The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-07-08
THORN TELLS OF HIS CRIME
SAID TO HAVE MADE 4 CONFESSION
 TO Al FRIEND.


 TO 4 FRIEND.
 The Latter Betrays the Alleged Murderer
 -Evidence in Support of the Confession
 The Prisoner Identified, Arraigned,
 and Held-To Drag for the Head in the
 River.
 New York, July 7-Acting Inspector O'Brien announced officially to-day that he had in custody Martin Thorn, the Pole suspected tfhe murder of Will liam Gueldensuppe, the bath rubber" and that he had also a full account of the crime, which the prisoner had con- fessed to one John Dolpha, a friend, through whom the arrest was made. The acting inspector sent Thorn off to the Jefferson Market court to be ar raigned on a charge of murder. and then sat down and told the story of the crime as Dolpha had repeated it to the police.
 It should be understoodd at the start that the prisoner denies his guilt. He has admitted nothing to the detectives and has tried to account for his where about throughout the days when the murder is supposed to have been com l mitted The acting inspector says sim ply that Thorn's alibi is not satisfac- | tory for Saturday a week ago, Coroner Tuthill and Prof. Witthaus, an expert chemist. visited the house in Woodside to-day on hunt for new evil dence. The scrutinized every portion of 1 the woodwork, walls and ceilings on the l two floors and took scrapings of suSpi- cious looking stains.
 | On the stairs leading from the first to l the second floor three tiny, round, red | splashes were discovered The chemist carefully removed them from the sur | face of the wood with penknife and put the scrapings in an envelope. Other red stains were found on the wall paper over the bath tub and on the second floor. Another reddish splash was scraped from the door of closet in this room
 The most important find was bull let hole in the mop board in the small front room. The hole was evidently made by 32-calibre bullet It Is near corner at the rear of the room about four inches from the wall and three inches above the floor.
 A probe showed that the bullet had 1 entered at an angle of about forty-five | degrees, The person who fired the shot l must have been standing close to the | corner of the room, and must have | aimed downward towards some object on the floor.
 | It was suggested that Guldensuppe might have been felled by blow and | knocked into the corner. and then shot l in the head, as he lay near the mop board.
 l The probe showed that the bullet had | penetrated to mop-board and embed l ded itself some six inches deep in a floor beam. Coroner Tuthill was anx- l ious to dig it out, but MT. Buaia, the l owner of the house, would not consent unless the coroner would agree to re- place the beam.
 The finding of the bullet does not CO., | incide with the position of the mur- derer as given in the confession made public by the police. This places the scene of the shooting in a closet on the | second floor.
 How Martin Thorn spent the last 1 week while the police all over this con- | tinent were looking for him is told 1 by Mrs. Hoven, who keeps boarding 1 house.
 | "A week ago." said Mrs Hoven. "at l about 10 o'clock in the morning, a l stranger rang my doorbell and asked | me, when I came to the door, if I had any furnished rooms to rent He car ried in his hand new dress-suit case. l It was the only baggage he had took | him to the front room on the second l floor. He liked that one very much, he said, and immediately engaged it. Shortly afterward this man-he nev- CT told me what his name was-went out. He took his valise with him. He seemed very much afraid lest he might l lose. sight of it. Before he went he said that he was married man and that | when he returned in a few hours his wife would be with him. | My new boarder came back in about half an hour. He was alone. My lit- l tie daughter answered the bell. He
 went straight to his room I never saw him personally after his first call
 when he pretended he was a great friend of my husbands.
 My husband had been dead three
 years. Thorn came in at night after
 we had gone to bed. He would leave
 before we were out of bed. Once or
 twice only did he come in in the day
 time. My little boy Willie saw him
 then. Everything about him was mys-
 terious. ] was not the only one in the
 house who was afraid of him. He i'm pressed all my boarders in the same
 way, but it did not seem possible that
 he could be Thorn