Evening times-Republican., 1903-12-26
ARE cLAlRvoYANr Professors
FIeeced Decatur, IT,, Woman Out of
s4oo Which She Gave Them For In
vestment Because of Their Occult
Powers-Poor Working Girl Borrow
ed $3.50 of Her Brothers to Invest"
Special to Times-Republican.

1
y. Clayton, alias DR.. Strong. two Of
the smoothest swindlers in the country
nave been run to earth. A third man
who has been operating with the two
men under arrest here is still at large,
hut the police of several cities are
looking for him. He is Professor Mari
etta, VINO worked with Dazara and
Clayton at Decatur. where ii is said
the three fieecsd unsuspecting people
Dazara and Clayton are now at the
Police station awaiting the arrival OF
Deputy Sheriff Hendricks, of Decatur.
who is on his way here with requisi-
ton papers to take them back to the
scene of their operations.
The two men were positively identi-
by Mrs. Orina Staple, of Decatur. H.,
as being the parties who swindled her
out of about S400 This Is only one of
the charges against the men. The
hardesi. charges against them Is that
they swindIed a poor working girl out
OF sl50.
Mrs. Staple, who is the wife of a
well-known citizen of Decatur came to
Dubuque as soon as she learned of the
mems arrest. She arrived Tuesday
eight and in the morning went to po-
lice headquarters, where she positively
identified the men. Mrs. Staple is
naturally reticent in talking about the
case, but Ii is learned that while Da-
zara and Clayton were in Decatur she
Went to them for a reading. Dazara
claimed ito be able 10 foretell the fu-
ture, where mineral Is located. the rise
and fall In stocks, etc. 1t is learned
that Mrs. Staple gave him about $500
with the understanding that he invest
the money for her and get the returns
ne claimed he could. soon after she
gave up the money the two men left
Decatur and nothing was heard of them
until their arrest here.
Dazara Doesn't Deny.
Il don't deny that we got the wom-
ans money" said Dazara. Il made a
contract with her and t Is now up to
her to carry out her part of 1t. She
| IdIl do s-DS hpoul ih' ~ "uo ~
Legitimate business transaction and Il
she wants her money back al! she has
tc do Is 10 say a certain word. So far
as the other charges are concerned l
know nothing. Professor Marietta and
III have no connection. and If he
swiiidled anybody 1t was not our fault.
admit that / left Decatur rather hur-
/, riedly, but there was a reason for that.
| Another man in the same business as
| l was told me TO go or / would be
| blamed for somathing we nsver did.
| and we took his advice. AS soon as
We got located here intended to wire
| 10 Mrs Staples. but we were arrested
| before | got chance to do so. One
| thing i want to say is ihat II ne were
| trying to keep out of the way OF the
police W.. could have done so as long
| as we wanted"
The other man who warned them to
| leave Decatur was undoubtedly Mari
eta. who is charged with fleeing
people all over Illinois. Dazara and
CLAYTON are both smooth fellows Da-
| cara is about 80 years oil aid we'll edu-
Gated Clayton is about 40 and is more
conservative than his partner. Both
claim TO be ciairvoyants and trance
mediums.
Made Great Claims.
While they were in Decatur Mari
eta had a room and office alone and
Dazara and Story were associated to-
gether. advertising No. $40 North
Jackson street as the location of their
office II seems that they all worked
together Dazara professed to be a
oiairvoyant capable of curing drunken
ness, bringing about marriages. finding
last and stolen property, and locating
minerals. buried treasures, oil and gas
by means of maps which he received
while in what he called a "phychic
trance state
All this seemed to take we'll with
quite number of persons. Since thu
men left Decatur many complaints
have come 10 the she:'ff's office re-
garding dealings with the clairvoyants
and lit is estimated that at least $4,000
of hard earned money was taken from
Decatur people by m-ans of the fakes
Robbed Poor Girl.
One sad case was that of a girl who
fell a victim of Marietta. The girl is
poor and works for "a Wesk. she
was foolish enough to visit the man
and was told of the fortunes to he made
in the Louisiana lottery. Mariette said
that he stood in with the head man of
the lottery and that he could arrange 1t
SO that the girl could win prize. II
she put up $3.50 he would fix t so that
| she won a $500 prize, but she must give
| Sloo of her winnings for his trouble. II
was also specified that the girl mus
put up the sl5O to play .hs game.
Marietta. TO make his story strong,
| showed the girl a s5uv bill which he
| said haa been received IN letter that
day and told her she couid make money
| lust the same way. The girl did not
have $50, but she went to her broth
ers and borrowed the money. She gave
! IL TO Marietta, expecting to get back a
| nice $500 bill. and agreed to pay the
500 and $50 TO fix things and expect
a margin of $500 inside of week for
her trouble
The $3.50 borrowed cash Disappeared
with the elairvoyants last Friday.
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