since been the Joseph McKune
farm,

When the Pennsylvania Iandholders looked after their in-
terests here, some of the earliest settlers disappeared, and titles
to Jand procured from them were found defective, necessitating
a repurchase by those who remained.

Isaac Hale and Nathaniel Lewis lived near each other, on the
north side of the river, as carly as 1791, Afterwards, Mr.

|... bought a place on the south side, and resided there for many
| years, ‘he one he vacated was purchased by Samuel Tread-
} well. It is now owned by L. P. Hinds, Esq. Here Jason,
youngest son of Samuel Treadwell, afterwardg hung on con-
viction of the murder of Oliver Harper, lived until his marriage,
when he moved into Great Bend Township. ‘I'he father, prior
to residing here, had been located ten or twelve years opposite
sted Rock.

Tsaic Hale was born Mareh 21, 1763, in Waterbury, Conn.

When a boy he was taken by his grandfather to Vermont. Te

es:

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worked one summer in Connecticut, he concluded to try ‘the
~ West.” At Ounquago (now Windsor, N, ¥.), he found’ Major


were Miranda, wife of Enos. Dow . Shubael. R. and | timber was burned up. The

Alfred, residents of Homer, N. Y.; Charles W., dead ;

Harriet, wife of Apollos Turner; Leonard O., who
d; and Lyman E., who died

Silas S. and Edwin L. !

ora, cof years, their sister,

$s

ay

ou a

‘where the Widow E
was the last clearing on t
Clara became the wife of Thomas

"was a pensioner of 1812. He was an industrious

man, made several beginnings, and died at an ad-
~~ vanced age unmarried. Bei es a. pee skate
_. OLIVER Harper.—Mrs. Mary Tyler says: “The
“spring after I came to Ararat to live I was at Harford
on a visit. Oliver Harper called at our house and

\3 ; “ sked Mother Tyler if she would get him a dinner.

» He asked for boiled eggs, and while she was getting
~- hem ready he leaned against her bed and fell into a
‘sound sleep, so she could hardly wake him to eat his
jinner. He told Mrs. Tyler that on going down the
“river he left his wife at Windsor with a young habe,
and that he was anxious about her, that he ‘had
“«lready traveled forty miles that day, and was going
home that night, twenty ‘miles farther. He stopped

a ettonne

by
ruts

‘next at Hezekiah Bushnell’s, and got some tallow to
‘ub on his chafed limbs. ‘He was pursuing his jour-
dey towards home, ‘and was waylaid and shot by
, Jason Treadwell on the Harmony road, not far from
where the Catholic purying-ground isin Susque-
hanna. “Mr. Bacon, in the presence of. Hezekiah
Bushnell and others, dipped his finger in the victim’s
~~ blood and wrote ‘O. H.’ on a stone, and set it up on

-|. the bank, just outside of the road, at the same time

~Yemarking to his companions that human blood will

ak »ple.

~~ torch one day,

remain a long time on stone. J. C. Bushnell remem-

_ bers that stone, and the inscription was plainly to be

“seen for twenty-five years.” aioe eaiens wos ye peneite |
“/°[ypusTRies.—Hunting, "trapping, sugar-making
and clearing land were the first industries of the peo-
Where land was cleared and all the timber
‘burned upon it, the ashes enriched the soil, when

not made an article of merchandise. Sometimes the

BY

5s pO ee

Settler burned up too much; in this connection the

experience of Burnham, a brother-in-law of John
Snow, will illustrate an extra burn. He chopped a
_ fallow of eight or ten acres in the midst of a dense
“forest. After it was dried sufficiently, he applied the
but there was no breeze stirring, and
the fire would not burn, and he left it. During the

it adi night a whirlwind arose in that little circular chop-
--’ ping and fanned the latent spark to life, and contin-

intensity until the flames shot high above the
ding timber for rods around,

‘terribly than thunder,

Next day the

y. The land was

h of the larger

rich loam of decayed vegetable matter, and left but a
thin subsoil, in which the owner could cast his seed —
in fruitless hope. ‘The ashes were driven into circu-_
lar drifts, so that they could be shoveled up by the
cart-load and carried to the ashery, but all this —
ruined the land. ‘Burnham left in disgust after wait
ing in vain for the first crop.) Reg ugh Co BE
Asheries and Charcoal.—Making potash or peari-_
ash and burning charcoal was a common business.

with the early settlers.’ From his highland home.
Mr. Bushnell has seen many coal-pits burning at the
same time. The coal-pit was formed in some natural
depression, or by excavation, into which a large num-
‘ber of hard-wood logs were closely packed, the inter-
yening spaces being filled with smaller timber. This
“was covered with straw and earth, so that there could =
be no draft excepting at the flues prepared atthe
sides of the pit. These pits were watched night and
day for ten or twenty days to prevent any ‘outbreak.

of the flames. When it became evident that the | —
‘wood was charred, the fire was extinguished by clos-... .
ing the flues. These pits would hold from three’ ta
hundred to eight hundred bushels of charcoal, worth —
from three to six cente per bushel, and was used by —
blacksmiths and tinsmithe. ’ There is a relic of the
ashery business—in the pasture of George ‘Knight,
near Joseph Dunn’s. Here “John Doyle and sons
made potash from 1820 to 1825. They felled large
maples and .burned them ‘for the ashes, which were.
worth from three to six cents per bushel. The pro-
‘eess of manufacturing was to leech the ashes and ye
“evaporate the alkali in large, shallow iron kettles to :
dryness, producing & grayish mass containing about
forty per cent. of carbonaceous matter. A process of
refining was added to some of the larger asheries, |
whereby the product was converted into pearlash
containing about fifty per cent. of pure potassa.
Grist and Saw-Mills.—Albert Bushnell, ; having
bought the David Hine farm in }851, in company .
‘with Norman Todd, built a grist-mill below the _
bridge, near where the East and West road crossed
the Wilkes-Barre turnpike. The mill did a good
business in grinding buckwheat, flour, feed and meal.
Connected with it was a shingle-machine for making —
sawed shingle. After the death of Mr. Todd, W. W.
Stearns bought the property, and, after running the
mil] a number of years, sold the building, and it was
converted into a dwelling, now occupied by the San-
ders sisters. About 1844 David Avery built a saw-
mill where the stone-quarry of P——— and H ‘i
now is, which was very convenient for the settlement

for a period of about twenty-five years, until the ~~
neighboring forests were nearly exhausted. The
first saw-mill was built on the same stream, below
the residence of Mr. Avery, a8 early as 1812-13, but it
proved a failure. Hall and Guernsey secured a large ©

tract of Jand and built a saw-mill and erected other e
machinery at the outlet of Mud Pond, but the dis-

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‘ : c 4

Py.
s



ler
nd
1a-
tle

of

1, was
ing at
ce had
which
ce had
» and

as a
rence.
h the
iained.
ich he
fight-

/pear-
‘ences

Mr.
lease
| idle

of the UDDERZOOK

snd it was sufficiently far removed from the main mansion so
that its owner would incur no loss of privacy.

Nevertheless, Mr. Lowndes acknowledged an altogether
unwarranted premonition—as if indeed he, were in some sub-
couscluus way aware of the tragic and gruesome chain of
events destined to so soon follow—and it was with a heavy
heart that he at last yielded to the persuasions of his callers
and accepted a ten-dollar bill as the first month’s rent.

However, there certainly seemed no real basis for the land-
lord’s curious fears. Goss and Udderzook moved in the equip-

ment for a laboratory, and spent many long quiet. hours of-

research and work. They were orderly and well-
behaved.

Mr. Lowndes became interested in the
success of the experiments in spite of
himself. :

One day, dropping in to see what
_ progress his new tenants were mak-
ing, Mr. Goss handed him a piece
of the india-rubber substance
which he was experimenting on.

“Why, it ts rubber!’ ex-
claimed Mr. Lowndes in
amazement.

“Hush!” said Udderzook

(Below) “Wyanoke”, the
York Road Estate of Andrew
J. Lowndes on the outskirts ‘
of Baltimore, Maryland, the
scene of the beginning of this

grim tragedy of death

HORROR

sharply, as if his partner were talking too much, and he snatched
the gummy stuff away.
Goss merely laughed—a triumphant laugh. ‘Pretty good,
isn’t it?” he chuckled. ‘Just as good as the real article, eh?”
It was on a bitterly cold night—February 2nd, 1872—that
the first chapter in an amazing sequence of events
in the lives of these two men, was written.

It was still early in the evening when
William C. Lowndes, the sixteen-year
old son of the owner, came dashing

into his father’s home. ;
“The tenant house is on fire!” he

screamed.
Without even waiting to don an
overcoat, Mr. Lowndes dashed

(Left) R.E. Long, co-author
of this story, points out the
great tree under which
William E. Udderzook met
“A. E. Wilson” the day
before the crime. (Mr. Long,
who was a boy of ten at the
time of the murder, has
made a special study of this
famous case and _ talked
with many of those who had
direct contact with it)


ie

UDBERZO OK, William +,, white, hanged Westchester Co,,Pa., on
11/12/1874.06

TRUB DETECTIVE MYsTERIES, August, 1931.

he STRANGE SOLUTION

By Magistrate R. E. LONG

West Grove, Pennsylvania

As told to K. S. DAIGER
Formerly of the Baltimore SUN

What guilty secret bound together

these two ingenious plotters and

later led to a crimson consumma-

tion? _A fantastic murder tale

startling in its exposition of
human cupidity

a smith and tool-maker. _He, too, was
a resident of Baltimore City, residing at
167 Conway Street. Previously, he had

Baer’s Woods, Chester County,
Pennsylvania, where the dismem-
bered body of the mysterious
Wilson was found in a shallow
grave dug under these trees and
covered with leaves and branches

N the year 1867, Mr. Andrew J.
Lowndes, a member of one of Mary-
land’s oldest and most aristocratic
families, bought for himself a very

beautiful estate on the outskirts of Balti-
more, about four miles from the city.
This property, known as ‘“Wyanoke,”
ran, from Pen Lucy Avenue ,to Kate
Avenue. It consisted of a fine old stone
house set in a park of magnificent trees
and shrubbery.

At one end of the spacious park there
stood a small tenant house, of light frame
construction, facing on the York Road.

For four years this cottage remained
unoccupied.

It was just as the year 1871 was drawing
to a close that Mr. Lowndes, one day,
received an unsolicited call from two
gentlemen. The purpose of their visit
was to rent the tenant house.

One—thespokesman—was a tall, sturd
man, full-chested and of powerful paild,
in the neighborhood of thirty-five years.
He introduced himself as Mr. W. 8. Goss
of 314 North Eutaw Street, Baltimore.

His companion was his brother-in-law,
William E. Udderzook. He was of slighter
build, and had a refined voice and manner.

Mr. Goss, it appeared, was an inventor; _.

and he pulled from his pocket what he
was pleased to call a rachet screw-driver
as a sample of one of his devices. More
particularly, however, he was interested
in the making of synthetic or artificial
rubber and he wished a quiet place where
he might conduct his experiments in

privacy. This discovery, if worked out to.

a successful conclusion, would prove of
enormous profit and value.

In the friendly conversation that fol-
lowed, Mr. Udderzook was presented as

34

been a teacher of ‘fine arts’”—which
meant that before the Civil War he had
been an instructor in penmanship and
fine paintings in oil.

Udderzook struck Mr. Lowndes as a
man of more than average intelligence.
He had come into Maryland with the
Pennsylvania troops, but had remained
with a Maryland regiment from which he
was mustered out at the close of the fight-
ing.

ie spite of their prepossessing appear-
ance and the very creditable references
with which they were supplied, Mr.
Lowndes felt a strange reluctance to lease
the little house. It had long stood idle

(Above) John S. Pennock,
ninety-four, of Cochranville,
Pennsylvania, who helped re-
move.the body from its hiding
place in the lonely woodland

(Right) Stable at Atglen,
Pennsylvania, where the
rig was hired for the
fatal drive. Two men
went. Only one returned


. the weight of the evidence.

_ he knew if he did not tell the truth he would | der,

254 | “118 ATLANTIC REPORTER : (Pa.

The defendant complains in four respects, | thing which should have been said, to which
(1) that his 9 year old son was incompetent | defendant's counsel made no response.
as a witness; (2) that the court mistakenly
stated the length of time during which he] is sought to convict the court below of error
talked to his mother; (3) that the instruc-|in its submission of the fact and degree of
tions on the defense of drunkenness were in- | defendant’s alleged drunkenness to the jury,
adequate; and (4) that the trial judge erred! but, when the entire charge on this subject
in charging the jury that the burden was|comes to be read, it is manifest that the in-
on the defendant of proving this defense by | structions on this feature of the case were full
and adequate. The jury was told that, un-

{1] The principal reason urged as to why | less the defendant was in such a condition
the 9 year old boy was incompetent is be-|of mind that he could have acted willfully,
cenuse on his examination to test his eapac- | deliberately, and premeditatedly, he could

ity; he did not know the name of the aunt|not be found guilty of murder of the first

with whom he was living. This forgetful-| degree, that that was the purpose of the de-
ness would not determine his incompetence, | fense of drunkenness which had been made
particularly, as all the rest of his testimony | to show that the defendant was unable, be-
was intelligent. His father, the defendant, | cause of his condition, to act willfully, to de-
must have considered him fully capable, as} liberate and premeditate. The testimony as
he trusted him to carry out the scheme}to the amount defendant claimed he drank
formed on the night of the crime to take the| was fully recited and more than once the
blame of the shooting on himself.. He met | jury was told that, if the accused was so in-
the usual test applied by courts to children | toxicated as to be incapable of acting will-
to determine whether they understand the] fully, deliberately, and premeditatedly, he
result of false swearing by answering that} could not be found guilty of first degree mur-
More than this defendant could not ask.
go to hell. What was said in Commonwealth | Com. v. Detweiler, 229 Pa. 304, 308, 78 atl.
y. Furman, 211 Pa. 549, 550, 60 Atl. 1089,)971. As before stated, his ‘point submitted
107 Am. St. Rep. 591, answers appellant’s|on this subject was aflirmed.

contention as to this witness: [4] In instructing the jury that the burden
was on defendant to prove his intoxication
by the weight of the evidence, because the
defense was aflirmative, the court followed

“The substantial test of the competency of an
infant witness is his intelligence, and his com-

[3] Taking an excerpt from the charge, it ~

prehension of an obligation to tell the truth,
The truth is what the law, under the rules of
evidence is secking, and, if a full and present
understanding of the obligation to tell it, is
shown by the witness, the nature of his con-
ception of the obligation is of secondary im-
portance. * * * The witness clearly compre-
hended the difference between truth and false-
hood, and his duty to tell the truth. That was,
the substance of qualification as a witness. |
The trial judge in whose discretion the matter
very largely rested was satisfied of the com-
petency of the boy, and we are of opinion that
his discretion was well exercised.”

[2] As to ‘the second assignment of error,
very little need be said. It would convict
the trial judge of error because he charac-
terized the length of time the defendant
talked with his mother just before the com-
mission of the crime as “considerable,” when
it was only for 10 or 15 minutes according to
the testimony. It seems to us that this, un-
der the circumstances, considering the time
of night it was and that she was in bed, was
a considerable time, but if defendant was not
satisfied with this expression of the court, he
should have called attention to it when the
judge inquired of counsel at the end of his

the legal principle as we have announced it.
The burden of proving any affirmative de-
fense is on the defendant. Commonwealth v.
Colandro, 281 Pa. 348, 80 Atl. 571; Common-
wealth v. Palmer, 222 Pa. 299, 71 Atl. 100,
19 L. R. A. (N. S.) 483, 128 Am. St. Rep. S809.
From the charge, the jury could clearly com-
prehend the difference between the heavy
burden of proof which the commonwealth
was required to meet, to prove the guilt of
the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt,
and the lighter one resting on the defendant,
Commonwealth v. Keeler, 242 Pa. 416, 421,
89 Atl. 558. :

Full consideration of all appellant’s as-
signments of error convinces us ‘that none
has merit; they are overruled. As is our du-
ty under the Act of February 15, 1870, § 2 (P.

read the entire record in this case to ascer-
tain whether it convincingly demonstrates
that there are present in the proofs the in-
gredients necessary to a conviction of mur-
der of the first degree; we find that they are
present, and therefore the judgment is af-
firmed.

The record is remitted to the court below
for the purpose of execution. :

charge whether he had omitted saying any-

t

esos ke ws

L. 15; Pa. St. 1920, § 560), we have carefully .

€
ae

Pa.) SHIOKLEY vy. PHILADELPHIA & ‘READING COAL & IRON CO. 255-
(118 A.)

a mee ae ‘ wre ‘ ie OE
‘ i do fa ~

SHICKLEY | v. PHILADELPHIA & READING
COAL & IRON CO. -

) (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
1922.)

I. Master and servant €=>416—Conclusion by
referee held one of law, reviewable by Com-
_ pensation Board. :

On the claim of a decedent’s widow against
his employer for compensation for his death,
the conclusion of the referee that the place of
accident was part of the employer’s “premises,”
within the meaning of the Workmen's Compen-
sation Act (Pa. St. 1920, § 21916 et seq.), is
one of law, not of fact, and hence reviewable by
the Compensation Board without. atrial of
the facts de novo.

2. Master and servant 557 1—-Conpeiidatios
recoverable only for accident on “premises”
of employer.

A decedent fatally injured upon land owned
by his employer while on a path leading to his
place of employment, but not upon the prem-
ises where the colliery in which he was ac-
tually employed was located, was not injured on
his employer’s “premises” within the Work-
men’s Compensation Act (Pa. St. 1920, § 21916
et seq.), and hence compensation, could not be
recovered for his death. j ;

{kd. Note.—Ior other definitions, see Words
es Phrases, First and. Second Series, Prem-
ses.]

3. Master and servant €=37!—Subsequent
work at place of injury held not to support
awand of compensation.

The contention that compensation can be
recovered under the Workmen’s Compensation
Act (Pa. St. 1920, § 21916’ et seq.) for death of
an employee, although caused by an accident
which happened off his employer’s premises, be-
Cause he afterward workéd on such premises,
and thereby his condition became eeerhvated,
ig without merit.

May 25,

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas,
Northumberland County; H. W. Cummings,
Judge.

Claim by Mrs. Annie Shickley, for compen-
sation for the death of Henry Shickley,
against the Philadelphia & Reading Coal &
Iron Company, employer. Award to claim-
ant. by referee reversed by Compensation
Board. From judgment of court of com-
mon pleas, affirming decision of board, claim-
ant appeals, Affirmed.

Argued before MOSCHZISKER, C, J., and
FRAZER, WALLING, SIMPSON, KEP-
HART, SADLER, and SCHAFFER, JJ.

Roger J. Dever, of Wilkes-Barre, for ap-

Pellant.
Voris Auten, of Mt. Carmel, and B. D.

Troutman, of Pittsville, for appellee.

PER CURIAM. Annie Shickley claimed
compensation for the death of her husband,

| Henry 'Shickléy,' who° was éinployéd’ by dee

fendant' company. The referee made an
award in her favor, which was reversed by
the. Compensation Board, and the decision
of. the latter was affirmed by the court be-
low. The claimant has appealed. The ques:
tions involved, as wtated by the appellant,
are:

(1) “Can the * * ® board reverse the
findings of fact of the * .* *. referee without
having granted a hearing de novo?” (2) “Is
an accident which happened on the premises of
the employer, on a path leading to and from
the place at which the employee was employed,
and found by the referee. to have happened in
the course of employment, a compensable ac-
cident?” :

[1] As to the first question, it is sufficient
to say that the controlling point in the case,
Suggested by the second of the above-stated
questions, is one of law and not of fact. All
the material underlying facts found by the
referee were accepted by the Board, but
the latter drew a different conclusion there-
from, determining that, on the facts as found,
the place where the accident happened was
not part of the premises of the employer
within the meaning of that term as used in
the act; this—the finding complained of—
is a conclusion of law.

[2] The referee found that, on April 20,
1919, Shickley died from a disease of trau-
matic origin, “probably due to a wrench re-
ceived on April 7, 1919, aggravated by his
continuing at work’; that the accident was
caused by the deceased slipping on a loose
stone at a spot on a path leading to his
place of employment, but at least 900 feet
therefrom; that the path in question (though
not part of the premises connected with the
plant where Shickley was employed, and
not maintained or kept in condition by de-
fendant cempany) was upon property owned
by his employer and was habitually used
by him and others of defendant’s employees,
there being no approach from Mt. Carmel,
where Shickley lived, to defendant’s mine ex-
cept by this and other paths, all ‘on or over”
defendant’s property. On this state of facts
the referee concluded that the path used by
Shickley “was a part of the premises of
defendant” and that the accident “was due
to the condition of the premises”;. there-
fore, he made the award. In reversing, the
Board. states:

“There is a distinction between the word
‘premises,’ as used in the act, and the word
‘property,’ and the word premises cannot be en-
larged in its meaning and application so as to
include land or property [outside of that used
in connection with the actual premises, where
the employer carries on the business in which
the employee is engaged]. * * ® Therefore,
the mere fact that defendant company owned
the land on which decedent was injured is not

@=—>For other cases sce same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes

he E
ae:
t +i
rs a
ie
ay i
|
pple
a
Ee
:
Ma 4.
% By
3
Bee
4
es
r

AR

see

i Slaie

ae 118 ATLANTIO REPORTER (Pa,

crossing to be 8 to 10 miles per hour. With-
out sufficient warning, train approached at 30
miles per hour. When front wheels of auto
were over first rail, plaintiff saw train still
100 feet away. In excitement, plaintiff did not
get across, but was struck and injured. Was
ease for jury?”

The facts shown by plaintiff prove him
guilty of contributory negligence. As said
in Provost y. Director General, 265 Pa. 589,
591, 109 Atl. 595, 596:

“We have repeatedly held that one approach-
ing a railroad is not only required to stop, look
and listen, but to keep a due observation from
the stopping point on till the crossing is made.
[Plaintiff], having two tracks to cross, was
obliged to look not only to the north but also
to the south; * * * he could not make both
observations at one time; but the head ean
be turned in the fraction of a second, and
* * * it is true beyond a doubt that the
merest glance, with attention, to the north
would have shown [plaintiff] the approach of
the train which subsequently struck his motor,
almost immediately upon the entrance on the
* * * track. Since the accident could have
been avoided by the due care which was re-
quired under the circumstances, plaintiff * * *
was clearly guilty of contributory negligence.”

The above quotation ts entirely appropri-
ate to the facts at bar, as shown by plain-
tiff, except that here plaintiff says, when
he actually started to make the crossing,
he was looking in the direction from which
the train came, failing to explain, however,
why he did not know of its approach, till
practically upon him, or, if he did know,
why he went upon the tracks; the fact that,
from prior knowledge of usual speed, he did
not expect the train to run as fast as it did
on this particular oceasion is no sufficient
excuse, for he testified that, when he first
saw the train, it was running at the rate

“He testified the train was coming from the
north at a speed of 30 miles per hour, or, in
other words, at the rate of 2,640 feet per min-
ute, which equals a speed of 44 feet per sec-
ond. It is therefore self-evident that it would
require the train 13 seconds to cover the dis-
tance from where plaintiff admits he could
[have seen a train] to the point at which he
stopped. According to the testimony of his
witness, Mrs, Bogart, plaintiff's machine was
stopped about two seconds. He was proceed-
ing at the rate of 4 miles per hour, or 1 mile
per 15 minutes, or one-fifteenth of a mile per
minute. This would be at a rate of [352] feet
per minute or about 6 feet per second. In 13
seconds, therefore, which would be the time
necessary for the train to reach the crossing
from a distance of 580 feet, he could have
covered 13 times 6 feet or 78 feet. As he was
only distant 4 fect from the rail of the track
upon which the train approached, and as the
distance between rails is less than 6 feet, he
could have been, on his own version of the facts,
& considerable distance over the tracks at the
instant the accident occurred.”

We do not decide the case on this close
calculation, however, but on Plaintiff's evi-
dent negligence,

The judgment is reversed, and is here en-
tered for defendant,

=——=

COMMONWEALTH v. TROY.

(Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. May 8
1922. )-*, oie oe

compotent.

A boy 9 years old, who met’ the usual test
applied by courts to children to determine
whether they understand the result of false ~
Swearing, by answering that he knew- that if he
did not tell the truth he would go to. hell, was
& competent witness, notwithstanding that he
did not know the name of his. aunt with whom

of 30 miles an hour, If due care had been
observed by him he must have seen the
train sooner, and if, at the time he saw it,
he could form such exact judgment of its
speed, it is apparent that, had he noticed
its approach sooner, he~would have known
it was moving with more than usual celerity.

he was living,

2. Criminal law €==777'/2—Charge that length —
of conversation was considerable when shown
to be but 15 minutes not error,

Where, in a-trial for murder, the court
charged that the length of a conversation ac-
cused had with his mother just before commis-

In short, if-plaintif! saw the train and yen-
tured on the tracks immediately ahead of

sion of the crime was “considerable,” when ac-
cording to testimony it was only for 10 or 15
minutes, wag not error, especially where court

it, his carelessness prevents a recovery; if | inquired of counsel for accused if he had omit-

he did not see it before attempting to cross | ted anything and received no response
the tracks, since, according to his own state-| 3, Homicide ¢-—28— Intoxicati

ment of facts, he was struck almost immedi-
ately upon his entry thereon, he is guilty of

neglizence in failing to observe that which | first degree, unless accused w:

on as defense’
stated.

Intoxication is no defense to murder in the
as in such condi-

was plainly in sight, and the same result | tion that he could not have acted willfully, de-
follows, liberately, and premeditatedly,

Again, accepting the speed at which plain-} 4, Homicide €=151(1)—Burden on accused to

tif says he was going, before his alleged “ex-
citement,” it Is evident that by due care he
could have avoided the accident, This 1s
figured out by counsel for appellant, thus: | {

Prove defense of intoxication by weight of evi.
dence,

The burden of proving the defense of intox-

cation to a charge of murder in the first de-

€=—>For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexeg

1. Witnesses €=>40(1)—Boy ‘of 9 years held: ~

Pa.) COMMONWEALTH v. TROY 253
(118 A.)

gree is on the accused to establish by: the
weight of the evidence. i

Appeal from Court of Oyer and Terminer,
Allegheny County; Joseph M. Swearingen,
Judge. ' } :

Walter Troy was convicted of. murder in
the first degree and he appeals, Affirmed.

Argued before MOSCHZISKER, ©. J., ‘and
FRAZER, SIMPSON, KEPHART, and
SCHAITFER, JJ. Eeay,

A. M. Oliver, of Pittsburgh, for appellant.

H. H. Rowand, Dist. Atty., and Harry A.
Estep, Asst. Dist. Atty., both of Pittsburgh,
for the Commonwealth.

SCHAFFER, J. Appellant is under sen-
tence of death for the murder of his wife.

The circumstances of. the killing are not
in dispute. Defendant, his wife, four chil-
dren, and mother lived in a two-room house,
one room down, and the other up, stairs.
The mother slept on the first and the others
on the second floor. -Defendant, who had
been drinking on the day. of the crime, re-
turned to his house early in the evening,
took a revolver from the drawer of a chiffo-
nier on the second floor and left the house,
saying he intended to see some men about
.8ecuring work and was taking the weapon
with him for protection. He returned to
athe house later and had a conversation with
his mother on the subject of his wife having
paid life insurance premiums, for which pur-
pose he had provided her with money... He
did not remain in the house on tbis oceasion,
but later, about 10 o’clock, returned, got
something to eat, talked in an intelligent way
for 10 or 15 minutes to his mother, who was
in. bed in-the downstairs room; he there
partially undressed, picked up tbe revolver
which: he had laid on a table, and went up-
stairs to the room in which his wife and
children were sleeping. His mother testified
that, shortly after he reached this room, she
heard him say:

“T have a notion to kill you, you consump-
tive (using a vile term),’ and his wife exclaimed,
“Oh, Walter!’ The witness further said: “I
heard two shots.” ; '

Ono of the shots apparently killed his
wHe {istantaneously. Immediately after the
shooting, defendant threw the revolver upon

«the floor‘and kicked it under a bed. He then

descended to the first floor and went to a
house In the neighborhood, where he saw
his brother-in-law and his wife, defendant's
eister, to whom he said he had been fooling
with a gun and it accidentally went off and
thot his wife, and asked them to go over and
see what they could do for her. While he
was talking to these two persons, his 9 year
old son entered the house. Taking him

boy) had shot his mother. This conversation
was overheard by the brother-in-law, sister,
and one of their children.

The boy, called as a witness by the com-
monwealth, testified to the statement above
mentioned made by his father to him, and
that his father told him if he did not say
that he (the boy) had killed his mother, he
would be whipped. In pursuance of this in-
struction and threat from his father, the boy
did tell the police he had done the shooting,
but later retracted this statement. .Carrying
out the subterfuge, the defendant stated to
the police the day after the shooting that
his son had accidentally shot his mother. The
boy testified he was awakened by the shot,
saw his mother had been killed, and wit-
nessed his father throw the revolver on the
floor and kick it under the bed and run
downstairs.

The defense was intoxication. While it
was not disputed by the commonwealth that
the defendant had been drinking, the degree
of his intoxication depended largely on de-
fendant’s own testimony. The court affirmed

by defendant, by which the jury was in-
structed that, if they believed the accused
‘was under the influence of liquor to such an
extent that he was incapable of forming an
intention, the jury cannot-find the defendant
guilty of murder higher than second degree.”
While some of the witnesses characterized
the condition of the defendant as being
“erazy” drunk, those best qualified to speak
of his condition immediately before and im-
mediately after the killing, showed that he
had a clear and understanding mind. His
conversation with his mother just before the
shooting was intelligent and sensible. She
testified that there was nothing strange
about him that attracted her attention and
that he impressed her as knowing what he
was saying. The brother-in-law, who saw
him immediately after the crime, said he
smelled liquor on him but that he did not act
like a drunken man; that, while his de-
meanor was nervous and excited, he did not
think it was because of drink, but on account
of fear. In a stateinent made to the police
officers the day following the killing, in
which the defendant implicated his son in
the shooting, he told a lucid and connected
story of his movements during the evening,
his return to the house, his undressing before
going upstairs and only claimed to have had
five or six drinks of whisky during the day
and said that he was not drunk. Called asa
witness in his own behalf on the trial, he
said he did not know what he was doing at
the time of the killing, and only realized
what had happened after the shooting, when
he saw his wife lying dead in her bed. Hig
explanation of his conflicting stories was
that he was so crazy through drink that he

aside, the father told him to say that he (the

did not know what he was saying.

a point on this branch of the case presented .

ALARA

Sate OF:


eS

The companies decided that the deluded
widow obviously wasn’t aware they could
prove fraud, that she was being egged on by
Udderzook, and by Campbell Goss and her
elusive husband.

Well, they would show her a thing or two.

At Marble’s suggestion they decided to take
one more precaution. They moved for a court
order to exhume the corpse for autopsy and
to attempt to identify the body through the
teeth. Common practice today, in 1872 this
was unheard of. The idea was original with
our boy Marble.

Mrs. Goss ‘protested, and decided to throw
the insurance companies a curve. To em-
barrass them in public, she sent a tear-jerking
letter to the companies through her pastor,
the Reverend Richard Fuller, at the same
time issuing copies to the press. Referring
to the companies’ request for an autopsy
Fuller wrote: “She has been so shocked at the
suspicions in the case, cast upon the memory
of her husband, that she has resolved to com-
mit the matter to God and to speak no more
upon a subject so abhorrent.”

But when the companies flatly refused to
“commit the matter to God,” and declined to
negotiate any further without an autopsy, the
woman reluctantly consented. The compa-
nies insisted that she give a written descrip-
tion of her husband’s teeth prior to the
opening of the grave.

The teeth were large, white and in perfect
condition, Mrs. Goss wrote. Winfield Scott
Goss had never needed a dentist in his life.

Knowing that most people do not have per-
fect teeth, perhaps Mrs. Goss should have dis-
played more cupidity, allowing for an

occasional missing tooth in her description.

Even so, only Providence or blind luck could
have helped her guess the exact dental struc-
ture of the corpse in the grave—for it was a
dentist’ nightmare. Only two teeth were
left in the upper jaw, only seven in the lower.
Aside from the burns, there was no evidence
of murder, strengthening the theory that the
man had been already dead, that he’d been
the cadaver heisted from Johns Hopkins.

The autopsy d like a ding victo-
ry for the citadels of insurance finance and
righteous living. And the companies were
properly astonished when Mrs. Goss an-

ance companies’ defeat, taking the rap from
the stockholders. Nevertheless, he refused to
give up the investigation. The successful con-
spirators were laughing openly at him, and his

nounced her firm intention of pressing her
claim in court. To show that she meant busi-
ness, her local Baltimore counsel enlisted the
high-priced services of Wayne McVeagh of
Harrisburg, Pa., later United States Attorney
General.

McVeagh, a handsome, booming-voiced man
given to wearing lavender spats and brocaded
waistcoats, was known as the American
Cicero, meaning that he was an outstanding
practitioner in the then popular tradition of
spellbinding oratory. Not that McVeagh
couldn’t be as logical as the next lawyer, but
when he didn’t have a solid case to present,
he could bend a jury to his bidding by sheer
eloquence of speech.

The case went to trial on May 27, 1873. De-
spite McVeagh, nobody seemed to give poor
little Mrs. Goss a chance. An impressive bat-
tery of six of the insurance companies’ best
lawyers manfully set to work to demolish her
every claim, presenting the evidence of the
teeth, of the extra lamp wick, and of Camp-
bell Goss’ hiring of the rig and building of
the pine box.

When they were finished, McVeagh went to
bat. His summary, especially, was magnifi-
cent. He thundered at the jury, extolling the
automatic virtues of widowhood, excoriating
‘the heartless business interests who preyed on
poor working people.

“Just look at that poor little soul sitting
there,” he boomed, impaling the jury with a
commanding stare. “Just look at her. God
has taken away this poor little woman’s hus-
band, and now, surely, gentlemen, you will not
sleep tonight if you take away the protection
that fine and noble man left for her.”

That was all the jury needed to hear. Still
popeyed from McVeagh’s oratory, they slept
very well that night. The insurance compa-
nies filed a motion for a new trial.

Marble, despite his magnificent investiga-
tory job, was the fall guy for the insur-

“That’s sure a tough way to make a buck, Fatso!”

pr 1 reputation hung in the balance.
Till now, his function had been merely to

- prove that the charred corpse was not that

of Winfield Goss. Now he would not be satis-
fied till he found Goss alive and was able to
reverse the verdict.

Carrying on much of the investigation on
his own time and at his own expense, Marble
continued to search for the elusive husband.

The insurance companies’ appeal for a new
trial dragged on interminably. Marble, figur-
ing that the fugitive would eventually grow
careless, persuaded Mrs. Goss’ postman to
keep an eye on her mail. He also closely
watched Campbell Goss and Udderzook, fre-
quently visiting the saloons where the latter
spent more and more time.

The detective learned that Mrs. Goss re-
ceived mail from an A. E. Wilson at the
Central Hotel in Philadelphia. Even more
surprising, he learned, she frequently received
night-long visits from Udderzook.

The significance of the latter had to wait
while Marble rushed to Philadelphia with
specimens of Goss’ handwriting, which he
matched against the hotel register signature
of A. E. Wilson. Handwriting experts con-
firmed his theory that the Wilson signature
was written by Goss. And hotel employes
identified a photo of Goss as Wilson, a large
fat man with a fiery red nose.

TH only drawback to his arrest was that

Goss had quit his Philadelphia job as a
machinist and moved out of the hotel three
days before. He had left no forwarding ad-
dress and could not be found.

Marble continued to watch Ida Goss’ mail,
trailing the fugitive husband in turn to
Coopersburg and Athens, Pa., to Bryn Mawr,
Newark and back to Philadelphia.

In each instance, Goss was eventually iden-
tified. But he never stayed long in one place
and, communication being what it was in
those days, Marble couldn’t contact the local
police in time to catch him. While Goss was

away Udderzook continued to play, visiting

Mrs. Goss with increasingly frequency. Obvi-
ously, he now had another reason for keeping
Goss out of Baltimore.

A year passed. Although the verdict against
the insurance companies was affirmed, they
continued to postpone payment of the insur-
ance claim.

Then Udderzook disappeared from the city -

for three days. When he returned he was a
changed man. He no longer drank heavily
and he seemed more cheerful, as if a great
worry had been lifted from his mind.

Marble could hardly wait to learn what had
happened. Making discreet inquiries in the
saloons which Udderzook still occasionally
visited, he learned that Udderzook had told
of revisiting his boyhood home and parents.

« It still didn’t seem sufficient explanation to
Marble for such a miraculous personality
transformation.

Learning that Udderzook haled originally
from Jennersville, in Chester County, Pa., the
detective paid a hurried visit there.

Udderzook was well known in the area,
and Marble learned that he had stayed at
the Jennersville Inn on his recent visit. Curi-
ously, he had not arrived alone, but had
registered for a single room with double bed

with a man named A. E. Wilson. Wilson was
described by the inn employes as a tall, fat
man with a bulbous red nose.

Marble felt like Thomas A. Edison on the
verge of inventing the lightbulb. He was on
the trail of something hot, but he was not sure
exactly what it was. He grew certain of it all
when he learned that Wilson had arrived at
the inn drunk, and remained in his room sur-
rounded by whisky bottles for two days until
Udderzook had rented a buggy and poured

him into it—for a ride in the country, he had ©

said. Several hours later Udderzook had re-
turned alone, hurriedly packed his bags, paid
for the room and left town.

Marble learned at the livery stable that
Udderzook had returned the buggy in a dam-
aged condition. The dashboard and bow irons
were broken, and an oilcloth which had been
fastened to the floor and two blankets were
missing. Dark stains resembling blood were
found beneath the seat cushions, together with
a large seal ring which the detective knew
had belonged to Goss.

Marble was convinced that the “dead man”
was at last dead, murdered by Udderzook to
keep him from squealing to the police, or from
finding out about his affair with Goss’ wife.

Marble took the evidence of murder to
Sheriff David Gill of Chester County. Gill
was at first hard to convince, but he finally
organized posses and beat the woods and sur-
rounding countryside in search of the body.

It could not be found.

But the day after Gill called off the search
and Marble returned to New York, on July
11, a farmer named Gainer P. Moore was
passing through a tract of young elms known
as Baer’s- Woods when he noticed a flock of
buzzards circling lazily over a clearing.

Moore could distinguish the dim outline of

a fresh-filled trench, scantily covered with
leaves and branches. He dug at the loosely
packed surface with the heel of his shoe. Soon
he uncovered a human head. Horrified, he
ran all the way home and notified Sheriff
Gill.

Deputies, finding another mound of fresh
dirt nearby, quickly uncovered the torso and
limbs. There were several deep stab wounds
in the heart, indicating that the man had been
murdered.

Marble hurried back from New York. He
shepherded Mrs. Goss, Campbell, and old
friends of Winfield Goss’ to Jennersville, and
put them through the gruesome ordeal of
identifying the seal ring and the body. The
head was in an excellent state of preservation.
Although it came almost as an anti-climax,
Mrs. Winfield Scott Goss was a widow for
sure this time.

Udderzook stubbornly denied any knowl-
edge of the murder. He admitted arguing
with Goss in the buggy over money, but the
drunken man had climbed out of the car-
riage and walked off into the woods alone, he
said.

Udderzook, confident by the ease with
which McVeagh had won the swindle case,
hired the high-powered attorney to defend
him of murder. Ironically, now that Goss
was really dead, and quite by accident, the
double indemnity clause went into effect, the
insurance companies had to pay his widow
the $50,000 without further bickering. For
some reason, they seemed to think this was
Marble’s fault.

Mrs. Goss promptly shelled out most of the

money to McVeagh to defend Udderzook of
murdering her husband.

When, on October 21, the case went to
trial, the insurance swindle and love affair
were admitted by Judge William Butler as
evidence of Udderzook’s motive for murder.

The theory, as presented in court by the
district attorney was that Goss, dissatisfied at
being broke and constantly forced to hide,
and maybe suspicious that he was not ever
receiving the sole attentions of Mrs. Goss,
had badgered Udderzeok for money until
Udderzook, convinced that Goss might go to
the police and testify about the insurance
fraud, had murdered him.

Udderzook had got Goss drunk and per-
suaded him to accompany him to Jenners-
ville, keeping him drunk until the time was
right to kill him.

McVeagh, flush with previous success, felt
certain that the evidence was too circumstan-
tial to withstand his ability to sway a jury.

HERIFF Gill and the district attorney’s
office, needled by Marble, worked like
beavers to strengthen their case.

It was, therefore, a tremendous surprise to
McVeagh and to his crestfallen client when the
prosecution introduced in evidence a letter
that Udderzook had written to his brother-in-

‘law, a farmer living near Jennersville named

Samuel W. Rhodes.

The letter, written a few days before Udder-
zook brought Goss to Jennersville, read:

“Friend Sam: I have something of much
interest that I wish to communicate to you.
It must be done by word of mouth. Please
don’t let any one know of our communications
but as soon as you read this mount your
horse and come to Oxford and take the morn-
ing train to Baltimore.

“There is a cool $1000 in it and there is
nothing to prevent us from getting it, this is
without a doubt. Do not buy your ticket at
Oxford but pay your fair on the cars. Do
not let a sole know where you go. I cannot
explane further till I see you. Do not fale to
come; drop everything at once. You can make
the trip in a few hours.

“T have no person else in confidence with
me and now propose to take you. You will
find that it is the best day’s work that you
ever did. I will give you the full explanation
when I see you. Please destroy this letter.”

It was signed: “Very Respt. Yours, Wil-
liam E. Udderzook.”

Udderzook could feel the noose tightening
around his neck. He felt still more the sensa-
tion of strangling when Rhodes followed the
letter on the witness stand and testified for
the state that on the day Goss was murdered,
Udderzook had sought him out as he was
working in his hayfields and asked his assis-
tance in robbing a stranger.

McVeagh, sensing that he was betting on a
losing horse, professed to be shocked by this
unmistakable evidence of his client’s untruth-
fulness and promptly withdrew from the case
in self-righteous dudgeon.

Loyally, Mrs. Goss rallied to the rescue,
securing fresh counsel for her husband’s mur-
derer. They fought back valiantly, accus-
ing the State of conspiring with the insurance
companies to dispose of Udderzook, since he
would be a powerful and dangerous adversary
against any fight to regain the $50,000.

But for the defense it was too late, the dam-
age had been done by Udderzook’s letter.
Nevertheless, the jury, no doubt debating the

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by BRADFORD D. JONES

@ James E. Marble, a persistent little bird
dog of a man from Vermont, a state which
quarries much of the stone that bears his
name, was the first, and one of the best, of
insurance company detectives. Marble set
the investigative standards for modern in-
surance claim agents, the best private eyes
in the business. But his own reputation,
ironically, has inherited nothing but con-
tempt.

It is a tragedy that corporate bookkeep-
ing coldly and unimaginatively records the
case on which Marble made his reputation
as costing the insurance companies $50,000.
Since this was paid to a proved swindler and
conspirator in murder, and $50,000 in 1872
bought a hell of a lot more expensive Ha-
vana cigars than it does today, Marble’s

fame lingers unenviably in history as the
most expensive private eye on record.

It was precisely this astronomical sum of
money which first attracted Marble’s atten-
tion. Suspicious as a burglar alarm, the lit-
tle detective was sitting in his office scanning
the claim of the beneficiary and freshly be-
reaved widow of the late Winfield Scott
Goss, recently of Baltimore, against Marble’s
employers, the Knickerbocker Life Insurance
Company of New York.

A week before, on February 2, Goss had
blown himself up in an explosion in a wood-
en tenant house on Wyanoke, the magnifi-
cent country estate of Andrew Lowndes four
miles outside Baltimore. A week-end inven-
tor, Goss had rented the house from Lown-
des as an experi- (Continued on page 76)

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who had fussed with a neighbor woman over
the boundary line between their yards. She
had chased the deacon with a double bitted
ax and he crashed through the fence, tearing
it down.

“J made a gate where no gate was,” he said.

“The wicked flee when no man pursueth,
Judge!” she said.

“Yes, but the righteous flee a hell of a lot
faster when an ornery woman pursueth with
a double bitted ax,” Richburg said. “A $200
peace bond. Lady, you're just like a calf on
a rope. Behave or I'll pull you in and itll
cost you $200.” ‘

He banged his rawhide gavel. “Next case.”

Suddenly a group of neighborhood children
on roller skates sailed by his desk.

“Hi, Judge Bill,” they shouted lustily at him.

In a corner of the courtroom a husky con-
struction worker, who had thrashed his wife
and smashed all the furniture in the house,
sweated and recited “I won't whip my wife
no more.”

“Hush,” Richburg told him. He turned to
a deputy sheriff. “Room’s gettin’ crowded.
Seems like they’s some present I done sen-
tenced. Take a batch to jail, Sheriff.”

Three older women and a young one
stepped forward.

“You ladies talk a spell. What’s the story?”

The trio complained the young one offended
them by hanging her undergarments in her
front yard. .

“The sun shines brighter in front, Judge,”

she said. “They dry quicker out there.”

The old ladies clucked like angry hens.

Richburg banged his gavel and clenched the
cigar harder between his teeth.

“Testimony in this case shows the defend-
ant owns her home. Is that right ladies?”

The trio nodded.

He turned to the young one. “Then, honey,
you can put up the tallest flagpole in Dallas
in your front yard and let your undies fly
from the top if you want to. Next case!”

Eprtor’s Note: The name Jack Cantrell is not
the actual name of the person who was in fact
@ participant to the incidents described in this
article. The name is used to avoid embarrass-
ment to an innocent person.

Case of the Synthetic Corpse ;

continued from page 31

mental laboratory for $10 a month. He had
been perfecting a process for making artificial
rubber, his widow said, when he reached a
sudden and fiery demise.

Because his scientific endeavors involved
the dangerous use of chemicals, Goss, who was
in his early forties, had taken out four in-
surance policies with four different companies,
totaling $25,000, with a double indemnity
clause for accident in each. For this protec-
tion, he had to pay a total annual premium
of $3800.

What intrigued Marble was that Goss’
yearly salary as a machinist totaled only
$1600. Obviously the inventor either was the
world’s most considerate husband, or the
charred, unrecognizable body dragged from
the embers of the burnt house and identified
as Goss was a ringer who had absolutely no
business there.

TH coroner’s report, certifying that the
corpse was Goss, was based on the wid-
ow’s identification, which in turn was based
on the fact that the dead man’s dimensions
were the same as her husband's. Goss was tall,
with a paunch that testified to an unquench-
able joie de vivre. But his most prominent
identification, a flaming cherry-red nose culti-
vated by years of constant tippling, was charred
beyond recognition. Identification seemed
completely established when Goss’ watch,
chain and keys were recovered from the ashes
by his business partner, William E. Udderzook.

Strange, too, Marble thought, that Goss had
taken out the first of the four policies less
than a year ago; the last, with the detective’s
own company for $5000 and the usual double
indemnity clause, only a week before his
death.

Marble, after consulting with his bosses and
with the other insurance companies involved
—Mutual, Travelers, and Continental—was
delegated to travel to Baltimore and inves-
tigate.

There he learned from the wealthy Lowndes
that Goss and Udderzook had begged him to
rent them the tenant house the previous Octo-
ber. They needed a place to work in secrecy,
they had said, so that nobody could steal their
formula.

“Frankly, I was reluctant to let them have
it,’ Lowndes told Marble. “I didn’t know
them though they came well recommended,

76

but the house had lain vacant four years and
—well—I don’t need the money.”

Afterward, Lowndes was to find out he
would be sorry for even other reasons. The
two men seemed to use the place exclusively
for carousing with the old whisky bottle.

This information only increased Marble’s
suspicion. “Did you ever see this so-called
rubber they were inventing?”

Lowndes guessed that he had. “The tenant
house was quite a distance from my home,”
he said, “and faces on York Road. But they
were raising such a row one weekend that I
walked over there to remonstrate with them.
Udderzook showed me a pot of dark, sticky
stuff that Goss was boiling on the stove. He
said it was the rubber. Goss seemed annoyed
with him for showing me.”

“What did it smell like?” Marble asked.

“Molasses,” Lowndes replied, crisply.

Marble’s ears stood up at that one.

At 7:30 on the Saturday night of February
2, Lowndes’ two servants notified him that
the tenant house was ablaze.

“J ran toward it across the lawn, and I met
Udderzook racing in the same direction. He
was very excited and yelled, ‘My God, I left
Winfield alone in there with the whisky boftle.
I hope he got out in time’.”

But Goss couldn’t be found, and the flam-
ing building was too hot to approach.

Nor was any water accessible when the
hand-drawn volunteer fire department finally
puffed up. The house quickly burned to the
ground.

Udderzook was taken home, overcome with
grief, but not before he had poked among the
ashes and found the watch, chain and keys,
which he handed to a policeman.

The inventor’s remains were hauled out of
the embers and placed on exhibit at a coro-
ner’s inquest the next morning. 7

Emotionally, Udderzook testified that he
and Goss had ridden out from Baltimore on
the horse car line that cold afternoon. To
spur themselves to greater creative effort, no
doubt, they had first purchased a quart of
whisky at a tavern, then bought a gallon of
kerosene for the coal oil lamp in the house
and borrowed an ax from Gottlieb Engel,.a
neighboring farmer, to chop firewood for the
stove.

Udderzook told the coroner that he had re-
turned the ax to Engel, that when he reached

the tenant house again Goss had finished off
the whisky and was drunk.

The wick in the oil lamp had burned out, so
Udderzook hiked back across the fields to ~
Engels’ again to borrow a wick. He stayed
for a good hot supper before returning, he
said. Meanwhile, Goss apparently fumbled
around in the dark in his drunkenness till he
struck a match which exploded the kerosene
or the chemicals used in the rubber.making.

Udderzook was returning with the lamp
wick when he saw the flames and met Lown-
des.

MARBLE viewed these unscientific maneu- :

vers with high skepticism, but determined
to withhold judgment till all the facts were at
hand. He confirmed part of Udderzook’s
story with the Engels’, then took the horse
cars to Baltimore to visit the widow.

Ida Goss was a careworn little woman with
a neat bun of brown hair. She was dressed
in mourning. She accepted Marble’s informa-
tion that the insurance companies were with-
holding payment of the $50,000 pending
investigationg with no noticeable emotion. Her
husband had been able to swing payments on
the $25,000 insurance on a $1600 salary, only
because they lived very frugally, she said. He
had invested his savings in two houses which
he sold at a profit and bought three more.
The rent from these provided a comfortable
income.

“Winfield was the kindest of husbands,” she
said, “always thinking of me and the children.
When he started experimenting with chemicals
to make artificial rubber, he knew it was dan-
gerous. So he took out all this insurance.”

Marble kindly refrained from reminding the
widow that most of Goss’ experimenting con-
sisted of testing the amount of whisky he
could hold. The detective had to admit,-how-
ever, that she had a logical explanation for
Goss’ ability to carry so much insurance.

Somewhat dismayed, Marble went to see
Udderzook, who worked for Otto Duker &
Sons, a lumber mill in East Baltimore. He
was about 40, and corpulently modeled like
his late, lamented partner. Being younger, his
nose had not yet achieved the ripe, rich red-
ness of Goss’, nor his stomach the same
globular, one-world look. From all accounts
it wouldn’t take long at his present rate of
imbibing until he made the grade.

Udderzook, a born soapbox orator, pro-
‘essed to be shocked at the crass. soullessness
of wealthy corporations conspiring to defraud
1 poor, heartbroken widow of monies right-
fully hers.

“Who else but Winfield could the corpse
be?” he asked, not illogically.

Marble had no answer, but he made a men-
tal note to try and find out. He requested
Udderzook to show him a sample of the artifi-
cial rubber. But Udderzook said it had all
been lost in the fire, together with Goss’ for-
mula. He had merely been Goss’ business
partner, he said. Goss had been the genius,
the real brains.

Marble, before returning to sleuth the coun-
try around Wyanoke, made. one significant
discovery in Baltimore. On the day before his
death, Winfield Scott Goss had carefully
withdrawn all his savings account from the
bank. It afnounted to a modestly respectable
sum for those days, $365. °

For the first time since Marble started to
investigate, he was sure there was something
phony about the fire and the widow’s insur-
ance claim.

He combed the country around Andrew
Lowndes’ estate like a frustrated rabbit hound,
his nostrils quivering with anticipation as he
asked questions.

He soon turned up another item—small to
be sure, but challénging further investigation.
The weekend before the fire, he learned, Ud-
derzook had purchased a lamp wick at a gen-
eral store half a mile from the estate.

Why, then, Marble wondered, kad the man
found it necessary to borrow a wick from
the Engels the following week? Was it merely
to provide an alibi for his own whereabouts
while Goss set the tenant house ablaze?

And what about Goss himself? If the in-
ventor remained alive and unsinged, how had
he made his getaway? The flames had drawn
attention so quickly he could hardly have es-
caped from the area unnoticed.

OON Marble was convinced he had the an-

swer. A neighboring farmer reported seeing
a white horse and wagon slowly approach the
tenant house on York Road shortly before
the fire. Just before the blaze was discovered
the horse galloped by in the return direction,
furiously lashed by the driver.

The farmer described the driver as short
and blond, about 40. He had noticed ‘an
oblong pine box, about the size of a coffin,
bouncing around ‘in the rear of the careening
wagon.

“That’s it,” Marble chortled, allowing him-
self a display of emotion. The blond. driver
doesn’t answer the description of Udderzook
or Goss, so there was a third man helping
them. He brought the corpse to the tenant
house in the pine box, and Goss made his get-
away inside it.” '

But no Baltimore coffin maker remembered
a sale to any of the conspirators. At a livery
stable on the edge of town, Marble learned
that a little blond man answering the descrip-
tion had hired a white mare and rig early on
the evening of the fire. He had given the
name Car! Gordon.’

“Returned the mare all lathered up, too,”
the livery man grumbled. Of the coffin-shaped
box he had seen nothing, he said.

The name Carl Gordon and the address he
gave were as phony as Goss’ death, Marble
found. Neither Lowndes nor the Engels re-
membered a blond man visiting the inventors,

either. But neighbors of Goss in Baltimore
said that a man of that description had some-
times visited him. Nobody knew who he was,
and Mrs. Goss denied such a visitor. Marble
felt sure she was lying. .

The little detective secretly inquired among
Udderzook’s fellow workmen at the lumber
yard. They knew of no blond man, but they
gave Marble other information equally ‘signifi-
cant. Since Goss’ death, and especially since
Marble began to investigate, Udderzook had
been drowning all his previous records for
booze consumption, they said.

There was something else, too, they said. A
strange man had visited Udderzook at the
yard since Marble last inquired there. Udder-
zook had grown white with fear and told the
stranger not to come there again.

Loudly, so everyone overheard, the stran-
ger had complained; “I’m sick and tired of
this nonsense. I want money and I want it
damn quick.” The mill workers all agreed
that the stranger was tall and stout, with a
nose that shone like a lighthouse beacon.

ERTAIN now that it was Goss, alive,

Marble asked the Baltimore police to help
find him. The insurance companies, fearful of
acquiring a bad name with prospective inves-
tors, did not wish to prosecute the conspira-
tors, merely to save their $50,000 by proving
that Goss’ death was a hoax.

But the inventor could not be found.

Meanwhile, Marble continued to sleuth in
all directions. He learned that a corpse had
been stolen from the Johns Hopkins Medical
School on the night previous to the fire and
that the cadaver was of a tall, fat man.

He learned, too, that a short, blond man
had worked as a handyman at the medical
school recently. He was not suspected by the
medical staff of stealing the corpse but he had
been in a position to do so. And his name,
most significantly, was Campbell Goss.

Electrified, Marble learned that Winfield
Scott Goss had a brother named Campbell,
who, however, was not known to have been
in Baltimore in many years. :

The detective thought he could prove dif-
ferently.

He rented a room across from Widow Goss’
house on North Eutaw Street and there in-
stalled the farmer who had seen the galloping
white horse, the livery stable owner and two
doctors from Johns Hopkins.

They took one look at the little blond man
who entered the widow Goss’ house one Sun-
day afternoon and Marble knew that Carl
Gordon, the hirer of the white mare and rig,
and Campbell Goss were the same man.

Marble trailed Campbell on his departure
and discovered that he had rented a house of
his own in Baltimore two months before.
When the detective learned that his neighbors
had heard Campbell sawing and pounding at
carpentry the day and night before the fire,
and that he’d been seen loading a pine box
big enough to hold a man into a wagon drawn
by a white mare, Marble decided that his case
was nearly complete.

He returned to New York and made his re-
port to the insurance companies, who immedi-
ately notified Mrs. Goss that they would not
honor her claim for compensation as they be-
lieved her husband to be still alive.

The companies were surprised, but still con-
fident, when Mrs. Goss replied that she was
engaging legal counsel to press suit for the
amount of her claim on them.

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evils of capitalistic corporations, remained out
for 48 hours before returning a verdict. They
declared Udderzook guilty of a in the

first degree.
He was sentenced to hang on December 12,
73.

But it was still going to take some doing.
All the while an appeal was prepared, the con-
demned man bombarded the press with
printed statements, reiterating his innocence.
He warned that if the insurance companies
were allowed to get away with this “there
was no telling to what ae they would go
next.”

On October 19, 1874, the day that the Penn-
sylvania Supreme Court finally affirmed Ud-

derzook’s death sentence, he took pen in hand
to write:

“It is my desire that my remains will rest
in Baltimore, if not in the same lot, at least
in the same cemetery with those of Mr. W. S.
Goss, a friend ever dear to me, that our
bodies may return to the mother dust, and
our spirits may mingle together on the bright,
sunny banks of deliverance, where pleasures
never end. I hope the time is not far distant
when people will see the danger of prepared
and bought testimony, and a prearranged de-
sign aided by thousands of dollars.”

Udderzook, however, never made it clear
which of the two bodies of W. S. Goss he
wished to be buried next to.

He was quietly hanged on the morning of
November 12, an execution which the news-
papers chose to term “fashionable”’—whether
because the executioner wore a high silk hat,
or because everybody was so glad to be rid
of Udderzook is not clear.

Despite his request, he was buried near
Philadelphia. The sole mourner at his grave
side was the loyal little Mrs. Goss. No one
else bothered to show up at the funeral.

The only real winner in the case seemed
to be McVeagh, who walked out with most of
the $50,000 in attorney’s fees. At least there

was little leit for Ida Goss, who, nonetheless, .

died as poverty-stricken as the poe
church mouse a few years later.

~

Did You Hear What Happened to Aunt Ev?

continued from page 47

<.

4 up? It was the first time that had crossed
his mind. Maybe it made more sense than
running like this, until his throat was scorched
and throbbing. He started back upstairs, try-
ing to remember where he’d seen those pay
telephones ...

At that moment on Wednésday, January.
26, 1955, detectives stood frowning in the
water-drenched living room of the three-story
frame house in Pittsburgh’s Shayside district.
The pungent odor of burning wood lingered
in their nostrils.

Homicide Squad Captain Joseph Flynn
watched as a police photographer blinked

Qe: at the body of 68-year-old Mrs.

velyn L. Thomas, sprawled in front of a
gayly-printed couch, in a puddle of blood
now clotting on the carpet.

HE blood was from a tremendous wound
in the woman’s left forehead. The blow
which made it had been struck so savagely
that the weapon—a ball-peen hammer—was
still imbedded in her head. Blood had soaked
Mrs. Thomas’ zippered housecoat and spat-
tered nearby furniture. Against her right
e shoulder lay a bent brass letter opener, which
apparently had caused a minor stab wound in
her neck. On the floor were the victim’s glasses
and the lower portion of her false teeth.

A uniformed policeman approached Flynn,
followed by a fireman. The officer said, ‘““Here’s
Captain George Beck of the fire department,
s sir.’ The captains shook hands. “How did

you get in on this?” Flynn asked Beck.

“J’m from No. 28 engine house, about six
blocks from here,’ Beck explained. “We got
the alarm for this house—about 6 p.m. A po-
lice ambulance got here just as we did. The
smoke was pouring out the front door and
some guy on the porch was yelling, ‘There’s a
fire in there and a woman lying on the floor.’

“We rushed a hose inside and found the
blaze in the dining room. It had burned
about a two-foot hole in the floor. The fire
was out in a minute and then I saw this
woman lying in the living room. I thought I
Bould help her but I took one look at that

Ammer...”

“What do you think started it?” Flynn
asked.

“That’s easy,” answered Beck, leading

. Flynn into the dining room. Stooping at the

edge of the burned area, he picked up a frag-
ment of charred newspaper. “This is what

80

- rapid fill-in.

ignited it,” he said. “The flames were con-
centrated in one place.”

When Beck left, a detective brought a man
and woman into the living room. They were
Mrs. Thomas’ upstairs tenants and had found
the body.

“We'd just driven home from work,” the
man explained. “It was about ten to six. I
picked up the paper on the porch and un-
locked the door. Right away the smoke hit
me in the face. I took a couple of steps in-
side and saw a pair of legs on the living room
floor and all the bureau drawers pulled out.
I picked up the phone in the hallway and told
the operator to call the cops and fire depart-
ment. I was on the porch when they got
here.” 2

Asked if they had any idea who might have
killed Mrs: Thomas, the tenants agreed it
must have been a robber. “She was such a
sweet woman,” they explained.

They also disclosed that the only other
roomer in the house, a woman, had not re-
turned home because it was her bowling
night. Flynn asked the couple to remain in
the house.

Next Flynn called together in the living
room the swarm of detectives and technicians
from the Allegheny County Crime Laboratory.
They were examining the house and outside
area.

“Let’s have a talk, boys,” he said. “The
brass is on the way from headquarters. I want
a run-down of everything you’ve found up to
this minute.” A dozen men began thumbing
notebooks. :

“The drawers in every table and bureau
downstairs are dumped,” one detective re-
ported, “and there are a couple of handbags
turned inside out. There’s a strong-box on
the kitchen table that was broken open. But
in the woman’s bedroom upstairs there’s a
bowl of change, two watches and a diamond
ring, all in plain sight. The killer must have
been in a hurry—maybe he was surprised in a
burglary.”

“Not in enough of a hurry to forget wiping

all the fingerprints off the handle of the ham-

mer,” retorted a lab technician.

“Besides,” said Flynn, “the fact that Mrs.
Thomas was wearing a housecoat doesn’t in-
dicate that she walked into the house and
surprised anyone.”

The homicide captain heard the rest of the
A set of footprints in the mud

*

of a back yard next door and mud scrapings
- on an adjacent fence—probably. the escape

route. All doors and windows of the Thomas
house securely locked and a key hidden on
the back porch undisturbed. The fire had
only a brief head-start before the upstairs
tenants returned but Flynn knew it might

‘have been smouldering for a time before

breaking out. A television set in the living
room was still blaring when firemen arrived.

Soon three top officials of the Pittsburgh
police force arrived: Superintendent James W.
Slusser, Assistant Superintendent Lawrence J.
Maloney and Inspector Albert Jones of the
East Liberty precinct.

“You'll have every spare plainclothesman
in the city,” Slusser assured Flynn, “and
you're in complete charge. We’ve got a cou-
ple of unsolved murders the public remembers.
This isn’t going to be another one.”

Investigators fanned out on a -doorbell-
ringing tour of the neighborhood. As the
night wore on, Flynn was able to form a men-
tal impression of Mrs. Thomas. She was a
widow. Her husband Frank, a plumbing sup-
plies salesman, had died two years before,
leaving her a small estate of stocks and bonds.
A devout Roman Catholic, she was active in
church work and had once been a stenograph-
er for the former head of the Pittsburgh
Catholic Diocese, the late Bishop Hugh Boyle.

