The morning news., 1889-03-15
HOW TAsCOTT MADE HIS ESCAPE.
The True Story of the Way the Chicago
Murderer Fled that City.
From the Nelo York Star,


CHICAGO, March 10.-The announcement
this morning that Tascott, the murderer of
Millionaire Smell, had been betrayed by an
acquaintance to whom he had written, and
who was tempted by the $50000 reward,
startled Chicago There have been many
such rumOrs before, but they have only
lived long enough to be denied. This one,
however, seems founded on fact.
There has been an investigation lately
which establishes the fact that Tascott not
only had a partner, but that he was a car
penter. 1t is known that Tascott himself
had no mechanical ingenuity or training
whatever, and that he knew nothing about
fine work with tools. The job of bit boring
in the panel of the rear door in the Smell
house, though, showed the work of a master
hand. The safe was also opened by some
one who understood his business, and no
one would undertake anything of
that kind, especially when he would
have to work with his back
toward door leading out into a hallway,
without trusty "pal" on guard to pre-
vent surprise and capture. Strong as these
points are in showing that two men were
in the house that night, the fact that two
bullets of different sizes were found in
Mr.. SHELLS body is much stronger. One
wound was near the top of the head and
the other below the heart, and it would
have been almost an impossibility for one
man to have fired both the shots.
But, more than that, there is something
more than suspicion as to who this second
man is. The family over whose move
ments A J. Stone, son-in-law of the muir
dered millionaire, is having such q close
watch kept is that of a carpenter who mys-
teriously disappeared a few weeks ago. At
the time of the tragedy this carpenter lived
in q suburb of the city, and thongh he
never did much work at his trade, he was
generally well supplied with money, and
was in the habit Of making frequent trips
away from home Shortly after
at Mrs. Wicks' one OF the car
penter's neighbors, who has known Willie
since childhood, reported to the police that
he had seen the young man fitting about
the carpenters house. The dwellings are 50
close together that a person with sharp eyes
can readily see from the windows of one
we'll into the rooms of the other unless the
blinds are down. The police searched the
house after some resistance from dog,
which kept up an incessant barking, but
they found no Tascott. A few days later
they got another tip and went there again,
only to be met by the same barking dog and
defeat:
But the fugitive was there all the time
This was made plain when, after the car
penter had sold the house and moved into
the city, an inspection showed the very
nest in which Tascott had hidden himself
away. Whenever the approach of stran-
gers was heralded by the dog. Tascott
would go into the cellar, and, squeezing
through over the sill, drop out under the
front porch, where he could lie in safety
until the search was over No one would
dream of looking for him i'll such place,
and he couldn't have had safer spot.
But after while it became necessary to
make a move. The neighbors were getting
more than suspicious and were liable TO
drop in with a surprise party, SO one dark
night when old Jupiter Pluvius was hard at
work Tascott was taken into the city and
stored away I'm an old lumber room in the
attic of his fathers paint shop on Canal,
near Kinzie street. which by that time, the
detectives had grown weary OF searching.
Here he lived for some time, as a bed and
other evidences of habitation afterward
found there attested.
1t was about that time that the valise and
iewelry were discovered at st. Paul, and
while nearly all the de ectives In the coun-
try were securing the northwest for the
owner of the pledged property he very
quietly slipped out Of Chicago and was soon
in place Of safety.
The goods were pawned in st. Paul for
that very purpose, but the police didn't
know it for long afterward. They were
sent there by a trusty friend OF the hunted
man and "planted" SO that the detic tives
could find them, and thus be thrown on
false scant