Chapter VI: Part 6

I knew that the latter would have no weight with her, but I feared that the threats they made would cause her to worry until she became ill, and I therefore felt justified in resorting to almost any means to see her and try and quiet her fears. With this in view I wrote the District Attorney that if I could have an interview with him, my wife being present, I would endeavor to make it plain to him where they could expect to find the remains of the boy. This interview was promptly accorded me and, upon being taken into his private office, I met my wife, and it needed but one glance to know what she had been and was then suffering, which caused a feeling of almost uncontrollable anger to take possession of me, both towards the authorities for unjustly causing her hard lot to be made worse, and towards myself that for the sake of business gains I had ever allowed myself to enter into the petty transactions that had been the cause of all her troubles. My first inquiry, as could naturally be expected, was as to her physical condition and if she was in comfortable quarters and free from actual restraint. I also told her that until the world at large ceased to look upon me as a murderer I should not in the presence of others greet her as was my usual custom. If at this time my wife shrank from me as though in fear, as was given out from the District Attorney’s office for publication, I, in my blindness, did not see it, and in the days and nights that followed until I again heard of her welfare almost my only source of comfort was the remembrance of the few kind words she had said, and, what was even more to me, that she had worn both her engagement and her wedding rings, and as many of the gifts I had presented to her during our happier days as she could without exciting undue notice, choosing those that would convey to me from their associations the kind thoughts she knew she would have no opportunity to say in words.

This was particularly plain to me, inasmuch as it was wholly contrary to her usual custom to appear thus attired at that early hour of the day, and in so public a place, and until she tells me that such is not the case I shall hold to the belief that she is yet loyal to me. There were present at this meeting, beside the District Attorney, Mr. Shoemaker and Supt. Linden, and for a part of the time Mr. Fouse and the Assistant District Attorney. I endeavored to state to them, in as few words as possible, the circumstances of Hatch’s delay of twenty-four hours, and the letters sent from either Detroit or Toronto about a house. They at once branded my statements concerning Hatch as untrue, and said that he was a mythical person, asking me to name any one who had ever seen him. In reply I said, “I do not consider that you have any more grounds for doubting the fact that he was at these places than to doubt that Mrs. Pitezel or these children were there, because they did not happen to meet. However, you need not rely upon my statements.”

Last November or December Mr. Perry, a representative of the insurance company, came to the prison, in company with another witness, to question me about some other matters pertaining to the case, and while there said to me, “Who was the man you met at the Burlington depot you seemed so surprised to see, and immediately went to the telegraph office and took up a message you had previously written?”

I told him it was a man named Hatch, a friend of Miss Williams, who was not connected with my case in any important way. I also stated in further answer to the District Attorney’s question that I felt sure that the barber in the Indianapolis depot would remember his coming there with me, it being so unusual an occurrence for me to be accompanied by any one; that the proprietor or clerk of the small hotel where he had taken the children upon their arrival in Detroit would remember him, and probably the woman where they boarded during most of their stay in that city, as he accompanied them to the train the day following my departure for Toronto. That Mrs. Pitezel will remember his calling at her house at Burlington, and upon her going to the door he made some trivial excuse and went away, having expected to meet me there. And that my wife will remember my leaving her upon the steamboat landing at B. for a moment to step across to the depot to speak to him, and upon two subsequent occasions while in that city of recognizing him upon the street, she remarking upon my knowing any one there, and parties who have lately testified that they knew of my visiting Miss Williams in New York in 1888, and later in Denver, will know that it was Hatch and not myself, as I never was in Denver until January, 1894, and never saw Miss Williams prior to January, 1893.

“Call him Hatch, Jones, or Smith, if you will, but you have known for months that there was such a person at certain places during the trip with whom I communicated, and with whom I was seen, and whose existence you cannot now ignore.”