MBS: Thomas had slipped into a placid

semi-retirement, living on a modest in-
come from room rent and her husband’s in-
vestments. Far from wealthy, she spent “every
spare dollar for charity,” a friend said. She
was what cynics would have called a “soft
touch,” with a reputation for helping down-
and-outers. She had frequent visitors, includ-
ing those who benefited from her generosity,
but she wasn’t in the habit of allowing stran-
gers in the house.

The dead woman had never kept large
sums of money in her house, depending in-
stead on a safe deposit vault. But Flynn
knew that a burglar might have heard only
of the money and nothing of where it was
kept.

A chance remark by a close friend of Mrs.
Thomas provided the first solid lead. The
friend, who’d known the victim more than 50
years, said, “Why, Evelyn was so kind she
even befriended a man who burglarized the
house five or six years ago. He was caught

earths abe Oe aes ine

2 uh OURS ce


ae

A DEMNITION BODY 85

by Mrs. Goss, while permission was given for an
exhumation and autopsy. Mr. Goss, said she,
had no artificial teeth; had never complained of
pain or inconveniences from his teeth; and his front
teeth were quite regular. But the autopsy, con-
ducted by three physicians and a dentist, selected
jointly by the parties to the suits, discovered that
the man buried as Mr. Goss had only two teeth in
his upper and seven in his lower jaw. Moreover,
it was plain to the examiners that the dead man,
whoever he was, had had far from a happy career,
so far as his teeth were concerned; dentally, his
life had been somewhat of a burden.

The companies, therefore, elected to defend the
suits, which had been transferred to the Circuit
Court of the United States. Here, in May, 1873,
the action began against the Mutual Life Insurance
Company. It was regarded as the test case. Mr.
Campbell Goss, Mr. Lowndes and his son, young
Mr. Engel, Mr. Udderzook, Mrs. Goss, and many
other witnesses were heard for both plaintiff and
defendants. There was much medical testimony,
and the weight of it seems sufficient to have raised
strong doubts of the identity of the dead man with
Mr. Goss. Yet, after five hours’ deliberation, the
jury found for Mrs. Goss in the full amount of the
insurance, with interest. As a jury’s opportunity
for arriving at the truth has been enlarged upon
elsewhere in this book, I must explain as best I
can how it was that these jurymen made notable

82 A DEMNITION BODY

which held about a quart, from the gallon demi-
john of kerosene. Then Mr. Udderzook went back
to the Engels’ house, to return the ax; he accepted
their invitation to share their evening meal, leaving

the man of science to his experiments, which were

doubtless more engrossing than food. After sup-
per, together with young Gottlieb Engel, he went
back to see how everything was going on at the
cottage. Mr. Goss received them, and the three
spent about an hour together. The inventor left
them from time to time, taking the lamp with him,
and going into another room, closing the door care-
fully each time. Finally, there was some trouble
with the lamp, and Engel offered to go back to his
mother’s house, and get another lamp. Mr.
Goss proposed, and rather insisted, that Udder-
zook should accompany the young man on the
expedition. They stayed at the Engel house only a
short time, but when they started to return, the
cottage was on fire. Both of them running, they
arrived ina few moments, when, after a consider-
able delay, there followed the conversation with
Mr. Lowndes, and the distressing discovery, which
has already been described.

_The coroner found that the explosion of the lamp
had been the cause of death, but the insurance
companies adopted a manner highly distasteful to
the Goss and Udderzook families. Not only did
they show no haste in paying over the money, but
they persisted in carrying on certain investiga-

if

A DEMNITION BODY 83

tions, which were unfeeling, and which actually
reflected, in some sense, upon the character of the
late husband and brother. His funeral ceremonies
had been celebrated with every mark of sorrow and
respect, and only the stony-hearted attitude of the
insurance men prevented the whole matter from
becoming a closed incident. Their agents, or
rather their hirelings and minions, as the Goss fam-
ily preferred to regard them, had discovered that
Mr. Campbell Goss, instead of remaining at home
on the night of the fire, had driven into the country
with a horse and carriage from a livery stable.
These agents, full of unworthy suspicions, suggested
that he had met his brother, somewhere near the
cottage, and conveyed him to a railroad station.
They also pointed out that it was odd that although
the ruins of the cottage had been searched without
result by a Mr. J. C. Smith, a highly competent
junk-dealer, well skilled in finding lost or hidden
articles of value, Mr. Campbell Goss had returned
to the cottage more than a week later and promptly
discovered the brother’s watch, chain, and keys at
the place where the body had been found. More-
over, Mr. Goss had become liable for $500 or $600
annually for his premiums, and out of an income of
$1 ,200—an excessive enthusiasm which even insur-
ance agents did not approve. It was also a
coincidence, they thought, that Mr. Winfield Goss,
on the day before the fire, had withdrawn his entire
bank deposit and closed his account.


84 A DEMNITION BODY

The year passed, and Mrs. Goss, through her
attorneys, entered suit against all the companies.
Lawyers for the insurance companies wondered if
an exhumation and a further autopsy might not
discover something which should either identify
the body as that of Mr. Goss, or prove what they
were inclined to suspect. The skull was remem-
bered to be intact; recalling Doctor Parkman,
counsel suggested that the teeth of the missing
inventor were an interesting subject for investi-
gation. Mrs. Goss was addressed, through her
clergyman, the Reverend Doctor Fuller, as to
whether she would furnish a more exact description
of her husband, especially in regard to his teeth,
and if she would permit an exhumation. She
answered, through Doctor Fuller, that she had al-
ready testified as to all that she knew: that she had
been shocked by the suspicions in the case, and the
aspersions on the memory of her husband, and that
she would say no more, but would, instead, commit
the matter to the God of the widow and theaf-
flicted. |

Counsel for the companies, glad as they might
have been to seek a decision before the Tribunal
which Mrs. Goss named, were still aware that she
had also taken the practical step of entering suit
before the Court of Common Pleas at Baltimore,
and that a trial was pending. The lawyers ex-
changed some courteous letters, and finally the
written description of her husband was furnished

we

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A FASHIONABLE HANGING IN 1874

(Cover-title of contemporary pamphlet.)

86 A DEMNITION BODY

fools of themselves. The only reason that can be
given is that when there is a conflict of expert
evidence in a case for damages, many juries are
apt to think it no harm to mulct a corporation, or,
better still, a group of corporations. When the
beneficiary of their generosity is a woman, arrayed
in widow’s weeds, they doubtless feel especially
complacent. Pathetic, even painful stories were
related in court of the recognition of the body by
Mrs. Goss. These may have convinced the men
in the jury box against all common sense. Thou-
sands of persons in England once harboured the
notion that a slender, well-bred gentleman could
vanish for fourteen years and be transformed into
a gross and half-illiterate butcher. This was
partly on the theory that “a mother must know
her own child,” although the mother, who thought
that Arthur Orton was her son, Roger Tichborne,
was the easiest-duped woman in Christendom.
She wished, in fact, to be duped.

The first round had gone triumphantly for the
Goss family and for Mr. Udderzook. The insur-
ance companies persisted, however, in their course,
and moved for a new trial. Mr. Udderzook had
received a hint that the companies might institute
a more thorough search for the missing man—as
they deemed him to be. This gave cause for
thought. On June 30th, about three weeks after
the close of the trial, Mr. Udderzook appeared in
the village of Jennerville, Chester County, Penn-

ene

ee ae

A DEMNITION BODY 87

sylvania, his boyhood home. Motorists may have
seen this village, on the road between Baltimore
and West Chester. He had with him a middle-
aged, bewhiskered, heavy-set man, whose name
was not given to the proprietor of the hotel. He
was described as an invalid, and was unable to
come down next morning to breakfast. Mr.
Udderzook kindly took up some breakfast for his
companion. In the evening, the bill being settled,
they drove away together in a carriage from a livery
stable. At midnight, Udderzook came back alone
to the stable, and returned the horse and carriage.
He then departed. An examination of the carriage
next morning showed it to be in a bad condition.
Dashboard and bow-irons were broken; an oilcloth
was missing from the floor, and sowere two blankets.
There appeared to be stains of blood in the bottom
of the carriage; and between the cushions was
found a large seal ring, set with a bloodstone.

A week later, a farmer, passing by a road in a
region called Baer’s Woods, noticed a large number
of buzzards in the road, on the fence, and in the
woods. He remarked the unusual fact, but did not
stop. Later, coming back by the same road, the
buzzards were still there. He now made an
exploration, and in the woods near by found the
body of a man, partly covered with earth, leaves,
and a few tree branches. Other men were called,
and it was discovered that only the trunk and head

were buried in this grave. The four limbs were


see your socks!” at armed robbery. They
Sweat beaded the suspect’s mauled and slugged anyone
grimy face as he leaned over to obey the who resisted them.
district attorney’s order. A moment later
he straightened, a pair of green and black
socks in his hands, and stared sullenly
at the four officers who confronted him.

They were in the conference room of
the county detectives’ suite of offices in
the courthouse at Wilkes Barre, Pa,
Despite the hour of 4:30 a.m., District
Attorney Thomas Lewis was immacu-
lately groomed. With him were County
Detective Richard Powell and Detective
Jack Williams of the city force, Tom
Krokoski, the 35-year-old assistant chief’
of police of nearby Luzerne, had. brought
the suspected prowler to them for ques-
tioning.

“Look !” Tom Krokoski pointed at the
socks. “See those bits of feathers on
them? Well, I caught this guy sneaking
out from behind a house. There were
the gouges of a jimmy on the facing of
one of the rear windows. And the woman
who lives there had been filling pillows
—there were feathers all over the floor
inside. Yet this mug claims he never set
foot in the house.”

“Did he have any stolen goods on him,
Tom?” the district attorney asked.

The tall, good-looking officer shook his
head. “Wasn't anything in the house
worth stealing. The man of the family
hadn’t got back yet with his pay from
the mine. But when I frisked this guy
I found this... .” He indicated a pearl-
handled .38 revolver on the table.

Silvery-haired Richard Powell, veteran
of hundreds of successful investigations,
had listened to the conversation without
speaking but he had been thinking fast,
Ordinarily a burglary suspect would have
been booked overnight and questioned
in the morning but this was an unusual
case.

<P “\ AKE off your shoes and let’s The bandits had not stopped

FOR months past a team of bandits,
wearing black masks, had burglar-
ized homes in the Wyoming Valley. They
combined breaking and entering with the
brutal tactics of strong-arm stickup art-
ists. And it was agreed that they must
be local men, well acquainted with the
vicinity because the homes were entered
and the victims robbed only after they had
received their pay from the collieries.

The hooded pair had not stopped at
armed robbery, however. They mauled
and slugged anyone who resisted them,
No murder had been committed as yet
but the police were convinced that the
phantom pair would not stop short of
that if they were to meet resistance,

To apprehend them a drive -had been
started, rounding up all suspicious char-
acters. Tom Krokoski’s suspect was but
one of a dozen prowlers who had been
questioned that night,

Powell’s gaze swept the suspect keenly.
The leader of the mysterious pair of
night-raiders had been nicknamed “The
Tiger” because of the ferocity of his
methods. No facial description was ayail-
able because he and his partner never
worked without their masks but the sus-

we ee es ee
~ Se


TAUZA, Frank, white, elec, PAP (Luzerne) June 30, 1930.

SHARING PENNSYLVANIA'S

ey
oe 4

By DAVID LEE

“y published tonay by the Chie mong those ty hase sailed on

« age Frveaing American.

LPAns TO GAMBLING RESORT
The American story continues:
“Their quest led the tnvestiga-
tore down threegh the sordid
depths of a West Side gambling
place, fer which John J. “Bess”
MreLaughiin eas the petities!
connertion.
1 “A fellow reporter of Lingte's,
‘> immediately after the latter's
2 elaving. Told hew Melaaghin
© ped threatened Lingte ever o
telephone shortly after the place
ve was cloeed by former Pelice
‘ &-" Cormmissioner William F. Raus-
RO ell, on complaint ef Lingte.
rt- Meanwhile, warring gang fec-
8 tue put another of its members
mat oun the spet" today Shot ome
IN tines and witb @ nickel pressed
rth unto hin Ast, the body was iden-
tife¢ as that “of Prank Pettilo,
et yt who had been arrested several
Ane? cnnes as Michael Gallichio, giv-
Gul- cng hin age as 2).

, SEIZE $200.0¢0 LIQUOR
A band of 15 armed gangsters,
[i] believed to be Capone henchmen,

Johnston, 17. son of Mr and Mrs. !
Norwood Juhnsien. 1081 Shady,
avenue, and James Lindsay, pres
dent of the Pittsburgh chapter of”
Kappa Sigina fraternity and a
Graduate of the University be
Pittaburgh, a son of Mr and M
William S. Lindsay, of 609 North
Euclid avenve

~

The countess, her mald Yvonne.

wife of Capt, Ibbeken. the ship's
master, fled to the dock in scanty
attire.

Count von Luckner and the crew
ef 37 remained to fight the flames.
An alarm turned in brought out a
Mreboat and. 45 minutes after the

broke out it was under control

A small explosion preceded the
Dlaze, which was caused by a leak
ae a Bane store in the ship's,

THINK FUGITIVE
aHOT ESCAPING

Police througsout the city to.
Gay were ordered to check hos-
-@) pests and physicians’ offices for

@ trace of Sum Chivdo. 27, alias
~) “Bhaveliog Sulesinan Sam." for-

heid possession of the Wabash
averrue garernment warehouse for
three hours and todav made good
their escape with 8200000 worth
of brandy. whisky and alcohol.
The hquor ‘tored tn the ware-
- house and seized by the armed
—~With Dand included 400 cases of Nquor
swid to nave been shipped to Chi
SUCCORS. Bao agentasof Al Capone from

« horns jacksonville. Fla. mer amateur puegilst, beleved

sla week shot while escuping from a police:
~ veterans man yesterduy
' Bought on a charge preferred
ify Be Wy @ girl, Chiodo was sighted yes.
he Gen- j @erday by Patrolman Frank Whit-
‘or piece Worth In Main street. West End

When the pohceman attempted
te arrest Chiodos. he ran. The of-
floer fred severa) shots, one of
which is-believed to have struck
Chiodo in the back,

Oo Chiodo escaped,

ro)

= BYRDS ADE.

the ad- NEW YORK, June 30.—(IN8.)
pension’ -Rear Admiral Richard B. Byrd
ch it i today promised to attend @ cere-
govern- mony at Teterboro Airport, Hack-
200.000 a jensack. N. J, on Wednesday, when

'Col. Charles A. Lindbergh will pre-
“mocrats; sent the Bergen County Chamber
“€ 820 to of Commerce medal! to Bernt Bal-
jon con- chen. Balchen few Byrd over the
uble the Bouth Pole.

i Admira! Byrd on Bunday dedi- |
the ad- | cated the Byrd aviation beacon @a-
t hold the Broadway Temple tower. Théd
feat the; beacon will be visible for almost

| 100 miles.

INS SCHWAB PLAYS
SE HOST TO GURTI

(Coatiaerd from from Pegs Ons.)

given sn! was taken on a ‘a Kight-soeing tous
of Loretta.
ahter of Speaking at a luncheon tem
erintend- dered by the Johnstown
nstrated of Commerce. Curtis said of An-
veclimb- drew W. Mellon:
nuit 1,000 “Mr. Mellen ts the superter of
ing over” any man whe ever presided ever
r nearly the Treasury.”
uaS Were His speech consisted of a eulosy
“phy ac- of the State of Pennsylvania and
‘Ips into its citizens
mpletion Schwab. who presided, in intro- .
her the ducing Curtts said: ’
“I hepe that come day by seme
air fan’ turn ef the wheel ef fate Mr,
ed e'ln Curtis will retarm to viet! os as
‘Mtion bv’ the President.”
andtwo Curtis repaid this compliment.
!a@ Con-> by saying:
tt ship “In the eyes “of the pesple —
<d. carried. Charlie Schwab is ameng the |
. t leaders @f the nation's business
men.”
7 yY «| Mra. Dolly Gann. weafing
orchid hat and a pale gray ¢
Jones «as introduced to the $86 tunet
N, J, S08 guests but did not speak. MgR,-
’ * husband, Edward Gann, a
St con: few words.
AUlanta

secome Hol Wave Grips N. ru

n trom Bight Persons Dr

af frak: NEW YORK, June 30.~—(INB.)
” _~ As New York faced another het
‘day. eight drownings were re

‘Try At+ vicinity. Two sisters and their
4d Ralph l4-yrar-old boy cousin were
Journal drowned then «@ rowbost

2 HILL SLAYERS
DIE IN GHAR

co BELLEFONTE, Pa., June 30.—
Ss (AP.)—Three = =murderers were
— electrocuted in Rockview Peniten-
tiary today. They were Martin
Avery and William Henry Sled.
Negroes, of Pittsburgn, and Frank
Tauza, of Wilkes-Barre
Tauza formeriy lived in Bridge-
port, Conn, and it was testified
Co at his trial for the slaving of a
policeman that he once was by
companion of Gerald Chap
@lso executed for murder.

of killing Edward J. Kretz, Jr, a
druggist of the Hill district in
Pittsburgh. June 21, 1929.

Avery and Sled were tried in

victed. The motion for a nrw
trial was refused and two weeks
“wre the Board of Pardons refused
their appeal [br commutation of |
the death sentence. Three men
were implicated in the holdup of |
_ Mets, but one proved he was not
| pt the shooting.
-‘Kretz's store was at 1800 Web- |
peer avenue.

Sliding Hill ‘Stata

gists say has slipped westward
seven feet and sunk eight feet in
two weeks. has become a source |
ef anxiety here. Two oi] wells’
pope producing yesterday, due.

A veers $0 acres.

Columbus | Revealed
As Book Salesman!

& Dr. A, S. W. Rosenbach has
peript by a friend of Columbus!

eoverer was once a dealer in,

the boat on a West Indies cruise
tomorrow. ‘They were Thomas R.!

Sled and Avery were convicted:

Sanuary of this year and con-,

;. 2 Oil Wells’ Flow,
LA HABRA, Cal, June 30.—! Mtgrane, ‘Tints:
(AP) —A large hill, which geolo- | #n and Minnesota A high pressure aren

| centered over Muntana and covers the

en say. to the movement of |
bro aR Sh eminence, which

NEW YORK. June 30.-:(AP.)}!
-@oqvired a 400-year-old matiu- | are’ The gieturbanee tae ntnttin reorni

which indicates: that the dis-|‘

«printed books. The author is An-' ane win tee e aU Thunderstorm eondi.
¥ 4) ' ac ate om ~
a= Bernhaldez, Spanish priest. | pienr and ari continue three ee ane, 10

LT. *

Phate by Internationa! Neweree!

| FOUR BROTHERS (TWO IN EACH SHIP) EFFECTING A MID. pe REFUELING AT CHICAGO

7 FIRMS DENY,

seeccaree ser HADI TRUST.

WILMINGTON, Del., June 30.—

,‘AP—Two of the defendants

named tn the radio suit, recently
filed in the United States District
Court here by the government,
today entered @ joint answer de-
nying the existence of a combina-
_Uion, as alleged.

The answer was filed by the

;American Telephone and Tele- :

graph Company and the Western |
Electric Company. They also de-) 7

med that they had at any time

been engaged in interstate com.

merce in radio comniunication or
radio apparatus.

They admitted that the prin-:

c!pal defendants own and control

‘a large number of radio patents,

but said that in many instances a
numbe: of the putents overlapped
and tha’ therefore if was necese
garvitoouse mnany of them an come
bination to Complete @ smlisface
tory article

The seven other defendants
have not hled answers,

THE WEATHER.

Local Forecast,

!
Showers and thunderstorms to. '

night and Tuesday. Cuoler beg:.-
ning fonioht,

Bourly T empéraluben;

(UAV IGGHT SAVING TIMED
Wo omienign ee q
toaom 2
za m "
cam a4
4am a,
Sam. ae
RR Rai be es eS bee Nh eies w
ce ea
Pam,
Burtire Citas 4 a Sunset today .., 754
Oneervatiera for tne '” noure ended at &
ty Gee tha mornin
ae Tenth ty mv wing W eather
s ers 4 SW-
Temboratere and Precipitation.
NBL Wa bd S5 Lw2k GeIS dele Wage 3088
Hie "S, be 4 76 3 ay
baw ne 32068 «686 AS Fe bh
Mear &R OAT ay cS 33
Precip ow tee OA iw w w
Bulletin.

Oneervatione taken ty the United States
Weatner Hurea The inorning temperature
reading® were taken at & OF hick he tow
ent temeprature je for 32 Nourse enced at &
eehek Una morning Precipitation w tor
24 Doure ended at KR eclock ine Ey ron

ony Pre Tomy re

Rratom Bam f. esp Station. 6 am cs
Atanta. fu 64 YO Menprie, Ayo om “
A’ rt TL Te) Mian CY eee
Hiemarek 540820 OU Montamy T& 72
ee S454 wu Naeryiiie TH 2 ime
Myrton 4 66th New Url. BO TR Oe
flain. 72% mi New Yore 72 70.90
Cnwen F207 Nortotk TA Tu we
Chicnge 66 68 1s Ukiahoma TROTR ay
Mncinn Fh Fe ae Omana , 6A 62
Cleveid 76 72.00 Persbure TR Fy ud
Cimpue. 76 72 .vu Parry 84 72 68 014
Denver . 54 56 .Uy Poelpnia, 76 720 1
Des Mea 62 62 .MEFITTSRG 760 fo jae
Derrnit., 74 72 WA Pid Ore SR Be ik
‘Duluth . os 58 .uy St Lowe, To Tu 136
Fiking .. 70 $6 6 Bt Paul. 6 Se ohn
Harrishg 74 70) oe 8 L'City, 58 26 ws
‘Heena . 4k 46 (ve San Ant TA 76 1!
Huron 6 59) 00 Ban Fran $6 5&0:
| Andape 7¢@ 72) .WReattle .. $2 82 00
74 70) (14 Spokane. 54 54 (00

Kan vy 84 66) «OL Tampa, 7 7 10
{Littie Rk SY TA od Waeamatn TROT ow
re Ang 62 62 v6 Winnipeg. AA Oo
pel eho F400 YeonePh 46 36) OU
yochbe 7@ 66 00

one
Weather Conditions,

A diecarkence centered norn of the
Great Laker and extending scuthweatward
over the Misstesippt Vatiev euates is caus-
ing Considerable cloudy weather, with jight

were and thunderstorma over the lakes,

Missourt, lowa, Wireon-
fier off the Atlantic coast and anotner is

Heckhy Mountain states. Warm weatner
Prevarie everywnete frum [linvis eastward,
while moderatety cool weather Pas eet in
over the same states and tne Upper Mis+
' Siasipps Valiey

——

River Conditions.

The Pivere are stationary Stage at

Franklin in OY teet, lock No 7 303
Pittepurgh 489 Lam
,» and am No

iy oe

Aviation Bulletin.

‘The skies are ciear and the ceiling wn-
Imited over Unio and eastward to tne
roast, while west of Unio the skies are
overcast and thunderstorms are in as Tess
m Many places The ceiling ran rom

rbance te centered north of

the Great Laken and extends southward
ver ine Misrinsipp! Vativy atates

fievwd AyING Weatner will continue thts

Gfternoen at Pittsburgh and eastward,

Bhiie ever Onto and westward thunder.

upest

* Beeler near Hast Vineland. N. J. Peart

“orm At+ Brown. 16: Gussie Brown, 10, aad
Walter Pettit were the

y Found as Fliers

“Dr. Wiley, Pure Food, Drug
. Law Father, Dies at 85

tf) by Teternational Newsree

IRENE HUNTER

teacher who takes care of many
things op the ground,
supervision of food to ro

AWAIT IN NEST
IN BAT KILLING.

William Hartlep.
North Side parks!
leave of absence until the charge
. in the death of Jo-
18. of 616 Sher-

seph Neiberding
manevenue, has been disposed of

The lad died Friday after he had
been struck on the head with «
i police charge. by
Hartlep. who broke up a game in
Corover W. J. Meg
McGregor was expected to fix a
, date for the inquest today.

arainst Hartlep. who is at liberty’
under $5,000 ba:l, pending the in-
|
The boy's funeral will be held
in Alliance, O.!
swung a:from crossed wires in a pent
\ baseball bat in self defense when
Neiberding and a number of other! building at 118 South Sheridan
youths threatened him,
Joseph Neiberding,
boy's father, said his dead son's Beckett at $1.500. The building
companions tell a different story.’ was unoccupied.

PINCHOT'S FUE,
DENN, RENAMED =

baie RG, Jyne 30 —‘AP:'
~ James S, Benn, Phiadephia. to-
day was reappointed by Gov :
Fisher to serve a third term as a
member of the .Pubie Service
Commission of Pennsyvania. Hi:
Present term expired today,

The commissioner, who fs a!
member of the Phiade!phia bar
and formerly was city ed:tor of
the Philadelphia North American
which several years ago was
merged with the Public Ledger |
first was appointed to the com.
mission on Julv 1, 1919. th f}]
unexpired term. On Jule d. i92e
‘he late Gov. Sprei PPoppoipted
Benn to serve a Sail 19-senr tern,
PXPIFk today, ’

During the ndministrat. on of
Gov, Pinehot. Benn was ahder
meen fire, wbeh rested a,

com.

Pur Chot awsmeisites bon

Thies iGnes Sub-equentiv the
State Supreme Cons ruled tnat
the governor cud gut lave the
Power 10 Gisthios @ public servive

VILIINISS lied, he appomnties
"ay Ing been approved os the Lax.
isia@tige i) Wax teitistated and
DAs ser. toca’

As the wppou.tinent was made
Phen the legssiature was nos an
SeSSiOn IW Whi be meeessary for a
Teo-thirds vote cf the senate tex
Minter fo approve Fishers re.
oppomtmer: ag
the ise is M
elected, wll whe

against Benn.

BOY, 16, HELD I
AUTO THEFT

A 16-vear-old boy A Ali.
zer. of Monerat. Va.. mee heid for
court today by Magistrate Themas
D. Jones in Morals Court cn a
charge cf larceny.

He ts alleged.to have held up
Watchman Thomas Greves. of
the Barnes Motor Companv. 6601
Hamilton avenue. with ao gun
carly Sunday morning

Groves declares the bor bound
him under an automobile and
stole another car. The youth was
arrested as he was driving
through McKees Rocks.

Pent House Afire |!"
On Vacant Building

Fire believed to have started

house on the roof of a two-story

i avenue today caused damage esti-
mated by Battalion Chief Fred S

“WASHINGTON, June
NAP.)—Dr. Harvey W. wiley tee?
fous pure {00d advocate. died to-
@ay at 24a. m

He had been suffering criticaily
from heart troudle for the last,
two months He wae &4

000 in Search -

ag anes (OT he wiewmity of @ time
: Vatwt farmeriy conducted by ber
tis-“tairer beade the Roosevelt

tion. He became il] after his re-:

_turn home

Unable to leave his sick bed, he’
Wrote Senator McNary the chair.
man that he had testified ‘under
AMT aK ehenesory THe added


LISS ep Shee eee Bese aS

——— wee

eee

See

pect now being questioned was a big man
with hulking shoulders.

With an expert hand Powell hefted the
pearl-handled gun which had been taken
from the suspect. “This is the same type
of revolver the Tiger carries,” he said
flatly. He turned suddenly to the pris-
oner. ‘‘What happened to your partner
tonight? The short one?”

The suspect grimaced and started to
put on his socks. “I ain’t got no part-
ner,” he declared sullenly. “And I ain't
prowled no house.”

Tom Krokoski snatched the socks from
him. ‘What about those feathers ?”

For the first time the dull-witted youth
seemed to realize their implication, His
face paled under its stubble of beard.
“Honest, guys—I got them feathers yes-
terday. I... I went to grab a chicken
for a Hallowe’en party,”

He stuck to'this alibi of petty theft.
For half an hour each of the four men
shot questions at him, but they were met
by grunts and negative answers.

INALLY Detective Williams stood

up. A nearby clock chimed 5 a. m.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “You're one of
those hoods who hangs out with Mustache
Mike.” :

A glint of fear showed in the suspect’s
dull eyes. “Mustache Mike? Never
heard of him.”

“Come on, come on—quit stalling!
You've lived in this county fifteen years
and never heard of Mustache Mike ?”

A shake of the head.

“Book him,” Detective Powell in-
structed Williams at last. “Charge him
with breaking and entering. We'll put
him in the line-up in the morning.”

After Williams left with the prisoner,
District Attorney Lewis reached for his
hat. “That hood,” he remarked, “walks
with the same shambling gait as the
Tiger. And the Tiger always works in
his stocking feet. But I can’t see this
dumb lug pulling a series of well-cased
jobs and quick getaways. Unless the
Tiger is just that—a dumb lug—and the
little guy is the brains. He may have
decided to work solo for once and that
was when Tom caught him. But I doubt
that this one’s anything but small time.”

For a few moments the men relaxed
and the talk drifted inevitably around to
the fabulous “Mustache Mike” Skesav-
age. He was as well known in the under-
world of the mining towns as it was
possible for a man to be. And his career
of crime had started early—as a youth he
had been arrested for shooting Police
Chief Bender of Old Forge and had later
escaped from the Old Forge jail. Many
brushes with the law had followed
through the years.

Mike made a great show of joviality,
calling many police officers by their first
names and protesting his good fellow-
ship, yet he was known to have a fiendish
temper, a cunning intelligence and a cer-
tain sardonic sense of humor. On one
occasion he had burst in on the wake of
a dead enemy and fired six bullets into
the corpse!

“My candidate for the Tiger’s short

68 °

Police checked on shady resorts and gam-
bling houses, seeking patrons who flashed
suddenly acquired “big rolls.”

DARING

accomplic
Powell sa
masks by
to conceal]
wears on
vinced th:
sign. If

DETECTIV!


OR Bie BR AE A

d her uncle.
ade a grave

ao
“thea de ey

AS _

* Re et

N WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, the Halloween
of 1954 will be long remembered. Not for the
winy apples, the candies and nuts and cakes the

kids begged to swell their bulging bags of loot, not
as a happy sojourn from the workaday world of
mine and mill and railyard, but for the horror that
struck once, then swiftly struck again, blighting
whole communities with sheer terror.

It all began, actually, the week preceding Halloween,
on Monday, October 25th. ‘

At 16, Helen Jean Bryant was an uncommonly pretty
girl, with sparkling bright blue eyes, a pert, turned-up
nose, and a soft wealth of strawberry blond hair that fell
to her shoulders.

She was fully aware of her loveliness but, so far as Helen
Jean was concerned, it was as much of a taunt as a gift.
She lived with her parents, her five sisters, all younger
than she, and four of her five brothers—19-year-old Albert
was soldiering in Korea—in a squalid, rickety house far up
on a hill on the outskirts of Aliquippa, 20 miles northwest
of Pittsburgh.

The Bryants, a round dozen in all, were crowded into
these quarters on the bare knob looking down upon a maze
of railroad tracks and a big steel mill smoking on the
banks of the Ohio River because, though it was no fault of
his own, Earl Bryant was out of work and the family was
on relief.

Only in the summer, Helen Jean felt, could she be like
other girls and live in a regular neighborhood with chums

- close by, with places to go in the evenings, and boys to

come to linger on the stoop. Her summers she spent with
her grandmother in Corapolis, half-way up the Ohio toward
Pittsburgh.

But summer was two months gone. She had had to re-
turn to Aliquippa to begin her junior high school year.
And she hated it.

She hated the isolation, here on the hilltop. She hated
the eternal crowding, the inescapable friction that rubbed
tempers raw. She hated the long descent each morning down
the twisting path to the foot of Iron Street, where she
caught the bus to school, and she detested the tortuous
climb back every night.

Usually her sister Dolores, 14, accompanied her, being
a freshman in the same high school, but this morning, peer-
ing out a window into the cottony pall of fog that gripped
the hillside, Dolores announced that she was sick and was
staying home.

Helen Jean quarreled with her mother before setting off
down the path at 8:15 a.m. It was some little thing—Mrs.
Bryant, later, wasn’t sure what it was about—but when
Helen Jean flounced out, her wrath was in full blaze.

“I’m not coming home, not back here, ever!” she stormed
and slammed the door and vanished in the fog.

When Helen Jean did not return that evening, when she
did not come home all night, Mrs. Bryant was not unduly
worried. She knew her daughter had had about $3 in her

¥S HALLOWEEN HOR

Helen Jean Bryant left for school alone on fateful Monday

purse that morning and she figured the girl most likely had
caught a bus to Corapolis to spend the night with her
grandmother.

However, Helen Jean was not in school on Tuesday when
Dolores returned to her classes and she had not been there
on Monday, either. The grandmother had not seen her.
On Tuesday night, the pretty strawberry blonde was re-
ported to police as missing.

“Looks like she did run away, like she said she was
going to,” her mother told Police Chief Matt Zvonar.

Zvonar broadcast an alarm up and down the Beaver
Valley communities and to the Pittsburgh Missing Persons
Bureau. In the meantime Lieutenant William Hildebrand
began backtracking on the girl.

One of his first discoveries was that she had not boarded
her school bus on Iron Street on Monday morning.

“She might have missed it deliberately, if she really in-
tended to run away,” Hildebrand suggested to his chief.
“But, on the other hand, it would have been a free ride

F R “by C.L. LAMSON —

Three girls already had met a fiend. Two had lost their lives.

The holiday spirit vanished in shock and fear

43


her body was found in a thicket. Her father, Earl Bryant (r.) and her uncle.
At bottom of hill, near tracks, killer made a grave yr

x missing girl for six days,
Igirl took each morning.

After searching fo
path schoo

Outside modest home men retrace

oo"

Roh si

Fo ete A . a oR

oe Se ee
ey


44

Grim officers assemble with stretcher to

downtown, and she wasn’t too well supplied with cash to
set out on her own.” .

Residents and business people along Iron Street were
questioned. Helen Jean’s school friends were canvassed.
No one had seen her on Monday. No one could offer any
clue to where she might have gone.

She had no steady boy friend who might have whisked
her off. The railroad depot and inter-city bus lines were
checked until the police were satisfied that Helen Jean had
not left town by any of these.

“We'll search that hill where she lives,” Zvonar decided.
He assembled a force of his regular men and auxiliary
policemen to hunt through woods and ravine, from Iron
Street to the hilltop, for some sign of the whereabouts of
Helen Jean Bryant. No trace of the girl was found.

Teams of men from Zvonar’s force—known Officially as
the Hopewell Township police—combed up and down Iron
Street, re-questioning dwellers, merchants and workers.
Others hunted methodically through the entire bailiwick,
until they were satisfied that the girl was nowhere in
Aliquippa or its vicinity. If she had passed along Iron
Street early Monday morning it was likely that she had

gone unrecognized in the fog.
“I can’t quite buy that,” Chief Zvonar said. “As Bill

remove Jittle Karen’s body. Tragic reminder is festive trick-or-treat bag (I.)

Hildebrand already has pointed out, why should the kid
have passed up a free ride downtown in the school bus,
even if-she did not intend to go to her classes? There'll be
plenty of men available Saturday morning, when they’re
all off work. If she doesn’t turn up by then, we’ll gather
a force and really sweep that hill.”

While Matt Zvonar and his men sought doggedly for the
key to the teenager’s disappearance, another tragedy was
in the making in Cambria County, just above Johnstown,
some 80 miles to the east.

There, in a valley of the Alleghenies, William Mauk
lived with his wife and five of his six children at 232 Fifth
Street in the little steel and rail city of Conemaugh—the
oldest, Bill, 19, like Albert Bryant, was in service, attending
boot camp at the Naval station in Bainbridge, Maryland.

At about 7 P.M. Thursday, 6-year-old Karen Mauk
climbed the twin flights of steps from the sidewalk to her
porch and burst into the living room, breathless and
bubbling with excitement.

“Can I go trick or treat, Mummy?” she begged. “Can I,
please?”

“Jt?s not Halloween yet, not till Sunday night,” Margaret

Mauk replied.
“But I was out once already,” little Karen protested.

“Can't |
“That
“But

Just a i.
All <

masked

Hallowe

cousin \

curly-h:
was go}:
must go

Mrs.

it to K

mask to

bag and

“Don”
more ou
allowed

Mrs. |
to. rush
home to
with Do
and whi
celebrat

When
she fou
matical]

in the 1}
“Whe
“In b

her in !
“Goo

out wit

mean t

where
Bill

don’t «

Paul.

3ut

knew t

in’s. I

it that
Your

near h

goodie:
100 ya
“The
be nov
He «
street.
bered ©
purple

At }
summe

Comp:
Wor:

private

to mor

The
costum
in Cou
got the
motest
in the

Poli

7:30 t

ished,

had lc

a few
The

who 1

him.

search

Mauk

upon


133 ATLANTIC (2nd) 231 (gives previous appeals citations)
JOMPSON, Cleveland, black, %, electrocuted Pa, State Prison (Allegheney) 5-l-1959.

"Bellefonte, Pas, May h, 1959=Cleveland Thompson, whose futile 9-year fight for life
made Pennsylvania legal history, died tonight in the electric chair in Rockview Peni-
tentiary. Up to the last minute Thompson, 36, hoped that a fifteenth stay of execu-
tion would spare him, 'God won't let me die,' he had whispered repeatedly during the
165 mile automobile ride from Pittsburgh earlier in the day. But Thompson, almost
collapsing from dread, was helped into the chair by guards at 10:02 p.m, (Daylight
savings time), Three minutes later he was pronounced dead, The holdup-mrder
committed by Thompson Septe 13, 1949, has long been forgotten, The victim was Wallace
Russell, a bartender in Pittsburgh's Hill district, Thompson was convicted and given
the death sentence on May 1, 1950, A dozen attorneys fought for him through state and
Federal courts, but in the end he became his own counsel - a barrister behind bars,
One of the chief points in Thompson's appeals was that the trial judge erred in ad-
mitting into evidence a military record of Thompson being involved in a shooting case,
His attorneys contended that such testimony could be considered only in fixing the
penalty but not in deciding the defendant's guilt, His counsel also charged that
evidence on Thompson's condition when he was arrested shortly after the crime was
withheld from the jury. Early this morning Sheriff William H, Davis walked into
Thompson's cell in Allegheny County Jail and read the death warrant, Thompson, taken
there from Western Penitentiary Sunday, remained impassive, By this time he had
traded his Aaw books for the Bible, Deputies shackled Thompson's legs and handcuffed
him, A motorcade of three cars, headed by S,ate Police, sped east along Route 22,
"Holding theBible in manacled hands Thompson began reading aloud from Chapter 58,

the Book of Isaiah: 'e.s..Why have we fasted and thou seest it not? Why have we hum-
bled ourselves and thou takest no knowledge of it?! Thompson closed his eyes, Depu-
ties seated on either side of him were surprised to hear him continue from memory:

', Fasting like yours this day? ‘Will not make your voice to be heard on high?! In
the last three days, Thompson said, he had eaten no food = not even drunk prison
coffee, (However, when he arrived at Rockview Penitentiary Thompson ate both lunch
and supper.) Thompson shut his Bible, In the car there was silence = the brooding
silence of seven men, Finally Thompson muttered a plea for a cigaret. A deputy
thrust one into Thompson's mouth and struck a match,

"The hills pinecushioning slender trees that were not yet in foilage, slid past.
Thompson did not raise his eyes to look at them. A funeral procession moved west
along Route 22, If Thompson saw it = or thought it an omen = he gave no indication,
At a roadside restaurant, Thompson at first refused coffee, then drank it. It was
the first cup, he said, in three days, When a deputy offered him a cigaret, Thomp-
son parted his lips to take it. 'You're not handcuffed now,' a deputy reminded him,
Finally Rockview Penitentiary loomed ahead. Prisoners on work detail outside the com-
pound paused to look at Thompson, They knew he was coming and they knew why, There
are 973 prisoners in Rockview, ‘Thompson's arrival did not add to that total, and

his death did not suhtract from it, A man who comes here to be executed simply does
not count," POST-GAZETTE, Pyttsburgh, Pa., May 5, 1959 (1/h-6, including photograph)

;

saint

By Carl Sifakis

28

It was first believed that Helen
Jean had run away from home
and had come to no harm.

°oO6T SAxenuep “SNIZVOVA SATLOWMA SOTIOd

© CTMSOE: JEW ESS
‘a OF LUST

Everywhere she went, the eyes followed!

sad oo

AD NOT Helen Jean Bryant
flared up and angrily told her
family that she was not ever
coming home again, the search

for her might have commenced earlier.
“I’m not coming home!” she snapped.
“Just remember that —I’m not coming
back!”

She had said that often before, but

‘she always had come home. She came

home because she wasn’t a wild girl. It
was merely that she was young, sixteen,
with a pert pout to her full red lips.
Hers was a vibrant youth, eager for life
and with a smoldering resentment in her
dreamy blue eyes that made her man-
ners at times seem petulant.

Helen Jean was angry with life, at
least with the drab life that surrounded
her. She rebelled against the drab, ram-
shackle house that sheltered her, her
parents and her half dozen brothers and
sisters. She rebelled against the skies
over Aliquippa which the mills of West-
ern Pennsylvania shrouded in a constant
haze of smoke.

What was it that upset Helen Jean
that Monday morning, October 25? Was
it the misty smog that choked the view
through the windows? Was it the real-
ization that the house high atop the

_ shaggy hill was so isolated from friends

and neighbors and movies and ice cream
places and schoolmates’ activities? Or
was it that one of her sisters announced
she wasn’t feeling well and that Helen
Jean would have to scurry alone down
the half-mile path through brush and
woods to get to Iron Street where the
school bus passed far below?

Something caused a feeling of rage
to come over Helen Jean and words were
said, building up to a full-sized quarrel.
Helen Jean stood by the mirror by the
door, whipping a brush through her
strawberry blonde hair, her nostrils
flaring. “Just remember,” she said again.
“I’m not coming back.”

She slammed out of the house. She

Watching... waiting... for the time and place to waylay her!

Intense search by girl's relatives revealed ‘‘grave’’ where killer buried her.

strode down the hill, soon enveloped in
the fog. “I’m not coming back.” The
words ran through her mind. Chances
are that Helen Jean also was wondering
to herself if it would be like all the other
times — that in the end she would go
back home.

Helen Jean Bryant did not come home
that night. Although that was unusual.
it did not cause any undue concern.
She’d had a few dollars in her purse.
Most likely she had taken asbus to Cor-
apolis, 10 miles away, to visit her grand-
mother whom she adored. No doubt
Helen Jean would be back the next day.

When, however, the sister who had
been absent from school Monday re-
turned to classes at Aliquippa High the
next day, she discovered that Helen Jean
was still absent. Furthermore. Helen
Jean didn’t report Wednesday either, as
no doubt her grandmother would have
insisted she do.

That night, the alarmed Bryant family
got in touch with the grandmother in
Corapolis. The girl had not been there.
Then the family notified the Hopewell
Township police, who had jurisdiction
over the Aliquippa, that Helen Jean was
missing.

Police Chief Matthew Zvonar ordered
an immediate hunt made of the places
where missing persons usually turn up—
depots, bus lines, rooming houses. Chief

the Bryant sisters, and had stopped

?
eS

fe

Zvonar assigned Lieutenant William
Hildebrand to investigate the case and
trace the last known movements of the
girl.
From the Bryant family, Lt. Hilde-
brand learned of Helen Jean’s angry de-
parture for school Monday morning.
Despite the girl’s state, there seemed no
doubt that she intended to go to her
classes. From Samuel Milanovich, super-
intendent of schools, Hildebrand learned
that Helen Jean was not a hooky player
but rather “a good girl, a B average
student.”
Her fellow students declared she had
no steady boy friend. In fact, she did
not seem to mix too much with the other
students. They emphasized however this
was not due to any lack of popularity
but rather simply to the fact that her
home kept her fairly isolated.
She was always the life of the party
aboard the school bus in the mornings,
but she had not been Monday. Other
riders said Helen Jean never got on the
bus Monday.
The school bus driver said he stopped
each morning on Iron Street to pick up

Monday morning and peered up the hill
to see if they were coming. He had seen
nobody on the hill.

Lt. Hildebrand reported his findings
to Chief Zvanor. “I don’t like to say

29

°cc6t §S2 ATNLG uo (AQUNOCD JeAeeEg) IS “ed peqnooaqoete SyoeTq SyeltTH *NOSHNOHL


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hind and hit her in the head with a-rock.”

Lije said the first blow knocked the girl
unconscious. He said he then dragged her
off into'the brush, about 300 yards down
the path from her own home, about 100
yards up the trail from his ‘house. There
he tried to rape her, but could not.

“T went home, got the knife and a

shovel, and went back to .the woods,” he

‘said. “I cut her some. I put my hands

around her throat. But she was dead. I
dug a grave the best I could, put her in
it and covered her up.” j

Later, in a panic, he claimed, he went
to his estranged wife’s home. He said he
could not explain taking the stripped-down
rifle with him.

After the fight in which he was badly
injured, Lije said, he believed his blood
on his trousers would provide a perfect
cover-up for his: crime.

He made and signed a_ full confession.
On Monday he was arraigned on an in-
formation charging murder before Justice
of the Peace Rudolph Schwartz. He waiv-
ed a preliminary hearing, and was ordered
‘held without bond for grand jury action.

A few hours after Elijah Thompson Jr.
faced the magistrate, an arrest in Cone-
maugh solved the brutal slaying of little
Karen Mauk. And Western Pennsylvania's
brief reign of terror was at an end.

Note: The name Fred Nordchen is ficti-
tous.

~

THE BONNIE PARKER-

CLYDE BARROW MOB

(Continued from page 45)

7 .
before his kidnappers let him go. They
took his service revolver as a souvenir
when they drove off.

Johns told the authorities that Bonnie
Parker had dyed her bright yellow hair
and was now a flaming redhead. She was
just as conspicuous with the new change,
however. Perhaps even more 80. Her hair
was nearly the color of blood and gave
her hard, masculine features a positively
satanic appearance.

The. Barrow gang, travelling in two
stolen cars, were nearly penned up and
trapped on the, county bridge which span-
ned the Colorado River at Whayton,
Texas. A posse armed with riot guns
sealed off the span as Bonnie and Clyde
were nearing the mid-point. With Bonnie
driving, the notorious pair U-turned and
drove hell-bent for the human blockade
with shotguns blazing. They crashed out
and managed to pyt distance between
themselves and their pursuers. Stealing
another car enroute, they successfully elud-
ed the web of a gigantic dragnet which
had been spread to enmesh them.

The crimson trail of crimes continued—
a bank in Cedar Hill, tapped twice, be-

‘cause it was easy; the inter-urban sta-

tion at Grand Prairie; filling stations and
restaurants all over Texas. On October
llth, Clyde Barrow killed again.

In. Sherman, Texas, Clyde ran into
trouble when he tried to rob a small
grocery store which was attended by two
clerks. Howard Hall, a 61-year-old. butch-
er, refused to be frightened by the gun in
Barrow’s hands. He closed with the des-
perado and got his guts blown out for his
trouble. He died in agony forty-five min-
utes later.

Despite roadblocks and highway traps,
Clyde and Bonnie managed to roam the
wide country at will. They had no special
modus operandi. It was impossible to an-
ticipate what the deadly duo would dream
up next. They skipped around the map at
incredible speeds, appearing almost like
phantoms whenever they pleased.

On November 23rd, Bonnie cased the
Oronogo Bank at Joplin, Missouri. A week
later, Clyde led his henchmen, Frank

60

\

Hardy and Hollis Hale, into the estab-
lishment. The take was a paltry hundred
and fifty dollars for which the trio bat-
tled police and vigilantes in a cross-state

_ running battle.

On December 5th, after eluding the Mis-
souri authorities, Clyde, Bonnie, and Frank
Hardy were attempting to steal a car in
Belton, Texas, when they made another
kill. Doyle Johnson, the car’s owner, ran
out into the street after observing the
trio force the door of his Ford. Frank
Hardy aimed a quick shot at Johnson,
but missed. Johnson hurled himself on
the gunman and attempted to throttle him.
Either Bonnie or Clyde shot Johnson
through the throat and killed him.

In Bay City, Michigan, the police pick-
ed up Ray Hamilton, the Barrow hench-
man who had been with the pair in_the
first wild days of their crime spree. Dif-
ferences of opinion—plus a dislike for
Bonnie—caused Hamilton to strike out for
himself. Ray Hamilton was returned to

. Texas where the authorities threw the

book at him and handed out enough raps
to keep him in jail for 263 years!

" Ray “had a sister living in Hillsboro.
Her home was usually open to friends of.
her brother. In January of 1933, deputies
from the Hill County sheriff’s office staked
out this home in an effort to capture a
bank bandit named Odel Chandless.

Chandless didn’t show up, but Clyde Bar- .

row.and Bonnie Parker did!

Realizing who had walked into their
trap, the officers began to fire. Clyde open-
ed up with a shot-gun and blasted one
of the deputies to kingdom come. Bonnie,
bent low over the wheel of the getaway
car, headed east on another Jong flight
across the state border.

There followed another round of small
and large robberies and the abduction o
a-Missouri motorcycle patrolman, Thomas
Persell, before an event occurred which
made the deadly pair even more lethal than
ever.

As was mentioned before, Buck Bar-
row, Clyde’s older brother, got out of jail
in March of 1933. He was given a fine
sendoff by: the prison officials and a clean
bill of health by the Texas authorities.
Much of the groundwork for his release
remniee from the efforts of Buck’s pretty
-wife.

Buck Barrow and his wife decided to
catch up with Clyde and Bonnie. Perhaps

,

the reason for the visit was some futile
hope at reforming the pair. It didn’t work
out that way. By then, according to Bon-
nie’s Ballad, the Barrow gang had gone
beyond the point of turning back:
‘When you make up your mind
That the roads are all blind,
And that refuge is nowhere sight,
Then it’y kill or be killed
And the coward, weak-willed,
Is the first one to fall in the fight.”

Bux and Blanche managed to trail Bon-
nie and Clyde to Joplin, Missouri. Here,
in a small apartment above a Freeman’s
Grove garage the two couples took up
light housekeeping. For the most part,
their luggage consisted of firearms and am-
munition. They dusted their shooting irons,
but for certain they did no laundry. It
was a delivery man for a local. cleaning
establishment who tipped the police that
something peculiar was going on in the
Freeman’s Grove garage.

Bonnie never let the delivery man come
up the stairs, she always met him in the
ball, Believing that the occupants of the
apartment were distilling moonshine liquor,
the delivery man spoke with the police.

On April 13th, a raiding party got as
far as the garage when one of the Barrow

boys spotted the uniformed officers. There ©

was an immediate fusillade and when the
police charged into the withering fire, they
found they were up against five outlaws
armed with everything from pistols to
Browning automatic rifles. Two officers,
Constable Wes Harryman and Detective
Harry L. McGinnis, were killed in the gun
duel. The bloody Barrows and one hench-
man escaped in a Marmon sedan with
Texas plates. It was believed that the
henchman was badly wounded in the ex-
change.

In the apartment, which was carefully
scoured by the police for leads, was foun
a veritable arsenal of high-powered rifles

_ which the fugitives. had left behind. Also,

along with Buck’s marriage license and
his pardon certificate, a search of a bu-
reau yielded a roll of exposed Kodak film.
The photos were developed and proved to
be recent pictures of Bonnie, . Clyde,
Blanche, and Buck in various poses with
components of their store of firearms.
These pictures were multiduplicated and
rushed to key points throughout the south-
‘west for incorporation into police “wanted
bulletins.”

The Barrows and their wounded hench-
man stole.a half dozen cars in their flight
north. They wound up in Cleveland, Ohio,
where, on April 18th, they held up a couple
of gas stations. The Ohio police looked
for the fugitives in vain—a little dubious
because of the extreme swing north which
seemed a little out of the usual Barrow
obit. A week later, Louisiana officials be-
gan to hunt for the Barrows, and they
too were surprised at the deviation in
the pattern of the gang’s peregrinations.

It was true enough: that the restless
predators were ranging far from their
usual haunts. Perhaps, as Bonnie sang in
her song, they were looking for a quiet
place to settle down:

“When we tried to act like citigens

And rented a nice little flat,

Cops came in the night

With a challenge to fight

And machine guns that went rat-tat-tat.

The doggerel is bad enough to have been
more truth than poctry. But the Barrows
found the sultry Louisiana climate a little
too hot for them. They stole a car, kid-
naped the owner ‘and his friend, and drop-
ped them off near Magnolia, Arkansas.

POLICE DRAGNET CASES

The search shifted a;
and nearby Oklahoma
But the Barrows we
remained in this gene:
to hold up a filling
Bow before they sw
up to Fort Dodge, Io
a car and headed fo:
Bonnie, herself. led
State Bank in ¢
ed out of tow:
lead which, ob
tion. The fugitives tu:
and began to burn uj
to the original stamp!
They were more at
anywhere else. Beside
a weakness for real
that was one dish v
found in any other s
It was in Texas,
away car from a rc
that bad luck struc:
at the Bloody Barro
ing, and she piled uj
The car caught fire,
spattered the diminu!
Shrieking in pain,
crawled out of the
mass of livid burns <
ribly. Passersby who
to a doctor were s
One escaped and su
the officers arrived,
disarmed by the gan
officials together anc
iff’s county car!

ig! their dash to ‘
Barrows _ conside
condition. They dec
few days until her
They hid out for -
tor’s medical kit, ar
in Alma, Arkansas.
The Alma job w:
first kidnapped the
they handcuffed to
forcing him to witne
Hoping to trap
their new route 0
directed the setting
far from Fayettevil
self, drove over a
ent when the car <
trap. There was a
vicious gur-d«el
Humphrey,
bandits’ gur
death by tl
brave officer’s sac:
killers long. The
eighth known tim
ways, to escape.
Bonnie was bad!
\ed medical attenti
be holed up some
homa. Clyde was
and another male «
and campaigning
Buck drove into
low, Arkansas.
panion at the tin
turn and headed
With the posse c
and his buddy t
was no time to :
snatched up a <
plunged into the
As the cordon
the two trapped
possemen that Cly
ed ‘the Natidna!
and escaped wit!
and four filled :
the possemen ful’
mass attack by

POLICE DRAGN


That stool pigeon has probably al.
ly told you plenty,” the blonde
ited. “Well, take a good look. dts

las you'll have.”
Jor a fool,” her companion
ioned, brushing her gun aside. ©

u'll have the cops up here and
e’ll be hell to pay.” ee
was only a matter of seconds. But
vas all Miss Weeks needed. Her
| gun was out, now.

Nobody move!” she ocamende in
ething less than dulcet tones.

here was a deafening roar as she —

1 a shot into the ceiling and the —
detectives, who had been waiting. .
»w, ran up with guns drawn. i
'o say that the Tigress “came along ©
etly” would be a most inaccurate _

ement.
Jisarmed, she lived up to her name.

foug#t, scratched and bit before-——~~;~

was subdued. And it was with more -

na litule difficulty that she was fin-

- transported to Austin station, along
h companion, who turned out to be—
»wrge Dale, the third member of the
he .
dozens of witnesses came forward to -

ntify the Tigress and her two help- “

“ September 8th, 1933, they
trial for the murder of the elderly

yerdasher. Gustave Hoeh.
All were found guilty and drew
ial WMtences—199 years in prison.

yugh for their lives.

We of the Chicago Police Depart-
nt breathed easier. But the saga of

. Blonde Tigress was not yet ended. |
First. much to everyone’s surprise.
orge Dale decided to risk his neck.

. demanded a new trial and got it.
And for the second time he was
ind guilty of murder. But this time
was not sent to spend the remainder
his days with Minecci in Joliet Peni-
\tiary. This time he was sentenced
death and died in the electric chair
e follo-fing April.

Looking back, I am inclined to think
at Mipecci, who wanted so much to
ep ont ME range of the Tigress claws,
en if it meant life behind prison
lls, must have considered himself
tremely lucky.

For within two years,
-e out of her cage at the Women’s
ison, Dwight, Illinois, and was never
captured.
And sometimes I wonder: did she
er catch up with George Vernon, who
i the charming and courageous Miss
eeks to her lair?

Un @@@Minecci, Vernon hadn’t been © ©
nvid of any crime and, therefore. _

is not entitled to police protection.
e mysteriously disappeared from the
ricago scene a_ short

is never been seen or
nce.

went -

sss RNS te cites:

the Tigress on

Pi yfe neta B ee or) i010 ae Menken teas a Aves amnnnne

while after |
eanor Jarman broke out of jail. He | :
heard from

i
a4
i

but then, neither has she.

No trace of her has ever been found.
No whisper of her whereabouts. No
clues to her subsequent activities.

So today, 19 years after her escape,
the Blonde Tigress still roams the
streets of some American city ... a
potentially dangerous fugitive
justice.

from

THE END

Meanwhile, the sleuths knew they still
had to concern themselves about a con-
nection of the murder with the Karen
Mauk slaying in Conemaugh. In both
cases there had been a sexual attack,
but the victims were not actually raped.

Could a madman by some quirk of
fate find himself on the lonely hillside
in Aliquippa just when Helen Jean was
on her way to school and killed her.
And then, his bloodlust still unsated,
have continued on to Conemaugh to
strike again?

Chief Zvonar kept in close telephone
touch with police in Conemaugh and
learned that thus far they had found
only one possible suspect, a scar-faced
man who tried to attack a 14-year-old
girl a few blocks away from the home
of Karen Mauk. Conemaugh police files
were being checked for an offender with
a record of sex crimes.

Chief Zvonar promised to check his
own files for that purpose.

Meanwhile, a new lead developed.
From the condition of Helen Jean’s body
there was a good chance that the killer’s
clothes had become bloodstained. Offi-
cers were sent to canvass all dry-clean-
ing places in town for garments left since
Monday that contained bloodstains.

A check with a small tailor shop on
the northern outskirts of town produced
a gray suit with such stains. Lt. Hilde-
brand and Sergeant Krzton were, in a
matter of minutes, knocking on the door
of a second-floor apartment in downtown
Aliquippa. The tall, good-looking man
who opened the door identified himself
as Oscar Metz. Yes, he owned a gray
flannel suit. Yes, it was at the cleaners.

“Tt has bliodetias Hildebrand said.

Metz nodded. “I suffer from chronic
nosebleeds. Usually I get my handker-
chief out in time. This time I didn’t.”

Metz identified himself as a salesman,
living in Aliquippa but covering the en-
tire surrounding area. He said he was
often out of town for days at a stretch.

“Were you out of town last Monday?”
Sergeant Krzton wanted to know.

Metz nodded. “Yes, I was. Called on
my first customer in New Castle about
8:30 that morning.”

Metz willingly supplied the names of

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Occupation


Eyes Of Lust

this,” he concluded. “but I don’t believe
Helen Jean ever got off that hill Mon-
day.”

“Meaning?” the chief asked thought-
fully.

“I’ve been over that hill,” Hildebrand
replied. “It’s pretty rough going with
not much of a path down to Iron Street.
In case anything happened. there’s
plenty of natural concealment there.”

“Take all the men you need,” Chief
Zvanor ordered, ‘‘and go through every
bit of brush on the hill.”

By early Wednesday afternoon. Hilde-
brand had a search party of 16 auxiliary
policemen combing the thickets around
the Bryant house. It was a slow tortuous
hunt. and by nightfall had produced
nothing. Hildebrand questioned resi-
dents and storekeepers on Iron Street
and no one could remember seeing the
girl Monday morning.

Meanwhile, other police officers fol-
lowing through on routine search pro-
cedure for runaways also drew a blank.
If Helen Jean left Aliquippa, she did
it in the same mysterious manner she
would have had to use to get off the hill.

On Thursday the hill was again
searched completely, and again with
negative results.

That night a new source of worry de-
veloped for the investigators. In Cone-
maugh, a small town about 80 miles to
the east, the body of 6-year-old Karen
Mauk was found slain on a hill beside
a cemetery overlooking the town. Al-
though the child had not been raped,
the murder was clearly the work of a
sex degenerate who had molested her.

Had perhaps Helen Jean Bryant met
the same fate as little Karen Mauk, and
was her body lying somewhere in the
rugged slopes of the hill hanging high

over Aliquippa? Eighty miles was not
too much ground for a mad killer to
cover.

No answer to that horrifying question
was forthcoming the next day. Torren-
tial rains and high winds all day Friday
and that night stymied any further
search of the hillside. On Saturday, how-
ever, the searchers, reinforced by rail-
road and steel mill workers off from
work, again took up the hunt.

Chief Zvanor personally joined the
hunt on the hillside, now as firmly con-
vinced as Lt. Hildebrand that Helen
Jean had never left it. By noon, with
the hunt half over, nothing had been
found. Slowly, the searchers continued
up the slope, determined to trample over
every bit of ground this time.

Suddenly, a shout rang out from a
clump of woods a mere 20 feet away
from the path down the hill. Two auxil-

Hillside top home of victim, overlooking steel mills, and searchers walking along path which girl took to school daily.

iary policemen stood over a shallow
grave.

Helen Jean Bryant’s strawberry
blonde tresses were now matted dark
brown with dried blood. Her cheeks were
slashed and there was a long gash across
her throat which barely missed the jugu-
lar vein. The pathetic girl’s arms were
pinned behind her by her coat which
was pulled down to her elbows. Her
blouse and bra were in place but her
skirt was wrapped high around her waist
and her panties were pulled down be-
low her knees. She was barefoot save
for one pink sock. The other sock and
her shoes were found nearby, together
with her school materials.

One of the searchers shook his head.
“IT don’t understand this. I went right
past this spot on Wednesday. How could
I have missed her?”

Lt. Hildebrand nodded. “And I passed
by here on Thursday myself.”

Chief Zvanor surveyed the grave.
“Makes sense,” he said. “The creep who
did this didn’t have the time or the tools
to dig a real grave so he scooped out
this shallow hole and covered it with
dirt and leaves. I'l] bet we wouldn’t even
have spotted the grave today if it hadn’t
been for the wind and rain yesterday.”

An autopsy performed by Dr. Ralph
M. Weaver showed Helen Jean had died
from a skull fracture, probably with a
stone from the hillside. The knife wounds
were inflicted after death. “There are
also marks to indicate that the killer
also attempted to strangle the girl.”

“What I don’t get.” Lt. Hildebrand
told Chief Zvonar, “is who would be
lurking up on that hill at 8:15 Monday
morning, waiting for the girl to come
along the path?”

One of Helen Jean’s schoolmates of-
fered a possible answer. “Helen Jean was
always vague about it. but she said she
was afraid of that path and that there
was this fellow living down the hill who
sometimes came out and stood by the
path and shook his finger at her. She
said that when she was alone she always
ran like blazes down the path.”

The Bryants’ nearest and almost only
neighbors was a family living a quarter
mile down the slope. There were four
boys in the family. One was known to
Chief Zvonar and Hildebrand. He was
Elijah Thompson Jr.. who had recently
done a bit of time in the federal reforma-
tory at Chilicothe, Ohio, for auto theft.
“Auto theft doesn’t necessarily jell
with sex murder,” the chief observed.
“but I think we better have a talk with
him.”

Last photo of victim (r.), made with
her aunt, just before she was slain.

The pair of investigators were joined
by reinforcements from other agencies
as they started out for the Thompson
home. They were Chief County Detective
M. D. Hoyman and Sergeant John
Krzton of the Pennsylvania State Police.

The foursome drove to Iron Street and
started the climb up the hill. Partway
up they were met by officers still comb-
ing the area for clues. Chief Zvanor was
shown the five-inch blade of an ordinary
kitchen paring knife which had been
found thrust into the ground about thirty
yards from the shallow grave.

“No handle,” the chief mused. “Does-
n’t exactly make an ideal weapon. does
it? But hang onto it, boys. It may figure
in this.”

At the Thompson home three of the
boys were on hand. The father and
Elijah Jr. were absent.

All three had known Helen Jean, but
only by sight they said, since she always
passed their house on the way up and
down the hill. None had heen home at
the time Helen Jean had stormed from
her own house on the way to school. Two
of the brothers were at work, the third,
unemployed. had been at an employment
agency for an appointment at 8:30.

