The Rutland weekly globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-05-23

fessed the deed. On Saturday a large body
OF men continued the search of the
premises, but did not succeed in finding the
body Sunday crowds of people focked in
from every direction About Il A NJ. one
party discovered, in the ashes of bonfire.
some brass screws, plates, &C., which were
thought to belong to Hulcher's machine. |
AT o'clock p. NJ. intelligence arrived of the
finding, on May 7, by the roadside, in the
town of Coxsacl1ie, twelve miles mort, of
the Waltz farm, a part of the grirAng ma
chine. A letter was tackled to me telegraph
pole above it, confcssing nc murder of the
scissors grinder, and containing rambling
account of the school house robbcries which
occurred i'm this town last winter. The
letter avoWcd that these crimes were COM
mitted by number of confederates. The
object OF this letter was to avert suspicion,
but it resulted in completing the chain of
circumstantial evidence The handwriting |
was identified as that of young Waltz. |
Search of the premises continued. Finally |
some of the stolen school fixtures were
found under the barn floor, and the book
from which the paper was torn for this let
ter was found in the room of young Waltz.
This discovery finally broke him down, and
would TRcyh the the f Sn ne
the farm. He made complete circuit NJ
the farm, accompanied by a large crowd.
put returned ~ the house without making
any statement. An hour later he VJlun-
teered full confession of tho murder, and
eXoneratcd the old people We find the
confession in the ARMS as follows:
"On Thursday, the LIST of May, the scs-
sors grinder came to our house; | was
down in the lot; after we had taken supper
father and mother went to bed, and in lit
tie while after lIulcher also went to bed
for long time | sat up alone, and then
went to my room and opened my Testament
and read chapters then l blew out the
light and lay down, but could not sleep
an evil spirit came over me, and my soul
was filled with dark thoughts; the tempa-
ton was terrible; | could not rcsist | got
up and stole carefully out of doors to where
| knew there was Il hatchct; taking this
weapon in my hand / crawled back to my
room and lighted a lamp; IIuchcr was
asleep; | set the lamp on the floor; my
conscience fought with all its might not to
do the act, but the evil spirit was stronger;
l took up the hatchet and struck lIulcher
on the head with the hammer part; he
made little noise; l then struck him twice
with the blade, he struggled little and then
died; he bled good deal took the body
out alone past the barn to the stone wall
and then covered it up with few blankets
and some other stuff; left the body there
all next day; the next night when father
and mother were in bed, went to work and
dug hole and put the body into it, and
| prayed for the mans soul: | felt better
then; | cleaned up the blood in the house
] nm hn cntn tntl, . L. Al,
morning that the scissors grinder had stolen
the blanket with which covered up the
body; | found in the dead mans pocket
sixty or seventy dollars in bills and curren-
cy and some silver coin; took the machine
down behind the fence; | locked up his bell
in my trunk; on Sunday night, three nights
afterwards, went up the road on foot near
CoXsackie, and there left part of IIulcher's
machine, and nailed n letter to the tele-
graph pole; | burned his clothes and
boots"
Aftcr making this statement, Joseph
Waltz led the officers to point in the plum
orchard, about three hundred feet in the
rear OF the house, where the body was found
buried in shallow grave. The remains
were rolled up in blanket and were much
discolored. Three large wounds were in the
| forehead. The watch and money were
|
house, where Waltz said he had secrcted
them.
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE MURDERER.
interviewed Walt and held ' the i,is: no
| interesting conversation with linn A
| took good look at nina tall, mus
cular looking man, with rather long hair,
and light beard and whiskers, eyes very
bright, but not sharp or intellectual, teeth
white and even, of light complexion and
slow, uneven speech Joseph Waltz looked
more the simpleton than the knave, al
though he may be and perhaps is the latter
Well, Joseph, how do you feel this af-
ternoon?" l ventured.
" Very well. Just wait a minute please"
and he then stepped one side, brought his
stool to the door, and seating himself upon
1t continued: 81 am all right. How is
everything with your"
This is rather a bad fix YOU have got
into; What possessed you to commit this
deed 2"
II don't know that myself some evil
spirit | suppose"
odd you bear Hucher any i'll will were
you angry with him, and did he ever vex
or annoy you?"
mo, never we were friends. | have
been to his house in Albany and he always
treated me well My story is long one,
and am willing to confess all my mis-
deeds but it would take a long time to tell
them"
"Well, never mind tell me if you wish;
| am patien L."
where did you come from, did you
say
Il resde in Albany I am from the Al
bany Eoening Erpress"
''Well, then, | will tell you, but hear me
| tlrDlHl nIpngp lpInrp
must know am very fond of reading, so
some time ago one dark night, entered n
school house and stole all the books could
get hold of. | took them home and read
them, getting much pleasure from Them
but was always uncomfortable, knowing
that they were stolen, but no one suspected
me, and then later burglarized another
school house and took the books from there
and hid them, and when | wanted them to
read, took them out. Until l did these
things | never had committed any serious
offense, but endeavored to lead Christian
life, but once begun | continued, and not
long ago
l BURNED A SCHOOL HOUSE,
but it was by accident. 1t was in the
village of Leeds, over there by the noun
tains, and had gone in one night
to steal books, when lighting my candle
and putting it between two sticks it fell and
set the school house on fire and burned il
down. Then came the scissors grinder to
the house and killed him. Here Wlatz
went into minute details, giving the cir
cumstances of the murder just as have
narrated it above, after this he continued
| took the body out that night, covered it
up, and arranging things in the room said
nothing, but my father thinking that the
scissors grinder had stolen our best blanket
went after the police to get him arrested
Well, the next night, when father and
mother had gone to bed | crept out, and
going to the wall picked up the body and
carrying it out into the field dug a ditch
and buried il when that was done | fell
on my knees by the side of the grave and
prayed for an hour and n half that God
a.-L.lall Laa.n