xt7p5h7bsf9t https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7p5h7bsf9t/data/mets.xml  1896  books b92-139-29331474 English Barclay, : Cincinnati : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Murder Kentucky Fort Thomas. Mysterious murder of Pearl Bryan, or, The headless horror :  : a full account of the mysterious murder known as the Fort Thomas tragedy, from beginning to end ; full particulars of all detective and police investigations ; dialogues of the inteinterviews between Mayor Caldwell, Chief Deitsch and the prisoners. text Mysterious murder of Pearl Bryan, or, The headless horror :  : a full account of the mysterious murder known as the Fort Thomas tragedy, from beginning to end ; full particulars of all detective and police investigations ; dialogues of the inteinterviews between Mayor Caldwell, Chief Deitsch and the prisoners. 1896 2002 true xt7p5h7bsf9t section xt7p5h7bsf9t 





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ryan,



           - OR: -
THE HEADLESS



HORROR,



A. FL ACCOUNT OF TE MYSTERIOUS MURDER
           OWN AS T
  Fort Thomas Tragedy,
         FROM BEGINNING TO END.


Ful Pticlars of all Detective and Police
           Investigations.


Diaogues of the Interviews betwen Mayor Cald-
    well, Chiet DeL h and the Prisoner



coprigbt by BARCLAY  CO



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11_____________-----._



MUROER



 









































                   PEARL BRYAN.
Engraved after the only Photograph that she ever had taken
                  during her life=time.



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THE MYSTERIOUS MURDER OF

        PEARL BRYAN,
                      - OR: -

   THE HEADLESS HORROR.



     0 R T T H 0 M A S, Kentucky, is most beautifully
 Ax located near the banks of the Ohio river, on the
       Highlands, just above and on the opposite side from
       Cincinnati, Ohio. Although a comparatively new
U. S. Military Post, it has long been a historical point, and
in the early days of the Corncracker State, and while yet a
portion of the County of Kentucky in the State of Virginia,
was the home of the red men. There are persons yet living
whose parents fought bloody battles with the Indians on the
ground now occupied a. a U. S. Fort, and that adjacent
chereto; a picturesque portion of which is the scene of this
true narrative of one of the most terrible tragedies of the
hineteenth Century.
   The tragedy referred to was committed at the dead of
night in a lonely spot near the Fort, January 3ISt, I896.
   By the manner in which it was committed, it re-called
the days of old, when tyrants beheaded their victims, and
the murderer at heart, who was yet too cowardly to com-
mit the deed, hired some one to do it, requiring in evidence
that the deed had been done, that the head should be sev,
ered from the body and returned to the employK.



(19)

 

                           20 -
    To re-call such deeds of horror to the minds of the
people of a highly civilized nation at the close of the nine.
teenth Centu  by the actual commission of a similar deed,
struck horror to the hearts of the people, and they were
worked up to a pitch that had never been witnessed in this
country before. Telephones and telegraph were called in-
to service, and the finding of the headless body of a young
and doubtless beautiful woman in a sequestered spot near
Fort Thomas, was flashed around the world. So shocked
was the country over this ghastly find that the metropolitan
papers from one end of this country to the other informed
their representatives in the Queen' City to wire full partic-
ulars of the horrible deed, without any limit to the words
to be used.
    It was the most diabolical cold-blooded premediated
outrage ever committed in a civilized community. The en-
tire surrounding country, including the three cities, Cincin-
nat, O., Covington and Newport, Ky., were startled from
center to circumference and aroused as it never had been
before. The Sixth Regiment U. S. Infantry, commanded
by Col. Cochran, which is stationed at Fort Thomas, was
astounded that such an outrage should be committed almost
within the guard lines of the Fort. Aged and battle-scarled
veterans who had gone through the great civil war, only a
generation before, when brother stood in battle array against
brother, father against son, neighbor against neighbor,
flocked to the spot where the headless body lay, and stood
with blanched faces, struck dumb with amazement, at the
boldness of the deed and horrible manner in which it had
been committed.
    In an old orchard in the confines proper of the Fort,
about midway between the Highland and Alexandria pikes,
on the farm of James Lock, and near the fence which acts
as a boundary line for Mr. Lock's farm, was found by
James Hewling, a young man, on Saturday morning, Feb. 1.,
z896, the decapitated body of a young woman of venus-like
fomi the headless body lying with the neck in a paoA
ofbloodl

