The Portland daily press., 1893-05-10
A CORPSE READY MADE.
Murder and Perjury Figure in
This Insurance SWindle.
THE CHARGES WHICH ATTORNEYS
SAY THEY CAN PROVE.

The Hi1lmon Case which Has Been Fam
GUS III Kansas for Fifteen Years-HiIl-
mon Who Was Claimed to Have Died,
Said to Have Been Found and to Have
Confessed-A Man Murdered to Carry
Out the Swindle.
NEW YORK, May 9.-The Times saws
that John W. Hillmon, the chief conspir-
ator in the famous 'Hillmon insurance
swindle" in Kansas, has been found The
attorney for the Mutual Life Insurance
Company, which with the New York Life
and Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance
Companies, carried the SAC, 900 insurance
which Hillmon had on his life when he
disappeared in 1878, and which his rela-
tives have been trying to collect ever
since, in an interview yesterday said:
I'VE have at last found Hillmon alive
and well and know exactly where we can
lay hands on him. After search ex-
tending over Is years lac has been finally
traced to the Pacific coast, and he has
made clean breast of the whole af-
fair.'
So famous has the Hillmon case be-
come that it was used by S. Fl. Snider.
the superintendent of insurance of Kan
sas, to Justify his order that insurance
litigation must hereafter be conducted
only in the Kansas state courts by for
eign corporations. In the past the COM
panies have, it was charged, generally
transferred their suits to the Federal
courts, involving long contests, and usu-
ally wearing the claimants out. Mr..
Snider pointed to the Hillmon case as an
instance where the widow had been ssun-
justly kept out of her money by long
and narrowing court contests in the Fed
eral tribunals. The story Of the case in
wolves the murder of an innocent man
to provide a corpse, wholesale perjury
and host of other crimes. Hillmon
was "a years old when he disappeared
from Medicine Lodge, Kan, in 1878. He
had always been poor man, and when
itwas found that he had left life insur-
ance policies aggregating $40, 900 the sus-
picions OF the companies were aroused
mons alledged widow to the money. 1t
was found that Levi Baldwin of Tongo-
noxie, Kan, a cousin of Hillmon's wife.
had taken out the policies. Baldwin
was bankrupt, and the case was
rendered more serious by the fact
that he could not possibly have
paid the yearly premiums on the
policies If Hillmon had lived. The
corpse which was said to be Hillmon's.
was identified by many supposedly re-
putable witnesses, but when it was after
ward exhumed on the company's order,
Hillmon's neighbors declared it was not
his, and his wife, in giving description
of her husband, failed to describe the
corpse. The company fought the claim
ON these grounds. The case was tried
r teron he 4 -.
the jury disagreed, and the third time a
verdict was returned in favor of the
plaintiff. An appeal was taken.
When the body alleged to be that OF
Hillmon was exhumed at Medicine
Lodge, warrant was issued for the ar
rest of Brown, his partner, as it was al
legged that he had killed man so as to
provide corpse for the insurance claim.
Brown ran away to Texas, and another
was issued for the apprehension of Levi
Baldwin, Mrs. Hillmon's cousin, who
had obtained the policies. He also ran
away and did not return until the case
had been tried the third time and decid-
ed in Mrs. Hillmon's favor. Brown re-
turned soon afterwards, and confessed
that he had entered into conspiracy In
December, 1876, with Hillmon and Levi
Baldwin to defraud the life insurance
companies by insuring Hillmon's life.
Baldwin was to furnish the money and
Hillmon and Brown were to manage the
of the former. They start
ed for Wichita and on the way picked
up strange man named Joe Berkeley,
This man, Brown alleged, was shot BY
Hillmon, who dressed the corpse in his
own clothing and put his diary in his
pocket. Hillmon put on Berkeley's
clothing and, saying that there twas
corpse ready made" to impersonate him,
he left the place. He told Brown that he
would assume the name of Marshall and
ay low until they got the money on the
policies. After Brown had made this
confession it was discovered that he had
led. The dead man was not
Joe Berkeley, but Frederick
Adolph Walters, young German
Of Fort Madison, Iowa, who had gone to
Lawrence in 1878 and who disappeared
about the same time that Hillmon died.
This brought the matter down to plain
Ease of murder, In which John r. Brown
Ind Hillmon were the principals, with
Levi Baldwin and Mrs. Hillmon as ac-
Detectives employed by the
insurance people kept steadily at work
IN the case, and finally succeeded in
running down tine principal in the
'windle. 1t is understood that he con-
'ented readily enough to make d clean
breast of the affair in order to clear HIM
'elf of the charge that he had killed.
Walters. This crime, according to the
detectives, he lays at Browns door. All
he consspirators will be brought up i'm