I then tried to explain to them that for want of time alone, even if I were the bloodthirsty villain they were inclined to make me appear, I could not be guilty of the Toronto murders, and begged them to allow me to go there before by any chance evidence that could now be obtained should become unavailable to me. To this the District Attorney replied, “I shall not do it; I shall try you here.” What more could be said? If a man as broad-minded as I knew the District Attorney to be, both from common report and from my own observation, would not consider so important a statement, what could I expect from others having a less thorough knowledge of the case? I was much disappointed, both at not being allowed to go there, and at the harsh and unjust way he looked upon the matter, and the feeling was increased a few minutes later when I asked to be allowed to provide for my wife’s support while here, by having him tell me that he did not consider it any part of my business at the present time to either know of or care for her welfare; and some weeks later by his refusing to allow my relatives and business agent to visit me at the prison, and by a number of trivial matters like withholding my newspaper and intercepting and keeping letters that, after reading, he could see did not pertain to, and could not influence my case in any way, saying that if I were given hardships enough and kept long enough away from others, I would confess these crimes. Feeling it was useless to prolong the interview, and noticing that my wife was suffering intensely, I brought it to a close as quickly as possible. I bade her good-bye and was again handcuffed and taken to prison.

During the previous days the part of the Toronto matters that had seemed the most unaccountable to me was how Hatch could have returned to the depot so soon after I had left both him and the children upon the train, and what excuse he could have given to them to forego their journey. This information my interview had supplied. In questioning me, Superintendent Linden had said, “Who was that light young man standing upon the corner of the street near the house where the children were killed, that you spoke with at some length and then went away to hire an expressman?” I hesitated in my answer to him, and finally told him that I had not met any one there, but if he knew that such a meeting had taken place it was of the most vital importance to my case. There had instantly come into my mind when he had asked this question a remembrance of two years previous, but owing to their scoffs at the possibility of Hatch’s existence, I felt it wise to refrain from speaking of it to him until I could hear from those by whom I could prove the statement I would have liked to have made at the time.

One day in the spring of ‘93, soon after Miss Williams’ trunks, containing her theatrical costumes, had been brought to our rooms in the block in Chicago, returning from the city one afternoon, I met upon the stairway leading to my office a jauntily dressed young man, whom, as I passed, I asked to cease smoking his cigarette within the building, and a few minutes later was being saucily laughed at in my office by Miss Williams. So clever had the deception been, both in clothing and change in facial expression by aid of her color box, that upon her wishing to do so, I allowed her to accompany me upon a trip to Aurora, Ill., and later to St. Joseph, Mich., costumed in this manner. That both of these trips, made under these circumstances, actually occurred, I am able to prove by competent and disinterested persons, and I feel sure that Miss Williams was in Toronto, probably meeting the children at Hamilton, and returning with them, and keeping one with her while the other was killed; and next day, while I must necessarily have been hundreds of miles away, inasmuch as I registered at Prescott at 4 P. M., she, if any one, met Hatch near this house, disguised in this manner. On August 15th, Mr. Cops, a Fort Worth attorney, obtained permission of the District Attorney to interview me, and, after questioning me for a time, said he would like to tell me his theory of how I had killed my Chicago victims, which was that while they were in my office I had in some way induced them to step inside the vault and then caused their death by suffocation. He said, “Why, Holmes, it is the plainest case I ever heard of, even the footprints of one of them are to be seen upon the door, where in their desperation they had tried to make their escape.”

I asked him when he believed the last of these deaths had occurred there. He replied, “Probably in July, 1893. In fact, if you could show me that Minnie Williams was alive after that date, I would be much inclined to believe that she was alive now and that she killed her sister, as you say, for, if alive, only that could have been a sufficient motive to induce her to conceal her whereabouts for so long from her Texas friends.” I said, “Will you grant me that I am not guilty of taking life there since I left Chicago about January 1, 1894, for Texas.” He replied, “Yes, I think that would be safe from the evidence I have gathered in Chicago.” I said, “In August, 1893, a fire occurred in the building, causing the destruction of many valuable letters and papers, and upon the building being repaired I bought this vault, in October or November, 1893, from a safe and vault company whose offices were one block west of La Salle street, between Madison and Adams, in Chicago. The purchase was made in the name of the Campbell-Yates Company, and in December, 1893, it was put in place and plastered by a workman named Kriss.

