The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1893-05-11


ance swindle inz Kansas has beeE
found. The attorney for the Mutual
Life Insurance company, which with
the New York Life Insurance company
and the Connecticut Mutual company,
carried the $4,000 insurance which
Hillmon had on his life when he disap-
peared in 1878, in an interview said:
1--WE have at last
Found RiIlmon Alive
and we'll and know exactly where we
can lay our hands on him. After a
search extending over Is years he has
been finally traced to the Pacific coast
and he has made clean breast of the
whole affair"
The story of the case involves the
murder of an innocent man to provide
a corpse, wholesale perjury and a host
of other crimes. Hillmon was "a years
of age when he disappeared from
Medicine Lodge, Kan, IN 1913. He had
always been poor man, and when 1t
was found that he had left insurance
policies aggregating $40, 600 the suspic-
ions of the companies were aroused and
they contested the claim Of Hillmon's
alleged widow to the money. The
corpse, which was said to be Rillmon's
was identified by many supposedly re-
putable witnesses, but when it was
afterward exhumed, on the cempany's
order, Hillmon's neighbors declared it
was not his, and his wife, in giving a
description OF her husband, failed to
describe the corpse.
The company fought the claim
on these grounds. The case was tried
three times. The first and second time
the jury disagreed, and the third time
a verdict was rendered in favor of the
plaiatiff.
New Evidence Discovered.
New evidence was now discovered
that decided the company to argue for
a new trial.
On March II, 1879, man was shot
and killed in a desolate lumber camp
on Crooked creek by john Fl, Brown, a
partner of Hillmon's, who claimed the
shooting was accidental. He notified a
farmer near by, who went with him to
view the body. The dead mans head
lay near the fire, and his head had
been burned, destroying his features
partly. Brown said the man was Hill
mon and the body was buried. Brown
afterward confessed that he had en-
tered into a conspiracy in December,
1878, with .Hillmon and Levi Baldwin
to defraud the life insurance companies
by insuring Hillon's life. Baldwin was
to furnish the money and Hillmon and
Brown were to manage the disappear
ance of the former. They started for
Wichita and on the way picked up a
strange man named Joe Berkeley.
This man, Brown alleged, was shot
by Hillmon, who dressed the corpse in
his own clothes and put his diary in his
pocket. Hillmon put ON Berkeley's
clothing, and, saying that there twas a
corpse ready made toimpersonate him,
left the camp. He told Brown that he
would assume the name of Marshall
and lay low until they got the money
on the policies.
.. Confession a Fake.
After Brown had made this confes-
sion it was discovered that he had lied.
The dead man was not Joe Berkeley,
but Frederick Adolph Walters, young
German cigarmaker of Fort Madison,
Ia, who had gone to Lawrence in 1878,
and who disappeared about the same
time that Hillmon did. This brought
the matter down to a plain case oil
murder in which Jehn II. Brown and
Hillmon were the principals, with Levi
Baldwin and Mrs. Hillmon as acces.
series before the fact. That was the
condition of the case when the argu.
ment for new trial was made by the
insurance companies. -...
In the meantime Mrs. Hillmon had
travelled much, and the companies con,
Guided that by following her they could
find her husband. This clue failed, as
She Married Again.
However, the detectives employed by
the insurance people kept steadily al
work ON the case and finally succeeded
in running down the principal in the
swindle. It is understood that he con.
sented readily enough to make clean
breast of the affair in order to clear
himself of the charge that he had killed
Walters. This crime according to the
detectives, he lays at Browns door
The latter has been kept under sur
veillance, and it probable that all the
conspirators will be brought up on
criminal charges if the insurance com
panies make good their claims regard
ing the identity Of the man who has
been identified as Hillmon.