An itch to kill final

An Itch to Kill Designed By SHANEQUA SIMPSON

St Johns University, Queens, New York90

CONTENTS Murder in Room 406

by Sgt. Thomas Harvey 7

The Truth about Evansville’s Infamous ‘Bohannon Crime

by Harry R Anderson

27

The Torture House

by Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen,

51

•1• The Murder in Room 406 Originally Titled: “The Crime in Room 406,” by Sgt. Thomas Harvey, as told to Fred H. Thompson, True Detective, Sept. 1930.

AN ITCH TO KILL

“Something terrible has happened over at Hotel Hollis!”

These were the words that greeted me when I reported for duty on the morning of May 31st 1925, at Division 4 Station House on Lagrange Street [Boston, MA]. The speaker was a youth I recognized as one of the bellboys at Hotel Rollin, located nearby on Tremont Street and patronized by theatrical people. His face was ghastly, and he was trembling like a poplar leaf in the breeze.

“What is it?” I questioned “It—it looks like murder!” gasped the bellboy.

I called a patrolman to accompany me and took the frightened youth back to the hotel. At the entrance encountered the room clerk, and the manager, James Reagan. They too, appeared white and shaken. After what I saw a few minutes later I felt a little pale myself. In my years of police work I have seen and investigated many strange and horrible crimes, but the “Hotel Hollis Mystery,” as this case became known in the trying days that followed, stands out in my memory as one of the most brutal and difficult of my A few quick questions and I had learned enough to order the officer with me to hold everyone in the hotel. Then I went up to Room 406. Clustered in the hallway around the door was a group of frightened employees and guests. I stepped into the bedroom.

Face-down on the bed was the body of a woman. Her arms were drawn behind her back and bound together with strips torn from the bed sheets. The disarranged bedding suggested a fearful straggle. Above her rent and die.-beveled night-dress I saw on her neck dark discolorations and scratches. Blood from her mouth stained the pillow; into which her face was deeply pressed.

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Sgt. Thomas Harvey

I touched the body. It was cold. I knew then she had been dead several hours. Obviously, she had been murdered. My job was to find the murderer, but first there were certain routine things to be done. Nothing could be disturbed until the medical examiner had made his inspection.

I telephoned a brief report to the station house and arranged for Inspector James A. Dennessy, head of the homicide squad at police headquarters, to be notified. I then telephoned the district medical examiner, Doctor Timothy Leary. Other officers were hastily sent over front the station house and I placed them and ordered everyone in the hotel held. While awaiting the med. kal examiner and Inspector Dennessy, who soon arrived with a police stenographer, I learned these facts: The dead woman was Mrs. Mae Prior, wardrobe mistress of the “Brown Derby” theatrical company, which had closed its run at a Boston theater the previous evening—it was now Sunday morning. She had retired to her room alone around midnight, or shortly thereafter, planning to go to New York with other members of the troupe on the noon train Sunday. When she did not respond to repeated telephone calls to her room that morning, a bellboy had been sent up to awaken her. He found the door ajar and looked in. What he saw sent him racing back to the hotel desk with the alarm, and then over to the police station to get me.

The deep indentation in the pillow where Mrs. Price face was pushed into can clearly be seen in the above photograph. With blanks over the mattress, the killer hid under the bed until the victim returned and waited for her to fall asleep.

Cool, skillful, experienced Doctor Leary began his expert 9

AN ITCH TO KILL

examination. His keen eyes seemed to take in everything at a glance. “She certainly put up a good fight,” he told us.

When he turned the body over, the face and chest showed that the woman had received a fearful beating. Some of the ribs were fractured. Wide bruises on the throat and the protruding tongue told that the unfortunate woman had been strangled. After a thorough examination of the marks on the throat, the medical examiner said: “Look for a person with extra large hands.” That was the first real clue we had found. Then he made what seemed to be an important discovery. Under the dead woman’s well-manicured fingernails was what appeared to be bits of human skin and dried blood. Laboratory examination later confirmed this.

We now believed we had two clues of the greatest importance. The face or hands of the murderer would be marked by fresh scratches. And the murderer had unusually large hands.

Mrs. Price’s clothing, toilet articles and other belongings were placed about the room in a natural manner, evidently as she herself had left them. On the floor near the bureau, was a small envelope, the sort used as a pay envelope, one end torn off and dropped nearby. The envelope was empty.

In a box we found a similar envelope containing a five dollar bill and some change. The only signs of a struggle were confined to the bed, and we agreed that the murderer had surprised the victim while she was asleep or there was another possibility.

The bellboy who reported the crime that morning about 9:30 claimed that he had found the door of the room ajar.

Was the murderer someone Mrs. Price knew and trusted; someone that might be permitted to enter her room after she had retired for the night? Was the motive jealousy or 10

Sgt. Thomas Harvey

revenge, or was it robbery? Or was there something behind this sordid crime we had not yet guessed?

Under the bed I saw a partly smoked cigarette. This might be a clue. Had the murderer been hiding under the bed while waiting for the moment to strike?

Every person in the hotel was questioned before anyone was permitted to leave. Some of the guests protested against their detention, but it was necessary and we didn’t intend to take a chance that the murderer might slip out of the police net we had thrown about the entire establishment.

Some of the members of the “Brown Derby” company were at other hotels, and the manager of the show was registered at the Arlington Hotel. We rounded them all up. After our thorough questioning of everyone who might have any helpful information, we bad found no one who admitted seeing any person enter or leave Room 406 between the time Mrs. Price retired and the discovery of the crime by the bellboy that morning. No one admitted having heard a sound of the frightful struggle we believed had occurred after mid-night and before 2 A. M. The medical examiner assured us that Mrs. Price died about 2 A. M. The condition of the body and the mute evidence of the bed fairly shouted the story of the desperate battle for life the unfortunate woman had made. Yet none of the guests in adjoining rooms, none of the hotel staff, had heard a sound to arouse suspicion!

We found something to strengthen the robbery theory. The show manager said the torn envelope had contained $80, Mrs. Price’s pay given her the previous evening.

Members of the company said Mrs. Price was the “mother” of the show and took charge of small sums of money 11

AN ITCH TO KILL

for the younger girls. A Jewish boy in the cast had been befriended by her, I learned, and he had given her $60 to save for him. In all, it appeared, Mrs. Price had about $200 in her possession. But we had found in the room only the five dollar bill and some small change!

This young man who had given Mrs. Price $60 for safekeeping aroused my particular interest.

He felt for her the affection of a son, he insisted. I also was interested in the information that the murdered woman’s husband was a stage carpenter, employed in New York City.

He was Bill Price, we learned, and worked in a theater at Broadway and 91st Street. This information was telephoned to the New York Police, with the request that the husband be located and the news of his wife’s death broken to him.

We soon had word from New York that Bill Price had been working there Saturday evening until nearly midnight. News of his wife’s terrible death was a great shock to him and he was coming to Boston on the first train Monday morning to aid in the search for the murderer and to claim the body.

I liked Bill Price on sight. He took his wife’s death hard, and I felt mighty sorry for him. But I learned nothing that brought me any nearer the moment I was yearning for, the chance to slap the handcuffs on the murderer.

Well, several days passed” and the police investigation seemed to be getting nowhere. Inspectors from headquarters, plain-clothes men, an army of newspaper reporters and plenty of others were looking for clues, and, there were plenty of alleged clues turned in, but all proved worthless after a painstaking investigation.

Anonymous letters came telling us to look up this person or that one. Several characters who hang around the South End were named to the police in this way as the wanted 12

Sgt. Thomas Harvey

murderer. Not one of these possibilities was overlooked.

Every lead we followed led us to the same thing - exactly nothing.

One by one the inspectors were taken off the case for other jobs, but my superiors kept me plugging away. I was working night and day, going over the same ground again and again, racking my brains for the solution of a crime that at the start-off had looked like an ordinary, routine case.

Nothing seemed to break.

“It’s just one of those cases that can’t be solved,” an Inspector told me.

I spent a lot of time around the hotel, talking with the guests who were still there and with the employees, searching for the lead I kept telling myself must be somewhere if I could only find it. Some of the folks who were there the night Mrs. Price was murdered might be--well, surprised to put it mildly, if they knew what a lot of miscellaneous information I casually picked up about them in the course of my intensive inquiry. On Tuesday, June 2nd, I recall, I heard that a theatrical man occupying Room 606 with his wife gave a birthday party after the performance on the evening of May 30th, and was making merry with his friends at the very time that Mrs. Price was fighting for her life in the corresponding room, just two floors below. I found out who attended this birthday party and interviewed every one of them, on the off chance that something was seen or heard by somebody that would give me a clue. The man who gave the party told me about an odd thing that happened that night, but which apparently had no connection with the murder.

He said that when he ushered his friends into his room after the theater, he left his door key on the corridor side of

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AN ITCH TO KILL

the lock. When the party broke up and he and his wife were preparing for bed, he couldn’t find the key and decided it must have fallen out, and that someone had picked it up and turned it in at the hotel desk. So the door was secured with the inside bolt. Sunday morning he told the room clerk about it, but the key had not been turned in and he was furnished with a duplicate.

Miss Mae Jensen, a vaudeville actress who had a room on the top floor, was the only person I found who remembered seeing anyone acting in what might be a suspicious manner in the hotel the night of the murder. She told me that around mid-night she was on the way to a friend’s room to borrow a razor, and was accosted in the corridor by a large, rough-looking man. Miss Jensen said she supposed it was a would-be masher [a man who is aggressive in making advances towards women], but something about the man’s manner so frightened her that she dodged back into her room and locked the door. Mrs. Price’s room was down on the fourth floor, so Miss Jensen’s adventure looked like a rather remote possibility as a clue.

Saturday afternoon, June 6th, I decided to try something new. I believed I had exhausted every possibility in the hotel and among the guests and employees, and the crime was still unsolved. Room 406 and everything in it had been thoroughly examined for fingerprints without producing anything of value. I considered the possibility that one of the questionable characters frequenting the district might be able to give me a good tip. It was a thousand to one shot, but the case had been getting more discouraging every day and I was ready to try anything. If the motive for the crime was robbery, the murderer had made away with around 200.

