Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-01-06
SOLVED BY A DREAM.
EUDORA MURDER PARTI-
ALLY CLEARED UP.
The Girl Victim Was the Imbecile
Daughter of Farmer Named Will
Jams Living Near Topeka-Wanted to
Get Rid of Her.

TOPEKA, Kan, Jan. 2.-The mystery
surrounding the murder of the young
girl whose body was found by party
OF hunters in johnson county near
Eudora was partially unraveled yes
terday through the alleged dream of
an Old Mississippi negro. The arrest
OF the parties who probably committed
the murder quickly followed. The
murdered child was Anna Belle Will
lams, the 12-year-old imbecile daughter
OF Albert b. Williams, farmer living
four miles north of this city, and the
father and Nancy Jane Mayes, who
lives with her husband on the Williams
farm, are occupying cells in the Shaw
nee county jeil, charged with the
crime. Mrs. Mayes admits having
taken the girl to the place where the
body was found, but denies having
murdered the child. Williams pro,
tests innocence and accuses the woman
of the crime.
r. S. Holmes, the aged darkey. lives
near the Williams farm and the i'm
beetle child was kept by his family for
many months. On December 8, Mrs.
Mayes came to the house and got the
girl. Since then Holmes had not seen
her
The stories told by Williams, the
father, and the Mayes woman do not
differ as to the date the girl was taken
away, or the manner. Williams said
that his wife died one year ago, leav-
ing small child and the imbecile on
his hands. He had no way of taking
care of them and farmed out the
smaller one to sister. Nobody would
take the other, and admission for her
to the state imbecile asylum and the
Shawnee county poor farm had been
denied. Mrs. Mayes said that she
could get the girl admitted to the
Wyandotte county poor farm, as it was
easy to get children in there. Will
liams agreed to give her colt if she
succeeded. On the morning of Decem-
Der 3, the woman took the child and
started in a buggy for Kansas City.
Kas
This is the last time, Williams saws,
that he saw his daughter. Mrs Mayes
returned in three days and said She
had got the child located. He claims
that this is the history of the case so
far as he has any connection with it.
and declares he supposed until after
his arrest that the girl was in the poor
house. By the description given of the
dead girl, he said there was no doubt
OF 1t being his daughter, and he openly
charges Mrs. Mayes with the crime.
Mrs. Mayes claims that she started
with the girl and got ten miles the
other side of Lawrence when she the
woman) became very sick and stopped
in the road. She says that while there
man and his wife came along and,
taking pity on her, agreed to take the
girl and see that she was admitted to
the poor farm for SIS. She gave the
money and girl to the strangers and
started back home. The money was
all she had and was given to her by
Williams before leaving. She said that
she travelled on the north side of the
river all the way, and claimed to think
that, as the body was found on the
south side, the authorities could not
fasten the crime on her. She did not
know the name of the persons who she
said took the child, and could not even
give any description of them, except
that they were white and were in a
double spring wagon.
Williams is 80 years old and has
lived in Shawnee county for twenty
years. He has farmed all the time.
He was born at Freeport, Ill. Mrs
Mayes is an illiterate woman of 21.
She came with her husband from JEFF
ferson City, Mo-, two years ago, and
they have lived ever since in tent on
the Williams farm, where her husband
is employed.