 

                           21
    From the position of the body it was evident that the
N oman had been thrown down violently and then her head
deliberately severed with a dull knife. The severance was
rajle below the fifth vertebra. Judging by the pool of blood,
life had been extinct from four to eight hours when the body
wa.s found.
    The clothing of the woman was of poor quality. The
dress was light blue and white, small pattern check, of cot.
ton, worn tight across the back and loose in front. She-
also wore a dark blue skirt and a union suit of underwear.
On her hands was a pair of tan kid gloves, well worn. The
black, cloth-topped shoes were of fine quality, in contrast
to the other clothing, and were marked within "Louis 
Hays, Greencastle, Ind., 22-I I. 62,458." Her stockings
were black and blue, new. The rubbers were old and worn
at the heels. The corset had evidently been ripped open
and torn from her body during a struggle which took place
near where it was found. Close by was a piece of the dress,
also with blood on it.
    In an almost incredible short time after Hewling Rave
the alarm, the soldiers from the Fort, the citizens surround-
ing it, and hundreds from the city near-by gathered at the
spot and were awe stricken by the sight which met their eyes.
    Who was the murdered woman and who could have
committed the horrible atrocity  These were questions
which were on the lips of every one, and for the answer of
which a most thorough and searching investigation was at
once begun. The best detective talent was emidiately put
to work. The people were thoroughly aroused and determ-
ined upon having the headless body identified and the cruel,
heartless murderer or murderers brought to swift justice.
    Leaving the investigaton of the deed, we will now
go with the reader to a happy home of a happy family,
ranking among the oldest and best connected families in the
state of Indiana, and living on the father's farm near Green-
castle, Putnam County, Indiana. Alexander S. Bryan,
and his wife who had lived to honorable old age, respected
and loved by al] who knew them, owned this happy home

 

                           22
and were the parents of twelve children, of which At the
time of this writing, seven were living, Pearl being the
youngest, of a fine, voluptuous form, with a sweet, l vely
disposition and manners, popular with all who were ac-
quainted with her, cheerful and happy at all times and was
first entering her twenty-second year. The Bryan family,
taking all the relations into account, is the largest in the
;tate of Indiana, and its standing of the very highest.
    Pearl the baby of the family, petted and feted, had
Vatuated from the Greencastle High School in I892, with
the highest honors and was the special favorite of her grad-
uating class. Beautiful in form and features, highly accom-
plished, well educated, with a dotting father and mother,
well provided with this world's goods, and with whom she
was a favorite daughter, Pearl Bryan had much to live for.
    From the time she left school, aye, even before her
graduating year arrived, she had many admirers, and to
look on her was to love, to love was to lose. She counted
her admirers by the score, but to none did she give her
heart, or encourage them in any serious intentions. She
was liked by all, but while she was of a lovable, affectionate
disposition, she allowed none to go beyond the line of ad-
miration, and cupids swift and seldom erring shafts, fell
harmless by her side.
    Three long years had passed since Pearl had bade
"good bye" to her studies in the Greencastle High School,
and although a leader in society, a guest of honor where-
ever she visited, none of her ardent admirers had made
a deeper impression upon her, and her heart was still her
own. Men of high moral character, well supplied with this
world's goods and standing well in business and socia'
circles, would have eagerly jumped at the opportunity to
claim her as their wife. Their protestations of love however
seemed to have no affect upon the mind or heart of Miss
Pearl Bryan.
    Money and position did not have any effect upon hei
favors, the young man, struggling hard to make his way in