I wondered if I could find some tough egg around the dis14

Sgt. Thomas Harvey

trict who had become suddenly affluent.

Near the hotel I saw a young fellow I knew. He was a bum actor who associated with underworld characters of the cheaper sort.

“I want to see you,” I told him. “Meet me on Dillaway Street in ten minutes. Be sure to be there.”

I rather doubted the possibility of his showing up, but I knew it would be useless to try to get anything out of him I saw the young fellow was getting nervous and trying to edge away. I guessed he-was afraid-Someone would see him talking with me, and he didn’t want the gang to think he was a “stool” there in the main street, where his questionable friends would see him talking to a police detective. So I acted as if I were merely passing the time of day with him and kept my voice too low to be overheard by any bystander.

In ten minutes I walked through Dillaway Street, a quiet, side street, and found the young fellow in a doorway, waiting, where he was screened from observation.

“I’ve always been on the level with you,” I opened up.

“Give me the office. Who bumped off that woman in Hotel Hollis?”

“Look for that big gorilla that was hanging around the hotel last week,” he blurted out, after hesitating a moment.

“Who is he?” I asked the fellow. “Where does he hang-out?”

“Don’t know anything about him.”

“How do you know this gorilla did it?”

“I don’t. You wanted the office and I thought of this big gorilla, so I just told you about him.”

“Who’ve you seen this big gorilla talking with?” I persisted.

“Come on, you must have seen him speak to somebody?

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AN ITCH TO KILL

Who?” “Well,” the fellow told me, “I remember one night last week I saw him stop to speak to a man I know. It was in front of the hotel. Benny Perretti was the man he spoke to. Benny was doing a tum at the theater here until Thursday, and now he is playing down in Newport, Rhode Island, and commuting back and forth to Boston.”

This tip looked pretty slim, but I was desperate and I couldn’t afford to pass anything up. So I went to work to locate Benny Perretti. I learned he was staying at the New Tremont House and usually got in around mid-night. But before he left for Newport, I heard, he might be found sitting around Boston Common. I failed to find him around town, so I went to the New Tremont House to wait for him.

He came in late with his partner. I wanted a chance to talk with him alone, so I arranged for him to meet me at the police station Lagrange Street at 7:15 -the following morning. The rest of the night I spent hunting around to find out something more about the man described to me as a “big gorilla.” , Benny Perretti met me at the station house on time. In answer to my questions he finally told me he knew the man I meant. He said the fellow tried to borrow some money from him sometime during the evening of Memorial Day. “I was with some fellows in front of Hotel Hollis,” he told me. “I don’t know the man’s name. I only know him by sight.”

“Where did you meet him first?” I persisted. “How did you get acquainted with him?”

“It was once when I was putting on a show for the prisoners at the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth,” Benny Per16

Sgt. Thomas Harvey

retti told me. “They called him ‘The Wop’ out there.”

That didn’t sound just right, so I went after Benny pretty hard, and he finally told me he was a prisoner himself when he, met this big gorilla he called “The Wop.” The story I finally got was this: Benny and his stage partner were young, fellows just getting started at the time they got into trouble. A trunk was delivered by the express company to their room by mistake, but they didn’t say anything and when the mistake was discovered they were arrested and prosecuted in the United States Court because the trunk came from another state and so it was an interstate affair.

The two boys had no money for a lawyer, and were so frightened and inexperienced they pleaded guilty, thinking they would get out of it. However they were both given terms at Leavenworth.

Benny Perretti said the man he knew only as “The Wop” was in Leavenworth, and was such a bad actor he was kept locked up most the time. Benny told me that one time “The Wop” escaped from Leavenworth by crawling through a sewer pipe, and was caught and brought back in a few days.

He said he hadn’t seen or heard anything of him until a week before, when the ex-convict accosted him and asked for money.

Superintendent of Police Michael Crowley rushed a special delivery letter to Leavenworth for a picture and all available information about the prisoner who had escaped through a sewer pipe at the time Benny told me the incident occurred.

The answer came June 14th. In the meantime, I had been hustling on the investigation as hard as ever, but didn’t turn up any other lead.

The letter from Leavenworth said the man known as “The Wop” had served a long sentence for robbery under the 17

AN ITCH TO KILL

name of Frank Corey. I took the Leavenworth picture to the Rogues’ Gallery at police headquarters and picked out half a dozen more pictures that were as similar as possible.

This bunch of pictures I showed to Miss Jensen. I spread them out on the table and asked her if any of them was a picture of the man who accosted her the night Mrs. Price was murdered and frightened her so badly she ran into her room and locked the door.

Frank Corey “That’s the man. I’m sure of it,” the pretty vaudeville actress told me. She was pointing to the picture of Frank Corey from Leavenworth.

Benny Perretti had left Boston in the meantime to play an engagement in New York. I took the pictures to New York and snowed them to Benny. He picked out the same picture Miss Jensen had.

“That’s “The Wop,’” Benny told me.

I hadn’t a thing to connect this federal ex-convict with the murder. I was just playing a hunch. I hadn’t any idea where he lived or what had become of him, either. Superintendent Crowley was backing me to the limit and he expected me to make good. He sent another rush message to Leavenworth and asked for the names of anyone Frank Corey had written to while serving his sentence.

We knew that such records are carefully kept at modern prisons. We were given three names and addresses, in Yonkers, New York, in New York City and in Worcester, Massachusetts.

I went to Yonkers first and found the person “The Wop” had written to from Leavenworth was dead. Then I looked up the New York City address. It was on West Forty Second Street and I found it was a maternity hospital. No one in 18

Sgt. Thomas Harvey

this institution knew anything about the man I was hunting for.

I got a New York police detective to help me, and we started checking the number Leavenworth officials had given on every street on the West Side from Thirty Second to Fifty-Second. We hunted up the letter carriers too, but nobody had ever heard about any Frank Corey or the person whose name had been supplied by Leavenworth as that of someone the convict bad written to in New York.

Then we tried the East Side as a last resort. It was mighty hot and muggy in New York that week. I was nearly worn out by the long grind and lack of sleep. The detective with me finally quit to get some rest. I decided to try one more street and then knock off for a little while myself. A kid was eating a banana in a doorway. I started in there and slipped on the banana skin, fell and nearly broke my back.

This was on East Forty-Second Street. I was sweltering and my hurt back was throbbing, but I forgot my discomfort a few minutes later when I bumped into a woman who said she recognized the picture of Corey as a man who had been living next door with a Polish blonde. The woman said the couple were there several years before and that they had “cleaned out” the landlady and escaped with the loot.

The way I got the story it appeared the Polish blonde was the woman Corey wrote to from Leavenworth and he had joined her in New York after he was released.

WELL, the breaks were still against me, for the house next door had just been razed! I located the realtors and got the name of the trustee in a bank who had handled the sale for the landlady. I saw him and learned the landlady had just died. This looked like the end of the trail in New York. I couldn’t find anything more there, and so I came back to 19

AN ITCH TO KILL

Boston on June 21st, and went to the station house to write my reports, feeling pretty discouraged. .

The Superintendent had a talk with me. I told him there was still one more possibility-the address in Worcester. He told me to keep at it; he thought my hunch looked good.

So I went to Worcester the next morning and called at the Worcester Police Headquarters to tell my story and get a detective to go with me. The address I had was “Corey, 934 Grafton Street.”

On the way out there we met a motorcycle officer who told us the family at this address was named Krecorian and used the American name Corey. I showed him the Leavenworth picture and he said: “Sure, I know that felllow. That’s Frank Corey. I was talking with him this morning. There’s sewage draining into the road from the Corey place and I told them it must be fixed.

THIS gave us an idea. We arranged for the detective to take me into the house as an inspector from the Health Department, so I could talk with Frank Corey and get him down to Worcester Police Station for questioning without arousing his suspicion.

There was a crippled girl in the house who said her brother Frank Corey had gone in town and would soon return on the trolley car. While the detective with me was talking about the sewage complaint, I saw a picture on a table of the same man I knew to be Frank Corey, ex-convict from Leavenworth. I slipped it into my pocket without anyone noticing, and then we left the house.

It was arranged, for the motorcycle officer to go up the road to wait for the trolley, and see if Frank Corey was on it. I hid in the woods where I could watch without being 20

Sgt. Thomas Harvey

seen, and the Worcester detective went to telephone. If Frank Corey was the man who killed Mrs. Price, I knew he would be on his guard and I didn’t want him to slip away from us.

Presently, the motorcycle officer came back and said the man we were after was on the trolley and would soon be home. We started walking along the road and just as we got to the Corey house a big gorilla-like man turned into the yard. It was Frank Corey, the man I had been hunting for more than two weeks.

We used the Health Department gag and it worked. Frank Corey agreed to ride down to Worcester Headquarters and get the sewage complaint fixed up.

On the way he said: “Gee, you fellows hound a guy.”

When he was safely in the police station, I asked him: “’When were you in Boston last?”

“I was never in Boston in my life,” answered “Do you know the Hotel Hollis?” I asked him then.

“Never heard of it,” Corey declared. “I was never in Boston in my life.”

“You know the ropes,” I told him, “you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Do you know Benny Perretti?”

“Over in Leavenworth Penitentiary,” said Corey.

I showed him his police picture and asked him: “Is this your picture?”

“That’s not my picture,” the man denied.

I told him he was under arrest charged with the murder of Mrs. Mae Price.

Everything he had said and our questions had been written down and I asked him to sign the statements he had made.

Corey told me: ‘’I’ll talk but I won’t sign anything.”

He was locked in a cell and I telephoned a report to Boston 21

AN ITCH TO KILL

police headquarters. I was told that Captain Goodwin, my “skipper” at the Lagrange Street Station, would come to Worcester in a police car and get the prisoner.

In the meantime, Worcester police discovered they had a record of Corey. I learned he had been arrested a short time before on a charge of stealing a check and a bracelet. He agreed to make restitution to the plaintiff and was released. I found he had made restitution shortly after Mrs. Price was murdered.