“A very few days thereafter I left Chicago and have never been in the rooms since. There was never any other vault in the building, save one upon the first floor that for years had been under the entire control of tenants occupying the drug and jewelry store in which it is located. I cannot give you the name or exact address of this company, but it is plainly printed upon the door of the vault, and upon your return to Chicago, if you care to do so, you can satisfy yourself of the truthfulness of my statement regarding it.” He said, “Until I can do this I cannot believe it to be true, but if I do find that such is the case I shall be inclined to return to Fort Worth and abandon my case, and upon the strength of what you have told me, I will say to you that I have lately learned that there has been found at Fort Worth among mail that was sent to you after you left that city, a London letter from Miss Williams, but being so sure in my own mind that she died nearly a year previous to that time, I have supposed it to be a clever forgery sent there by you to mislead those who found it.” I told him that Miss Williams had sent me three letters there which were forwarded by Mr. John L. Judd, my Denver agent, 1609 Lawrence street, that city, to whom he could write to or visit to corroborate my statement. That two of these letters I had received and had supposed the other had been sent to the Dead Letter Office and destroyed; that if he would take the letter to Mr. —— and others in Fort Worth, who knew her writing, they would at once tell him it was not a forgery. A few days later I heard of the explosion and fire at the block in Chicago, and felt, as has lately been the case whenever I hear of any loss of life, strange disappearances or other misdemeanors not easily accounted for, throughout the United States—anywhere in the world in fact—almost thankful that the strong doors of my prison room make it impossible for such acts to now be ascribed to me.

OTHER DISAPPEARANCES.

A Miss Van Tassand to the best of my knowledge I never saw. Certain it is that I hired no fruit store in Chicago, nor did I have a person of that name in my employ at any time.

A Mrs. Lee, said to have disappeared some time in 1893, I do not know of ever having seen.

Cora Quinlin is said by the newspapers to be alive. No insurance of any kind was ever caused to be placed upon the life of this child by me nor did I know that such had been placed by others.

A Miss Cigrand was sent to me by the National Typewriter Exchange in Chicago in May, 1892. She worked faithfully in my interests until November, 1892, when, much against my wishes, she left my employ to be married, as I understood at the time. Some days after going away she returned for her mail, and at this time gave me one of her wedding cards, and also two or three others for tenants in the building who were not then in their rooms; and in response to inquiries lately made I have learned that at least five persons in and about Lafayette, Ind., received such cards, the post mark and her handwriting upon the envelope in which they were enclosed showing that she must have sent them herself after leaving my employ. While working for me she had also acted as the secretary of the Campbell-Yates Co., a corporation in which I was interested; and in 1893 certain papers relating to the business of this company that had been overlooked required her signature, and after considerable delay she came to the office in November, which was about one year after she left my employ. She accompanied me to lunch at Thompson’s restaurant, where I had eaten regularly for years, and where during the previous year she had often eaten with me. Here the man known as Henry, who for a long time has been head usher in this establishment and knew us both well, remarked to her, as he gave us our seats, “It is a long time since you were here.” She replied, “About one year.” A few days later she met me elsewhere in Chicago, at which time Arthur S. Kirk, a member of the well-known soap manufacturers, Kirk & Co., and two employees were present, and upon my recalling to Mr. Kirk’s memory certain business transactions I had with him at about this time, he, as well as his employees, will remember the circumstances, and be able to fix the exact date and give an accurate description of Miss Cigrand.

Before leaving Chicago, she expressed a desire to re-enter my employ, stating that unless more kindly treated she should not longer live with her husband, but should either return to office work or re-enter the convent, where she had been educated, or some other similar institution.