 
                     - 23
life, was as graciously received and as well treated by her
as the young swell, rolling in luxury and wealth.
    Will Wood, a second cousin of Pearl Bryan, was one
of her ardent admirers, but was treated as one of the family
and in no sense as a lover. He was treated rather as a favor-
ite brother by Miss Pearl, who made a confidant of him.
Wood's father who was a good old Minister lived only a
half mile distant from the Bryan's, and Will spent much of
his time at Pearl's home, and was in her company a great
deal. Nothing was thought of this, at the time, although
evil tongues wagged rapidly afterwards, and many were
ready to lay at the door of Will Wood in less than a year
thereafter, direct connection and complicity with a crime
unparallelled in the criminal history of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury.
    Along in the latter part of i894, ScottJackson with his
mother moved to Greencastle, Ind., from Jersey City, N. J.
One of Mrs. Jackson's daughters, the wife of Dr. Edwin
Post, of Depauw University, had lived at Greencastle for
many years, and Mrs. Jackson moved there to get near her
daughter. Scott Jackson belonged to a good family, his
father being Commodore Jackson, who commanded many
vessels and who stood high in social circles in New Jersey.
Scott cut quite a prominent figure in both the social and
business world. He went to Jersey City with splendid re-
commendations. His career there was considerably check-
ered however, and he only escaped a long sentence to the
penitentiary, which his partner Alexander Letts is now serv-
ing, by turning State's evidence in a case of embezzlement in
which Jackson and Letts had embezzled a large amount,
said to have been 32,ooo from the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company.
    Jackson and Letts, it appears, obtained employment
of the Pennsylvania Railroad company, in the Jersey City
offices. One of Jackson's duties was to receive and open
the mails.
                 BIG EMBEZZLEMENTS.
    After a few months extensive robberies in the railroad

 
                           24
office were discovered. They were said to amount to nearly
32,ooo.  They were traced to Jackson and Letts.   It
was found, according to testimony during the two trials
that followed, that Jackson abstracted checks from the mail,
and that Letts, to whom he handed them, had them cashed.
    Meanwhile the saloon which they kept had become
notorious. They were acknowledged high flyers in sporting
circles. Both had become "plungers" on the race tracks.
It was reported that they made much money, owing to their
lavish expenditures. They "entertained" liberally in their
own particular way, and for a time were looked upon as
"good fellows" among the sporting fraternity, who sought
the privilege of their acquaintance. Jackson was a prom-
inent member of the Entre Nous, an exclusive social club.
    Suddenly, the Pennsylvania Railroad officials discovered
that these two young men were "sporting" at the expense
of the company. Their arrest followed. At the first trial
the jury disagreed.
             HE TURNED STATE'S EVIDENCE.
    Before the second trial took place the railroad company
discovered such proof of Jackson's guilt that he found it
healthy to turn state's evidence against Letts. The later
was sentenced to a long term in the State Prison., Jackson
went free and also went away from Jersey.
    News of this escapade and his career in Jersey City
never reached Greencastle and his family there ranking
among the best. He was at once given an entree into so-
ciety which might well be envied by any young man. Will
Wood, who lived a near neighbor to Mrs. Jackson, and who
as stated was a particular favorite with Pearl Bryan, took a
great liking to Scott Jackson. They were very intimate, in
fact became chums.
    Jackson entered the dental college at Indianapolis, and
Wood being of a rather reckless disposition would go to In-
dianapolis to see Jackson, and together they would have a
big time in the city. Both being fond of ladies, company,
they spent much of their time together in the company of
women of loose moral character and were in several very



 





