While Corey was locked up in Worcester after I had questioned him he succeeded somehow in getting word out, and a lawyer came and told him not to talk. It was the same lawyer who represented him in the case where he had made restitution. The prisoner wouldn’t say another word after that. He was as mum as an oyster when we took him to Boston for arraignment in court. The grand jury indicted him for murder in the first degree and I worked up what I thought was a pretty convincing case for the trial.

I recovered the bracelet he had in stolen in Worcester, getting it from a man he had pledged it with for a loan. A Polish boy in Worcester told me that Corey had a big roll of bills when he came home early in June, and sent the boy to the store to buy a Boston newspaper. A clerk at Hotel Hollis identified Corey as a man who paid $1.50 in advance for room 512 on the night of May 28th.

The clerk said he used the name Frank Mulleono and registered again the evening of May 30th, but was not assigned a room because he attempted to pay for it with a check for $5 written with a pencil and which the room clerk refused to accept. Miss Jensen identified the prisoner as the man who accosted and frightened her on the top floor of the hotel the night Mrs. Price was killed and robbed.

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Sgt. Thomas Harvey

The district attorney was satisfied with the theory of the crime we worked out, and it looked mighty good to me.

I believed Corey had been lurking on the sixth floor of Hotel Hollis, where he accosted Miss Jensen, and that he took the key from the door of room 606 and used it to get into room 406, where he hid under the bed to wait for Mrs. Price. When we arrested him he had a package of cigarettes of the same brand as the partly smoked cigarette I found under Mrs. Price’s bed.

My theory was that Corey started to light up while waiting under the bed, and realizing that the smoke might betray his presence when Mrs. Price came in, he hastily extinguished it after one or two puffs. I believed he was there under the bed when Mrs. Price entered the room, put her money on the bureau, undressed and got into bed. Then when he supposed from her breathing the woman was asleep, he crawled out and was detected while securing the money.

My evidence indicated that Corey grabbed Mrs. Price by the throat to prevent her from screaming, and was severely scratched on the hands and face during the desperate fight the unfortunate woman made to save her life.

A man answering Corey’s description, I eventually discovered, had visited a nearby drug store the day after the crime to get something for several severe scratches on his face.

Worcester witnesses said Corey’s face and hands showed some marks when he came home early in June.

There was one mark on his face when we arrested him, almost healed, that he said was a cut from shaving.

Corey’s family spent about everything they had in his defense. He had a smart criminal lawyer, and there was a long-drawn-out trial. The jury was out for hours and finally came in with a verdict of acquittal.

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I was amazed and bitterly disappointed, for I felt certain the man was guilty. So did the district attorney. We had learned that Corey had once deserted Iron the United States Army.

This gave me the chance for another effort.

I arranged for the Federal authorities to lock Corey up as a deserter while I did some more work on the case. A curious thing had happened during the trial. A conversation I overheard in the courthouse between two men indicated that Corey had gone to a room on Hanover Street after Mrs. Price was murdered.

AT the murder trial we had not been able to show any of Corey’s movements after the murder until he arrived in Worcester two days later. I succeeded in locating the room in the Crawford House Annex where Corey had gone shortly after the crime, following the clue from the conversation I had overheard at the courthouse. I found he had appeared there early in the morning of May 31st with money to pay $2.50 for a room. Corey wasn’t satisfied with the $2.50 room and after seeing it he changed to another room for which he paid $3.50.

I discovered he was wearing a raincoat when he came in, and had left it there. I recovered the raincoat, and this coat was later identified by Miss Jensen and others as the one he was wearing at Hotel Hollis.

For a long time the trail seemed to end at this Hanover Street room, but I wouldn’t quit. Finally, I placed him the next night at Boston Tavern, the night of May 31st, 1925.

The register confirmed the other evidence I secured, that Corey came there the night of May 31st with a woman companion and paid $6 for a room.

The case now seemed ready for the next step we had been secretly planning. The evidence was presented to the grand 24

Sgt. Thomas Harvey

jury and a secret indictment was returned against Frank Krecorian, alias Corey, alias Costello, alias Mulleono, charging him with robbery of Mrs. Price in Hotel Hollis.

I went to Camp Devens, Massachusetts with the indictment warrant, and the Federal authorities delivered the prisoner to me.

There was a sensational trial.

Frank Corey was defended by the same astute criminal lawyer, but this time the jury found him guilty, guilty of robbing the woman of whose murder he had been acquitted. The defense lawyer claimed Corey was being placed in double jeopardy and appealed to the higher courts, but was overruled.

Judge Lourie sentenced Frank Corey to life imprisonment.

He declared the crime was one of extreme atrocity, praised the jury for its intelligence, and intimated he was imposing the unusually severe sentence for robbery because of the unexpected outcome of the previous trial for murder.

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•2• The Truth about Evansville’s Infamous ‘Bohannon Crime

by Harry R Anderson, former Evansville Police Chief, as told to Warner O. Schoyen, City Editor of Evansville Courier, True Detective Mysteries, Oct. 1930.

AN ITCH TO KILL

“Bill” Bohannon’s study of women began early. He went through numerous volumes; and he was busily engaged in turning the pages of an unauthorized edition when he was interrupted by the stabbing flames of a revolver in the dark.

Even in his college days, when he was preparing for a .successful career in law, Bill Bohannon had acquired a reputation of “having a way with women.” To this very day, near the campus of Indiana University at Bloomington, there is a trysting place that is known as “Bohannon’s Hollow.”

There he had a love nest where he wooed ardently on spring nights when the full flush of youth was upon him.

Out of school, Bill Bohannon married. But he could not be a one-woman man.

William “Bill” Bohannon So when he came home one cool September night with two mysterious bullets in his body, the city was stirred by the buzz and hum of voices whispering, “Who is she?”

As Chief of Police of Evansville it was my business to find out the answer.

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It was the night of September 14th, 1928. There was a lull at headquarters. Nothing was happening. Probably nothing would happen. But, police know, these quiet moments of cribbage games or checkers shift suddenly into gun play and startling death the next. Hours of calm change in a twinkling into swiftly lived minutes of violence or tortuous days of turbulence and unrest.

It might be such a night.

Suddenly, at 9 o’clock, words that were to stun a city crackled from the telephone. “Bohannon’s shot!”

From that moment on, for forty-eight hours, there came

HARRY R ANDERSON

tense activity that fll1ds its echo even now in everyday conversation.

“Bohannon’s shot!”

Albert Felker, police reporter for the Evansville Courier, who was to play an important part in the case later, flashed the news to his city editor. His words exploded into tile mouthpiece.

That was all Felker knew then and that was all, with the exception of unimportant details, that the newspaper knew when its final edition reached the streets five hours later.

The Courier, in announcing the shooting of Bohannon, told of his wounds, his pre-delirium statements, his physical condition. But it could not tell where the shooting occurred, nor why.

Nor could it tell that three other lives that night had been swept into a swirling vortex of tragedy.

William O. Bohannon, the central figure in this drama of passion and sudden death, was a successful Evansville lawyer. Well educated, well groomed, courteous, suave, he was a polished man of the world. His practice was good and growing.

He dealt in divorces mostly. Women. Bill Bohannon liked women. And-women liked Bill Bohannon.

And why not? Broad-shouldered, handsome, virile, he was at the same time mild- mannered, and had learned many soothing words and phrases in his years of dealing with women who· poured out their marital sorrows to him in the privacy of his office. And he had that appeal of near swagger, born of confidence.

Too, he was always the gallant. Had not gallantry and chivalry meant so much to Bohannon, he might still be carrying on his intrigues today.

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September 14th, 1928, was a Friday. Friday nights were Bohannon’s “club” nights. His club, his wife understood, was political in nature and was secret unto holiness. Only those within its select inner circle were permitted to attend.

He could not even breathe the names of its members to his wife.

At a quarter of 9 o’clock that night Mrs. Bohannon was seated in the living room of her comfortable home at 1201 Blackford Avenue enjoying a quiet chat with a friend, little knowing that tragedy at that moment was stalking at her door step.

Suddenly she thought she heard her name called. The voice, it seemed, came from afar. Surely she was mistaken. Names come that way, hauntingly, in calm, peaceful hours.

But again “Lillian!” There was no mistake this time. She opened the door and peered out.

At the curb stood her husband’s automobile, lights burning and motor idling. She thought she saw him slumped in the seat behind the wheel.

Then she heard her name called again, not more than a hoarse whisper this time. There was calmness in the tone.

The gallant William Bohannon would not alarm his wife.

With a shriek, she ran to the automobile.

“Honey, I’ve been shot,” he whispered, “two hold-up men” and his voice trailed away into incoherent mumbling.

There was only to be the words, “Honey, forgive me, you have been so kind,” uttered in a lucid moment in the hospital, and then-silence.

Friends of Mrs. Bohannon came at her call and the attorney was taken to the Deaconess Hospital where I sent detectives to await any word that might issue from the operating room. Reporters also stood in restive inactivity in the silent 30

HARRY R ANDERSON

lobby patiently waiting for a break.

All they learned was that Bohannon had been shot twice and probably fatally. One of the bullets had entered the abdomen and had emerged at the back. The other had penetrated the chest. Either was a mortal wound.

I went into consultation early. With Prosecuting Attorney E. Menzies Lindsey and Edward Sutheimer, then Chief of Detectives, we groped blindly for a lead.

Mrs. Bohannon, questioned, knew nothing. All we were sure of, with what meager facts we had been able to glean, was that it was to be a sensational case.

The shooting of a prominent, respected attorney, no matter what the circumstances, promises sensations. Especially so if that attorney is not unattractive to women, nor blind to their charms. Through the remainder of the night the real story behind the shooting was purely conjectural. Where had the shooting occurred? Surely, not far from his home.

For how could any man, we reasoned, drive his automobile any distance, being so badly wounded?

We were not satisfied that in his meager explanation to his wife he had told everything. Or even the truth. Someone had cause to shoot him. But who? And why?

With the coming day, as the attorney, unconscious, fought with his powerful physique a losing fight with death at the hospital, I set the entire police department to work in solving this puzzle.

His automobile, examined as soon as we got the report, revealed no due. There was nothing to work on. Yes there was. Bohannon had come home with his vest buttoned and his coat on. Two bullets had pierced his shirt. Yet neither his coat nor vest showed any bullet holes.

