The Crime of the Century Part 45

Burke had an abiding place, and why should he go to that store on Sunday, the 5th of May, and buy a shirt? If anything of the kind ever occurred it was two of those dock loafers who work around the bridge, and who look as if they had only one shirt, and when they make a change of it they buy a new shirt. Now he says this man came in and bought a shirt, and that he told him to step back and try on a nice clean shirt, and if it did not fit to put it right back in the lot. You know as well as I do that when you go and buy a ready-made shirt there is only one question asked you--What is the size of your collar? But that is not all. He remembers another man who was standing across the street, and that this man went into the middle of the street and hailed the other man, and then they had a whispered conversation. Now he tells you that he remembers that the big man wore a 16-1/2 collar and the little man, who subsequently came across the street, wore a 15-1/2 collar. He remembers it exactly, and did not testify before the coroner's inquest. And then they had a photograph which he identifies, but they never introduced it in evidence, and I don't know why, but it looked to me as if a 15-1/2 collar would go only half way round that man's neck.

"Now comes Klahre, and he says what never occurred. That on the morning of Sunday, May 5th, he read in one of the papers that Dr.

Cronin was a spy, and had been made away with. As we all know, Mrs.

Conklin testified that not one word was said about it until 12 o'clock Sunday, but they had to get it in quick, because Burke was out of town on the 8th and 9th. He says that on Monday morning Martin Burke came into his place with a box, a tin box, with a rope around it. The expressman brought in the box, which weighed about fifty pounds, and put it down, and we may rightly call this the box trick. Klahre said he was going to cut the rope, when Burke called out: 'Hold on; don't you cut that rope.' It would not do for him to peep into that box, because he might have seen Dr. Cronin's clothes, and then if he had, and it had turned out subsequently that the clothes were found in the sewer, it might have been shown that he told a fib. But he asked Martin Burke one question, 'What do you think of Cronin's disappearance?' He tells you that Burke said, 'He is a British spy, and ought to be killed.' So the great mystery has been solved. He further says that neither he nor Burke said another word in an hour and a half. The first man that came there told Klahre just what he wanted to know, and you will remember that they asked every man they wanted to impeach, 'Didn't you say Cronin was British spy and ought to have been killed?' Now, some one made that to order."

DRIVER SWANSON'S STORY.

"Now take Swanson. By the way, do you remember that when Captain Schuettler, the police officer who spoke to nearly every witness since the coroner's inquest, was on the stand, it turned out that every time he struck a witness from Clark street to Lake View the man was either a German or a Swede? You would not expect a German detective to find an American, nor would you expect a German detective to find an Irishman. Why I can not tell you, but that is a fact. Now, Swanson gave his testimony. Two of my witnesses go to a livery stable and get a carriage. The carriage was got to go to Fleming's opening on West Van Buren street, and Fleming was a cousin of William Coughlin. The carriage comes to William Coughlin's saloon, but Coughlin, the very person interested in going to the opening, is the very person, according to his testimony, who did not go. The Swede remembers every street he drove through, every place he stopped, and every cobblestone he drove over, and yet they tell you that although it's a large establishment their men did not wear a uniform or livery until after the 10th of May. The man says he had a tall hat, a cut-away coat, his pantaloons did not come up under his vest, and yet he was seen driving through the streets at 12 o'clock at night."

"O'Sullivan watered his garden on that day, too," dryly remarked the State's Attorney.

"Yes, and if it had been your witness he would have told you what flower it was he watered, what its color was and just how long it had been growing, in every detail," said Mr. Forrest.

The counsel then went on to give some of his college experience where a professor told him the great argument of the truth of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John was that each one of them differed in the circ.u.mstantial details of each transaction but all agreed in the essentials of every transaction. "That is the argument which can not be answered, whereas if they had agreed in all the details, the argument would be conspiracy, collusion and fraud."

RIDICULING THE PROSECUTING WITNESSES.

