The age-herald., 1901-11-17

Summer residents of Cataumet joined in requests for a full investigation.
 Bits of evidence began to come out by degrees, and soon the following facts appeared Three of the deaths, that is to say, all excepting that of Mrs. Davis were accompanied by similar symptoms. The victims complained of lassitude, nau- sea, stomach disorder, and fever.
 Miss Toppan had nursed all of them Mrs. Gibbs, who died last, had been at tended by no one else. Every drop of medicine had been administ cred by the trained nurse.
 After Mrs. Gordons death a number of medicine bottles had been found con- cealed between the mattresses of the bed. Nearly all the medicine still remained in the bottles, showing that the remedies which Dr. Latter had prescribed were not administered. It was reported and denied that Mrs. Gordon, being a Chris tian Scientist, had refused the medicines. It also became known that Miss Top pan owed the Davis family $500. During the summer preceding-that is to say, in 1900-Miss Toppan had superintended a students boarding house at the famous Marine Biological laboratory at Woods Holl, Mass. She had contracted a debt instead of making profit, as the house had ordinarily done. and part of this
 
 P. Davis, it is claimedN
 Miss Toppan's Peculiar Actions.
 In this connection Captain Paul Gibbs furnishes valuable data to the police. Previous to her death, and after the death of Mrs. Davis, Mrs Gibbs was urged by Miss Toppan to sign paper re- leasing her from the debt. Mrs Gibbs declined to do this.
 Mrs. Gibbs was in Falmouth the day before her death, Captain Gibbs says, and when she returned to Cataumet that night she was apparently in the best of health. She did not complain of feel ing unwell, and was particularly bright and cheerful. The next day, the day on which she and Miss Toppan are alleged to have talked about the agreement Miss Toppan Is said to have requested her to sign, she was taken i'll, and the day fol- lowing died. Her husband Captain Irv- ing Gibbs, was sent for a short time be- fore she breathed her last, but when he got to her bedside from his vessel in Norfolk, Va, life was just fiickering in her body.
 Captain Paul Gibbs was convinced then. he said, that there was reason for an in- vestigation into the deaths of those who went before her, and when she was placed beside the others in the Cataumet cemetery he and Dr. Latter, the Davis family physician, who died few days before Miss Toppan's arrest talked about what had happened.
 T asked Dr. Latter" said Captain Gibbs, what caused the death of Mrs. Gibbs, and he told me frankly he did not know. He insinuated that there was something about the deaths that needed explanation, and within few days after that conversation he told me he had been reading some medical books and had come to the conclusion that some of the Davis family might have died from poison."
 Another suspicious circumstance which developed was that the members of the Davis family were all supposed to have had money about them at the time of their deaths. This money disappeared and has never been found.
 Miss Toppan was the one person in the world who had every opportunity to get this money" said Captain Gibbs She was with the Davis family all the time they were i'll, she washed and dressed their bodies when they died and there wasn't a section of the house to which she did not have access and of which she did not have a perfect knowl- edge I am positive that MT. Davis had $500 a day or two beforeshe died.
 Disappearance of Patients Money. T am sure that no one in the house but
 
 went to the house he had three times that amount in his pockets. It was thought after his death that he might have deposited the money, but we soon found that he did not
 Tt was the same" continued the Cap tain, with the money the others had just before they died. We know that 1t was in their possession when they became ill: we know that Miss Toppan was alone with them a good deal of the time they were sick"
 By degrees, as the police of the little town began to piece together these va- rious occurrences, they began to think that there might be something more than mere coincidence in the deaths that had happened in so short time in the Davis family. They took no action in the mat ter, however, further than to- keep an eye on Miss Toppan's movements. until the report of Professor Wood was pre- sented. Then the arrest of Miss Toppan was decided upon, and she was arrested at Amherst, where she was visiting somo old friends.
 Thars is one defective point in the case