He had been shot while his coat and vest were removed!

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AN ITCH TO KILL

Was it not a normal conclusion that he had been surprised with a woman?

Had Bohannon become too friendly with another man’s wife? Had some sweetheart of another listened too attentively to his pleadings, and then told? Had some hired assassin “taken him for a ride?”

Coroner Max Lowe, an able investigator, interested in the case, was the first to issue a postulate.

“Bohannon was out with a woman whom he wants to protect,” Lowe said. “They were parked along some lonely road near the city and were surprised by hold-up men. Bohannon resisted because he did not want the identity of the woman learned. He was shot.

“It was reasoned that the shooting occurred near the city, because of Bohannon’s physical condition. It could not have been within the city limits or someone would have heard the shots. No reports of shooting had been received at Police Headquarters.

He arrived home alone after driving-how far? Could his strength be measured in miles? Not many. We were at a loss where to attack. But we were reasonably sure that at the bottom of it all could be found a woman.

“Find that woman,” I ordered. It was a harsh assignment.

It had long been whispered about and now spoken openly, that this attorney had not been a model of constancy.

Surely someone must know the woman –or some woman.

If anyone did, he did not come forward that night, openly.

We questioned several women who, we thought might be woven into the plot. One of these left on a train for Chicago an hour after being quizzed. All gave satisfactory accounts of themselves for the night.

As the morning wore on it became increasingly evident Bo32

HARRY R ANDERSON

hannon was not to reveal more than he already had when he said ‘’I’ve been shot by two hold-up men.” His strength was leaving him rapidly. It was known that he would not survive. It was a matter of hours only, his physicians said.

At 9 o’clock that morning we got our first clue.

Detectives looking over Bohannon’s automobile on the night before had missed a clue that was to help them piece the story of the shooting together. They found, clinging to the framework underneath the car, some cornstalks.

Bohannon had been on or near some highway where he must have driven through a corn field. That meant little, then. Every highway about the city lay through corn fields.

And corn stands high in Southern Indiana in mid-September.

It was baffling. It appeared that there was to be no solution unless the woman herself came forward in an effort to help identify the bandits, or the bandits themselves would tell. I t was extremely improbable that either should happen.

Detectives were sitting about mentally building up theories and blowing them to pieces again when at 10 o’clock in the morning the first real “break” came. The body of a dead man was found at the edge of a corn field about four miles from the city.

Coroner Lowe, Sheriff Shelby McDowell and I were notified. The man had been shot twice, once through the right shoulder and once squarely through the heart.

The body was found by Henry Schwartz, a farmer, at the edge of his corn field. He was driving by with a horse and wagon when he spied it, partially hidden in a ditch. It would not have been noticeable from a speeding automobile.

The road along which the gruesome find was made is known as the Lynch Road. It is four miles from the city and 33

AN ITCH TO KILL

at that time was a popular trysting place for couples who carried secrets in their hearts. It was out of the way and not often patrolled by deputy sheriffs.

We immediately, of course, linked it with the fata wounding of Bohannon.

Bohannon always carried a gun. He was an expert in the use of firearms. I t was his hobby to collect weapons-and shoot them. Not far from where the dead man was found Bohannon had a summer home on a tract of land where he also maintained a private rifle range. Here he spent many idle hours alone, coaxing vicious barks from a revolver or automatic with a teasing trigger finger.

Did he know, perhaps, that some time he was to be in desperate need of speedy action and deadly aim?

He never was known to drive his car without a gun handy.

A specially constructed holster had been built into the driver’s seat of his automobile where he could reach it easily with the minimum of suspicious movement.

Had he engaged in a gun fight with bandits, then it was almost certain that this dead man had tasted the fruit of Bohannon’s hours of pistol practice.

The body found in the ditch was that of a young man, probably twenty, probably twenty- five years old. He was of powerful physical make-up, with broad shoulders and bulllike neck.

A wrestler, perhaps, or boxer. His face, with its strong set jaws, broad ‘stub nose, and dark complexion, gave every appearance of a foreigner.

A foreigner, perhaps, of some Southern European extraction.

There are a meager few of those in Evansville.

Clutched in the dead man’s right hand was a rope. A search 34

HARRY R ANDERSON

of the immediate vicinity revealed a flashlight and a billfold. There also was evidence of a struggle. Not far away there was a wide swath cut through the field of corn, wide enough for an automobile to pass through. The com was broken thoroughly and the path was fairly straight, indicating that the car must have been driven at an exceedingly high rate of speed.

There was no gun to be found. Bohannon’s gun had not been located although it was known that he had carried one on the night before.

But who was the dead man? Papers or letters that he might have carried were missing. There was not an identifying thing about hint.

The body was brought to the undertaking parlors of Klee and Burkhart in Evansville. Here the clothing was carefully guarded by officers who looked it over minutely for any trace of identity. His cap, a trademark revealed, had been purchased in Detroit. His suit had been bought in Chicago.

A painstaking search finally revealed, indistinctly, a laundry mark.

This laundry mark was simply the letters “F. M.” While we looked upon them as being of some value, Felker, always an enterprising reporter, took it upon himself to trace the letters through the city’s laundries.

Of the more than a dozen, there were only three that used the initials of a patron’s first and last names as identification.

The first of these, Felker learned, had no customer whose name corresponded with the initials “F. M.” The second, he learned, with hopes rising, had one.

“But I know him,” the bookkeeper said. “He lives at —.”

That left only one.

35

AN ITCH TO KILL

The last proved more promising. The letters were used for one customer. His name? “Well, he always brought his laundry and always called for it.” They did not know his name nor his address. But he was “middle-aged, dark, and of a slightly foreign cast.” “Middle-aged.” Felker walked away from the telephone, beaten. The man on the morgue slab still held his secret.

We were definitely certain, however, that the dead man and the wounded Bohannon had met on that Friday night. There could be no other conclusion. The tracks of the automobile that had driven through the corn field corresponded to the tread of the tires of Bohannon’s car. There were cornstalks on the framework of the auto. And a little later we learned from Mrs. Bohannon that the billfold found was the property of her husband.

Mrs. Bohannon also brought, out another fact that was to clinch the theory that her husband and the unidentified corpse had fought a duel to death. She brought forth the gun that Bohannon had carried the night before. She had found it in his automobile and had hidden it.

The gun was of the caliber that was used in the killing of the stranger. Three shots had been fired recently. Then the gun had jammed.

Bohannon’s billfold was empty. There was no money in the pockets of the dead man. In fact, they had been turned inside out. There was no money on the ground about the scene of the struggle. The absence of this important evidence pointed unmistakably to the presence of a fourth person at the trysting place, a companion of the dead man.

And had not Bohannon said there were “two hold-up men?”

So, instead of one mystery that faced us when that Saturday 36

HARRY R ANDERSON

morning broke, we now had three. Who was the dead man?

Who was his companion? Who was the woman in the case?

We knew that at least two of the questions had to be answered before we could hope to learn the third and last.

Meanwhile, hundreds of persons, in an endless line, the morbidly curious and those who thought by chance they might be able to recognize this mysteriously silent person, passed through the morgue. They looked at his face, shook their heads, and passed on. They paused outside to stand in sombre groups and speculate on his identity.

He looked like a wrestler, they said. Then someone remembered that there had been a wrestler with a carnival in Evansville the week before. His name was Frank Martin. “F. M.” Lorin Kiely, an attorney and a wrestling promoter, was called in.

“Well, he looks something like him, but I wouldn’t be certain.”

The carnival at that time was appearing in Hickman, Kentucky, and a long distance telephone call was placed in an effort at solution. The hopes of the authorities were doomed to failure. They were informed that the wrestler was still with the carnival and was not, so far as anyone knew, carrying any bullets in his body.

The sands of Bohannon’s hourglass of life were running low with the passing of the day and his lips remained silent.

Toward dusk it appeared that the stranger was to lie unidentified throughout the night and possibly for all time.

Shortly before 5 o’clock in the afternoon Arthur B. Burkhart, the undertaker, was standing beside the form of the dead man when he heard a girl of about eighteen gasp and say. “Poor Frank.”

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He seized the opportunity.

“Did you know him?”

“Yes!” She caught her breath. “He roomed with the Meadors on Harriett Street. I knew him. Frank was a good boy.”

Burkhart in his excitement failed to get her name.

At about the same time Patrolman Collison received a “hot tip” from a friend who visited the morgue.

“I didn’t know him,” Collison was told. “But I know where he lived. He has a friend at 1314 Harriett Street and lived there.”

Collison immediately relayed his information to headquarters. An investigation was under way at last with something tangible to work on.

Strangely enough, the man they were about to arrest had passed through the morgue that afternoon and had spent many minutes gazing in silence at this puzzling corpse.

His face, those who later recalled having seen him at the morgue said, revealed no clue as to the turmoil that must have raged within. As the face on the slab yielded no trace of the grimness it had known in the few tragic moments before life was snuffed out, so that face of his buddy bore a mask that was impenetrable.

Police officers going to 1314 Harriett Street were informed that the Meadors had moved that day. They now lived at 1102 Harriett Street just two blocks away.

Frank Paisley was the man arrested at the Pearson Meador home. He was twenty four years old and came from Essex, Missouri. He had, so far as we then were able to ascertain, no police record and the story he told of his connection 38

HARRY R ANDERSON

with the dead man was not incriminating. Instead, convincingly believable.

Frank Paisley The dead man was Frank Mills, Paisley said. Mills was only nineteen years old. He came from Chicago, where he had a wife from whom he was separated. His real name was Milchunas and he was of Lithuanian parentage.

Mills and Paisley had worked together in Detroit and had come to Evansville about six weeks before, where they obtained work in a furniture factory. However, business was dull, and they had been laid off. They had not worked in two weeks.

He and Mills, he said, started out the evening before in Paisley’s automobile. In Garvin Park Mills saw a girl acquaintance and left Paisley. The latter, after riding about for a few minutes, returned to his rooming place.

There was no flaw in his story. There was nothing to attack.