While the brothers were being inter-

rogated. Sergeant Krzton moved about
the small house.,In a bedroom he found
a pair of trousers with heavy dark stains.

The brothers identified the pants as
belonging to their brother Elijah.

The stains were clearly several days
old.

“That’s blood all right,” one brother
said. “But Elijah didn’t get it the way
you're thinking. He got himself into a
mess of trouble last Monday night.”

The brother went on to explain that
22-year-old Elijah was separated from
his wife and two small children who
were living in Rochester about five miles
down the river.

Last Monday evening Elijah had vis-
ited his wife trying to effect a recon-
ciliation.

“Elijah was plenty serious about it.
too.” another brother picked up the
story. “He had an old .22 rifle without
any stock, just the barrel and firing
parts. He stuffed it in a pants leg before
he went. Elijah and the missus had a
row and he sort of lost his temper,

“He pulled out the gun and started
shooting up the place. All he was trying
to do was scare the missus a little. That
was all. But a neighbor heard the shoot-
ing and rushed in. He grabbed the gun
away from Elijah and cracked him over
the head with it. Cut his head all open.
And Elijah fell through the window then
and cut his arm. too. That’s how his
pants got al] bloodied up.”

“For a while it looked like Elijah. was
going to die.” the third brother chimed
in. “They took him to the hospital. That's
why he’s not here now. He’s downtown
for a doctor to look over his head and
arm.”

The sleuths appearea to accept the
story and thanked the brothers for the
information,

A check with authorities in Rochester
confirmed the story. Elijah Thompson Jr.
had been in the hospital until Wednes-
day. and then left against the advice of
staff surgeons.

Chief Zvonar allowed that explained
the blood on Thompson's pants. “But,”
he added. “that’s no alibi for 8:15 in
the morning.”

Sergeant Krzton nodded. “It’s still:
quite a coincidence. A gir] gets murdered
and the same day a man, the nearest
neighbor, winds up in the hospital after
a shooting fracas. That’s a lot of unre-
lated violence.

“TY think T'Il post some men at the
Thompson home and have Elijah brought
in when he shows.”

(Continued on page 69)
3)


TREADWELL, Jason, 30, white, hanged Montrose, Pa., on January 13, 1825,

TRIAT

"At a Court of Oyer and Terminer held at Montrose, Pa., last week by Hon, Edward
Herrick, Jason Treadwell. was tried on an indictment for the murder of Oliver Harper
in “ay last. The trial commenced on Wednesday morning, and was very ably conducted by
Messrs. Eldred, Mallory, and Read on the part of the Commonwealth, and Messrs, Case
and Willison for the prisoner, After argument of counsel, and a clear and lucid
charge, the case was submitted to the jury on Saturday evening. On Sunday morning
the jury returned a verdict of guilty, The testimony, although printipally circum-

stantial, was clear and pointed, irgesistibly establishing the prisoner's suilt,
and exhibiting in him a depravity of heart seldom evinced in cases of equal magnitude,
Treadwell, no doubt, had meditated the murder of Harper for several days previous
to carrying his designs into execution, He ascertained, as near as possible, the
time Mr, Harper would return from Philadelphia, to which place Mr, H, had been with
Lumber, Having blacked and disguised himself, he lay in wait nearly two days, in
an unfrecvented tract of woods adjoining the road Mr, Harper would necessarily travel,
a few miles distant from his residence, It does not appear that Mr, “arper was in
any way apprised of the approach of the murderer, He was shot through the head
and instantly expired, Treadwell then rifled his pockets of about #00, and fled to
the woods, On the day the murder was committed, he was seen with his rifle by a Mr,
Welton, blacked and secreted, by the way, near the spot where Mr, arper was found,
He was subsequently recognized by Mr, welton, This, with other circumstances, led to
his detection, and finally to his conviction, Early on Monday morning last, sentence
of death was passed upon him, = BROOME REP." DAILY NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER, Washing-
ton, DC, Spt. 2li, 182) (2-h.)

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(30-years-old)
TREADWELL, Jason, white, hanged ah Susquehannah Co., Pa., on Jan. 13, 1825.

The following material was provided by Susquehanna Co. Historical Society
and Fred Public Library, Montrose, Pa., 18801, on Feb. 11, 1977, and is
taken from the sources below:

HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYEBANIA, by Emily C. Blackmon, originally
published 1873; republished, 1970, Baltimore, iMd.: Regional Publishing Co.,

pp 83, 97, 102, 481 & 582-583.
(on p 481, mention is made of execution of one MATTHEWS at Bethany.)

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLBANIA, by Rhmanthus M.
Stocker, originally published in 1887; Republished, 1974, by Regional
Publishing Coe, Baltimore, Md.; pp 573 & 933.

Copy of inquest on body 6f Oliver Harper.

The account sheet of Treadwell's jailer.

Other account sheets releting to inquest and Treadwell's imprisonment and
trial.

876 110 ATLANT

10 REPORTER (Pa,

Evans & Evans and John H. McCann, all{ what the testimony may have shown, and
™ ,

of Ebensburg, for appellant.

no matter what counsel for the prisoner may

D. P. Weimer, Dist. Atty., of Johnstown, | have admitted in addressing the jury, be-

for the Commonwealth.

fore whom they could waive no right of their
client, on trial for his life, these utterances

BROWN, C. J. The appellant was found must have been understood by the jury as
guilty of murder of the first degree, and taking from them, to whom the law had ex-
judgment of death followed. The sole and clusively committed it, the question of the
unavailing defense made for him on nis| degree of the guilt of the accused. They
trial was insanity, and the jury were correct- were, in effect, instructed, as just stated
ly instructed that, if they found, from a fair that his offense was presumed by the law to
preponderance of the testimony offered in be murder of the first degree, and that he
support of it, that the prisoner had not had not rebutted that presumption. For
consciously committed the crime charged | hs error the judgment must be reversed
against him, he should be acquitted on the | #"4d the prisoner must be tried a third time
ground of insanity; but, under a misconcep- before another jury, when it is to be hoped
tion of the law, they were, in effect, in- | CTTOr will not be committed. For palpable
structed that, if he was sane at the time of }¢rror committed on his first trial the ver-
the commission of the offense, the law pre- | dict was set aside. Commonwealth v. Tomp-
sumed it to be murder of the first degree, | ins, 265 Pa. 97, 108 Atl. 350.

and they should so find,

In Commonwealth vy. Greene, 227 Pa. 86,

[1,2] We are again called upon to repeat, 75 Atl. 1024, 186 Am. St. Rep. 867, the only
strange as it may sccm, that on the trial of | One of the numerous assignments of error
an indietment charging felonious homicide, sustained complained of the following from
the law's presumption is that the offense of the charge of the court:

the accused is no higher than murder of the
second degree, and the burden is always up-

“The law holds that if a man uses a deadly
weupon upon the vital part of another person,

on the commonwealth to rebut that presump-| it is a presumption that he intended the con-

tlon by proof, establishing to the satisfac-
tion of the jury that the crime is of the first
degree. This burden never shifts, but con-
tinues to rest upon the commonwealth
throughout the entire trial, and the accused
is not called upon to rebut the presumption
of a degree of guilt which docs not exist.
Commonwealth vy. Drum, 58 Ta, 9; Murray
v. Commonwealth, 79 Pa. 311; Common-
wealth’ v. Mika, 171 Pa. 273, 33 Atl. 65.
There is not a line in the entire charge in-
dicating to the jury that, though the prison-
er’s guilt had been established, the presump-
tion of the law was that it did not rise
higher than murder of the second degree.
On the contrary, the only conclusion the
jury could have reached, under the instrue-
tions given them, -was that the law pre-
sumed it to be murder of the first degree.
This most clearly appears from those por-
tlons of the charge complained of by the
first and third assignments of error, After
defining the different degrees of homicide
and announcing in a general way to the jury
that “in an indictment such as that before
us, and which you will have in charge, a yer-
dict for murder of the first degree, murder
of the second degree, or voluntary man-
slaushter could be found and could be sus-
tained,” the trial judge almost instantly
added, “We have to deal in this case only
with the offense of murder of the first de-
gree.” Immediately after this utterance the
jury were told that, if the prisoner's insanity
had not been established, “There is no evi-

; dence that we can discover that would lessen,

that would diminish, the offense from that

sequences that would follow from, as, for illus-
tration, from his pulling the trigger and send-
ing a bullet crashing into the brain of some
human being—that is, that he intended to kill—
and if he so does, it is on him to answer to the
| Jury aught that he may have in extenuation or
qualification to relieve himself from that pre-
sumption of murder of the first degree.”

What was said in holding that this was
error is here controlling, and we now repeat
it:

“The only inference to be drawn by the jury
from this construction was that if they found
the prisoner had shot the deceased, the burden
was upon him to relieve himself from the
law’s presumption that his offense was murder
of the first degree. Ile offered no testimony,
and was not required to offer any to rebut a
presumption that, if guilty, his guilt was mur-
der of the first degree. The law’s humane pre-
sumption was that his offense rose no higher
than murder of the second degree, and he was
safe from conviction of the first degree until
the commonwealth had overcome the presump-
tion of second degree by aflirmatively showing
the existence of every ingredient and element
of the first degree. From this burden the com-
monwealth is never relieved. Whenever it asks
for conviction of murder of the first degree it
must overcome the presumption of second de-
gree after having established a felonious homi-
cide, even if committed by the use of a deadly
Resse ir upon a vital part of the body of the

deceased. * * * In the present case it was
the statutory duty of the jury, upon finding that
the prisoner was guilty of felonious homicide
to fix the degree of his guilt. Indeed, it may
, be fairly said that, under-the evidence, ‘the real
| question for their determination was the Scared.

of murder of the first degree.” No matter |The law presumed that it rose no higher than

ani

- Judgment reversed, and a venire facias

Pa} PENNSYLVANIA 1; 00. ¥ ROYDHOUSE  9FT
i ]

the second, but by the court’s instruction, com-
plained. of in the twenty-seventh assignment,
the jury were unmistakably told_that the law’s

against the company brought without tierit,
even though founded on circumstances in con-
nection with the work.

presumption was that he was guilty of murder| 5 Indemnity G14 — Judgment against rail-

of the first degree, and that it was for him to
answer aught that he might have to say to re-
lieve himself from that presumption. He an-

road not conclusive as to contractor indem-
nifying against accidents.
Where a contractor doing work about a

swered naught, and. was not called upon to say 3 s ; if » a
anything to rebut such a presumption, for it station agreed to indemni y railroad company
did not arise from the mere killing of his vic- against accidents, a judgment by passenger
tim, even though he killed her with a deadly against the railroad company, who tripped over

. a granite block left by the subcontractor who

weapon directed at a vital part of her body.”

Nothing is to be found in the charge re-

was actually performing the work, is not con-
clusive as to the liability of the indemnitor.

lieving it from the error disclosed by the first | 6. Appeal and error o=1001(1)—Verdict war-

and third assignments, and they are there-
fore sustained.

de novo awarded.

)

PENNSYLVANIA R. CO. v. ROYDHOUSE
" et al. :

(Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. May 3, 1920.)

1. Indemnity €==8—To recover on indemnity
contract by builder, proof of negligence es-
sential.

Where .defendants agreed to provide prop-
er, necessary, and sufficient safeguards against
the happening of any accidents during the re-
pair of the bureau of information at plaintiff's
station, and an intending passenger, who trip-
ped over a piece of granite, recovered against
such railroad company, such recovery alone
will not establish defendants’ liability, but it
must further appear that defendants or their
agents were guilty of negligence or want of
ordinary care.

2. Indemnity ¢=—8—At common law, indemni-
tor liable to stranger lawfully about premises
for negligence.

Where one doing work about. premises
agreed to indemnify the owner for injuries suf-
fered by persons thereon, indemnitor at com-
mon law was liable to a stranger lawfully about
the premises, when injury was occasioned
through his negligence, though the owner may
also be liable to its invitees, to whom it owes
the duty of reasonable care.

3. Indemnity ¢==9(1) — Contract not one of
“insurance.”
A contract by one doing work on premises

to indemnify the owner is not an “insurance
contract,” and where the indemnitor was sub-
jected to increased hazard by reason of the in-
demnitee using the premises in an unexpected
manner, indemnitor is not liable for ensuing
injuries.
[Eda. Note.—For other definitions, see Words
and Phrases, First and Second Series, Insur-
ance.] :

4. Indemnity €=—9(1)—Indemnitor not bound
to defend groundless suits.
Where one doing work on railroad station
nereed to indemnify the railroad company
against the happening of any accidents, etc., the

ranted by evidence not disturbed.
Where the evidence would have warranted

a verdict for either party, verdict will not be
disturbed on appeal.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas,.
Philadelphia County. :

Action by the Pennsylvania Railroad Com-
pany against George W. Roydhouse, Harry C.
Roydhouse, and William E. Arey, late co-
partners trading as Roydhouse, Arey & Co.
From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff
appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before BROWN, C. J., and STEW-
ART, WALLING, SIMPSON, and KEP-
HART, JJ.

Francis B. Biddle, of Philadelphia, for ap-
pellant. :

J, Wesley McWilliams, of Philadelphia, for
appellees.

KEPHART, J. Plaintiff sues on an jindem-
nity contract wherein defendant covenanted
to provide proper, necessary, and sufficient
precautions, safeguards, and protections
against the happening of any accident during
the progress of the work in connection with
the repair of appellant’s bureau of informa-
tion at Broad Street Station, Philadelphia,
and to indemnify plaintiff from the payment
of any sum of money by reason of any such
accident,, During the progress of the work
in 1902, an intending passenger tripped over
a piece of granite used in connection there-
with and was injured. Averring negligence
of plaintiff in not providing a safe station, by
carelessly placing a slab of granite so that
she would trip over it, plaintiff was sued and
recovery bad. In 1910 this action was in-
stituted on the indemnity clause.

[1] We may assume the contract of de-
fendant, under which the work was done,
was within the terms of the first contract,
containing the indemnity clause; but such
clause did not make defendant an insurer
as to any accident that might happen in the
course of the work, It related only to such
as occurred through failure to provide prop-
er, necessary, and sufficient safeguards in

indemnitor was not bound to defend suits

and about the work. The parties ndopted for

¢€==For other cases see Same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes

\|

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TRACY, Andrew, white, hanged

Smethport, PA, on Dec. 4, 1870

nt @® ——-—

"Shocking Scene at an-Execution, —

, [Subject of Ilustration.} ’

SMETHPORT, Pa., Dec, 4.—Between the hours of one
and two o'clock-to-day Andrew Tracy suffered the ex-
treme penalty for the murder of Mary Keilly. Last
evoning at seven o'clock his four brothers and two
sisters visited his cell and after remaining one hour
took @ final leave of the condemned man...

At 1:30 Sheriff Sartwell issucd from the cell, fol:
lowed .by the priests supporting Tracy, deputies
bringing up the rear, and slowly descended from the
third corridor to: the gallows, which occupied the
areater portion of the main corridor of the jail proper,
and which had been constructed and tested by an ex-
pert with a view, it is hoped, of preventing any acci-
dent. a ie

When the executioner asked him if he had anything
to say why the sentence of the law should not -be ful-
filled, he answered, with a clear voice, in the shortest
possible sentence, that he had none. After this his
limbs werecompletcly bound and he waa placed upon
the drop.” At 1:45 the rope was cut and the con-
demned man was awung in’ mid-air for an instant,
but the knot ‘was not properly adjusted and hy

| dropped with adull thud to’ the’ stone floor below,

t
}
}

f

His half-senseless form ‘was ayuin: assisted to the
scaffold. While the rope was being re-adjusted Tracy
recovered Consciousness, aud at the request of a priest
“repeated part of the Litany.” He fainted in anattend-
ant’s arms, however, and again recovering repeated
words after the priest. Ton minutes later. the trap
was again sprung and the prisoucr’s neck was broken
by the fall. His pulse ceased to beat ten minutes
after and the remaine were cut-down,

NATIONAL POLICE GA ZETTE , NEW YORK, NY, 12-20-1879

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yeoman;
id county,
ite of the
i Fertsch,
man; and
rid county,
y of April
thousand

ree, at the’

the juris-
force and
f one John
od and the
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igabie then
lly and of
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of the Act
such case
st the peace
nwealth of

t Attorney.”

each of the

five prisoners pleaded ‘Not guilty” to
» the indictment, and immediately after,
».a severance was granted them for sep-
* arate trials and Mr. Speiser said to me:
. “The Commonwealth elects at this time
to try the defendant, Joseph Trinkle.”
* I then adjourned court for eleven days,
that is, until May 21st, and on that day
‘the murderer of Emgable stood trial.
=~ In -his opening address to the jury,
‘the Assistant District Attorney described
Pthe brutal slaying.
* “On Friday, April 13th, a horrible
‘crime was committed on the public high-
sways of Philadelphia in broad daylight
Gn this civilized community, and a human
‘life was taken of a fine gentleman, sixty-
Ftwo years of age, living’ in the peace of
‘God, engaged in a legitimate occupation,
‘connected with the firm of Havens and
ompany, a contracting firm, with their
boffices and stock yards at Nineteenth
treet in the neighborhood of Perkiomen,
‘near Poplar Street.
».“This man was stricken down brutally,
Kéwardly, by this defendant—and His

Honor will tell you that under the law

Judge Harry S. McDevitt (in light suit) has an un
nals, though he is very popular with youngsters,

that is a murder so heinous, low and
contemptible that the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania says it is murder of the
first degree.

“We will show you that this defendant
ceme with two others on Wednesday,
just two days prior to this crime, to a
pawnshop at Eighth and Race Streets
and bought a shotgun for eight dollars

‘and that he contributed part of that

money. And .the next night this de-
fendant and Sweeney, Lawrence, Fertsch
and McManus met and conspired to rob
the paymaster of Havens and Company
and the object of their attack was
the poor old sixty-two-year-old man,
Emgable.

“These killers knew it was Emgable’s’
custom to go on Friday morning to the
Northwestern National Bank at Broad
and Fairmount Avenue to get the pay-
roll for the firm. On ‘this particular
day it amounted to about $2,500.

“The old paymaster got this sum and
returned ‘to his office, but as he ap-
proached it an automobile belonging to
Fertsch drove up and two men got out.

a» 0k hey e Me: tes. 4

bending enmity toward crimi-
especially the underprivileged

One of them took the lead.

It was this
defendant, Trinkle. And he dogged the
old man’s footsteps across the street and
with his companion he advanced toward
the defenseless man who was walking
the streets of our city, not in fear of
being attacked in God’s sunlight, and
Trinkle put a gun in Emgable’s back and
the other gunman threw back the old
man’s coat and began to ransack his
pockets, and then Emgable turned, with-
out a desire to harm a soul in the world,
absolutely surprised and taken unawares,
not knowing what was going on—it hap-
pened so quickly—and this man Trinkle,
the defendant now on trial before you,
with the heart of a man that was a
villain and a detriment to society, pulled
the trigger and shot into the defense-
less man’s body the shell that destroyed
his life. :

“Then they ran to the car and drove
away. In their haste they did not get
the payroll. All they managed to steal
was the sum of fourteen dollars, and
they divided it and this defendant got

four dollars—the price of a human life.

eg
D

55


“ee

1
|
H
!
H

ee

5 Aetid

THE FORGOTTEN CLUE

( apramn JAMES LAWRENCE,
head of the Homicide Squad of the
Seattle, Washington, Police Bureau,

was aroused from a sound sleep. at °

his home at 3:30 a.M., uly 5th, 1945.
The Desk Sergeant at Headquarters
had telephoned him that a young
woman had been stabbed to death
in the warehouse district at the edge
of Puget Sound, and that her hus-
band reported that four sailors had
been involved in the crime.

Lawrence dressed and hurried to
the scene. In the bright glare of
police flood lamps, he saw the body
of a slender blond girl lying by a
freight car, her head almost touch-
ing one of the wheels. She had been
stabbed above the left collarbone.

“What's the story?” the Captain
asked R. H. Freese, one of the night
homicide operatives hovering about.

“Her name is Wilma Ross. She
and her husband Charles were on
their way home from a dance when
these sailors jumped them. The fel-
low’s so broken up we can’t get any
more out of him. He’s in one of
the prowl cars over there.”

The Homicide Squad leader
walked over to the vehicle and found
a good-looking chap in his twenties
sobbing in the front seat.

Controlling himself with difficulty,
Ross said that he and his wife, who
were Navy Yard workers, had at-
tended a Fourth of July dance up-
town. A sailor had cut in on them
repeatedly and annoyed Wilma.

“T told him if he didn’t let her
alone, I’d punch him,” the distraught
husband related. ‘When he kept
on, I decided we’d better leave, or
there’d be real trouble, because he
was with three other sailors. But
they followed and one of them
stabbed her. He was aiming for me,
but I hit him on the arm and he
struck her. She——”

Ross broke down again at this
poimt, and Lawrence instructed one
of the prowl car officers,to take him
to the emergency hospital at Head-
quarters for a sedative.

Returning to the slaying site, the
Captain found Detective Freese ex-
amining a hunting knife and a small
scabbard, both considerably blood-
stained, which he had discovered
under a near-by boxcar.

“Lots of sailors carry large knives
like this,” Lawrence remarked with
a frown. “It’s going to be almost
impossible to run down the one who
owned this, unless Ross can give us
a good description of the fellow who
annoyed his wife.”

Finding nothing more of im-
portance there, the detectives went
back to the station, where the Iden-
tification Bureau processed the
blade and its leather case for finger-
prints. None was found.

The Captain'went to his office and
issued routine orders to have the
city searched for the four sailors.
Then he proceeded to the jail hos-
pital to see whether the youth could
be questioned further. However,

he found him asleep peacefully after
having been given an opiate.

As Lawrence stood by the cot, he
suddenly saw something that gave
him an idea. He turned abruptly
and hurried to the office that had
been turned over to the Navy Shore
Patrol unit which worked in con-
junction with the city police in cases
involving naval personnel.

He asked the Petty Officer in
charge a few questions, and the re-
plies sent him rushing from the
building to a squad car. In less
than thirty minutes he was back
at his office. He summoned Freese
and instructed him to awaken the
husband and bring him in.

A few minutes later, Ross was
seated across from the two detec-
tives.

“I don’t like.to bother you about
this,” Lawrence began, “but we
can’t do much until we get descrip-
tions of the sailors who attacked
you. First off, suppose you tell us
what kind of uniforms they wore.”

They were the customary “blues,”
he said—that is, they consisted of
blue blouses and blue trousers.

“I thought so,” the Captain de-
clared, “and that proves they didn’t
kill your wifé. You killed her.”

The young man arose and shouted
denials. Lawrence got up, took a
leather belt from his coat pocket
and strapped it around the hus-
band’s middle, The buckle fastened
in the only notch which showed any
wear.

“That’s yours, all right, Ross,”
Lawrence commented calmly. “I
found it under the same boxcar

where you ,threw the knife and

scabbard.”

“They aren’t mine,” came the ve-
hement protest. “T tell you, it was
one of those four sailors.”

The Captain smiled grimly. “A
sailor in ‘blues’ would never wear
a belt,” he countered. “It’s strictly
against regulations. And even if
he had one under his trousers, he
couldn’t get to his knife without an
awful lot of trouble. So there
wouldn’t be much sense in carrying
one in a scabbard, would there?”

When the husband continued his
claim of innocence, Lawrence went
on: “I figured I had the answer
when I saw you sleeping in the jail
hospital. I noticed you didn’t have
either a belt or suspenders, and then
I thought of that scabbard and I
knew there’d be a belt somewhere.

“So I went back to the waterfront
and found it. There was blood on
it—that’s why you got rid of it.”

Ross admitted. the slaying. His
wife had been flirting with several
sailors at the dance, he claimed, and
on the way to the ferry, the couple
had argued heatedly.: In a rage, he
stabbed her,with the hunting knife.

On December, llth, he pleaded
guilty to second-degree murder and
was sentenced to thirty years in
the State Penitentiary at Walla
Walla. ——JERRY WALLACE

“They dispersed and were arrested.

sometime later and one of them made a
statement to the police implicating the
others.

“We will corroborate these facts with
living witnesses who saw what happened
and we will ask you as citizens in the
community, irrespective of your station
in life, your ages, your sentimental ties,
to obey your oath and protect life on
the highways of Philadelphia and stop
once and for all—whether old men or
young men—the committing of such
depredations and the taking of life. And
we will be bound to ask you to find this
man guilty of murder in the first degree.”

Although Trinkle had repudiated his
statement to the police and insisted that
he was innocent, the Commonwealth had
two trump cards to sustain its case; it
had found a witness who identified
Trinkle as the man who brought a shot-
gun to him to be sawed off, and it had
discovered an eyewitness to the murder
who swore Trinkle was the man who fired
the fatal shot.

After calling witnesses to identify the
dead man, and establishing the cause of
death through the Coroner’s physician,
the prosecutor put Oliver Fontaine on the
witness stand.

Fontaine said he worked in the Lenox
Garage at 1607 Wilton Street.

“The day before the shooting,” he said,
in a low and reluctant voice, “four men
ceme to the garage in a touring car. One
of them was Joe Trinkle. He came in-
side and asked me for a hack saw but I
said he’d have to go to my shop, a square
away.” j

“And did they go there?” Speiser
asked.

“T don’t know.”

“What do you mean by that?. Didn’t
you go with them?”

“No.” He dropped ‘his eyes} fidgeted
in the witness seat. “I just saw the car
go there and stop.” ia

Vaguely disturbed, Speiser turned the
man over to Edward A. Kelly for cross-
examination and the defense attorney
immediately asked how he knew the gun
on the table before him was the one
that had been brought to him by Trinkle
and his friends., .

“t could not swear to it,” Fontaine
said, “but they said they wanted to saw
a gun in half.”

“You don’t know whether that is the
gun you saw or not, do you?” Kelly asked.

“No.”

The prosecutor then called Edward
Anthony MacElwee, an automobile
mechanic who also told of the ‘gunmen
bringing a shotgun to his shop at 1633
Willington Street. But when shown the

_ death gun he, too, was loath to say it

was the one Trinkle- had.

At the request of the prosecutor the ©

other prisoners—Sweeney, Lawrence,
Fertsch and McManus—were brought
into court. Then Fontaine was recalled
by Speiser who said to him: |

“I want you to say which of these men

“eame with Trinkle to you with the shot-

gun.”

There was a pause, then the witness ©

replied, “I cannot do it.” :
“you cannot?” Speiser asked.
“No,” > i £ ‘ . et

“You cannot (Continued on page 108

r; ¥

=e J

must h:
Si
and
cod
and In
Trac:
back se
it agal:
“It’s
As ti
and pr
trigger
Mable
ing no
had p!
Whe
her bo


i ath

(Continued from page 56) say whether it
was any of the four men?”
“No.”

d you ever see them before?”

es,” his voice was almost a whisper.

Did you ever identify them?”

at do you mean?”

‘ “Did you ever pick them out before?”
“No.”
“You would not swear they are not the

men who came there with Trinkle?”

Kelly was on his feet shouting, “Don’t

’ answer that. It’s objected to. There is no
ground laid for cross-examination of this
witness.”

“The purpose of the examination is ap-
parent,” Speiser said coolly. “Certainly the
Commonwealth Aas a right where intimi-
dation of that kind goes on in the presence
i i it is ground for
to cross-examine

hi

elly flushed with angey ‘So far as Joe
nkle is concerned,” he Jaid, “I think the
m

emgfks ofthe District ngy are unfair.
Wefrave pot j e is, We have
not atterr to intimidate anybody and

thi will be no intimidation by us of
anyone.” . f)

T that,” Speiser replied’ quietly;
ackngwigae a Ido not think

eu ant“to be responsible
r member of the bar who -in-

in icy tones:
“You know I don’t mean y

not flattery. You
kno ou w I made that
rem was dohe is apparent.
An common sgnse in this
room, including Wourself and/ mys

sel e turned to the withass Ce)
not s peing there

fentify this defendant,
yf do you?” :

er physician,”
told that her

: Ss
not testify in court. ,

jury the benefit of all the facts surrounding
the crime with which Trinkle is charged.”

“I object,” Kelly said. “I object first be-
cause the defendant is entitled to a public
trial and entitled to have all the witnesses
called publicly in the courtroom, and sec-
ondly because the doctor has said that the
cross-éxamination of the witness, if severe,
would probably be detrimental to her
health and probably her life, which neces-
sarily limits the cross-examination by
counsel for the defendant.”

“Objection overruled,” I said, “excep- -

tion granted.”

And the next morning the Court was
transferred from Room 453, City Hall, to
the second-floor front bedroom of Mrs.
Bridget Connaughton at 876 North Nine-
teenth Street.

Joseph Trinkle paled when he realized
where he was being taken. For across the
street was the spot where the old pay-
master had been shot to death. .

Mrs. Connaughton was proppe
pillows in a morris chair a p
She looked very ill but her e
intelligent and her voice 396s
was low, but far from weAaly.

at she was a devg

i the sacret ys

. The jury was brought in, newspaper
men crowded into the doorway, court offi-
cers wi present and the reluctant de-

Stood beside his attor: 0) had

»” Mrs. Connaughton bg:
sitting right where I am n

eleven I saw a gentlemanVcrossing

from the north side of Perki “s
to the south side to the Have

pany Contracting Company./It/ We
Emgable, the paymaster. I’d oftex#i seex-hit

And just as he stepped on thefpavement I
s a young man cross over from our side
nd overtake him and then another one
came up and one took each side of him.
They threw back his overcoat and went
through his pockets and took his wallet.
And then one of them shoved a shotgun

nough, ' right into his back and fired.

“As Mr. Emgable dropped they ran and

iito a car that was parked near by. I

ad a paper and pencil here near me and

I wrote down the number before the car
raced away. It was 6-377.”

.not material in the determination of the

- mosphere of that room was more like that

jctins Also Have Rights

Speiser showed her a license plate and
asked if she could identify it.

“Yes—that is the number I jotted down.”

“Can you identify the man who fired the
shot that killed that man? I will ask you
to look around and see if you can see him.”

She pointed at Trinkle who shrank away.

“That is the man,” she said quietly.

Mrs. Connaughton made an excellent .
witness whose testimony the defense was
unable to shake. a

c- WAS evident that it had the proper
effect upon the jury for, in spite of a
strong alibi which Kelly offered for his
client, the twelve men judging his case
found him guilty of murder in the first :
degree which automatically carried a death |
penalty.

Of course I was the immediate target of
the lawyers who filed an appeal based on
this question:

“In the trial of a defendant on an in-
dictment charging him) wi
9th Judge a right to

case. from

t pyr-
B,, private bedroom of a itnes$
for the Commonwealth?”

Kelly was vitriolic in answering that. “If
this particular procedure is approved by
the Supreme Court,” he said, “it is difficult
to say what the consequences may be.

“What shall stop a Judge, from removing
the trial of

one state to another;
bedroom to bedroom;

testi
tht she was telling the truth, but that is

question here presented. She was not in a
public place of trial. She was in her own
bedroom, an invalid of whom her doctor
had said that severe cross-examination
might be dangerous. Further, she was an
apparently devout woman and the at-

of a shrine. This is not said in criticism,
for defense counsel is of the

that it may not

but may, danger her
have heg byought here
ness. 1s

which /the Commonwealth finds
itself if’ connection with this wit-
ness who was an eyewitness of %,

the tragedy.”
The case
seriously
recanting my
that it shou ot be lost if there
was any legal way to prevent it.
And so I summoned counsel on
both sides to come up for a con-
ference at side bar an
| nounced that if the witnes
not come to-us we would

A

“It is the opinion of this court,
Tt I said, “that in the interests of
a justice due to: the community

mt Ace ? ,

‘oy don’t see him at the bar, Mrs, Vant. Wait a minute. .

and I'll look on ‘the floor.”

~ baat

same faith and so is able to state
the possible effect upon the jury
who were of the same faith. Here
was a situation presented which {

no courtroo would have ever
ed. e situation was
solefan~in \the superlative de- \

gree. Here a woman testi-
fying in the presence of her God
when she was probably about to
die. It must have influenced the
jury and it should not be per-
mitted to enter into a capital
ease,”

The Supreme Court upheld the
7 Vo) dich and my action was

On June 15th, with Judges
Norris S. Barratt and Charles E.
Bartlett on the bench with me,
I sentenced Joseph Trinkle to
death—and never regretted it.

On June 30th, 1924, he was
electrocuted at the State Peni-
tentiary at Rockview, Pennsyl- ©
vania. One newspaper acceunt
stated that the killer “died with .
a blessing on his lips for the |

’ | and the defendant, nothing
108 should be left undone to give the
or 7 Seta

officials of his execution.”

va Re any

om

Forty yea:
almost ext
many m1!
foresighte
radio. Yet
fortune, a:
are great

from one

Now anot/
and import
SVETY A:

non
AS
who

add suuw «

N

burt a
has ¢
ness

verter

Make no
which the
‘obably
reamed of
been used b
dealers of
tors, news;
and by ¢!
convince
his office 1
the same b
something
the mor
moment
part of ¢

You walk irr
a letter fron
work in their

cost them

. Our man $70

An automot
the expense
store has ex)
the business !
not possibly
the iiey ac
work with.
section of th
which hamn

Pe haat
EY tand.

;
Bef
«eat
Pa | ae

_

TRINKLE, Joseph, white, elec. PAP (Philadelphia) on June 30, 1924

ye

Has a Judge the right to use extreme measures to obtain a conviction?

With the

experience of a quarter of a century on the bench, this magistrate answers “Yes!”

Sen has had its share of
shocking crimes during the past several
years in spite of the vigilance of our ex-
cellent police department.

ecently we suffered an epidemic of*

killings by young men and even boys in
their teens. One youth shot two police
officers to death last April; and shortly
before Christmas a couple of runaway
boys from New Jersey murdered a po-
liceman whose only contact with them
was an appeal to them to go on back
home.

Of course there was the usual shocked
comment from the community and every-
one felt sorry for the dead men’s fami-
lies. The killers were denounced; justice
was demanded. Yet it wasn’t long be-
fore excuses crept into the stories and
explanations were offered,and when they
came to trial every possible legal safe-
guard was furnished them.

I am utterly out of sympathy with the
mollycoddling of criminals. I have no
patience with the plaint that “environ-
ment ruined them.” I grew up in a neigh-
borhood which spawned some gunmen.
And one of the finest officers I know—
Captain James P. Ryan—came from a
district that spawned half a dozen killers.

It’s time to deal firmly with these law-
breakers.

J. Edgar Hoover sounded the right note

“when he recently advocated punishment

of criminals without quibbling.

Has a Judge the right to use extreme
measures to obtain a conviction? I say
he has.

What we need today is a proper and
thorough administration of the law in-
stead of a lot of sentimental research
into the reasons why decent citizens are
shot down in the streets by armed
rowdies.

In the quarter of a century that I have
been on the bench I have tried to be fair.
I do not think, however, that I ever
forgot the victims of the gunmen who
came before me. I started my career
with a murder trial on the morning of
May 10th, 1923, that illustrates that point.

On that mild Spring morning which I
will never forget, warm sunlight filtered
through the high windows in the Court
of Quarter Sessions, City Hall, Phila-
delphia, upon the five prisoners at the
bar who stood before me.

They were silent, motionless, flanked
by some of the best attorneys in the
city—Edward A. Kelly was there and
C. Stuart Patterson, famous “mouth-
piece” of the underworld; Bernard J.
Lemisch and belligerent, stubborri “Tom”
Minnick who fought his cases all the
way to the electric chair. The very
presence of such an imposing array of
counsel was enough to attract the news-

Victims

also have

Rishts

By Honorable HARRY S. McDEVITT

President Judge, Common Pleas Court No. 1
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

as told to D. A. Harrison

papers, and reporters and photographers
crowded the press table. Every seat
in the courtroom was filled with spec-
tators.

“‘Chippy” Patterson shifted uncom-

fortably in his chair as Maurice J.:

Speiser picked up the indictment and
handed it to a clerk to read aloud. It
was. common knowledge that Patterson

‘feared and respected the First Assistant

District Attorney who never raised his
voice, never got rattled, but prosecuted
his cases with deadly determination. If
only he could get the Commonwealth
shouting, Chippy knew he had a chance.
Make them yell and confuse the jury
and there was some hope for the pris-
oner. But Speiser would not yell. He
would proceed calmly, dispassionately,
and his quiet logic would convince the
twelve men in the jury box—if he had
enough material to go on.

“The Grand.Inquest of the Common-
wealth of Pennsylvania,” the clerk
droned, “inquiring for the County of
Philadelphia, upon their respective oaths
and affirmations, do present: That Joseph

Trinkle, late of the said county, yeoman;
Joseph Sweeney, late of the said county,
yeoman; Andrew Lawrence, late of the
said county, yeoman; Edward Fertsch,
late of the said county, yeoman; and
Joseph McManus, late of the said county,
yeoman, on the thirteenth day of April
in the year of our Lord one thousand

nine hundred and twenty-three, at the’

County aforesaid, and within the juris-

‘diction of this Court, with force and

arms, in and upon the body of one John
C. Emgable in the peace of God and the
said Commonwealth then and there be-
ing, feloniously, wilfully, and of their
malice aforethought, did make an assault,
and him the said John C. Emgabie then

‘and there feloniously, wilfully and of

their malice aforethought, did kill and
murder, contrary to the form of the Act
of the General Assembly in such case
made and provided, and against the peace
and dignity of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.

SAMUEL P. Rortay, District Attorney.”

Prompted by their counsel, each of ‘the

five prison
the indict
a severanc:
arate trials
“The Con
to try the
I then ad
that is, unt
the murde1
In his o
the Assista)
the brutal
“On Fri
crime was
ways of P!
in this civil
life was tak
two years «
God, engag
connected
Company,
offices and
Street in th
near Pople
“This ma
cowardly,

‘ e Honor will

super-
Cucker
ceively

regard
ard or
ouble,
enslee
well as
eighed
id not
In the
with a
of the
‘d ten

Cucker
orisons
| form

most
in. soli-
ng you
ul-pen
ithout
ure, it
ly give
hina
iliated
re con-
going

ivilian
at the
es fur-
r more
nvicts.

NYAS
6
od sys-
‘se the
ps and
plans
e legis-
onvicts
l, they
iodern
» have

ldings,
‘astern
ed. “TI
id gun

1,” Lee
‘d like
. Now
d that
\ man
several
similar
readily
. They

a plot
. They
, after
cotton
y were
ently

e said.
f work
a and
iw “and
” He
rantee

i 4 " [Continued from page 31] 1

Sof

didn’t ‘set foot out of the
or three days at a time.

the spacious grounds of Wyanoke, de-
livering materials of some sort to the
tenant house, Blasts went off in the mid:

hensive.

Goss, a man of considera

gummy substance. “Does this look like
rubber to you, sir?” he asked. Lowndes
said it did.
“It's synthetic,” he said.

ca “Nol” said Lowndes, This was years

thought of. '
- “Yes, it’s synthetic, all right,” said
Goss. ‘Now, you wouldn't want to dis-

would you?” :

Be | Lowndes, accepting the gummy sam-

~~ pile as a present, and picturing himself

as a potential patron of an important
scientific discovery, reconsidered. The

+ experiments continued. ;

f j One afternoon late in February, when

- 4} the experiments had been going on for

ee about two months, Goss left his place of

machinist) and called for Udderzook at
brother-in-law worked as a cabinet maker.

of Baltimore and, reaching the end of the
line, set out on foot for the laboratory.

. It was after six o'clock when aS.

reached their destination. Darkness had'-

fallen. The wick of a large lamp that

supplied the sole illumination in the ten-

ant house was found to be burned out.

Udderzook left Goss in the laboratory

qa with a bottle of bourbon whiskey while

a he set out on foot for a general store
4 about a mile away to get a new wick,

On the way back he stopped at the

home of a young man named Gottlieb

; i Engel who sometimes ran errands for the
experimenters. Udderzook asked Gott-
lieb to accompany him to the laboratory
: oa as there was a chore he wanted him to
; perform, '
When Udderzook and Gottlieb reached

Wyanoke, exactly at seven o'clock, the:

grounds were alarmingly illumined. The
tenant house was an inferno. The fire,
which had followed a loud blast, had
gained such headway that Lowndes had
not bothered to call the fire department.

Udderzook sought Lowndes out from
the crowd around the fire. “Where is

Winfield?” he asked.
Lowndes looked at Udderzook. ‘“‘Where

is he?” he repeated,

he was with you.”

“Why, I thought

were, however, occasions when: they - |
lace for two)
a here seemed =~
“@  ._ to be. as much drinking as experiment-\”
ma ing going on, particularly on the part —
of Goss, whose 'red nose had by this time’
explained itself to the landlord. + |
In February, wagons rumbled through: ~

| _.. -dle of the night. Lowndes grew appre-:
‘s He suggested that Goss ard’
Udderzook might be pele elsewhere. -
le charm and’

persuasion, handed Lowndes a piece of

carved on a modest tc
“more Cemetery...
and fire, a little gen

Insurance, Company, |

Goss boomed in laughter, cubbyhole in’ an. ofice build

|.» before the first synthetic rubber was even

turb us when we're as far along as this, '

employment (he was a fair-to-middling :
an East Baltimore lumber mill where his

The pair took a street car to the outskirts» ’

ok, just a
aan dle
rants

name, of Winfield Sec

investigator: for.

terview with his boss. 4; 00°.

. “I think,” said Marble, a timid man,
“that I should go to Baltimore and look
into the matter of a, deceased policy-
holder down there,’’\.. Marble’s boss
agreed that. Goss’ extreme enthusiasm -

' for insurance bore looking into, and .

Marble went home to pack, . .

When he arrived in Baltimore, Mar-
ble went promptly to the Goss home. The
house was well kept and nicely furnished.
Marble found Mrs. Goss to be.a deeply —
religious woman. who had _ been in, ill
health since the blast in the tenant house. |
If there had been anything irregular in
conection with the blast, he decided, Mrs;
Goss had not been in on it.

“How could you be so sure,” Marble
wanted to know, “that it was your -
husband if his body was’ so badly
burned?” : : ;

“They found a watch belonging to
Winfield in the ruins.”

Marble looked at, his. own watch,
popped a pill into his mouth and con-

i,

- dearly loved.
‘kind of aman. He was engaged in dan-

* him,” #2"

Goss, a. brother of
ed experimenter, had °
_ ruins and discovered

é asked, (“It says nothing about a-watch
ere,’ Ferarien.) wil ‘ ‘ he t

“You have

~ several children, all small. Wasn't such
Ca pea yjarain for insurance a hardship

on you

A “Not at all,” said Mrs. Goss, her eyes

shining in memory of the man she had
“My, husband was that

gerous experiments and wanted to pro-
tect us in case anything happened to
"Very: laudable,” said Marble. He
admired; a piece of furniture, making

/. certain to obtain the name of the store
- where it had been purchased, and was
on his way.

A junk dealer who had descended on

- the charred tenant house like an am-
- bulance-chaser on an accident case told

Marble that he had put the remains of

the fire practically through a seive. He . ,
‘a. had found no watch.
n following the blaze, after the junk

et, three days

dealer’s work was completed, Campbell
the mechanic-
ked around the
is brother’s watch.
Campbell Goss, a small, fox-faced man
of middle age, had gone to the junk

». dealer and berated him for having over-.

looked the watch. Fuppor somebody
doubted that was the body of my brother
who was found in the ruins,” Goss had

found,” .

‘Marble wondered why Campbell Goss
would have made such a remark. He
wondered, too, how such an obviously

thorough searcher as the junk dealer
. could have overlooked the watch.

_ » The weather was bitterly cold, Marble, -
afraid of pneumonia, put on two suits
_ of underwear and called on Andrew J.

Lowndes,-master of Wyanoke. Thus he
learned, of the man Lowndes had seen
loitering about the grounds not long be-
fore the explosion. ‘The man had been
short in stature.

“Why didn’t you summon the police?” ,
Marble asked,

"I wasn’t sure that he was up to any
harm,” said Lowndes. “I am still nor
sure that he was,”’

The little insurance investigator looked

uzzled when he found out that Lowndes

ad not called the fire department. “I’m

‘a wealthy man,” said Lowndes, ‘‘I don’t
- bother: about such things as a piece of

unimportant property going up in
smoke.”

Marble wanted to know what Lowndes
knew about the experiments that had
been carried on by Goss and Udderzook.

Lowndes produced the piece of gummy

substance that Goss had given him.
“This is real rubber,” said Marble.
“No it isn’t,” said Lowndes. “It's syn-

thetic.”

Marble just looked at Lowndes, Then

he looked at his watch and. reminded

himself that it would be time for a pill

in ten minutes.
sulted the papers on the case that. hes.)

Lowndes told Marble about the auto-
81

ad brought with lid they
find) your, husband’s watch in the ruins?” —

eet een


with
him
one,
1 to.
rned
» of
\sur-
vy to
held
him
DOSS
the
been
was

Ss up

1e of

at of

to be

The

fend-

| 1 the
and

yrpse

ene

had had very bad teeth while Goss ha
had strong; healthy teeth.

The insurance company lost the suit,
being ordered to pay Mrs. Goss the full
amount of the premium and the real
fight was on. The company appealed,
which had the effect of forestalling suits
against the three remaining companies,
and Marble was put back on the case.
This time he had to find Winfield Scott
Goss.

Marble was glad of the chance to pick
up where he had left off more than a year
before. He had not previously had the
opportunity to check on the history of the
eccentricities of Goss, a subject that had
intrigued him, and he devoted himself
to that phase of the case now. He forth-
with learned from long-time acquaint-
ances of Goss that the big man with the
red nose had not been known as an ec-
centric. This was interesting indeed.

The further Marble delved into the
angle of the eccentricities the more spuri-
ous became the Goss handsprings, bean-
bag. playing and __finger-snapping.
Obviously, then, the eccentricities -had
been an invention on the part of the
person who had been teamed in the swin-
dle plot with Goss. It had been a good
idea, this plan to have Goss appear to
be eccentric to Lowndes, master of Wyan-
oke. Eccentricities fitted into the pop-
ular conception of an_ inventor's
personality.

Who had thought up the role that
Goss had played? Hardly Campbell
Goss. Campbell Goss had been concerned
principally with the cadaver. Campbell,
to Marble’s way of thinking, wasn’t that
subtle. William Udderzook, the erst-
while partner of Winfield Scott Goss, was,
though. And hadn’t Udderzook been the
only person who had known the missing
man to have said that Goss had been
eccentric over a period of years?

Marble consulted his notes on state-
ments Udderzook had made to him. The
erstwhile art teacher had accused Lown-
des of lying to Marble about the sample
of the gummy substance that Goss had
given to Lowndes, the implication being
that Lowndes had been interested in
stealing the Goss process for synthetic
rubber, Such an alitention on the part
of Udderzook didn’t jell with the Lown-
des character as Marble had read that
character.

Udderzook also had said that a large
manufacturing company had stolen Goss’
idea for an automatic screw driver. The
company, which did a mail order busi-
ness, was located in New York. Marble
checked its sales records. He learned
that William Udderzook had ordered
half a dozen of the screw drivers a few
weeks before he and Goss had rented the
tenant house. Not one screw driver, but
half a dozen.

It was obvious to Marble that Udder-
zook was the co-author of the swindle
plot. A clever man he had been, too.
He had established an excuse to be ab-
sent from the tenant house when the
blast started, and had first seen the blaze
in the presence of a witness—young Gott-
lieb Engel. If any part of the plot went
sour, Udderzook was out of the picture.
He had figured out everything. Every-

thing, as it was to turn out, except human
nature and Marble.

Putting himself in the place of Goss,
Marble decided that the “dead” man
would be getting mighty impatient by
this time. Eighteen months had elapsed
by now. It was but reasonable to sup-
pose that Goss would be holding Udder-
zook responsible for the outcome of the
swindle, and that if the hoped-for money
was not forthcoming from the insurance
companies that Goss would be making
inquiries by mail.

Marble resorted to a disguise, since he
wanted to start shadowing Udderzook,
soa at very close range. He had his

air, which was brown, dyed black, he
shaved off his little mustache and he
got himself a pair of spectacles. He

hoped the dye on his hair wouldn’t poison 4

his scalp.

Udderzook impressed Marble as a man
with a great deal on his mind. As he
rode to his place of employment on the
street cars, as he worked in his garden,
where Marble observed him through
field glasses, the former art teacher ap-
pare suspiciously furtive and harassed.

arble checked up as best he could on

the man’s family life but did not find °

the answer there. He could only con-
clude that Goss was after him by mail.

One morning, when Marble was riding
on the same street car as Udderzook, the
suspect appeared more worried than
usual. Finally, he took a letter from
his pocket, a letter that had previously
been opened, and read it. He seemed to
grow angry. He tore the letter into small
pieces and dropped them on the floor
under his seat.

When Udderzook left the car, Marble
took his seat and gathered up the pieces
of the letter. When, later, he laboriously
pe the ere together in a hotel room,

e found this message:

“Bill:
I am getting sick and tired of living this
way. You better get that matter straight-
ened out one way or the other and pretty
damned quick. It was your idea and it is
ruining my life.
Wilson.”

It didn’t take a man of Marble’s ex-

perience long to suspect that the letter

had been written by Winfield Scott Goss. |

‘There was no return address on the let-
ter, and its point of origin, Philadelphia,
was a large city. The fact that Goss,
going under the name of Wilson, was in
Philadelphia was something definite to
work on.

Marble wanted to make doubly sure
that Wilson was Goss. He had many
samples of the Goss penmanship, dating
from the occasions when the “inventor”
had signed insurance applications. Hand-
writing experts assured him that Goss
had written the Wilson letter.

Marble went to the Quaker City to
hunt for Goss. He knew several things
about the man, enough, he hoped, to lead
him to the swindler’s whereabouts. He
knew Goss would be remembered for his
physical dimensions, his red nose and his
booming laugh. He knew he liked only
one kind of whiskey, bourbon, and that
he would as well have drunk water as
Scotch or rye. He knew that the man

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83


= Set mareye..

Nhe sso a8

The dawn was gray and misty, Even in © APN TE and’ nines Ey “Marshall, seizing |

Palatka, Fla., there was a mid-December _
chill in the air. The knot.of men around
the gallows shivered and waited. ‘

Two deputies led J. B. Brown,’a tall, -

gangling man, up the 13 gallow steps.

Silhouetted against the red, rising sun

they affixed leg straps, adjusted the bla

mask, slipped the loop over Brown's head,
“Have you anything to say?” asked:

Sheriff R. C. Howell, precisely. observing.
the formalities of the hanging, |
Beneath the hangman’s mask, Brown’

face was a conflict of twisting emotions— |

terror, frustration and despair. Some of ©
it was in his voice as he said, “Youah
hangin’ an innocent man.”

The sheriff shrugged, turned to another.
deputy. “Read the execution; warrant,
he said, aay

In a monotonous sing-song, the deput
began to-read the official document, “,
for the murder of Harry E. Wesson .',
on Oct. 17, 1901... it is hereby. sicegted

and decreed that... R..W. Matson : ah

be hanged by the neck... ."
“Wait a minute,” roared Sheri Howell

suddenly, “You're hangin’ the wrong man,

Matson was the foreman of the jury that .
convicted Brown. Read it right. We won't.
have any mistakes at this hanging,” |

fy

¢

¢)
%
AK
i

his hand, then at the sheriff in bewilder- -

ment. “But I did read it right, That! ry

what it says here. Look!” adie
detailed. Skeptical officials: Yeopened the -

Howell seized the paper ‘and ead i
_ swiftly. The: deputy was. right. ‘An. in
credible error “had been made. Some
court clerk, bored, hurried and careless
had inserted the wrong name. '

“I sure as hell can’t hang Matson,” the
baffled sheriff ‘muttered, “and 1 we
hang Brown on this warrant. ‘Tak Y

had a trade, that of a mechanic, He
knew Goss was using the name of Wilson.

It took time, but Marble was a patient
man. He was worried about a mysterious
pain that had developed in his right
shoulder, but he plugged on. After weeks
of canvassing establishments where, a
mechanic would be employed, Marble
found a machine shop in North Phila-
delphia where a big, loud, red-nosed man
named A. E, Wilson had been employed

84

odd error which’ sto opped Brown's hang.:

ings Jey.
The deputy looked at the paper in”

“upon the strange error, petitioned the.
Florida. _ governor for clemency, They”

pointed out that Brown had been con-
‘victed on ‘evidence that was both cir-

cumstantial ‘and, at times, conflicting.
“Wesson, a ‘railroad engineer, had been
found’ shot ‘to’ death 'and apparently —
robbed—although his killer missed $130.
in a hidden pocket. Near the body was.
a 38 calibre, revolver, » with | one yenelly
Areas the! murder. ‘Weapon,
». Many suspects were jailed. ‘and quizzed.
The case finally simmered down to Brown.
~although, he offered a’ ‘strong alibi and _
the gun “couldn't be‘ conclusively traced

to him. In time other suspects were re- :

leased and the case. against Brown pure”

“sued, He us Seah
a Circuit

and’ condemned.

“was imprisoned.: :
Eleven years later ter came an ‘anti-lima
‘stranger and more dncredible than th

johnson, ‘who"had been one _
of the: suspects ‘1 released after ‘Brown
conviction, admitted in a deathbed con:
fession that he alone had shot the rai

road engineer. His ‘confession

investigation, To: hel amazement, h
di no johnson

a “Hy full ar :
ae "ark Trammel, “

RFS 3rO\
ears late state. ‘appropriated '
ree ts of “wrongful

vin ean evi-

th

ate eoaieatiae an
dence, nubs

Won,
se

for almost a year, beginning right after
the date of the Maryland blast.

Wilson had lived at the Central Hotel.
When Marble went to the hotel, he
learned that he had missed Wilson by
almost three weeks. The man had
checked out without leaving a forward-
ing address. The registration book sup-
plied Marble with a sample of Wilson’s
handwriting. He had been Winfield
Scott Goss, all right. :

Marble talked with hotel attaches.
Somebody had heard Wilson saying he
was going to Chester County, outside of
Philadelphia. Chester was sprawling.
Marble didn’t want to waste weeks on
another hunt. So he returned to Balti-
more to see if he could pick up another
lead of some kind from Udderzook.

Udderzook had disappeared. Marble
circulated among the man’s acquaint-
ances. He learned that Udderzook had
left for his childhood home. The suspect's
childhood home was in Jeshanville, 8
map dot in Chester County, ennai
vania. Chester County, the last known
destination of Winfield Scott Goss!

Jennersville Inn was a huge, ugly
frame building. Marble registered un-
der the name of Phipps, and scanned
the register for the names of Udderzook
and Wilson. He found both. He inquired
as to whether the Messrs. Udderzook and
Wilson were still registered. The clerk
gave him a strange answer, ‘They were,”
he said, “until a few days ago. I don’t
know what happened to them.”

Marble craved the details. The two
men, he learned, had converged on Jen-
nersville Inn from different destinations.
For a couple of days Wilson had re-
mained in his room. Udderzook had seen
to it that his big, red-nosed friend did not
neglect his red nose; he had had Wilson
constantly supplied with bourbon.

On the third morning Wilson just
hadn’t been around. Udderzook had been
asked about his friend. He had replied
that Wilson had gone away suddenly in
the night, a remark, as it was to turn out,
bitterly true. Udderzook had promised
to pay his friend’s bill but had never
gotten around to it. For he, too, had
gone away leaving an empty suitcase in
his room and his bill unpaid.

Marble began to circulate around Jen-
nersville. People knew Udderzook, and
recalled what he had done. Among other
things he had hired a rig for a nocturnal
drive the night Wilson had disappeared.

Marble examined the rig Udderzook
had hired. He found dark, sticky stains
on the flooring. He didn’t need two
guesses to know what the stains were.

The body of Winfield Scott Goss,
frightfully stabbed~no doubt when he
had been so drunk he hadn’t known what
was happening—was found a week later
in a desolate neck of the woods outside
of Udderzook’s birthplace. Since this was
murder, the Pennsylvania authorities
stepped in and Marble stepped out.

Marble, you see, was no ldénger inter-
ested in the case. The fact that Udderzook

would be executed for the murder of
Goss, whose impatience at playing dead
in the absence of getting paid for it had
become a threat to Udderzook, was only
of academic concern to Marble. Even
Campbell Goss was forgotten, lucky guy.

What counted with Marble was that
his boss had been putting pressure on
him to establish the fact that Winfield
Scott Goss had not been the corpse in
the tenant house; that pressure was now
lifted. Marble had established proof of
fraud. Whether Goss was dead or alive
was beside the point. And, anyway,
Marble was anxious to get home, and to
bed. He felt sure he was coming down
with a summer cold.

Re

the
bach
Wds
his
the
wou
he «
(
pot
froy
had
me:

prir

ever
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dav |
pro!
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mer
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muc
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of S$!
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Cray
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look
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killir
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loud
land

P
had «
befor
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trial
of the
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didn't
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In
which
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Cam ps
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WAS ar

&


matic screw driver that Goss had shown
him to back up his claim that he was
an inventor when he and Udderzook had
applied for the tenant house. Marble
listened politely, then said: “I tinker
around the house a good deal over week-
ends when I’m not away from home on
a job like this. I have a screw driver
very similar to this, It’s been put out
just lately by a big manufacturing com-
pany.”

“You never knew this man Goss before
he came here with Udderzook in Decem.
ber?’ Marble asked Lowndes.

“Never.”

Goss, Lowndes said, had been an ec-
centricman. Even when he had not been
drinking, he had been given to peculiar
habits. He had been wont to sit outside
of the tenant house, in the most inclem-
ent weather, in shirt sleeves. He had
just sat and stared into the distances.
Lowndes, fascinated, had studied the
man through field glasses on such occa-
sions. He had at first thought that Goss,
while staring into space, had been a man
of great profundity. That he had sus-
pected that the staring was a reflection,
instead, of cranial vacuity.

“And what,” asked Marble, “did you
finally conclude?”

“I don’t know whether Goss was an
extremely brainy man or a somewhat
stupid one,’ said Lowndes.

“What about Udderzook?”

“Brilliant. Undeniably brilliant.”

“But to get back to Goss. In what
other ways was he eccentric, aside from
sitting in bad weather in his shirt
sleeves?”

Goss had always carried a bean bag
in his pocket, a bean bag of the type
that children played with. Upon en-
countering Lowndes, or some of the ser-
vants of Wyanoke, Goss had pulled the
bean bag from his pocket and suggested
a game of bean bag, hardly the behavior
of a normal adult.

“M-m-m. What else?” asked Marble.

When walking through the grounds of
the estate Goss had had the habit of
stopping short, looking at the sky, and
snapping his fingers at the heavens. An-
other of his peculiarities had been inter-
rupting a conversation with someone’ to
turn a handspring.

William E. Udderzook looked like a
timid man frightened to the point of
imminent collapse when Marble called
on him at the lumber mill where he was
employed. Udderzook was an unusual
man. At one time he had been an in-
structor of fine arts in a Baltimore night
school. He was an authority on the
masterpieces of painting and sculpture,
had done considerable sculpturing him-
self.

Udderzook had been associated with
Goss in experiments for about two years.
“Winfield was uneducated, but he had
the instincts of a great inventor,” Udder-
zook told Marble. ‘He would think of
a big idea and he depended on me to
check it for him to see whether it would
be scientifically possible. I warned him
repeatedly about mixing certain chemi-
cals, but he was so anxious to make a
name for himself in the field of science
that he consistently ignored my advice.”

“That piece of rubber that he gave

Lowndes,” said Marble, ‘he said was syn-
thetic. It’s not. It’s real.”

Udderzook’s mild little face grew sur-
prisingly hard. “So long as you have
come here to investigate the claim of
Winfield’s wife for the insurance Win-
field was thoughtful enough to take out
for her protection,” said Udderzook,
“you should investigate Lowndes thor-
oughly. If he showed you a piece of
rubber that is not synthetic he positively
did not show you the sample that Win-
field gave to him.”

“What would his motive be for lying
to me?” asked Marble.

“Look,” said Udderzook. “Winfield
drank too much. That was the only fail-
ing of an otherwise great man, Anybody
could talk him into anything when he
had been drinking. I think Lowndes
supplied him with liquor on occasions
when I was not on the grounds at Wyan-
oke so that he could get the secret of the
synthetic rubber from Winfield. As a
matter of fact, Lowndes was going to
put us out of the tenant house a month or
so ago because of the noise made by the
experiments. When Winfield gave him
a piece of synthetic rubber that changed
his mind.”

“This screw driver Goss invented,”
said Marble. ‘From the way Mr. Lowndes
describes it to me, it is very similar to
one already on the market.”

Again Udderzook’s face grew wintry.
“The one that’s on the market is not
only similar; it’s exactly the same,” he
said. “Why shouldn't it be? It’s the one
Winfield invented. The manufacturer
stole the idea from him.”

The insurance detective stopped to feel
his forehead, fearful that he had a fever,
and then, satisfied that he was all right.
brought up the subject of the Goss ec-
centricities. Udderzook smiled in fond
recollection. ‘We all joshed him about
the strange things he did,” he said, “Snap-
ping his fingers at the sky, playing bean-

ag, turning handsprings.”

“How long was he dging those things?”

“Ever since I’ve known him.”

Marble began to poke around Balti-
more quite openly. He seldom went to
any lengths in hiding his actions from
the principals in an investigation. He
had two reasons for this. He felt that
there was nothing that anybody could
do, including a suspect, to alter a fact
that he already had in his possession.
Secondly, it was his belief that if guilty
people knew they were being tracked
down, they often made an investigator’s
work easier by reacting in a revelatory
manner,

By the end of a week, Marble returned
to New York. He recommended that
the insurance companies not pay a nickel
to Mrs. Goss, This was why:

The corpse found in the ruins had
not, in his opinion, been that of Goss,
A big cadaver of the same general dimen-
sions as the corpse had been stolen from
Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore,
only two days before the blast. Marble
had learned that the teeth of the cadaver
had been in yery bad condition whereas
Winfield Scott Goss had been noted for
his strong, white teeth.

Somebody—Marble didn’t pretend to
know who—but somebody had _ been
mixed up with Winfield Scott Goss in

a plot to defraud the insurance com-
panies, Marble had gone to the furni-
ture store where the Gosses had bought
their household belongings and learned
that they had made fairly expensive pur-
chases after the insurances had been taken
out. Grocery store and meat market bills
of the household had been fairly high.
Mrs. Goss had dressed well and dressed
the children well. Added up, it meant
to Marble that considerably more than
six hundred dollars, which is all that Goss
would have had after paying for the in-
surance each year, would have been
needed to maintain his scale of living.
Somebody, therefore, must have helped
him pay the insurance premiums.

Marble had learned, through check-
ing the records of Baltimore drayage
companies, that the materials that had
been hauled to the little tenant house
had been manufactured for their inflam-
mable or explosive properties rather than
for their scientific content.

The insured man’s brother, Campbell
Goss, was a little man, The man whom
Lowndes had seen loitering on his prop-
erty had been a little man.

Campbell Goss owned a rig drawn by
horse. Such a rig, conveying two men,
had been observed going away from
Wyanoke at top speed, not long before
the blast but after William Udderzook
had left the grounds to go in to the gen-
eral store for a wick. Marble’s deduc-
tion was that Campbell Goss and_ his
brother Winfield Scott Goss had stolen
the cadaver, and that the cadaver had
been brought out to Wyanoke by Camp-
bell Goss, planted, and a time device set
to start the blast. Then the Goss brothers
had driven into Baltimore, from which
point the insured man had vanished.

The proprietor of the livery stable
where Campbell Goss kept his white
horse had told Marble that Goss had
come in with his rig the night of the
blast and that the horse had been sweat-
ing, apparently from a long, hard run,
A check of the time element—the time
the rig arrived at the livery stable, and
the time a rig of the same description
had been observed near Wyanoke—had
served to corroborate Marble’s suspicion
that Campbell Goss had driven to Balti-
more from Wyanoke.

