The Savannah morning news., 1901-11-14
THE PLOT THICKENS
Is RATHBUN NOW, OR WAS HE
EVER DEAD OR ALIVE.
PRISONERS IDENTITY DOUBTE
AUTHORITIES AT LOUISVILLE ARE
IN PERPLExITY.

detectives Are Convinced That He
Has Never Yet Told His Real Name
or His Real Home-Confiictine
Testimony as to the Body al
Little Rock, which Will Probably
BE Returned to JeffersonvilIe
Will Be Sent.
Louisville, Nov. 13.-New features to-
day in the case of Newell C. Rathbun,
held here on charge of desertion from
the United States army and suspected
of the murder of Charles Goodman,
who was found dead in bed last Thurs
day in a Jeffersonville hotel, where
Rathbun's statement to the police that
his wife at Little Rock had known of
his plan to defraud the insurance COM
pany, though not of the murder feature
of it; the decision to have the corpse of
the supposed Goodman returned to
Jeffersonville for an autopsy and iden-
tification; the announcement from
Washington that the War Department
had decided to send Rathbun to JEFF
fersonville and turn him over to the
Indiana authorities, and the refusal of
the local authorities to send Rathbun
to Little Rock to testify at the coro-
ner's inquiry over the corpse that was
shipped there. They say that Rath-
bun will go nowhere except to Jeffer-
sonville, where he is to be tried on the
charge of numbering by poison, Charles
Goodman. A telegram was sent to
Little Rock to-day asking that the
corpse be returned to Jeffersonville.
The suspicious of Capt. Sullivan
were aroused this morning by news
from Little Rock that a Miss Colinne
Pryor had stated that Rathbun had
proposed very much similar plot or
defrauding an insurance company to
her and had said that if she would
marry him and carry out her part that
he would send a corpse home; that it
could be buried as his, and that he and
she could divide the insurance money
He also learned that Mrs. Rathbun in
sisted that the corpse sent from Jeffer-
sonville and now in Little Rock was
that of her husband.
After ascertaining these facts Capt.
Sullivan had Rathbun brought into his
private office and interrogated him
about this phase of the case.
Rathbun said:
Il have only told you part of the
truth, so far. ] arranged this matter
with my wife in Little Rock long ago,
but did not want to bring her into the
case. Now it looks like will have to.
told her that l would find a corpse
and that she was to telegraph for it
to be buried and then collect the in
surance and in time ! would desert
again from the army and meet her at
some place and we would divide it"
After making this statement Rath-
bun said, that his wife knew nothing
of any plot to commit murder, or to set
fire to a hotel.
Indeed he said ''no murder was
committed, for l did not kill Goodman.
I might have killed him if necessary,
but he died from natural causes"
One of the most perplexing features
of the case as it now presents itself to
the police is in regard to the real iden-
tity of the prisoner here. That he has
been passing himself over the country
as Lieut. Newell c. Rathbun, that he
was married in Little Rock under that
name, and that lle was insured for $4,-
600, appear to be certain, but the detec-
tives are convinced that it is an alias
and that he has never told his real
name or his real home.