The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1894-11-01

Expected to kill All tue Passengers ana
Train Crew and Then Loot the Express
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 a prellmin-
ary 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. Z.
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 a large sum of money. The man
who confessed is Levitt Hazleton, about
20 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. 21 they broke
into and stole an oil coat and overcoat at
the tool house at Prentice That night
they sawed a bridge near that place, but
| owing to the short time in which they had
| to do the work 1t was not complete, and
| the train passed safely over it.
The men were arrested on Oct. IL, and
were sentence 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 Paysor, District Attor-
ney Anderson and +. X. Holze. Hazleton
said:
"About dark we set to work with the
purpose of wreCking a passenger train so
that we could rob the express car. Week
pected the wreck to be much worse than it
was We expected that the cars would be
all thrown from the track, smashed up
| and the passengers and train crew all
killed, so that we would have no one to
| prevent us lTOlll ttoIllpllSIlug OuT puI-
pose We thought mostly of the money
we could get, and not the loss Of life.
"We began work west of the center of
the bridge We cut all the stringers across
the bridge and two sets of them ut 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 the 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 tho crash
| came.
"Then we walked westward to the point
| where the wreck was We heard scmo
J one crying: Are you hurtY 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, AID went into hay barn.
We remained there three days and then
started for Morrill,"