Marble was by no means through with
his investigation, but his boss called him
off it. There was other work to be done,
other probes for Marble to be assigned to.
In the opinion of his boss he had learned
enough to warrant the holding up of
premium payments by the four insur-
ance companies. It wasn’t necessary to
find out, just yet anyway, where Winfield
Scott Goss was, or who had helped him
pay for the premiums. Marble’s boss

gured the company could prove the
corpse of the tenant house had not been
that of the policyholder, and that was
what counted. The next move was up
to the so-called widow.

A year passed. Mrs. Goss sued one of
the four companies for full payment of
the premium in what was designed to be
a test case to see if she could collect. The
insurance company that was the defend-
ant in the suit, Mutual, disinterred the
corpse from Baltimore Cemetery and
based its case on the fact that the corpse

had had
had stror
The i:
being o1
amount
fight was
which ha
against t
and Mar
This tim
Goss.
Marbl:
up wher:
before.
opportu:
eccentric
Intrigue:
to that p
with lea:
ances of
red nose
centric.

The

angle of
ous beca
bag p!
Obvious
been an
person \\
dle plot
idea, thi
be eccen
cke. Ec
ular cr
persona!
Who
Goss h:
Goss. Ca
principa
to Marb
subtle.
while pa
though.
only pe:
man to
eccentri<
Marb]
ments U
erstwhile
des of 1s
of the g
given to
that Lo:
stealing
rubber.
of Udder
des char
characte:
Udder
manufac:
idea for
compan\
ness, was
checked
that Wi
half a d
weeks b«
tenant h
half a cd
It was
zook was
plot. \
He had
sent fro:
blast sta:
in the pr
lieb Eng:
sour, Ud
He had


78 A DEMNITION BODY

After the cottage had been blazing furiously for
the greater part of an hour, and was nearly con-
sumed, Mr. Udderzook approached, and remarked:

“T think he is in the house.”

Much startled, the owner of the cottage turned to
the speaker, who was a stranger to him, and said:

“Who is in the house?”

Still in a portentous manner, Mr. Udderzook re-
plied:

“Mr. Goss.”

This name was familiar to Mr. Lowndes. A
number of months earlier he had been persuaded,
rather against his will, to let his cottage to a
Baltimorean named Winfield Scott Goss, said to
be an inventor. Mr. Goss had invented what he
called a ratchet screwdriver—and usually carried
one of them about with him. More especially,
however, he was engaged in trying to make an
artificial substitute for rubber; samples of this he
also carried in his pockets and showed to his friends.
They agreed, usually, that it looked very much
like rubber; in point of fact, they thought it was
rubber. Mr. Goss had taken the cottage as a
convenient place for his secret experiments, and
now Mr. Lowndes was both distressed and as-
tonished at the suggestion that the inventor had
perished in the fire. He asked about his in-
formant, and found that Mr. Udderzook and Mr.
Goss were brothers-in-law. He looked at the
building, still a mass of flames; the roof had caved

A DEMNITION BODY 79

in, the sides and chimney had fallen. It was mad-
ness to step inside the ruin.

“Ts it possible,” he exclaimed, “that you, know-
ing Mr. Goss was in there, have not given the
alarm beforeP”’

Mr. Udderzook replied that he had not wished
to give a false alarm; he had been looking for Mr.
Goss, and failing to find him, felt sure he must be
in the house, and must now be burned up. Con-
siderations of etiquette had also stayed his hand;
except for some friends named Engel, he was not
acquainted with anybody present, and hesitated
to obtrude his private griefs and anxieties upon
complete strangers. Only when somebody had
pointed out Mr. Lowndes as the owner of the
cottage had he taken the liberty of mentioning his
dread suspicions about Mr. Goss. The horrified
Lowndes answered in Johnsonian manner:

“Sir, you might have alarmed the whole neigh-
bourhood; we would rather have had a false
alarm than for a human being to be burned up
alive.”

_ At an investigation, later, when Mr. Udderzook
explained his diffidence in speaking to strangers, an
attorney burst out with the exclamation:

‘In the name of heaven, if a man is burning up,
do you have to be introduced before you will ask
for assistance in pulling out the burning man?”

The former teacher of fine arts replied, however,
with cold dignity:


74 A DEMNITION BODY

to be a former Brigadier General, but some un-
sympathetic letter-writer described him thus:

If the D. K. Boswell who swindled you is the Daniel K.
Boswell who in 1845-6 left his wife and children in Galena,
Illinois; went to Hannibal or Palmyra, Missouri; ran away
with old man Ross’s daughter; said he was married on a
steamboat; took a free negress from Indiana to Lexington,
Kentucky;sold her (after she had a child by him) toa Mr.
for a slave; was indicted but escaped (about 1848) to Mem-
phis, Tennessee; set up a picture gallery; made obscene pic-
tures; perjured himself in a deposition to blackmail a citizen
there; went to Holly Springs, Mississippi; in September,
1848, stopped some time at a hotel, where he said he was
robbed by a servant of $800; had the poor slave whipped
nearly to death before it was discovered that he had had no
money and had not been robbed; got into many difficulties
there; shot a man’s mules; committed perjury; ran away to
West Tennessee; “got religion”; joined the Campbellite
church; again got into difficulties, and disappeared, but
whither this biographer knows not—if this is your man, he is
the most unmitigated scoundrel unhung!

George Borrow might have admired that breath-
less description of the General. Borrow com-
plained of those who tried to embellish their tales
of crime “by philosophic speculations and _ re-
flections.” Such writers, said Borrow, “are anx-
ious to shine, and people who are anxious to shine
can never tell a plain story.” But this anonymous
biographer—Boswell’s Boswell—had a directness
which is nothing less than admirable. It may be
added that General Boswell, at a later date, said
that he fell off a steamboat into the Missouri

;
j
|
|
|

A DEMNITION BODY 75

River—an accident which did not prevent him from
taking part in a game of croquet, about three years
later, in the town of Galesburg, Illinois. He was
then known, however, as “Judge I. S. Howe.”

There were also the obscure circumstances sur-

_ rounding the death of Captain Colvocoresses, who,

in the streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was
either murdered by somebody armed with a large
and decrepit horse pistol, or else performed the
remarkable feat of committing suicide with that
weapon, and afterward throwing it across the
Street. There appears that alumnus of the Uni-
versity of Vermont with the Dickensian name of
Dr. Herman W. Mudgett, best known under his
alias of H. H. Holmes, who attracted the attention
of such a distinguished writer on criminology as
the late H. B. Irving. !
First place for determined character and eccen-
tricities might easily go to a lady named Walburga
Wackerle. This resolute matron was the wife of
a veteran of the Civil War, a citizen of Minnesota,
named William Wackerle. By the insistent urg-
ing of his wife, Mr. Wackerle was induced to insure
his life in her favour for $3,000 in the A2tna
Company of Hartford, and for $4,000 in the
Mutual Life of New York. Not once, but twice,

did Mr. Wackerle flee from his lady and take refuge

in California. The first time, she pursued, and
triumphantly brought him back: the second time
he had found a secret and secure refuge. These


OE PO OE LIE DIE LE GLI, EL Te, TRE OA

76 A DEMNITION BODY

flights, according to her account, were base and
unmanly desertions; in the opinion of some friends
of the Wackerles, who knew Walburga, the only
surprise was that the flight had been so long
delayed.

Ranging the country in pursuit, Walburga dis-
covered, near Shreveport, Louisiana, the grave of
a man whom she decided was her husband. Why
she came to this decision is not known, unless it
was for the reason that while Mr. Wackerle upon
the earth was merely an annoyance, under it, he
was valued at $7,000. As a matter of fact, it
was the grave of a Belgian, named Ettine. Fora
number of years Mrs. Walburga Wackerle’s law-
suits and pilgrimages up and down the land were a
matter of almost national interest. In St. Louis
she found a gallant jury, of the kind always willing
to vote money out of the treasury of a corporation
into the pocket of a tearful lady. Despite the
appearance in court of Mr. Wackerle himself, re-
turned a second time from California, they awarded
her a considerable sum for his death. The in-
cident of the second return in the flesh of her
husband from California was a matter of some
irritation but no dismay to her; the heroic Wal-
burga coldly stared at him, and intimated that he
lacked the finer feelings of a gentleman to intrude
at such a time. She lost one suit and was bitterly
denounced by the judge as a fraud, but after her
partial victory in the other case, she became

A DEMNITION BODY +5

quieter. Her husband returned once more to
California. He had established his identity among
his old neighbours, and somewhat pathetically he
remarked in a published statement that he had
always been William Wackerle, and would always
remain so, “even if the reputation of Walburga
Wackerle as a heroine should suffer thereby.” He
added that he was going again to his farm in
California, which he had acquired by dint of hard
labour, and there he proposed to live, until he
died for good and ever.

The charms of these supernumerary characters
have caused me to delay, perhaps too long, in
coming to the chief subject of this chapter. He
first appears among a small group of people stand-
ing around a burning cottage on the York Road,
four miles outside of Baltimore. The time was
the evening of February 2, 1872. The cottage
belonged to a gentleman of the highly respectable
Maryland name of Lowndes; and Mr. Lowndes
himself was an innocent bystander, watching the
destruction of his property. There was also
present a citizen of Baltimore, Mr. William E.
Udderzook, a smith and edge-tool maker, but
formerly “‘a teacher of fine arts.” This, it ap-
peared later, meant that before the Civil War he
had been engaged, in Pennsylvania, in giving in-
struction in penmanship, and in “‘fine painting in
oil.”


80 A DEMNITION BODY

“1 claim that I performed my duty in sending
a message to the family.”

When it was possible to look into the ruins
of the cottage, it became apparent that there were
grounds for Mr. Udderzook’s fears. The body
of a man, burned beyond recognition, was found by
a number of the spectators; they removed it with
difficulty, while Mr. Udderzook was much af-
fected and made sounds as of grief.

It soon appeared that the death of Mr. Goss was
no obscure tragedy; the struggling inventor had
taken precautions for the benefit of his widow, and
four years earlier had insured his life in the sum of
$5,000 with the Mutual Life Insurance Company
of New York. Some years later, and less than a
year before his lamentable death, he secured a
policy for the same amount in the Continental
Life Insurance Company of New York. After
that, the habit grew upon him, like drink, and in
the previous October he had taken out accident
insurance for $10,c00 with the Travelers Insurance
Company of Hartford. Still unwearied in well-
doing, he had, on January 26th, only a week before
the fatal accident, concluded an agreement with
the Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company of
New York, whereby, in the event of his death,
they were to pay to Eliza Waters Goss, his wife,
the sum of $5,000. These were not the days when
gentlemen took out one-hundred-thousand-dollar
life insurance policies as casually as some do it

A DEMNITION BODY 81

to-day; and the sum of $25,000, now apparently
due Mrs. Goss, attracted some attention, at least
among the insurance companies. .

They, the coroner, and the police all inquired
how Mr. Goss, an active man, thirty-seven years
old, should have been trapped in this house and
unable to escape. The explanations, so far as”
they could be so called, came from two authorities:
from Campbell Goss, brother of the deceased in-
ventor, and from Mr. Udderzook. The brothers,
it seemed, had been together at noon on February
ad, until Winfield Goss departed for his laboratory,
requesting Campbell to stay in the city and collect
some bills for him. This service Campbell per-
formed, and remained at his boarding house in the
evening. He first heard of his brother’s mis-
fortune the next day.

Mr. Udderzook had accompanied Winfield Goss
to the cottage on the York Road, for the purpose of
inspecting the results of the experiments. With a
gallon of kerosene, and a bottle of whisky which
they bought on the way, and an ax which they
borrowed at the home of the Engels, near by, they
put in the whole afternoon in the cottage. Ex-
actly how they occupied or amused themselves does
not appear: there was, of course, the bottle of
whisky, while Mr. Udderzook could look at the
samples of artificial rubber, and perhaps seek di-
version with the newly invented ratchet screw-
driver. At dusk, Mr. Goss filled a coal-oil lamp,


agian sch gne EB
SRR a” Seat
‘ ye 2 ee

2a
vk fee

9 Soar ae
o ‘t

THE WILKES-BARRE RECORD, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER + 1929"

POLICE DECLARE TAWZA |
"ADMITS KILLING OFFICER

|

ener

| Pe

Three Other Arrests M
: But Names Are
Withheld: —

found at

When first confronted

of the assistant chief were
Luzerne after the shooting.
with the

shoes Tawza denied they were his

but later

admitted ownership, ac-

cording to police.

With

boarder on
confessed to the

of Luzerne, when the
attempted to capture

~ Jing of September 24,
detectives -and

revit . feeunty
authorities were hard

this morning in-

; ;
we ‘i. 3 ,
‘t ip OS.

*t eh ces 7

‘
it

“thet

eos,

%
{

}

%

é

a= |Jeast one other murd
4=.,\tempted murder as Fr
> jj arrest.
3 Luzerne and
jj arrest
divulged.

tant to discuss possible

}
‘ announcement
afternoon that Frank Tawza, 48, ®
West Union street had

esult of Tawza’s
At least forty burglaries in
Lackawanna counties
are said to have been solved through
of Tawza and
men whose names have not -been

yesterday

‘of. Thomas

- =. [Krokoskey, assistant chief of police

With so much

admitted by
fident that
ant chief bu

said to have been
Tawza police were con-

Tawza killed the assist-

t it is said that it was

not until yesterday at noon that he
confessed that he fired the shot,
argue as glint eerie Serer

assistant chief FE -

er arid an at-

three other

at work early
an-—effort-to solve-at

but declared that Tawza had finall
admitted firing the shot which took E-
the life of assistant Chief Krokoskey.

developments

Three men,

who are said to have

Lie ues . }|been with Tawze on various robber- | -
Pee ath, be connected }---

"lies and may possibly
custody yesterday.
men are
the third

Scranton early
It is said that

was

with other cases were

taken into
of one

rom Luzerne county 4
n

yesterday morning.
at least one or two):
other men must be apprehended but

on morn-f
State police, }.
other

er.

Late last night police were reluc- Sete

ase
+4... - -

police authorities refused to discuss : naeracete™ ta

Soper drpie HN
: oe at
i
{

this

possibilit

and declared that it

will probably

etwenty-four or forty-f— >

eight hours before eir investiga-
tion is completed and the defendants |
will be ready for arraignment.

From time of his-errest on Friday |
| night as he was entering a Scranton Ss a
\ physician's office for treatment for

*| gun shot wounds .in shoulder
and neck until yesterday Tawza
_ | steadfastly denied’ the murder of :

Krokoskey. On Saturday it is said
he admitted being at the scene of the

fatal shooting and ¢
several homes in

hat he robbed
Lusgerne prior to

the

shooting.

He told. of being

chased and

ant chief of

to have been 8

patrolman and
pressed the op

one of the other
to Tawza's arrest t

shot by a Luzerne|~
is said to have ex-
inion that the assist-
Luzerne was shot by
trolmen. Prior
is theory is said

hattered as it is said

it was proved. that Luzerne patrol-
men carried revolvers of larger
calibre than the bullet
J which killed the assistant chief.
A pair of shoes which ‘had been.
diresvint aitb«~. hefore or after th
at

-

ee ee oes we


I eet na

v

JIR,,

Infantry.
“R. C

Sask Artit
KER, Coast Artil.

WN, Signal Cotpa,
*Fielg Artillery.
Field Artillery,.

“D, Field Artil.

4 Artillary,
N, Coast Arti. ;
ER, In

YAN,

}

: IEFANG, Fieig
NER, Field arty. | i

RE8T Jr., Cav.
ICH, Fieia Arti. |

burgler ha
‘XWELL, Coane "Obber's di

een alte

t
Infantry Puntona, wt
Field Attillery, ;°¢

cranton, wh
 Pelve trentmen
Conat Artillery in ¢

ere

he ner, A
4 IR, Infantry, on hig fe ( and fo
* awza hag admitt
Coast Artillery Ps ‘aceng. o 4
ET 'R. Infantry. having shot

Infantry,

ee Weta ,

EY, Infantry, thle weed On

ey SRN lta pe

Dgguensseee—eror —_

or Thomas
1 chiles of police of Luzerne, on Tues-|:

With Slaying
City Aiithortsice, Say "Sue
pect Admitted Discarding

CHECKING UP STORY

Alleged Companion in Hold-
up and Two Reported

Following reported admissions
that the suspect had discdrded his
shoes while robbing. severa) homes
in Kingston and wardsville, city

lice last night were qu
alter Commiskey, aged 19, no
addrass, regarding the fatal shoot-
koski, assistant

= | ""Commiskey, police say, signed a
_ ‘| statement eAimitting parvicipation in

"| Police say
“| yobbing several

day morning by a “barefoot” bandit
wit had rotbek three homes in that
municipality.

a number of robberies and holdups.
the prisoner admitted
li lest ope crema
ts after lea s shoes
tres h Te homes robbed

| assistant
wounded by a_ burglar
discarded his shoes bef

three homes. ;
of four men

The suspect is one
arrested by city policemen yesterday
‘after John tni, 14 Bycamore

hase

Nowatni
atreet. ranorted t

r

(aioe Ae
ott 55 aS Hee 5 i

tT
TF

Police Seeking:
| To Link Youth -

Shoes: During Burglaries '

Witnesses Also Are, Held z aot

who had].
ore eritering | é&

Police Seeking
To Link Youth

(Qontinued from Page 15)

25, of North Washington street, and,
John McDermott, 21, of Larksville, |.
who were arrested in northern part
of the city early yesterday morning |...
are being held by the Fone: Police he
these men witnessed the holdup. [
Comm iskey Was arrested in Laurel
Line station yesterday morni at
& by Detective Burke and Molnar |.
wes arrested at his home yesterday |=.
afternoon. Police say ‘that Com-
miskay, in presence of Molnar, dic-
tated: a atatement that he met Mol-
nar on North Washington street
early, yesterday morning and that
they walked to Linden street, where
they saw & man leaning against a
pole. This man, according to the
atatem was Nowatni. z
Police. say that in the statement |’
wn cogs Agee aa he-grabbed the
_by the coat collar and that Be .-.
Molnar went through the
kets; taking $5.20. Polloe say
t after the robbery the two men”
went to a field in Brookside where: .
they eaunted the money, that them:
money. was changed in a nearby Z: .
storé and that Commiskey told them ,2°
that he received $2.60 as his share.
ey then said that he and&
Molnar separated that he came tor”
central eity: and had something to,’.
eat and’ was arrested at Laurel Line «

station. .
Commiskey, police say, admitted >
robbing tbe store and home of John *
Kormos, North Washington)
street, on the night of September 38.
The. prisoner is said by police to
ners removed a screen from an open wu...
window and entered first floor where
he took $12 from the cash register,
later’/going upstairs wh.re Mr. Kor-,
mos was aleeping and removing the
latter’s trousers. Mr. Kormos told
the stolen -trousers had)
aingd $89. Commiskey told police
that he enlisted in the army prior
to ving 1928 and that he de-
86 t ter of this year.
County Detective Pattison, several
State troopers and members of Lu-
zerne polfce department talked to
Commiskey in police headquarters.
Only a meagre description of the
man who shot Assistant Chief Kro-
koski was obtained. Commiskey and
Molnar bably will be arraigned
and h in bail today while police
continue to question ommiskey.

SF Fe

~—

man’s pemio= °c


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8. P. Frantz |"~
f he late ho
day afternoon at 2 O'slock

of Mrs,
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ae tek a Fee Tae eS “pam raiges ak be held from home of her son, Dr.
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a

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The funeral of Esra ‘Walter Balliet
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spe 4/ Boon at 1 re ati ie '
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666 ras 118 ATLANTIC REPORTER . , See erat (Ma.

tion urged in support of the demurrer. See,
also, subsections 32, 33, 36, 37, § 24, art. 75
of the Code,

The evidence shows that the defendant
constructed two catch-basing on Newton
strect, one at the intersection of Smith street
and the other at the intersection of Locust
street. These basins were about 1 foot 9
inches wide, about 2% feet long, and 8 or
4 feet deep, and were built of brick, with
cement bottoms, and covered by a cast-iron
grate, between the bars of which there was a
space of 144 inches. The basins were con-
nected with the sewer by an 8-inch pipe, lo-
cated about 2 feet above the bottom of the
basin, and the witness who constructed them
testified that the bottoms of the basins were
made lower than the pipe leading to the sew-
er in order to catch the “mud, leaves, and
trash” that wash through the grate. The
plaintiff also offered evidence tending to show
that in May, 1920, the sewer pipe on Newton
street became so choked or clogged that
the sewage from the houses connected with
it would not flow or pass through the sewer;
that in consequence thereof the sewer had
to be opened, and about 120 feet of the sewer
pipe had to be taken up and replaced, at a
cost to the plaintiff of $333.59; and that the
choking and clogging of said sewer AVaS
caused by mud, leaves, sticks, and pieces of
bark and boards that had passed through the
grate on the catch-basins on Newton street
and through the pipe connecting the basins
with the sewer into the sewer pipe. On
the other hand, the defendant offered eyl-
dence for the purpose. of showing that the
closing of the Newton street sewer uct the
time mentioned was due to roots that had
clogged the mouth of the sewer on Camden
avenue, :

{§] With the amended declaration the
plaintiff! filed as a bill of particulars the
itemized and receipted bill of the plumber
for repairing the Sewer, amounting to $333.-
59, which was shown to be correct and rea-
sonable, and at the conclusion of the testi-
mony the court below granted the only prayer
offered by the plaintiff, which instructed the
jury that—

If they found for the plaintiff “in assessing
damages they should allow the plaintiff the rea-
sonable cost of repairing the damige to the
portion of the plaintiff's said Newton Street
sewer mentioned in the declaration,”

The only objection made to this prayer is
that there were two theories of the plaintiff's
case, and that the jury might have found
that the city entered the plaintiff's sewer
without authority, but that the damage to
the sewer was caused’ by the plaintiff's own
negligence, and not by the negligence of
the defendant, in which event the plaintiff
would have been entitled to nominal dam-
ages only. In neither count of the declara-

cover for the mere entry into the sewer, but
in both counts it claimed substantial damages.
for the injury caused by turning the surface
water and débris on Newton street through.
the catch-basins mentioned into its sewer, and
there was no prayer directing a verdict for
the plaintiff if the jury found that the de
fendant “entered” the Sewer. That the de-
fendant constructed the catch-basins in ques-
tion and’ connected them with the sewer was
not disputed, nor wags the amount of the
damages the plaintiff sustained questioned,
and the only questions the jury determined
were whether the catch-basins were con-
structed with the consent of the plaintiff,
and whether the clogging of the sewer was
caused by the defendant’s negligence, or was
due in whole or in part to the negligence of
the plaintiff. The verdict of the jury was for
the amount the plaintiff paid for replacing
the sewer, and they could not, under the cir-
cumstances have been misled by the prayer.
[6,7] The defendant's first prayer, which
was rejected by the court below, sought to
withdraw the case from the jury, and in:
support of it the appellant insists that, not-

withstanding the evidence produced by the
plaintiff tended to show that the clogging of
the sewer was eaused by the débris that en-

tered it through the catch-basins, the evi-

dence produced by the defendant “clearly

shows” that the stoppage was primartly

caused by the growth of roots which the

Plaintiff had allowed to collect in the sewer,

imd that the ease, therefore, comes within

the ruling in Harford County v. Wise, 75

Md. 38, 23 Atk 65, where the court held,

quoting from. the opinion:

“Where the evidence of the plaintiff is even-
ly balaneed as to whether the cause for which
the defendant ig responsible, or the cause for
Which he is not responsible, produced the in-
jury, the jury would have no right to disre-
gerd arbitrarily the proof which exculpated,
and to credit only that which inculpated
wR ha .

The manifest answer to this contention of
the appellant is that the principle invoked can
only apply where such evidence as the court
referred to is the evidence of the plaintiff,
upon whom is cast the burden of showing that
the defendant is responsible for the injury
complained of. Where the evidence produced
hy the plaintiff is suflicient to fasten respon-
sibility for the injury upon the defendant,
any conflict between it and the evidence pro-
duced by the defendant is a matter for the
jury, and it is for the jury to say which they
will accept.

{8} The defendant's second prayer asked
the court below to instruct the jury that if
they found from the evidence that the catch-
basins on Newton street were’ constructed
and connected with the sewer “by the di-
rection” and with the permission of the
plaintiff, and that the defendant had used

tion, however, did the plaintifY seek to re-

ordinary care in constructing and maintain-

Pa.) COMMONWEALTH v. THOMAS 667
(118 A.)

ing the same, their verdict should be for the} prosecution that thé woman’s husband was ab-

defendant, and was properly rejected because
there was no evidence to show that the

sent from his home on the day of the murder,
was clearly competent.

basins were constructed “by the direction” | 2, Criminal law @=>841—Request for correction

of the plaintiff. The exception to the modifi-
cations of defendant’s third and fourth pray-
ers was abandoned in this court. ;
{98-11] We have carefully examined the
eight exceptions to the rulings of the court
on the evidence. The first was to the ad-
mission in evidence of av piece of bark taken
out of the end of ,the Newton street sewer
on Camden avenue, and was objected to on
the ground that the part of the. sewer al-
leged to have been clogged was towards the
other end of the sewer. The mouth of the
sewer was at Camden avenue, and the piece
of bark could only have gotten into the sewer
through one of the catch-basins above, and
there was also evidence tending to show that
when -a sewer is choked at any point the
sewage is forced back and tends to clog the
sewer at the upper end. The second excep-
tion was to the admission in evidence of a
picce of board which the witness stated had
passed through the grate of the catch-basin
at the corner of Smith and Newton streets,
and was taken from the pipe connecting the
basin with the sewer at the time of the
injury complained of. The third and fourth
exceptions were to the refusal of the court
to permit a witness, who found some roots
in the sewer more than a year after the in-
jury complained of, to say how long it would
“take a growth of that kind to collect in the
sewer,” or to state how often a sewer should
“be subjected to a thorough flushing and
cleaning in order to Keep it in the highest
state of efficiency.” There was no evidence
to show that the witness was qualified tq an-
swer the first question (Rittenhouse W. Auto.
Co. vy. Kissner, 129 Md. 102, 98 Atl. 361), and
what is necessary to keep a sewer in““the
highest state of efficiency” was not a material
inquiry in this case. The evidence objected
to in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth ex-
ceptions was clearly admissible in rebuttal
of defendant’s evidence.
Finding no error in any of the rulings of
the court below, the judgment will be af-

firmed.
Judgment affirmed, with costs,

=—s

COMMONWEALTH v. THOMAS.

{Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. June 24,
1922.)

{. Homicide @=>169(1)—Evidence husband of
deceased was not home on day of killing is
admissible.

In a prosecution for the murder of a wo-
man, where there was only circumstantial evi-
dence as to the killing and the connection of

defendant therewith, evidence on behalf of the

or amplification of instructions held neces:
sary, when deemed insufficient.
‘~A complaint of the charge as a whole and

of particular portions thereof, on the ground of.
inaccuracy or insufficiency, is too late, where
no request was made at the conclusion of the
instructions for corrections or amplification,
though opportunity for such request was given
by the court. | : : ti

3. Criminal law €=>778(11)—Charge on flight.

held correct.
A charge that, when a crime has been com-

mitted and the person accused thereof knows
that he is accused and flees or conceals him-
self, such conduct is evidence of guilt, and, in
connection with other proof, may be the basis
from which guilt may be inferred, correctly,
states the law.

4. Criminal law €=>787(1)—Reference to de-«

fendant’s failure to testify is not error, un-
less it is “adverse.”
Under section 10 of the general evidence

act of May 23, 1887 (P. L. 158; Pa. St. 1920,
§ 21864), a mere reference to the failure of
accused to testify is not error as it was under
prior statutes, but it is error only if the ref-
erence is adverse; that is, it must go farther
than a mere statement that the evidence for
the commonwealth is uncontradicted, and must
indicate a duty of the defendant to testify or
permit an unfavorable inference to be drawn
from his failure to do so.

[Iid. Note.—For other definitions, see Words

and Phrases, First and Second Series, Adverse.]
5. Criminal law @=>787(2)—Charge with ref-

erence to defendant's failure to testify held
not adverse,
A charge that defendant’s failure to testify

is not to be considered against him, because. it
often occurs that defendants and their counsel
are not convinced that the commonwealth has
produced sufficient evidence to warrant a con-
viction, so that it is prespmed in the case at
bar that that reason prevails; but, irrespective
of that, it is nevertheless a question for the
jury, because neither the counsel nor the court
have anything to do with determining the facts,
was not an adverse reference to the failure of
accused to testify, the last clause clearly leaving
it to the jury only to determine whether the

evidence was sufficient to sustain a conviction
and not to determine whether an unfavorable
inference could be drawn from the failure of
accused to testify.

Appeal from Court of Oyer and Terminer,
Allegheny County; Stephen Stone, Judge.
Joseph Thomas was convicted of murder
in the first degree, and he appeals. Affirmed.
Argued before MOSCHZISKER, C. J., and
FRAZER, WALLING, SIMPSON, KEP-
HART, SADLER, and SCHAFFER, JJ. :
George H. White, Jr., of Pittsburgh, for
appellant, :

@=>For other cases sce same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes

*. 226I-Ti-cT (AueysaT{y) etueat{suueg peqnooaqoete Sypetq Sudesop ‘gyyonz


te eo
i -s
—s.

=~ +
———

ene eee ee ee

eaeete oo

668 ; 118 ATLANTIC REPORTER (Pa,

Harry H. Rowand, of Pittsburgh, for the
Commonwealth.

SADLER, J. Anna M. Kirker resided with
her husband and daughter in a house some-
what removed from other dwellings, in Al-
legheny county. On December 16, 1920, she
was alone and last seen alive about 10:30
in the morning, and at 4 in the afternoon
her dead body was discovered in the liv-
ing room by the returning daughter. Death
had resulted from a gunshot wound, and in-
vestigation showed a number of articles had
been removed from the home, including a
gold watch, a manicure set, and an overcoat
of Mr. Kirker. Footprints in the snow show-
ed the route followed by some one who had
left the dwelling, and these were tracked by
a roundabout course to a public highway.
On this path were found, concealed at dif-
ferent points, an overcoat torn into two parts,
subsayuently identified as having been worn
on that day by defendant, and also the man-
icure set which had been taken,

Tater Thomas was arrested on another
charge, and the inquiry which followed dis-
closed facts connecting him with the Kir-
ker murder. In his room were found copies
of newspapers describing the occurrence,
and in his trunk, the watch of deceased, and
the overcoat of her husband. He was arrest-
ed for the crime, but escaped, and was not
apprehended until the following July in Bal-
timore. At his trial, the commonwealth
proved the facts above narrated, as well as
other important eircumstances indicating
guilt. Ilis presence near the Kirker house
during the period when the murder was com-
mitted was testified to by several witnesses,
who were positive in their identification. At
that time, he was wearing the gray overcoat
subsequently found concealed in the under-
brush, as stated above. The defendant did
not testify, and no evidence was offered on
his behalf. The jury returned a verdict of
guilty of murder of the first degree, and,

from the sentence subsequently imposed, this
appeal is taken,

{1,2] But one complaint as to the admission
of evidence appears, assignment 9, and this is
based on the permission given to the conmon-
wealth to prove that the husband of the de
ceased was not at home on the day of the mur-
der. This objection is so clearly unfounded
that no discussion is required. The remaining
errors are directed to the charge of the court,
to which a general exception was taken. No.
1 complains of it as a whole, and the par-
ticular parts thereof alleged to have been
prejudicial are separately assigned. The
third, fourth, fifth, and eighth aver error in
the statement of facts, either on the ground

ness this opportunity was given by the court.
It is too late now to complain for such rea-
sons. Com. v. Washington, 202 Pa. 148, 51
Atl. 759; Com. v. Webb, 252 Pa. 187, 97 Atl.
189; Com. v. Russogulo, 263 Pa. 93, 106 Atl.
180; Com. v. Varano, 258 Pa. 442, 102 Atl
131.

It is insisted in assignment 2 that the de-
fendant was harmed by the instructions as
to the effect to be given circumstantial evi-
dence. Comparison shows the language used
"is practically that of Chief Justice Gibson
in charging the jury in Com: y. Harman, 4
Pa. 269, 272. The thoughts there expressed
have found approval in later cases (Com. v.
Du Boise, 269 Pa. 169, 112 Atl. 461; Com. v.
KXovovic, 209 Pa. 465, 58 Atl. 857), and no rea-
son has been pointed out which would lead
us to reach a different conclusion.

[3] The court, in discussing the effect of
the flight of defendant, said:

“When a crime has been committed, and the
person accused thereof knows he is accused, and
then flees or conceals himself, such conduct is
evidence of consciousness of guilt, and in con-
nection with other proof may be the basis from
which guilt may be inferred.”

The same words have previously been used
in trials for homicide, and held to correctly
state the law. Com. v. Boschino, 176 Pa. 103,
34 Atl. 964.- There is no merit in the sixth
assignment.

Again, it is argued legal error was com-
mitted by the reference made to the failure
of defendant to testify. For a clear under-
standing, we quote from the charge:

“The defendant was returned from Baltimore
to the city of Pittsburgh on July 22d last, and
has been here from that time to the present.
The defendant has not seen fit to produce any
evidence in answer to the charge of the com-
monwealth and in answer to the evidence pro-
duced by the commonwealth. It is the law, and
I so charge you, that the fact that the defend-
ant does not go on the stand, or does not pro-
duce any evidence in his own behalf, is not to
be taken and considered as any evidence of
guilt, or to be taken and considered as any-
thing against him whatsoever. For it some-
times and often does occur that defendants
and their counsel are not convinced that the
commonwealth has produced suflicient evidence
which, even if believed, would be sufficient to
warrant a conviction. So therefore it is pre-
suped in this case that that reason prevails,
but irrespective of that it is nevertheless a mat-
ter and a question for you to determine, be-
cause neither the counsel for the common-
wealth, the district attorney, nor counsel for
defendant, nor the court have anything to do
with the determining of the facts of a case;
that is what the jury is for, and that is their
province.”

[4] Prior to 1872 (Act April 8, 1872 (P. L.

of inaccuracy ‘dr insufficiency. At the con-|84]), a defendant could not testify in a crim-
clusion of the instructions, no request for|inal case, though the offense rose no higher
corrections or amplification was made by de-| than a misdemeanor. In 1877, March 24 (P.

fendant, though in a proper spirit of fair-|L. 45), the right to be heard was given in

Sere eee"

Pa.) : COMMONWEALTH v. THOMAS 669

(118
case of trial for felonies where the court
of oyer and terminer had not exclusive ju-
risdiction, and later, June 11, 1879 (P. L.
149), a like permission was granted where
the indictment charged larceny and receiv-
ing stolen goods. On March 21, 1885 (P.
L. 23), this privilege was extended to all
cases, but “his or her neglect, omission,
or refusal to testify shall not create any
presumption against him or her, nor shall
any reference be made to, nor shall any com-
ment be made upon, such neglect, omission,
or refusal, by counsel.” When the general
evidence act of-1887 (May 23, 1887 [P. L.
158, sec. 10; Pa. St. 1920, § 21S864]) was pass-
ed the earlier statutes mentioned were re-
pealed, and an important modification of this
direction was made. It was then provided,
and the act is now in force: :

“Nor. may the neglect or refusal of the de-
fendant, actually on trial in a criminal court,
to offer himself as a witness be treated as cre-
ating any presumption against him, or be ad-
versely referred to by court’ or counsel during
the trial.”

It is to be noted that no longer does the
mere mention of the defendant’s failure to
take advantage of his right to be heard con-
stitute error (Com. v. Brown, 16 Wkly. Notes
Cas. 557), but to justify reversal the refer-
ence thereto must be “adverse.”

[5] So, a statement that the evidence of
the commonwealth is uncontradicted is harm-
less. Com. y. Chickerella, 251 Pa. 160, 96 Atl.
129; Com. v. Martin, 34 Pa. Super. Ct. 451;
Com. v. Rizzo, 78 Pa. Super. Ct. 163. To
constitute error, the remark must go fur-
ther, indicating a duty of the defendant to
testify, and permitting an unfavorable infer-
ence to be drawn from his failure to do so.
Com. v. Green, 233 Pa: 291, 82 Atl. 250;
Com. v. Foley, 24 Pa. Super. Ct. 414. It
must therefore be determined whether the
statement of the court, here complained of,
can be fairly said to be “adverse” to defend-
ant. It will be noted first, the court instruct-
ed that no presumption could arise from the
fact that defendant did not take the stand,
and his failure to do so must not be consider-
ed as any evidence of guilt. This was fol-

A.)

‘be no doubt the instruction to this point
was not prejudicial, but made the jury un-
derstand that he was merely exercising his
legal right, from which no harmful deduc-
tion could be made. The only difficulty—and
an examination fully explains what at first
raises doubt—is the last sentence of the por-
tion of the charge assigned. After stating
the reason why no prejudice attaches from
the failure to give evidence, in that defend-
ant or his counsel may be convinced no suf-
ficient evidence to convict has been produced,
the court stated parenthetically, “so there-
fore it is presumed that that reason pre-
vails—” and then returning to the thought as
to the belief of defendant and his counsel
of the insufficiency of the evidence to con-
vict, says that is a question for the jury to
determine, because counsel do not determine
the facts. That this is what the jury must
have understood is made evident by look-
ing at the whole paragraph. If that had not
been the meaning intended to be conveyed,
the statement that it is not for counsel to
pass on the facts would be without purpose.
Ifad the stenographer, in transcribing, placed
a dash between the words “conviction” and
“so,” as was done after the word “prevails,”
no question could have arisen. As printed,
it is argued this might possibly be construed
into a direction that the jury could find, as
a matter of fact, the reason for not testify-
ing was not a legal one, and, as a result,
consider the failure as an evidence of guilt.
We are convinced the jury could not have
been so misled, in view of the statements
which precede, and it cannot be fairly said
the court made “adverse comment,” or com-
mitted error. ‘

The remaining assignments complain of the
refusal of a new trial, and the passing of sen-
tence. An examination of the record con-
vineces there was suflicient competent evi-
dence to justify the conviction of murder of
the first degree. The case was fairly and
correctly tried, and there appears to be noth-
ing of which defendant has any just reason
to complain.

The judgment of the court below is affirm-
ed, and it is ordered that the record be re-
mitted for the purpose of execution.

lowed by the reason for the rule. There can

ay en acre aemsmie a pn? Be oe 8

TSR soba
catia aaamaiooratar


little town of Conemaugh,
mre 80 miles to the east,
the Bryants and the police

1 six hours after she dis-
ur of Halloween “trick or
‘as found slain, her body
cemetery, overlooking the

-k of a sex maniac who,
, had molested her.

e been waylaid by a sex
‘re in the tangled woods on
on a broad sweep of rail-
‘el mill on the bank of the

found himSelf wondering,
Mauk had been the victims
rvert?

ore down on the Aliquippa
making further search on
n Saturday morning, their
.e railyards and mills, the
v by Chief Zvonar himself.
the slope, leaving no yard
ore noon, as the line of
, a shout brought the men
off the narrow path.

, Regan Yarnell and A. J.
ood above a shallow grave.

. No one nurtured a shred -

the depression, her straw-
2d with blood from an ugly
were slashed and a long
y missed the jugular vein.
down from her shoulders,
her arms helplessly against
bra were undisturbed, but
her waist and her panties

rod in a faded pink sock.
‘ere nearby, together with
n pen, The other shoe was

POLICE DRAGNET CASES

found in the brush ‘about ten yards away.

A cousin of Helen Jean stared unbelievingly at the dead
girl,

“There’s something damn queer about this,” he said to the
chief and the circle of men. “I came by here Wednesday,
right within a couple of feet of this very spot. Funny I
‘didn’t find her then.” ;

Zvanor squatted by the grave. “I’ll tell! you why,” he said.
“The guy who killed her didn’t have the time, or maybe the
tools, to dig a real grave. He scooped out this hole, put her
in it, then covered. her with dirt and leaves. We probably
wouldn’t have found her today if it’ hadn’t been the rain
washed the dirt away and the wind blew the leaves off the
grave.” , ue?

Dr. Ralph M. Weaver, ‘pathologist at the Butler County
Memorial Hospital, performed an autopsy and reported death
from a skull fracture.

“She was struck down with a blunt weapon,” Dr. Weaver

said. “Probably with one of the stones right there on the
hillside. The knife wounds were inflicted later, ‘There are
marks to indicate an‘effort also was made to strangle the girl.”

Dr. Weaver added that Helen Jean had not been. raped,
although the condition of her clothing pointed clearly to an
attempted sexual assault as the motive for the crime.

“But who,” lieutenant Hildebrand wondered, “would have
been lurking up on that hill at 8:15 Monday morning, waiting
for the girl to come along the path?”

Helen. Jean’s sister, Dolores, offered one possible .answer.

\State Police Sergeant John A.
Krzton and Chief Matthew Zvonar
brought case to a rapid finish.

The two girls, she revealed, had been afraid to use the wood-
land. path, The reason for this fear, Dolores admitted, was
somewhat vague, but—_ *

“There was that fellow, living down the hill,” the girl re-
lated. “He used to come out and‘stand by the path and shake
his finger at us: We always ran down the path to catch the
bus to school.”

The Bryants’ nearest—and almost only—neighbors were
Elijah Thompson, a 62-year-old railroad brakeman, and _ his
four sons, who lived some 400 yards down the slope.

“I know one of the. boys,” Hildebrand said. “Just got out
of the federal reformatory, over in Chilicothe, Ohio, a few
weeks ago. Did a bit for auto theft.”

“Which doesn’t necessarily qualify him as a killer,” Chief

Zvanor said. “But we'll talk with the Thompsons, We sure
enough will.”

BEFORE visiting the family down the hill, Zvanor heard the
report of the men to whom he had assigned the task of
searching the ground around the grave for any clues..

They came up with but one item of possible interest, the five-
inch blade of a’common kitchen paring knife, found thrust
into the earth several yards from: the shallow grave.

“Without a handle,” the police chief observed, “the blade
of a knife wouldn’t make: a likely weapon, would it? But
hang onto it, boys. You never can tell.”

Chief County Detective M. D. Hoyman and Sergeant
John Krzton of the Pennsylvania State Police joined the local
officers as they made their way to the Thompson home.

Although their father and one brother, Elijah Jr., were

, absent, three of the Thompsons were at home when the officers

arrived,

They readily admitted having known Helen Jean Bryant, by
sight only, as the result of her having daily passed up and
down the wooded trail.

All three, however, immediately and emphatically denied
all knowledge of her death. Two had (Continued on page 59)

Many times before she had walked
the path of death, Many times be-
fore the killer had watched her.

23


fith has since been-sery-

Walla Walla. ;
ive never had to take
oubles_such as plague
ities, Since the city was
Negroes and Orientals
‘ect accord, their chil-
> same public schools,
2partment is proud that
tarted the nation’s first
system, a third of a
child has been killed
school for more than

:ncy in Seattle is on
1953, minors were in-
enses in the city, and
2xpected to be higher.
of Seattle juveniles
burglary, larceny, and
men and women police
ito each case and, when
the youngster back on
nstead of sending him
thool. ay een ;
gangs plague ttle,
has harbored criminal
ts, muggers, or thrill
is not a popular pose
ze group in the North-

ist flagrant crimes by
m gangs of runaway
her parts of the na-
ig through Seattle.
John Elliott stop
‘ainier Avenue on Oc-
patrolman spotted the
‘ation certificate,
of 17 and 18 to
held three auto-
uc and a sawed-off
2sed a series of bur-
hold-ups from San
. They also directed
: of their gang leader,
he girl who was trav-

reat Falls, Montana,
1 San Francisco, and
<ton, California. The
series of charges in
s to a Seattle traffic
ped a crime wave in
sly would have been

¢ the men who make

‘osper, handsome and
was one of the most
Te built a new home
for his pretty young
7osper was a friend
of this writer, who
ry Vosper and watch-
) from the day the

in next week,” he

Two evenings later,
is driving home, off
cadio, he heard a call
barricaded in a First

\ duty. There was no
» in the capture. But
a real police officer.
‘e to the scene. Just
madman came leap-
lazing. Police bullets

9, was dead; killed
ist shot. Today, his
the bronze tablets in
Iding, a name typical
ke un the police -

AGNET CASES .

. "for:

REIGN OF TERROR IN

WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

(Continued from page 23)

been! at work at 8:15 A.M. Monday—
when the girl stormed out of her house
on her way to school—and the. third, only
recently out of prison, said he had been
on his way to an employment agency at
that time, arriving there just before 8:30
for an interview for a job.

While his colleagues questioned the trio,
Sergeant Krzton prowled through the lit-
tle house. He emerged from a bedroom
with a pair of. trousers that were heavily
and darkly stained.

“Whose are these?” he demanded.

“Our brother Lije’s,” one of the
Thompsons replied. .

“They’ve been soaked with blood,” Krz-
ton said grimly. “The stains are several
days old.” ;

“Ain’t no wonder,” a second’ brother
said. “Not after the mess Lije got himself
into Monday night.” » '

Their 22-year-old brother, the other
youths explained, was estranged from his
wife, Beatrice, who was living with their
two small children in the town of
Rochester, about five miles downriver—
to the north here.

Early Monday evening, Elijah Jr. went
to her home to insist that she and the
kids return to live with ‘him,

“He meant it, too,” one of his brothers
said. “He had an old .22 rifle without any
stock, just the barrel and firing parts.
He stuck it in his pants leg before he
went to Bea's,”

“They got in a fight,” another brother
chimed in. “Lije lost his temper, pulled
that old gun out and started ‘shooting up
the place. He didn’t mean to hit anybody.
Just wanted to scare Bea, that was all
he was. aiming to do.”

“Only ‘one of the neighbors ‘heard the
shots,” the first brother. continued. “He
ran in, grabbed the rifle and whacked Lije
over the head with it. Like to have busted
Lije’s skull. Lije fell through a window
and cut his arm, cut it real bad. They took
him to the hospital. They were afraid for
awhile he was going to die.”

“So I guess his pants would be bloody,
wouldn’t they?” the second brother fin-
ished. “That’s why Lije ain’t home. now.
He’s downtown, getting his head and arm
looked at.” "

Chief Zvonar checked with hospital of-
ficials and the police in Rochester. The
story they had heard was true. Believed
severely injured, Elijah Thompson Jr. had
signed himself out of the Rochester hos-
pital on Wednesday, against the advice of
staff surgeons there. ;

“So that is that,” Zvonar said.

“As far as it goes,” Sergeant Krzton
conceded. “It explains blood on a pair
of trousers belonging to the guy, but
that fight in his wife’s house was around
five or six in the evening. It’s no alibi
for 8:15 in the morning.”

Two officers were sent to stake out

the Thompson home and to bring Elijah
Jr. in for questioning when he returned.

EANWHILE Chief Zvonar found

himself thinking again of a possible
connection between the slaying of Helen
Jean Bryant and the murder of ‘little
Karen Mauk in Conemaugh.

These two crimes had all of Western

POLICE DRAGNET CASES

Pennsylvania in terror as. Halloween ap-
proached, ™

Zvonar was struck by the coincidence
that in both cases a sexual assault was
the obvious motive, but in neither crime
had the victim actually been raped.

He phoned the police in Conemaugh,
and learned that they, had, thus far, only
one possible suspect in little Karen’s
death, He was a tall, husky, shabbily-
dressed man with a scar across his face,
who, just before Karen was kidnaped
from a street almost in front of her
home, had tried to seize a 14-year-old
girl a few blocks away.

This girl had escaped his clutches, but
had got a good look at the man. She
and several other girls in the little town
had seen the scar-faced man, a stranger,
around Conemaugh for the past two or
three days. a

All up and down Beaver Valley, and
in Pittsburgh, as well; police files were
searched for a scar-faced man with a
record of sex offenses.

“It’s very possible,” Zvonar said, “that
he killed Helen Jean here in Aliquippa
last Monday, then skipped out and land-

ed in Conemaugh. The time of his ap-
“pearance there would be about right.”

Lieutenant Hildebrand worked ~ this
angle of the probe. He had not been long

-at the task before another lead came in,

this one from detectives who -were can-
vassing dry cleaning shops in Aliquippa,
hunting for any ‘Sobdvtained garment
brought in since Monday.

They came’ upon a gray suit with sus-
picious stains in a small tailor’s shop on
the northern outskirts of town.

Here the proprietor handed the suit
over to Sergeant Krzton and Chief
Zvonar.

“Fellow brought it in Wednesday,” he
said. “It wasn’t hard to tell he’d tried
to clean it first himself, but once blood

gets set in cloth, it ain’t easy to get out.” :

Zvonar impounded the garments, to be
sent, along with Elijah Thompson’s trous-
ers, to the police lab in Pittsburgh for
microscopic and chemical tests, and then
asked the tailor to produce his records,
which would show by whom the suit had
been left in the establishment.

Half an hour later, Zvonar, Hoyman
and Krzton rang the bell of a second-
floor apartment in downtown Aliquippa. A
tall, trim young man in his twenties, clad
in trousers and singlet, his face half-
lathered, admitted them.

Yes, he said, he was Fred Nordchen.
He owned a gray tweed suit. It was in a
cleaning shop.

“Stained with blood,”
“Wh as :

“Simple enough,” Nordchen said. “I get
nosebleeds. They hit all of a sudden,
though generally I can get out: my hand-
kerchief in time. This once, I didn’t.”

“Wheré were you around 8 o’clock last

Zvonar said.

. Monday morning?” the police chief quer-

ied. : ‘

Nordchen thought for a moment. “I’m
‘a salesman,” he explained. “I’m on. the
road usually two wecks at a time, then
here in Aliquippa four or five. days get-
ting my orders straightened out. Last Mon-
day—I -was up in New Castle then.”

He gave the names of several business-
men in New Castle to prove he had been
there early Monday. Within the hour,
Zvonar and his colleagues knew Nordchen
was telling the truth. ,

Elijah Thompson was brought in just
before dusk. Like his brothers, he said he
knew nothing whatsoever about how Helen
Jean Bryant had died. He retold the story

_ of times

ee RR

of his trouble in his estranged wife's
home in Rochester—showing a four-inch
square of gauze covering his head wound
—to explain his bloody pants. ,
“We've checked out the alibis your
brothers gave,” Chief Zvonar told him.
“They’re in the clear. Now where were

‘you at 8:15 last Monday morning?”

“Home, in bed, I always sleep late, now
I’m out of a job,” Elijah said. “You can
ask my dad.” '

Brought to headquarters, the father of
the four Thompson boys said it was true
that Elijah Jr. usually did. sleep until
10 o’clock or later. The parent could not

‘swear where his eldest son had been on

Monday morning at 8:15 for, having work-
ed all Sunday night, he himself was sound
asleep then. ot
Sitting in on the interrogations, District
Attorney Richard Steward ‘suggested that
Dolores Bryant view the four Thompson
brothers and pick out the one who had
frightened her and Helen Jean along the
lonely hillside path. '
Dolores promptly pointed to Elijah,
“What she’s talking about,” Elijah said
sheepishly, “that wasn’t nothing. A couple
I did sort of waggle my finger
at the girls and tell ’em to hurry up or
ag be late. That’s all. Nothing more.”
ergeant Krzton -beckoned Chief Zvonar
and Detective Chief Hoyman aside.
“There’s an angle to this case we've
maybe paid too little attention,” the state
policeman said. “Opportunity to waylay the
girl on that path?’
“Anyone who knew she used it,” Zvonar
said. “That could take in a lot of terri-

tory,” ;
Krzton slowly shook his head. “Nope,
Matt, you’re wrong,” he said. “It had to
someone who .knew she was traveling
that path alone that morning. He’d never
make a move as long as Helen Jean and
Dolores were together, because he couldn't
keep at least-one of them from screaming
out an alarm. So you see, it: hadj to be
somebody who knew his victim was alone.”
“Surely not someone in her’ own fam-
ily?” Hoyman said. .
Krzton shook his head. “Junior Thomp-
son,” he said. “He haunted that path to
watch the girls go by. When he saw Helen
Jean was alone, he moved in to make his
play. Our job now is to get him to con-
fess. I’m going to take a shot in the dark.

Let’s hope it hits.” ‘

1 baw sergeant faced .the elder Elijah .
Thompson, an earnest-man who seemed
anxious to help in any way he could.

“Tell me, dad,” Krzton said. “You got
a paring knife ‘in your kitchen?”

“A sort of one,”' Thompson admitted.
“Handle come off awhile back, I been.
meaning to get a new one, first time I
came shopping down in the town.”

Krzton produced the blade found near
Helen Jean’s' body. “This yours, dad?”

Thompson peered closely at the blade.
“Looks like it. But I couldn’t say for.
sure.” :

Now Krzton turned upon Elijah Jr.
“The knife without a handle, it’s gone from
your kitchen, isn’t it? You left it out in
the woods, after you killed that girl.”

“IT never—-”

“Lying won’t help, son,” the sergeant
continued, his voice calm and confident. ©
“We've got the lah report on your trous-
ers,” he bluffed. “There were two kinds
of blood on them. One kind was yours.
The other was from Helen Jean Bryant.”

“I was afraid,” Lije Thompson said
simply, “you might find that out. Yes, TI
killed the girl. Crept up on her from be-

59


op dwelling searchers
path the. victim took.

e taken. Had ;

» do their evilt

ized it was not her dad’s
that the Bryants were on
he decrepit dwelling atop
aeighbors and friends and
n her schoolmates’ homes,
ugh to overcome a teen-
e so, and before she left
October 25, 1954, Helen
Jen Bryant snapped hae

abruptly, turning on the
d. “Just remember that—
tomped off down the hill.

dow, saw the fog swallow
1e’s said that before. Poor

a this hill, But times will -

ce she always did before.”
ght. Earl Bryant, her dad,

POLICE DRAGNET CASES

. ot ay A ‘
. F ‘ ; oe eae 6
IN
f o : ne 4 es

by Eric Jonathan

was not there to wonder about her absence, having departed
that same mornnig to prowl the valley in search of a job.
Mrs. Bryant was. not alarmed. She. knew the. girl had a
couple of dollars, at least, in. her purse, and told herself that
Helen Jean most’ likely had caught a bus to Corapolis,’ ten

. Miles. away, to stay overnight with a grandmother whom she

adored. Helen Jean would be home on the morrow—
Dolores returned to school on Tuesday, and there discovered
that her older sister had not appeared in her classes the

previous day. Nor: was Helen we present ene the sopho- ’

mores in Aliquippa High on uesday, either.
That night Ellen Bryant got in touch with: her mother in

“-Corapolis, Grace Robb, the pretty young strawberry blonde’s
"POLICE DRAGNET CASES

| She had threatened betéte that ‘she ee

come home. This time she made good the threat, 4

\

grandmother, with whom Helen Jean spent her summers and ;

")

as much of her other leisure time as possible, had pete seen»

nor heard from the girl.
Thus, on Tuesday night, Helen Jean Bryant. was. reported
as a missing person to the Hopewell Township police,. whose

bailiwick encompassed Aliquippa and ‘several other. communi-

ties in the Beaver Valley district of Western Pennsylvania,
some twenty miles northwest of : ‘Pittsburgh, ret

Police Chief Matthew Zvonar ‘called in Lieutenant William

Hildebrand.
“The girl’s threatened to run away several times before, ”
Zvonar ‘said; “It looks like she actually made it this time.

- We'll cover the usual | craic tas bus lines, ara houses.

pa


The victim's uncle, Daniel Domenick and her
father stand above the shallow grave in which
the body was found. Right, the man on the path
stands in the spot where death. struck Helen. |

You backtrack on the kid. Find her jumping-off place.” .

From Samuel Milariovich, superintendent of schools, Lieu- |

tenant Hildebrand learned that Helen Jean was regarded as
“a good girl, a B average student.” She was not given to
frequent absences: from school. a i

Her classmates were certain she had no “steady” boy friend.

Indeed, Helen Jean hadn’t had many dates. She was popular
enough among her schoolmates, but somewhat reserved, doubt-

less largely because of the isolation of her ‘home life, they

believed. :

None of the regular riders on her school bus had seen Helen
Jean on Monday morning. ;

_” Hildebrand located the driver of this bus, He clearly ’re-
‘called having stopped on Iron Street where the Bryant sisters
always boarded his vehicle, but neither was at the curb on
. Monday morning. The lieutenant reported this to Chief Zvanor.

“I’ve been up that hill,” he added. “You've got to be half
mountain goat to follow the path. Almost anything. could
happen along it.”

“Something obviously did,” Zvanor said, “Get as many

“men as you can and comb over that knob. From here it looks
as if the kid never got off that hill yesterday morning—and
I don’t like thinking why.” ae

Hildebrand assembled’ a search party of 16 auxiliary cops
and led them up the steep slope on the outskirts of Aliquippa,
beating through thickets, struggling around: outjutting rocks
and pushing through brush-choked ravines.

. His party worked around the hill, on the side opposite the

Bryant home, while another group of volunteers, numbering
several of the missing girl’s relatives among them, toiled up
the knob on either side of the torturous path that led to the

‘Bryant dwelling.

ALL day Wednesday both parties hunted in vain. There was
no sign anywhere of the missing girl.

Hildebrand went up and down Iron Street, questioning resi-
dents, shopkeepers, service station attendants and others who
were much on the thoroughfare, most of whom knew Helen
Jean by sight. No’ one had seen the girl on Monday morning.
" In: the meantime, Chief Zvanor and officers of his regular

- force checked: every possible means of exit from the city and»

every place in it where a girl might hide, but turned up no
trace of their quarry.

“I still say,” Zvanor declared after this chore was done,
“that the girl never got off the hill.”

22

The next night a tragedy in the little town of Conemaugh,
on the outskirts of Johnstown, some 80 miles to the east,

struck new fear into the hearts of the Bryants and the police

in Aliquippa. - :
At midnight. Thursday, less than six hours after she dis-

appeared while out on a merry tour of Halloween “trick or

treat,” 6-year-old Karen Mauk was found slain, her body
left on a windswept hill beside a cemetery, overlooking the
town. -

The crime was clearly the work of a sex maniac who,
although he had not raped the child, had molested her.

Had Helen Jean Bryant likewise been waylaid by a sex
killer? Was her body lying somewhere in the tangled woods. on

‘the hill whose crest looked down on a broad sweep of rail-
road yards and a huge, smoking steel mill on the bank of the

Ohio River?

Was it possible, Chief Zvonar found himself wondering,
that Helen Jean and little Karen Mauk had been the victims
of one and the same murderous pervert?

Torrential rains and high winds bore down on the Aliquippa
region Friday and Friday night, making further search on
the hillside impossible. However, on Saturday morning, their
ranks swelled by workers from the railyards and mills, the
hunters returned to the hill, led now by Chief Zvonar himsélf.

Slowly they worked their way up the slope, leaving no yard
of ground uncovered. Shortly before noon, as the line of
searchers passed the half-way mark, a shout brought the men
rushing to a clump of woods just off the narrow path.

There, about 20 feet off the trail, Regan Yarnell and A. J.
Siebert, both auxiliary policemen, stood above a shallow grave.

In the hole was the body of a girl. No one nurtured a shred

of doubt who she was.

HELEN JEAN BRYANT lay in the depression, her straw-
berry blonde tresses darkly matted with blood from an ugly

- wound on the head. Both cheeks were slashed and a long
gash across the throat had narrowly missed the jugular vein.

Her short coat had been pulled down from her shoulders,
forming a straitjacket that pinned her arms helplessly against
her body. Her’ white blouse and bra were undisturbed, but

her skirt had been tugged above her waist and her panties

stripped down to the knees. :
One foot was bare, the other shod in a faded pink sock,

The second sock and one shoe were nearby, together with

her schoolbooks, pencils and fountain pen, The other shoe was
POLICE DRAGNET CASES

found in the brush abc

A cousin of Helen |
girl.

“There’s something d
chief and the circle o
right within a couple
‘didn’t find her then.”

Zvanor squatted by
“The guy who killed h
tools, to dig a real gré
in it, then covered he
wouldn’t have found
washed the dirt away
grave.”

Dr. Ralph M. Wea:
Memorial Hospital, pe:
from a skull fracture.

“She was struck do:
said. “Probably with
hillside. The knife w
marks to indicate an ef

Dr. Weaver added
although the condition
attempted sexual assai

“But who,” lieutena
been lurking up on th:
for the girl to come

Helen. Jean’s sister,

|

“Doesn't anybody have a dime?”

hig

Jean Bryant, Thompson had said, “You

* can’t mix me up in that killing. I had

nothing to do with that. No, sir!”

He admitted that occasionally he had
shaken an admonishing finger at Helen
Jean and other girls as they scurried down
the path to school.

“But I didn’t mean nothin’ by that,” he
added earnestly. “I was sort of kiddin’
*em about being late for school.”

Thompson's explanation sounded
reasonable, but before releasing him,
Chief Z.vonar and Sergeant Krzton decid-

’ ed to do one more thing. They went to

Thompson's home, taking with them the
paring knife with is handle missing which
had been found near Helen Jean’s body.

Later they announced that members
of the family had identified it as one from
their kitchen.

In renewed questioning, Thompson
resisted all attempts to get him to confess
to the killing of the Bryant girl, insisting
that he was innocent and knew nothing of
the teenager's murder.

It took a scientific report to turn the
tide...a lab report which showed that the
blood on the pants found in his closet was
not of the suspect's blood type. The
police also had learned that those were
not the pants Thompson had been wear-
ing when he was brought to the hospital
after being injured at his wife's place.

72

Confronted with this information,
Thompson’s last shred of resistance
crumbled. His shoulders sagged. After a
long moment of silence, he spread his
hands back ina gesture of futility and said
wearily:

“Yeah. I done it. I don’t know what got
into me. I just couldn’t help myself.

“I watched that girl day after day,
young and pretty and fresh-looking, with
her red hair, running down the hill. Last
Monday she was alone. I came up behind
her with a stone andhit her on the head.”

Helen Jean fell to the ground un-
conscious, Thompson said. He dragged

/ her about 30 feet of the footpath she

used as a short cut to the school bus, and
there he tore at her clothes and attempted
to rape her, but he was unsuccessful in
this.

Thompson’s statement on this point
jibed with the autopsy report, which
revealed that anattempt to rape had been
made, but had not been successful.

Continuing his statement, Thompson
said he then ran to his house, only a short
distance away, where he went to the
kitchen, got the knife without the handle,
rushed back to where he had left Helen
Jean, and slashed the girl's throat and
tace. He also said he tried to strangle her.

Afterward, Thompson said, he stuck
the knife in the ground and fled in panic.

Police had not revealed that the knife was
found with its blade imbedded in the
ground.

In another development, Thompson
was immediately eliminated as a suspect
in the killing of little Karen Mauk. His
condition after leaving the hospital on
Wednesday would have made the trip to
Conemaugh impossible, doctors told
police. Also, witnesses accounted for his
presence in Aliquippa at the time Karen

was slain. The probe into the Mauk slay-

ing continued without letup.

Sunday night was Halloween, but for
the first time in memory, there was hardly
a youngster to be found out trick-or-
treating in that part of Pennsylvania. In-
stead, the streets were patrolled by aux-

-iliary police, regular officers, and

members of veterans’ groups.

On Monday, Harry Gossard was pick- «

ed up when he returned from
Philadelphia. Brought to Sergeant Blair’s

field headquarters at the firehouse, he |

was questioned by Blair, Detective Chief
Reed, Chief Zvonar, and the other in-
vestigators. His back brace forced him to
sit stiffly in the chair,

Gossard’s manner was calm and un-
ruffled. He disclaimed any knowledge
about the murder of little Karen Mauk.
Reminded of his past sex offenses, his
composure crumbled only slightly.

|

)
|

Perr rne vows Sane Tanne

“I—I—well, I admit I've had a little
trouble in the past, but not that kind of
thing,” he said, shuddering. “I couldn't do

‘| anything like that, notin this world. WhyI -

knew Karen...she was a sweet little
thing. She lived right near my mother's
house.”