Counsel then criticised the testimony given by Carberry, whom he designated as the impecunious and modest man, and who fixes the night of May 4th by his giving a large order to his grocery, and then considered what he was pleased to call the remarkable story given by Dinan and his wife and Moreland regarding the horse and the buggy which it was alleged the Doctor was driven away in. He remarked that the horse left the stable at 7:30, not at 7:20, as had been testified to, and then proceeded to review Mrs. Conklin's identification of the horse and buggy. He ridiculed the testimony of the witnesses who were able to say that there was a dim light in one room of Mrs. Conklin's house and a bright light in the other, and argued that because they all agreed on that point, therefore there was something suspicious about that testimony. "She says she observed more about that horse, with a mosquito screen behind her and an electric light in front of her, than the owner of the horse, who has had it for seven years. Why, if you sent a veterinary surgeon to look at that horse, he could not, after looking over the horse, give you a more exact description of its peculiarities than Mrs. Conklin learned through that screen.

"Now comes the knife transaction. Mr. Flynn appears. Mr. Flynn is a remarkable policeman. See if he did not do a more remarkable thing than Dan Coughlin did. He is ordered to arrest Coughlin, and he takes from his pocket a revolver and two knives--two knives not worth 10 cents, both of them. He takes the two knives to his desk at the Central Station and locks them up, and then it occurs to him that they will not be safe there and he puts them in the Fidelity deposit vault, when right beneath him on the floor below is the custodian of property taken from prisoners with a vault having a combination lock. Did you ever hear of a policeman taking a revolver and two old knives worth 10 cents to the Fidelity Bank because he was responsible for the property? He never says a word about it until last Monday, and he shows them to Conklin. And, mirabile dictu!--he says he carried those knives for two years; one of them he found on the street: he put one on the mantel, and the Doctor carried one of them in his vest and one in his pants. He just knew exactly where the Doctor carried these knives. If you have two knives you do not trouble yourselves about where you carry them; but Conklin knew that the Doctor had one knife in his vest and the other in his pants. Don't you see what remarkable feats they perform?

"Now, Neiman is a saloon-keeper, and a party happens to go to his place. His attention is called to it three months afterward, and he can remember that three people came in to get a gla.s.s of wine, and he can tell you that one of the men wore a Prince Albert coat. It never occurred to anybody that Dan Coughlin and Kunze were in that saloon until a week before Neiman testified, and then Dan Coughlin was pointed out to him by a detective. Don't you notice the urgency there was how to get him to express an opinion? Now, if witnesses were urged here, what do you suppose was urged upon them outside?

Next comes the man Mertes. Owls can see by night, and he says he saw these men enter the cottage and then tells you all about it.

Mrs. h.o.e.rtel has a remarkable memory. She is in the habit of going out to find her husband who is drunk, and knew certain saloons that he frequented. It was no unusual thing for her to find her husband, but on this night she knows just what streets she went along and just where she turned the corners. She is searching for her husband, and she goes to a saloon, does not see him there, but she looks at the clock and sees that it was exactly eight o'clock, and she will never forget the circ.u.mstance that it was exactly eight o'clock. She has got to remember that it was eight o'clock or she will run afoul of Mertes, and they both remember the same thing.

She says she saw him enter the cottage; she hears the blows and hears the cries of 'G.o.d!' and 'Jesus!' and hears the dying moan.

And yet she never says a word to any body. She is locked out and sits on the steps all night, and she goes to her husband's partner, with whom she is apparently on good terms, and does not tell her story."

EXPERTS ON THE CAUSE OF DEATH.

"Now, we go to their experts on the cause of death. How can they tell the cause of death? I have heard of men giving extraordinary opinions, but their experts can tell you what killed the man, and still they can not find any evidence of it. If the public prosecutor had put in his indictment 'cause of death unknown,' it would not have been necessary for them to say he died from some kind of violence, but the jury is prejudiced against these men because they said the death is due to that particular thing."

Mr. Forrest went on to review the testimony of the experts as to the hair and blood, and ridiculed the testimony of Professor Tolman in regard to his microscopical examinations of what he called lanugo. He said, "don't you see the Clan-na-Gaels at work? Let the two wings of the Clan-na-Gaels alone and they will make a laughing stock of American juries. You and I have got to stand between them.