Paisley, the elder Meador and his son, Lee, told officers, had returned early the night before and had played cards with members of the family. There was nothing in his demeanor, they said, that might indicate any fierce mental unrest. He acted as usual, they said.

Paisley, as well as Mills who roomed with him, was a wellbehaved young man, sober and industrious. Surely the police couldn’t suspect that Paisley had had anything to do with the crime, even if Mills had, which they also found it hard to believe.

We were not satisfied. Paisley was taken to Police Headquarters for further questioning. While he was there Detectives Charles Freer, Paul Newhouse, and Opal Russell went to his 39

AN ITCH TO KILL

room, where a search revealed a revolver. With this they returned to headquarters. An examination proved that it was of the same caliber as the one with which Bohannon was shot. It had been fired recently.

Confronted with the gun, Paisley still maintained that he knew nothing of the crime. Questioning was continued, intensely, unabatingly. Within an hour he blurted out a confession. “About 6:30 o’clock in the evening of September 14th,” Paisley’s confession started, “Frank Mills and I left our Harriett Street home in my car. We drove out State Road No. 41 and turned east about a mile north of Pigeon Creek and went east about one mile. Mills directed me to stop by the side of the road near a woods.

“Mills told me he wanted to catch a couple parked on the road and take the man out of the car and get the girl. Mills had a gun in his possession and showed it to me.

“After I had stopped the car as Mills directed he took a window cord rope about ten feet long out of his pocket. We got out of the car and down in the ditch on the south side ‘of the road. Mills cut the window cord, gave me half and kept half. Mills had his gun with him and told me to bring along the flashlight that I always carried in the car.

“We waited in the ditch one and a half or two hours and then a car drove up from the west and stopped at the side of the road near the ditch in which we were hiding and about two hundred feet west of my car.

“When Mills saw this car he said to me, ‘That’s it now.’ I do not know whether he knew the occupants of the car.

“Mills told me that he would hold the gun on the man and that I should cover him with my flashlight and tie him with the rope.

“We stooped low on our hands and feet and crawled down 40

HARRY R ANDERSON

the ditch to the parked car. When we got to the car I went up on the right side and Mills came up from the right rear.

I flashed a light in the car and saw a man and girl in the rear seat.

“They were in an embrace. I asked them what they were doing. Mills then was at the back of the car. I ordered the man to get out of the machine, saying, ‘Buddy, come out of that car.’

“The man did get out of the car on the same side I was on and next to the ditch and stood near me.

“I ordered him to put his hands behind him so I could tie him. Instead of putting his arms around behind him he started arguing with me. Mills came around from behind the car and the man turned around and faced Mills, who had him covered with a revolver. The man started arguing with Mills and Mills ordered him to face away from him so he, Mills, could tie his hands. The man started to turn around and just then it looked like he fell partly into the front door of the automobile. I think it was then that the man with the girl got his gun.

“Mills dragged the man out of the car and they both fell in the ditch. The man landed in the ditch on his back and right side. Mills “Mills shot the man with his revolver while in this position and the man in the ditch shot twice at Mills and once at me.

I jumped in the ditch and ran east. I heard Mills fall. I ran about ten feet in the ditch and lay down on the ground and the shot passed over me as I did so.

“I looked around and saw one man get out of the ditch and get in the car and drive away east. The car passed on the road near where I was hiding in the ditch.

“As soon as the car passed, I went back to where Mills was 41

AN ITCH TO KILL

on the ground in the ditch on his left side. I called to him, but he did not answer. I couldn’t hear him breathe so I thought he was dead.

“I picked up Mills’ gun and started back to my car, walking along the ditch. The man with the girl had given Mills his pocketbook while he was arguing before the fight.

“He wanted to buy off Mills so he would not touch the girl.

Mills gave this pocketbook to me. As I was walking down the ditch to my car I passed a culvert and threw the pocketbook and flashlight under it to get rid of them.

“Mills told the man that he wasn’t after money but wanted the girl. He had told me that he pulled these tricks before.

He said it was safe because most of the time these people caught along country roads at night wouldn’t raise a yell about it for fear of publicity.”

Paisley said that he then drove to his home where he put the gun in a dresser drawer without removing the shells.

The confession was signed in the presence of Coroner Lowe, Ira C. Wiltshire, now Chief of Detectives, Philip C. Gould, and attorney and friend of Bohannon, and myself.

It was obtained a little after 7 o’clock, Saturday night.

At 8:55 o’clock word came from the hospital that Bohannon had died. With Mills and Bohannon dead and the identity of the woman still unknown, we had only the words of Paisley for the story of the tragedy enacted along the Lynch Road on that fatal Friday night. Paisley disclaimed knowledge of the identity of the woman. It seemed certain then that her identity would never be known.

But within the next twenty-four hours the city was to be rocked by another sensation. What happened to Bohannon and his girl companion after the shooting we pieced together in the light of evidence gathered.

42

HARRY R ANDERSON

Badly wounded, but with a sense of honor that probably saved the girl from shameful violence at the hands of Paisley and Mills, Bohannon drove from the scene at a furious rate of speed. He started down the road toward the Oak Hill Road. Then as he saw the Paisley automobile parked on the highway, he veered desperately to the left and cut through the corn field belonging to Schwartz.

Schwartz, who had heard the shots, had come to the field.

He said Bohannon’s car cut a swath through a quarter of a mile of high corn. Then, entering a hay field, it stopped.

Here Bohannon got out and removed the corn stalks that had gathered on the fenders and bumper of his automobile.

Thinking the car contained corn thieves, Schwartz called to the driver. The motor roared again and the car shot out at a breakneck pace. Schwartz fired twice with a shotgun over the car, he said.

Picture Bohannon. Already in a state of intense fear, mortally wounded, fleeing for safety, two more shots were fired at him. Had he fallen into a trap from which there was no escape? He answered the latest volley with a furious burst of speed. He turned to the right and continued through the hay field until he struck the private road leading to the Schwartz home. He drove along this road until he emerged on the Lynch Road again, some distance ahead of the bandits’ car. then, turning to the left, sped on to the Oak Hi!1 Road. Then home.

THE city was tense with excitement Sunday. On the lips of all were whispers of conjecture as to who the woman might be. There were many names mentioned. Too, there were other theories advanced in the privacy of homes and in the gossip on street corners. Had Bohannon’s slayer been paid 43

AN ITCH TO KILL

to kill him? Did Mills know when he said, “That’s it now,” who the car’s occupants were? Was Mills a hired assassin paid by some wronged husband or outraged lover?

On the theory that Mills may have been in contact with Bohannon at some previous time, we brought Miss Norma Feuger, Bohannon’s stenographer, to the morgue to look at Mills. She had never seen him in the lawyer’s office, she said.

Norma Feuger We were inclined to believe Paisley’s story that Mills had gone out for the purpose of rape, with robbery as a secondary motive, and that Bohannon had merely been a victim of chance.

But even to-day in Evansville when the famous “Bohannon case” is mentioned there are many ‘who believe that Bohannon died, not for what he did that night, but for previous philanderings.

Late Sunday afternoon, Felker, a reporter, hammered away at Captain of Police August Heneisen for permission to talk to the prisoner.

“He hasn’t told all,” Felker argued. “We can get a new confession out of him.” So persistent was he that finally Captain Heneisen and Felker went to the prisoner’s cell.

Felker had studied the case and had convinced himself that Paisley’s confession had not been the truth.

Felker is a smooth worker. He started in on Paisley, quietly, with an assumed air of hero worship. He wanted an interview for his paper, he told Paisley, from Paisley’s own lips.

Paisley listened. For the first time since his arrest he heard sympathetic words. He fell quickly into the confidential tenor of the conversation. Felker’s questions were penetrat44

HARRY R ANDERSON

ing. Carefully he noted the answers.

“But how,” Felker asked, “did it happen that Mills did the shooting when he had the rope in his hands? How could he handle a gun with both hands occupied?”

“Well, he did it,” Paisley said, hesitatingly.

Felker continued, with Captain Heneisen now and then interspersing questions.

Paisley was weakening.

“Paisley, come clean,” Captain Heneisen spoke softly, but imperatively. The prisoner hung his head.

“I killed Bohannon.”

The words were quietly spoken, but neither Captain Heneisen nor Felker doubted for a moment but that the truth was on its way out.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Paisley started. “I won’t be able to sleep until I get this off my chest. They might hang me, but I guess I’ve got it coming to me.”

Then his confession came, freely and without effort at concealment. He was unburdening his soul. Then he could sleep. On the whole, his story was the same that he had told the night before, but varied in its essential details.

Paisley said he wanted to commit robbery only but that Mills insisted on “getting the girl.” Paisley argued vainly against it and when Mills ordered him to tie Bohannon’s hands behind his back, he refused.

“Hell, I’ll do it myself,” he quoted Mills as saying. Mills then handed the gun to Paisley and grappled with Bohannon, with the result that they both fell into the ditch. As they got up Bohannon fell against the door of the automobile.

45

AN ITCH TO KILL

“I thought he was reaching for a gun,” Paisley said, “and just then Bohannon fired. Mills reeled and fell as Bohannon ‘shot again.”

Paisley then fired twice at Bohannon, he said, and then ducked, he said, just as Bohannon’s gun barked for the third time.

During the argument and shooting, Paisley said, the girl in the car was screaming at the top of her voice.

Paisley did not believe he had hit Bohannon, as the latter entered his automobile and drove off without apparent effort.

The prisoner had served in both the Navy and the Army and had become an expert pistol shot. But it was dark and his target was not clear. He fired more in self-defense than anything else, he said.

Mills, Paisley said, had engaged in numerous other cases like the one he had planned for that night, when he lived in Springfield, Illinois. He told Paisley that he and a buddy would hold up a car at some trysting place, tie the man and then attack his girl companion. He never met with much resistance, he said.

This second confession was a “break” for the newspaper.

But there was another, more important “break” even then being prepared.

At 8 o’clock that night Norma Feuger, Bohannon’s stenographer, committed suicide by drinking carbolic acid!

Paisley had said he did not know the woman. He had seen her for a fleeting instant only, when he flashed his light on the couple in the rear seat of the sedan.