As the questioners took him repeated-

) ly over the same ground, discrepancies
| began to appear in Gossard’s story, but he

never wavered in his protestations of in-

; hocence of any complicity in the brutal

slaying of the pretty little six-year-old.
The atmosphere in Sergeant Blair's

, makeshift headquarters suddenly

became charged with an electric excite-
ment, however, as Corporal Drenning
entered the room.

“Has he confessed?” Drenning asked
Sergeant Blair. :

Wien: the sergeant shook his head
negatively, Drenning reached into a car-
ton he was carrying and took out the
plaster cast of the tire tracks found on the
hill near Karen Mauk’s murdered body.

With slow deliberation, he placed the -

moulage on the table directly in front of
Gossard.

“You can lie till you're blue in the face,
Mister,” Drenning said evenly, “but these
don’t lie. It was your car—up there

on the cemetery hill—the night the little.

girl was killed.”

{

|

Gossard paled. He put his elbows on
the table, cupped his forehead in his
hands, and stared at the floor. For what
seemed like an eternity, no one uttered a
word. ThenGossard looked up and asked
if he might talk to his minister. The
clergyman was summoned and was
allowed to speak ‘in private with the
suspect. A half hour later, the minister in-
formed officials that Gossard was ready
to talk to them.

They found Harry Gossard weeping

‘| unrestrainedly. His first . words were,

“This is the first time I have cried in twen- :
ty years.”

He pulled a handkerchief from his
pocket, dabbed at his eyes, blew his nose
and then related the events leading to

| what local newspapers decribed as “one

of the most fiendish crimes in the annals
of Cambria County.”

“TI can’t tell you why I did,” Gossard
began. “I offered Karen money to get in

| the car with me. She thought it was just

more loot for her trick-or-treat bag. Then
I drove out, up on top of that hill...”
That was where he left the child’s nak-

: ed body lying in the grass, but Gossard

disclaimed any intent to kill the little girl.

“T slipped and fell on top of her,” he said,.

attempting to explain how Karen died.
Taken to the cemetery, Gossard

{ pointed out to the police the spot where

the tragedy occurred. District Attorney
Fred J. Fees held a news conference at
which he announced:

“We have obtained an unqualified
confession. This was an extremely dif-..

PERE REE EES PRE ERTS ESAS a SR gp ESERIES CREPE FEDERER

ficult case to crack, and the officers surely
deserve a great deal of credit for their
work and patient investigation.”
. By weird coincidence, the same legal
procedures occurred only hours apart
with the suspects in the Halloween week
killings in Aliquippa and Conemaugh.
Arraigned in Aliquippa on Monday
before Justice of the Peace Rudolph
Schwartz, Elijah Thompson Jr. waived a
preliminary hearing on a murder charge
and was ordered held for the grand jury.
In Conemaugh, Harry Gossard was
arraigned on a murder charge before
Justice of the Peace Stephen McGanka.

Harry Gossard reacted strongly when
Squire McGanka read from the informa-
tion: J

“...you did feloniously kill and slay
one Karen D. Mauk with malice
aforethought.”

“Oh, no!” Gossard protested. “There
was no malice!”

He was orderéd held for action by the

. /grand jury and spirited to an unspecified

place of confinement because of the
fever of public outrage which was run-
ning high in the community.

The Halloween week slayings, from
the very beginning, had been marked by
a strange series of coincidences, and there
were still more to come.

Both slayers elected to plead guilty to
murder instead of facing a jury. Elijah
Thompson Jr. entered his guilty plea in a

‘formal hearing before Beaver County

Judges Robert E. McCreary and Morgan
H. Sohn on January 7, 1955. On January
2\st, he was sentenced to die in the elec-
tric chair.

Harry Gossard entered his plea of
guilty to the murder of little Karen Mauk
before three judges in Cambria County
Court. The judges decided the crime was
first-degree murder and sentenced him to
death.

It was only after the death sentences
had been passed that the two Halloween
week killers met, and that meeting took
place in the Death House at Rockview
Prison Farm in Bellefonte. There is no
record of what they had to say to each
other. :

Elijah Thompson paid with his life for

, the murder of Helen] ean Bryant when he

was executed in the elctric chair on July
25, 1955. Harry Gossard won a series of
stays which delayed his execution in the
same electric chair until June 4, 1956.
The two murderers will long be
remembered in Pennsylvania as the men
who brought real horror to the traditional
make-believe grotesquerie of a children’s
festival. oo4

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Jackie Wecklund, Arnold York and
Warren Crawfin are not the realnames
of the persons so named in the forego-
ing story. Fictitious names have been
used because there is no reason for
public interest in the identities of these
persons.

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73

FINGERPRINT


350 10S ATLANT

IC REPORTER nig Pa

for steam under a change of : y vailing, and he wa
g rates which { ty, but the plea was unavailing
: ‘
they claimed to be excessive. A preliminary} found guilty of murder wee first depres:

injunction awarded was thereafter dissolved,
and plaintiffs appeal. Appeal dismissed.

Phe og before BROWN, C. J., and MOSCH-
SKER, WALLING, SIMPSON ~
er ON, and KEP

William Draper Lewis, of Mauch Chunk,
and Joseph P. McKeehan, of Carlisle, for
appellants. <

E. M. Biddle, Jr., of Philadel

: : phia, and Ca-
leb S. Brinton, of Carlisle, for appellee.

PER CURIAM. Our established practice
on an appeal from the award or refusal of a
preliminary injunction is to decline to con-
sider the merits of the case, and, when it ap-
pears that there was apparently sufficient
ground for the action of the court below, the
status quo will not be disturbed, but will be
continued to final hearing. Gemmell et al. v.
Fox et al., 241 Pa. 146, 88 Atl. 426; Hoffman
v. Howell, 242 Pa. 112, 88 Atl. 877; Bixler
vy. Swartz, 257 Pa. 300, 101 Atl. 647. This
appeal comes within the rule, and it is there-
fore dismissed, at the costs of the appellants.

COMMONWEALTH v. TOMPKINS. 0

(Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. May 21,
1919.)

1. CRIMINAL LAW €=765—INSTRUCTION ON

DEFENSE OF INSANITY.

— Where insanity was the defense in a murder
trial, it was reversible error for the trial judge
to hold up the plea to judicial ridicule, by stat-
ing to jury in instructions that the prisoner was
“of a class vulgarly called cranks,” and that

those beings who live with~these unsettled
minds, who are not taken care of by friends,
relatives, or the state, when caught in the act
of crime, must be punished.” ;

2. CRIMINAL LAW €==48—INSANITY AS A DE-
FENSE.

: By the common law and by the Penal Code,
insanity of an accused is a defense.

Appeal from Court of Oyer and Terminer,
Cambria County.

George Tompkins was convicted of mur-
der in the first degree, and from the judg-
mient and sentence passed, he appeals. Re-
versed, with a venire facias de novo.

Argued before BROWN, C. J., and MOSCH-
ZISKER, FRAZER, SIMPSON, and KEP-
HART, JJ.

John FE, Evans and John H. McCann, both
of Ebensburg, for appellant.

BROWN, ©. J. [1] The appellant was de-

If he knew what he did at the time -
mitted the homicide, his ‘offense a
but, however atrocious it may have been, the
duty rested upon the trial judge to instruct
the jury dispassionately as to the settled
law relating to the plea of insanity. This he
did briefly in one portion of his charge, but
in other parts of it he held up at length to
judicial ridicule the plea made for the pris-
oner. As a part of his instruction to the
jury he read to them the following extracts
from an opinion of a lower court refusing a
new trial to one alleged to have been insane
at the time he committed the offenses of
which the jury found him guilty:

“He is one of a class vulgarly call

who are not bad enough oe ng a aay
and infest society with their dangerous tenden-
cies until they commit some crime, and then
sympathy is sought for them by the aid of medi-
eal experts to show that they were insane on
some particular subject, and thus not morally
accountable. The law, differing from the medi-
cal theories, was never intended to protect such
people, It is said: What difference does it
make if they are acquitted on the ground of in-
sanity; they are sent to an insane hospital, and
cannot be removed but by an order of the court?
This is not the way to administer law—the
guilty should be punished—and, besides, the
actual operation of such a system has been very
demoralizing, for we see the same witnesses, ex-
perts and others, very shortly after the person
is incarcerated in the insane asylum, upon peti-
tion, showing by their testimony a restoration
to health and mental soundness in an extraordi-
narily short space of time, and they are thus
set free to again prey upon society and endanger
other lives, Nor can a judge stop this, for upon
proof of sanity he will be compelled to liberate

Those beings, who live with these unsettled
minds, who are not taken care of by friends

relatives, or the state, when caught in the act
of crime must be punished, or else they grow in
their boldness and badness, so that, instead of
insane delusions, they become, in the language
of the old common-law indictments, ‘noved and
seduced by the instigation of the devil’ to the
commission of crime. Many learned and great
men have been subjects of insane delusions, and

that, too, while occupying high political. and

social positions; but it was never dreamed that

in other respects, they were not perfectly sane,

and even accountable for the delusions, for when

they felt they were beyond law they would in-

dulge their caprices. When they felt the pres-

ence of law, then these delusions would be re-

strained. So a public conviction of one of the

class of the prisoner is of considerable force as

a restraining element upon such persons. Ex-

perience shows that, following an acquittal of

~~ eee criminal upon the ground of in-

sanity, numbers of like i

sop sips seth n deeds are committed,

{2] The utterances in the charge brought
to our attention by the second assignment of

fended on his trial on the ground of insani-

error are greatly to be regretted. The trial

€=>F or other cases see same topic and KEY-NUM

BER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes

Pa.) PALMER WATER CO. v. LEHIGHTON WATER SUPPLY CO. 351
(108 A.)

was of the most solemn character known to
the law, which sternly called for the life of
the prisoner if he was sane, but humanely

Freyman, Thomas & Branch, of Mauch

Chunk, A. T. Walsh, of Pittston, and P. F.
O’Neill and F. W. Wheaton, both of Wilkes-

spared it if he was not. By the common law | Barre, for appellant.

and by our Penal Code the plea of insanity
made for him, if sustained by competent tes-
timony, stayed the punishing hand of jus-
tice; but the jury were told that he was
“of a class vulgarly called cranks,” and that
“those beings, who live with these unsettled
minds, who are not taken care of by friends,
relatives, or the state, when caught in the
act of crime must be punished.” This is not,
and never was, the Jaw, here or in England,
since the repeal of a bloody statute passed
in the reign of Henry VIII, which enact
that one found guilty of treason should be
sent to the gallows, even if he became mad
after his conviction. Instead of being tried
according to law, the prisoner was trie
against it, for the only defense which could

Arch. T. Johnson, of Philadelphia, Jacob C.

Loose, of Mauch Chunk, and Duane, Morris
& Heckscher, of Philadelphia, for appellee.

KEPHART, J. In this case the court be-

low enjoined appellant from diverting the
waters of Pine creek to the prejudice of the
Palmer Water Company, the latter having
appropriated the waters of Big creek, of
which Pine creek is a tributary. An exami-
nation of the record discloses numerous in-
ed | consistent findings of fact, some of which
have a tendency to sustain the decree, while
others are adverse to it. It is the duty of the
court below to make its findings clear and
d consistent, and we are compelled to remit the
record that this duty may be properly per-
formed. As illustrative thereof, we may

which the law
have been made for him, = ‘9 point to the following, leaving to counsel for

distinctly recognizes as @ complete one, if
established by fairly preponderating evi-

the respective parties the task of calling at-
tention to any others which may seem imper-

dence, was denied him by the trial judge. It fect to them:

was for him to guide the jury in making a

(A) Compare finding of fact No. 5, p. 13,

true deliverance; but he misguided them, | ,.,, ty je Z rE
and, in effect, told them to disregard the Big creek is a mowntan stream whose min
imum yield is approximately 14,000,000 gal-

lawful defense made for the appellant. Fur- c, Coad : 7 jase
hen i ula not make this clearer lons per day,” with finding No. 17, p. 26, The
pat past ph seat f error is stiakgtee continuous minimum flow of Big creek
a . he. emg? : ‘s re ress * * * jg 24,000,000 gallons every 24 hours,
babe es e judgment reversed, W ae and the maximum flow has been as high as

facias de novo.

41,000,000 gallons every 24 hours,” and find-
ing No. 26, Pp. 27, “The average daily flow
*

* * of 29,000,000 gallons per day is 2.5

times the capacity of the pipe used by the

PALMER WATER CO. v. LEHIGHTON | Palmer Water Company to convey water to

WATER SUPPLY CO.

(Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. . May 21,
1919.)

APPEAL AND ERROR €=-1106(5)—REMISSION OF
RECORD SHOWING INCONSISTENT FINDINGS
OF FACT. ;

Where record on appeal from a deeree in
equity shows numerous inconsistent findings
of fact, some of which tend to sustain the de-
cree, while others are adverse to it, the appel-
late court will remit record to court below, in
order that the findings may be made clear and
consistent.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Car-
bon County. :

Bill in equity for an injunction by the
Palmer Water Company against the Lehigh-
ton Water Supply Company. From a decree
awarding an injunction, defendant appeals.
Reversed, exceptions reinstated, and record
remitted for proper and consistent findings of
fact and for entry of a decree according to
law.

Argued before BROWN, C. J., and MOSCH-

ZISKBR, FRAZER, SIMPSON, and KEP-
HART, JJ.

the New Jersey Zinc Company.” What is the
minimum flow?

(B) Compare finding No. 10, p. 53, “The

Palmer Water Company has not condemned

more water than its present and future needs
require,” being (finding No. 2, p. 13) “all the
water of Big creek at and above the Parry-
ville dam,” in order to deliver it to its “one
consumer, the New Jersey Zine Company”
(see finding No. 21, p. 26), and its needs meas-
ure the appellee’s requirements, and finding
No. 8, p. 14, “The New Jersey Zine Company
(of Pennsylvania): requires for its manufatc-
turing uses at the present time 16,000,000
gallons of water per day,” and (finding No.
9, p. 14) “its probable requirements [will be]
twenty million gallons per day at the expira-
tion of four years,” with finding No. 25, p.
27, “The maximum capacity of the pipe line
leading from the Parryville dam of the Palm-
er Water Company to the plant of the New
Jersey Zinc Company of Pennsylvania is 11,-
500,000 gallons per day,” and with par. (A)
above.

(C) Also compare findings Nos. 29, 30, and
34, pp. 28 and 29, “That on an average of
17,000,000 gallons of water every 24 hours
passes down the sluiceway of the Carbon Iron

€—For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in al

1 Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes

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€

274 110 ATLANTIC REPORTHOR (Pa.
tamer —* or to act in relation ;ther direction, before the house line was
> »e submitted to the jury. reached. The driver, however, gave warning
5. Street railroads G=>117(29)—Guest’s negli-/by frequently sounding a “good loud” elec-
a question for jury notwithstand-|tric horn; and, at the first available place,
8 ange ae —s y ‘ looked east, then west. ‘

ere was evidence authorizing the Thirty-seve
court to submit to the jury the question wheth- | house ‘hae oe ee en nt gee
ne , wes

er a gratuitous guest in an automobile was ;
contributorily negligent so as to be barred from carb tine oF Twelfth stenct, Gwing-to the. Bret

recovery for injuries in a collision with a street story of the corner building being cut at an
car and affirmative answer to question on cross- angle, it is possible for one to see 88% feet
examination whether plaintiff was willing to | the west along Ferry street, and at the
inky 5 chance, held not to require a directed house line, a view of two or three blocks can
verdict for de fendant or judgment notwith-| be had in that directi
standing verdict for plaintiff. i eat
Defendant’s car, approaching from the west,
was nearing Twelfth street, at 25 miles an
_ rn in all probability because of the
rate of speed, neither the drive ‘ a-
: Action by Margaret B. Minnich against the chine nor the motorman th Lg enor.
Baston Transit Company. Judgment for| other in time to avoid a collision; the latter
plaintiff upon verdict and motion for judg-| ve no warning whatever, and ‘the former
ment notwithstanding the verdict denied, |Cither could not or did not so control his
and defendant appeals. Affirmed. machine as to bring it to a stop before reach-
ing the track. In an effert to prevent a col-
lision, Garr swung sharply to the left, and
ee motorman applied the air brake; but
: the two vehicles crashed together, the “le
Robert A. Stotz, of Easton, for appellant. | front point” of the car striking the eased
F. P, McCluskey and ©. P. Maxwell, both bile a glancing blow,

of Easton, for appellee. As they were drawing near the intersec-

is tion of the streets, Miss Minnich, wh was
MOSCHZISKER, J. On Sunday, April 9, Chex. poking Wet $0F< she eM saw it at
1916, a little before noon, at a point about the first possible moment—when, seated in
three city blocks from the place where the the automobile, she was about 30 feet, and
collision giving rise to this case occurred, |e car at least 70 feet, from the place of
Jerome Garr invited the plaintiff’, Margaret | Collision, Plaintiff! at once made an outcry
B. Minnich, into an automobile, which he |¢x¢liming. “Oh, the car!” and this Is all she
owned and was at the time driving upon the| “ld to avoid the accident. :

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, North-
ampton County.

Argued before BROWN, C. J., and STE W-
ART, MOSCHZISKER, FRAZER, WALL-
ING, SIMVSON, and KEPHART, JJ.

uaa

streets of Easton, Pa. She accepted and

took the right-hand front seat as a gratui-
tous guest.

The motor proceeded south along Twelfth
street toward Ferry street, which crosses
the former highway at right angles. On
Ferry street there is a single track line of
defendant's trolley road, on which suburban
cars are operated in both directions, aceord-
ing to a regular hourly schedule; east-bound
cars being due at Twelfth street about five
minutes before the hour, and west-bound,
five minutes after the hour. Ferry street is
69 feet 2 inches wide between house lines
and the first rail of the trolley tracks is 7
fect 4 inches from the north house line.
Both Garr and plaintif! were well acquaint-
ed with the general character of the crossing,
the location of the track, and the trolley
time schedule.

The automobile was running at a speed of
10 to 12 miles an hour, on the right of the
middle of the street, six feet from the west
curb line. The speed was not appreciably
checked as the cross thoroughfare was ap-
proached, and, due to the construction of the
buildings on both highways, no extended
view could be had along Ferry street in ei-

The automobile was not seriously dam-
aged, but Garr’s passenger suffered personal
injuries. She brought suit against defend-
ant, and the case was submitted to the jury
in a manner which is not complained of.
Plaintiff obtained a verdict, upon which
judgment was entered, a motion for judg-
ment n, o. v. was denied, and this appeal fol-
lowed.

[1-4] When dangers, which are either rea-
sonably manifest or known to an invited
guest, confront the driver of a vehicle, and
the guest has an adequate and proper oppor-
tunity to control or influence the situation for
safety, if he sits by without warning or pro-
test and permits himself to be driven care-
lessly to his injury, this is negligence which
will bar recovery. Although a guest is not
required to exercise the same degree of care
and watehfulness as the driver, and the care-
lessness of the latter is not imputed to the
former, yet a passenger must bear the conse-
quences of his own negligence, when he joins
in testing a danger; but the extent to which

one, in the position of a guest, should appre-
ciate an impending peril, and act in relation

thereto, depends upon the facts peculiar to

each case; unless these are manifest and the

€=—For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes

Pa,) COMMONWEALTH v, TOMPKINS 275
¢

110

inferences to be drawn therefrom clear be-
yond peradventure, the issues involved must
be submitted to the jury for determination.
Moreover, the authorities recognize the fact
that, in measuring the adequacy of the op-
portunity for control, there are occasions
when any pronounced effort in that direction
might do more harm than good.

Cases on the governing principles just stat-
ed are cited in Hardie v. Barrett, 257 Pa. 42,

46-47, 101 Atl. 75, L. R. A. 1917F, 444; but,
since the writer of that opinion occupies the
same position here, he takes the opportunity
to say that, while the rule there laid down
is appropriately put for purposes of the case
then under consideration, it is somewhat too
narrow and limited for a guiding statement
of general principles. The following addi-
tional authorities are cited: Proctor v. Le-
high Valley Transit Co., 235 Pa. 373, 83. Atl.
1019; Sisson v. Phila., 248 Pa. 140, 93 Atl.
936; McLaughlin v. Pittsburgh Rys. Co., 252
Pa. 82, 97 Atl. 107; Lancaster v. Reese, 260
Pa. 390, 103 Atl, 891; Laudenberger v. East-
on Transit Co., 261 Pa. 288, 104 Atl. 588;
Azinger v. Pa. R. R. Co., 262 Pa. 242, 105
Atl 87; Martin v. Pa. R. R. Co., 265 Pa. 282,
108 Atl. 681. :

While not so deciding, we shall, for pres-
ent purposes, assume Garr’s contributory
negligence; but it by no means follows plain-
tiff ean be held, as a matter of law, to have
joined therein, or that she in any way con-
tributed toward the accident which caused
her injuries. On the evidence, the court be-
low very properly submitted these issues to
the jury, and they were found against de-
fendant; but appellant contends that plain-
tiff confessed she willingly joined the driy-
er of the automobile in testing a known dan-
ger, which, in itself, should put her out of
court. Let us see how far this is true.

[5] On cross-examination, Miss Minnich
testified she knew a trolley car was “about
due at that time.” Defendant’s attorney
then said, “But you were willing to take a
chance with him in going across there with-
out stopping or slowing up to sce if there was
a car coming,” adding the query, “weren't
you?” to which she answered, “Yes, sir.”
This incident in the examination was called

to the attention of the jurors by the trial
judge, who told them to consider it. In so
doing, however, they, no doubt, very properly
took into consideration the fact that the
words of plaintiff’s so-called confession of
fault were really those of her cross-examiner,
and that Garr, who was driving at a moder-
ate speed, not only had his machine under
apparent control, but was indicating a sense
of care and responsibility by sounding his
horn, while Miss Minnich also was keeping a
lookout for danger. Furthermore, the jurors
had a right to regard the fact that the inter-
section in question is not peculiarly disadvan-

A.)

tageous, so far as opportunities for view are

concerned, nor, like-a railroad crossing, inher-

ently perilous. Plaintiff was not obliged to

anticipate she was taking a chance on a trol-

ley car advancing upon her without warning,

at the negligent rate of 25 miles an hour (Si-

mon vy. Lit Bros., 264 Pa. 121, 107 Atl. 635),

particularly when the near side of the street

was a designated and usual stopping place;

and we cannot say, as a matter of law, she
meant to suggest a willingness so to do—that .
was for the jury to decide. When all the ele-
ments present are given due weight, it is in

no way apparent that plaintiff in any real

sense joined the driver in testing a danger, or

that, on cross-examination, she expressed a

willingness to take any other or greater
chance than every automobile passenger must
take when traveling upon built-up city
streets, in approaching a trolley line.

The assignments of error complain only be-
cause defendant was not given binding in-
structions in its favor or granted judgment
n. 0. v.. They are overruled, and the judg-
ment for plaintiff is affirmed.

COMMONWEALTH v. TOMPKINS.
(No. 84.)

(Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. May 26,
1920.)

1. Homicide ¢=>152—No presumption of guilt .
higher than murder of second degree.

On a trial of an indictment charging felo-

nious homicide, the law presumes that the of-

fense of the accused is not higher than murder

ofthe second degree, and the burden, which
never shifts, is always upon the commonwealth
to establish to the satisfaction of the jury that
the crime is of the first degree.

2. Homicide == 152—Admissions of .counsel
cannot remove presumption as to degree of
homicide.

No matter what the counsel for prisoner in
homicide case may admit in addressing the jury,
the presumption is that the offense of the ac-
cused is no higher than murder of the second
degree; burden still being on state to prove
first degree murder.

Appeal from Court of Oyer and Terminer,
Cambria County; Francis J. O’Connor,
Judge.

Jeorge Tompkins was found: guilty of-
murder of the first degree and appeals. Re-
versed, and a venire facias de novo awarded.

See, also, 265 Pa. 97, 108 Atl. 350.

Argued before BROWN, CG. J., and MOS-
CHZISKER, FRAZER, WALLING, SIMP-.
SON, and KEPHART, JJ. .

conics lane, & 5

6<=For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Koy-Numbered Digests and Indexes

re ee

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TIERNAN, John, white,

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Book By Henry Mann, 1889, City of Pittsburgh
Raalte with no further eererecrer ss blfees

hanged Allegheney Co., Pa., on 3-29-1818,

OUR. POLICE. 61

other property to the Mayor. It seems a pity that the city was
not generous enough to bestow the coats on the poor men dis-
missed from its employ; but the Common Council, in the No-
vember following—after prudently waiting through the summer,
until cold weather—authorized William Arthurs, Street Com-
missioner, “to sell at public auction for the best price that can
be had, all the watch-coats belonging to the city, and pay over
the proceeds thereof to the City Treasurer.”

At the January Session of the Mayor’s Court in 1817, Levi
Butler was indicted for stealing one double-cased silver watch,
with a gold chain, seal and key, worth $75; a gold ring; $360
in notes of different banks, all the property of David Dugate.
Butler pleaded not guilty, but was convicted by a jury, and sen-
tenced to pay the costs of prosecution, to restore the goods, or
pay the value thereof to the owner, and to be confined at hard
labor for eighteen calendar months in the Penitentiary at Phila-
delphia.

In December of the same year John Tiernan mnrdered Patrick
Campbell. He was tried January 12, 1818, before Judge Roberts,
with Francis McClure, associate. Campbell was a contractor on
the Pittsburgh and Greensburg turnpike. Tiernan was a laborer
on the turnpike, living in a cabin on the hill this side of Turtle
creek, and Campbell boarded with him. At night, when asleep
in his bed, Tiernan killed him with an axe, robbed his body, and
fled, riding off on Campbell’s horse. A few days after he ap-
peared in the streets of Pittsburgh with the horse and was
arrested. Wm. Wilkins and Richard Biddle appeared for the
Commonwealth, and Walter Forward, Charles Shaler and Samuel
Kinston for the prisoner. He was hung at the foot of Boyd’s
Hill. °

One of the most extraordinary crimes in the history of Pitts-
burgh was the robbery of the Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank, on
the night of April 6, 1818. The Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank
was organized in 1815, and did business in a building which stood
on the lot now occupied by the Bank of Pittsburgh. Several divi-
dends had been declared, and its affairs in every respect appeared
to be prosperous. Its President, John Scull, and its Cashier,

Pa.e, sent by Van
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SS APPENDIX. 007, Sete Oke Bgg

~The Hon. H. Williston relied upon his client's protestations of innocence
J until the following incident occurred on the trial — ;

‘One witness described the disguised person seen in the woods the day Har.
per was shot, and not far from where he was found dead, as having on a par-
ticular coat, from which a certain button was missing. The coat was pro-

duced, shown to be Treadwell’s ; but there was no missing bulton. The fact

tended to discredit the witness, and favor Treadwell. As the trial passed

on Mr. Williston drew the coat towards him, carelessly turned it over so that

: \ he could see the button alleged to have been missing, and discovered, by the
thread, etc., that the button had been newl sewed on! A cold conviction

of Treadwell’s guilt passed over his lawyer like an ague chill, as this mute oe: xe |

See ae ee

fact corroborated the witness. He revealed it to no one then, and bat rarely

in later years. Both O. N. Worden, Esq. (who farnished the item), and

Hon. W. J. Turrell, have heard the incident from his own lips. Bas ;
The former in a recent statement says :— 1 ed f

\ mY
““While in Great Bend village, Mr, Hivsdale, a shoemaker, who saw Tread-
well hung, stated that his brother received, about twenty years ago, the printed
confession of a man who was hung near New Orleans, in which the criminal
stated that he had committed seven murders, but knew of only one man being
hung for his crimes. That was Treadwell, of Susquehanna County, Pennayl-
vania. Both lay in wait for the murdered man One was to shoot first, and if
his shot was not successful, the other was to shoot next The first shot fell to
the man named ; his victim fell dead ; and so Treadwell did not have to shoot,
| and did not shoot, although he was in every respect, excepting the first shot, a
murderer. nN
“The name of the criminal who was hung, and the exact time and place, Mr.
Hinsdale cannot recall: bat haviug, although young, witnessed T’s execution,
this revelation of the probable accomplice remains clear upon his mind.’’..

sas wren An.
- Nore ro Pace 24.—The following letter of Hon. J. W. Chapman iste exo

planation of the magnetic variation in ranoing the county line :—

“Having as county surveyor retraced, and with carefal chain-carriers
remeasured the east line of Susquehanna County, under the direction of our
“county commissioners in August, 1870—a little over two years ago—I am
able to give the precise course and distance from personal observation.

‘In doing so Lieve to correct the survey of Mr. Case in 1827, from whose
notes the statement is made. Although the very beet authority, generally,
in such matters, Mr. Case reported the whole distance to be six perches less
than 24 miles to a stone-heap erected on (what he took to be) the State line.
Charles Avery, Esq., who was one of the commissioners at the time, and now

~ the only living man among us who accompanied Mr. Case in 1827, says,’ the
~ - built the monument on a marked E. and W. line, which they took to be the State _
. line; and it being in the wilderness, several miles from any habitation at the
time. and late in the last day of the week, and a storm impendiag, they quit
without further examination. :

“We found the stone monument according to his measure, but the true
State line over three-fourths of a mile parond, yeprad by tracing it eastward
120 perches to the sixth mile-stone from the Delaware River, by which the
exact width of the east end.of the county is proved to be 24% miles, and the A
length only 33 miles and 200 perches, instead of 34 miles, as generally quoted ‘
‘from the sixth to the fortieth mile-stone.’ : 4

“ Having some years since meagured the west line of this count also (ex- si

‘ Roe ee"
ET Oe Oe ee a

oa DS Baa Est

cepting the width of Auburn township), I Anow it starts from the fortieth
milestone, and the width must be about 244 miles at the west end—or $ mile
less than the east end; and the State line of Pennsylvania and New York
being due east and west on the forty-second parallel of latitude, we found the 3
present variation of the magnetic needle to be 52°; the apparent course of =

the State line being 844° E. and N. 8442 W. The present apparent course |

of the east line of the county was found to be N. 3$° E.; while the trwe


aie
pete

it 4 ; a Ms oS
BAR é % Pingo

OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.
CRANES Sar AR er : ‘ ees ad aa aes ao ¥ i “8h icity a Bete
cept as cattl in the surface around it to reach the wate
gathers there.
.- Poor Emma Hale S
character ;” the pretext she gave fo
‘to be married. 222956 24 SO
© (Her mother said to Mrs. D. Lyons,
goose as to go up to Joe's father’s to fin
Joe Smith removed to Ohio where he founded a church; from t a
“ Saints” moved to Independence, Mo.. Smith following them January, 1838. \*
went to Nauvoo, Illinois, where Smith was impris; .
owners of the “ Expositor” newspaper,
h’s orders. On the 27th of June, 1844,
jail and shot Joseph Smith, Jr.,

.

her.
VAI

i. pa
et a
ie

~¥
Fiat

_ Geo. Har
» the old Harmony road, &

foul murder had been comm
‘of Harmony (Oakland), or possibly just over t
author of the deed. He was arrested and brought to Montrose jail. “His
“trial took place Sept. 1-5, 1824, before Judge Herrick, with D. Dimock and —
— Wm. Thomeon, Associates. He was defended by B. T. Case, Esq.. and Hon.
~ Horace Williston, ate of Athens, Bradford County; while N. B. Eldred and.
Garrick Mallery, Esqs., were the attorneys on the part of the Commonwealth.
The evidence daily grew stronger-to implieate ‘reudwell as the morderer ;
and the jury’s verdict was, “ouitty.” — Upon bis own statement he knew who
committed the deed ; he lent the rifle to the murderer, gave him provisions
~ while lying in the woods two Gaye ue time within which Harper and another
man were expected to pass with money; received the rifle in a secluded spot
- the evening after the marder, and kept him secreted that night. Bat until
© he saw his own immédiate danger of paying the penalty, he was silent as to
~~ any knowledge of the murder. chr ei
He was executed Jan. 13, 1825, on the only gallows ever ereeted in Sus- .
~~ quehanna County. The location was on the west side of the public square, —
*> nearly in front of the present residence of Dr. Vail. [There is some discrep-
>, ancy in the statements respecting this.]} The remains were taken to Great
Bend and interred on the bluff above the 60-feet cut on the Erie Ruilway,
between the house of I. Hasbrook and that of the late Isnac Reckhow, Esq.
~~" He left a widow and seven children. The county newspaper, for two months
after the execution, contained earnest discussions upon question of capi-
tal punishment. ‘ti i RS lat tana at Pe een rt ee agile

pr ae


no 2 ie ee <
bisects OS ER oni
i or xe ;


é TOE

‘HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

Sues Re WA) pm ee Fe ae hob We eetas Y
eee, 1 ae SDR EES ghee
as sh sy Meg

Ae

NG in retributive justice was inherent with. the nders,

e reaching it.
overtaking him just this ‘
, and without aid or assistant, arrested —
and pinioned him, marched him back through a ten mile forest,
_ ,and-delivered him tothe authorities. + % ae PEIBIARS e
.— Upon that same road, at a later period, the murder of Oliver
Harper was perpetrated, for which Jason Treadwell suffered the’
_Severest penalty of the law. The last house the victim entered _
‘was Hezekiah Bushinell’s; he asked of Mrs. B. and received a”
>> piece of mutton-tallow with which to rub his chafed and weary
ae limbs. Baneres aa pi aa Oe ie sd Se Tae ae aes Ral
‘-.\ When Harper's body was found, the news spread like wild. |
~- fire. “A man murdered and the murderer at large!” Every —
muscle was strained to procure his arrest. Roads and bridges
were guarded, men on borseback and on foot scoured the woods
for several days, and great was the relief when the supposed

criminal was lodged in Montrose jail, © 9
A’ simifar- excitement was occasioned a few years afterwards ‘ss

____ by the ery, “a man murdered this side of Belmont, and the mur-
_ derer in the woods coming towards this settlement!” Again
nearly every man was engaged in the search; and while the
_~ husbands and fathers were thus absent, the mothers pressed _
_\ ) closer their little ones in fearful suspense, lest the villain should Be
0 pounce upon them in their helplessness. Finally he emerged
from the woods, and under false pretences found shelter with
James Dunn, a hospitable Scotchman, who lived in a secluded _ @
rt of what is now Ararat township. His wants being supplied ae
e went to bed; but soon after a posse of men effected a sudden —
entrance, and surrounding the bed captured the wretched crea-
ture without resistance. He was tuken to Bethany, tried, sen-
tenced, and hung. This was Matthews, murderer of Col. Brooks,
Among the inventions by the residents of this £a#nsbip, has
been a felloe-dowel-pin (of metal and tubular), by E. Denison
Tyler, and for which a patent has been issued. MPR at
[Most of the material for this chapter was kindly furnished
y J. C. Bushnell, Esq.) “sic geiie air ee arent aap a Senso ia

s

ED ioe ea

5

ct


Ryan. “That's only part of a license
number.”

Mrs. Connaughton nodded.

“Tt was all I could see from my window.
The front part of the number was broken
off or bent in.”

Jimmy Ryan put his pencil and note-
book in his pocket.

“You've done us a great service,” he
said.

“13” Figures Again

UTSIDE Slavin remarked: “The girl

Engle took down to look at the.
pictures in the rogues’ gallery said there
was a six and a seven in the license
number.”

“Six and seven—thirteen,” grinned
Jimmy Ryan. “I’m not superstitious but
I won't forget those numbers.”

“We might as well go out and look for
them,” Slavin said. “First let’s call head-
quarters and get the motorcycle squad on
the job. Then we'll go in and report.”

Before midnight every policeman in
Philadelphia had been told to look for a
long, rakish maroon touring car with a
tan top and the license numbers ending
in 6-377.

The police “flier” said: “The occupants
are known to be armed and desperate.
Use care in apprehending.”

That was Friday night, the night of
the murder. The men and the rakish car,
easy to recognize because of its size and
unusual lines, had dropped out of sight.

Detective Captain Al Souder talked to:

his men at Saturday morning roll-call.

“They may have left town,” he said,
“but I think they’re Philadelphians and
if they are we ought to find out something
in a few hours.”

“What makes you so sure they’re
Philadelphians?” asked Bill Belshaw,
head of the murder squad.

“Because of the way they got around.
Everything the witnesses have told us
points to the fact that Emgable had been
under surveillance for a long time. The
bandits knew just when and where to
strike.

“I'm asking the districts to send a plain
clothes man to every garage in Phila-
delphia to try to trace the car. And the
men on beats will go to every pawnshop
and hardware store and get a list of shot-
guns sold in the last ten days.

“TI want you men who have been wofk-
ing on the case to go out again on a
roving assignment. I’ve got a car waiting
for you down in the courtyard.”

Eight of them set out with extra re-
velver ammunition and Jimmy Ryan
added two repeating riot guns. The de-
tectives disposed of them with some
difficulty on the floor. In the car were
Niedenthal and his fellow sleuths, Ryan,
Slavin, Hackett, Hanlon, Engle, Peacock
and McCaughan.

A car and a roving assignment were all
well enough on a fine Saturday morning
in Spring but what the detectives needed
was a lead, Naturally the police had used
their ordinary underworld sources of in-
formation. But this time rumors were
hard to come by.

The first thing detectives seek after a
payroll holdup or bank robbery is evi-
dence of heavy spending in thieves’ re-
sorts. But this time there couldn’t be any
heavy spending. The gangsters missed
the payroll in Emgable’s inside pocket.

A small tip had come from New Jersey. ~

Two young men had stopped for beer and
sandwiches at a gay hideaway in the
pines. They had spent an hour there the

66

afternoon before at a time of day when
the place usually was deserted. They
hadn’t much money and kept looking at
the door. The rumor came back to the
Philadelphia police by the usual grape-
vine—the waitress told a beer runner who
told a police informer.

“That’s as good a place to start with as
any,” Ryan suggested.

But the waitress wasn’t eager to talk.
She was frightened at the array of de-
tectives but not frightened enough to be
voluble. She remembered the two men
and described them but the description
was too vague to mean much, One was
younger than the other, she thought. She
didn’t know where they went when they
left the inn. There was a gas station half
a mile down the road and sometimes
people stopped there when they were
trying to get a lift somewhere.

“Let’s try the gas station,” Slavin sug-
gested.

Tells Of Pretty Girl

TR tall boy in charge was unable to
remember any men who stopped there
looking for a lift. Of course they might
have been picked up somewhere else. A
lot of trucks went by there every day.
They didn’t all stop for gas; he wished
they did.

“T kind of remember one truck,” the
boy said. “There were three men in it.
The two guys ridin’ didn’t look like they
worked on the truck. They looked tough.
like city guys. Both had caps on but the
driver didn’t have a hat of any de-
scription.”

“Which way was the truck going? To-
ward Atlantic City or Philadelphia?”
Ryan demanded.

“Now that’s just the thing I can’t call
to mind,” said the boy. “But a real
pretty girl came by in a Ford and wanted
some gas just at that time and it kind of
distracted my mind. It’s funny, too, be-
cause she seemed to know one of the guys
in the truck and said something to him
like ‘I’ll be seein’ you.’ I think it was to
the driver. She waved her hand but I ran
her gas over just that minute and it con-
fused me. See, she had to get. out so I
could take up the seat and put the gas in
and my back was toward her. I heard the
truck start up but when I looked around
it was gone. You can see for yourself,
there’s a bend in the road both ways.”

“What became of the pretty girl?’
Engle asked.

“Oh, she just drove on.”

“You didn’t get her telephone number
by any chance?” asked Ryan. “Didn’t try
to make a date?”

“Yes, but it didn’t get me anywhere,”
admitted the boy. “She just laughed.”

Ryan was looking at the boy keenly.

“Then I'll bet you took down her license
number to try to find her name and
address.”

The boy stared back, then averted his
eyes.

“You win, mister. I wrote it there on
the whitewash.”

It was a New Jersey license beginning
with the letter “A” which usually meant
a license issued to some one who lived in
Atlantic City.

“Do you know which way the girl
went?” Engle asked.

“You bet,” the boy grinned. “She drove
off towards Philadelphia.”

The detectives climbed into the car and
rolled out of earshot.

“And now which way?” demanded
Neidenthal.

“T have a notion the boy was lying

bane pitchers ghee

the last time,” said Ryan. “He looked too
foxy when he said ‘Philadelphia.’ Maybe
we ought to go to Atlantic City on the
off chance.”

“We're looking for a maroon touring
car, aren’t we?” argued Slavin. “We can
let the chief take care of the Atlantic City
end of it. If those men went to Atlantic
City they’ll make tracks easy to find.
There are only a couple of ways to get
in and out of Atlantic City. Smart crooks
generally stay away from it.”

Back in Philadelphia the eight men
spent a few futile hours searching for the
suspects in another holdup—a trifling
affair—and then reported back to de-
tective headquarters.

“I'd like to take a look at the license
files and see what we can run down with
those numbers,” suggested Slavin. “It’s
going to be a job but we might make it.”

“All right,” agreed Jimmy Ryan. “T’ve
checked over a lot of numbers already.
T’ll help you.”

“TI tell you what.” suggested Slavin.
“Maybe this wasn’t a stolen car. We
haven’t had anything like it reported.
Maybe that plate with the numbers 6-377
belonged on it. Maybe the dealer here in
town could give us a clue. There aren't
so many cars like that on the streets of
Philadelphia. What do you say?”

“Right with you,” said Ryan. “But first
I have something on my mind. You know
I checked over the stolen car report my-
self yesterday and I found something
strange. A man reported his license plates
stolen a week ago and when I came to
look him up I found he had a record. The
district’s been trying to find him for me.
I have that license number written down
in my desk. I seem to remember that it
had some 7’s in it.”

The two detectives found the memo-
randum.

“Look here,” said Slavin. “Pennsyl-
vania 636-377, 1923. There are the two
missing numerals, Whose license is that?”

Owner Still Missing

“THE owner reported it stolen a week

ago,” Jimmy Ryan repeated. “His
name is Edward Fertsch and he lives on
Thompson street.”

“And you tried to find him yesterday?”
Slavin commented. “We might give the
district station house a call.”

They did and found that a plain clothes
man had been watching Fertsch’s home.
The youth had been out all night. No-
body in the neighborhood knew anything
about him or even that he had a car.

“Maybe he reported those plates stolen
to give him an out,” Slavin said. “Let’s
go over to the agency and see if they sold
a car like that to anyone.”

The salesman lost a little of his suavity
when he learned the two stocky men were
inquiring about a used and not a new Car.
They told the used car manager who they
were and he showed them his records.

“There aren’t many of that model in
Philadelphia,” he said. “It was a fast car
and most of the old ones have been bought
up by bootleggers and reconditioned.”

He thumbed through the records. “Of
course I couldn’t be certain without the
serial number but here’s a car that
answers the description. We sold it a
couple of months ago to a young fellow
named Fertsch.”

“That’s our man,” said Slavin. “Now
may we have the engine and _ serial
number?”

A few minutes later the detectives
checked doubly with Harrisburg. There
was no further doubt. The license plates


a

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two detectives made a running leap for
their own running board as their driver
swung the police car in pursuit. The two
detectives clung for a moment, then
climbed in.

The driver of the car in front was
pressing the accelerator to the fioor
boards and Neidenthal did the same. Not
more than ten feet separated them as
they raced down Ridge avenue. But it
was a stern chase all the way. Neidenthal
couldn’t get enough speed out of the
police car to draw alongside, and give
the detectives a chance with their riot
guns. Slavin was the only man in a
position to fire.

Fires At Gas Tank

S THE police car swung a few feet to

the left the detective leaned far out

to the right and fired at the gas tank with

no apparent effect. Twice in a ten block

chase he shot almost point blank at the

tires but the roughness of the paving made
accurate shooting impossible.

Neidenthal hung grimly to the wheel of
the car, slithering around the trolley cars
they met and pressing hard on his horn
at intersections.

But though he drove desperately the
bandit car began to draw away from him.
The driver was heading for Broad street,
crossed diagonally by Ridge avenue. That
intersection would give him several
choices, with a maze of small streets near-
by for refuge.

The police.car was running wide open
when the bandit driver suddenly slowed.
Neidenthal jammed a heavy foot on the
brake and swung to the left to avoid a
collision. He ran almost to the sidewalk
before he could stop. Looking back the
detectives saw the bandit car in the middle
of Broad street, turned half way around
in a skid. The driver was grinding the
self starter but the engine would not
answer.

The detectives leaped out of their ma-
chine, revolvers and shotguns ready. As
they ran up they saw a widening black
splotch on the pavement—the last trickle
of gas from the bandit car’s tank. Mike
Slavin’s first bullet had found its mark.

Three men in the bandit car put up
their hands. One of them had been tug-
ging at his back pocket but desisted when
a riot gun was thust at him. A detective
took a .45 automatic from the bandit’s
hip pocket. Apparently he was trying
to get rid of it rather than planning
to use it. The others were unarmed.

Captain Al Souder was still at de-
tective headquarters when_ the three
prisoners were brought in. Two of them
were quickly recognized as petty police
characters. The driver of the bandit car
was identified as Joseph Trinkle, 20, of
13th street in south Philadelphia. The
others were Joseph “Harp” Sweeney, 27;
and Andrew Lawrence, 31. It was Law-
rence who had the automatic. He was
identified as a former policeman, dis-
honorably discharged after short service
but not known as a crook.

They were questioned for the rest of
the night but steadfastly denied any part
in the holdup and murder.

As early as possible Sunday morning
Souder had the witnesses brought in to
look the suspects over. As usual they were
lined up with a dozen nodescripts brought
from the cell room.

Three witnesses picked young Trinkle
as the man who ran up behind Emgable,
ieee the gun to his back and killed
rim,

“T don’t know a thing about it,” Trinkle
persisted through hours of grilling.

Trinkle had the owner’s and driver's
licenses issued to Fertsch as well as his
own driver’s license.

The only admission police could get
from him was that he borrowed the car
from Fertsch Saturday.

“T wanted to take a relative to Chester,”
he told Souder.

“How did Sweeney and Lawrence hap-
pen to be with you?” he was asked.

“Why, they’re old friends of mine and
I met them on the way. I took them along
for the ride.”

That was all Souder, Lieutenant Bel-
shaw and relays of detectives could get
out of Trinkle. The other suspects were
equally silent.

“We'll keep them around for a while,”
said Souder. “We’re bound to find Fertsch
sooner or later.”

Souder, Belshaw, Slavin and Ryan went
to Atlantic City Tuesday with Neiden-
thal. They were acting on the slender clue
of the pretty girl at the gas station.

Ryan had checked on the license num-
ber and found it had been issued in a
girl’s name and that she was an enter-
tainer in a second-rate cafe, At Souder’s
request the Atlantic City detective bureau
had done some quiet investigating.

Get Lead On Crook

DETECTIVE reported that three

young men had been at the cafe
Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights.
One of them, employed locally as a truck
driver, was a good friend of the girl.

Tuesday night Souder and the rest
waited at the cafe.

At 10 o’clock three young men, two
wearing caps and the third hatless, came
in and sat down at a table with an air of
being accustomed to that special place.
The girl, who was singing, smiled at
them from the piano and all three smiled
and waved. There were few customers in
the place.

“Your men,” whispered the Atlantic
City detective.

Souder and the rest rose quietly and
moved to the table where the three sat.
Quietly the little procession moved out.
The girl at the piano kept on singing.

At Atlantic City police headquarters
the three men said the were Zealand Har-
vey of Atlantic City, the truck driver;
Edward Fertsch and Joseph McManus,
an 18-year-old boy.

“We have your car in Philadelphia,
Fertsch,” Souder said. “Maybe you don’t
know it was used in a holdup and
murder?”

“T don’t know anything about that,”
Fertsch answered. “I haven’t seen any-
thing of my car since last Friday morn-
ing. I loaned it to a guy named Trinkle.”

“What time was that?” Souder asked
in a casual voice.

“Exactly 10 a. m.
watch.”

“You pulled a boner that time, Fertsch,”
Souder commented. “The crime occurred
just five minutes before that hour and
your car was used in it, Guess you must
have been in it yourself—isn’t that so?”

“T don’t know anything about it,”
Fertsch insisted.

But when the three men were ques-
tioned separately the detectives began to
get results.

Harvey, who had no part in the crime,
blurted out the truth.

“Those two guys asked me for a lift
on the way to Atlantic City and I let

I looked at my

Atways Insist on THE ApveRTISED Branp!


three
cate
ahts.
truck

rest

two
came
air of
place.
led at
smiled
Lers in

tlantic

and
ee Sat.
d out.
zing.
1arters
d Har-
driver;
Manus,

.delphia,
u don’t
up and

ut that,”
en any-
.y morns
Crinkle.”
ier asked

at my
Fertsch,”

occurred
our and

ere ques-
began to

the crime,

for a lift
and I let

them get on. They were kind of excited
and I guess young McManus wanted to
get it off his mind. Anyhow he told me
about it and I said to Fertsch, ‘What is
the matter with you fellows? Are.you
crazy?’ And Fertsch turned to McManus
and said, ‘Joe, what did you tell him that
for?’”

It was a small beginning but sufficient.
The three men were rushed back to Phila-
delphia, Harvey as a witness and the
others as principals.

McManus Confesses

HERE McManus broke and made a

full confession, accusing Trinkle of
having fired the shot. Fertsch steadfastly
refused to talk. Harvey had told his story;
he was not under arrest and was destined
to appear later as a valuable witness for
the Commonwealth.

The three caught in tht police chase in
Philadelphia were unaware of McManus’
confession. Captain Souder had Trinkle,
Sweeney and Lawrence, the former
policeman, brought into the detective roll
room for the morning “Line up.” After
the routine was over all but the three
Emgable suspects were taken back to
cells. ;

Trinkle, Sweeney and _ Lawrence,
squirming uncomfortably, remained on
the platform.

“I’ve got something here I want to read
to you boys,” said Souder and began in
a quiet voice to read McManus’ statement.
There was no sound in the room but
Souder’s slow voice and the heavy breath-
ing of the three suspects,

“Well, boys,” Souder said in a conver-
sational tone when he had finished, “what
have you got to say about it?”

Trinkle swallowed hard and said in a
croaking voice, “That’s right.”

Lawrence turned on him = savagely:
“What!” he gasped. “Are you going to
squeal?”

Souder paid no attention to Lawrence
but began to ply Trinkle with questions.
The young bandit began to wail, “I didn’t
mean-to kill him, I didn’t mean to kill
him.”

Outlines Death Plot

ORDS came tumbling from ‘the

boy’s lips, while tears streamed
down his cheeks. He said he had been
detailed to handle the shotgun, which they
had bought from a pawnbroker. But he
wasn’t to use it, according to their plan.
He had a jack handle which was to be the
weapon if there was trouble.

“T was to hit him over the head with
it,’ Trinkle said, ‘but not to fire a shot
under any circumstances. We all got
frightened and the gun went off.”

Souder turned again to Lawrence:
“How about it?” The former policeman
was white and trembling. He merely an-
swered, “That’s right.”

Sweeney, his jaws clamped together,
shook his head in reply to Souder’s
questions. He would not talk then or

of court held in the sickroom of Mrs.
Connaughton. Judge Harry McDevitt,
gowned in his robe, was there and so was
Trinkle, whom she identified. The jurors
were ranged solemnly along the wall. This
extraordinary court session later was used
in an effort to upset the verdict but the
State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
upheld it.

After a. year’s fruitless effort by
Trinkle’s attorney to save him, he was
electrocuted on June 30, 1924.

The bandits had separate trials and
different fates. Lawrence, McManus and
Fertsch were all convicted of first degree
murder but none went to the chair.

THE 13 THIRTEENS

The murder of Emgable was
committed on Friday, the 13th.

Trinkle, the executed man, lived
on 13th street.

There are 13 letters in his name
J-o-s-e-p-h- T-r-i-n-k-l-e.

The first and last digits in the car
license add up to 13.

The first and last digits visible in
the bent plate make the sum of 13.

The first juror called at Trinkle’s
trial was No. 13.

The first called the second day
was No. 113.

The last juror accepted entered
the box at 12:13 p. m.

In choosing a jury prosecution
and defense used 13 peremptory
challenges.

The district attorney took 13
minutes for his opening address.

Sweeney was sentenced for a
second time on April 13, 1936.

He was sent back to prison to
serve 13 more years.

It was the 13th anniversary of the
crime.

Lawrence and McManus won commuta- |

tion to life imprisonment. Fertsch, con-
victed with difficulty because his com-
panions all refused to testify against him,
won a new trial and a second degree ver-
dict with a 10 to 20 year sentence.
Sweeney, the man who kept his mouth
shut, received the same sentence.

By a strange coincidence on April 13,
1936, the 13th anniversary of the murder,
Sweeney stood again before Judge Mc-
Devitt, the jurist who tried and sentenced

Here’s How To Treat

FOOT ITCH

ATHLETE’S FOOT

TILL RELIEVED
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According to the Government Health Bulletin, No.
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known as Athlete’s Foot.

Usually the disease starts between the toes.
Little watery blisters form and the skin cracks
and peels. After a while the itching becomes in-
tense and you feel as though you would like to
scratch off all the skin.

Beware of It Spreading

Often the disease travels all over the bottom of the feet.
The soles of your feet become red and swollen, The skin
also cracks and peels, and the itching becomes worse and
worse.

Get rid of this disease as quickly as possible, because it
is very contagious and it may go to your hands or even to
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Most people who have Athlete’s Foot have tried all kinds
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cides, antiseptics, salve or ointments seldom do any good.

Here’s How to Treat It

The germ that causes the disease is known as Tinea
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skin and is very hard to kill. A test made shows it takes
20 minutes of boiling to kill the germ, so you can see why
the ordinary remedies are unsuccessful.

H. F. was developed solely for the purpose of treating
Athlete’s Foot.’ It is a liquid that penctrates and drics
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Itching Stops Immediately

As soon as you apply H. F. you will find that the itching
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well, Usually this takes from three to ten days, although in
severe cases it may take longer or in mild cases less time.

H. F. will Jeave the skin soft and smooth. You will
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Athlete’s Foot without success.

H. F. Sent On Free Trial

Sign and mail the coupon and a
bottle of H. I. will be mailed you
immediately, Don't send any money
and don't pay the postman any
money, don’t pay anything any
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Tf it does help we know you will
be glad to send us $1 for the treat-
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That's how much faith we have
in H. F. Read, sign, and mail
the coupon today.

heer him. The prisoner had been paroled after 1 GORE PRODUCTS, INC. 1
ahs : . serving 12 years of his sentence and-had § €3t Perdido Ste. New Or! L 8
During the following days, detectives just been convicted of another robbery. 4 pb eaRiia dil tas Maga ,
aneancd ee srey detail of the crime. “I know you, Sweeney,” said Judge BE lmpe bares phy ow pret committe Some or '
iev tracec leg $ 5s = be ¥ . ‘T ss ‘ ‘01 rouble as described above, agree to use it ac-
tate t iy paion gels and its = McDevitt. “Do you remember what day § cording to directions. If at the end of 10 days my &
n¢ ie ars ey bef owec ee move- this is? It is the 13th anniversary of the ' aor - petting: riers . Pebias dy $1. at I am
ments a 7 o a 9 2: a ¥ 8 ~ % % entire Satisne w return the unuse portion
ihe of the gang before and after the Ss der of, Emgable. Do you remember, : of the boutle to you within 15 days from the time I 5
i weeney! g receive it.

A month and ten days after the murder But Sweeney, as before, stood mute. ® NAME :
votsig SHARE was convicted of first des Fodse he OCI dent tim back td serve i sesseesensessscseersessoessessccsseseesees B
gree murder and sentenced to die in the out the eight years of his parole and on i ADDRESS cecccccccccccccccccccccscccscevcccccccs B
electric hair, | piste top of that two and a half to five years 4 ETEV das Bae «asia gence nnegheercsBEAPe paleapes i

The high light of his trial was a session for his new crime—13 years more. em

WuEn ANSWERING ADVERTISEMENTS, PLEASE MENTION OcrosEeR SrartLinc Detective ADVENTURES 69
‘ td ¥
inter Baas Hiiat Dery Ce rare nets ad adi A


t first
know
t my-
thing
lates
ume to

The
r me.
down
that it

:emo-

nnsyl-
e two
that?

1 week
“His

yes on

rday 7"
ve the

lothes
home.
it No-
nything
car.
s stolen
“Let's
ey sold

s suavity
en were
new Car.
vho they
ords.
nodel in
. fast car
n bought
oned.”
rds. “Of
hout the
ar that
id it a
x fellow

“Now
id serial

jetectives
z. There
ise plates

ert epee aA A A,

reported stolen by Fertsch were the plates
used on the murder car. And what was
more, the car belonged to Fertsch.

At 6 o’clock roll call Ryan, Slavin and
the rest reported what progress they
had made to Lieutenant Bill Belshaw,
murder squad head, and Captain of De-
tectives Al Souder.

“ll get the Atlantic City police on the
telephone tonight,” Souder said. “I’ve
a friend down there at detective head-
quarters. And maybe tomorrow some of
us can take a run down.”

“How about taking the car out again
tonight?” Niedenthal asked. “We might
as well keep on the prowl until we get
these men.”

The same eight officers climbed into
the car after roll call and began to swing
through those parts of the city where they
knew, by experience, crooks usually hung
out.

The detectives cruised up one street
and down another in likely neighbor-
hoods. They roared out to Kensington
and the sparsely settled northeastern out-
skirts of the city, then back again to City
Hall. There they thought they’d turn the
car in and call it a day. It was an hour
after midnight.

“T wouldn’t mind some sleep myself,”
said Ryan. “But I think we’ve been wast-
ing our time.”

“What’s on your mind, Jimmy?” asked
Slavin, turning his heavy shoulders, He
was sitting beside the driver in the front
seat.

Spot Tan Car

“e HY, this,” said Ryan. “Wouldn’t

these fellows be fools to go out in
the daytime or the early night? They'd
figure us quitting just as we were planning
to. They’ve been holed up somewhere all
day and now they'll take the air. I'd like
to take a swing through the northwest.
That’s where Fertsch lives and that’s
where the killing happened. I have a
hunch that the gang comes from up that
way.”

Niedenthal swung the car down to
Ridge avenue, a broad street with two
lines of trolley tracks, that runs north-
westerly from the central city.

At 24th street Slavin noticed a car
moving slowly. An are light on the corner
showed a tan top.

“T think it’s the car,” he whispered to
Neidenthal. “Try to creep up close so we
can see the license number.”

At 25th street a car crossing ahead
gave them the opportunity. The detectives
had their guns ready. Neidenthal applied
his brakes gently and slid up to almost
touching distance.

“That’s it,” Slavin whispered hoarsely.
“T can read the number 6-377. Turn out
and crowd them into the curb.”

Neidenthal slid slowly alongside. The
men in the car seemed unsuspecting. Both
automobiles were moving very slowly.

“Hey, what are you doing?” the driver
of the maroon car shouted as Neidenthal
crimped him towards the curb.

For answer Slavin and Jimmy Ryan
sprang from the police car and made a
leap at the running board of the other
machine. But by this time the driver of
the bandit car had awakened to what was
really happening. He swung to the left
again, making a swift U turn and heading
down Ridge avenue.

Slavin and Ryan, left standing in the
street, could not fire because their own
car was momentarily between them and
the bandits.

“Climb on,” yelled Neidenthal and the

Sa

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67

v


vestigator, who is author of

the Branson mystery, in
this issue, was in Paris collecting
feature material for American news-
papers at the time of Olive Bran-
son’s strange death at Les Baux.
Mr. Dail thinks that whatever solu-
tion one wishes to accept as being
the true explanation of Miss Bran-
‘ gon’s tragic end, the fact remains
that the dominating factors behind
her death were love frustration and
what psychologists call a distorted
“love image.” In other words,
the imaginative picture of what
Olive Branson called her original
man was firmly fixed in her mind, and unfortunately no real
flesh-and-blood man could come up to it. Hence, as she re-
jected man after man who came into her life, her frustration
and love-longing increased.’ Her attempts to find an outlet
for her emotional energy in painting were unsuccessful, and
her night wanderings and excursions among the gypsies became
an obsession with her. Tragedy was just ahead—and it came
to her suddenly and in a most astonishing way.

Mr. Dail makes some comments in this story in regard to
conduct of murder trials in France, and he later stated that the
procedure is amazing to the average American. He says that
while American courts are sometimes criticised for their sensa-
tional handling of murder trials, that, as a matter of fact,
they are quiet and dignified as compared with the French
courts.

“The bedlam that frequently prevails while a French crimi-
nal is on trial for his life is so in contrast to the quiet, highly
scientific methods of the French police, that the difference be-
comes glaring,” says Mr. Dail.

UBERT DAIL, noted for-
cign correspondent and in-

Hubert Dail

“INSPECTOR Guibbal, a master sleuth, built up a brilliant
case against the slayer of Olive Branson, but when the case
reached the courtroom, logical thinking was often obscured
by the strange emotional atmosphere that pervaded the
trial.
their respective feelings. It was like a theater performance.”
Mr. Dail has made a special study of bizarre motiva-
tions behind some of the world’s most celebrated crimes.
Several years ago he contributed a series of articles on the
Mafia in America to the New York Journal and other
newspapers. He investigated crimes attributed to the sinister
Italian secret society from New York, to Chicago, to New
Orleans.

Among other important crime assignments in America he
covered. the trials of Roscoe “I'atty’” Arbuckle in San
Francisco, and the Desmond Taylor murder mystery in Los
Angeles, writing a series of syndicated articles on these famous
trials. He investigated the Rothstein case in New York, going
step by step over the ground trayeled by Rothstein just before
he died, and analyzing the movements of America’s underworld
Czar.

Mr. Dail is now writing for this magazine the inside story of
the infamous Kuertin case of Dusseldorf, Germany, that
has received international publicity, and he will follow with
other stories of sensational cases in these pages.

6

TROE OsTeecTive
Soos, /93!

Lhigh s7

Spectators hissed or cheered the prisoner according to .

Te strange solution of the Udderzook horror which starts
on Page 34, is the account of a most extraordinary crime
case. Mr. Udderzook, the central figure in this amazing death
plot, was a man who was not only able to stamp his shrewd,
decisive villainy upon his own generation but succeeded in
making the history of his crime so vivid that it is still remem-
bered and discussed sixty years after the happenings. In other
words, Udderzook’s case has become a classic in criminal
history. Edmund Pearson, the famous writer of murder stories,
has paid particular attention to this strange character in one
of his books.

Unscrupulous, clever, determined, and shrewd though he
was, Udderzook made the one false step which any intelligent
person should have avoided in covering up his trail. It is the
theory of criminologists that a murderer will always leave one
clue, make one mistake. Why was the grave not dug one foot
deeper? Udderzook never explained, assuming anyone ever
asked him.

R. E. Long, who gave this story to Trur Detective Mys-
TERIES, as recorded by Katharine §. Daiger of Baltimore, has
been the magistrate of West Grove, Pennsylvania for thirty-
five years. Mr. Long was only a boy at the time of the murder,
but the character of Udderzook so impressed and intrigued
him that later he devoted himself to a serious study of the case,
reading everything in regard to it on which he could lay his
hands, and talking with many persons who had contacted
directly with it.

M® LONG tells an interesting story in this connection. In
every recital of this remarkable case to which he has ever
listened, he says he has been told that at the time of Udder-
zook’s execution, the same powerful interests that rallied to
the defense of the murderer, were influential enough to have
a silver tube inserted in the unfortunate man’s throat, which
permitted the law to carry out its sentence, but which success-
fully prevented death by hanging. When the undertaker’s
wagon, waiting outside the jail, went galloping away with the
body, it was no lifeless corpse which it was removing for
burial, but Udderzook, the scheming villain, still alive and
gloating over the way in which he had cheated justice. Mr.
Long makes no comment on this tale; he simply presents it a's
an interesting story that has gained wide credence.