Everything that they introduced respecting the hair was introduced for the purpose of misleading you. The testimony of Tolman was introduced to show by the diameters of hairs that were alike that they were Dr. Cronin's hair, so that you should not be mislead. 'A little learning is a dangerous thing.' A great scientist can take an Irish setter and get two locks of hair from him and examine them; the hairs are of the same diameter; can he swear that they came from the same dog or no? The hairs of dogs are alike, and human hair is as much alike as the hair of horses or of sheep is alike. Only think of taking a bit of wool from one sheep and comparing it with the wool of another sheep to see if they came from the same sheep! We are like the animals in structure: our bones are alike, our hearts are alike, our viscera are alike; there is no material difference, and it is just as impossible to tell whether two locks came from the same human head as it is to tell whether wisps of hair came from the same horse's tail."

CAUSE OF DR. CRONIN'S DEATH.

At the opening of the afternoon session, Mr. Forrest began the discussion of the cause of death. "It is said by the learned gentlemen who represent the people, that our defense on that question is technical, but I deny it, and I will satisfy you that I am right and that it is a substantial defense. They will tell you it shows the weakness of our case. Gentlemen, I am engaged in defending the lives of these men, and I will avail myself of any technicalities and of any and every question in order to perform my duty. I will show you that it is not technical, and for this reason. They can try us again, they can indict us for causing death by hanging, by suffocation, by apoplexy, and also by causes unknown, and you are asked to convict under this indictment to repair the blunder of the State's Attorney. This is a very simple proposition of law. If I charge you with stealing my money I must prove you stole my money, and it will not do to show that you stole my potatoes; but if you are again indicted for stealing my potatoes you can only plead you didn't steal my money. Suppose the body was burned after a man was poisoned, would you be able to prove that he was poisoned? No, but you would have to charge in your indictment that he died from causes unknown. It will not do to simply prove that this man, Dr. Cronin, died from violence; that is not the question. The indictment charges death from wounds on the head, face and body. There is no evidence of any wound on the body, so that is excluded, and you are reduced to the supposition of wounds on the head and face. It is not a technical defense, as I say, because an acquittal on this indictment does not prevent their being tried a half a dozen times under different issues. I will now refer to the testimony of Dr. Egbert. In his examination, which I will read to you, he describes the wounds on the head, but distinctly and emphatically says that he can not say whether the arteries were cut. The counsel for the State very adroitly put their questions as to whether the arteries were involved, and he said they were. He meant that the arteries were in that region.

However, Dr. Egbert testifies that the man did not die from hemorrhage. Dr. Perkins next comes on the stand, and tells you that the man died of concussion or contusion of the brain. There was no evidence of it, because the brain was too decomposed, but he knows and is perfectly satisfied that that was the cause of death. Dr.

Egbert could not, by any possibility, a.s.sign the cause of death, owing to the decomposition which had taken place, nor could he tell whether those wounds were made before or after death. Dr. Perkins says the same thing, and Dr. Moyer says the same. If they do not know, how do you know? Some of you told me your minds were made up, but by the living G.o.d you must try us according to the law. The burden of proof is on them and they must prove the cause of death, and how do you know it? Will you guess at it? Do you propose to guess my clients guilty and then hang them?"

TESTIMONY OF THE EXPERTS.

Mr. Forrest read from the testimony of medical men at some length to show that they could not a.s.sign the cause of death, and a.s.serted that the State had compelled its witnesses to stretch their consciences and to testify to what were not the facts, because of the State's Attorney's blunder in not putting into the indictment "cause of death unknown."

"Are you reading that testimony of Dr. Perkins correctly?" inquired Mr. Hynes. "You are putting as an answer and reading to the jury as an answer of the Doctor's what in reality was a question of your own."

"Well, possibly I did," responded Mr. Forrest, who went on reading testimony. His misquotation of the testimony in that case, however, induced the State's Counsel to keep a very sharp eye on the evidence he quoted. Mr. Forrest criticised at some length the testimony given by Dr. Perkins, and argued that if it would not be possible to tell whether the victim died from concussion or contusion of the brain without a microscopical examination, it was a remarkable thing that no such examination had been made. It was evident from the testimony that some one was straining his conscience as far as he dared, and it was also in proof that it would have been impossible to have told even by a microscopical examination of the brain whether death resulted from concussion or contusion. However, if it could, they did not do it. Yet the attorneys for the State will ask you to say that this matter is satisfactorily proved; that you know what the cause of death was, no matter whether you do or not, and, notwithstanding all the doctors say, it was impossible to say what was the cause of death.