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                           '26
unsavory escapades, escaping notoriety however under as-
sumed names, which prevented their families and friends
at Greencastle from hearing of them. With no knowledge
of his former career and ignorant of his escapades while at
college at Indianapolis, it is no wonder that he was a favor-
ite in society when at home. Belonging to an exellent
family, he was outwardly a man whom any father would
be proud to have his daughter associate with. With dimples
on his chin and cheeks, a childish smile on his lips, frank,
beautiful, pale violet-blue eyes, he had a most winsome
countenance. But behind the angelic front was hidden a
very demon.   Jackson was a monstrosity if you will, a
whited sepulchre, and one of the unaccountable freaks of
nature.  To those not knowing his habits, a handsome,
affable, pleasing man of fine form and features; to those
who knew him truly, a villain of the deepest dye, a very
demon in human shape.
    Notwith3tanding Will Wood knew him as he did, and
that Pearl Bryan was Wood's second cousin the same blood
coursing through their veins, Wood introduced Jackson in-
to the Bryan family in the spring of i895. It was a case of
love at first sight. From the first meeting between Scott
Jackson and Pearl Bryan, at the colonial mansion of the
Bryans on the hill. Pearl showed that she was most favor-
ably impressed with him. She who had refused to listen to
the wooing whispers of men in high rank and station in life
by the scores, fell at once a victim to the darts from cupid's
shafts sent from Jackson's lips, for after accurrences proved
conclusively that the honeyed words and winsome smiles,
which won their way so easily into the heart of Pearl Bryan,
came only from the lips and never from the heart of him
who lent his every effort to win the heart of the belle of
Putnam County, as Pearl Bryan was known, but with no
manly or honorable purpose. Scott Jackson was void of
moral principle and honor, and never did anything with a
manly purpose, he was incapable of such action.

 
- 27 -



THE RESULT OF AN EXAMINATION OF JACKSON, BY THE BER-
      TILLION SYSTEM, AFTER HIS ARREST FOR THE
               MURDER OF PEARL BRYAN.
    After the arrest of Jackson for the crime, he was turned
over to Sergeant Kiffmeyer, of the Cincinnati police force,
who has charge of the Bertillion system of measuring and
identifying criminals for the local Police Department, and
who is recognized as an authority on criminals.
    After he had completed the measurement of Jacksonbe
said, "Every man's head tells its own story. Jackson is
another H. H. Holmes.
    "Jackson has the cunning to plot and plan, and to
conceal.
    "Jackson is a mind far-beyond the ordinary. He has a
head such as Napoleon would have.
              PICKED OUT OF A THOUSAND.
    "Jackson knew fully and realized what lay before him
in the murder of Pearl Bryan.
    "Jackson is absolutely incapable of any expression of
remorse.
    "The only appeal that can be made to Jackson is
through his fear of punishment.
    "Jackson's skull is abnormal, and unusually long in
proportion to its breadth. It is abnormally developed on
the right side in front and on the left side in the rear of the
head.
    "Jackson is a natural monster, or monstrosity, which
ever you will. "Look at his portrait," and the Sergeant
held up his photograph. Is that the face of a criminal
    "Jackson has other peculiarities. His fingcrs are dis-
proportionately long to his height.
    "Jackson has all the characteristics of a criminal by
nature."
            WAS IT FATE OR WAS IT DESTINE
    Was it cruel fate which led pure, beautiful, innocent
and attractive Pearl Bryan into the toils of such a fiend in
human shape Or was it the blind Goddess of Justice that
led Jackson to meet Miss Pearl and sacrifice her life that the

 

                           28
demon Jackson might be exposed to the world, his deeds of
evil and misdoings brought to light, and he expatiate the
many crimes which he had committed on the gallows or by
serving a life sentence in the penitentiary
    Be that as it may they met through the intimate ac-
quaintance and friendship of each with Will Wood, who
little thought when he brought this pure spotless virgin in
contact with the hypocrite and demon, Jackson, that he
was committing a sin, which he would regret to his dying
day, and which would bring disgrace, dishonor and ruin on
two highly respected families and also upon his own head and
that of his aged respected and christian father, who was at
the time the Presiding Elder of a church for the Greencastle
District.
    The acquaintance ofJackson and Miss Pearl soon ripened
into friendship and that friendship into trusting confiding
love on the Part of Miss Bryan, and the accomplishment of
the deep, villainous designs upon the part of Jackson. As
Will Wood said in a talk afterward, "Pearl was stuck on
Jackson from the first time they met, Jackson would come
and get my horse and buggy and drive over to Pearl's
house, when they would often go out driving together.
Pearl was pretty and ambitious, but I never thought she
would do wrong. Now I can see she was perfectly infat-
uated with Jackson from the start; so much that I am firmly
convinced, she was completely in his power, and he took
advantage of his influence over her." Through Jackson's
cunning to plot and plan as well as to conceal, the relations
of criminal intimacy between him and Pearl, were never even
suspected by anyone. Jackson was not in Greencastle a
great deal, and this fact enabled him to carry on his illicit
relations with her more boldly than he would otherwise
have been able to do. The parents of the erring girl never
for a moment suspected anything wrong. Pearl was their
favorite, the daughter of their old age, had been raised with
every care and precaution, had always moved in the very
best of society, and Jackson to them was a gentleman, a
member of one of the best families of the country, well-