If Udderzook was hung, and buried, which he undoubtedly
was, nevertheless the location of his grave is not known. Some
years ago aman came to Mr. Long, and said that he would show
him where Udderzook’s grave was. He took him to a barren,
desolate stretch of land, beside the
Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, not
far from Philadelphia, and said
briefly, “That is where Udderzook
is buried.” Mr. Long did not dig
there to find out, so that proved
nothing. If any of our readers
have any definite information on
the location of the grave, Mr. Long
would like to hear from them.

APTAIN L. L. CURTIS, co-

author of the lead story in this
issue, is one of the most popular
detectives in the Los Angeles police
department. He is known by the
boys as “Bud” Curtis, and has a
habit of | (Continued on page 61)

Emerson Gaze

[Muy sTELES


Vio, Wirt Lom Lu y

92

FRONT PAGE DETECTIVE

FAMOUS CRIMES—No. 2

ARRESTED AS A SUSPECT IN ONE MURDER, HE WAS HANGED FOR TWO!

N a cold February night in 1872 a cottage on
York Road in the outskirts of Baltimore was
consumed by fire. Before the structure was demol-
ished entirely, one of the bystanders remarked to
the owner that he thought Mr. Goss, the tenant,
was still in the house. But the building was en-
gulfed in flames and nothing could be done at the
time. Later, in the ruins of the house, the charred
remains of a man were found. ,
Winfield Goss had rented the cottage some months
before to conduct some
experiments for the
manufacture of syn-
thetic rubber. On the
day of the fire, he and
his brother - in-law,
William Udderzook,
went to the cottage
with a bottle of whisky
and a gallon of kero-
sene. A neighbor, Gott-
lieb Engel, helped them
consume the liquor,
and when a lamp gave
trouble, Udderzook and
Engel went over to the
latter’s home for an-
other light. They stayed
for supper and returned
to the cottage to find it

QA\URDER OF A

had been thoroughly searched, Udderzook found
the watch and keys of Goss where nothing had pre-
viously been discovered.

The next year Mrs. Goss started suit on one of
the policies as a test case. An autopsy, performed
after the body was exhumed, proved the corpse had
but nine irregular teeth, while Goss had a perfect
set. Yet the jury returned a verdict in favor of the
pyre victim’s widow.

A few weeks after the trial, Udderzook appeared

with a stranger in Jen-
nerville, Pennsylvania,
his boyhood home, They
stayed at the hotel and

from the local livery
stable: Udderzook re-
turned alone, with a
bloodstained carriage
that was partly broken,
When, some days later,
the body of a man
found in a nearby
patch of woods was
identified as that of his
companion at the hotel,
Udderzook was
promptly arrested.
The state, with the
aid of agents from the

EAD \AN

then hired a carriage

in flames. It was Udder-
zook who said at the
fire that Goss was
trapped in the burning
house. :

Mrs. Goss identified
the body as that of her
husband. The coroner
found that death was
accidental, caused by
the explosion of the
lamp. Goss, although
earning only $1200 per
year, had insurance
policies totalling $25,-

E THE IDENTITY OF THE
eecgks CHARRED BODY FOUND
; IN THE COTTAGE |

ri CLEARLY ESTABLISHED, |

CAUSED THE FINDING OF A
CORPSE ~~ THAT OF A MAN A

JURY ALREADY HAD DECLARED DEAD.

Aor P RUINS NEVER WAS .

FBUZZARDS HOVERING
VER A WOODED SPOT”

insurance companies,
built up a formidable
case. The dead man
‘was proved to be the
missing Winfield Goss
by a bloodstone ring
found im the carriage
and by his teeth. It was
proved, after witnesses
identified him from a
photograph taken be-
fore. the fire, that he
had hidden in Newark
under another name.
The motive was

000.
The insurance com-

panies, suspicious of the death of a man half of
whose income was paid on premiums, refused pay-
ment pending an investigation. Company agents
found that Campbell Goss, the inventor’s brother,
had not been at his boarding house on the night of
the fire. Discovering that he had hired a carriage
from a livery stable, they contended that he had
driven to the house on York Road and taken his
brother away after the latter had fired the house.
The insurance companies’ suspicions were further
aroused when, after the ruins of the burnt cottage

clearly established.
Winfield Goss was an
habitual drunkard who occasionally suffered from
delirium tremens. He was beginning to be trouble-
some while in his cups, and Udderzook feared that
the plan would miscarry if Goss talked too much.
Udderzook weakly attempted a defense by pro-
testing that he was the victim of powerful insurance
companies who were resisting payment. But the
evidence was too strongly against him. Udderzook
was declared guilty of murder and hanged in 1874.
Taken into custody for one crime, he paid with his
life for double murder:

) replied that he
> he had had no
>. so. He often d
7. she said.

It was almos
me: Mrs. Ericksen t
Annex for
» locked her so:
» Mazva and I w!}
* - discussing the c.
in our chairs v
*» tain Prenderga:
He shook his |
reddened eyes.

“You men | |
sleep,” he said.
twenty-four hc
can’t go on for:

I shook my }
our goat, Capt
mind, we'd jus
There’s only o1
Bowen and W:
job.”

I told him h
to the Ericksen
_ “That dog dc
oners any bett
Captain, and he
Ericksen was n
ever shot Eric}.
dog! We just g
and Wilkins.”

Captain Pre
far so good, Se:

I told him h
Ericksen and }
were discussin
a light tappin;

“Come in!”
called.

The portal
annoyance, Ji:
in.

“Anything n:
Captain?” he ;

Police tacitu
perior, and he

“I was over
and everyone
that ‘Bowen an
hidden somew
-hood,” went o1

“You’re mt
case, aren’t you

“Sure, I was
that night an
The whole fan

“Well, why c
low like you g
real informat
Prendergast i:

Senese’s cor
in the least.

‘IT might lk
“Something 1i}
men Mrs. Eri
tavern, and so
He strolled

livious to the
rs him. ,

All that da
I checked an
>} ments and bac!
.

.

>


UDDERZOOK, William E., white, hanged West Chester, PA on November 12, 1874

sy

ALAN HYND
“The Se ret Drawer,” ete. a

ri

as Goss, Winfield Scott Goss.. He had a boom-

ing laugh and a large red nose. His companion

was a wispy little person of about forty-five, with

a drooping mouse-colored moustache, watery blue

eyes and a half-frightened air. He bore the im.

probable hame of Udderzook, William E. Udder-

zook, and he was married to a sister of Goss.

Goss and Udderzook had come to see Lowndes

about renting an unused tenant house on the edge

of the estate for use as an experimental laboratory. -

Goss, it seemed, was an inventor, He carried with
him a new type of automatic screw driver which \
urportedly extracted considerable manual labor

dallérs were men. One of them was a mas-
sive individual of forty who looked like a model -
or a muscle-building advertisement. His name

from the process of applying screws to lumber.
Udderzook,, whose role in the experimental pic-

ot clear, told Lowndes that Goss was
€ verge of perfecting a process for syn-

wealthy man, had no need for

the tenant house but, since one of =
strangers was an inventor, he was interested. *
noke was a Ae pe and experiments on
Ah he property would add a little variety to life.

Goss and Udderzook moved in shortly after the -
: ets » first of the year. Theoretically, they were to use
pat the tenant house only nights and week-ends since
Hae al re, they were both employed and had wives apd fam-
‘ ee x aor hae ey ilies'in Baltimore. There [Continued on page 811

31


—

94

ture of Goss was proved to be that of
Wilson. Moreover, “Wilson” had always
worn the unusual seal ring which had be-
longed to Goss, had carried with him and
exhibited the patent screw-driver which
Goss had inv ented, and had, upon a‘num-
ber of occasions, addressed Udderzook as
“Doctor”—which had long been the cus-
tom of Goss.

The most damning evidence and the
most sensational was given by the sur-

. prise witness of the trial. The prosecu-

tion reserved him until almost the last.

HIS testimony was offered by a man

named Samuel W. Rhodes, a farmer of
Jennersville and a brother-in-law of Ud-
derzook. The prisoner, Rhodes claimed,
had not only written him a letter urging
him to codperate in some crime Of a mys-
terious and hidden nature, but he had
even come to see him on the very day of
the murder and had asked for his help in
taking a man into the woods where he
planned to give him laudanum and rob
him of his valuables.

Luckily Rhodes had preserved the letter
and was able to produce it in Court. It
read as follows:

Friend Sam:

I have something of much interest
that I wish to communicate to you.
it must be done by word of mouth.
please don’t let any one know of our
communications but as soon as you
read this mount you horse and come
to Oxford take the morning train to
Baltimore when you arrive in Balti-
more inquire for Mr. Duker & Brother
plaining and saw mill. This mill is
right across the street from where you
get out of the cars. I am employed in
said mill and there every day. you
will arrive at One o’clock you MUST
také the next train for Oxford which
is at half past two that will give us
one hour and a half which will be suf-
ficient, for us .to arrange one of the
finest planes that you have heard of.
there is a COOL one thousand dol-
Jars in it and there is nothing to pre-
vent us from getting it this is with-
out a doubt. do not buy your ticket
at Oxford but pay your fair on the
cars. do not let a sole know where
* go. I cannot explane further till

see you. do not fail to come drop
ev erything at once. you can make the
trip in a few hours. I have no person
else in confidence with me and now
propose to take you. you will find that
it is the best days work that you ever
did. I will give you the full explana-
tion when I see you (bring this letter
with you) your expencis will be only
four Dollars or a little less.

Very Respt. Yours
Wo. E. Upperzoox.”

(Be firm, Be true.) ;

If you decline to come, write me a
line to No. 167 Conway street, Balite
more, Md.

Rhodes testified that he had not an-
swered this letter, but upon the day of
the murder, Udderzook had sought him
out as he was at work in his hayfields and
had asked his assistance in robbing a
stranger.

‘The witness was subjected to a hirious
cross-examination which failed to shake his

True Detective Mysteries

story in any manner. The unmistakable
truth of the facts and the veracity of the
withesses, as they appeared, one after the
other, in a seemingly interminable pro-
cession, came as a terrific shock to the
lawyers who had prosecuted the case for
the Goss family against the insurance
companies.

Such was their bitterness at being duped,
that, at the very height of the trial, they
withdrew from the defense and _ before
the State had closed its case.

It is easy to see what a shock this must
have been to the accused man. Never-
theless, still supported by his friends and
relatives, fresh counsel was secured and one
of the most dramatic moves in the history
of Pennsylvania jurisprudence was made.

The defense impeached all of the
witnesses for the State and outright
accused the insurance companies of
deliberately trying to dispose of Ud-
derzook since he was a powerful and
dangerous witness in the civil suits
of Mrs, Goss!

The jury retired to consider the evi-
dence on Friday afternoon, November 7th,
and it is amazing to note that it was not
until the following Sunday afternoon that
they brought in their verdict.

They found Udderzook guilty of murder
in the first degree.

TILL determined to fight on until the

end, the defense continued to throw
every possible obstacle in the way of the
sentence. It moved for a new trial and the
case was reargued on December 8th.

On the 12th of December, Judge Butler
refused a new trial and delivered one of
the most scathing sentences ever given

from the Bench:

“Possessed of a strong will,” he said,
“you carried — this scheme almost
through to successful completion.
When, threatened with discovery, your
plans and your personal safety en-
dangered, you resolved to secure your-
self by taking the life of your accom-
plice in this crime. You had known
him long and intimately and were
closely connected with him by mar-
riage. You had obtained his confi-
dence, and he seemed to follow your
suggestion with unquestioning trust.
You dragged his weary feet from place
to place, under pretense of seeking
an asylum where he might still be se-
‘cure. You'reached the neighborhood
familiar to your youth—where it
might well have been hoped the recol-
lections of that better purer time in
your life would have awakened some
spark of tenderness and arrested your
cruel hand. But here—resolutely and
fatally bent on your wicked purpose
“—as evening faded into night you

’-committed this most horrible of

crimes. Then, visiting your aged
‘mother, you returned to your wife and
children with as little apparent: con-
cern as a man returns from a journey
of pleasure. The long record of crime
scarce furnishes a parallel to this
case.”
Here the three judges rose and Udder-
zook was formally sentenced to be hanged.
Still continuing to resist, the defense
sent the case to the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania, but on July 2nd, 1874, this
court reaffirmed the sentence of death.
Strenuous efforts were now made to ob-

tain a pardon or a commutation of sen-
tence. A hearing upon this took place at
Harrisburg on October 8th, 1874, but was
unfavorable to the petitioner.

When this verdict was made known to
Udderzook by his counsel, he straightened
himself up and assumed an air of “injured
innocence. “They have all the way long
thirsted and plotted for my _ life. Now
they ¢an have it!” he declared.

During the four weeks which intervened
between the issuance of the death war-
rant and his execution, Udderzook busied
himself with a voluminous correspondence,
and printed statement after statement in
the public press, always reiterating his in-
nocence and intimating to his “readers”
an obscure prophetic alarm as to “what
the insurance companies will do.”

He also spent many hours in the prepar-
ation of a lengthy speech which he in-
tended to deliver from the gallows, but
from this he was dissuaded.

In one of these public epistles, dated
October 19th, 1874, and addressed to the
“world and my dear ones,” he says:

“Tt is my desire that my remains
will rest in Baltimore, if not in the
same lot, at least in the same ceme-
tery with those of Mr. W. S. Goss, a
friend ever dear to me, that our bodies
may return to the mother dust, and
our spirits may mingle together on the
bright, sunny banks of deliverance,
where pleasures never end. . . I
hope the time is not far distant when
the people will see the danger of pre-
pared and bought testimony, and a
prearranged design aided by thousands
of dollars.”

The execution ordered by the court
was carried out on November 12th, 1874.
It was attended with the least possible
ceremony. Udderzook made no speech
upon the gallows and died without appear-
ing disconcerted to any great extent.

ISTORY is silent as to which of the

two bodies the murderer had in mind
when he asked that his remains be buried
—the charred remains in the York Road
fire or the corpse of Baer’s Woods.

Plans had been made for his burial in a
West Chester graveyard, but immediately
after the hanging, an undertaker called for
the body and drove away with it at a high
rate of speed in the general direction of
Philadelphia.

Absolute secrecy was maintained as to
this last resting place, as it was feared
that ghouls might disturb the grave, duc
to the great publicity which had been
given the case.

It is not surprising that Udderzook
should have feared body snatchers, for one
of the high lights of the trial had estab-
lished very clearly that he and his’ friend
Goss had carried the corpse of the tenant
house in a box from Baltimore on the
morning of the fire. It has always been
believed that it was a cadaver secured
from Johns Hopkins or the University of
Maryland, or raised from some unknown
burial place by the scheming pair.

There is no record made of the disposi-
tion of Udderzook’s earthly remains either
in the press of that day or in any history
of the case. Perhaps some reader of
True Detective Mysteries may know of

.some grave which bears the inscription:

“William E. Udderzook” and the date of
1874.

Lee T miss, next month, one of the greatest detective thrillers we have ever pub-
lished; a story that carries.you along with the sleuths over a trail of mystery and a
surprise ending that leaves you breathless—the baffling Constable Case of Maryland—
a murder enigma that will keep you guessing to the end.


the mill recalled that two days before he

* quit, Udderzook had received a visit from

a big man named ALE. Wilson. Thereafter
Udderzook seemed. highly upset and ir-
ritable, and had soon quit and cleared out.

Marble thought he got the pitch on that.
“AE, Wilson,” he was convinced from the
description, was none other than the miss-
ing Winfield Goss. After more than a
year of lurking around undercover, and
still not getting his insurance money, Goss
was undoubtedly getting sick and tired of
the whole business. Probably he had
called on Udderzook to complain and to
demand some sort of payment to com-
pensate him for his enforced life in hiding.
This disgruntled attitude on the part of
Goss posed a threat. to Udderzook, who
was still hoping to collect his cut in the
juicy $50,000 insurance payment.

The scrutiny of Mrs. Goss’ mail was
resumed. Soon it was discovered that she
was getting letters from one A.E. Wilson,
whose return address was the Central

Hotel in Philadelphia. Marble hurried to -

the Quaker City, and at the Central Hotel
was disappointed to learn that Wilson had
checked out for points unknown. He

‘ showed a picture of Winfield Goss ‘to the

hotel clerk.

“Sure, that’s Wilson,” the clerk said.
“A big fellow, and he had such nice-look-
ing teeth!”

A few days of work in Philadelphia
netted Marble exactly nothing: There was
no telling where Goss had gone, and
Udderzook was also among the missing.
However, Marble managed to learn that
Udderzook was born and raised in Jen-
nersville, Pa., and lived there until he
was a young man. For want of anything
better to do, the detective took off for
Jennersville.

There he was delighted to be informed

‘that three days. earlier, William Udder-

zook had shown up in his old home town
and registered at the local inn, With him
was a big, red-faced man named AE.
Wilson. Udderzook and Wilson had taken
a double room at the inn and had launched
into some serious drinking. The porter
had carried several bottles of firewater up
to their room at various times during the
night.

At about 10 o’clock on the lntowting
morning, the two men had come down-
stairs. Udderzook seemed only mildly in-

‘ebriated, while Wilson was. having real
' trouble keeping his feet under him. With-'.

out even eating breakfast, the pair checked
out, Udderzook handling the details and

paying the bill while the porter held onto |

Wilson to keep him from falling. Udder-
zook .then steered Wilson firmly out the
door, and the pair were not seen at the
hotel again.

Marble picked up their trail at the
Acme Livery Stable in the next square.
Here the proprietor recalled that Udder-
zook had rented a rig around 10:15 that
morning.’ With him was a big, red-faced
man who was hiccupping and having dif-
ficulty remaining in an upright position.
The pair got into the buggy and drove off.
About an hour after noon, Udderzook re-
turned alone, settled with the livery man
and left town.

-4-2. The dashboard was broke on the buggy
~ when -he brought it back,” the stableman

said. “I had to charge him an extra dollar
for that. After Udderzook left, I found a
nice agate ring in the buggy, which I
been meaning to return to him if he
comes back.”

Marble examined the ring. It answered
perfectly the description of a ring long
worn by Winfield Scott Goss, and in fact
had the initials “WSG” engraved on the
inner side.

The investigator also ‘took the trouble
to examine the buggy, which had since
been repaired. He found dark stains in
the wood under the seat cushion.

BY ADDING TWO AND TWO together,

the insurance investigator felt sure he
had the answer. Udderzook had been
hounded by Goss, who wanted money arid
also wanted to put an end to his life of
hiding from the law. In this frame of mind,
Goss was a constant threat to the success
of the plot and the collection of the money
that would put Udderzook—and Mrs. Goss
—on Easy Street. So Udderzook had got
Goss. drunk as a lord, taken. him out

- somewhere in the country and murdered

him. With Goss truly dead, he could never
pull the props out from under the con-

* spiracy by showing up alive.

Marble told this story to Sheriff David
Gill of Chester County. It all sounded
pretty weird to the sheriff, but he finally
organized a searching party. But there
was a lot of wild country thereabouts,
and the. jposse searched for two days with- _
out finding a body, so they gave up, much
to Marble’s disgust. It seemed to him that
whenever he came to the very threshold of
success in this case, something happened to
thwart him.

The very next day, however, a farmer
named Gainer Moore was walking through
his woodlot when he flushed a flock .of
buzzards. The carrion birds had been
hovering around a spot. where the earth
seemed to have been turned. Moore poked
into the loose earth and found a human
head there, a discovery that sent him

post-haste after the sheriff. ad

Deputies arrived at the scene and re-
covered the head. They also dug up the
‘torso and legs of the dismembered body in
other graves nearby. The parts were taken
into Jennersville and assembled at an
undertaker’s. While an alarm went out for
the arrest of William Udderzook, relatives
and friends of Winfield Goss were sum-
moned. All of them—even Mrs. Goss—
identified the victim positively as Winfield
Goss.

“T can’t understand it,” said Mrs. Goss,
shaking her head. “Here I thought Winnie
burned to death in that fire, but it appears
he didn’t after all.”

Three: days later, Udderzook was ar-
rested in a Philadelphia saloon. Taken to

Jennersville, he looked at the corpse and '

nodded.
- “It’s Wilson, all right,” he said. “Won-
der how he came to such an end? Any-

‘body who thinks this is Goss is crazy.

Goss was burned to death in that fire near
Baltimore.” -

According to his story, Wilson was a
drinking companion he had met in,Phila-
delphia. On an impulse, the pair had de-
cided to visit Jennersville. Udderzook ad-
mitted going out in the buggy with Wilson,

’ ,

and even admitted arguing about money

matters with him.

“Wilson was pretty drunk,” he said.
“Finally he got mad, climbed out of the
rig and walked away into the woods. I
called to him to come back, but he re-
fused. And that’s the very last I seen of
him.”

A likely story indeed, but Investigator
Marble was taking no chances this time.
He scouted around Jennersville and found
that Udderzook had a_ brother-in-law,
Samuel Rhodes, who owned a farm two
miles south of town. After some prodding,
Rhodes admitted that about ten days
earlier, Udderzook had come to him and
proposed that the two of them team up on
slipping laudanum to an unknown third
man and robbing him. Rhodes demurred,
but Udderzook had followed up his pro-
posal with a letter to Rhodes from Bakti-
more. Rhodes produced the letter, which

referred to a mysterious project and read _

in part:

“There is a cool $1000 in it, and there is
nothing to prevent us from getting it, this
is without a doubt. Take the morning
train to Baltimore, but pay your fair on
the cars. Do not let a sole know where
you go. Do not fale to come. You will find
it is the’ best day’s work you ever did.
Please destroy this letter—Yours Re-
spectfully; William E. Udderzook.”

WHEN UDDERZOOK ° came to trial

for the murder of Goss five weeks
later, he seemed confident that the evi-
dence against him was too circumstantial
for conviction. His face fell hard when

Rhodes took the stand and testified against -

him. It fell even more when the incrimnat-
ing letter, which he had thought de-
xtroyed, was read in court.

Found guilty, he was sentenced to hang
on December 12, 1873. Fighting for his life,
he took an appeal, claiming that he was
the innocent victim of soulless insurance
companies who were conspiring to get him
out of the way because of his determined
offort%o get the Widow Goss her just pay-
ment. He was still claiming that Goss had
died in the fire, and that the dismembered
corpse found near Jennersville was that
of the mysterious A.E. Wilson.

Even when the supreme court upheld
the verdict against him, bull-headed Wil-
liam Udderzook kept up the claim he had
maintained for so long.

“It is my desire that my remains will
rest in Baltimore,” he wrote, “if not in
the same lot, at least in the same ceme-
tery with those of Mr. W.S. Goss, a friend
ever dear to me, that our bodies may re-
turn to the mother dust, and our spirits
may mingle together on the bright, sunny
banks. of deliverance, where pleasures
never end. I hope the time is not far dis-
tant when people will see the danger of
prepared and bought testimony, and a
prearranged design aided by thousands of

dollars spent to defeat justice.”

Udderzook was hanged on November 12,
1874. For Investigator Marble, the payoff
came when the insurance companies for
which he had worked so long were forced
to pay Mrs. Goss’ claim for $50,000. There
was no longer any doubt that Goss was
dead, and that he had died accidentally
by murder, Case closed!

e

you get
“Well
braith }
tically 1
son. I d
it must
had au
- out the
Miller
mine. G
fidential
Richard
owned |
“IT dor
ler saic
changed
fingers.
easy goir
irritable
get. alon
lecting
“He d
he was
of us at
was in;
that m:
blackma

he had.

Miller
ager of
friend o!
Kimball
for the ;

Kimba
Cody. af
said. “I.
be I can

Kimba
that had
months |

“IT hea
said. “W
him?”

“He &
came to
worried.
needed r
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Later, th

money ar
getting it
trouble.
“Well,
acted sc:
talked m
houseliok
“T thin
up a litt
go to his
furniture’
“No. T)
Azel in I
furniture
in and ¢!
debt.”
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“Don’t |
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Galbraith
security o
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money fre

oe ~~

Other Books by Edmund Pearson
% &

STUDIES: IN MuRDER

Books IN BLACK oR RED

THE BELIEVING YEARS

THE SECRET Book

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

THE LIBRARIAN AT PLAY

THE VOYAGE OF THE HOpPERGRASS
THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN
THE Oxtp LIBRARIAN’S ALMANACK

MURDER A
SMUTTY NOS

AND OTHER MURDERS

es

BY
EDMUND: PEARSON

-
~

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1927

*TLQT *ZT tequieaoN uo ‘*eg Szeqseyoyses| pasuey Saqtym **g weTTTTH *yooZeadaN

na anes.

PP CORES Ba ION Nida

IT

A DEMNITION BODY
OR
THE EMBARRASSMENTS OF MR. UDDERZOOK

“I shall be a body . . . ademd, damp, moist, unpleasant
body!” exclaimed Mr. Mantalini,“ . . . I shall require no
demd allowance. I will bea body.”

F I put ten dollars on a horse—a horse who is a
| complete stranger to me, and is, perhaps, in

Havana or New Orleans—or if I risk two dol-
lars upon my guess that the three kings in my
hand have more power than all the five cards held
by the man who is glaring at me across the table—
if I do either of these things, I shall be denounced
by some folk as spending my time and money
most woefully. And I should be disposed to agree
with them, although probably not for the same
reasons.

But if I take up with the sporting offer of a life
insurance company, and pay in thirty dollars in
guarantee of my belief that I shall assuredly perish
during the coming year, as against their generous
bet of a thousand that I shall survive to the end of
it, then I am not a gambler at all, but a wise and
prudent citizen. Indeed, it is a matter of custom:

7o

A DEMNITION BODY 71

the public opinion which once condemned usury
as a sin, now regards the collectors of interest as
especially sacrosanct personages, never recognized
in pictures unless shown with glossy silk hats and
white mutton-chop whiskers.

When somebody invented that scientific and
spotlessly moral form of betting known as insur-
ance, it was instantly apparent that it lacked the
chief ingredient of sin: there was no funinit. No-
body would grow pale, nor sit up all night in a
stuffy room to rake in the premiums or pay its
indemnities. It might have remained, for ever,
as prosaic as any other business, if it had not at-
tracted a number of picturesque and bizarre per-
sons who saw a chance for profit under conditions
which struck them as agreeable. I do not refer
to the young men who call upon you and explain
that the board of directors, in their benevolence,
have extended your privileges, and will now permit
you to get killed or mangled by some new and fan-
tastic method, and at the same old rate of payment.
I refer rather to those who noticed, early in the
history of insurance, that a dead body, or a burned
building, might have a cash value, and resolved to
profit by that fact, even if they imposed slightly
upon the poor, innocent company. There is a
certain charm about solemn hocus-pocus, and it has
never been exhibited to better advantage than by
little groups of persons, in all the trappings and
the suits of woe, who have followed to the grave


72 A DEMNITION BODY

a coffin which contained nothing more melancholy
than a bag of sand or a certain amount of tanbark.
The insurance companies, through sad experience,
have learned how to be courteous and sceptical
at the same time; how to maintain an air of polite
sympathy toward grief-stricken heirs, or toward
gentlemen wringing their hands above a smoking
ruin—how to do this, and still keep a weather eye
open, in case the grief should be a mere bit of
acting.

Frauds against insurance companies make up a
large chapter in the history of deception—a curi-
ous one, with a doleful humour of its own. The
practitioners are a quaint assemblage of earnest
workers, both high and low in station, rude or cul-
tivated in manner. From them I have selected a
man who lived in Maryland and Pennsylvania,
more than fifty years ago, where, like Jeshurun, he
waxed fat and kicked. I found him between the
covers of a book: a lamentable record of human
frailty, and at the same time one of the most amus-
ing volumes which I have seen. It was published
in 1878, the work of two medical gentlemen, John
B. Lewis, M. D., and Charles B. Bombaugh, M. D.,
both qualified by their official positions, and
their acquaintance with the darker paths of the
insurance business, to speak from the heart upon
the subject. They- called their book: ‘‘Remark-
able Stratagems and Conspiracies: An Authentic
Record of Surprising Attempts to Defraud Life

A DEMNITION BODY 73

Insurance Companies’; they bound it in black
and red cloth, and issued fifteen hundred copies.
Naturally enough, these were soon exhausted,
yet eighteen years seem to have elapsed before
the second edition appeared, in 1896. This was
entitled, with slight variation, “Stratagems and
Conspiracies to Defraud Life Insurance Compa-
nies”; it had grown in height, in length by more
than two hundred pages, and very greatly in
interest. The second edition, as often happens, is
far more desirable than the first.

Within the pages of this book dwell an amazing
gallery of adventurers; no single volume of the
Newgate Calendar can rival it. Indeed, the
monotony of style of that more famous work and
its endless moral reflections make it, in my opin-
ion, far less sprightly. The Doctors Lewis and
Bombaugh set out to write a book of counsel and
warning to their fellow officials in the insurance
business; what they did was to compile a small
encyclopedia of crime in the United States, and
incidentally to beat, at their own game, two or three
detectives and police officials who have ‘written
books about wrongdoers.

The reader of it will dwell, fondly upon its
characters: a highly coloured pack of cards in
which aces and knaves predominate. Reflect,
for example, upon a person calling himself Gen-
eral D. K. Boswell, who, shortly after the Civil
War, appeared in Muncie, Indiana. He pretended


d

Tawza To Pay ;
Death Penalty |
This Mornin

;

Electrocution of Slayer
Scheduled for Shortly
After 7

PRISONER DOCILE

Condemned Man Eats Little,
Reports Deputy Warden

fa
t ee
© Fe
{
4

at Rockview

WE hacercd.

, Men. Tune X57

~ i Frank Tawza, convicted slayer of
et ihe Thomas Krokoskey, Luzerne borough
? : agsistant police chief, this morning
singin will pay the death penalty for the
; ¢ crime in the electric chair at Rock:
view Penitentiary. Tawza is sched-
uled to be taken from death row to
the execution room shortly after 7.

Officials at the penitentiary last
‘|night said that Tawza seems re
signed to his fate. Deputy Warden
McFarland said that the condemned
man has been “as meek as a lamb"
since he was delivered to the inath
tution on Saturday by Sheriff Mao
Luskie. He said that Tawza sub
mitted docilely to the shearing, of
hair from his head by the prisoe
barber. The hair is always removed
from the heads of those sentenced
to die in the chair so the application
of electrodes can be accomplished
with greater ease. It also serves t4
reduce the resistance that the hail
would offer to the passing of
electricity through the body.

Tawza ate but little yesterday,
deputy warden reported. He
that the condemned man has no
availed himself of the privilege ao
corded to men during the final day!
before they pay the supreme penalty

Tawza yesterday spurned the office
of the prison chaplain who came t«
his cell to offer him spiritual com
solation. It is underst that he +
sega to accept the last rites

is church from
whose arrival at Bellefonte was oe»
pected last night.

Among those who have been ap-
pointed official witnesses of the execu-
tion are County Detectives Joha
Dempsey and Henry Jones; Chief of
Police Thomas Ford of Luzerne
borough; Corp. Cletus Baumardner,
Dr. H. Gordon Guyler, Deputy Sheriff
Davis Hughes and Sam Francis, WH,
Nam C. Luksic and Edward J. Doms.
hoe, the latter two being Wilk
Barre ee ag be ig Another.
witness will be Simon Kaufer of
Plains township, brother of A. |
Kaufer, aleged to have been slain
an accomplice of Tawza.

Two other men will be electrocuted’
at Rockview today. They are Martin’
Avery and William Henry Sled, bo
negroes, who were convicted of

(Continued on Page 19)

ev. P. B. Paukstia, tre

.|of the reported burglaries
alking

Tawza To Pay
Death Penalty §
This Morning

(Continued from Page 18)

killing of Edward J. Kretz during
the holdup of a Pittsburgh store on
June 21, 1929. Avery, only nineteen
years of age, fired the fatal shot
while Sled, aged 30, and married, was
one of the two accomplices. The third
was acquitted. After the Supreme
court upheld both convictions, ap-
peals for commutationa of the death
sentences to life imprisonment were
carried to the State board of pardons
by the Pittsburgh Legal Aid society.

rey was asked on behalf of Avery
because of his youth and the claim
that he had been influenced by older
companions while in behalf of Sled
it was said that he did not take part
in the robbery despite his plea of
guilty to the murder indictment,
which bis counsel claimed was made
on ill advice. Both negroes lived in|-
Pittsburgh. t

Governor Fisher last night refused |:
a plea of clemency for William Henry |:
Sled, Pittsburgh negro, who is to be|”
—— today at Rockview peni-
on .

Frank Tawza of Wilkes-Barre, and
Martin Avery of Pittsburgh, a com-
panion of Sled, also are to go to the
electric chair today. j

Bennett Rodger, Pittsburgh attor-|'
ney. last night presented a plea upon | --
behalf of Sled. Governor
fore leaving for Frederick, Md., ap-f-
stag Philip 8. Moyer a deputy at-}..-

Up. vt

——-— 4 moe ow

‘general to hear the case.

nm the governor's return ee
studied the... reasons. . advanced 4

clemency: and iast night announce?
that he saw no reason to overrule} =
the Bo of Pardons which previ- f5-
ously had refused a commutation of FF: —
the sentences of the three men.

Sled and Avery were convicted of |
Killing Edward L. Kretz, Jr., a Pitts-
burgh druggist. No application for
executive clemency was made in be-
half of Avery.

Tawza left Luzerne county prison —\-
on Saturday morningvin a sullen |
mood but made no demonstration.
He was placed in an automobile and f
removed Sheriff MacLuskie and }.
three deputies to the penitent! in|.
three hours ty minutes. The/|
trip was without noteworthy Inci-
dent. Tawza was manacied to
Deputy Sheriffs David Hughes and
Bam Francis. Another deputy
sheriff, James Hurrey, served as ex-

guard.
Tawsza will be the first Luzerne
county’ slayer to be electrocuted
since 1922, when Peter Erico and
Tony Puntarrio were electrocuted at
Rockview for the murder of Sam
Luohino, Pittston city detective.
The killing of the Luzerne bor
oo assistant police chief, for
joing cei > we to make
nemen ay, was perpe-
ted on September 4. Burglaries
many Luzerne homes had been re-
ported about the time. West Side
police increased their viligance in

the hope of capturing the culprits
and early on the morning of Sep-
tember 44, Assistant Chief Krokos-

key was notified that several homes
on Union street had been burglar:
ized. With two other policemen, the
assistant chief went to the vicnity
and saw
gurriedly

a shoeless man. w
’

isher be- ca Zoe


7

oo

Be

if

_\ Thomas Krokoskey, assistant chief
of police of Luzerne, OF alleged

barracks in connection with the

|) yesterday. They say TaWwza Has
| aamitted having been at the scene

Luzerne county detectives, State
‘troopers and Scranton detectives
, were reported working in Scranton
“tast night in an effort to find other
. suspects in the fatal shooting of

' witnesses. ’

Police refused to confirm reports:
‘that Frank Tawza, 43, of West
‘Union street, held at Wyoming

slaying. admitted the shooting

POLICE COMBING SCRANTON
FOR SUSPECTS IN

SLAYING | -

of the shooting, that he robbed

sl. several homes in Luzerne prior to:

‘he time and that he owned the |
discarded shoes found after the |
murder. During cross examination |
iy is said that Tawza expressed the;
opinion that the shot which killed !

the assistant chief had been fired | .

by one of the Luzerne patrolmen
who shot him through the shoulder
and neck.

During the grilling yesterday it is
said that Tawza admitted many
‘additional robberies in various parts
of Wyoming Valley. On Saturday
and Sunday it is said he admitted
entering a number of homes and
places in Ashley, Kingston, Luzerne
and Plymouth.

oct. 8 19.99

Slayer Suspect

Oe em ee -

Frank Tawza who is being held
by police in connection with the
fatal shooting of Thomas Kro-
koskey, assistant chief of police
of Luzerne.

ree”

ft

TH
ata

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W-G heer ag AA
olice Extend |

"Slayer Search|

Members of Five Départ-
- ments Attend Funeral of
Luzerne Officer

er

While police of Luzerne county
continued their search for the slayer,
Thomas Krokoski, assistant chief of

ice of Luzerne, victim of an
unidentified burglar, was buried on
Saturday from homie, 482 Walnut
See reeds : ; ; street, Luzerne. An honorary escort
- Pr ag CaCI teas TER Blane i. of forty members of Lurerne fire
+ Peas! amen davis Ging are OE Np s5 department headed the funeral
a pti te yet a Ais side ae hay me >. |] procession to St. Ann’s Church. i.
| ee SON ig Wt as amas AE cgese tapes gio! Rev. John Kundreskas, pastor,|: ~
ie Spr TES a RE a8 2. t mn ceed a st OM celebrated a high mass of requiem.
<« gts =?
*
é
a

were celebrated at °
. George Inczura|:-—
tanley |

Sinkewicz. 8

homas Ford
Gordon James, Fred

Peter Zurinski,
Banta, M.
Profusion of
carried

Cernetery,
ices were h

troopers

Swoyerville

men attended the funeral. =
Spurred on by $1,500 reward offer-

pick u suspects but so far say
nf ve found nothin definite.
Walter ress, who

Commiskey, no

of the slayer were
lice patrol

stolen from Luzerne
after th shooting and the pair now
in custody of the police were not

two days later.

eal

Uter and Louis Marions. =). >

eer se,
Sig Eeed
sd

“te

4


wewe

a ane re ree 76a?

| Chief Assistant

(wee ew wwe ew

‘| yesterday morning at $ when he at-

, | Jones on Union street. ::

{was found with -

4 mung. cant
that the fugitive ran to the alley and

Ter AAD AOE MN Daa St adlnc¥ 1 leo et
WB. Raina j
ce:

Luzerne Pol

i

~ May Not Live

Officer Shot in Brain by
_Pursued Burglar Suspect
| im Critical Condition

~_A me wm et A

ties. Join. in. Hunt . for
Unknown Assailant

Thomas Krokoski, 35, of Walnut,
street, Luzerne, assistant chief of
Lurerne police department, is in a
critical condition in General hospital
with a bullet in his brain suffered

tempted to capture a burglar who
had ransacked three homes in the
borough. A half dozen suspects, were

Tat, See,

j

Richard Powell and a detail of State | :

houses, noticed the fugitive in rear H
of homes on Union «treet, Luzerne, | |
and notified Luzerne police. The man i
was without shoes and was first en-
countered Assistant Chief Kro-
koski arid ‘Patrolmen Zurinski and

Man ran north one block to Factory
street. 8. H. Litts,’ watchman st
Steinhauer Lumber Co. mill at
Factory and Union streets saw the
Sockeye ee tents Sted St the
man epo officers.
mae om Be the frem the lumber

When -he saw the - seal

Ps
in. his bead over the eye. It is be-
Heved---that --the pil, Et fired at|_

The driveway narrows as it con-
D towers an alley run-
and. -west..It is believed

then d red al the D,, L. &
Ww. veeee Genie ges

Following the ehtoting Kingston
policemen’ were called but the as-

ingston po

men ‘searched until daylight when
other authorities took up the nunt.

About two weeks ago Kingston
and Luzerne policemen searched
lumber yards in Luzerne for two
Buffalo men wanted on warrants.
Authorities expressed opinion that
one of these men might have been
the assailant of the asaistant chief.
At daybreak police found that
homes of Mrs. M Pestak, Steven
Luksic_ and John Kovach on Union

The fugitive found a pick in one of
the yards and itis said that this
was used:to open windows of the
homes. Lower floor of each home
wes ransacked and $7 was taken
from the Kovach house; $8 from the

residence and $1.50 from the
Luksic home. The man’s shoes were
pound on front porch of -the Kovach

me,

ae o> Pn on

egg httn nt te te

arrested by. guthorities yesterday but |
last night Chief County Detective | £.

} troopers-—-were—-assisting—. Luzerne|~- _ -
police in searching for the assailant. i
.. X milkman, making the rounds of |!

a

‘

ait

cf

a

2

la steel at a PW Dye
ade

/ &y Orn __
Nudettialon is
bw 9—-(9-lF938 GeO: ho ZA

Lo ¢ siti SD)

ung,
Ider
the

r in
She
ood-
But
. the
ring
to be

umn-
—she
.t the
ere a

ofisky
yolice
yolice
waist
allow
icolo-
r the

with
same

taken
nand
police
e and
{ been
urder.
ted in
daily
taken
Judge
rge of
d lived

o were
1 more
ist the
in her
Neigh-
1g vi0-
3 arrest
ents to

is case
ndfsky,
g years
lie and
d cared
en with
was to

lreds of
the last
imongst
n’s last
asoning
vusy and
t brutal

sroduced
e strand
ead wo-
ture and
‘y's hair-
nise had

suspect

physical
ate clues
f routine
t finally
is forced
cumstan-

* the trial
sie Bart-
1 the first
nly four

sentenced
the state
The pris-
innocence

cepa

Ser ee

Pennsylvania’s Masked Murderers
[Continued from page 72]

tracks, and James went on to tell how
the officers caught a glimpse of a man
sauntering toward the tracks two blocks
away. Over his shoulder was a miner’s
pick. They started off in pursuit, but be-
fore they had gone a block the man dis-
appeared into the dark. James parked
their car and started along the tracks.
Krokoski and Zelinski spread out in dif-
ferent directions.

Zelinski took up the story. “Tom was

running toward an alley in Factory street
near the gas house. A minute later I
heard shots. I raced over. Tom was chas-
ing a guy—both exchanging bullets as
they ran. Then suddenly Tom. spun
around and fell. I kept on running, shoot-
ing at the fellow. He jumped a hedge and
escaped.’Gordy James had come up from
the other direction and he jumped the
hedge, but it was too dark.”

The two officers hurried back to their
fallen comrade. They found Tom lying
slumped on the ground, badly -wounded.
James sprinted for the wagon.

“T put my arm around his neck,” Pete
said, “and then I saw he’d been shot in
the right eyeball. Tommy pointed to the

ground. ‘Pick ’em up,’ he says. ‘My gun »

and them.’ I thought he was raving. But
I yanked out my flashlight and it showed
a pair of old Oxfords with bulges where
bunions had forced out the leather. Near
them was Tom’s empty gun.

“We got Tom into the wagon, and
placed the shoes alongside him. He said,
‘Take me home,’ but he was too badly

. wounded. We didn’t argue, we just raced
to the nearest doctor. He said we better
rush him to the hospital. So we brought
him here.” Pete Zelinski wiped the sweat
from his face.

“And the shoes?” asked Powell.

“Bad news on them, Chief,” Zelinski
muttered. “It took both of us to carry
Tom into the doctor’s office—he’s a good-
sized lad. And with Tom in the shape he
was in we were both mighty worried, let
me tell you. For the time being we didn’t

Patrolman Gordon James, left, pursued the killer
In the center is the courthouse in Wilkes-Barr
andsome Tom Krokoski, right, assistant chie

assassin’s bullet, but managed to wound his killer.

think of anything except getting Tom to
a doctor and seeing. how bad he was hit.
We left those shoes‘in the wagon: And
when we came out to take Tom to the
hospital they were gone! The killer must
have sneaked back after we lost him, seen
us carrying Tom to the wagon and heard
us talk about the shoes. He could haye
followed us to the doc’s house if he hada
car and swiped them while we were in-
side. I don’t see any other way to figure
it!”
For boldness, ingenuity and sheer ef-
frontery this theft of the incriminating
shoes was remarkable. And it pointed to
no ordinary porch climber. After talking
over all angles of the case the officers
agreed that they were again stalking the
Tiger. There was one element of hope.
The shot which caught Tom Krokoski in
the eye was a lucky one for the gunman
who fired it—a freak shot—but Tom him-
self had’ fired repeatedly at the fleeing
figure and even though it was dark Toth’s
marksmanship was so accurate that his
fellow officers. still ‘held hopes that he
might have wounded the Tiger if indeed
he had come to grips with that character
at last.
In spite of all that medical science could
do, the midnight foray had a tragic con-
clusion. Tom Krokoski died before night-
fall the following day.
Luzerne county offered a reward of
$2,500 for information leading to the cap-
ture of the murderer and’ the small’ bor-
ough of Luzerne added $500 of its own.
Dozens of. suspects were questioned
without help to the investigation. City
detectives were putting pressure on every
dive where criminals congregated in.
Wilkes Barre. Every road house and re-
sort in the Wyoming Valley was visited
and practically turned inside out by the
state police without avail as days and
endless nights wore by,
On Oct. 4 the chief of Wilke. Barre’s
detective bureau telephoned the Wyom-
ing barracks. “We've picked up a man

gunman but lost him in the darkness,
e, headquarters for the investigation.
f of police of Luzerne, fell before an

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105

‘LOOSE DANDRUFF:


i Sah >

wearing a pair of shoes like the ones de-
scribed by Officer Zelinski, He was
caught climbing a porch in his stocking
feet.”

Major Clark in turn called County De-
tective Powell. “Meet me at Wilkes Barre

headquarters,” he said. “Sounds like they

have something.”

And when they saw the huge, sham-
bling youth slouching in a swivel chair,
the two investigators were sure of it.

The suspect could not give an alibi for
the early morning hours of Sept. 24; he
did not know in which town he had lived
last Nov. 1, when Kauffer was shot. The
questioning was going on hot and heavy
when knuckles rapped on the door.

Powell opened it and faced Detective Jack -

Williams. Williams’ eyes were wide.
“Listen, Mr. Powell. My _ partner,

‘Denny McCauley, has something good.”

“We’ve got something that looks pretty
good right inside here,” Powell told him.
Williams continued, “Denny promised
his informant he wouldn’t divulge his
identity. The man doesn’t want to con-
tact the police—he’s owner of a shabby
hotel. He’s repaying a favor I did him.”
“Better make it quick,” Powell urged,

’ “T want to héar what’s going on inside.”

“IT know, but get this—a fellow named
Frank Tawza came home to his boarding
house around five o’clock of the morning
Tom was shot. This fellow had been shot
in the arm and the back of his neck. He’s
been having his wounds treated by a doc-
tor in Scranton.”

Powell’s eyes narrowed. If this was on
the up-and-up, it was the break they’d
been seeking for nearly 4 year. He knew
that Tom had been a crack shot. Powell
swung open the door, and beckoned to
Maj.. Clark.

One minute later, a car loaded with de+
tectives went roaring away from Wilkes
Barre headquarters, and sped to the house
that Detective Williams had described,
on Union street, Wilkes Barre.

Powell and Clark approached the door;
the others surrounded the four-story
brick house, front and back. .

A young, businesslike woman in a neat
house dress opened the door.

“Have you a Frank Tawza living here?”
Clark asked.

“He’s not in,” she answered without
opening the door more than a few inches.

Maj. Clark flashed his gold badge. “We
want information about Tawza.”

She conducted them to.a back room

wardrobe’s top shelf produced a number
of watches, bits of jewelry, gins, money
and uncashed checks.

“And you thought he was a miner on
the night shift!” Powell remarked.

“I certainly would not knowingly have
harbored a burglar in my house,” she
replied, “He and his.roommate were al-
ways quiet and well behaved. That’s the
roommate coming upstairs now.’

Detective Powell might have handled
the interview differently but before he
could speak the landlady burst out with
the news that Frank Tawza was a sus-
pected killer.

Tawza’s roommate, a short, stocky
miner, nodded his head vigorously. He
had always known there was something
fishy about Frank, but his occasional curi-
osity had drawn snarling warnings from
Tawza not to get too nosey. At first the
miner had believed Frank’s story about
getting shot up in the card game but
when Tawza had sent him to Mustache
Mike to borrow a car to take him out of
town to a doctor he had smelled a rat.

He went on to tell the officers how Mike
had not ‘been home when he called and
finally Frank Tawza, insisting he had to
have an out of town doctor, had per-

’ suaded the landlady to drive him over to

Scranton. Once when a news broadcast

_ had carried the report of Tom Krokoski’s

where a frail man sat in a rocker, breath- .

ing heavily.
“This is my husband,” she told the de-
tectives; and to the man, “It’s the police

after Tawza. I don’t know what he’s

done.”
“You know,” snapped Powell, “that
Tawza came home at five o’clock on the

~ morning that Chief Krokoski was shot.

You know that Krokoski shot at his flee-
ing killer. And you know that Tawza had
a bullet wound in the back of his neck and
in his arm. I’m surprised at you people—-
law-abiding citizens living almost next
door to the courthouse—not notifying the
police of these suspicious circumstarices.”

The woman flushed. “He told us he had
been shot by a friend of his in a rumpus
over a-card game in Plymouth..I gave
him the benefit of the doubt.”

After that she cooperated willingly.

Frank Tawza, she said, was being treated
by a doctor in Scranton. Frank had an
appointment for 6:30 that.same evening
at the doctor’s office in the Medical Arts
building there.

While Maj. Clark used a telephone to
call up Scranton’s detective bureau,
Powell accompanied the landlady to
Tawza’s room. Bureau drawers’ and the

106 ate

J

THE NAZIS SAY...

“This (the U.S. Govt.) is the last
disgusting death rattle of a corrupt '
_ and outworn system.”—Adolf Hitler.

AMERICANS SAY...

Buy those War Bonds, boys!
_ We'll show him a real system!

killing, Frank had scowled and shut off
the radio, Also it seemed that he had sent
the roommate out to buy a dollar satchel.
When he came back with it Tawza put
a gun in it and after that, it disappeared.
The listening officers had a good idea
where it had gone, or at least to whom it
had been intrusted. In the case of the
Tiger all roads .seemed to lead to
Mustache Mike and it was safe to suppose
that if he were the Tiger’s accomplice—
or the actual brains behind the many
crimes—that when the big hoodlum had
been wounded he would try to ditch the
murder weapon through his partner.
Powell called a city detective and sent
Frank Tawza’s roommate to the city jail
as a material witness and to guard the

man’s life since the Tiger was still at

large.

However, the Tiger’s capture, once his .

identity was known, did not prove as dif-

ficult as the officials had feared it might. -

Apparently the Tiger by day and without
his ghoulish mask, his gun and the crafty
brain of Mustache Mike to direct him was
just another surly thug. As he was coming
out of the doctor’s office in Scranton, de-
tectives. closed in and had the. bracelets
on him before he knew what had hap-

. pened. ;

Maj. Clark and Detective Powell were
seated in the office of Scranton’s police
chief when ‘Detectives: Eddie Kelly and

John Philips of Scranton headquarters.

brought in the prisoner, a hulking brutish
thug with small eyes peering from deep
sockets. * ig
“Take off your shirt,- Frank,” Maj.
Clark ordered.
“What for?”

¢

Detective Philips did not wait for the
protests. He yanked off the gaudy tie,
tore off the soft collar, ripped the shirt.

“What's the doctor treating you for?”
Powell asked softly.

“Boils,” Tawza answered sullenly.

“Gunshot wounds are more like it.”

“If you know the answers, why ask
questions?” snarled the suspect.

“Now take off his shoes,” Powell di-
rected. “And his socks.”

“You're not very hygienic, Frank,”
Powell remarked when this had been
done, “Haven't washed your socks since
you lammed from Luzerne. Grass and
cinders sticking to the bottoms. Now let’s
see the soles of his feet.”

Detective Kelly jerked up a calloused
foot. It was cut and scratched as if from
racing over broken fields without shoes.

Taken to Wyoming barracks, Frank
Tawza refused to answer questions. He
was locked up in a basement cell.

That night Mustache Mike Skesavage
was brought to the barracks from Plains.

Mike strolled nonchalantly into the bar-
racks library where Detective Powell,
Chief Sid Patterson, and Corp. Cletus
Baumgartner were seated.

“Take @ chair, Mike,” Baumgartner in-
vited. “The chief has been telling us what
a good fellow you are,” he added drily.

“Sid is a good fellow, too,” Mike re-
sponded chummily, dropping heavily into
a leather-covered arm-chair. His voice
was mellow but his eyes were the blank
orbs of a born killer.

“T was good to you, too,” Cletus Baum-
gartner spoke up. “Remember when
you drilled that corpse, I only charged
a misdemeanor?”

“Sure, I was mighty grateful to you,
Cletus.”

Powell smiled inwardly. Since: firing
bullets into a dead body was disorderly
conduct, only, Cletus had not overstepped
himself.

The officers recalled other “favors” ac-
corded Mike. “And now,” said Powell
finally, “‘we want you to do us a favor.
You know we have Frank Tawza locked
up for the Krokoski killing. We know
that he’s the Tiger. What did you do
with the satchel he gave you to keep for:
him?”

This was a shot in the dark. However,
since Mike was the first one Frank had
sent his roommate after for a car, it was
a good one.

“You can save us time,” Powell went
on seeing Mustache Mike hesitate.

“T-was just trying to think of the exact
‘spot where I hid it, Mr. Powell. I want to
help you. Come with me. I will show

ou.”

“I’m busy right now. The corporal and
Chief Patterson will go.”

And that is how it was.

Upon their departure, Powell tele-
phoned the district attorney and ac-
quainted him with the new development.

“Looks like we have the Krokoski case
sewn up, Dick,” said Lewis. “But if Frank
Tawza was in on the Kauffer murder, I’d
rather try him for that. It’s a felony
murder with only two possible verdicts—
the chair or freedom. With the Tiger
locked up, people are more apt to talk.”

When the two officers returned with
Mike, Powell asked Baumgartner to
bring up Frank Tawza from his cell.

“Got: you too, eh, Mustache?” Tawza
grunted at his friend, shifting his gaze
from the open satchel, three guns and am-
munition on the table.

“Just for questioning, Frank,’ Mike
answered easily. “That rat you had for a

roommate pinned the satchel on me, I’ve’

been telling the officers I had no idea what
was in the satchel and—”

“y,
box o
put it
know
I'l fry
I won
the Kk:

Life
“Vou':
. “Cal
ing Mi
Mike,
Case. (
time, 4
as am
fine.”
Quite
Tiger, |
his life,
vinced
“shorter
chant.
But M
knowled:
few days
And th
ful. Mik
Powell a
not acus
Owell
where sti

Nor did |

the men

was the e;

mitted th

After ¢

Mike wo

yet? I gu

Stickup hy

“There
about?” |

mystery m
the little \
the sucker
ishes—and
tries to ry
Miraculous
has any of
use ’em for
the realizat;
The “gas s1
aspirin !

LOCKED R:

Last mont
on locked do
Ing proplems
meet. There
which a doo;
can be locke:

Y someone \
Teason a sus)
curs behind a
cide investiga
of the door its

Burglars a:
called an “ous
Pair of speci:
pliers made of
this they can
from outside. .

turn it to open
the door can hx
same manner,
variably leay,
the detective t:
oustiti is conf
glars: if you’re
Possession it’s j

more com)


he

39

“ing
erly

ped

ac-
well
vor.
-ked
now
1 do
) for

ver,
had
was
vent
xact
nt to

show

| and

tele-

ac-
nent.
case
‘rank
- Td

lony

“You're a liar,” Frank said easily. “That
box of cartridges was part empty when I
put it in the satchel. And the kid didn’t
know who got the satchel. Rat! Okay.
I'll fry for the Krokoski job anyway. But
I won’t fry alone. You'll fry with me for
the Kauffer rub out.”

Life a wolf, Mustache Mike sprang.
“You're lying—”

“Calm down,” Baumgartner said, shov-
ing Mike back into his chair. “We know,
Mike, that you’ve got an alibi for every
case. Come on, Frank, it’s past your bed-
time. And you, Mike, will be our guest
as a material witness. We'll treat you
fine.” :

Quite sure that Frank Tawza, alias the
Tiger, had spoken the truth for once in

is life, the district attorney was con-
vinced that Mustache Mike was the
“shorter man” who had killed the mer-
chant.

But Mike could be more useful if this
knowledge was withheld from him fora
few days.

And the three following days were fruit-
ful. Mike sang and sang for Detective
Powell and the district attorney. He did
not acuse Frank indiscriminately when
Powell went over a list of unsolved cases
where stickup men had shot their victims.
Nor did he involve himself once. Among
the men Mike accused Frank of shooting
was the engineer, McManamon. Frank ad-
mitted the accusations surlily.

After each long session with Powell, -

Mike would ask, “Aren’t you satisfied
yet? I guess I’ve told you every serious
stickup he’s been in.” “

“There may be some you don’t know
about?” Powell suggested,

Straight From

“No, Frank would have told me. He
was proud of being the Tiger.”

“Well, I’m not satisfied’ yet,” Powell
remarked on the afternoon of Oct. 9.
“Frank was the one who stood guard over
the Kauffer family, and you were the one
who killed the old man.”

“No. Frank killed him, I stood guard,”
said Mike quickly, “I knew you would get
around to that. Well, are you satisfied
now, Mr. Powell? Okay. You’re a good

‘fellow. Will you shake-hands?”

Mike rose and Powell shook the
proffered hamlike fist. “Goodbye, Mr.
Powell.”

Next morning, Oct. 10, 1929, at 6:30

when the keeper brought breakfast to ’

Mike’s cell, he found Mike’s face pressed
against the bars, On his face was a wide,
fixed grin. “Step back, Mike, so I can
open the door,” the officer ordered.

Mike did not move. His up-turned collar
hid the belt that circled his neck and was
looped to a rafter directly above the gate.

Mike Skesavage for the last time had
cheated the law.

But Frank Tawza did not escape.
Mike’s suicide had spoiled the Kauffer
case as a sure conviction since it was one
of the guns from the mysterious satchel—
a police positive traced to Mustache Mike
—which had slain Abe Kauffer. But
Tawza ‘admitted ownership of the pearl
handled’ revolver and_ ballistics — tests
proved that it had fired the bullet which
killed Assistant Chief Tom Krokoski. He
was found guilty on Nov. 25, 1929, of that
gallant officer’s death.

On Oct. 29, 1930, Frank Tawza, alias
the Tiger, was electrocuted in the West-
‘ern penitentiary, Centre county, Pa,

Headquarters

[Continued from page 5] it

mystery man comes across with a few of
the little white pills for whatever scratch
the sucker will contribute. Then he van-
ishes—and wisely so for, when the chump
tries to run his car on water and the

miraculous substance it’s no go. If he-

has any of the white tablets left he can
use ’em for the headache which follows
.the realization that he has been rooked.
The “gas substitute” is usually ordinary
aspirin!

LOCKED ROOM PUZZLES

Last month I promised you some dope
on locked doors, one of the most intrigu-
ing proplems the investigator is likely to
meet. There are two main principles by
which a door with an old-fashioned lock
can be locked apparently from the inside
by someone who stands outside. For this
reason a suspicious “suicide” which oc-
curs behind a locked door starts the homi-
cide investigator on a minute examination
of the door itself.

Burglars and hotel thieves use a device
called an “oustiti” which is nothing but a
pair of specially designed needle-nosed
pliers made of unusually tough steel. With
this they can reach through the keyhole
from outside, grip the tip of the key and
turn it to open the door. And, in reverse,
the door can be locked from outside in-the
Same manner. However, these “nippers”
invariably leave scratches on the key for
the detective to find. And the use of the
oustiti is confined to professional bur-
glars: if you’re caught with one in your
Possession it’s just too bad!

A more common method js the use of

, a bit of strong twine and a lever, which

can be anything from a match stick to a
good sized nail. The lever is inserted in
the handle of the key and the twine is
looped about it and carried around out-
side the door. When the door is elosed a
strong, steady pul’ on the string will cause
the key to turn and lock the. door, The
String is then drawn through the: crack
and the leve: drops to the floor inside the
room. But here again, the trained investi-
gator knows that under these circum-
stances a nail, a pencil stub or a match
are very suspicious objects.

Doors can also be bolted from outside
using the string alone. But in either case,
the string has to be: pulled with such
force that it invariably leaves markings
on the surface of the door facing, which
the alert detective can read like a news-
paper headline.

Similarly skeleton keys disturb the dust
inside a lock and leave bright scratches
in corroded surfaces which tell the story.
Then again a criminal may ‘take an im-
pression of the lock by coating a blank
key with wax, inserting it in the lock and
twisting it to show the points. of contact.
He can then file the blank along this
pattern and make himself a key. But this
Process always leaves traces of wax inside
the lock which is the tip-off that a dupli-
cate has been made. So when it comes to
monkeying around with locked doors the
criminal is behind the 8-ball from the be-
ginning.

(Next month I’m going to tell you
about one of the most powerful weapons
of the scientific detective—the compari-
son microscope and its various uses.)

—THE EDITOR.

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“Yeah,” he said wearily at last. “I done
it. I don’t know what got into me. I just
couldn’t help myself.

“I watched that girl, day after day, young
and pretty and fresh-looking, with her red
hair, running down the hill. Last Monday
she was alone. I came up behind her with
a stone, and hit her on the head.”

He then ran home, he went on, got the
paring knife blade and went back and cut
her throat. He scooped out the shallow
grave, covered the body as best he could,
and changed clothes and went to Rochester.

It was obvious, from his hospital record,
however, that Thompson had not been in
Conemaugh when little Karen Mauk was
slain. Indeed, he had a solid alibi for
Thursday night.

In Cambria County, news of the capture
of Helen Jean Bryant’s slayer and of his
confession, which he readily signed,
spurred the officers there in their quest for
the brutal killer of the little girl.

A Windber man, captured near the ham-
let of Scalp Level, southeast of Johns-
town, after an attack upon a 10-year-old
girl, was promptly questioned in Karen’s
death. He had an alibi the investigators
could not crack.

In Conemaugh, in Aliquippa, as well as
neighboring communities, on Sunday eve-
ning—Halloween—there were no rag-tag
kids upon the streets, no yellow Jack-o-
lanterns grinning from front windows. The
children were kept indoors. The festive
spirit of the holiday had vanished in the
shock and grief which all residents shared
with the two bereaved families.

Volunteer firemen and auxiliary police-
men were out that evening, guarding the
streets as worshipers attended evening serv-
ices in their churches. There were few
adults even who dared the streets alone.
From religious gatherings, neighbors
grouped together to return to their homes.

And that night in New Castle, only 30
miles north of Aliquippa, the third of
Western Pennsylvania’s Halloween horrors
was perpetrated.

There a l-year-old girl, venturing oul
alone, was seized in the dark, carried into
a back yard and assaulted. Although suf-
fering from severe shock and injuries, she
fortunately survived the attack.

By Monday, the probe in Conemaugh
seemed no farther advanced than it had
been an hour after little Karen was, found
dead on the cemetery hill.

Roger Eichorn had_ been completely
cleared in the case, and returned to face
whatever parental wrath awaited him in
Pittsburgh.

Early in the afternoon, County Detective
Chief Reed got a call from one of his men.
“Harry Grossard’s expected back today,”
Reed announced, when he hung up. “He'll
be at a sister’s, over in East Taylor Town-
ship, on Route 219. I suppose we better
bring him in for questioning. Matter of rou-
tine, with his record.

Trooper Harold “Sam” Luther of the
state force took Grossard into custody late
in the afternoon. In Blair’s headquarters in
the firehouse, the big salesman calmly de-
nied all guilty knowledge of the little girl’s
death.

“Why, I knew Karen,” he said. “A sweet
little thing. She lived right near my moth-
er’s house. I—I’ve, well, had a little trouble
in the past, but not that kind of thing.”
He shuddered. “I couldn’t do that, not in
this world,” he declared.

He had, admittedly, no alibi, for Thurs-
day night. He said he had just been out
driving around until 8, or maybe 8:30 or
9 o’clock. “There was no reason for me to
keep close track of the time,” he said, “so
I wasn’t watching a clock.”

During the long interrogation, Grossard
complained of pains in his back. “If you're
going to keep me here much longer,” he
said, “please get a doctor in. I need some-

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Sue Fuller

CLUB MURDER OF THE
PRETTIEST GIRL IN TOWN

(TD April, 1955)

When he returned home from an early
morning walk to get the Sunday papers
on December 12th, 1954, Milton Fuller
found his wife, Sue, 25, dead in the bed-
room of their Brinkley, Arkansas, home.
Her head had been crushed by blows
from a club.

On Friday Billy Ray Willingham was
arrested in Forrest City, 25 miles east of
Brinkley and charged with the murder.
Following a 30-day observation period
at Arkansas State Mental Hospital, Wil-
lingham was ruled sane. During this pe-
riod two witnesses were found who
placed the falsely arrested Willingham
in Memphis, Tennessee, at the time of the
murder.