The State says to you, 'We want these men convicted,' but I say to you, 'Do your duty.' The State says to you, 'Violate your oaths and convict them now,' and that doctrine is preached by the public prosecutor in a community where, above all things, the people should be taught respect for the administration of the law. Counsel then pa.s.sed to an examination of the testimony given by Dr. Moore.

He argued that even Dr. Moore could not a.s.sign any cause of death, and then made a frantic appeal to the jury, inquiring, 'Are you prejudiced against these men?' If the jury wants an excuse, those doctors say, we will throw you one. They seem to say we know what you think; we know what you want to do and what you are ready to do, and all that is needed is for us to throw out a suspicion.

DR. MOORE'S TESTIMONY RECALLED.

"Dr. Moore said Dr. Cronin did not die from blood letting, because he died before he could have bled to death," remarked Mr. Hynes.

"It is just as well that you should quote that to the jury."

"That doesn't matter," roared Mr. Forrest. "Moore says that he might have died and possibly would have died from concussion or contusion of the brain, but he does not dare say that he did die from it. He throws no more light on the cause of death than did the others. His evidence was the most extraordinary, and the conclusion he arrived at as to why there was contusion of the brain was also most extraordinary, and although it must be a very tiresome proceeding to you, gentlemen, I am compelled to comment upon it and go into it at some length."

Counsel then read copious extracts from the testimony of Dr. Moore, remarking that that doctor reminded him of a celebrated man named Bogardus, who had written a book upon the theory that all disease could be cured by blood-letting and hot water. "He practiced his theory, but by and by his patients began to die, and wherever he went the undertaker followed. His friends complained to him and said: 'You had better give up your theory.' 'Can't give it up,'

said the doctor. 'Don't care how many die; I have written a book and have a theory, and must sustain it.' So with the indictment of the State's Attorney. 'I have written an indictment; it is my theory and has got to be sustained, right or wrong, in spite of the law and evidence, and you give me a jury which is excited and I will get some one to swear to something, and that will be enough.

My theory must be sustained.' Are you gentleman ready to violate your oaths by sustaining it?"

NO PROOF OF THE CAUSE OF DEATH.

"We have in evidence that the brain was disintegrated. 'I do not find,' said the doctor, 'any indication of brain disease, because the brain was too far disintegrated.' He did find concussion and contusion of the brain, yet there was no evidence of that. If the brain was so far disintegrated that they could not tell one thing, how could they tell the other? Of course he could not tell whether he died of brain disease, yet he could, although there was no evidence, swear that the man died of concussion of the brain. I asked him whether he could discover brain diseases by the naked eye, and he said no, that it would require microscopical examination, and yet he did not make the examination required. Dr.

Andrews says you can not possibly tell the cause of death from that post-mortem examination, and that is the position that all the other doctors occupy in the case. I say to you, therefore, that the indictment should have read for causing his death in an unknown way, and then men would not have had to strain their consciences and could have answered the question intelligently. Are we not to have conscience in this matter at all? The law should be executed in this country as it is in England. There is no place in the world where there is so much respect for law as there is there, and there is no place in the world where they so uniformly execute the strict letter of the law, no matter what the consequence may be. The witnesses therefore have disposed of both the internal and external evidences, and the doctors have told you they can not possibly tell you what the cause of death was. Now, if the doctors say they can not, can you? But, says the State's Attorney, you have got to sustain my theory. Now, I ask you gentlemen, as twelve law-abiding men, twelve men who look me straight in the face--you twelve men told me you would try my client according to the law and the evidence--if the Court tells you the cause of death must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, I ask you how on your consciences you can find these prisoners guilty, and even without the testimony of Drs.