“She was young and she was a blond.” That was all he could say.

Norma Feuger, young and blond, was twenty, and pretty.

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HARRY R ANDERSON

She was gentle and quiet. No mention had been made publicly of her name, although at the time she so dramatically entered the picture Prosecutor Lindsey was out at the Bohannon home questioning Mrs. Bohannon about her.

No taint could be placed on her spotless reputation. She had been reared in the quiet little Indiana town of Gentryville, and was as peaceful and tranquil, seemingly, as the little village that holds a store of Lincoln treasure. It was at Gentryville, historians say, that Lincoln gained the nickname of “Honest Abe” while a clerk in Jones’ store.

Norma came to Evansville two years 11 before and entered business college. She had been a good student; not brilliant, but one who attended to her work and did that work conscientiously, thoroughly, and well. She had no other interests, her friends said.

To them she was known as a gentle, unassuming girl who took life more or less seriously. She had none of her own generation’s love for excitement and thrills. She neither drank nor smoked, and attended dances infrequently. She was a “girl without a date,” as her best friends described her after she had elected to pass out of life by her own hand.

Why had she, whose name had not been mentioned, who had given no reason for suspicion, projected herself so suddenly into the case by so sensationally dropping out of it?

We all accepted it as self-condemnatory. We did not say so publicly.

Let’s see what Norma was doing during those hours between the time Bohannon left his home until she swallowed poison in the kitchen of the modest little house where she lived with her widowed mother.

Bohannon left home Friday night about 7 o’clock. Norma at that time was seen by a minister friend getting on a Wein47

AN ITCH TO KILL

bach Avenue bus which would take her to Eighth and Main Streets. At 7:30 o’clock Bohannon had been recognized by a friend who saw him seated alone in his parked automobile near Eighth and Main Streets.

Bohannon appeared at his home at 8:45 o’clock, mortally wounded. Norma, her mother said, returned home between 8:30 and 9 o’clock. There was nothing in her demeanor, her mother said, that might indicate that she had passed through any soul-stirring experience. Her mother did not question her about where she had spent the past two hours nor did the girl offer an explanation. Norma never did speak much anyhow, so her silence was not strange.

The following day—Saturday—Miss Clarice Cummings, one of Norma’s girlfriends and her closest companion, called her by telephone. Norma seemed utterly surprised to know that her employer had been shot. But she also was depressed by the news. Surely not surprising, as she had been employed by Bohannon for more than a year. Bohannon had been interested in the girl, his wife said, and often had taken her home from his office in the evening. With Mrs. Bohannon he had taken her riding.

Norma went to the office that Saturday morning but took the afternoon off, as had been her custom. During the afternoon she called at the hospital, but was denied admittance to the attorney’s room.

In the lobby she met Mrs. Bohannon.

“Mrs. Bohannon, may I have a minute with you? I want to talk to you,” she said.

Just as the conversation was about to begin Mrs. Bohannon was called to her husband’s side. She never saw Miss Feuger again.

Norma remained at home Saturday night, depressed and 48

HARRY R ANDERSON

moody, interested only in the outcome of Bohannon’s condition.

Sunday about noon Miss Cummings called Norma by telephone again and they went to Garvin Park, where they spent the afternoon. There they discussed the shooting and Miss Cummings even ventured a guess as to whom the woman might have been. Norma had little to say about it.

They returned home late in the afternoon. Norma, instead of remaining at home, walked to a corner drugstore, where she bought a four-ounce bottle of carbolic acid. She didn’t know what her mother wanted it for, she told the clerk. She drank a Coca Cola and then went home.

Her mother asked her if she wished something to eat.

“No, I don’t feel hungry, mother. I just had a ‘coke’,” she replied, then went to her room. A few minutes later she returned and walked into the kitchen. There, after an instant, her mother heard her groans and rushed out to find her dying. Close against her mother’s breast, death came.

Police found, strewn about on the floor of the kitchen, tiny bits of paper containing now undecipherable writing. Another paper carried this message in Norma’s handwriting: “I want my mother to have everything I own ...

Norma.”

What might the tiny bits of paper reveal?

Why had she torn that note into bits. Or had someone else destroyed it? Does someone know, today, what Norma wrote in those torturing minutes when she was laying bare her soul? Paisley

49

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could not tell whether Norma was the girl with Bohannon.

He was brought to the morgue. He looked into the face of the girl who lay there, “young and blond.” But he did not condemn the suicide.

He shook his head and said, “I don’t know.”

His death was to be demanded by the State later. But he escaped the penalty of the electric chair and now is a lifer in the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City. He was brought from his cell into Circuit Court one morning, suddenly, and on a plea of guilty was sentenced to life imprisonment over the protests of Prosecutor Lindsey. Judge Charles P. Bock, who passed judgment, has said that he never will sentence a man to the electric chair.

Evansville still talks about “the Bohannon case.” And when it does, it always comes to this: Was Norma Feuger, pretty and blond twenty-year-old stenographer, the companion of William 0. Bohannon, wealthy and prominent divorce lawyer, on the night of his ride to his last romantic rendezvous? Or was Norma Feuger an innocent dupe of the fates, who, when she feared that the pointing fingers of shame and scorn might be directed at her, sought refuge in suicide? The pretty blonde took the answers with her.

50

•3• The Torture House Originally Published: “Torture House,” by Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen, as told to Frederic Lord, True Detective Mysteries, Feb., 1930.

AN ITCH TO KILL

Recently, while in my office in Louisville I was pondering on the dullness of life- -in particular, of a detective’s life—when’ a question was put to me by a friend who had dropped in for a chat.

“Lieutenant, do you remember the Gates-Heaton case, here in Louisville?”

“Do I remember the Gates-Heaton case?” I replied. “I don’t suppose anyone who had anything to do with it will ever forget it!”

My friend’s query brought back the memory of that strange case—one of the weirdest I have ever known in all my years of police work. And, after a few remarks had been passed, I consented to tell him the story: It was about 6:30 P.M. on a Saturday night, six years ago— March 8th, 1924, was the date, if I remember rightly—that we received the call at the Louisville Police Department Headquarters.

“A man has been shot!” the voice over the telephone shouted. “You’ll find him at Six-Thirty-Seven South ThirtyFourth Street!”

Accompanied by several of my men I reached the scene in record time. We found the body on the second floor, in the bedroom. It was lying near a mattress—a circumstance odd in itself, because that mattress was lying on the floor.

Surrounding the mattress were four steel staples driven into the floor. No one missed the picture it created, together with a number of surgical instruments that were in the room also.

Not much more than a glance showed us that the man was dead. There was a gaping hole in his neck, another near his heart. Several persons were in the room and, as is usually the case, they were incoherently babbling words about the 54

Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen

killer. He had raced from the house, they said, when he made sure, on a doctor’s word in fact, that his victim was dead. On the killer’s wrists were handcuffs, his body was trembling, his face pallid.

There is not much use in telling all the minor details. Here are the main facts, as we ascertained them by rapid questioning: The dead man was Richard Heaton, thirty-three years old, partner in a prosperous brokerage concern and a wellknown and reputable citizen of Louisville. His home was on South First Street, where he lived with his charming and beautiful wife, and his two children, a boy and a girl, both in the elementary grades of public school.

Richard Heaton His wife, who was related to a very wealthy Louisville man, was in the room, and so was a doctor, H. E. Schoonover, who happened to be in the neighborhood at the time of the shooting. This house was in a good residential section of Louisville.

Mrs. Heaton, who retained her composure with admirable fortitude, told us that William Gates her husband’s lifelong friend had done the shooting.

I at once obtained a description of Gates, and went across the street to use a telephone. I called Headquarters, and gave the desk sergeant what information I had. A hunt for Gates was immediately instituted.

Returning to the house, I found that a crowd had gathered about and that my men were having difficulty in preventing the curious from entering. I went back upstairs Mrs. Heaton 55

AN ITCH TO KILL

was still kneeling beside her husband’s body. She said something that made me pinch myself to make sure I was not dreaming. She said her husband had held Gates a prisoner for two nights and two days. “He was chained to the floor in this room,” she told us. At once the significance of the mattress on the door, and the staples, dawned on me. Never will I forget that room and its contents.

The house at 637 South 34th Street, Louisville where Bill Gates was to be tortured and possibly castrated.

I called Doctor Schoonover, and together we examined the surgical instruments. The Doctor commented on their quality, and told me that whoever had selected them must have had more than an ordinary layman’s knowledge of such things.

We found a surgeon’s knife, several pairs of forceps, a hemostat, about a dozen suture-ligatures, two or three instrument trays, a surgeon’s apron, rubber sheets and rubber gloves. There were a quantity of bandages, medicated gauze, absorbent cotton, disinfectant and a large can of chloroform—a complete outfit for performing an operation.

The man who had planned the operation, apparently, had also planned to remove a body. In case his victim died, he had provided three large, water-tight boxes, a large butcher knife and a very sharp hatchet. We also found a quantity of sulfuric acid. In all, it was about as gruesome a sight as anyone would care to see.

By that time, the fingerprint men had arrived. I had noticed imprints on most of the instruments, and I set the men to work. The rest of my men had been looking over the house, and a small garage in the rear. They had found 56

Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen

several guns, both revolvers and automatics, and a lot of ammunition.

I was anxious to talk to Mrs. Heaton and to direct the search for the man who had done the shooting. So, leaving Lieutenant Jim Cundiffe in charge, I returned to Headquarters, accompanied by Mrs. Heaton. I had seen enough to realize that this was going to be a most extraordinary case.

When we arrived at the office Captain E. A. Larkin, then Chief of Detectives was there. He started asking questions.

I told him what I had seen and the little I knew. Then we called Mrs. Heaton into his office.

She was very pale and considering what she had been through, seemed to have a pretty good hold on herself. It was a little hard for her to start but after a bit she began to talk.

She told us that she had eloped with Heaton some eight years before, when she was only fifteen years old. They seemed to have lived a happy and normal life up until the spring of two. Suddenly, and without warning, she told us her husband began to accuse her of being intimate with Gates, whom they had both known since childhood.