She also told me that she had written her people, but should not visit them until she could give them financial aid, as she had been in the habit of doing before her marriage, and I think she will let me know her location and present name before I am made to suffer for her disappearance.

Miss Mary and Miss Kate Dunkee are both acknowledged by the Philadelphia authorities to be alive. Charles Cole is also known to be alive.

The Redman family, the child or its abductress, I never saw, and know nothing of the case save from the accounts published at the time.

Robert Latimer, a former janitor, a Mr. Brummager, once in my employ as a stenographer, also a Miss Mary Horacamp, from Hamilton, Canada, are alive, as shown by letters recently received from friends or relatives of each.

Miss Anna Betz, formerly of Englewood, Ill., whose death I have been so persistently charged with during the past year, the claims being made that it had been caused by a criminal operation performed by me at the instigation of ——, of Chicago, for which I received a release of the sum of $2,500 that I owed him, I was but little acquainted with, and if her death was occasioned in such a manner I certainly am not the cause of it, and checks given upon my order by F. W. Devoe & Co., of New York, will show when and how my indebtedness to Mr. —— was canceled.

The same charge concerning a domestic named Lizzie is untrue, although I have no means of verifying it save that it has been proven that she was alive and in Chicago some months after I left that city, early in 1894.

PHOTOGRAPHIC IDENTIFICATIONS.

In 1883 there were conducted within my knowledge a series of experiments illustrative of the unreliability of photographic identifications, and other similar experiments have often been made. These consisted in calling upon ten students who had witnessed two skillful sign writers executing some work upon a street window to later identify them from photographs. An open album was first handed to the student who was told to choose which one of two pictures before him was the party in question, they all made a prompt decision as to one or the other being the person they had seen, the fact being that neither of the pictures were of these men. To another group of ten that had also seen the painters under like circumstances was given a frame containing forty photographs, they being instructed that the picture of one of the men they had seen was among the number. Only one chose the right picture, and none looked for or found more than one, although without their knowledge pictures of both were plainly before them in the group. The result of the entire number of experiments was that over 95 per cent. failed in their efforts at identification. In my own case by means of pictures, a man in Milwaukee is or was ready to make oath that I was in that city, accompanied by the two children, at a time when the Philadelphia authorities know we were elsewhere. A woman in Chicago is equally positive that I was several days at her boarding house with Miss Williams and the two children, at a time when the authorities know I was in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the same manner two Detroit parties are ready to swear that Miss Williams was in that city, accompanied by a man answering my description of Hatch, at a time when I know he was with me in Indianapolis. In all these instances, and in the Toronto identifications, I believe that the parties have been honest in the statements made, but it must be remembered that they have been led to understand that no other decision was possible. A good example of the methods employed was furnished some months ago when at police headquarters here. I was taken before some twenty or thirty people by a detective who, when near enough for them to hear, said, “Mr. Holmes, these people are witnesses in the case for which you are to be tried here, and I wish to see if they can identify you.”

MOTIVES.

Had my early life and associations been such as to predispose me towards such criminal proceedings, still the want of motive remains. I can show that no motive did exist. Those who knew me personally can see that it could not have been avarice, for whenever I possessed even a small surplus of ready money, those whom I was owing or friends in need of same could always receive the most or all I possessed. Any ungovernable temper is excluded, for I do not possess it. Appetence cannot be ascribed as a motive, age and other circumstances to a great extent excluding same. The principal motive thus far ascribed, namely, that I had first involved my alleged victims in, or made them parties to, dishonest transactions can be excluded, from the fact that all such transactions are matters of recent date, and almost without exception they are found to have done nothing criminal. Either one of the foregoing I should prefer having my supposed shortcomings attributed to than the only remaining motive I can think of, namely, insanity, to which, either hereditary or acquired, I can plead not guilty, and be substantiated in so doing by a sufficient number of medical experts, whose testimony cannot be lightly overlooked.