 
                           29
thought of and respected in the community in which they
moved, and was not looked upon as a lover, although they
were aware of the fact that Pearl was more seriously smit-
ten with his charms than she ever had been with those of
any of the other many admirers and friends who had visited
their home as the company of Pearl. Without hesitancy
they permitted their favorite daughter to accept the atten-
tions of Jackson, go out with him when he was visiting
home, and remain alone with him in their parlor until
late hours in the night. They had every confidence in
Pearl, and no suspicion of the villainous intentions of Jack-
son, or the evil influence he possessed over her.
    With Pearl Bryan, it was the oft told tale, "She loved
not wisely but too well." Jackson, "a criminal by nature"
with his "angelic front", behind which was hidden a
demon, with his low moral character, so well concealed
from the public, and with a set design to ruin the pure and
innocent girl, which had been thrown in his way, was not
slow to take advantage of his opportunities and the influence
and power, which he could easily see he held over the un-
tuspecting girl.
    Loving and trusting Jackson as she had never before
loved any man, and being of a sanguine nervous temper-
ament, with her likes and dislikes of the strongest possible,
with a great deal of animal nature, cheerful and talkative,
yet lacking in force, by nature kind and benevolent to a
fault, and her development of individuality and self-reliance
small, she was one who could be easily persuaded but
never driven. Jackson was not slow to learn this, and with
honeyed words and protestations of love, he won Pearl
Bryan's heart. This won, the accomplishment of his devilish
designs, her ruin, was easy. She fell a victim to his lustful
desire, and in a short time discovered that she would soon
become a mother. Almost crazed at this discovery she
knew not what to do or which way to turn. It was the first
blot that had ever come on the name of a member of the
proud Bryan family. In her desperation she confided her
condition to her cousia, Will Wood. As Wood claimed,

 
                          30 -
no one .Ise in Greencastle knew or even suspected anything
of the true condition of affairs between Pearl Bryan and
Scott 'ackson. They had been keeping company with each
other whenever Jackson was in Greencastle, from the early
spring of i895 until September of the same year, when she
ciscovered her condition, no one except Will Wood knowing
anything wrong about them.
    The discovery of Pearl Bryan that she was in a delicate
condition, and Jackson being the cause of her trouble, and
as he said in a letter to Wood wishing to get clear of the
scandal, brings us to the third, and possibly the most im-
portant suspect in the dreadful tragedy near Fort Tho-
mas, Ky.
    Alonzo Walling, nineteen years of age, was born on a
farm near Mt. Carmel, Ind. His father died when he was
but three years old,- leaving his mother in moderate circum-
stances with two other boys, Clint and Charles. When
Alonzo was thirteen she moved to Greencastle where she
kept boarders and Alonzo commenced at once to work in
a glass factory to help support his mother. He worked
there four years, and was thrown out of work when the
factory was closed. Then his mother, by self-sacrifice,
sent him to the Indianapolis Dental college, paying all his
expenses, and it is learned that he worked hard and was one
of the formost in his class.  He returned home every
evening, and on Saturdays assisted Dr. Sparks, at Green-
field, in his dental parlors. His term expired in March,
i895, when his mother moved to Oxford and made hcr home
with her sister, Mrs. James Faucett. Having very poor
health, her only thought was to try and give him a good
education.
    It was at the Indianapolis Dental College that he first met
Jackson and became acquainted with him. By some strange
and uncontrollable fatallity Walling was thrown with Jack-
son again in Cincinnati. Here is his own statement made
Wednesday, Feb. 5., i896, regarding their acquaintance
and friendship:
    "I met Tackson in Indianapolis, a little more than a