“At times,” Mrs. Heaton said, “his manner and the things he said almost became unbearable!”

Of course, she denied his accusations but Heaton, without any cause or reason, continued to berate her. This state of affairs continued for four years, in fact, up until the day before the shooting.

About four weeks before, Heaton had brought a woman detective to his home, a Mrs. Jenny Moore, of Chicago. Her duties were, to accompany Mrs. Heaton whenever she left the house to answer all telephone calls, and to prevent Mrs. Heaton from using the telephone herself. While I am on the 57

AN ITCH TO KILL

subject of Mrs. Moore, I might add that her sworn statement, voluntarily given us a few days later, verified everything Mrs. Heaton told us that night.

Mrs. Heaton was growing paler. I asked her if she did not want to rest a few minutes. She shook her head, asked if she might have a glass of water and continued her story.

On Thursday, her husband rented the house on ThirtyFourth Street for the express purpose of taking Gates there and “punishing” him. I could see that it had taken a lot of effort on her part to make that admission.

“I was powerless to prevent my husband from carrying out his plan.” Mrs. Heaton said. “You see, I was practically held a prisoner in my own home.”

Friday, the day before the shooting, her husband came home. He told his wife that he still had Gates. “But he laughed when he told me about it, and I was frightened more than ever.”

Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Heaton, not having heard from her husband since the day before and being almost frantic with worry, finally slipped away from Mrs. Moore, called a cab, and drove to the house where Gates was held captive.

Her husband met her at the door, told her to come in and cautioned his wife to be quiet.

“He looked terrible,” Mrs. Heaton said. “He seemed to be under a terrible strain, and plainly showed the lack of two nights sleep. I felt sorry for him, and told him so. He only laughed. I asked him if he had Bill Gates upstairs, and he said: ‘Yes, and I am giving him the scare of his life! I bet he won’t bother either of us again!’ “ Mrs. Heaton begged her husband to let his prisoner go, and give up his mad plan. Heaton absolutely refused to listen.

They talked a few minutes, and then Heaton said he had to 58

Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen

go back upstairs.

“I HAVE to watch Bill constantly, for fear he might get away,” he told his wife.

“I guess he had been gone about two or three minutes when, suddenly, I heard a voice say, ‘Don’t shoot!’ It was hardly more than a whisper, and then I heard two shots, fired in rapid succession.

“As I started up the stairway, Bill Gates came running down. He called, and asked who was there, and I replied, ‘Mary Lee.’ He didn’t stop. As he passed me, he said, ‘I have shot Dick, and I am going for a doctor!’ “ Mrs. Heaton was nervously twisting her purse; her voice was hardly above a whisper. I was afraid she was going to faint. I fetched her another glass of water, and in a moment she seemed to be all right.

“I continued on upstairs,” she said, “and found my husband in the rear bedroom, lying near the mattress, just as you first saw him. He was breathing, and trying to say something.

I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. In a few minutes, some man came in and told me he was a doctor.

He looked at Dick. I asked him if he was going to die. He said he didn’t think so.

“Just then, Bill called from downstairs and asked the doctor the same question.”

Mrs. Heaton said she made arrangements with the doctor to call her family physician and have her husband taken to a hospital.

“Then another man came in,” she continued. “He looked at Dick, and said he was dead. Just then I heard Bill again call from downstairs, and the man called back and told him my husband was dead. I haven’t seen or heard from Bill since.

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“I knelt down and kissed Dick. I didn’t know what to do so I just sat there by his side.”

I know police officers are supposed to be hard-hearted and all that sort of thing, but I must admit that I never felt so sorry for anyone as I did for this woman. I hated to do it, and I know the Captain felt the same way, but we had to question her. There were several things that were not clear; and, of course, her story had to be checked. We had let her tell her story without interruption, going about it as gently as possible, and after about forty-five minutes of cross- examination, we were both convinced she had told us all she knew and that she had told us the truth.

I told Mrs. Heaton she could go and had one of my men take her home in a cab.

Then we had some good news. Heaton ‘s business partner was in the outer office and wanted to see the Chief. He was brought in at once. Without doubt, he would throw new light on the case.

He told us that his name was William A. Fisher, and that he was a member of the firm of Heaton & Fisher, merchandise brokers of Louisville. He had heard about the murder, and wanted to tell us all he knew about the affair.

According to Fisher, Heaton, for some time past, had been acting queerly. He told his partner that “several men were trying to break up his home.” For the last year he had neglected business, remained away from the office for long periods at a time, and failed to let his partner know where he was or how long he intended staying.

Fisher had tried in every way possible to get Heaton to attend to business, but Heaton had refused to listen to him.

Early in February he had told Fisher, “There is only one man left and as soon as I have attended to him, all my 60

Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen

troubles will be over and I will return to the office.”

Fisher knew about the house Heaton had rented in the west end. Heaton told him about it, and said he was going to take the man there “and scare him to death.”

“I want to impress on his mind that he is never to cross my path again!” Heaton had told his partner.

Fisher had begged him to give up any such plan. “I told him that it was dangerous, and that he was only going to get himself into trouble. He refused to listen, and told me if I ever breathed a word to anyone about his plans, I would have to answer to him.”

We were interrupted. Officers had brought into Headquarters a man who they believed answered Gates description.

He was in the outer office.

I rushed out. It wasn’t Gates. The poor fellow was halfscared to death. He had red hair, Gates had brown hair. I gave those patrolmen several different brands of call-down, and returned to the Chief ’s office.

Fisher resumed his story. He said that on Friday, Heyde Conrad brought him a note from Heaton requesting Fisher to come to the Thirty-Fourth Street address that afternoon.

I interrupted Fisher long enough to find out where Conrad lived, and learned that he was an organist in one of the down-town theaters. I sent a couple of men out to pick Conrad up and bring him to Police Headquarters.

“I went down Friday afternoon,” Fisher said, “hoping to bring Dick to his senses. He looked terrible. I could see he was very nervous, and laboring under a strain. He told me he had had no sleep for three days, and asked me to stay there in the house while he went home and got some sleep. “This I refused to do. He then asked me if I would stay while he went home and saw his wife. He promised he 61

AN ITCH TO KILL

would only be gone about half an hour. He begged so hard that I finally agreed.

“He took me upstairs.

“In the back room, lying on a mattress, his arms and legs tied to the floor, a cover over his face, was a man. Dick told me he had put the cover over the man’s face because his prisoner was ashamed of what he had done and did not want his identity known. He assured me the man was securely tied and could not get loose, and then left.

“After he had gone, I noticed the man was moving as if he were trying to ease his evidently aching muscles. I asked him if I could do anything for him. He didn’t answer, so I just sat there.

In about thirty minutes, I heard Dick come in, and I went downstairs. I again begged him to let the man go. I told him he was sure to get into trouble. He laughed at my fears, and assured me again that ‘I am only giving him a good scare, and am not going to harm him in the least!’

“While I was in the room upstairs, I saw a hat and a coat that I thought I recognized. I asked Dick if the man wasn’t Bill Gates. He said, ‘It might be,’ and laughed. Then I pleaded with him harder than ever. I would have done anything to keep Dick out of trouble. He wouldn’t listen. He asked me to come back that night. I told him I might, and left.”

As you see, the story, so far as Fisher was telling it, was checking with the statement Mrs. Heaton had made. I don’t know whether I mentioned it or not but both these statements were made under oath. To continue with Fisher’s story: After he left the house, he returned to the office, worrying all the while about Heaton. He decided not to communicate with the police, inasmuch as Heaton had assured him no 62

Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen

harm would come to Gates. He determined, instead, to go back that night and try once more to reason with his partner to give up his plans.

“I went down about seven o’clock that evening—Friday.

There was no one there but Dick and the man upstairs.

I argued with Dick for about an hour, but nothing I said seemed to have any effect upon him. He would only laugh, and swear he was not going to harm his captive, ‘only scare him.’ I gave up, and started to leave.

“Just as I was going, I happened to look upstairs, and there, sitting on a bed in the rear room, handcuffed, his head in his hands, was Bill Gates.

“I became almost frantic with my pleading, but Heaton remained obdurate. So, I left, and went home, and did not go back. Someone called me to-night and told me about the shooting. I am sorry I did not notify you yesterday of what was going on, but at the time I thought the best way out was to leave Dick alone. I feel as though I am responsible in a way, for his death.”

Fisher had finished. I asked him if he had any idea how Gates had been captured, and if he could figure out how Gates had an opportunity, after three days of captivity, to get hold of a gun. Those were two points in the case so far, that we knew nothing about.

Fisher couldn’t help us on either one. After a few more questions, we thanked Fisher and told him he could go.

Well, here we were; we knew, of course, who had done the shooting and the probable motive; but were still without any trace of the all-important Gates. I wondered, at the time, why, if it was a case of self-defense, Gates had run away. By now, we had got a little more information about our man. He was thirty-one years old, a salesman, employed 63

AN ITCH TO KILL

by the Proctor & Gamble Company, working out of Logansport, Indiana, where he lived with an aunt. He was very popular and well-known in Louisville, where he had formerly lived. I had all the lines out, and felt sure we would have him before morning.

The fingerprint men came in and reported. They had found Heaton’s finger- prints all over the house, on the surgical instruments and on the revolvers, all of which didn’t help much, except to strengthen my belief, at that time, that Heaton had planned to carry out his plot alone. I studied the report carefully. The coroner called. He said Heaton had been shot twice, one ball piercing his neck, the other just above the heart. The shots had been fired from a .41- caliber gun, which accounted for the ugly wounds.

Still no word of Gates’ whereabouts.

THEN the patrolmen brought Conrad in. They had picked him up just as he was leaving the theater, where he was employed as organist.

Conrad couldn’t tell us much, however. He had known both Heaton and Gates for some time. The summer previous, he had made an extensive trip through the South with Heaton.

Thursday, Heaton called him and asked him to come to his office about 6 o’clock that afternoon. When he arrived, Heaton introduced him to some man named “Frank.” He was told to go outside and wait in his (Conrad’s) car, and when Heaton left in his own, Conrad was to follow him.

