The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-03-24
JACKSON AND WHLLING.
Their Crime Contains the Materials
for n Great Novel.

To the Editor of the Indianapolis Journal:
Truth is often stranger than fiction. The
four-column account of the Pearl Bryan
murder in last Fridays Journal, written
with wonderful skill. puts lola TO shame
and is full of the most thrilling and dra-
matte incidents. AT last here In Indiana
we nave the material for a very great ro-
nance of drama. and only need an artist
TO work out a masterpiece of tragedy. And
the wonder of it is that the closer the
artist or writer will stick to the facts the
more interesting the play or novel will
be. Leaving out the imaginary. look for
one moment at the wealth of romance in
the proven facts of the great Pearl Bryan
tragedy. To start on, the name of Pearl
is almost a stroke of genius. 1t is very
seldom that a girl has so sweet a name.
borrowed from Hawthorne's Scarlet Let
ter" Then the surroundings and early
history of this girl. the sleepy college town,
her country home. her graduation at the
High School, Jackson returning from the
East. no one suspecting his record or real
character, artless innocence leading to her
death by an attractive human fend, are all
hat could be desired for the subject matter
of a romance Jackson was a psychological
as well as moral study. Evidently the man
was without moral sense, and. considering
his youth, more than a match for Holmes
in crime. He was a wonder of depravity.
Walling was a muddy-headed youth with
feeble will and just the man for Jackson's
tool and associate. And so with Wood.
And here again is another element most
favorable for "a great novel or dramatic
responsibility of the relatives of these
young %scoundrels, and the fact that they
were brought up at Christian hearthstones.
The father of one is a Methodist presiding
elder. the near relative of another a coll
lege professor. their brothers, mothers, sis
tiers of stainless reputation and the high
est social position. What a wonderful deal
of profound observation and speculation
concerning heredity and criminal psychol-
ogy could our artist indulge i'm over these
remarkable facts! What sermons over the
innate savagery and degeneracy of the
human race! What speculations upon the
mystery of the human heart, What the
| cries that would put Max Nordau to blush
could be detailed in the pages of this
volume!
Before me is a letter written by a ia
nous gentleman living in Greencastle who
was on the same train that carried Pearl
| TO indianapolis, and who saw Wood in deep
conversation with her at the railroad sta
ton. 1t may have been imagination or
| afterthought, hut he writes that a subtle
something told him that a great tragedy
was about to be enacted and that the girl
gave him a beseeching look. This incident
could be made very picturesque by an ade-
quate artist. And then what material for
| reflection on the road to Cincinnati that
afternoon and her arrival in the great city
that stormy January night and her sensa-
H. ~. che I0- a .-.1
and registered herself Mabel Stanley
Passing over details there is one scene, an
actual fact, almost worthy OF Shakespeare
himself, and that is when Pearl consulted
some fortune teller. and after making a
confidante of the imPostor the latter's wo
manly instincts asserted themselves and
she advised Pearl Ito go straight home and
tell her mother all about her troubles.
Pearl starts to do this but at the depot is
met by Walling, who dissuades her. The
railroad matron in her testimony tells about
d country girl in tears and going OF reluct-
antly from the railroad station with a
young man whom she identified as Walling.
l doubt whether, even in Victor Hugos
French stories there is anything more in
tensely dramatic than the scene at the cOf-
fin. with the headless girl Inside dressed
in her graduating clothes, her murderers
brought in and placed one at the head and
the other at the foot, when her sister went
down on her knees with tears and groans
before Jackson and beSought him To tell
where ner sister ; nedu Wds. 1fldm beIOfe
Achille asking for the body of mis- son is
| nothing compared with this dramatic scene.
And that head. Think of Jackson for
twelve hours carrying IL around I'm the
girls satchel through the crowded streets
Of Cincinnati, one would Think that the
blood would have dripped anu betrayed
him. but the two friends had anticipated
that in their fearful murderous work upon
the lonely Kentucky hills the night before.
Where. is that pathetic heaaY At first
thought the spring freshets or the Ohio
river offer a solution of the mystery, but IL
is evident that IL was not thrown I'm the
river nor buried upon tic sandbar; but that
some guilty accomplish i'm the tenderloin
districts of Cincinnati-eyidently a woman-
has buried that head In some back yard
or secreted IL in some vault. Probably
Walling never knew where that head went.
Then. again. the marvellous ubiquity and
shrewdness OF the police = those sleuth-
hounds Of the law-and the splendid work
that they did. ought not TO be forgotten.
And the exceedingly dramatic trials, eS-
peeially at the last moment, when the