 


year ago.   We attended the Indiana Dental College to-
gether. I did not know him intimately there, although we
attended the same class. When the school season was over,
I had no idea of meeting him again here in Cincinnati."
    "How did you come to room together here"
    "Well, I was standing on the doorstep of our boarding-
house, at 222 West Ninth Street, the second day of our
school term here in October, when Scott came along Ninth
Street and recognized me. On the strength of our being ac-
quainted in Indianapolis we roomed together at 222 Ninth
Street and took our meals out."
    Walling had no unsavory record, although he did not
stand well at Greenfield, while living there. That he was
directly connected with the Fort Thomas tragedy there can
be no doubt. Sergeant Kiffmeyer, who has charge of the
Bertillion System, and who is quoted regarding Scott Jack-
son, said of Alonzo Walling, after taking his measurement.
"Walling's head is that of a commonplace criminal, he is
just the opposite of Scott Jackson, at the same time Walling is
utterly void of any ability or cunning to plot and plan and to
conceal. Jackson knew fully and realized what lay before
him in the murder of Pearl Bryan. Walling had not realized
the enormity of the crime, and is supremely indifferent to
the consequences and to the crime committed. No appeal,
not even the fear of punishment, will have any impression
on Walling."



      The History of the Tragedy.

    Never in the history of the crimes committed in this,
section of the country has the same interest or the same.
deep feeling been aroused as has been in the Ft. Thomas
(Ky.) murder.
    The fact that the head was removed from the body and
secreted or destroyed, and the developments which followed

 

                            32
fast upon each other, adding day by day new evidence to
show the cold-bloodedness of the crime, the preparations
which had been made for its sucessful carrying out and the
covering up of all traces of the identity of the murderer and
the murdered. The mystery that still surrounds the hid-
ing place of the dismembered head, have led to this result.
     A murder so horrible and, revolting as to appear to
place it beyond the civilization of to-day, had been com-
mitted within ear shot of one of the most popular U. S.
Military Posts of this country, and within a few miles of the
center of population of this the greatest and most highly
civilized nation on earth. The murderer had hacked the
head from the body of his victim, and carried it away with
him. Whether from pure savagory and demon spirit or to
prevent the identification of his victim was not known.
    The body was found in an orchard at Ft. Thomas on
Saturday, February I., at 8 o'clock in the morning. The
neck, where it had been severed from the body, lay in a
pool of blood, and from evidences on the body and in the
bush under which it lay, a fierce struggle had taken place
before the victim received her death stroke.
             BUT SLIGHT CLEW TO WORK ON.
    Upon the body or in the clothing there was nothing by
which the woman could be identified, excepting the dealers'
names in the shoe, and the murder or murderers had left
no other clew behind by which they could be identified.
Without the head, the mystery seemed unsolvable, and
every effort was made to find it in the vicinity.
    The remaining details of the crime, as far as circum-
stantial evidence revealed them, told a story which was
truly horrifying. The dumb evidence given by foot pri-nts,
blood-stains, brocken tree branches, was terrible to reflect
upon.
    The body was lying upon the bank with the feet higher
'than the body, and the clothing so disarranged that the
officers were at first led to believe that the woman had been
outraged before she was murdered. The clothing could
easily have been as much disarranged in the struggle which

 

