Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1907-03-26
DAILY STORY
AN AUTHORS REAL
DETECTIVE WORK.
TOriginal.1

cuSed person that / cannot frame as
strong a theory for the defense. Hav-
ing made this statement to a friend
who is practical worker in prison re
form, he told me that he had seen a
woman whom he believed to be limo
cent serving a life sentence for having
poisoned her husband. He asked me to
visit her and if l came away with the
same opinion as himself to interest my
self in her behalf. l consented.
/ found Mrs. Julia Ringland pretty
woman of thirty. l had long CONVEX
sation with her, not with Il view to
learning of her guilt or innorca from
her arguments, but to make UP my
mind upon the higher plane of iutui-
ton. 1t did not seem to me to be pc
sible for a refined person, as Mrs. Ring
land was. if guilty of n frightful crime
to appear to me to be innocent After
long conversation l left her perfectly
sure that she was being punished for Il
crime she had not committed. This
conclusion had nothing to do with any
appeal whatever to my reason.
This is a synopsis of her case: She
married Peter Ringland, Il man twenty
years older than herself, Il stingy.
crusty note shaver of the olden type.
Ringland, never in good health. at last
gradually sank away and died. What
he died of no one knew, fos he was too
| mean to have doctor. He was buried.
and his wife proceeded to take posses
sion of his estate.
One day Ernest A. Parsons received
at his club through the mail note
signed Julia Ringland, of whom he
| had never heard. In it she admitted
| that she loved him, but would not per-
nit him to be near her so long as her
husband lived. The note ended with
| the single word wait"
1t happened that there was another
Parsons in the club Edward \. Par
sons The note had been addressed to
| f. a. Parsons and had fallen into the
| wrong hands. The Parsons who re
| ceived it talked about it. It's existence
| reached the ears of Peter Ringlands
| relatives. and they accused the widow
| of having poisoned her husband. The
| body was eXhumcd, the stomach ana
| lyzed and arsenic found in sufficient
|
| and the arsenic were the main points
| on which the prosecuting attorney Sc
| cured q conviction.
My proving Mrs. Ringland's limo
cence depended solely upon one point
her husband must have taken ar
senic without the knowledge of any
one else. The attorney for the defense
| had taken this position, but could ad-
duce no proof that Ringland had ever
| bought grain of arsenic in his life.
He had investigated every drug store
| in the suburban town in which Ring
| land had lived, but not one had ever
| sold the drug to the deceased.
One day a possible solution to the
| problem occurred to me Ringland was
| so stingy that he might have bought
| the drug wholesale. The theory was
| certainly farfetched, but I determined
| to investigate the wholesale druggists
| thoroughly. There were five of them
in the city. l went to all of them and
asked if they had had any account
| with Peter Ringland. Not one of them
| had ever had such an account on its
| books. Besides, they would not have
| sold the goods to any one not i'll the
drug business, certainly not at the
| wholesale price. Since | had made up
my mind that proving Ringland's pur-
chase of the drug himself was the only
| possible way of establishing his wild
ow's innocence, l determined to push
| further in my investigations. Was IL
not possible that Ringland had had the
1 L
| name?
| / requested every wholesale drug
| store in the city to make up Il state
ment of all the arsenic it had sold
in the town where Ringland had lived
| within two years prior to his death.
| There were q number of quantities of
arsenic on one of the statements that
had been billed to the Ridgewood
pharmacy. The items arrested my at
tentiOn. for the articles were all
arsenic. l inquired for the Ridgewood
pharmacy and was told that it did not
| exist and never had existed. Then
knew l had found what l had been
hunting for.
I still had to produce proof that
Ringland had received the goods.
had the matter hunted up at the ex-
press Office and found receipts for
packages signed 1.-THE Ridgewood Phar-
macy, per u. r." in Peter Ringland' )
handwriting. The dates of shipment
and the receipts accorded exactly.
Armed with this evidence, the lawyer
who had defended Mrs. RingIand in
court, working with me, secured a
pardon for her, the only means availa-
bic of doing her justice, or, rather, OF
getting her out of prison. There are
no words or phrases capable of ex-
pressing her gratitude to me-
Once out of prison, Mrs. Ringland
went to work to discover reason for
her husbands taking arsenic and learn
ed that many years before, when much
run down in health, it had been recon-
mended to him. Later, &hen in the
same condition, he had prescribed it to
himself.