Andrews and Moyer? The G.o.d's truth is that no man can tell the cause of death. No man can tell how he was killed, whether the wounds caused death or whether he died from contusion or concussion of the brain. There is nothing in the evidence about blood letting, and there is nothing about concussion or contusion of the brain, and I ask you to keep to your contracts with the law and with your G.o.d, and to follow it, no matter where it leads you. You and I would risk our lives for the defense of Illinois if she were in peril. We are not cowards; we fear neither the hooting of crowds nor bullets while we are doing our duty. You care nothing for the mob, nor do I, and Illinois now says to you, do your duty on your conscience. I demand it of you and you can not give me less. Now, everything that was put in the notes was put in the hypothetical question which we submitted to our medical men, and Drs. Moyer, Andrews and Curtis tell you distinctly that it is impossible, from the description of the wounds and the notes taken at the post-mortem, to tell what the man died of. They corroborate the other witnesses that the cause of death was uncertain. How much evidence do you want? There is not only a reasonable doubt, but we have proved beyond possibility of doubt that you can not tell the cause of death. Now, gentlemen, your duties are important, and you will be required to carry them out.

"You will remember that early in the case the State's Attorney said dates are important, and they are of vital importance. Dr. Moore closed the evidence as to the cause of death on October 26th, and he and the other physicians all swear that you can not tell whether the wounds were ante or post mortem. Now what do they do? Instead of going to Dr. Fenger or other prominent medical men and asking their opinion, what do they do? They know that if they ask the opinion of eminent medical men they might be told that the boys had made a mistake, and, therefore, they say we represent the people of the State of Illinois; we represent the right wing of the Clan-na-Gael and we will show you a trick. You remember that on October 31st they discovered this witness, Mrs. h.o.e.rtel, who testified that the wounds were committed before death. They could not get any one to swear that the doctors were right, but they had got their theory that it took place in the Carlson cottage; they have got their men from Millbank prison, they have the Clan-na-Gael back of them and they say 'We will show you something.' Now, you see why we proved that we did not get that name of Mrs. h.o.e.rtel before the 31st of October. Mr. Clan-na-Gael, you may be cunning, but you are tracked into your den at last. I told you to look out for the Clan-na-Gael. Don't you see how important it was? I can not tell you whether those wounds were inflicted before or after death; the doctors can not tell you. The State well knows that it can not get any such evidence from any doctors, and therefore they say we will show you that he was murdered. On October 26th they sent out their German spies, or I will apologize for that and say detectives. Schuettler goes out, and Hoefig goes out, and a lot of others, and they look into the highways, byways and hedges of the city, and finally they find a woman who can swear that she saw the Doctor enter the cottage, heard the blows inflicted, heard him cry, 'Oh, G.o.d,' 'Oh, Jesus,' and then heard the dying moans. I believe you can talk about this murder being awful, you can say that we did not denounce the Doctor's murder, but that has been done sufficiently all over the world, and the whole world has fixed the responsibility for it on the head of my client, but I will tell you right here in your court-house, in the name of the law and justice, they would commit a legal murder to sustain a theory and a blunder.

The whole thing was made necessary by the original blunder. Dates are of importance.

"Now, gentlemen, that is all I have got to say about the cause of death. Did I not tell you that those witnesses were remarkable witnesses? They turned up just at a good time, and the State's Attorney calls it providence. It seems to me that some men can appeal to G.o.d by day and rely upon the devil by night as easily and as unceremoniously as Mansfield can act the double part in 'Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.'"

"Let us talk common sense. You and I are citizens of Illinois. We are responsible for the good name and honor of Illinois or her shame. We know our families are here, and we are ready to stand up for her and give our lives for her if necessary. We intend to uphold the law, but you can not uphold the law by any such testimony as has been introduced in this case. You laugh at my catch-basin, some of you; I did not know what they wished these catch-basins might be, and you don't know. They never examined into that, and yet it is highly probable that from the condition that body was in, from its position, with the head being down and the feet up, and from the evidence of the men who told you that when they attempted to pull the body up it slipped back, it is physically possible that those very wounds on the scalp might have been made while pulling the body out. If there had been a tin oyster can or anything like that at the bottom of the catch-basin when the body slipped back, it would have made just such wounds, and in that case, or even if they were made by the bricks and hard mortar, the skull would not have been scratched, and the skull was not scratched."