And on February
leased by the prosc
am convinced that
guilty.”

In an interview \
ent, James R. Holla:
Forrest City police
killed the Fuller wo:
Il didn’t even know her and had never
seen her. They took me to the jail and
called Brinkley police. While riding over
there, the officers ciissed me and said I
killed the woman, | told them I was in
Memphis at the time. They slapped me,
started beating me over the head. I
didn’t bleed, but my head was swollen.
They grilled me for three straight days.

“That was the first time I was ever ar-
rested and I hope | don’t have to go
through that again.”

3rd, 1955, he was re-
itor, who stated, “I
Willingham is not

ith TD correspond-
d, Billy said: “Some
‘ot me and said I
van. I explained that

Report of latest legal developments

on eases published by TD

-

7 PENNSYLVANIA'S
HALLOWEEN HORROR
(TD February, 1955)

In two communities in western Penn-
sylvania, Halloween of 1954 is remem-
bered as a time of fear and horror. Helen
Jean Bryant, 16, left her home on a hill-
top in Aliquippa, near Pittsburgh, to go
to school—and disappeared. Little 6-
year-old Karen Mauk started out in the
late afternoon with her trick-or-treat
bag and vanished.

Karen’s body was found first, in the
brush beside a byroad near a cemetery,
her trick-or-treat bag spilling candy and
cookies into her curly hair. She had been
smothered.

Later, searchers discovered the body of
Helen Jean in a shallow grave 100 yards
from her home. Her head had been bru-
tally bludgeoned and her throat cut.

Helen’s younger sister told officers that
a man who lived down the hill from
their home had often frightened them as
they went to school. He was Elijah
Thompson, 23, whose father was a rail-
road brakeman.

Questioned by police, Thompson finally
confessed, “I done it—I don’t know
why.” He said he’d watched the sisters
every day as they went to school. “That
day, she was alone. I came up behind her,
hit her head with a rock.” Then, he said,
he cut her with the knife, then scooped
out a grave and covered her up.

In court Thompson pleaded guilty and
said he hoped the judge would sentence
him to death. And on January 20th, 1955,
Judge Morgan H. Sohn granted his wish
and sentenced him to the electric chair.

Helen Bryant

Harry Gossard, 39, former merchant-
seaman, picked up as a suspect in the
slaying of Karen Mauk, admitted that
he had lured the child into his car by
offering her money for her trick-or-treat
bag. He claimed that he had slipped and
fallen on her, that he had not meant to
hurt her.

Gossard pleaded guilty to a general
charge of murder and was ordered com-
mitted to Torrance State Hospital for
psychiatric examination.

"| DIDN'T LIKE THE PLACE"

(TD April, 1955)

On December 12th, 1954, the Yacht
Club Apartments, a 4-story brick and
wood structure on Water Street, Haver-
hill, Massachusetts, burned in a fire that
took the lives of five tenants. The fire
was determined to be of incendiary
origin.

Richard E. LaPlante, whose family
lived on the fourth floor of the building,
was held on charges of arson and man-
slaughter. At his trial in Essex County
Superior Court before Judge Horace T.
Cahill, a jury of 5 men and 7 women ex-
onerated LaPlante.

DEATH FOR $1

(TD November, 1954)

On the evening of July 5th, 1954, How-
ard Englander, 29, an aircraft mechanic
and father of a 38-year-old child, went
surf-casting off Manhattan Beach. Ab-
sorbed in the sport, he was unaware of
two shadowy figures creeping up on him
in the darkness. Suddenly one of them
struck him on the head with a length of
lead pipe, then trussed him with his own
fishing line and threw him into the
water.

In the very early hours of July 6th
Ernest Lee Edwards, 23, a Philadelphia
hoodlum, and his companion, Richard P.
Connors, 24, driving north in the car they
had stolen from Englander, were ar-
rested when they stopped and attempted
to mug another man on Riverside Drive,
New York.

Connors revealed to police details of
Englander’s death and was granted a
separate trial on his promise to testify
against Edwards for the state. Still blood-
stained, the pipe with which the fisher-
man had been slain was found in the
car.

Englander’s body was found on July
llth some 40 miles from Manhattan
Beach, when the crew of a fishing boat
spotted it. An autopsy showed that the
victim had been struck at least a dozen
times with the lead pipe. Parts of his
skull were pulverized.

At Edwards’ trial before Judge Sam-

ff
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7

-HOMICIDE IN PARADISE VALLEY

(ITD September, 1955)
On April Ist, 1955, the body of a slain

man was found behind a cottage in
process of construction northwest of
Yuba City, California. The victim’s
hands had been bound behind his back
with leather straps and he had been
stabbed to death. Spectacles found near
the body were traced through an optom-
etrist’s prescription and the victim was
identified as Lloyd V. Mansfield of Para-
dise, Butte County, California. He was
believed to have been slain by a hitch-
hiker who had stolen his car.

On May 22nd a traffic officer in Lara-
mie, Wyoming, recognized the license
number of the car and arrested the
driver, who first gave his name as Lloyd
Mansfield. Later he said he was Louis
Adair. Extradited to Yuba City, the
prisoner admitted that his real name was
Theodore Louis De Jausserand. He con-
fessed that Mansfield had given him a
ride and when they got out near the
cottage to stretch their legs he had
struck Mansfield down with a board.
Returning to the car, he got the straps
and a hunting knife and slew Mansfield,
stole his victim’s money and fled in his
car.

Charged with first-degree murder, De
Jausserand pleaded guilty. On July 12th
Superior Judge Arthur W. Coats Jr. sen-
tenced De Jausserand to life imprison-
ment. District Attorney John A. Hauck
did not ask for the death penalty.

"I'M TIRED OF RUNNING AWAY"

(TD September, 1955)
For 19 years the sadistic murder of

Ruth Muir was an unsolved mystery on
the books of the San Diego, California,
police. On the evening of August 31st,
1936, Ruth, a Wellesley College gradu-
ate and daughter of wealthy parents, sat
on a bench at La Jolla Beach to watch
the waves. A killer crept up to her and
beat her to death. ;

One of the persons questioned in con-
nection with the slaying was Wilbert
Felix Friend, a caddy at the La Jolla
Country Club. He established an alibi
and was released.

On the night of May 28th, 1955, the
phone rang in the city room of a San
Diego newspaper. A man’s voice told
the reporter who answered it, “My name
is Wilbert Friend. I want to confess a
murder.” Without giving his address, he
said, “T’ll call you back later.” And hung
up.

The reporter called the police and
when the man phoned again the call was
traced. At 10:45 that night Wilbert
Friend was taken into custody as he
emerged from a hotel.

“T’m tired of running away,” the pris-
oner said. “I’m sick from thinking about
what I did.”

On the night of the murder, he said, he
had been drinking with a friend in a tent
on the beach. Later, walking along the
beach, he saw Ruth Muir sitting on a
bench in the moonlight. He picked up a
piece of board from one of the picnic
tables in the beach park, stole up to her
and savagely attacked her and assaulted
her. He ‘threw his bloodstained clothes
into the sea and went back to the tent
and slept.

Otel

A lie detector test supported Friend’s
confession and he led officers to the
table from which he had taken the
board. Police still had this bludgeon and
other evidence picked up at the time of
the. crime. And details Friend disclosed
could have been known only to the
killer.

On July 8th, formally charged with
the murder of Ruth Muir, Friend pleaded
not guilty and not guilty by reason of in-
sanity. His trial began on J uly 28th. And
on August 8rd a Superior Court jury
convicted him of the crime, with no
recommendation for mercy. Under Cali-
fornia law, the death penalty is manda-
tory. “I want the gas chamber,” he said.

Rcaceiiiaaity

Helen Bryant
PENNSYLVANIA'S
HALLOWEEN HORROR
(TD February, 1955)

On the morning of October 29th, 1954,
Helen Jean Bryant, 16, left her home on
a hilltop in Aliquippa, near Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, to go to school. She did
not return home afterward.

Later searchers discovered the body
of Helen Jean in a shallow grave 100
yards from her home. Her head had been
brutally bludgeoned and her throat cut.

Helen’s younger sister told officers
that a man who lived down the hill from
their home had often frightened them as
they went to school. He was Elijah
Thompson Jr., 23, whose father was a
railroad brakeman.

Questioned by police, Thompson fi-
nally confessed the murder of the school-
girl. “I done it,” he said. “I don’t know
why.” He said he’d watched the sisters
each day as they went to school. “That
day she was alone. I came up behind
her, hit her head with a rock.” Then, he
said, he scooped out a grave and cov-
ered her up.

In court Thompson pleaded guilty. He
said he hoped the judge would sentence
him to death. And on January 20th,
1955, Judge Morgan H. Sohn granted
his wish and sentenced him to the elec-
tric chair.

But Elijah Thompson Jr. still had
some months to remember and regret,
before he went.to his death in the elec-
tric chair at Rockview State Penitentiary
on July 25th, 1955.

a |

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INCREDIBLE MURDER

sees ees

From the Bryant's hilltop dwelling searchers
set out to ae the path the victim took.

Twice within this tragic eek the innocent were. taken. Had

’ .

: the demons of Halloween found human hands to do their evil 3 byE

ae : : ai
RAY against the window panes, the fog hovered Deep inside her, Helen Jean realized it was not her dad’s

on the hill, thick, sodden, cold, seeming to crowd. fault that he was out of work and that the Bryants were on | fe: _
the family within the ramshackle little house more relief and forced to squeeze into’ the decrepit dwelling atop

intolerably than usual © = = °°, .». the shaggy hill, far removed from neighbors and friends and as
Before a mirror, 16-year-old Helen Jean Bryant —. movies and coke joints and parties in her schoolmates’ homes. =
4: SWiped a brush petulantly through her strawberry -But: that. realization ‘was not enough to overcome a teen- ‘:
blonde hair, Resentment smoldered in her glittering blue eyes age girl’s rebellion at having to live so, and before she left BY
and tightened her full, red lips in'a thin; bloodless - line. the house that Monday morning of October 25, 1954, Helen Pe was not there to wond
- It was the old, old story, ‘The younger kids underfoot, cry- Jean snapped at her mother, and Ellen Bryant snapped back, ©... that same mornnig to
ing, fighting, squalling. Her mother clucking like a brood and another quarrel erupted. i eee : Mrs. Bryant was. not
hen over half a dozen boys and girls who had to be clothed Helen Jean broke off the spat abruptly, turning on the _ couple of dollars, at lez
and fed and sent’ off to school, Spisithe threshold. 2 Moraes mm Helen Jean most’ likely
There was the steamy smell: of too much cooking and “I'm not coming home!” she flared, “Just remember that— fF  . miles away, to stay ove
scrubbing of hands and faces; too much noise and confusion I’m not coming back!” ~~ adored, Helen Jean wo
and, this morning, .the fog, with 14-year-old Dolores boredly And she slammed the door and stomped off down the hill. ~~ Dolores returned to sc
announcing that she. didn’t feel well and wasn’t. going in to Mrs. Bryant, watching through a window, saw the fog swallow [f.-.. that her older sister }

her classes in Aliquippa High School. That meant Helen her daughter, thinking to herself: “She’s said that before. Poor = _ Previous day. Nor: was
- Jean must scurry alone down the half-mile ‘path, twisting _ child, of course it’s hard, up ‘here on this hill. But times will _ fF ~. mores in Aliquippa Hig
through brush and woods until it came.out on Iron Street, get better. And she'll come home, like she always did before.” . _ That night Ellen Bry
where the ‘school. bus ‘passed, far below; .. >)! | Helen Jean did not return that night, Earl Bryant, her dad, 5 -Corapolis, Grace Robb,

20. POLICE DRAGNET CASES POLICE DRAGNET CAS)

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counsel's claim of technical error in the © -

records, saved Williams from the chair. It
was the first of a long series of delays as
one appeal after another was fought
through court after court.

But at long last the day of reckoning
could not be postponed any longer. Pete
Williams’ last appeal had been made and
rejected. On April 4, 1960, precisely at
midnight—once again a fateful hour in
the ill-starred career of Edward Leon
“Pete” Williams, the tall, swarthy
murderer found himself strapped into the
electric chair at the state prison. The

"switch was thrown, and Pete Williams’

desperate gamble to thwart justice was
itself thwarted. ji 3

In more than four years of repeated
delays and the manyjlegal recourses it had
allowed the killer, the law had shown in-
finitely more mercy than this murderer
had shown to his innocent victim, the
trusting young preacher about whom
Pete Williams had callously admitted:

“He didn’t have a chance,”

In a way, those unfeeling words are, in
and of themselves, a starkly graphic ser-
mon to those overly solicitous souls who

bleat so loudly about the rights and
privileges of criminals and killers, ap- ~.

parently considering these more impor-
tant than the rights and privileges of inno-
cent, law-abiding citizens. oo

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Reverend Leslie Arnold, Jeb Mar-
cus, Millie Garese and Fred Campion
arc not the realnames of the persons so
named in the foregoing story. Fic-
titious names have been used because
there is no reason for public interest in
the identities of these persons.

Halloween Rapists’

Trick-Or-Treat Murder
(Continued from page 35)

as he said it, but in his heart he was
frightened and concemed. It was then
half-past nine. He was sure that if Karen
had actually gone to her cousin’s home,
the Wecklunds would have seen to it that

“the child had gotten home long before
’ this.

. early in the evening, wearing a kewpie .

As he feared, Karen was not there.
Roused from sleep, little Jackie said that
he had left Karen near his house just
before he came in after their rounds of
trick-or-treating. That would have been
about 7:30, his parents said. The place
Jackie said he left the little girl was no
more than 100 yards from her own home,
and she was walking in that direction
when he last saw her, clutching her bag
of “loot,” the boy added when he ‘was
questioned further.

His relatives joined Karen’s father ina
hasty canvass of the homes of neighbors
up and down the street. No one had seen
Karen since she had come to their doors

doll mask and a purple coat.

A little more than an hour later,
Karen’s father reported the child missing,
and, at 11:15 p.m., the town’s fire siren
shattered the nocturnal stillness of the
small community, summoning members
of the Conemaugh Volunteer Fire Com-
pany to join policeina search for the pret-
ty tot who had vanished.

As word of the child’s disappearance
spread, Boy Scouts and local citizens
poured out of their homes to swell the
ranks of the search party to more than 150
persons. Starting point for the search was
the short stretch between Karen’s home
and that of her cousin. From this area,
men fanned out with lanterns and
searchlights, checking back yards,
behind trees and shrubs, under porches
and cellar bulkhead doors. They missed
no secluded spot or niche where a small
‘child might conceivably be hidden.

Fifteen minutes before midnight, they
found Karen’s costume hat. It lay on the
concrete apron in front of a private gar-
age in Coulter Alley. The spot was less
than 100 yards from the child’s home.

Police immediately questioned the
family who owned the garage, but they
were mystified by the hat’s presence
there. None of the family members had
seen or heard anything unusual that even-

ing, either near the house or by the gar- .

age.
Although he did not tell this to Karen’s
father, Police Chief George Fetsko

already had strong reason to fear that the *

worst might have befallen little Karen
Mauk. At 7:30 that evening, which was
just about the time that Karen was
presumed to have disappeared, a
teenager had been attacked on First

Street, only a few blocks from.the Mauk -

home. The victim, was a 14-year-old girl,
who reported that a tall, husky, shabbily
dressed man witha scar on his cheek had
leaped on her as she was walking home.
The girl screamed at the top of her
lungs and fought her assailant furiously.
She finally managed to escape his grasp.
Chief Fetsko believed that he might have
been frightened away when the girl’s
shrill outcry brought nearby residents to
their doors. When her parents reported
the incident, the chief's men sped to the
area and searched it thoroughly, but they
could find no trace of the attacker.

Nuww Chief Fetsko wondered if the

man might not have chanced upon Karen
a few blocks away as he was fleeing, seiz-
ed her and carried her away. With this in
mind, the chief spoke to George Peyton,
veteran. president of the volunteer fire
company. :
“Get some of your boys to scout
around the outskirts of town,” Fetsko
said. “If he’s got the kid ina car, they may
still be out on some lonely back road.”
The volunteers selected for the assign-
ment swiftly piled into their own cars and
headed for the outer perimeter of the
town. A few minutes after midnight, one
of these cars, manned by two of the
fireman volunteers, drove slowly up a
narrow road which climbed steeply to the
rear service gate of St. Petka’s Cemetery
at the top of the hill two miles west of

-Conemaugh.

From the windswept crest, the men
could look down upon the lights of the
town. The spot was a popular lovers lane
for local young people, but the twin

beams from the car’s headlights showed
the spot to be deserted at the moment.

“No one here tonight,” one of the men
said. *

Nodding silent agreement, the driver
shifted into reverse and started to back up
to turn around. The car’s headlights
described a circular sweep as he
maneuvered the vehicle, when suddenly
his companion cried out. co

“There! Over there! In the grass!”

The driver pulled the car closer,
stopped, and the two men got out. There
was no mistake. There was no need to
look further for the pretty little six-year-
old with the curly hair.

Karen Mauk lay in the brown field
grass just off the dirt lane. Her tiny body
was stripped. Her kewpie doll mask and
her clothing were strewn beside the
pathetic little body. Her trick-or-treat
bag of goodies also lay nearby, part of its
contents spilled out. An apple, a few
cookies and a few pieces of cellophane-
wrapped candy were scattered within in-
ches of her curls.

One of the firemen drove back down
the hill to report the discovery of the

’ child’s body. The other stood vigil over

the dead girl with a flashlight, but he shut
it off after a few moments because he
couldn’t bear to look at her.

Chief Fetsko ordered the narrow lane
cordoned off some 200 yards distant from
the body before he approached with a
few men. Deputy Coroner Richard P.

_ Wilkinson conducted an on-scene ex-

amination of the slain tot. He said she had
not been raped. She had died of suffoca-
tion.

voice grim.

“No, it wasn’t strangulation,” the cor-
oner replied. “I’d say something like a
blanket or a coat was wrapped around
her face so tightly she was smothered.”

The autopsy which was performed :
later supported this preliminary observa-
tion. Coroner Joseph Govekar said signs
about the child’s mouth and other marks
about her body indicated she had been
roughly handled by her killer. And
although the child had not been raped,
the post mortem report said indications
has been found that she was sexually
molested. ;

Chief Fetsko’s first move was to

Vi
“Strangled?” asked Chief Fetsko, his ©

“a Meili shai “

? n

'. broadcast an alert for the big, shabbily

dressed, scarfaced man who had at-
tacked the 14-year-old girl earlier that
night. The chief was keenly aware that
the available information about that man
was extremely sketchy, but he was the
only immediate suspect he had.
Pennsylvania State Police Sergeant

».James A. Blair rushed to Conemaugh

with five troopers to lend their assistance

* to the local police. So did Cambria Coun-

ty Detective Chief John W. Reed, who
came with several of his top investigators.

Examination of the body of little
Karen left no doubt that she had been
taken alive to the hilltop and slain there.
This was established by the fact that

several blades of grass were still clutched

in her tiny fingers. More than one of the
veteran officers at the scene had to fight
back tears at this evidence that the little
wisp of a girl had tried to fight off her at-
tacker. : e é

/

i Blair was encou raged by the

discovery of one solid clue at the murder
scene, a clue which conceivably could
clinch the case against the murderer and
send him to the electric chair when the
time came. This clue wasa clear set of tire

" tracks left in the bare earth, which was

still moist after recent heavy rains. The
tracks were clearly distinguishable from
the tracks left by the car of the firemen
who had found the body.

What's more, no other tracks had been
left in the road since the rains; hence there
was no doubt in the minds of detectives
that these were made by the murderer’s
automobile.

Corporal David A. Drenning of the
state police carefully made plaster casts
of the tire prints and was able to lift ex-
cellent impressions. Sergeant Blair set up

' field headquarters for the probe in the

Conemaugh Firemen’s Club. This was

_ where he held his first meeting with Chief

Griffith

. Fetsko, Detective Chief Reed, Coroner

Govekar and District Attorney Fred Fees
to map plans for the investigation they
vowed would bring Karen Mauk’s killer
to justice.

As a result of this first conference, a

', network of roadblocks was thrown up on

the few highways leading out of the area
across the mountains. Police swarmed
through the railroad yards rounding up

' itinerants, who were hauled off to jail and

grilled. Sex offender files were culled and

all men with records also were picked up |

for investigation. Police Chief Charles R.
took’ similar measures in
Johnstown, a couple of miles to the south.

Detective Chief Reed went to Con-
emaugh High School on Friday moming
and questioned the 14-year-old girl who
had escaped the clutches of the scarfaced
man who attacked her the night before

around the time Karen Mauk had dis-

appeared.
“He passed me several times,” the
teenager told him, “then all of a sudden he

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jumped at me. But I got away. He’s aman
Inever saw around town until a couple of
days ago.”

The detective chief obtained from her
an accurate description of the man, in-
cluding the color and distinctive features
of his shabby clothing. Then he question-
ed some half a hundred other high school
students, both male and female, to see if
he could find anyone else who may have
seen the girl’s attacker. He was surprised
at his own success.

Chief Reed found nine girls and three
youths who said they had seen the man,
and they described him so accurately
there could be no doubt they were telling
the truth. Their sighting of the suspect

_ hadoccurred within the past three days, it

was leamed.

At noon onFriday, state police picked
up a husky young fellow; he was trying to
hitchhike a ride near Johnstown. He wasa
brash “smart-mouth,” and would give
nothing but insolent, wise-guy answers to
the troopers’ questions. He finally told
them his name was Bill Jones, but he
refused to give a home address.

The troopers took him to Sergeant
Blair’s field headquarters, where a search

_- of his pockets turned up papers iden-

tifying him as Arnold York. He was 18
years old, but he could have passed for 22
or 23. His insolence quickly changed to

frightened cooperation when he was in- -

formed that he might be a suspect in the
murder of a 6-year-old girl, a slaying
which had thrown local steel workers,
railroad men and others into a lynching
mood. :

His story was a familiar one. He wasa
runaway from his parents’ home in

- Pittsburgh, which he had fled that mor-

ning after swiping $20 from his father. If
he was telling the truth, he could not have
been in Conemaugh when Karen Mauk
was murdered. Blair ordered him held in
a cell pending a check of his story.

In the meantime, everyone in the
Mauks’ neighborhood had been question-
ed numerous times and police were still
keeping a tight surveillance in the area.
On Saturday morning, Chief Fetsko
received. a report that one of these
neighbors was leaving town. He was
Harry Gossard, 39, an ex-seaman who,
since the previous May, had been living
only a few doors from where Karen's
Halloween mask had been found. ”

Gus was a six-footer, weighing
about 200 pounds. He had been married
and divorced twice. He was a mild-
mannered, round-faced, bespectacled
man who had been a salesman before go;
ing to sea after his second marriage ended
in divorce.

Chief Fetsko and Detective Chief
Reed went to Gossard’s home and
questioned members of his family. They
learned that Gossard had been planning
to go Philadelphia for more than a week
on an errand forhis sister. He had left that
moming. They also leamed that he had

come to Conemaugh to convalesce at his’

family’s home after a severe back injury
sustained while working on a tanker 'the
previous winter.

“He still has to wear a brace,” a
relative told the officers.

Gossard didn't seem like much of a
suspect; a man witha bad back is not apt

to engage in any sort of action which re- “<—

quires the exertion of strength. His trip to
Philadelphia seemed to be routine, but
purely on principle, Chief Fetsko
ordered a record check on Harry
Gossard; Fetsko was a lawman who took
nothing for granted.

Admittedly, however, the chief was

surprised a few hours later when he was ;

handed the report he had requested. He
called Sergeant Blair with the news.

“Harry Gossard,” the chief said, “has
five arrests on his sheet. Two were on sex
complaints!” .

For Pennsylvania's two Halloween
week girl-murders, that Saturday is
recalled as a climax. Back in Aliquippa,

Chief Zvonar had been waiting im- .

patiently for Saturday moming. His
probe during the week had failed to tum
up any sign of the missing Helen Jean
Bryant.

But on Saturday, with his regular
force of men augmented by more than
100 volunteer searchers—men who had
the week end off from their jobs—an
inch-by-inch search of the hill where the
Bryants lived was launched.

The chief deployed this force in along
skirmish line at the base of the hill, with
the men positioned six feet apart as they
advanced up the slope. The tension
mounted as they slowly moved forward,
checking every gully, ravine and depres-

sion in their path. At around 10:15, theline _

of men came within sight of that bare
knob atop the hill and the Bryant home

came into view. To many of ‘the :

searchers, it was a discouraging sign;
most had felt that Ielen Jean, if she—or
her body—was on that hill, would be

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New Jersey detectives had to do a lot of digging, but
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found nearer the bottom, farther away
from her home.

_ Suddenly a shout went up from aman
in the line. “I’ve found her! I’ve found
her!...Oh, my God!”

The man who had called out was
Warren Crawfin of Clark Manor. “I
almost stepped on her,” he kept saying
over and over as the other searchers rush-
ed to the spot.

The girlish body of Helen Jean Bryant
lay partly exposed in a shallow grave
within sight of her home. The actual dis-
tance, when it was measured later, prov-
ed to be mere inches less than 100 yards.

“I can’t understand it,” one of the
searchers exclaimed. “We came right by.
this spot when we were searching up here
Wednesday and we never saw a sign of
|. her.”

‘Chief Zvonar rapidly determined
why the girl was missed in the earlier
search. The signs were clear to the chief's

cealed the body with a light covering of

companied by high winds.

Zvonar said. “The rain, and water run-
ning down the slope here, washed away
the dirt that covered the girl.”

Deputy Coroner Margaret Saunders,
summoned to examine the body, stated
that Helen Jean had been bludgeoned to
death, apparently witha heavy stone. She
| had also been stabbed in: the face and
‘ neck. Her forehead was crushed by the
battering, and her face bore additional
' bruises, possibly inflicted by a fist.

The appearance of the body left little
| doubt in the minds of observers that the
\ pretty teenager had been raped, either
before or after she was slain, but this cir-
cumstantial conclusion would be revised
| later. Helen Jean’s short coat had been
} pulled down from her shoulders, pinion-
| ing her arms. Her white blouse, and the
| bra she wore under it, had not been dis-
| trubed, but her skirt was hiked above her
' waist and her panties had been pulled
| down around her ankles. One foot was
bare, the other covered by a sock. The se-
| cond sock and one shoe were located by
searchers in a clump of brush not far
| away, but the second shoe could not be
. found. Her schoolbooks and pencils were
| discovered only a few feet away from the
| shallow grave.
; Searchers also found in the immediate
priciaty of the body the blade of a com-
| mon, short-bladed paring knife. It had no
| handle and from its appearance, no han-
\‘dle had been‘attached to it for a long time.

| With only the short metal shank fora grip,

{it did not appear to be a very likely
| murder weapon.

i The wires hummed between Aliquip-
'pa and Conemaugh when word ‘of the
discovery of the Bryant girl’s body reach-
}ed probers working on the murder of

{Karen Mauk. Speaking off the record,

‘fone investigator said to reporters:
t

trained eyes that the killer had con-~

dirt and leaves. But last night, Friday,
there had been a torrential rainstorm, ac- .

“The wind blew away the leaves,”

“There’s no telling yet what we'll find, but
it has to be checked out. The kids were
murdered eighty miles apart, but after all,
the MO was pretty much alike in both
cases, and there’s no doubt the motive
was the same.”

If the police had any solid suspect in
mind at this time, they were being close-
mouthed about it. But there was no
hesitancy in naming a suspect on the part
of a young girl who lived in the vicinity.

“It's that fellow down the hill,” she
said through her tears, pointing to a
‘dwelling on the steep slope about 75
yards below where Helen Jean’s body
had been found. “We were all afraid of
him,” she added. “He used to come out
and shake his finger at us when we went
by. We always ran till we got beyond
where he lived.”

The man she: named was Elijah
Thompson Jr., a jobless 22-year-old who
lived with his parents and brothers in a

- house just off the hillside trail.

Pr found Thompson at home,
wearing a four-inch gauze pad taped to
his head. In his bedroom they found a

* pair of bloody pants lying crumpled on

the floor of a closet. Thompson’s head
wound and bloody clothes, however,
proved to be far less incriminating than
they first appeared.

“I went over to my wife’s Monday
night,” Thompson explained to detec-
tives. “I wanted her to fetch the kids and
come back to me, that’s all. I had an old
knocked-down .22 rifle. 1 meant to scare
her a little. Nothin’ more.

“Then she lit into me and made me
mad. I hauled the rifle out of my pants
leg, where I was carrying it, and I guess I
blazed away two or three times—at the
wall though. I wasn’t shootin’ at nobody.

“This neighbor, he came in somehow.
He grabbed in the gun away and batted
me one on the head. I don’t remember
good after that, but they say I fell through
= window and that’s how I cut my arm so

a.”

Thompson rolled up his sleeve to
show a heavy bandage that covered
almost his entire forearm. “Anyway,” he
went on, “that’s how I came to wake up in
the hospital. They wanted to keep me
there, but I signed a paper and left by
myself. That’s where the blood on my

, pants came from.”

State Police Sergeant John Krzton and
Chief Zvonar took Thompson to the sta-
tion house and detained him while they
checked his story. They found witnesses
who corroborated his story. Also, it was

. borne out by police and hospital records
in Rochester, where the incident had oc-
curred.

Thus, what had looked like damning
evidence pointing to the slayer of the
teenage girl was explained away beyond
question and Elijah Thompson Jr. seem-
ed to be in the clear.

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3 unturned until they found the killer or killers
whose lust-driven sexual assaults on two pretty young
girls unleashed a ghastly horror on the eve of the |
popular children’s holiday .

by RICHARD MULLIGAN

HE MURDERS of the two pretty
young girls were not really what

might be called “carbon copy”

‘ slayings, but they contained a sufficient

number of points of similarity to arouse
immediate speculation that they might

have been committed by the same

heartless killer. re
The victims were both young, attrac-

= tive girls, although one was on the .

threshold of maturity and the other was
considerably younger. There was no
doubt that a lustful sex drive had
motivated both fatal assaults. Both
youngsters had been set upon close to the
safety of their homes. And the attacks on
the girls had occurred within 72 hours of
‘each other during Halloween week.

So vivid are the recollections of that

‘ double horror, in fact, that they have

wrought .major changes in the. century-
old Halloween traditions observed in
Western Pennsylvania. For many of the
youngsters who were intimately ac-
quainted with the two slaying victims are
now grown, and have children of their
own, and they wouldn't dream of allow-
ing their own youngsters to go out alone
on their trick-or-treat excursions on the

night when—according to juvenile lore—

ghosts are reputed to walk, skeletons rat-
tle their bones, cackling witches fly on
broomsticks through the night sky and
black cats yowl by the light of a big round
golden harvest moon.

The murders of the two girls in that
Halloween week of 1954 occurred 80
miles apart, but because of the cir-
cumstances, police understandably saw
a link between them, despite the dis-
parity in the ages of the victims.

Helen Jean Bryant was 16, a strikingly
beautiful girl on the threshhold of young
womanhood. Softly waving copper red

82

Pennsylvania probers vowed to leave no'stone

¥

hair topped a lovely face with full red
lips, a provocatively uptilted nose, and
sparkling blue eyes. Her figure was the
envy of every girl inher circle of friends.
One of 11 children—six girls and five
boys—she lived with her parents. in a=
small, weather-beaten house high up ona”,
hill on the outskirts of Aliquippa, 20 miles”
northwest of Pittsburgh. A brother three ™
years her senior was serving with the arm:
ed forces in Korea. Her father was a con: 3
struction worker and unemployed at th
time the tragedy struck. But although th
family was poor, the children always
were neatly dressed and well cared for:
Their neighbors knew the Bryants
hard-working, God-fearing parents who
“lived for their kids.” a
The Bryant house sat atop a bare knob”
of ground overlooking a maze of railroad”
tracks and a big steel mill smoking on the; =
‘ | banks of the Ohio River. In the summef
Body of pretty Helen Jean Bryant (above) time Helen Jean got a respite from the }
was found near short-cut path to school. crowded conditions in the family home;-
Nude corpse of Karen Mauk (below) turned during school vacations she would go to
up in graveyard beyond the city limits live in the pleasant home of her grand-
mother in Corapolis, downriver about
halfway to Pittsburgh. ,
She had returned to Aliquippa in=
September, however, to begin her .
sophomore year in high school. On the Be
morning of Monday, October 95, 1954, 39
the girl had a spat with her brothers and
sisters before she left for school. She had
always been a high-spirited youngster,
but the spat was nothing more serious
than one of those quickly forgotten
flareups which-occur in any large family
As a rule, Helen Jean’s 14-year-old
sister, who was a high school freshman,
accompanied her to school. Together
they would walk down the twisting path
from their hilltop home to the foot of Iron
Street, where they would meet the school
bus. ee
But on this gray, foggy, overcast mor
ning, Helen's sister awoke with a. sore
throat, and her mother decided to keep

¢".

MASTER DETECTIVE MAGAZINE. December, 1975.

issn are ha Offrorcet LT, J217970 Piz


|
|

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explain away the presence of his car near the Mauk slaying site

her home. So Helen Jean, still annoyed by the trivial argument of
a few moments before, picked up her books and departed for
school by herself. The time, when she walked out the door of her
parents’ home for the dast time, was 8:15 a.m. :

It was generally around four o’clock when Helen would
arrive home from school in the afternoon, but four, five and six
‘o'clock came and went on that fateful Monday, and Helen Jean
Bryant had not returned to the house on the hill. For a very un-
derstandable reason, her mother was not unduly concerned. For
one thing, she knew that Helen had about three dollars in her
purse when she left that moming. For another, she simply assum-
ed that her daughter had taken a bus to Corapolis to spend the
night with her grandmother, which the teenager did from time to
time. ;

Helen’s sister went looking for her when she returned to
school the next moming, Tuesday, but she could find no sign of
Helen Jean. The latter’s home room teacher said she had marked
her absent, and she frightened the younger sister when she add-
ed: > :

“She wasn’t here yesterday, either. Is she ill?”

The younger girl went to her own classes, but when she could
not stop worrying, she left school at noon time and hurried home
i to tell her mother what she had learned. A call was made im-
| mediately to Corapolis. Helen Jean had not been there for more
than a week. When the girl’s father returned home from his job-
:. hunting and was told about the girl’s disappearance, he lost no
time in reporting to police that Helen Jean was missing.

_ tiest girl who rides this bus. All the kids know her too. She's very :

|. Shown in the custody of Sgt. Blair (r.), Harry Gossard couldn't

Hopewell Township Police Chief Matt Zvonar obtained a
detailed description of the young girl and the clothes she was
wearing when She left home the day before. Then he promptly
broadcast an alarm up and down the Beaver Valley com
munities. He also put the information on the teletype to the:
Pittsburgh Police Missing Persons Bureau. — Lieutenant William
Hildebrand undertook the task of back-tracking the “girl's.
movements from the time she left home on Monday morning at
quarter past eight.

Hildebrand drew a complete blank when he questioned the
driver and youngsters who had ridden the school bus that mor.”
ning. Helen Jean had not boarded the bus, everyone said,

“Are you sure?” the lieutenant asked the driver. “You know :
the girl I’m talking about?” Be

“I sure do,” the driver replied. “So do the kids. She’s the pret-

popular. A nice girl, always smiling and friendly and cracking
jokes, but not fresh, like a lot of them.” ;

Chief Zvonar raised the possibility that Helen Jean might
have decided to run away from home when Lieutenant
Hildebrand reported what he had learned.

The lieutenant said he was inclined to doubt that. “She might,
have missed the bus deliberately if she really intended to run
away, but on the other hand, it would have been a free ride’
downtown, and I don't think she’d have passed that up. She
wasn't too well supplied with cash to set out on her own.”

Hildebrand went back to Iron Street on a new round of ”
questioning of residents and business people. He could find no -
one who had seen the pretty teenager on Monday. Next, he made 2
the rounds of Helen Jean Bryant's classmates and school friends ite Lip, Se Mam oe
The answer was the same. Then he interrogated the high school . Of FeO RD Gh 1 EN ie
principal and the girl’s teachers. 4 Ceci) ae

After consulting the records, the principal told the officer:

“She maintains a high B average, and she’s a good girl and a good
student. She’s never been involved in a disciplinary report.”

Helen Jean’s teachers said much the same. “A lovely childand
a fine student.” “An extremely well-mannered girl, courteous and
respectful of her elders.” “A wonderful sense of humor, but

¥

Sigg NE my
Pl Oe

ig in the Path (left photo). Man at right
lunteers discovered Karen Mauk’s body

53

Sa ee a
scmion sf th : MD Nan PPE Ry,
I n J avishe y lay hidden in reeds at left of man standin
y Is pointing to hilltop cemetety site,.a popular lovers lane area, where vo

’

i

Ana methodical search of the entire township In the en
I ! 2 s De ‘ > end, they
serious about her school work. She was determined to make jrere forced to conclude that if Helen Jean had indeed asl

something of herself.” ~. through town on Monday 4 : a

These were typical comments about the missing girlfromher jj the fox. fe onday morning, she had Bone Murreognized
instructors. Unfortunately, although they were glowing But Chief Zvonar was reluctant to accept this as a fact. “I can't
testimonials to Helen J ean’s character, they gave no clue to where*’uite buy it,” he said. “As Bill Hildebrand has already ported
she may have gone or what may have happened to her. ut, why should the girl have passed up a free ride ahualoce Si

Lieutenant Hildebrand’s persistent efforts to delve into the the school bus, even if she didn’t intend to go to school? Also, f
girl’s personal life were equally unproductive. So far as he could | trno fog, the girl was just too pretty to go minouecd ? Also, fog
determine, Helen Jean had no steady boy friend with whom shé has bound to have seen her af che Satnion! oe ene
might have become infatuated and decided to elope. Moreover, | “Plenty of men will be available Saturday Thome 1
careful interrogation of personnel at the railroad depot and bus hey’re all off work,” the chief added. “If she oot sh ses 4 se
terminal convinced the investigator that Helen had not left town: fhen, we'll gather a force and really Sees that hill.” UM DY
by means of any of the conventional forms of transportation. In the meantime, however he continued to press the search

“Let's runa search on that hill where she lives,” Chief Zvonar for Helen Jean Bryant with the limited forces at his dis 008; Lb
decided when Lieutenant Hildebrand reported the results of his “pt the most part, about all they could ee rea ee Ay
investigation. = “_ festigative measures already taken. :

The chief assembled a search party comprised of regular of- Even as this phase of the search for the Bryant girl was
ficers and auxiliary police, and led them on a hunt through the erway, the second tragedy of that fateful Hallownee ue ry ee
woods and ravines around the hill on which the Bryant family’s =the making some 80 miles to the east, in Cambria Co ai athe
house was perched. Neighbors and relatives also joined in the.“ jorth of Johnstown. as Wp oad abss
search, but no trace of Helen Jean Bryant was found. . 4 In the little steel and rail city of Conemaugh, in one of the

“When the search had failed to turn up any sign of the missing fileys of the Allegheny Mountains, the Mauk family lived in ¢
girl, teams of Chief Zvonar’s men went up and down IronStreet, » “use in a quiet residential neighborhood. Five of thei
quizzing the merchants again, as well as residents, workers;«. thildren lived with their pare : i Soe
shoppers, and children of all ages. Other officers were assigned <

Her mother gently explained that Halloween was not until
Sunday night, but the child was not to be put off,

But I was out once already!” she protested. “You let me go :
out Monday night. Can't I go out tonight?”

Her mother patiently explained that she had been allowed to
go out on Monday because that was her birthday. But Karen
pleaded for permission to go trick-or-treating again.

“Jackie S going out, right away. All the kids are. Just a little
while. Please, Mummy...”

All week long, the neighborhood youngsters, costumed and
masked, had been scampering from door to door filling their
bags with candies, apples, cookies and the usual childish
delicacies that make up Halloween “loot.” If Jackie Wecklund
Karen's six-year-old cousin who lived up the street and with
whom she had been playing for the last hour, was going trick-or-
treating, the girl's mother decided, she supposed it was all right
for Karen to go, too.

_ She helped the child into her colorful costume with the kew-
pie doll mask and walked with her to the door, telling her not to
stay out long.

Then the girl’s mother had to busy herself with preparations
to rush to a PTA meeting, leaving her husband to sit with the
baby and the other children. When she got home from the
mecting shortly before 9:30, her husband was sitting in the living
room reading a magazine. They exchanged a few words, then the
mother automatically went to the bedrooms to check on her
‘Speedie sin ieee A a ae she was back in the living room, her -
e Karen Mau ne family’s pretty little six-year-old daughter, The girls saree dyrnber is aes eae se

st into the living room around 7 o'clock on the evening of for hours. When he learne : eo a
tursday, October 28th. She was out of breath from running up treating with her Poe te
te front steps, and she was bubbling over with excitement. Id had
Can I go trick or treat, Mommy?” she pleaded. “Can I
ease?” she repeated over and over again. ‘

i nts; an older son had been recently
ducted into the Navy and was presently at boot camp in Bain-
idge, Maryland. The father worked in the Franklin Mills of the

n in bed, sleeping,
d that Karen had gone out trick or
grabbed his coat and told his wife not
to worry, that the child had probably gone home with her cousin
He'd run over there and fetch her home at once.

He tried to sound convincing (Continued on page 68)

35


Pir se eaten
Brite s, t t

Ven nn meee ee cole op risen

were Miranda, wife of Enos Dow; Shubael R. and |
Alfred, residents of Homer, N. Y.; Charles W., dead; |
Harriet, wife of Apollos Turner; Leonard O., who
resides on the homestead; and Lyman E., who died |
in Binghamton. Philip T., Silas S$. and’ Edwin L. |
were brothers of Shubael A., and came about 1816. |
They were unmarried, and resided together a number
of years, their sister, Clara, keeping house for them, |
where the Widow FE. L. Baldwin lives. Their farm
was the last clearing on that road for several years. |
‘‘lara became the wife of Thomas Doyle. Philip T.
was @ pensioner of 1812. He was an industrious
nan, made several beginnings, and died at an ad-
vanced age unmarried.

OLIVER HARPER.—-Mres, Mary Tyler says: “The

Miia Naat in, 10 4 aus OM A. te

‘pring after I came to Ararat to live I was at Harford
na visit. Oliver Harper called at our house and
wked Mother Tyler if she would get him a dinner.
'le asked for boiled eggs, and while she was getting

lem ready he Jeaned againat her bed and fell into a |

him to eat his
He told Mrs. Tyler that on going down the
‘iver he left his wife at Windsor with « young babe,
‘nd that he was anxious about her, that he had
Jready traveled forty miles that day, and was going

~und sleep, so she could hardly wake
linner,

home that night, twenty miles farther. He stopped
‘ext at Hezekiah Bushnell’s, and got some tallow to
ub on his chafed limbs. He was pursuing his jour-
ey towards home, and was waylaid and shot by
}az0n Treadwell on the Harmony road, not far from
“here the Catholic burying-ground is in Susque-
hanna, Mr. Bacon, in the presence of Hezekiah
Bushnell and others, dipped his finger in the victim’s
blood and wrote ‘O. H. on a stone, and set it up on
the bank, just outside of the road, at the same time
remarking to his companions that human blood will
remain a long time on stone, J. ©, Bushnell remem-
bers that stone, and the inscription was plainly to be
seen for twenty-five years,”

InpustRies.—Hunting, trapping, sugar-making
and clearing land were the first industries of the peo-
ple. Where land was cleared and all the timber
burned upon it, the ashes enriched the soil, when

not made an article of merchandise. Sometimes the
settler burned up too much; in this connection the
experience of Burnham, a brother-in-law of John
Snow, will illustrate an extra burn. He chopped a
fallow of eight or ten acres in the midst of a dense

forest. After it was dried sufficiently, he applied the
torch one day, but there was no breeze stirring, and
the fire would not burn, and he left it. During the
night a whirlwind arose in that little circular chop-
ping and fanned the latent spark to life, and contin-
ued in intensity until the flames shot high above the
tree-tops, killing the standing timber for rods around,
and crackling and roaring more terribly than thunder,
80 as to arouse the distant neighbors. Next day the
scene of the fire was visited by many. The land was
nearly cleared, the brush and much of the larger

54

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ieee Ea ‘

oe ee ie? + ‘
44 uy fi me is nll ai al i) ¢ ae | { oi dt inp

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Gy by LAT. 833

timber was burned up. The fire had licked up the
rich loam of decayed vegetable matter, and lef but a
thin subsoil, in which the owner could cast his seed
in fruitless hope. The ashes were driven into circu-
lar drifts, so that they could be shoveled up by the
cart-load and carried to the ashery, but all this
ruined the land. Burnham left in disgust after wait-
ing in vain for the first crop.

Asheries and Charvoal.—Making potash or pearl-
ash and burning charcoal was a common business
with the early settlers. From his highland home
Mr. Bushnell has seen many coal-pita burning at the
same time. The coal-pit was formed in some natural
depression, or by excavation, into which a large num-
ber of hard-wood logs were closely packed, the inter-
vening spaces being filled with smaller timber. This
was covered with straw and earth, so that there could
be fio dra excepting at the flues prepared at the
sides of the pit. Thexe pits were watched night and
day for ten or twenty days to prevent any outbreak
of the flames. When it became evident that the
wood was charred, the fire waa extinguished by clos-
ing the flues. These pits would hold from three
hundred to eight hundred bushels of charcoal, worth
from three to six cents per bushel, and was used by
blacksmiths and tinsmiths, There is a relic of the
ashery business in the pasture of George Knight,
near. Joseph Dunn’s. Here John Doyle and sons
made potash from 1820 to 1825, They felled large
maples and burned them for the ashes, which were
worth from three to «ix centa per bushel. The pro-
cess of manufacturing was to leech the ashes and
evaporate the alkali in large, shallow iron kettles to
dryness, producing a grayish mass containing about
forty per cent. of carbonaceous matter. A process of
refining was added to some of the larger asheries,
whereby the product was converted into pearlash,
containing about fifty per cent, of pure potaasa,

Grist and Saw-Mills.—Albert Bushnell, having
bought the David Hine farm in }851, in company
with Norman Todd, built a grist-mill below the
bridge, near where the East and West road crossed
the Wilkes-Barre turnpike. The mill did a good
business in grinding buckwheat, flour, feed and meal.
Connected with it was a shingle-machine for making
sawed shingle. After the death of Mr. Todd, W. W.
Stearns bought the property, and, after running the
mill a number of years, sold the building, and it was
converted into a dwelling, now occupied by the San-
ders sisters. About 1844 David Avery built a saw-
mill where the stone-quarry of P———- and H ——__-
now is, which was very convenient for the settlement
for a period of about twenty-five years, until the
neighboring forests were nearly exhausted. The
first suw-mill was built on the same stream, below
the residence of Mr, Avery,as early as 1812-1% but it
proved a failure. Hall and Guernsey secured a large

| tract of Jand and built a sayw-mill and erected other

machinery at the outlet of Mud Pond, but the dis-


his attention to farming. His family consisted of
thirteen children, nine of whom are now living.
N. K. Comfort now owns the farm where his father
died. The place is situated on the river road, just
north of the Cascade Oreek.

Joun Comrort’s NARRow ESCAPE; OR, THE
MuRDER OF OLIVER HAnper.—About one mile
from Lanesboro’, on the Harmony turnpike, in May,
1824, Oliver Harper was murdered by Jason Tread-
well. Mr, Harper lived about two miles below
Windsor, on the river road. He owned a large and
fine farm, which he worked, and he was also engaged
in lumbering to quite an extent. At the time of his
death he was about fifty years of age. He had been
down the river with a raft, and having disposed of the
lumber for about eight hundred dollars, was on his
return. Staying overnight at Canaan Corners, early
in the morning he started out for his last day's walk
home. About eight o'clock in the evening some one
came down to Lanesboro’ and reported that there was
a man dead up on the hill by the roadside. A party
of men at once went to the place and brought the
body down to Lanesboro’. Finding that the man had
been shot, search for the criminal was immediately
instituted, and an investigation to identify the body
was begun. The murdered man proved to be Mr.
Harper, and soon suspicions fell on Jason Treadwell
as the murderer. Treadwell was about thirty years of
age, married, and living in a part of his father’s

house, situated on the north side of the river, about
one and one-half miles below Susquehanna, where

Alonzo Boyden now lives. His father had about
seventy-five acres of land ; yet Jason did but little to
aid in cultivating the farm, although he and his wife
and one child got their living principally from it.
Treadwell was not less than six feet tall, with strong
and powerful physical proportions; dark complexion
with eyebrows very dark and heavy, coming com-
pletely together over the bridge of the nose, giving
him a very savage expression ; fond of practical jokes,
and possessed of an eager appetite for strong drink.
John Comfort at one time reprimanded Treadwell for
his dissolute and indolent habits. At this Treadwell
became very angry, and thereafter often used threatep-
ing language respecting Mr. Comfort. At the time
the crime was committed Mr. Comfort was on his re-
turn from a trip down the river, and was expected
home that day. Mr. Harper in stature and manner
resembled Mr. Comfort, and he and Mr. Comfort were
also dressed very much alike, so that, through the
bushes, to inistake one for the other would be not at
all strange. At that time Isaac Hale lived near
Treadwell’s, where George Doolittle now lives. Dur-
ing the evening of the day of the murder Treadwell
came to Mr. Hale’s, and his Appesrance was go pecu-
liar as to disturb Mr. Hale's mind, whereupon Mr.
Hale asked, “ Jason, what has been the matter with
you to-day?” Treadwell replied, “ Nothing that I
know of.”” Mr. Hale continued the conversation, but

HARMONY.

573

was unable to elicit anything definite. Mr. Hale had
not yet heard of the tragedy; but the next day, on
hearing of it, he related what be discovered in Tread-
well’s strange appearance Then Treadwell was vis-
ited, and, among ‘ther questions, was asked where hia
gun was. He said that on ming across the river it
fell out of the boat soto the ever, The place where
he suid he lost it was searched ‘ut the gun could not
be found there; yet adav or twr: after it was found in
a hollow log on the farm where Mr Teal now lives,
near Hickory Grove. Tiea-jiwell wae then arrested.
About the same time it was enrned that a Mr. Wel-
ton, who lived several miles above Wieedeor, return-
ing from down the river, had jassed over the road
where Harper was ktitéd, about an hour before the
crime was committed. On being sent for, Mr. Welton
said that when he was passing the place he sawa man
through the bushes, lying by the side of log, about
twenty feet above the road. The man, looking up,
frightened Mr. Welton ; but instead of running away,
Welton walked right up to bim and asked what he
was doing there? The man said he was sick. Wel

ton discovered that the man’s face was blackened
with coal, and knowing of no better way to insure
his safety he said, “ Here, come with me; I have got
something with me that will help you,” and taking a
bottle of whiskey from his pocket, he induced the man
to go with him. The man took a drink from the bot-
tle and walked down the road towards Lanesboro’
with Welton. Coming to the edge of the woods he
turned back and Mr. Welton pursued his way alone.
While Mr. Welton was walking with him he discov-
ered that the stranger had a scar under his chin. Mr.
Welton said he thought he could pick him out of any
crowd, however large. So Treadwell was placed
among @ large crowd of men at Munson's tavern at
Hickory Grove, and Mr. Welton, passing through the
crowd, walked up to Treadwell and said, “ This is the
man; by that scar I know he is the very man.”
Treadwell was tried and convicted. Before his execu-
tion he made a partial confession, He aleo stated
that the money could be found at a certain place pear
his home; yet diligent search for it wt the place desig-

_nated was fruitless,

~ The beginning of the ninet-enth century marks

the period of great activity in the laving out and
building of roads in this part of th: State; thus the
number of families making settlements in Harmony
was perceptibly increased, ao much as to cause the
formation of a township in 1409. The records show
that in 1813 the tax-lis: included the following free-
holders: Hezekiah Bushnell, John Comfort, Joshua
Clark, David Hine, leanc Hale, Jesse Hale, Joseph
Hilborn, John Wilborn, William Hilborn, Nathaniel
Lewis, Israel Reynolds, Marmaduke Salesbury, Adam
Swayart, Whipple Tarbox, John: Snow, William
Travis, Ezekiel Travis, Samuel Treadwell, John
Travis, Jr, John C. Travis, Jonathan Treadwell,
James Westfall, Nathaniel West, Shubel Williams,


582 HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY.

cept as cattle have pushed in the surface around it to reach the water which
gathers there. It is under the trees, the land not having yet been cleared.

Poor Emma Hale Smith lived long enough to rue her “inquiry into Joe's
character ;’' the pretext she gave for leaving home the day she went with him
to be married.

(Her mother said to Mra. D. Lyons, “Don't you think Emma was euch a
goose us to yo up to Joe's father’s to find out his character ?”)

Joe Smith removed to Ohio where he founded a church; from there the
‘ Saints” moved to Independence, Mo.. Smith following them January, 1838,
From Independence they went to Nauvoo, Illinois, where Smith was impris;
oned, on a warrant obtained by the owners of the’ “ Expositor” newspaper,
which had been demolished by Smith's orders. On the 27th of June, 1844. a
mob of nearly two hundred men broke into the jail and shot Joseph Smith, Jr.,
and Hiram, his brother.

THE TREADWELL TRIAL

{In the early period of the labors of the compiler in preparing o history of
Susquehanna County, she spent several weeks in condensing the voluminous
notes of one of Treadwell’s counsel, B. ‘I’. Case, Esq., and weaving in such
outside information respecting the case us had come to band. On account of. e
its being the first trial of its kind in the county, it excited an intense inter-s., é
est, which has scarcely yet disappeared ; but the annals have so grown upow?: Pe "
her hands as to render compression a necessity, and the repulsiveness of this # cl
subject, together with the fact of the greater frequency of trials of this kind
at the present day, may justify its selection for only a passing notice bere.
Should there be any persons who feel an interest to look further into the
facts of the case, they are welcome to take the fuller account originally pre-
pared for this work, or perhaps they may find it published hereafter in the
newspapers of the Me Be

About sunset. May Lith, 1824, the body of Oliver Harper, eon of Hon.
Geo. Harper of Windsor, N. Y., was found being and streaming with blood in

the old Harmony road, a mile and a half below Lane’s mill (Lanesboro). A

foul murder had been committed, and suspicion pointed to Jason Treadwell,
of Harmony (Oakland), or possibly just over the line in Great Bend, as the
author of the deed. He was urrested and brought to Montrose jail. His
trial took place Sept. 1-5, 1824, before Judge Herrick, with D. Dimock and
Wm. Thomeon, Associates. He was defended by B. 'T. Case, Eeq.. and Hon.
Horace Williston, late of Athens, Bradford County; while N. B. Eldred avd
Garrick Mallery, Keqs.. were the attorneys on the part of the Commonwealth.
The evidence daily grew atronger-ta ae | sar Treadwell as the murderer;
and the jury's verdict was, “cciity.’’ Upon his own statement he knew who
committed the deed ; he lent the rifle to the murderer, gave him provisions
while lying in the woods two 9 time within which Harper and another
man were expected to pass with money; received the rifle in a secluded spot
the evening after the murder, and kept him secreted that night. But until
he saw his own immediate danger of paying the penalty, he was silent as to
any knowledge of the murder.

He was executed Jan. 13, 1825, on the only gallows ever erected in Sus-
quehann County. The location was on the west side of the public square,
nearly in front of the present residence of Dr. Vail. [There is some discrep-
ancy in the statements respecting this.}] The remaina were taken to Ureat
Bend and interred on the bluff above the 60-feet cut on the Eric Railway,
between the house of I, Hasbrook and that of the late Isnac Reckhow, Esq.
He left a widow and seven children. The county newspaper, for two monthe
after the execution, contained earnest discussions upon the question of capi-
tal punishment.


APPENDIX. 583

The Hon. H. Williston relied upon his client's protestations of innocence
notil the following incideot occurred on the trial -——

One witness described the disguised person seen in the woods the day Har.
per was shot, and not far from where he wus found dead, as having on a par-
ticular coat, from which a certain button was missing. The coat was pro-
duced, shown to be T'readwell’s; but there was no missing bulton. he fact
tended to discredit the witness, and favor Treadwell. As the trial passed
on Mr. Williston drew the coat towards him, carelessly turned it over no that
he could see the button alleged to have been missing, and discovered, by the
thread, etc., that the button had been newly sewed on! <A cold conviction
of Treadwell's guilt passed over his lawyer Tike an ague chill, ae this mute
fact corroborated the witness. Ife revealed {t to no one then, and but rarely
in later years. Both O. N. Worden, Kisq. (who farnished the item), and
Hon. W. J. Turrell, have heard the incident from his own lips.

The former in a recent statement says :—

‘

“While in Great Bend village, Mr. Hivsdale, a shoemaker, who saw Tread-
well hung, stated that his brother received, about twenty years ago, the printed
confession of a man who was hung near New Orleans, in which the criminal
stated that he had committed seven murders, but knew of only one man being
hung for his crimes, That was Treadwell, of Susquehanna County, Pennayl-
vania. Both lay in wait for the murdered man One was to shoot first, and if
his shot was not auccessful, the other was to shoot next The first shot fell to
the man named ; his victim fell dead: and so Treadwell did not have to shoot,
aud did not shoot, although he was in every respect, excepting the firat shot, a
murderer.

“The name of the criminal who was hung, and the exact time and place, Mr.
Hinsdale cannot recall: but having, although young, witnessed T’s execution,
this revelation of the probable accomplice remains olear upon his mind”’

eng racemes tin ee. — 0
Notre to Pace 24.-- I'he following letter of Won. J7 W7 Chapman ie ii ex:
planation of the magnetic variation in runniog the county line :—

“Having as county surveyor retraced, and with careful chain-carriers
yeticéaired the east live of Susquebanna County, under the direction of our
county commissioners in August, 1870—a little over two ago-—I am
able to give the precese course and distance from personal observation.

‘In doing so i cas to correct the survey of Mr. Case in 1827, from whose
notes the statement is made. Although the very beet authority, generally,
in such matters, Mr. Case reported the whole distance to be six perches less
than 24 miles to a stone-heap erected on (what he took to be) the State line.
Charles Avery, Esq., who was one of the commissioners at the time, ond now
the only living man among us who accompanied Mr. Case in 1827, says, they
built the monument on a marked E. and W. line, which they took to be the State
line; and it being in the wilderness, several miles from any habitation at the
time, and late in the last day of the week, and a storm impendiag, they quit
without further examination.

‘We found the stone monument according to his measure, but the true
State line over three-fourths of a mile porte: arse by tracing it eastward
120 perches to the sixth mile-stone from the Delaware River, by which the
exact width of the enst end of the county is proved to be 24% miles, and the
length only 33 miles and 200 perches, instead of 34 miles, as generally quoted
‘from the sixth to the fortieth mile-stone.’

“Having some years since meaaured the west, line of this count also (ex-
cepting the width of Auburn township), I know it starts from the fortieth
millstone, and the width must be about 244 miles at the weat end —-or p mile
less than the east end; and the State line of Pennsylvania and New York
being due east and west on the forty-second parallel of latitude, we found the
present variation of the magnetic needle to be 53°; the apparent course of
the State line being 844° KE. and N. 8449 W. The present apparent courre
of the east line of the county was found to be N. 34° E.; while the true


he

a

zh ree aha Ok: Mi Thee

HARMONY.

his attention to farming. His family consisted of
thirteen children, nine of whom are now living.
N. K. Comfort now owns the farm where his father
, died. The place is situated on the river road, just
north of the Cascade Creek. :
JoHN Comrort’s Nargow Escape; OR, THE
MURDER OF OLIVER HARPER.—About one mile
from Lanesboro’, on the Harmony turnpike, in May,
1824, Oliver Harper was murdered by Jason Tread-
well. Mr. Harper lived about two miles below
Windsor, on the river road. He owned a large and
fine farm, which he worked, and he was also engaged
in lumbering to quite an extent. At the time of his
death he was about fifty years of age. He had been
down the river with a raft, and having disposed of the
lumber for about eight hundred dollars, was on his
return. Staying overnight at Canaan Corners, early
in the morning he started out for his last day’s walk
home. About eight o’clock in the evening some one
came down to Lanesboro’ and reported that there was
a man dead up on the hill by the roadside. A party
“ of men at once went to the place and brought ‘the
body down to Lanesboro’. Finding that the man had
been shot, search for the criminal was immediately
instituted, and an investigation to identify the body

- was begun. The murdered man proved to be Mr.
Harper, and soon suspicions fell on Jason Treadwell
as the murderer. Treadwell was about thirty. years of
age, married, and living in a part of his father’s
house, situated on the north side of the river, about
-one and one-half miles below Susquehanna, where
Alonzo Boyden now lives. His father had about
seventy-five acres of land ; yet Jason did but little to
aid in cultivating the farm, although he and his wife
and one child got their living principally from it.
Treadwell was not less than six feet tall, with strong
and powerful physical proportions; dark complexion
with eyebrows very dark and heavy, coming com-
pletely together over the bridge of the nose, giving
him a very savage expression ; fond of practical jokes,
and possessed of an eager appetite for strong drink.
John Comfort at one time reprimanded Treadwell for
his dissolute and indolent habits. At this Treadwell
became very angry, and thereafter often used threaten-
ing language respecting Mr. Comfort. At the time
the crime was committed Mr. Comfort was on his re-
turn from a trip down the river, and was expected
home that day. Mr. Harper in stature and manner
resembled Mr. Comfort, and he and Mr. Comfort were
aleo dressed very much alike, so that, through the
bushes, to mistake one for the other would be not at
all strange. At that time Isaac Hale lived near
Treadwell’s, where George Doolittle now lives. Dur-
ing the evening of the day of the murder Treadwell
came to Mr. Hale’s, and his appearance was so pecu-
liar as to disturb Mr. Hale’s mind, whereupon Mr.
Hale asked, “ Jason, what has been the matter with
you to-day?” Treadwell replied, “Nothing that I
know of.” Mr. Hale continued the conversation, but

nated was fruitless,

was unable to elicit anything definite. Mr. Hale had
not yet heard of the tragedy; but the next day, on
hearing of it, he related what he discovered in Tread-
well’s strange appearance. Then Treadwell was vis-

ited, and, among »ther questions, was asked where his é Pu,

gun was. He said that on coming across the river it

fell out of the boat into the river. The place where ~ :

he said he lost it was searched, but the gun could not
be found there; yet a day or twe: after it was found in
a hollow log on the farm where Mr. Teal now lives,
near Hickory Grove. Treadwell wae then arrested.

About the same time it was iearned teat a Mr. Wel- 2
ton, who lived several miles above Wiedsor, return-

ing from down the river, had passed over the road |
where Harper was-ktited, about au hour before the —
crime was committed. On being sent for, Mr. Welton
said that when he was passing the place he saw a man “Ae
through the bushes, lying by the side of a log, about —
twenty feet above the road. The man, looking up, ~
frightened Mr. Welton ; but instead of running away,
Welton walked right up to him and asked what he
was doing there? The man said he was sick, Wel-
ton discovered that the man’s face was blackened
with coal, and knowing of no better way to insure
his safety he said, “ Here, come with me: I have got

something with me that will help you,” and taking a ae

bottle of whiskey from his pocket, he induced the man

to go with him. The man took a drink from the bot-

tle and walked down the road towards Lanesboro’
with Welton. Coming to the edge of the woods he
turned back and Mr. Welton pursued his way alone. _
While Mr. Welton was walking with him he discov-_

ered that the stranger had a scar under his chin. Mr. x ;
Welton said he thought he could pick him out of any

crowd, however large. So Treadwell was placed
among a large crowd of men at Munson’s tavern at

Hickory Grove, and Mr. Welton, passing through the _

crowd, walked up to Treadwell and said, “ This is the
man; by that scar I know he is the very man.” j
Treadwell was tried and convicted. Before his execu-
tion he made a partial confession. He aleo stated ’
that the money could be found at a certain place near
his home; yet diligent search for it at the place desig-

The beginning of the nineteenth century marks
the period of great activity in the laying out and
building of roads in this part of the State; thus the ;
number of families making settlements in Harmony
was perceptibly increased, s1 much as to cause the
formation of a township in 1309. The records show

that in 1813 the tax-list included the following free- >

holders: Hezekiah Bushnell, John Comfort, Joshua
Clark, David Hine, Isaac Hale, Jesse Hale, Joseph
Hilborn, John Hilborn, William Hilborn, Nathaniel
Lewis, Isracl Reynolds, Marmaduke Salesbury, Adam
Swagart, Whipple Tarbox, John Snow, William
Travis, Ezekiel Travis, Samuel Treadwell, Joho
Travis, Jr., John C. Travis, Jonathan Treadwell,

James Westfall, Nathaniel West, Shubel Williams, —

ey


Seo *
Ps cs$ eae e: of
oe ou } fn
ie .

