Omaha daily bee., 1889-09-10
THE CARLSON COTTAGE FIND.
Events Which Led to the Discovery
of the Blood Stains.
THE TRUE STORY TOLD AT LAST
Policeman Robinson Relates the De-
tails and How Ho Was Snubb ed
by Superior Ohicers-The
Cronin Trial Dragging.
A New Story.

CHICAGO, Sept. 9.-It seems that although
q great deal of matter has been published
on the Croniu murder, the true story of the
discovery of the evidence at the Carlson cot
tage is now told for the first time. 1t Is
also singular that the reporters who were
working on the case neve or discovered that
on the night of May two men, now sup
posed to be Kunze and Cooney, were ar
rested, taken to Lake View station ana dis
charged in the morning by Captain Wing
A local paper stated recently there was a
certain Irish officer upon the Lake View po-
lice force suspected of direct implica-
tion in the case. Other similar state
ments were subsequently printed and
the officer finally determined to tell
his story. The officer is A. A. c. Robinson.
He has been on the Lake View police force
several years and has always borne good
reputation. He was not member of any
Irish secret society. AT different times be-
fore the murder Robinson noticed men going
in and out of the Carlson cottage and asked
Carlson about it. Carlson told him he had
rented the place to two men who expected to
move in. One night. MAY 8, Robinson saw a
man crawling out of the basement of the cot
tage, whom he now believes to have been
Burke. In reply to the officers queries he
said he was one of the renters and had been
looking in the basement with view to stor-
ing furniture. Robinson was not satisfied but
had no authority to arrest the man. The
next night he came upon two men talking to-
gether in front of a little real estate office
south of the Carlson cottage. They had the
door of the office open and wee talking
about hiding something under the floor One
OF them, who spoke in broken English with
a German accent, told the officer they had
lost their way and wanted to get down town.
He said they were printers and lived on the
West Side. Robinson asked them some
questions. The other man, who spoke with
an Irish accent. answered evasvely. Robin
son determined to arrest them, and as he
started for the patrol box man came from the
direction of SuIlivan's barn and demanded
to know what he was doing. Robin son recog
nized this person as the man he
had seen crawling from the
basement of the Carlson cottage
and answered sharply that if the stranger
said much he would take hun along too. The
man said no more and Robinson took his
printers to Jail, where they repeated their
story. In the morning they were released
on Captain Wings order, that officer saying
to Robinson: "What use IS there in sending
them to the Brldewell to cost the city % cents
Il day."
The two men thus discharged, it is now be-
lieved by Officer Robinson, were Kunze ana
Cooney. Their description answers that of
the two suspects very closely. At the time
DR.. CrOnin had been murdered Two nights
later Robinson said he saw one of the men
he had arrested coming out of the cottage
after midnight. He did not accost him be-
cause he considered he had been rebuked by
Captain Wing when the prisoners were dis
charged. Robinson talked with the neigh
bors about the matter, and concluded there
must have been crime commit
ted in the cottage. He told Carlson,
ana young Carlson went into the cottage and
saw the blood stains. The thought that Gro
min had probably been killed in the place
suggested itself to Robinson, and he told
Captain Wing of his suspicious. The CAPTAIN
listened to the story, but did nothing. Three
times in succession the officer claims to have
told Wing of his belief that Cronn was
killed in the cottage, but nothing was done
until week after Cronin's body was found,
when Lieutenant Schuttler who was sent
from Lake View heard of Robinson's sus-
picions and investigated the matter, and the
cottage story was made public.
Another officer at the station at Lake
View says he knows Kunze and that he was
not one of the two prisoners Robinson
brought in on the night of May l3. He also
says the prisoners were released by a patrol
sergeant, and not by Captain Wing.