Mr. Forrest then undertook to trace the course of the wagon from the cottage to where the trunk was found, and said the men must have gone over ten miles instead of going about two and a half miles, in order that the wagon must be brought to the Carlson cottage. Unless that could have been established in some way, one link in the chain of evidence would be gone. The State said they wanted to get on paved streets, yet as a matter of fact they went on unpaved streets. After spending some considerable time in going over the route alleged to have been taken by the wagon with the trunk, Mr. Forrest had the trunk brought in and proceeded to point out to the jury the defects in regard to the State's evidence in regard to that trunk. He alleged that all the blood stains could be made with a half a pint of blood judiciously distributed; that the marks on the lock showed that it had been pried off from the outside, and urged upon the jury that it would have been impossible for the three men to have kicked open the trunk from the rear in order to dump the body into the catch-basin without bending the hasp in front. The key, he insisted, was found by a trunk-maker, and that the whole thing was a fabrication by men who had been employed to get up a plausible story.

THINKS THE EVIDENCE WAS MANUFACTURED.

"And bear in mind, gentleman, that the men who had control of the lock, the Lake View men, were in the house--were in the Carlson cottage before Lorch. Schuettler enters the house, examines it and leaves it; Wing enters there, 'examines' it and leaves it, and then they send Lorch there, and they tell him to look about the cottage.

Gentlemen, mark you, they tell him to look, and there right in the middle of the cottage, under some kind of furniture, they find a key. Now he tries to correct himself; he sees it is a most important matter; he tries to correct himself as to dates. Now then, gentlemen, there was a pot of paint in the house, and the paint is daubed on two or three inches thick. There is the paint; a whole pot of it right in the house. The pot of paint in the house of course accounts for the daubing on the floor; that is why it was put there.

"Then we have the trunk question; the key must be lost in order to account for the breaking open of the trunk. But, gentlemen, that trunk might easily have been broken open by simply throwing it down on the sidewalk, without any force at all, and it would have broken open of itself without being kicked open at all. But, gentlemen, for finding the key which fits the lock on the trunk, that, gentlemen, may account for the fact that the top of the trunk was broken off. Mr. Foster alluded to the confused way in which Officer Lorch fixes his dates as to the finding of the key, and to the fact that while Lorch could tell what he was doing on half a dozen days on both sides of May 25th, he could not tell what he was doing on May 25th. Now, as regards the paint upon this key. Just take a look at it, examine both sides of it, and you will see from the even edges of the paint that it was held by one end and the other dipped in. This side is rubbed off a little, you see, but it is evident it was dipped in. Dipped in, gentlemen. Well, did the police do it? I don't know, you don't know. But there is one circ.u.mstance that can not fail to strike you forcibly, namely, that the lid was evidently broken off from behind while the hasp and lock remain intact. This is evidence which in itself contradicts the theory of the State that the top of the trunk was torn off in order to get the body out of it. Gentlemen, this is an attempt to counterfeit the truth, but it is hard to counterfeit truth. G.o.d Almighty has so made it that it is hard to counterfeit it. You can not sink the truth. You can not cover it up. It is like a buoy in the water. It may be sunk under the surf ace for a short time, but when you come to stir the water by cross-examination, it will surely come to the surface again. It is hard to counterfeit the truth."

PERHAPS THE POLICE KILLED CRONIN.

"If Dr. Cronin was killed in there, in that cottage, and his body placed in the trunk, and if his murderers afterward painted that floor, they must have found that key there. They must have known that the key was lost; they must have been desirous of finding it, and if they had painted that floor, and the key was lying there, they must have found it. They would have looked pretty carefully for it and yet, lo and behold! there, right in the middle of the floor, it is found by Officer Lorch. But remember Schuettler had been there, Wing had been there, the whole Carlson family had been there, from the 21st to the 24th of May, three whole days before Lorch found it. Do you think that the Carlson family went around there and never touched any thing? I don't know; I hardly think you do. Now, right in the middle of the floor, under a washstand or some other piece of furniture, the key was found, and of all the men in the world to find it who should it be but an officer who had been a trunkmaker who found it. Lorch, whose business is trunkmaking, was the man who found it. He had worked in a trunk factory, and when he found the key, as he says, he worked for some time in order to get it to fit. Of course a carpenter might have found it, a molder might have found it, a stone mason might have found it; but of all the suspicious circ.u.mstances in the world, the most suspicious in connection with the finding of this key was the fact that it was found by a trunkmaker."

DID NOT TRACE THE WAGON.