The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-01
ON THE WRONG SCENT
The Chase After Radloff Seems
to Grow Very Cold.
MRS. RADLoFF's CLEVER GAME.



The police are still in the dark as to the
whereabouts of Radloff, and now a grave
doubt Is entertained as to whether he will
be captured. It is thought that Mrs. Rad
LOFT has effectually pulled the wool over
the eyes of the police in her claims that
she knows where her husband is. For
over week Detective Cudihee is said to
have been following clues in California,
and every man who spoke with a German
accent and who had a face like an italian
has been tracked and run to earth.
Wednesday dispatch was sent to Cudi-
hee by Chief Jackson, calling the detec-
tive home. He arrived in town last night
and it is now believed the police have
given up the hunt for Radloff.
Kostrauch's description of how Radlof
mutilated the body of Levin before he set
fire to the house is not believed by Mrs.
Radlof; and she says:
RadloR could never do that If the dead
mans head was crushed in and his legs cut of
Kostrauch did 1t himself. Ny husband Is cold
blooded in many ways, but he never could do
anything like that. He il what some men would
call . chicken-hearted individual Kostrauch
planned the scheme and was the first one to
propose it, as well as the first one to expose It
Mrs. Radlof went out to the site of her
burned home yesterday afternoon to look
after the property. On the place were, at
the time the house was burned, several
hundred fine chickens. Radloff was quite
chicken fancier, and before his fertile
brain Matched the diabolical scheme which
has made him fugitive from justice he
occupied his time stocking his place with
fowls of fine breeds. Mrs. Radloff went
out to the place several days ago and
found that some one had stolen about half
Of the chickens, and so yesterday she
again went out and engaged several men
to catch the remaining fowls and coop
them up. Today she will ship them to
her parents farm at Lake Bay. Monday
she will go to Tacoma and visit her sister
for day or two and then return to Seattle.
The New York Times says that it ID be-
lieved at the offices of the New York Life
Insurance Company that Mr.. Thayer, the
company's Northwestern agent, was
chiefly instrumental in unearthing Rad
lofts scheme. 1t then tells of two similar
attempts to swindle life insurance COM
panies, as follows:
One of the most celebrated swindles of this
kind, and one in which the man who at first
died by proxy was afterward murdered In real
ity by his confederate, was that of Winfield
Scott Goss young mechanic of Baltimore
In December, 1871, Goss, who already carried
policy OF 5000 on his life, was persuaded by
William E. Uddersook, his brother-in-law, who
provided the brains of the conspiracy, to take
out additional policies, aggregating in all
$4,000. No sooner had this been done'than
Goas, under the direction of Udderzook, hired a
shanty little way out Of Baltimore, giving out
hat he nfyuv ia lsh utrpw to-
the invention of an artificial india rubber. On
the evening OF February 2. 1872, the laboratory
was burned down, and in the ruins were found
the remains Of man who was next day identi.
fed a. Goss BY his vile, brother and Udderzook.
Mrs. Goss applied for payment on the policies,
but the insurance companies. who did not relish
the idea OF parting with such sum and who
suspected something wrong, set rigid investi-
CATION on foot The result was the forging of q
chain of circumstantial evidence proving that
Goss and Udderzook had procured q body from
some poorhouse or cemetery, had carried it to
the shanty, and, after saturating 1t with coal
oil, had set fire to the place. Goss had disguised
himself and gone to Philadelphia.
The companies refused to pay the claim. The
widow promptly brought suit, and the COM
panies were ordered to pay. ThW appealed, and
before the case came again toetrial the dead
body OF a murdered man was by accident dis.
covered at a distant spot In Chester county, Pa.
1t did not take long to prove that this body was
that Of Winfield Scott Goss, who had been lured
to the spot and murdered BY his brother-in-law,
Undertook. The murderer afterward expiated
his crime on the seafiold, and the insurance
companies saved their money.
Another case of the same nature, interesting
from the fact that 1t still remains on the calen.
OAR for decision by the supreme court. and that,
as in Radiotfs case, the New York Life and the
Mutual Life are two of the companies on which
the swiudle was worked, IL that of John w.
Hillman aud John II. Brown. Hillman, while
in Kansas, took out policies his life for s25,-
600, $40, 600 being from the Mutual Life, $4,000
from the New York Life and 5000 from another
company. Soon after this he, in company with
his brother-in-law. Brown, went prospecting
through Kansas In the course Of their explora-
ton they eamped outside Medicine Lodge.
One day Brown came into the town greatly
agitated, and, delivering himself into the hands
OF the mayor stated that in drawing his rifle
from the wagon, the weapon had exploded,
blowing Hillman's head almost Of A party
head being as Brown said, almost unrecogni1-
able from the nature OF the wound. The body
was buried under the name of Hillman
When the heirs applied for payment on the
policies the insurance companies refused pay.
ment saying they had discovered that the body
not that of Hillmau, but of man named
Walters, whom this precious pair had inveigled
into prospecting with them and had murdered.
Hillman has not been heard of since, while
Brown, who at one time broke down and con-
fessed to the crime, but afterward declared that
he had been led so TO do uuder false preteuces,
has since been pressing the case against the
companies, without. as has been stated, any
definite result on either side.