The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-15
SHE WAS STRANGLED.
Durrant Believed to Have
Killed Her and Minnie
Williams.
ARRESTED AT WALNUT CREEK.
Minnie Williams Purse in His
Pocket-He Declares He Is
Innocent.

In the presence of the crimes which have
been committed under the roof of the Bap-
fist Emmanuel Church the hardest imagi-
nation recoils in dismay. Not one OF the
most terrible forms of degradation,
brutality, cruelty and deception are
found lacking in them. 1t IS the
story of the murder of two cOnspicuously
bright. innocent and lovable girls, IN
which the hand of assassination seems
to have been gloved by the most sa-
cred livingstone for man, confidence in
the holiness and purity of Christian faith
and, possibly, reliance on the skill and
honor of a physician. It was bad enough
that these elements seem to have been act
i've in the case; worse that the very sanct-
uary of infinite compassion should have
been chosen both as the shield and the
scene, and incredible that tortures of so
unreasonable cruelty should have been
employed in the deeds.
The hideous story opens with two girls
upon whom no maternal guidance was
laid. The first of these, Blanche Lamont,
was a wholesome, healthy girl of a strong,
well-hlled frame. She was attending
school, had romantic ideas and possibly
all of a foolish girls longing for strange
adventures. On the Sd of April she sud
denly dropped out of sight.
The second, Minnie Williams, was of
perfectly opposite type. She was of very
small and fraiI physique and was afflicted
with organic disorders that likely would
have made her life short. There was no
girlish romance in her composition. She
had witnessed the miserable causes that had
separated her parents, had herself suffered
the hard pangs which the discovery of a
lovers duplicity had forced upon her, and
had been driven from a position of COM
fort to perform mental service for a liveli-
hood. Thus had she been made wise and
hard beyond her years, and withal her
character was firm and self-reliant. Yet
this able girl, weak in body but strong Of
brain and will, was as helpless before this
monstrous evil as was the one of weak,
romantic and confding soul.
Last Saturday morning, ten days after
the disappearance of Blanche Lamont, the
body of Minnie Williams was found in the
Baptist Emmanuel Church by some ladies
who had gone thither to prepare the Easter
decorations. She had been murdered with
the most frightfuI atrocity. First she
had been choked by hand, then
garments had been pushed down INTO her
trachea with great violence, and a more
bulky piece of cloth thrust into her mouth
then her wrists were hacked with dull
knife in furious effort to open the arte-
ries, and last a brittle silver-plated table
knife had been driven again and again
into her breast, being broken to pieces in
the effort.
Then the disappearance of Blanche La
mont was remembered, and the police be-
gan a search of the church. Away up in
the belfry they found the body of the
missing girl, with deep and vicious finger
marks on the throat. Her clothing, torn
into shreds, was found hidden in the re-
moter places of the tower. There are cir
cumstances that lead to the belief that in
each case double crime had been COM
mitted.
The story then began to unfold itself
under the shrewd, prompt and highly in
telligent work of the police. The girls
were both members of Emmanuel Church
and were friends; both belonged to the
same class in Sunday-school; both had re-
ceived a lovers attention from Theo-
dore Durrant, medical student, liv-