                           33
had evidently taken place and when the murderer threw his
victim to the ground.
    The upper part of the woman's dress was open as was
the garment beneath, and her bosom was bare. The skirt-
band was unloosed, and the skirt of the dress was gathered
up about the waist. Beneath the stump of the neck there
wvas a huge pool of blood, and blood was scattered about on
the grass and the leaves of the overhanging bushes. One
glove lay in the bushes and a piece torn from the woman's
dress was hanging to a bit of brushwood several yards from
the body. The officers carefully examined the footprints
leading to the spot where the body lay, and they found
that the man and the woman had walked side by side for a
short distance when, for some reason, the woman had at-
tempted to flee and the man had followed and overtaken her.
The tracks were especially distinct here, for the woman had
run through a very muddy spot, which she would have
avoided had she had time to pick her way. The murderer
overtook his victim before she had screamed more than once
or twice. He choked her into silence and dragged her
toward the bushy bank. She struggled desperately, and he
tore a handful of cloth from her dress. He threw her to
the ground and slid over the bank with her. He must have
drawn his knife after the struggle began; otherwise he
would have used it sooner. He slashed at her throat. She
clutched the knife with the one hand she had free - her
left - and three times the blade laid her palm or fingers
open to the bone. Her struggle was useless, and in a mo-
ment her life blood was pouring from a gaping wound in her
throat.
    When she was dead, or, at least, powerless to resist,
the assassin searched for some article concealed on her per-
son. He tore off her corset, leaving the marks of his bloody
fingers on the garment, which he threw a yard or two from
him, and then unbuttoned the under garment beneath her
corset, where a letter might have been concealed. Whether
he found something which aroused him to jealous rage, or

 


                            34   -
 whether he finished his awful work in the hope of conceal-
 ing the identity of his victim, no one knows.
    The murder must have been committed Friday night
tor the clothing of the dead woman was not wet and the rain
Friday night had kept up until near ten o'clock.
    The struggle between the murderer and his victim was
a most desperate one. Half of a man's shirt sleeve was
found near the dead body, soaked in blood. The woman
had evidently torn it from her murderers arm in her desper-
ate struggle for her life.
    The lad Hewling upon discovering the body of the
murdered woman, was horror stricken by the sight and ran
towards Mr. Lock's house, badly frightened and calling
lustily for help. Mr. Lock, his son Wilbert and Mike
Noonan, an employ, came running from the house. When
they had seen the body, Mr. Lock went direct to Fort
Thomas, telephoned the news of the ghastly find to the
Newport police headquarters, and notified Col. Cochran the
Commander at the Fort.
    Jule Plummer, Sheriff of Campbell County, Kentucky,
Coroner Tingley and a number of the other County and City
officials respondet the telephone summons at once and hur-
ried to the scene. The body had not been touched nor had
any one been in touching distance of it when these officers
arrived and viewed it.
    The body was ordered to be taken to undertaker W.
H. Whites in Newport, by Coroner Tingley, at once after
he had examined it. Upon this examination he said that
there was no evidence whatever that the woman's person
had been outraged.
    The work of identifying the victim and running down
her murderers was at once begun. The entire detective
and police force of Cincinnati, Covington and Newport, was
put to work to unravel the mystery, identify the remains
and capture her murderers.
    There was little or no clew to work on. Detectives
Crim and McDermott, of Cincinnati, were assigned to work
actively on the case, and sent to the scene at once by Col

 
                    -    35
Philip Deitsh, Superintendent of Police of Cincinnati. Be-
fore these sleuth-hounds of the law, Crim and McDermott,
reached the place where the headless body had been found,
hundreds of persons from the three cities, and every soldier
stationed at Fort Thomas, who could possibly get away,
had preceded them. The grass and bushes were trampled
down by the crowds of visitors who had come to satisfy
their curiosity, but who, through their eagerness to see and
learn everything possible, had destroyed so nearly every
particle of evidence the murderer had left behind him. The
foot prints and other evidences of the desperate struggle
were all destroyed and but little was left for them to
work on.
    Relic hunters were out in great numbers and they al-
most demolished the bush under which the body was dis-
covered, breaking of branches upon which blood spots could
be seen. They peered closely into the ground for blood-
spotted leaves, stones and even saturated clay. Anything
that had a blood stain upon it was seized upon eagerly, and