é

bi Pet ae taunt gh
J

D invitation to te

domicile, a written a
signed or sent, speci
_.. days each week, at th
~ being scarce, scholars came
~ tain Ichabod Buck’s. I
.’ dren have escaped my -
well remember. They were somewhat my senior,
+ companions, especially Silas, whose mild and genial
friends at all times and in all places. I was much
' Notice of a eel Hips party at his widow’s for her bene
e

Principal of
In the fall ~

invited,

B

ete In Gr
called th

town 5
- contained ten acres, and Dimon and Wm, ie
homson as trustees. ground known as the Newmah
€ southeast of the Erie Depot. This
Jason Treadwell, the murderer

7
«

was given b

ei Sc P ae he syle =
Episc - , ik 5 ae i Agate sae
place itt nets Ve yy ee

fashioned

and forty-

aud the youngest seventy-

Seven. They were all of Great Cot 9 i BPM ail od

a Tad ae

: Sie. ow rey fos Sn
ROME AS Doe tee SEPP vat
SRP Sigh ote Joye aaNet
- hn ne doh =

Ss
Vatu


ee | ee
Ny % “ pel

pat ae

te

ROMNEY
: eS

aig

La
ow

Sone man’s tax was but six cents, & : an

shat tse
my TE a i

eight cents. The heaviest tax-payers were
| Martin Lane, but even they paid Jess than nine dollars. Still, mea-

ras such sums seem beside those now demanded of property-

holders, there was not wanting, at least afew years later, plenty

of grumbling, as is witnessed by a political document forwarded .

by Mr. Hale, which was circulated for campaign effect, and in

our citizens in the shape

ee are wrung from the
“Sf TAXES, and what have we obtained in return? Nothing, com-

aratively speaking, noTHixe!” But all this was expected to
~ be rectified, if the candidates then offered, viz., Horace Willis-

could be elected. Alas! they were defeated.
On the old Harmony-road about one an

from Lane’s, Oliver Harper, was murdered by Ja
May 11, 1824. Tr till shown the po

f or two miles

Cc

is now On a par

Lane's Mills, rebuilt in
and H. Perrine. — pe ene ed
The first public movement towards the

are now

Ee ace PRB A eties
rec

which is the following: Year after year THOUSANDS OF DOL- —

across the Susquehanna at Lanesboro was made in the summer ©

pletion of that road, which passes over the Canawacta bridge —

_ sabove the houses of Lanesboro, its business has been in part
fh transferred to the depot one mile south of it. ‘Twenty-five years
ago, tlie vicinity of Lanesboro, and especially that of Cascade

~. Creek, was & favorite resort for parties of pleasure. Its trout
- were unsurpassed, and its falls a charming feature of otherwise

picturesque scenery.

The traveler does not now find the locality as attractive as poe
- formerly. The practical demands of the age have invaded its _
a seclusion, cut down the tangled wildwood, thrown an embank-

Boy

y
y

eps?

N ton, Esq., for Congress, and William Jessup for Representative, f\ ~~

| es

>of 1836. It was built in 1837, and was destroyed by a freshet. ‘|
“As late as 1846, the town consisted of but one hotel, the — F
~~ mills, one store, and a cluster of houses; but during the con-
~~ struction of the great works of the Erie Railroad at this point, |
it became quite a business place. From the time of the com-


the old bridge, to |
~ Here were found by.
and several pits con--

showing
“scale. 32%

tlh

‘Drinker’s Creek. “sige en

farm. => Blas catia hake
_ When the Pennsylvania tl ‘
terests here, some of the earliest settlers disappeared, and titles —
to land procured from them were found defective, necessitating  [
a repurchase by those who remained. silo Hake Ne 04) reac
_ Isaac Haleand Nathaniel Lewis lived near each other, on the
».. North side of the river, as early as 1791. Afterwards, Mr.
£_L. bought a place on the south side, and resided there for many  Bexeee
he one he vacated was purchased by Samuel Tread-
_ well. It is now owned by L. P. Hinds, Esq. Here Jason, ~
youngest son of Samuel Treadwell, afterwards hung on con- _
) viction of the murder of Oliver Harper, lived until his marriage, . ~

J

+
£4
4
“ti ee

Se RRL Ry aa
a

> Ped
robes.
pass
Gat


4

R S i
TRINKLE, Joseph, white, elec. PAS (Philadelphia) June 30, 1924

onisaceh®® Mystery of the

15

By LAWRENCE GIFFORD

that Friday morning, April 13, 1923, but such a notion
was far from the mind of John C, Emgable. As he
stood on the steps of the Northwestern Trust Company he
was only aware of the pleasant spring weather. To him it
was just another Friday, the day when the employes of the
Fred A. Havens Construction company received their pay.

Every Friday morning it was his custom as vice president
of the company to walk from the main office at 19th and
Perkiomen streets to the bank where he cashed a check for
the payroll. It was only a matter of half a dozen city blocks
each way and Emgable enjoyed the exercise.

He never gave a thought to trouble. Otherwise he might
have noticed two young men standing at the opposite street
intersection. They displayed an intense but furtive interest
in him.

It was not much after 9 o’clock but traffic on Broad street,
Philadelphia’s main north and south artery, was heavy.
Emgable stood a moment watching the stream of motor
cars. Then he started down Ridge avenue, a busy street that
took him almost directly to his office.

Once he patted the right inside pocket of his vest to make
sure the bulky packet there was snug and safe. He had
$2500 in currency—his firm was a prosperous one. He gave
no further thought to the money but swung along vigorously,
enjoying the balmy breeze from the south. He had not seen
the two young men so he did not know that ane of them had
slipped away while the other was keeping pace with him on
the opposite side of the street.

When they reached 19th street the young man darted to a
big maroon touring car that was parked just off Ridge
avenue. Three other youths were sitting in it, one at the
wheel and the others in the rear’ seat.

“That's the guy, the one in the gray suit,” the youth who
had followed Emgable stuttered excitedly. He reached under
a robe on the floor and pulled out an object that he shoved

54

A ttat Briday morning man might have felt nervous on

aN, (72D

i
}

under
and al
his hez
suspic!
enter t
He
his bs
A sti
Fy .


around Emgable’s body the big maroon
touring car flashed down 19th street at
60 miles an hour.

Naturally the murder of John C. Em-
gable took precedence over all other news
and shelved all other police department
business.

Captain Al Souder, head of the Phil-
adelphia detective bureau and his chief
aide, Lieutenant Bill Belshaw of the
homicide squad, organized the manhunt.

They ejflisted their best men, De-
tectives Peacock, Hackett, Slavin, Han-
lon, Neidenthal, Engle, McCaughn and
Ryan who later became the celebrated
“Jimmy” Ryan, now a captain and head
of the detective bureau. Souder called
them together within an hour of the
murder.

“From the way they worked I think
they’re a gang of small-time crooks out
on their first big job,” he said. “They
killed Emgable because they were scared.
Probably the trigger-man didn’t even
mean to pull the trigger. They ran away
and left the big bank roll behind.”

“The first thing to do,” Belshaw said,
“is to comb that neighborhood for wit-
nesses.” :

“T have a report from the local dis-
trict,” Captain Souder said. “They have
picked up a few witnesses but no good
description of the men. Apparently’ no-
body got the license number.”

“It mightn’t do much good anyway,”

56

These are the vicious
thugs who took Em-
able’s lifee Andrew

wrence, left, was a
former policemen. The
others, from top to bot-
tom, are: Joseph Mc-
Manus, Edward Fertsch
and Joseph Trinkle, the
triggerman who was
executed.

Ryan suggested. “Likely a stolen car.”

“Someone check through the numbers
of cars reported stolen in the last few
days,” Captain Souder ordered.

All but Ryan went out on the job. He
sat down to the unexciting but important
task of leafing over the stolen car
report.

One number interested him because
he thought he knew the man who re-
ported the theft.

The number was 636-377, 1923. It

was issued to Edward Fertsch, 22 years
old, of Thompson street.
Fertsch himself had reported the theft
a week previously. There was an unusual
detail: it was not his car that was stolen,
he told the police, but his license plates.
Someone had unscrewed them both and
made off with them.

“T think I know Fertsch,” Ryan said
to himself,

He ran down the card indexes in the
record room. He usually could rely on
his memory. He found that Fertsch was
a petty racketeer who had a definite
history of scrapes with the police.

“Tt seems strange,” Ryan reported to
Captain Souder, “that a crook should re-
port he was robbed. I guess I'll look this
man up.”

Ryan took a man from the local dis-
trict with him and went to Fertsch’s
house. But Fertsch wasn’t there. No-
body had seen him and nobody knew
where he was or when he’d be back.

“Well, we won’t forget this fellow,”
Ryan said, “Meanwhile we have a lot
of work to do.” He left instructions for
the local police district to check on
Fertsch and his gar and find out if he
was using other license tags. Then he
joined the group that was combing over
the neighborhood where the murder took
place.

Girl Finds Shell

To made little progress. They
found a girl who lived in the neigh-
borhood who had picked up the expended
shotgun shell. But she had come up a few
minutes after the shooting. All she saw
was a dark red car with a tan top streak-
ing down 19th street.

“Would you know it again?” Lieuten-
ant Belshaw asked.

“I'd know it anywhere,” the girl re-
plied.

A woman who said she was standing
just a stone’s throw from the murder
scene added a strange bit of testimony.

“T couldn’t see who fired the shot,” she
said. “But I saw two men jump in the
auto as Mr. Emgable fell on his face.
One looked as if he was putting a pistol
in his back pocket as he tumbled into the
car.”

“You got the license number?” De-
tective Slavin suggested hopefully.

“No,” >the girl replied, “but I did
notice something strange about that
license plate. I don’t think anybody could
have read the number.”

“What do you mean? Did it have
grease on it?” asked Ryan.

[Continued on page 65]

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Mystery of the 1B Thitteens :

[Continued from page 56}

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t grease. But
the left hand corner of the plate was bent
back so you couldn’t see the first numbers
at all. And I don’t remember the last ones
though I’ve been trying ever since. I
know there was a 6 and a 7 in them but
that’s all.”

“Were they Pennsylvania plates?” De-
tective Engle asked.

“Yes, I’m sure of that.”

The girl left for the detective bureau
with Engle to look over rogues gallery
pictures. Witnesses had been coming and
going all afternoon for the same purpose.

“What do you say to wandering back
to Emgable’s office,” Ryan suggested.
“I’ve a hunch we’re more likely to pick
up a real clue there than anywhere else.”

It was late afternoon and the detectives
hadn’t stopped since early morning. A
little crowd of curious persons. still
loitered around the offices of the Emgable
firm. A uniformed policeman kept them
moving. Ryan and Slavin sat down on a
corner of the low'granite steps to smoke
and talk things over.

“How about talking to some of these
neighborhood kids?” suggested Ryan.
“They might have heard something even
if they were all in school when it hap-
pened.” .

Boy Suggests Witness

E BECKONED to an urchin he had:

been noticing for the past five min-
utes. The boy, sent on his way several
times by the uniformed policeman, had
sidled back, obviously. interested in the
two men in plain clothes sitting on the
steps.

“Come here a minute, son,” Ryan or-
dered. The 10-year-old threw an appre-
hensive sidelong glance at the uniformed
man and came over.

“Gosh,” he said, “I’ll bet you guys are
detectives.”

“Maybe you saw what happened this
morning?” Slavin asked.

“No, sir,” the boy answered, “but I
know who I’d ask if I wanted to find out.
That’s the old sick lady. We kids all know
her. She’s got to sit at her window all day
because she can’t get out of her chair.”

“Where does she live?”

“Right there across the street. If you
stand up you can see her at the window
now.”

The two detectives jumped up and
stared. It was growing a little dark and
the figure was indistinct behind the looped
lace curtains. But they could make out a
placid face and a mass of iron-gray hair.
The old lady was rocking herself slowly
in a high-backed chair.

“Sonny, when you grow up we'll have
to see about getting you a job on the
Police Force,” said Slavin.

They rang the bell and in a few minutes
were led to the second floor front sitting
room of Mrs. Bridget Connaughton. She
wasn’t an old lady at all but years of
serious illness had drawn the color from
her cheeks and virtually confined her to
her rocking chair at the window. A stout
black cane was hooked over the sill, close
to her hand.

“You see I can’t get up,” she said in a
pleasant voice. “I trust you will pardon

me.”

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“Thank you, ma’am,” replied Jimmy
Ryan, “for letting us come up. Maybe we
shouldn’t have bothered you but we
wanted to know if you could help us about
what happened across the street this
morning. We don’t seem to be getting
very far.”

“They told me you were detectives and
I’m proud to help you. That poor Mr.
Emgable! I’ve seen him come and go for
years. If I just could have been given the
strength to raise the window and scream!”

“You saw it then?” asked Ryan. This
was more than he had dared hope for.

“Why, yes, I guess I saw it from be-
ginning to end.”

She turned and pointed out the window.

“T recognized Mr. Emgable as he came
along. I knew he had been to the bank
because he went the same time every
Friday.

Describes Shooting

"J UST as he was stepping on the pave-
ment I saw a young man across 19th
street. He nodded his head to someone
south of Mr. Emgable and at the same
time put the shotgun he had been carrying
in his right hand against Mr. Emgable’s
back in this manner... ”

Mrs. Connaughton picked up her heavy
black cane and pressed it against a bureau
that stood between the two windows:

“As he did this,” she continued, “he
was very shaky and nervous. Then Mr.
Emgable turned partly around to see-who
was nudging him in the back.”

Slavin was stirring impatiently. They
had heard all this before. But Ryan mo-
tioned to him to let her go on. From the
rapt look in her eyes one could see that
she was recalling every detail with a
fidelity that might be difficult later. Jimmy
Ryan had taken out a notebook and pen-
cil and was writing rapidly.

After describing the manner in which
the other bandits had closed in on their
victim, Mrs. Connaughton told of their
flight across the street.

“You didn’t see any automobile then,”
suggested Ryan. “The three young men
ran down 19th street?”

“T’m coming to that,” said Mrs. Con-
naughton. “Right away I thought of an
automobile. Oh, if only I could get the
numbers. But here I am fast in my chair.
I have to be lifted to get up. I thought, ‘I’ll
try now.’ And I did it somehow. I couldn’t
tell you how I did it but there I was at
the window, leaning on my cane and look-
ing out. Sure enough, they had a car and
were getting in it. I saw the numbers and
I reached over to the bureau for a pencil
and paper and wrote them down. Then
I looked back again at the automobile to
be sure I had them right. And at that the
car went flying down 19th street.”

Ryan looked up from his notes. The
supreme question remained to be asked:
“Mrs. Connaughton, have you got those
numbers?”

“The paper in under the pin cushion on
the bureau,” she said simply.

Ryan read: ‘6-377.” He handed the
paper to Slavin. A faint look of disap-
pointment spread over the detectives’
faces.

“There’s something wrong here,” said

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65


under his coat. Two of the men were out of the car in a flash
and all three ran after the gray haired man. Emgable turned
his head curiously when he heard the flying feet but was not
suspicious and did not quicken his pace. He was just about to
enter the big mahogany and plate glass door.

He felt something hard thrust with bruising force against
his back. Hands gripped him on either side, jerking him around.
A stammering voice said: “Give us the payroll.”

For a moment Emgable was too astonished either to answer
or struggle. When he found his voice he said: “All right, boys,
you've got me.”

The men on his right and left jerked his coat open and dug
into his pockets. They found only some papers in the inside
breast pocket of his coat and a few cigars in the outside left
breast pocket. One snatched his wallet from his right hip pocket

| and let go his arm to see what was in it. The payroll wasn’t
there.

“Where's that dough?” the robber demanded. People were
running up and the three crooks obviously were frightened. The
gray haired man jerked away from them and took a step back-
wards. One of the pair who had grabbed his arms whipped a
huge Army .45 automatic from his pocket and raised but did
not fire it.

Emgable, stumbling backwards, was brought up short by
another sickening jab against his spine. There was a crash and
a numbing swept through his consciousness. His blood trickled
through his clothing and stained the $2500 payroll, still safe
in the inside pocket of his vest.

The three men ran for the car and tumbled in over the doors. Joseph “Harp” Sweeny, above, was one of the gun-

They had John Emgable’s wallet containing some business men who brutally shot down a business executive
cards and fourteen dollars. As a little knot of spectators grew in the streets of Philadelphia during a payroll holdup.
The ominous number “13 played a curious part in

the fate of Joseph Sweeny.

John C, Emgable, below, amiable vice president of

a Pennsylvania firm, was ambushed and slain while

carrying the weekly payroll. An artist’s conception

of the crime, committed in broad daylight on a busy
street, is presented at left.


branches in an _ effort to hide it.

Taking his foot and toeing into the
mound, Moore was horrified to find that
the grave was only a few inches deep, and
that he had uncovered the head of a
man.

Moore was terrified. Without seeking
further evidence, the farmer hurried away
and spread the alarm among the near-by
farms. :

Armed with lanterns and pickaxes, a
small crowd was hastily gathered and re-
turned to the spot. The head of the man
was removed from the grave and laid
aside. With little difficulty, a second

freshly-dug mound was detected, and here °

lay the trunk and the four limbs.

The head, which was in a remarkable
state of preservation, showed that the
victim had reddish whiskers, a dark com-
plexion, dark eyes, hair dark and wavy
and slightly mixed with gray.

Several cuts, apparently stabs inflicted
with a sharp knife upon the right breast,
revealed the fact that a murder had been
committed.

MONG those who had gathered there

chanced to be a physician, a Doctor
Elisha W. Bailey, and a deputy-sheriff
named Hugh Rambo. With the assistance
of the physician, the crowd assembled the
parts of the body, and it was easily recog-
nized as that of the stranger, A. E. Wilson,
who a few days earlier had registered at
the village inn with Udderzook and who
had driven away in the buggy with him.

There in the dark recesses of Baer’s
Woods, the only light being that cast by
the fitful flicker of lanterns, a jury was
impaneled, and it took this body only a
few minutes to decide that the unknown
had come to his death from wounds in-
flicted by a dirk or other sharp instru-
ment in the hands of William E. Udder-
zook, of Baltimore, Maryland.

Udderzook, meantime, had returned to
Baltimore in an obviously more cheerful
frame of mind, and he was going about
his accustomed duties at the mill of Otto
Duker & Company, when Detective
Thomas Carroll, in response to a message
from Sheriff David Gill of West Chester,
took him into custody.

For a few days he was lodgéd in the
old Central police station of Baltimore,
on Saratoga Street, until Sheriff Gill ar-
rived and removed him to the West
Chester jail.

The local press gave the greatest pub-
licity to the arrest and these charges
against Udderzook upon so grave a mat-
ter created the greatest consternation
among his friends and the greatest delight
among the insurance companies.

The latter, now very much in the posi-
tion of the proverbial cat who has just
devoured the canary, went to work with
renewed zest on the hypothesis that there
was some connection between the burning
of the little tenant house on York Road
and the man slain in the Pennsylvania

True Detective Mysteries

woods apparently by a fiendish assassin.

And they pointed triumphantly to the
fact that the description of the murder
victim tallied exactly with that of Win-
field Scott Goss, supposedly long since
consumed by flames. In support of this
contention, they brought a large number
of Baltimoreans to view the remains, and
these persons were unanimous in declar-
ing that the body was that of Goss.

And one of the Engle family declared
that the seal ring, found in the carriage,
was the property of Goss and had always
been worn by him.

Udderzook’s friends; however, were
equal to the occasion. Mr. Campbell Goss
and other members of the widow’s family
went to work to clear him of this das-
tardly charge, and the same excellent
counsel which had conducted the case for
Mrs. Goss, were now engaged to defend
her brother-in-law. Strong local counsel
also was obtained at West Chester, and
the Honorable Wayne McVeagh of Har-
risburg, afterward Attorney-General of the
United States, was retained.

On the 21st of October, the case came
to trial at West Chester, with Chief Judge
William Butler and Associate Judges Haw-
ley and Passmore on the Bench.

The State had gone to a tremendous
amount of expense and trouble to estab-
lish the whereabouts of Goss—assuming
of course, that the corpse was Goss—since
the burning of the York Road cottage.
Goss, they alleged, had disappeared from
his home with the assistance of his
brother Campbell Goss, leaving by horse
re buggy on the very evening of the

re.

He had arrived in the Central Hotel,
Philadelphia, where he had registered un-
der the name of A. E. Wilson. A few days
later he appeared at Coopersville, Penn-
sylvania, and boarded there for several
months under the same name. Then he
had gone to Athensville, Bryn Mawr,
Newark and Philadelphia. All of this in-
formation had been gathered only at
great expense.

Te show a motive for the slaying on
Udderzook’s part, the entire story of
the alleged insurance fraud was offered as
a part of the case for the State and was
so admitted by the Court. Udderzook, they
claimed, had murdered Goss only when
the latter, irked by the slow payment of
the insurance money, had refused to “play
dead”, had become restive, and had re-
turned to Baltimore to hurry things up.
Udderzook had realized, so they said, that
there would never be any safety for him-
self until Goss was actually dead as his
family declared him to be. tiny

Perhaps there was no other trial at this
same period in America which-was more
remarkable for the large number of wit-
nesses who appeared.

It was established with little difficulty
that the handwriting of “A. E. Wilson”
was identical with that of Goss, and a pic-

that have appeared in other magazines.

ORIGINAL and TRUE.

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The publishers of TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES are anxious—as are all re-
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magazines from which such stories have been copied of such plagiarism, and are
offering to codperate with the publishers thereof to punish the guilty persons.

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The verdict automatically carried a life ‘

sentence which was pronounced four
days later. The charge against Naugle
was nolle prossed and a charge of rob-
bery entered against him. He entered a
plea of guilty to the robbery charge
and was sentenced to serve five years
in the Florida state penitentiary at
Raiford.

Both Valiton and Naugle were taken to
the state institution on the same train.
Naugle served his sentence and was re-

True Detective Mysteries

leased with a model prisoner's record.
Valiton has twice escaped from the
penitentiary but has been recaptured
each time. .He has twice applied for a
pardon but both of his efforts have been
vigorously protested by Miami police
officers,

In making a final checkup to ascertain
how the two youths spent the profits from
their robberies we discovered much of it
had been squandered in gambling and
the rest spent upon various girls.

The Strange Solution of the Udderzook
Horror

(Continued from page 36)

had perished in it. And the coroner gave
a verdict to that effect..

It was generally accepted that Goss had
diced a victim to his beloved studies, and
the case would probably have become a
closed incident, had not something oc-
curred only four days later which brought
it sharply before the eyes of the press and
public again.

It now appeared that Goss must have
been very well aware of the danger at-
tending his experiments, for Udderzook, in
the name of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Ida
Waters Goss, served notice upon a num-
ber of insurance companies of Mr. Goss’
death and demanded that they pay the
sum of $25,000 for which he had insured
his life.

Four years earlier, the records now dis-
closed, Goss had ,insured his life for
$5,000 with the utual Life Insurance
Company of New York. Less than a year
before his death, he had secured a policy
for the same amount in the Continental
Life Insurance Company of New York.
Only the previous October he had taken
out accident insurance for $10,000 with
the Travelers’ Insurance Company of
Hartford, and on January 26th, only a
week before the fatal accident, he had
secured a policy for $5,000 from the
Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company of
New York!

Now in those days, $25,000 represented
a pretty large amount of money. Nor
were there as many persons who had large
sums of insurance as there are today. The
size of the policies and the dates upon
which they had been issued had an omi-
nous appearance to the insurance com-
panies involved.

The reason for the heavy insurance and
the dates upon which it was taken out
was, of course, only too clear, not only to
the members of the dead man’s family but
to the general public as well. Goss had
been a married man, with a wife and sev-
cral children. He was well aware of the
highly dangerous character of the work
which he was doing, and as the experi-
ments became inereasingly more involved
and neared the end, he protected those
whom he loved in case an explosion
should occur. This was the explanation of
the accident policy, in particular.

Although the coroner had given a ver-
dict that Goss had perished in the fire
which had been caused by the explosion
of a lamp, the insurance companies not
only showed no haste about paying the
money, but they even set under way cer-
tain investigations.

They were not certain, they hedged,
that Goss had actually been the man who
had perished in the flames. It was true
that the charred body had been that of a
large and sturdy man, in all ways similar
fo that of the inventor; but when they
discovered that Campbell Goss, a brother
of the inventor, had driven out into the

country that night in a horse and buggy,
they actually suggested that he had met
Winfield and carried him to a railroad
station!

Also, they pointed out, although the
“uins had been thoroughly searched the
morning after the fire by a competent
junk-dealer who had found nothing,
Campbell Goss had returned to the debris
a week later and had found his brother’s
watch, keys, and chain!

Indeed, said the insurance companies,
although the dead man’s income had been
only about $1,200 a year, he ‘had been
willing to pay out at least half this
amount in insurance premiums each year!
They sniffed, loudly and audibly, at the
suggestion that this had been intelligent
self-sacrifice on the part of the inventor
to provide for his loved ones in case of
his death.

ys Bos furthermore, only the very day
before the fire, Mr. Goss had’ with-
drawn his. entire bank account! This
amount was only three hundred and sixty-
five dollars but the companies made the
most of the fact.

Still, while these disclosures, unearthed
by the insurance officials, tended to
Strengthen the suspicions of fraud to
their way of thinking, there was abso-
lutely nothing in the way of direct demon-
stration. A year passed, in which the
usual proof and claim papers had been sub-
mitted and the claims were rapidly ma-
turing.

At last it became clear that the com-
panies would do nothing unless so or-
dered by the law courts, and Mrs. Goss
was finally ‘forced to put the matter into
the hands of her attorneys. Suits were
promptly instituted under each policy.

The trial which followed is one of the
most famous in Maryland jurisprudence.
Indeed it set a precedent in which many
of its rulings are followed today.

Lawyers for the companies were, of
course, at a loss for any direct proof. At
last they hit upon the idea of exhuming
the remains in the search for further evi-
dence. At the inquest it had been ob-
served that although the extremities were
consumed, the head was not entirely de-
stroyed, and it was believed that the
bones of the head, including the teeth,
were intact.

Mrs. Goss, approached for her permis-
sion for the new. autopsy, refused in no
uncertain terms and sent the following
note through her pastor, the Reverend
Richard Fuller.

‘ Baltimore, Jan. 3, 1873.
My Dear Sirs:

I have seen Mrs. Goss. She says
that, knowing that it was her husband,
and grieving over her sorrow, she yet
summoned resolution and believes
she testified to all she knew, and that

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Soe uastanss Soa rr ammeeNaD

36 True Detective Mysteries

into the night and ran breathlessly toward the tenant house.

The boy was right. The small house was a mass of flames,
clouds of sparks shooting up toward the heavens. A small
crowd had already gathered around, among them a_ police
sergeant and several officers.

At a little distance stood Mr. Udderzook sadly watching
the destruction of his workshop and its precious secrets. Due
to the distance of the estate from the city and the inaccessibility
of water, as well as the fact that it was quite plain that the
house was beyond saving, no fire alarm had been sent in.

aa fire had been burning furiously for the larger part of
an hour when those watching it became aware of a pe-
culiarly distasteful and pungent odor—the unmistakable smell
of burning flesh.

Mr, Udderzook came running up to Mr. Lowndes.

“Oh, what shall we do?’ he cried. “Is it possible that he is
in the house after all?’”

“Who is in the house?” asked Mr. Lowndes in stunned
amazement. :

“My partner Goss,”’ screamed Udderzook. ‘Oh, somebody
do something quickly! I supposed, of course, that he had run
out when the building caught on fire and was here among the
crowd!”

Sergeant Cadwall-
ader at once as-

turned up a pair of cuff buttons—the property of Goss.

It seemed certain that the inventor had come to an ill-
starred end, victim of the experiments which he had loved.

An inquest was held the following morning and from the
story which Udderzook told, it became only too clear exactly
what had occurred and how his partner had met his tragic
death.

To the Coroner, Udderzook explained that upon the pre-
ceding afternoon he and Goss had left Baltimore by horse car
and ridden to the terminal of the line. There they went into
a store and purchased a gallon of kerosene and a bottle of
whisky.

Then they. had walked to the residence of a near-by neighbor,
Louis Engel, borrowed an axe, and had gone directly to the
cottage where they built a fire. It was bitterly cold.

As dusk fell, Goss filled a coal-oil lamp and prepared to
work, but Udderzook had returned to the Engel house, re-
turned the borrowed axe, and remained to supper.

After supper, he and Gottlieb Engel—a young fellow about

twenty-three years old—went back to the house where they '

found that Goss, instead of devoting himself to his inventions,

had devoted himself—and far too liberally—to the bottle of
whisky.

An hour later, the lamp went out. They tried to relight it

with a bit of candle

but were unsuccess-

sumed command.
A broken tree-
trunk was secured
and used as a bat-
tering ram, and in
spite of the intense
heat, the men and
boys succeeded in
driving in the side
of the building and

charred and burn-
ing remains of a
man—a large heavy
body.

Udderzook, rav-
ing wildly and in-
coherent with grief,
was led away.

Hours later, but
that same’ night,
when the ruins had
somewhat cooled,
the police focused

of Samuel
Rhodes, Atglen,
Pa. -Rhodes

was an. impor-
thescene. At about tant link in. es-

the spot where the tablishing th
body had been dis- ; as quilt of the E
covered, they is killer

ful. Goss suggested
that a new lamp be
obtained from the
Engel home, so Ud-
derzook and young
Gottlieb started out
for that purpose.

When they re-
turned, some fifteen
minutes later, the
cottage was a mass
of flames. Quite
naturally, Udder-
zook had. assumed
that his partner had
Tun out of the house.

ue story of the
lamp, coupled
with ‘the fact that
the laboratory had
been filled with high
explosives, seemed
to establish quite
clearly both the
cause of the fire and
the fact that Goss
(Continued

on page 91)

Creek near Atglen, Pennsylvania, where the killer
hid his bloody clothes, mute evidence of his crime

Pump at Gennerville Inn, Pennsylvania, where the
murderer coolly washed his hands after the deed

H
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92

others did the same. She has been so
shocked at the suspicions in the case,
cast upon the memory of her hus-
band, that she has resolved to com-
mit the matter to the God of the
widow and the afflicted, and to speak
no more upon a subject so abhorrent
to all her feelings.
Very respectfully,
R. Fuuwer.

It was at this point, however, that the
insurance officials, to whom the note had
been addressed, flatly refused to commit
the matter to “the God of the widow and
the afflicted” and declined to negotiate
any further. .

Consequently, Mrs. Goss gave a reluc-
tant consent to having the body disin-
terred and also furnished a written de-
scription of her husband’s teeth. There
were no artificial teeth, she said, and her
husband had never complained of any
pain or inconvenience. The front teeth
Were quite regular. ,

This close scrutiny of the teeth was one
of the features of this remarkable case,
for while today it is a customary part of
criminal procedure to make an exami-
nation of the mouth as a means of iden-
tification, in those days such a course was
almost unheard of.

AS the dawn broke on one drizzly, misty
morning, a ,party consisting of repre-
sentatives of the insurance companies,
counsel for Mrs. Goss, Doctor F. T. Miles
and Doctor R. Wyson and Doctor I.
S. Gorgas—the latter a very eminent
dentist—gathered around the grave in
Baltimore Cemetery where the burned
fragments of the fire victim had been
laid to rest.

A little apart from the main group, yet
watching the proceedings with interest,
— Campbell Goss and William Udder.
zook, .

The casket was raised from a water-
filled grave, opened, and a superficial in-
spection of the contents. made. Then it
was removed to Baltimore City, and the
physicians made a second and minute au-
topsy. : ;

This examination disclosed the  star-
tling fact that the mouth was a mass of
decayed teeth, and the insurance com-
panies were assured that it was a physical
impossibility to reconcile the diseased
jaws of this almost toothless remains with
the mouth as described by Mrs. Goss.

In fact the man who had been buried
as Goss had only two teeth in the upper
jaw and seven in the lower!

The suits, which originally had been
instituted in the Court of Common Pleas
in Baltimore, were now transferred by
the defendants to the Circuit Court of the
United States. The action against the
Mutual Life Insurance Company was
reached first for trial on May 27th, 1873.

Since this was regarded as the test case
—and indeed it did actually lay the foun-
dation for all cases of this nature which
have been contested in Maryland since
this date—the defense was conducted by
counsel for all of the several insurance
companies interested, eleven members of
the Baltimore Bar.

The companies waged a brilliant fight
and made the most of their suspicions,
particularly emphasizing the toothless
body buried as that of Goss.

Campbell Goss, Mr, Andrew Lowndes
and his young son William, Gottlieb En-
sel, Mr. Udderzook, Mrs. Goss and many
other witnesses testified.

ere was extensive medical testimony
—a notable fact in those days—and the
weight of it seemed sufficient to have
raised the gravest doubts as to the iden-
tity of the dead man.

Yet after a deliberation of five hours,

Old Inn at Cochranville, Pennsyl-
vania, where Udderzook break fasted
after the crime

the jury gave a unanimous verdict in fa-
vor of the widow for the full amount of

the insurance, with interest added.

‘This really should have been the end
of this singular case, but, as it transpired,
it was only the opening round.

The insurance companies, ,instead of
complying with the peremptory order of
the Court, filed a motion for a new trial.
Also, they intimated, they would conduct
an extensive hunt for the missing Goss
whom they contended was still living.

But now it was noticed that after the
tragedy at the cottage, Udderzook had
undergone a decided change. From the
stolid and steady-nerved mechanic that
he had been, he was nervous and fretful.

Hs companions at the East Baltimore
lumber mill where he worked would
have been satisfied to believe that this
might have been caused by the horror of
his partner’s death and the strain of the
resulting litigation, had not a very strange
thing occurred. ,

ne morning, when the day’s work was
just starting, a man appeared at the mill
and asked for Udderzook. “A. E. Wilson”

' was the name, he said,

Udderzook promptly informed of his
caller, turned deathly white and appeared
ready to faint. ,

However, he came to the door, and the

Gennerville Inn, Pennsylvania, where
Udderzook and “A. E. Wilson” regis-
tered before the murder

following conversation was overheard:

“Pm sick and tired of this nonsense, -]
want money and I want it damn quick,”
said Wilson.

“What do you think I am?” demanded
Udderzook wrathfully. “Go away from
here and I will talk to you.”

He took his unwelcome visitor by the
arm, none too gently, and led him into
one of the lowest and cheapest taverns
down by the Pratt Strect wharves.

There he kept him all day and with
nightfall Wilson disappeared.

The verdict against the insurance com-
panies had been rendered on June 6th,
1873. On the 30th of the same month,
Udderzook, reduced to a quivering mass
of nerves, was persuaded by his family to
leave Baltimore and to secure some badly
necded rest at his boyhood home in the
little village of Jennersville, in Chester
County, Pennsylvania.

He left Baltimore alone, but when he
arrived at the small hotel in that town
about 8 o’clock the same evening, he was
accompanied by a large stout man, tall

and heavily built, middle-aged, with dark’

hair, dark mustache, and side whiskers.

Udderzook introduced his friend to the
innkeeper, but without mentioning any
name. The stranger, however, registered
under the name of “A. E. Wilson.”

The pair asked for supper, but they
could be furnished with only a light Junch
at that hour. After partaking of this, they
were shown to a room, containing onc
double bed, where they spent the night.

The next. morning Udderzook, explain-
ing that his friend was an invalid, re-
quested that breakfast be served in the
bedroom. During the remainder of the
day, the stranger kept himself closely
locked in his room, while Udderzook left
to visit his parents who lived close by.

The innkeeper saw nothing strange in
this performance, for it swas painfully
clear that Mr. Wilson was unfortunately
too fond of the flowing bowl.

Early in the evening, Mr. Udderzook re-
turned with a horse and buggy, which he
had rented from a livery stable, settled
up the bill, assisted his companion into
the buggy, and the pair drove away.

About midnight, he returned, this time
alone, and returned the trap to the stable.

The next morning, an attendant at the
stable called the attention of the owner
to a curious thing. The dashboard and
bow irons of the buggy were broken. An
oilcloth, which had been fastened to the
floor, was missing, as also were two
blankets.

Dior the bottom of the buggy was

stained with something which ap-
peared to be blood!

The stable men, half curious and half
frightened, made a closer examination,
and between the cushions of the back seat
they discovered a large seal ring, set with
a bloodstone.

It was a week later, however—on Fri-
day, the eleventh of July—before the omi-
nous significance of the buggy episode
came to light.

In the late afternoon of that day Gainer
P. Moore, farmer who lived in the
neighborhood, was passing through a
stretch of land known as Baer’s Woods,
when his attention was attracted by an
unusual assemblage of buzzards, setting
up a raucous din with their frenzied cries,
But since this is no unusual sight to a
countryman, he continued on his way,

However, as he returned over the same
road at nightfall, he observed that the
birds were still’ gathered, and he deter-
mined to investigate.

He found the spot without difficulty,
and, in the gathering dusk, he could make
out the lines of a shallow grave, scarcely
covered with leaves and a few tree

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DDERZOOK, William E., han
(11-12-1874.

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Winfield’ S. Goss had to hide, for

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(Posed. by professional model.) &


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' They wiped at their eyes, fidgeted with
their hands, and told of their part in the
escape. Police in Cleveland were alerted.

Meanwhile, Shirley and Ruth had
picked up a ride to nearby Cleveland. A
friendly truck driver took them there,
driving them. to a cafe on East 126th
Street, a hangout where girls they knew
might be. The place was closed and now
they: didn’t know where to turn.

“As soon as I make a delivery,” ihe
. trucker said, “I’m heading back to Akron.
You’re welcome to come.”

They went with him, and ne dropped
them off at a gas station on the outskirts
of Akron. By now most everyone in town
’ knew of the break, and an attendant was
quick to spot the girls as they entered
the station’s rest room.

‘He phoned the sheriff’s office and five
minutes later deputies arrived on ‘the
scene. The door to the ladies’ room was
locked. The deputies banged on it and
told the girls to surrender. Ruth and
Shirley hesitantly emerged, shaking with
cold and fright. The deputies, Wayne
Eaken and Steve Hadinger, bought them
coffee, then took them to the county jail.

That left only one, Zelda DeCost, the:
girl married to the convicted rapist. She
had tried to be smart and had gone her
own way after the break, sticking close to
‘tthe home on the theory: that ‘the police

would never think of looking for her .

there.. She figured she would leave town
within a few days, when things had
quieted down.

She hid out in the cellar of a house
near the detention home. Like the others,

-she suffered from cold and hunger.

Des-
perate' for warmth and food, she sneaked
out of her hiding place late Monday
afternoon, She stole a newspaper from a
porch and, to her shocked surprise,
learned that Mrs. Bonham was dead. That
did it—she could hold out no longer.
*She stopped a man who came down the
street and told him who she was. He
happened to be a custodian of the county
court house and took her right to the
sheriff's office.

Zelda cried when questioned by Assis-
tant Prosecutor James Barbutto. “They
had me in there for something I didn’t
do,” she sobbed after admitting her part
in the escape. Questioning of all five girls
brought out points of conflict; the girls
blamed each other for breaking ‘Mrs.
Bonham’s fingers, ripping at her throat,
kicking her. But, all in all, officials felt
satisfied that they had the full story. It
really didn’t matter who did what—in the
eyes of the law all were equally guilty.

Officials also got statements from the
four other girls in Mrs. Bonham’s dormi-
tory. One admitted playing the victim in
rehearsals of the crime; another asking
the matron to bring her scarf up from the
basement.

"THE NEXT DAY officials, spurred on
by: a public outcry, ordered steel
doors for the detention home and mapped

' out a new security setup.

The five girls were charged with first-
degree murder. .

On December 1, 1955, the day she was
to have been married, Mrs. Eula Bonham

was buried. After the services, reporters
asked her fiance what he thought should
be done with the girls.

“That’s an awful hard thing to decide,” -

he said. “They were altogether to blame

. and I fear they don’t have too’ much
conscience. But I guess I’d just say that
God’ 's good judgment will have to work it
out.”

On December 5 the Ove girls received a °

hearing,,the judge deciding they should
be treated as adults and that the first-de-
gree murder charge would stand. This
meant they could receive the apes pen-
alty.

However, by the ‘dine they came to
trial, the charge for all had been reduced
to first-degree manslaughter. Found
guilty, the girls pleaded with Judge Ray

B. Watters for “another chance because’

we're teenagers.”

The judge answered that he could not
allow sympathy to “interfere with our
best interests,” and handed down jail
terms of from one to 20 years. He said
that Ruth Beichler and Zelda DeCost, the
older members of the group, would be
committed to the Ohio State Reformatory
for Women at Marysville, and that Mar-
garet Nicholson, Shirley Shingler and

Mirl Cain would start their sentences at.

the Girls Industrial School at Delaware.

Later, when they reached the age of 16,

they. would be transferred to Marysville.
With that Akron authorities closed’ the
books on a tragic case, a case in which
the stupidity and waywardness of five
young girls led to the death of the woman
who had shown them a mother’s love.
\

THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE

inquest held later that day in the Lowndes
barn. He and Goss, Udderzook said, had
come out late the previous afternoon on
the Baltimore horse car. Goss was in a
jovial mood, for he felt closer than ever to
discovering the formula he sought, so he
brought along a bottle of whiskey. They
lighted the kerosene lamp, and. by the
time they had the fire going well under the
the mixing kettle, Goss was more inclined
to sing than to work on his formula.
Udderzook, who claimed he-was practi-
cally cold sober at the time, saw that the
lamp was smoking badly and needed a
new wick, :

“I walked a half-mile over to Gottlieb

Engel’s farm,” he said, “and borrowed a
new wick, I stayed there mebbe ten min-
utes, talking to Gottlieb. When I got back
to the cottage, she was burning so hot I
couldn’t even get close.”
. Engel corroborated this. It was easy to
see how drunken Winfield Goss had come
to his death. The coroner returned a ver-
dict that Goss had died in a fire caused
by the accidental explosion of a kerosene
lamp, and that was that. _

A few days later, the Knickerbocker

_. Insurance Company of New York received
“a claim from Ida Goss, the victim’s widow,
» for $15,000 in insurance on her husband’s

life. This being quite a piece of change,
‘the matter was eet handed over to James

(Continued from page 41)

E. Marble, the insurance company’s pri-
vate investigator, for a routine check.

Marble, a small man with mutton-chop
whiskers and a highly-developed bump of
suspicion, learned almost at once that his
firm was not the only one involved. Win-
field Scott Goss, in fact, had insured his
life for a total of $25,000 with four differ-
ent companies. Each of the policies had a
double indemnity clause for accidental
death, so that Mrs. Goss now stood to
collect a neat $50,000. This seemed like a
whale of a lot of insurance even for a
wealthy man, much less an ordinary Joe.
His eyes narrowed, Marble hopped aboard
a train for Baltimore to investigate.

There he was informed that Winfield
Goss had worked as a’ machinist for the
Acme Die Works and that his salary
amounted to a few dollars less than $1300
a year. He had paid a total of $793 annu-
ally in premiums for his four insurance
policies. That left him about $500 a year
on which to support himself and his wife,
which even at that time would have re-
quired Spartan economy. °

But what really aroused Marble was the
time element in thé insurance. Only the
policy taken out with his own company,
the Knickerbocker, had run any length of
time, having been taken out three years
earlier. Of the other three policies, one
was ten months old,'one five months, and

*

the third had been taken out exactly
eight days before Goss was burned to a
cinder.

Or was it Goss who had burned to a
cinder? Investigator Marble had encoun-

tered a good. deal of human cussedness in

his work, and already he was figuring that
someone was out to chisel the insurance
companies. He looked up Udderzook, who
was working at Duker’s lumber mill in
Baltimore. Udderzook seemed indignant
that an inquiry was afoot. |

’ “Insurance companies are all the same,”
he growled. “They want to sell you pol-
icies, then they hate to pay up when they
should, even if a poor widow is needing
the money.”

“But are you sure it was Goss who died
in the fire?” Marble asked.

“Of course I’m sure! Who else could it
have been?”

“That’s what I’m wondering. Did you
see Goss in the burning house?”

“Well, no. By the time I: ‘got back, all
I could see was smoke and flame. But Goss
was there when I left. no more’n 20 min-
utes earlier. If you try to make out it was
someone else than Goss, you’re crazy.”

“So it took only 20 minutes for the cot-
tage. to become an inferno,” the detective
mused. “That seems a very short time for
the fire to gain such headway.”

“You can’t wiggle out of it that way,”

Pe


4
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tetas ve

Udderzook snarled. “We had two gallons
of kerosene in there for them lamps, don’t
forget. On top of that there was a five-
gallon kettle of the rubber mixture, and

let me tell you that stuff would burn like |

tinder.”

“And what became of your-new rubber
formula?”

“Lost,” Udderzook said sourly. “Goss
was the expert on that—I was only help-
ing him. The secret died with him. If we’d
had another few weeks, we coulda given
the world a new method that. would’ve
made us rich. And now you fellers are
tryin’ to hold out on a little measly in-
surance!” ©

Wu UDDERZOOK seemed dis-
_—. gusted with the whole business, Mar-
ble left him and called on the widow at
her modest home on North Eutaw Street
in Baltimore. Ida Goss turned out to be a
shapely brunette matron in her early
thirties, a pleasant lady even though she
still Wore mourning for her late husband.
Just why, Marble asked her, did Goss
spend more than half his small salary in
buying insurance befitting a capitalist?

‘There’s no mystery about that,” she
said. “Winfield was a very thoughtful man,
and wanted me to be provided for in any
circumstance. He felt sure he was going to
make a fortune on that rubber formula,
so then it would be easy to carry the in-
surance. In the meantime, he knew it was
highly dangerous, working with rubber
and chemicals, so he wanted to pro-
tect me.” ;

Furthermore, she added, Goss had been
a frugal man for years, and had pur-
chased two houses, the rent from which
added considerably to his income.

She. told a good story, but Marble was
far from satisfied. He was still more
dubious after making inquiries around the
burned cottage. On the afternoon before
the fire, two farmers there had seen Goss
and Udderzook driving toward the cottage
in a wagon. In the back of the ‘wagon was
a large wooden box about seven feet long.
In fact, the informants agreed, it looked
like nothing so much as a home-made
coffin.

The insurance sleuth wasn’t forgetting
that Udderzook had claimed that he and
Goss had come out by horse car, not
wagon, Why couldn’t Udderzook have
taken some of the boards from the saw-
mill where he worked, and made a coffin?
Why couldn’t he and Goss have put in it
Some corpse, possibly stolen from a grave-
yard, to be left in the burning cottage and
mistaken for the body of Goss?

As can be seen, Marble was now work-
ing .on the theory that Goss, Udderzook,
and possibly Mrs. Goss had staged an
elaborate deception in order to defraud
the insurance companies. Next question:
Where did the substitute corpse. come
from?

A canvass of the Baltimore cemeteries
disclosed that no graves had been robbed
of late. Marble had better luck at the
Johns Hopkins Medical College. Pro-
fessors there were still mystified about the

4 theft of a cadaver from their dissection
:room on February 1—the day before the
. fire. Sometime that night, someone had

forced open a window in the dissection

~

room and lugged away a cadaver on which
students had already been working. There
was some suspicion that a couple of the
medical students, who were known for
their morbid sense of humor, had stolen
the corpse as a prank.

Marble thought otherwise — especially
when he learned that the cadaver was that
of a tall man, a six-footer just like Win-
field Goss. He was now convinced that it
was the medical school cadaver that had
been burned to a crisp, and that Winfield
Goss was alive and. well somewhere in
hiding.

This was a pretty theory, but the ques-
tion was to prove it. Goss was not to be
found around his old Baltimore haunts.
Marble secured the services of another
insurance sleuth, who rented a room across
from the Widow Goss and kept a sharp
eye peeled on her place. Days went by,
and Goss did not show up. Marble even

, got the cooperation of the mail carrier,

who agreed to keep an eye on the letters
the widow received. But outside of the>
usual bills and statements, she seemed to
receive no personal mail at all except an
occasional letter from a sister in Phila-
delphia, and a note now and then from
William Udderzook.

Even so, the fact that she was cor-
responding with Udderzook struck the
snspicious Marble as indicating that the
two were getting their heads together in
their war with the insurance companies.
By now Mrs. Goss was firing angry letters
at the insurance companies at an average
of two a week, demanding her payment
and declaring that if it was not forth-
coming immediately she would seek legal
redress,

AFTER MANY WEEKS of investigation,

Marble returned to New York and
made a report of his findings. His com-
pany got together with the other three
involved, All of them wrote Mrs. Goss
polite letters saying they could not , pay
her claim since they were convinced her
husband was still alive.

If they thought that would frighten the
lady off, they were wrong. Within a week,
all four companies received letters from an
attorney retained by Mrs. Goss informing
them that unless the claim was paid quick-
like, suit would be brought against them.

This was serious. Up to this point the
cottage corpse was officially identified as
that of Winfield Goss, since nothing had

- changed the corner’s verdict on that score.

It was up to Marble to prove it wasn’t
Goss—no easy matter, since Goss had
vanished like the mist.

Marble hurried back to Baltimore and
applied for a court order for the exhuma-
tion of the body. He had a fair description
of Goss as a man just a shade over six
feet tall, with broad shoulders and a full
set of perfect teeth. He was hoping that
the body that had been buried would fail
to answer this description in some respect.

The Widow Goss, ‘however, fought Ithe
exhumation idea tooth and nail gh
her attorney. He claimed that official
Identification had been made once and| for
all by: the coroner’s jury, and that to ‘dig
uup the body was an unnecessary dese-
cration of the dead that would heap more

‘sorrow on the poor widow’s head. Fur-

thermore, he insisted, it was just another
effort on the part of the insurance com-
panies to delay or avoid payment of a
claim that should have been paid long ago.
After a protracted legal hassle, Mrs. Goss
lost and the exhumation was orderd by
authorities. :

Several physicians were present when
the body was dug up at Rose Hill Ceme-
tery. Careful measurements were taken
which showed the corpse to be that of a
man exactly six feet tall—close enough to
Goss’ height to weaken any argument on
that score. However, the shoulders were
narrow rather than broad, and the teeth—
well, they were such as to bring a trium-
phant smile to James Marble’s whiskery
face.

Winfield Goss was admitted on all sides
as having had a full set of pearly teeth
without so much as a filling in any of
them. The corpse’s jaws had many gaps in
them. In fact, there were only nine teeth
present, four in the upper jaw and five in
the lower, and most of these were in pretty
bad shape.

“I guess this will settle Mrs. Goss’ hash,”
Marble chortled. “It furnishes definite
proof that the man burned in the fire was
not Winfield Goss.”

Maybe it did, but the Widow Goss didn’t
seem to think so. She went ahead and
hired Wayne McVeagh of Harrisburg, Pa.,
one of the best attorneys of the day. Mc-
Veagh filed suit against the four companies
for full payment of the claims, and the
case at long last came to trial on June im
1873.

‘Today, the dental evidence would have
been unassailable, but in 1873 this sort of
thing was new and untried, Ordinary folk
were suspicious of so-called “scientific
evidence,” Besides, McVeagh was a per-
suasive orator who suggested that the
teeth might have been damaged in the fire.
But he concentrated most of his arguments
against flinty-hearted corporations who
sought to rob a poor: widow of her just
due. He pointed dramatically: at the de-
mure Mrs, Goss.

“I ask you, gentlemen of the jury,” he

“exclaimed, “does this quiet, gentle woman

look like the sort who would engage in a
sordid conspiracy?” :

It’ had to be admitted that Mrs. Goss
presented a most appealing picture.on the
stand. The jury took a careful look at her,
not missing her pretty face and figure, and
decided in her favor. The insurance com-
panies, they said in their verdict, must
pay the claims. ,

James Marble was fit to be tied. “What
do you have to do to prove fraud?” he
yelped,

HE COMPANIES. promptly. appealed

verdict. By now, Marble regarded the
case as a personal challenge, a battle of
wits between himself on one hand and
Goss, Mrs. Goss and Udderzook on the
other..He saw clearly that what he now
had to do to win out was to find the miss-
ing Winfield Goss in the flesh.

While the appeal was pending, Marble

“took to snooping around William Udder-.

zook, who was still working at Duker’s
Mill. On June 9, he discovered that Udder- ‘.
zook had suddenly quit his job there and \
left for Pennsylvania. Other workmen at

53


ey

| eave, 8 ANDREW J. LOWNDES owned a large
estate called Wyanoke on the York Road three
miles out of Baltimore. Some 300 feet from the main
residence was a shingled tenant cottage that was vacant,
and what was more, Lowndes didn’t give a hang if it
was vacant, money being an item he didn’t need. But
about three weeks before Christmas, a couple of

_ Strangers came to him and said they wanted that cot-

tage in the worst way.
The pair introduced themselves as Winfield Scott.
Goss and William E. Udderzook, both of Baltimore.

“I don’t want to rent’ out the cottage,” Lowndes told .

them. “I enjoy my privacy here too much.”

“Look, Mr, Lowndes,” said Goss, a big, red-faced
man in his mid-thirties, “if it’s privacy you’re worrying
about, you can put it out of your mind. We’re looking
for privacy too. You’d hardly know we were there.”

“We'd be there evenings mostly,” chimed in the
smaller Udderzook. “And we’d be as quiet as a mouse.”

“What do you want to use the place for?” Lowndes
inquired curiously. : D

Goss looked around as if to make sure no one was
listening. “I happen to be an inventor,” he said in low
tones. “Just between you an’ me, I’m on the verge of
discovering a new process for India rubber. Udderzook
here is helping me. Give us a couple of months in a
quiet place where no one can come nosing around and
we'll have it.”. , ;

“You know how rubber melts if you leave it in the
sun,” Udderzook said.: “Well, we aim to fix that.”

Although Lowndes was not overly anxious, the two
men were so eager that he finally let them have the
use of the cottage for $10 a:month. Next day they ar-
rived in a wagon and moved some sort of equipment
into the structure... After that they were just about as
quiet as they said they would be, Both held jobs during
the day, doing their experimenting in spare time. Now
and then in the evening the owner could see a dim light
in the cottage through the trees, sometimes even past
midnight. Inventors were always absorbed in their
work, and doubtless these~fellows were burning the
midnight oil in an effort to perfect their secret formula.

But one night between Christmas and New Year’s,
the quiet was broken. Lowndes heard what sounded
like uproarious laughter coming from the cottage. Then
he was sure he heard a pair of male voices raised in
song. He began to suspect that his tenants were indulg-
ing in a little mountain dew. Lowndes had stayed away
from the cottage, appreciating the inventors’ desire for
secrecy. But when the noise continued for more than
an hour, even increasing somewhat, he decided to go
over and take a look.

He found Goss and Udderzook communing happily
with a demijohn of whiskey. They met him with great
cordiality and offered him a drink.’

“We are on the very brink of finding the magic
formula!” Goss chortled. “Naturally, we felt like cele-
brating a bit.”

Lowndes could see a large kettle of some thick, gluey
mixture bubbling on the stove. That, of course, must
be their rubber compound. -He declined the drink and
as he took his leave he warned the pair to be very
careful about fire. |

‘Don’t you’,worry "bout that,” -Udderzook assured

a

him thickly. “We'll be as keerful as if it was our own - |

place.”
During the following month, the inventive pair pur-
sued their mysterious quest moré quietly.: But on the

‘freezing night of February 2, 1872, Lowndes heard what

seemed to be a wild yell from the direction of the cot-
tage. He looked out the window and saw the place
blazing like a bonfire. Lowndes suddenly cursed him-
self for a fool for renting the house out in the first

place. He hurried over there and found the cottage a:

seething inferno of flame so hot that he had to keep a
distance, Nearby farmers were arriving’ to view the
conflagration. Lowndes spotted Udderzook leaning

against a tree and eyeing the blaze, an expression of °

dull dismay on his face. :
“Where’s your partner?” Lowndes shouted. ;
“I’m afraid Winnie Goss is in there, sizzfing like a
pork chop,” Udderzook said sadly. ‘Nothing can save
him now.” ; ;

E WAS RIGHT. A volunteer fire department ar-

rived, but was helpless to: stem. the flames. All ©

they could do was stand around and watch the place
burn to the ground.

By morning the ashes had cooled enough so that the
men could go in and poke around. They soon. found
the body of a man, burned.so badly that nothing could
be told about it except that he had been a big man, just
like Goss. A couple of hours later a blackened watch
and chain were found, along with a ring containing
four keys. | :

“It’s Winnie’s watch, and his keys,” Udderzook.

nodded. “Poor feller, he never, deserved such a horrible
end.”
He explained further at the (Continued on page 52)

EERSTE oo


ys A DEMNITION BODY

turied apart, in a trench about twenty yards
distant. A coroner’s jury were impanelled upon
+e spot, and as the body was recognized as that
«f the stranger who had gone away in the carriage,
, verdict of murder was promptly returned against
4,4, Udderzook.

JJe was arrested on July 25th and put in jail at
G/est Chester, Pennsylvania. In the meanwhile,
+e Insurance companies satisfied themselves that
t;;¢ missing Winfield Scott Goss was at last found

and at last really dead. A number of Balti-
yjoreans identified this body, while one of the
f ngels testified that the seal ring, left in the car-
riage, was well known to him as the property of
(,0SS.

Mr. Campbell Goss, and others of the clan,
promptly interested themselves in a most energetic
fashion to clear Udderzook of the charge of murder.
/,)yle counsel were retained for his defence, includ-
jny the Hon. Wayne McVeagh, afterward Attorney
(,eneral of the United States.

The difficulty with Mr. Winfield Goss was that,
{j)ke Mr. Mantalini, he had determined to be a body,
+,ut also like Mr. Mantalini, he lacked the resolution
ty, carry out the plan. Discretion and a consistent
retirement from society are essential to success
fr him who is cast for the part of a dead man.
\V/hoever the person may have been who was found
i) the burning cottage—it is suggested that his
fody came into Mr. Udderzook’s possession vza the

A DEMNITION BODY 89

source of supply for a medical college—he had at
least the good judgment to remain in the grave.
Mr. Goss had certain disabilities: one of his wife’s
attorneys, when decorating with the flowers of his
rhetoric all the Goss-Udderzook connection, ad-
mitted that the departed Goss ‘‘might deal in
conviviality to too great an extent with his com-
panions.”” This was a tactful manner of referring
to the fact that Mr. Goss had had one or two at-
tacks of delirium tremens. When, therefore, he
retired from the world, by way of his brother’s hired
carriage, on the night of the fire, and modestly took
the name of A. C. Wilson, all went well, for a time.
All went well until again he began to deal in con-
viviality. And then he acted as no gentleman who
has been decently buried in a Baltimore cemetery,
with the blessing of the Reverend Doctor Fuller,
ought to behave. He broke out from all restraint,
and was a source of much anxiety to his brother-in-
law, Mr. Udderzook. |

This capable man, having given Winfield Goss an
opportunity to pretend to be a body, to the profit
of both families, now decided to end the masquer-
ade, and to transform his brother-in-law into such
a semblance of death that even the most critical
insurance company could take no exception. Un-
fortunately, it was too late to profit him at all.
While the companies probably paid out, in one way
or another, more than the original $25,000, it is not
likely that any of this came into the hands of the


Q2 A DEMNITION BODY

The jury, it is surprising to note, were out for
nearly two days and nights. At the end of that
time, they found the prisoner guilty as charged.
All further efforts to interpose legal obstacles
proved of no avail; Udderzook was condemned to
death, and the sentence was executed on November
12, 1874. He made no allusion to guilt or inno-
cence while he was on the scaffold, nor did he
appear especially disconcerted. So far as can be
discovered, he continued to assert his innocence
to the end. His predicament, he suggested, was
the result of a plot by the insurance companies,
and he solemnly warned his countrymen of the
dangers in which they all stood from these wicked
organizations.

In a letter made public a few weeks before his
execution, he wrote: |

It is my desire that my remains will rest in Baltimore, if
not in the same lot, at least in the same cemetery with those
of Mr. W. S. Goss, a friend ever dear to me, that our bodies
may return to the mother earth, and our spirits may mingle
together on the bright sunny banks of deliverance, where
pleasures never end. =

It does not appear which of the two bodies of
Mr. W. S. Goss this had reference to; but as he
apparently maintained to the end that the man in
Baer’s Woods was a spurious discovery of the in-
surance officials, he probably meant to choose the
company of the Old Pretender of the burned cot-

nae CNN are

A DEMNITION BODY 93

tage. He naturally felt an abiding interest in
this one, since, as the testimony showed, he had
conveyed it thither in a box, with the aid of Mr.
Goss himself, and an express wagon, on the very
morning of the fire.

go A DEMNITION BODY

Udderzook-Goss partnership. That combination
had furnished two dead men, at one time or another,
but the companies and, indeed, the law, had cause
for annoyance and probably held that no payment
was due. They could not be blamed.

Udderzook went upon his trial at West Chester
in the following October. The State announced
their intention to show what had been the career
of Mr. Goss, alias Wilson, from the night of the fire
until his death more than a year later. This
included residence in Philadelphia, in Cooperstown
(Pennsylvania), in Athensville, with visits to
Bryn Mawr. In Newark, New Jersey, he lived for
some time, until his departure for the final trip
with his brother-in-law.

The case was remarkable for the large number of
witnesses examined, and for the many kinds of
proof adduced. It was endeavoured to show that
the body found in the woods was that of Goss; to
trace his career from the night of the fire; to identify
Goss with the man calling himself Wilson; to show
a motive for Udderzook to commit the crime.
The whole story of the insurance fraud was offered
as part of the case for the State, and after oppo-
sition by the defence, was admitted by the Court,
and related to the jury. Witnesses appeared from
all the places in which the dead man had lived,
under his own name or under the false one. Medi-
cal testimony and testimony as to handwriting
were both heard; “A. C. Wilson” had signed hotel

A DEMNITION BODY ol

registers and in the handwriting of Goss. A photo-
graph of Goss was identified as a portrait of Wilson.
Moreover, Wilson had a tendency to “deal in
conviviality’”’; he wore a remarkable ring which was
recognized as the property of Goss; he carried with
him and exhibited a ‘‘patent screwdriver,’ and he
addressed Udderzook as ‘Doctor,’ as Goss was:
used to do.

Testimony of the gravest nature was given by a
brother-in-law of Udderzook, a man named Samuel
Rhodes. The prisoner had not only written him a
letter to enlist him in some dubious enterprise,
hinting at crime, but had come to him on the day of
the murder, and asked for his help in taking a man
into the woods, giving him some laudanum, and
then robbing him of his money.

The strength of the case for the prosecution came
as a surprise and shock to the attorneys who had

_acted for the family in the suits against the insur-
ance companies. Feeling that they had been de-

ceived by the Gosses, they refused to continue in
the defence of Udderzook in the murder trial, and
withdrew before the State closed their case.
The defence made what appears to be a despair-
ing effort. All the witnesses for the State were

impeached, and the theme of the wicked insurance

companies was again introduced. It was suggested
that the trial was an effort to dispose of Udderzook
as a dangerous witness in the civil suits of Mrs.

Goss,