The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1894-11-01
A FTENDIS CONFESSION.
Two Men Sawed a Railroad Bridge
to Cause a Wreck.
THEIR OBJECT WAS TO PLUMBER.

Expected TO XIII All the Passengers and
Car-one Man Was Killed, and They
Must Answer for Murder.
MERRILL, Wis, Nov. Wholesale
murder and express robbery was the mo-
tive that inspired the recent train wrecking
on the $500" road. Two men charged
with the murder of the man who lost his
life by their work were given prelimin-
airy hearing here yesterday and were held
for trial One OF the prisoners confessed,
and his story details the methods pursued
to derail the through Minneapolis Boston
limited near Hereford Junction on the
night Of Oct. 2.
In the crash Fireman Charles Cottrill
was instantly killed and Engineer James
Dutch seriously injured The plan was to
cause wreck that would kill every person
on the train and then rob the safe in the
express car, as 1t was supposed the safe
contained n large sum Of money. The man
who confessed is Levitt Hazleton, about
90 years old, claiming to be a resident Of
Brainerd, MINI. His companion is Frank
Williams, who claims to have relatives and
friends at Appleton, Wis. Williams
stoutly denies that he knows anything OF
the wreck.
The officers traced the men from Mime
apolis to this city. On Sept. 81 they broke
into and stole an oil coat and overcoat at
the tool house at Prentice. That night
they sawed bridge near that place, but
owing to the short time in which they had
to do the work it was not complete, and
the train passed safely over 1t. 4
The men were arrested on Oct. ii, and
were sentenced for thirty days for carrying
concealed weapons. Last Wednesday they
were taken before Court Commissioner
Helm and charged with the murder of
Fireman Charles Cottrill. They pleaded
not guilty, and their examination was set
for yesterday.
Last Friday Hazleton signifled his desire
to confess. His statement was taken be-
fore Ed Kleutze, notary public, in the
presence Of Sheriff Payser, District Attor-
ney Anderson and +. 4. Holze. Hazleton
said:
t'About dark we set to work with the
purpose of wrecking passenger train so
that we could rob the express car Week
pected the wreck to be much worse than 1t
was. We expected that the cars would be
all thrown from tho track, smashed up
and the passengers and train crew all
killed, so that we would have no one to
prevent us from accomplishing our pur-
pose. We thought mostly Of the money
we could get, and not the loss of life.
1--WE began work west of the center of
the bridge. We cut all the stringers across
the bridge and two sets of them at the ends,
and then sawed the piles or posts upon
which they rested. We also cut brace.
After train passed over we sawed the
outside post and the other brace, took the
bolts out of the fish plates, pulled the
spikes next to the fish plates and removed
the bolts from the fish plates at each end
of the rail- We waited at tho east end of
the bridge until the west bound passenger
train came and broke through the bridge.
We were on the south side of the track at
the east end of the bridge when the crash
came.
'Then we walked westward to the point
where the wreck was. We heard some
one crying: Are you hurtf' The other
man answered, "A little Then we heard
some one crying out again. We did not
want to hear more. A man was coming
toward us, and that scared us. We walked
away and went pretty near to the next
town on tho Chicago, Milwaukee and st.
Paul track, and went into a hay barn.
We remained there three days and then
started for Merrill"