Of the three more important cases, first that of the Williams sisters. Nannie Williams was wholly without means. The following account will show that had I given Hatch the $500 he wished to borrow of me in Burlington, there would have been little due Nannie Williams; nothing in fact, if I had included various small sums paid her from time to time, of which no account was kept. It should also be borne in mind that she still holds the title to the $10,000 Wilmette property, which, on this account, is valueless to me.

RECEIVED OF M. R. WILLIAMS.

April, 1893, Cash, $2,500
April, 1893, Real Estate, 7,000
August, 1894, Cash, 600
————— $10,100

PAID M. R. WILLIAMS.

May, 1893, Cash, $2,500
July, 1893, Cash, 1,000
December, 1893, Cash, 750
January, 1894, Fort Worth
Incumbrance, 1,725
February, 1894, Cash, 1,750
October, 1894, Cash, 1,000
October, 1894, Cash, 412
————— $9,137
—————
$963

Shown by cashed drafts and checks endorsed by M. Williams, and other forms of evidence.

In the case of Benj. F. Pitezel, the motive is said to have been the money to be derived from his insurance, and more than this from his Texas real-estate holdings. In regard to the former, I can only reiterate that he was worth more to me each year he lived than the amount he was insured for, and each year he was becoming more valuable to me; therefore, why should I take his life? His real estate was not of one dollar’s value to him, and could only be of value to me after he had signed certain papers, the want of which I felt within thirty days after his death. This is also true of his patents and other belongings. The claim that I designed to kill the six other members of the Pitezel family to avoid being held accountable for the small sum of $5,200, seems too unlikely a motive to call for a denial, and, excluding this, it will be hard to find another, when the care and attention I have given them for years is considered.

In conclusion, I wish to say that I am but a very ordinary man, even below the average in physical strength and mental ability, and to have planned and executed the stupendous amount of wrong-doing that has been attributed to me would have been wholly beyond my power, and even had I been able to have performed it, a still greater task would have been the successful elaboration of a story at the time of my arrest that, if untrue, would have provided for the many exigencies that at that time I could not have known would have occurred later in the case; and I feel justified in asking from the general public a suspension of judgment as to my guilt or innocence, not while the various charges can be proven against me, but while I can disprove them, a task which I feel able to satisfactorily and expeditiously accomplish. And here I cannot say finis—it is not the end—for besides doing this there is also the work of bringing to justice those for whose wrong-doings I am to-day suffering, and this not to prolong or save my own life, for since the day I heard of the Toronto horror I have not cared to live; but that to those who have looked up to and honored me in the past it shall not in the future be said that I suffered the ignominious death of a murderer.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The name he had assumed for the purpose of aiding me to organize
our company.

[2] Mrs. Pitezel’s initials.

[3] Before going to Denver when he had felt so sure of carrying out
the plan, I afterwards learned that he had spoken to one of his
family about his sudden disappearance at any time not
necessitating them to worry.

[4] At the time referred to a daily paper had stated that these
lawyers were to act as my attorneys, and upon Pitezel’s calling
upon them, they had given him this card, and also directed him to
the attorney they had recommended to me in the same street.

[5] The claim so persistently advanced that this note was a forgery
is untrue; it was still in existence a short time ago, and if the
prosecution will produce it the signature can speak for itself.

[6] In any instance, when not registering under my own name, my
handwriting will substantiate my statements.

[7] At the risk of being tedious, I have entered into a minute
description of our stay while in Toronto, especially as it applies
to Saturday, the 19th, and Thursday, the 25th of October, as they
seem vital dates in the case.

[8] The tacks used later to replace the portion removed were taken
from the carpet in the room, and have been compared with those
still there to make good my statement that here was where the
mutilation of the trunk occurred.

[9] In answer to a recent question from the authorities, if, after
Hatch had thus changed his appearance, he looked like myself, I
answer, No, at least not to a sufficient extent to be mistaken for
me by one who knew us both.

Transcriber’s Notes:

- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - Blank pages have been removed. - Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.