The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-05-21
BLANTHER'S COMRADE.
He Makes an Official Statement Of
His Connection With the

George Dodge, the associate of Joseph
Blanther and the man who, it has been
claimed, knew most about the Langfeldt
murder aside from the murderer himself,
on Tuesday told of his connection with the
affair, and his story was published in
yesterdays issue of this paper.
The young man was, as an innocent,
dragged into the case through his kind
feeling for man he believed to be honor
able and well meaning but penniless.
He told how he assisted Blanther finan-
cially, and how, at the last moment, he
acted as business agent in the disposing of
diamonds which it subsequently developed
had been stolen from the cold corpse of
Mrs. Philippine Langfeldt.
Since the full publication of Dodge
statement, Captain Lees has decided to
present to the public the official one OBJ
tanned by him from Dodge, which tells the
same story told in THE CALL, but with
more detail. 1t is as follows:
met Mr.. Blanthcr at the residence of Mr..
Hogan, 222 Haight street, where he was room
ing and boarding at the time, about three
months ago. My acquaintance with him con-
sisted of meeting and talking with him at the
house and meeting him downtown. He would
Invite me to lunch with him and always
seemed TO have lots of money and was very
generous and insiste upon paying for every
thing; nothing further though than lunches
and occasionally cigars. l became interested
in him when / learned that he was news
paper and magazine writer, as had some as
pirations in that line, and he suggested several
times to take a room with him downtown, or
somewhere where it would be convenient, and
we could work together in our literary work
and that he would assist me all he could.
One day, about three weeks after i had met
him, l went to Hogan's house and learned that
he had disappeared. afterward learned that
he had given two checks to Miss Hogan and a
Mrs. Gilbert for 1915, both of the checks being
bogus. His reason Tor borrowing the money
was that he said he wanted to get TO San Jose,
and that he expected money from the East,
and that he also had several trunks with valu-
able property in them, which were to be deliv-
cred as soon as he could pay the expressage.
did not pay much more attention to him, ex-
cept to inquire occasionally from the people
who claimed to have been taken in by him.
Ny memory as TO the time / first met him
and after he had disappeared is not very cer-
tain. / met him on Montgomery street one
| day, and was surprised to see him. He said
he had been to Portland. He told me he had
! had some financial trouble; that he had Dor
rowed some money from the Hogans; that he
did not like to go out to the house until he had
the money to pay them. He told me he had
just come out of Tebbs' Office the artist on the
Examiner, and he said he was broke and had
no money at all, SO invited him to my office
and afterward took him out to lunch, and left
him, and he said he would cali at the office
again TO see me, and he has been calling ever
since up to last Saturday morning.
| / learned from Tebbs that he had taken a
camera from him and that Tebbs had employed
one of the Morse detectives to get it back for
| him. He did not get the camera back Blan-
Their stating that he always left it at different
| places. / looked out for BlanIher to see that
he got his dinner and tried to encourage him
as much as could. He told me he was then
| living in Oakland in room and that he
here and get another room in the CITY saving
he would do great deal of work. sugges ted
that he should come over and l would do all i
could to find him work; that / knew the