After Conrad had waited a while, three men came out, entered Heaton’s car and started off. Conrad followed. They drove down into the west end and stopped in an alley. The occupants of the first car got out and went into a house, Conrad following.

When Conrad got inside, the man, “Frank,” was in the 64

Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen

living-room. Heaton and the other man had disappeared.

“I asked Frank what was going on, and he told me that Heaton had some man upstairs who had stolen some stuff from hint. He told me everything was alright and not to worry.”

About ten o’clock, Heaton came down and told Conrad to take Frank to the Tenth Street depot and buy him a ticket to Indianapolis, and then go to the Willard Hotel and settle the bill for Room 342.

“I took the man to the station, but did not go to the hotel,” Conrad said. “I was worried about it all, and went back to the house to see if I could find out what it was all about.”

Heaton told Conrad that he had some man who had caused him some trouble, but that he shouldn’t worry, as he was just having a good talk with him. Conrad said he spent the night there, and the next morning told Heaton he was going to leave and not return.

Conrad assured us that this was all he knew about the matter, and that he had not been near the place since Friday morning. “I didn’t like the looks of things,” he told us.

We held Conrad, and sent a man over to the hotel to check up on Room 342 and the man, “Frank.”

Well—it was getting pretty late, we had a good line on the case, but—where was our man, the man who had done the shooting? I certainly wanted to get him. I don’t remember when I ever wanted a man so badly in my life!

I left instructions that, if Gates was picked up, I was to be notified at once, and went home to bed.

The next thing I knew, the telephone was ringing, and I received the welcome news that Gates had just given himself up and was then on his way to Headquarters.

I tore into my clothes and hurried up-town. When I 65

AN ITCH TO KILL

reached the office, Gates was there.

He plainly showed that he was under a terrible strain. He was very pale and nervous, but seemed more than anxious to talk. He told me that he had spent the night with relatives and after talking the matter over with them, had decided to give himself up. I was certainly glad to see him.

While we were waiting for the secretary to arrive, the Chief cane in. He was as excited as a schoolboy, and so was I for that matter, for I felt we were soon to get to the bottom of the whole mysterious affair. The secretary came in, Gates was put under oath and told to go ahead.

Here is his story: “I had known Dick Heaton since childhood—in fact, we grew up together, and played together as youths. I did not know of his fears, his worry, his suspicions or his plot. I had been away from Louisville for some time. Nothing, however, interfered with our friendship.

“Thursday night (two nights before the shooting), Dick called me over the phone and asked me to come to his office. There was nothing unusual about that, and I went.

“Just as I stepped in the office I was grabbed! It was so sudden. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to do so I did nothing. I couldn’t have gained anything by resisting, because I could have been overpowered easily. I said nothing. I was taken to an automobile outside. A big man was watching me. He walked along by my side to the machine.

But even if he had not been there, I could not have done much. I was handcuffed. The cuffs were placed on me as soon as I was grabbed.

“After a long ride, we went through an alley into a small garage. I was led to the house.

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Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen

Dick took me upstairs to a back room. He tied me, and went down again. While he was gone, I thought how unlucky I was to have lost my pistol. It had been taken from me before I was handcuffed. Dick came back after a while, and I could see he was bent on mischief. I had sized up all the instruments: the sharp hatchet, the boxes and the rubber sheets. “’GET down.’ he commanded. I was forced to get on my knees. He then made me lie flat on the floor. He stretched my two legs apart and fastened my ankles to two staples leaving me spread out on the floor. I saw him take down the chloroform. He then got a funnel. He placed some cotton in it and poured out the chloroform. All the while he was calm as a man could be. He put the funnel upside down over my nose. I saw it coming, and took a deep breath.

After he put the funnel in place, I held my breath for what seemed hours.

Gradually I relaxed my body and closed my eyes. I tried to feign unconsciousness, and apparently succeeded. He took the funnel away. In a moment he unbuttoned my coat. Then it dawned on me what kind of torture I was to undergo. I couldn’t move. I was afraid to say a word. He unbuttoned my vest, the right side of it. I felt something hard glide down my side. Then I remembered. It was my small pistol—a derringer—that I had forgotten about until this time.

They had overlooked it.

“This little pistol, not much bigger than a toy, brought renewed courage. I waited a very short time, and then I decided something had to be done at once.

“I began to mumble. Dick stooped over me and cooed to me like a baby, coaxing me to tell what I wanted to tell.

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—‘Go on, tell me all about it, don’t be afraid,’ he cooed.

“I saw my chance. I mumbled so he could make it out, that I had written several letters. I told him I had said in the letters that Dick Heaton would be responsible for any harm that might befall me. I told him that I wrote that Dick Heaton meant to murder me. He coaxed some more, and I told him I had sent the letters to my aunt in Logansport, Indiana, with whom I live, and instructed her to send them to the police in the event anything happened to me.

“This stopped him. He buttoned up my clothes and left me presumably unconscious. You can bet I was mighty glad when he left!

“I didn’t think I had long to live, but I didn’t give up hope entirely.

“Friday afternoon he brought Fisher, his business partner, into the room. At this time I was lying on the mattress on the floor, arms and legs tied and a cover spread over my face. Dick said he was going, and left the room. Fisher said he would step out of the room and give me a chance to make myself comfortable. He thought I didn’t want my identity known. I wasn’t sure Heaton had gone. In fact, I thought he was standing outside the door. I knew he would kill me if he heard me talking, and I didn’t want to run the risk of letting Fisher remove the cover from my face. I knew he wouldn’t be able to think, fast enough if Dick suddenly came in the door. So, I said nothing.

“Friday night, Dick took me in an automobile to his office.

He placed a pistol at my side and told me to call my aunt in Logansport and tell her to send the letters to Heaton & Fisher’s brokerage office in Louisville. My aunt must have thought I was crazy for I had not written any such letters!

However, I obeyed instructions. After that, I was taken back 68

Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen

to my prison.

“Saturday, I thought all day long that my time had come.

Dick would come into the room and look at me, I would pretend I was asleep, then he would go over and start fingering the instruments, all the while kind of smiling to himself. My nerves were near the breaking point. That night I told him to take me to the washroom. I told him I couldn’t stand it any longer. He agreed.

“When we returned, he prepared to chain me to the staples.

He had to unlock my handcuffs, and I saw that my chance had come. I got my derringer from my vest pocket and pointed it at him. “’Put ‘em up, Dick?’ I commanded. ‘Don’t waste any time!’

“His face changed in an instant. It became chalky white.

His eyes got wild. He grabbed for his gun, and I let go with both barrels. He spun around, and fell.

“Then I knew I was free, and I raced from the room and downstairs, taking three steps at a time, and hollered: “’Who’s there?’ I had heard a door open sometime before.

Heaton’s wife answered. I didn’t stop. I ran out of the house as fast as I could.

“As I ran out the front door, I saw a man, and told him I had shot someone. I told him not to say anything. This all comes back to me now. I started running down the street.

Then I thought of my hat and coat. I ran back and got them, and started running again.

“All the time I thought something in my brain would crack.

I was looking for it any minute, I thought I was going insane, and I ran all the faster. I remember now that the loose handcuff was dapping at my side, hut I didn’t even try to conceal it. I don’t know what was in my mind—all I seemed capable of doing was to run, and I did that.

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“I got on a street-car and rode a couple of blocks, then got off. Nobody asked me any questions. I couldn’t have answered them if they had. My mind was at a standstill.

Finally, after running myself out of breath, I started for Harrods Creek, where I was visiting my father-in-law. I finally got home and after resting a bit, and after talking it over with some of my relatives, I saw my mistake in running away. I made arrangements to surrender at once.

“No matter how long I live, I will never forget the experience. It was too horrible; too cruel for words. I had read of such plots and plans in dime novels, but I never expected to live the victim’s part. I know I can never put it from my mind, but now that it is over, I am confident of being freed, and shall attempt to forget all of it I possibly can. I am sorry I had to kill Dick, but I had to do if to save my life.”

I had been a detective quite a few years but during my time I had never heard anything like the story Gates had just finished. It was unreal.

We let him rest for a while. Then we started our questioning.

First and foremost, we wanted to know why, if he wasn’t suspicious of Heaton, he had carried two guns when he went to the broker’s office.

He told us he had a hobby for guns, and was in the habit of carrying one. We found out later that day, that this was correct, and that he had purchased a good many guns during the last two or three years.

The Chief and I went at him pretty hard for about two hours. We were convinced he was telling the truth. Of course we had to put him under arrest, charging him with murder.

Thus you have the statements of the principal characters of 70

Detective Lieutenant William Oeltjen

this remarkable story. Imagine, if possible, the mental strain Gates was put through! For two long and insufferable days afraid to close his eyes for fear it would be for the last time; expecting his friend, suddenly turned fiend, to operate on him at any moment! Is it any wonder that he thought, after he had shot Heaton and escaped that he was going crazy, that something in his brain was going to snap? Think how he must have felt, when, after he was taken into the house and tied to the floor, the significance of those instruments dawned upon him. It is a wonder that something in his brain didn’t snap then and there. Think of the suspense, hoping his captor would not discover the derringer and destroy his one and only chance to escape. Try and imagine his condition, when his chance did come to use his gun! It was a clear ease of shooting in defense of his life.

About the time Gates finished his story, I had a report on the man, “Frank.” He was Frank Cordell, a private detective of Indianapolis. We made arrangements to get a Governor’s extradition warrant and have Cordell returned to Louisville at once.

BILL GATES was arraigned in court Monday morning [May 12, 1924] and released on bail. He was subsequently dismissed, the police court judge ruling that he had killed Heaton in self-defense. A coroner’s jury also absolved him from all bla with being an accomplice to the kidnapping. We brought Cordell back. His part wasn’t very important. He had known Heaton as “Peter Brooks,” and had been told by Heaton that “I want you to help me get a man who has been stealing from me.” Cordell admitted helping capture Gates when he came to Heaton’s office, and accompanying them to the house. He left that night for Indianapolis, and 71

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that was about all he knew about the affair, he said.

Conrad’s case was finally dismissed. Cordell received a sixtyday jail sentence for his part in the affair.

And thus the case was closed and the “torture house” tragedy ended.

72

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.�

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