The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-05-04
WORM TURNS.
James Neal Plumb Shoots Alex
ander MastertOn.
Fires Five Shots, Which Soon
Prove Fatal.
TT WAS DEIIRERA
1T WAS DELIBERATE.
Murderer Prepared a State
ment in Advance.
Says His Victim Had H0unded
Him For 35 Years.

New York, May 4-Alexander Master
ton, a director of the Farmers Loan
and Trust company, Y years of age,
was shot and killed yesterday afternoon
by James Neal Plumb. in the Burling-
ton hotel, on West Thirtieth street.
Masterton was shot five times and died
within an hour or two.
The murder was premeditated, as
evidenced by a voluminous statement
written in advance by Plumb and given
out after his arrest.
At present the real motive for the
crime is unknown. Plumb, in his state
ment issued Ito the public and enti-
G9 MRY e. Me@ decianed f fh9t
he had been actuated to do the shoot
ing because of a systematic bounding
of him by Masterton. Plumb declared
further, that Masterton had not only
ruined him financially, but had at
tempted to ALLEVIATE the affections of his
wife and children and to cause his So
cial downfall.
Plumb's statements, one of which was
addressed to the Associated Press, deals
with a period of his career embracing
the past thirty-five years, are rambling
in many places and conclude with the
following:
mo man has a higher regard for
human life than have. But the just
and righteous punishment of AleXand-
er Masterton is decreed by an out
ragged God, and am simply the humble
instrument in His hand, as He has Sc
lected me as His chosen instrument of
wra thful vengeance. L have rid the
world of man who is not fit to live
and whose death, a thousand times over
could never atone for the mOnStrOuS
wrongs done me-
Masterton and Plumb met by agree
ment in the Burlington hotel at 1870 p.
m. in the apartments occupied by Man
ager Cole. They had been there but a
CHI iT1on xxrfa hot fiT-o6
in rapid succession. Plumb then came
out and walked into the reception hall,
awaiting arrest. The murderer was
taken before Police Captain Price of the
TenderlOin precinct, of whom he is an
intimate friend He was later taken
before a magistrate in the Jefferson
Market police court and held. Nothing
was brought out at the hearing that
could be accepted as a reason for the
killing beyond the statement made by
Plumb that MastertOn had bounded
him for many years.
In his statement Plumb writes as fol-
lows:
THE reason for taking this serious
step was that for upwards of thirty
five years, commencing as far back as
1852, at the time of my marriage en-
gagement, this man has followed me
like a sleuth f0und from that time to
this, and yet L was never able to dis
cover the cause o. motive of his vim
dictive animosfty toward me, as when
he commenced to attack me I had never
seen the man OF ever n6arU OF MN.
Again, in 1865, my return from
California after a three years absence,
he at oLce renewed the intrigues
against me and my family, secretly
doing me all the injury in his power,
socially and financially.
After all these years, down to 1876,
this man was constantly plotting and
conspiring against me, endeavoring to
undermine my wife's confidence in me
by covert insinuations and endeavoring
in every way to ALLEVIATE the affections
| of my wife and children, and he had a
powerful influence, being the trustee
of my wife's large estate"
In 1877 Mrs. Plumb died in Paris and
Plumb returned here and went to live
at Islip, L. 1. He recites a number of
circumstances showing Masterton's
alleged conspiracy to ALLEVIATE the af-
fections of his children, a French maid
acting as a spy for Masterton Plumb
refers to another conspiracy begun in
| 1885, which he says is known to his
friends in New York and Washington
as the Washington conspiracy" where
his eldest daughter Minnie laid a trap
for Masterton and his lawyers by
means of decoy letters and kilograms
and that his enemy fell into the trap
| and did not know he had been trapped
until his daughter displayed the mo-
tive of these kilograms in Surrogate
Rollins court during an action brought
in connection with the case
After reciting the story of the marriage
of his son, J.. Ives Plumb, in 1885, with a
woman named Anna Burton. of whom he
speaks in no complimentary terms and
laying the blame for this undesirable mar
riage at Mysterious doors, he refers to
what he calls the last conspiracy of
Alexander Masterton, which has culIninat-
ed his long years of cruel, vindictive OPP
preston by his punishment decreed by an
He says that soon after his sons dis
graceful marriage he went to Europe in
tending to make his home in Southamp-
| ton. England, and he and his daughters
We're as happy there they could be with
q cloud hanging over them in the moral
0e9th OF ms SON He next refers to the
| 1883. after they had returned to New York
| She was forced into a carriage by the
agents of Masterton, he AYERS, and taken
| to the Victoria hotel. Later she was taken
| to Troy. She subsequently regained her
| freedom The object of this abduction
Plumb claims, was to force the girl to
| give up her father
Plumb declares that the wrongs which
| Masterton had done him no law could
reach His words are:
| The men who brought all this trouble
| in my declining years no law can reach
| In addition to these conspiracies Plumb
/ legged e1rortS OF MaStertOn and others to
! bring about a marriage between one of
| his daughters and a worthless, fortune
| seeking EngliShman, who had made the
| boast that he could win the little Amer
| lean miss
| Plumb did not, however add ANYTHING
| to the statement which he had prepared in
advance, regarding the events that took
| place just prior to the shooting. He APP