The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-10-17
STRANGER THAN FICTION.

| The wisest man who ever lived was
King Solomon, yet there were some
things that puzzled even Solomon.
| There be three things which are too
wonderful for me-" he once wrote,
| YEA, four which know not: The way
| of an eagle in the air; the way of a
| serpent upon a rock; the way of a
ship in the midst of the sea: and the
way of man with a maid"
| In view of Solomon's confession of
| ignorance, it is no great wonder that
| the details back of the Sapp-Whitlow
tragedy at Moran are somewhat mysti-
| flying to ordinary folks.
This Moran case is one of the
strangest tragedies that ever happened
| in human history in this trans-Missis-
sippi region. A young woman. refined
and fairly we'll educated, possessed of
more than ordinary good looks, the
daughter of well-to-do parents, had no
suitors. That is one peculiar circum-
stance. She went out into the back
yard of her home one evening soon
after supper, and within a very few
moments was heard to scream. Her
mother rushed out and found the girl
dead, her throat cut, no one in sight,
and no sharp instrument lying near.
For days the details of her death
were an inexplicable mystery. Then
a respectable and respected married
man of middle age comes forward and
relates one of the most extra ordinary
tales imaginable-a tale of an unac-
countable love of fiery intensity, turn
ing to hatred when it was long unre-
quilted, and ending in a mysterious and
sanguinary suicide. And all this in q
quiet little country village. whose peo-
pie lived their simple lives without
excitement and in peace and content
ment.
At first Samuel whitlow's story
seemed that of a demented man. but il
is not. It has been corroborated III
many details. The fact has been estab-
iished that the dead girl ran after
him, visiting his home at the dead of
highland here is another incompre-
hensible feature of the case: This
strange infatuation, amounting almost
to a frenzy at times, which led this |
young girl to make midnight visits to |
a man many years her senior, against |
his wishes. endeavoring to coax him |
from his family, and yet infatuationsI
which she hid from her closest friends. /
The ways of a maid with a man are as
past finding out as the ways of a man |
with a maid.
Accompanying this love for one man |
whom she could not win, the girl in |
the case possessed a seeming aversion |
to the attentions of other men and she
had an unaccountable hatred for rell- |
gion, all of which, taken in connection
with the story told by Whitlow, would |
suggest the possibility of an unbal-
anced mind.
The whole story is so strangely in
applicable that some people are prone |
to pronounce Whitlow guilty of muir
der offhand. Yet the fact remains that
some of the strangest details of his |
story are corroborated. If a motive |
could be established why the accused |
man should have murdered the girl 1t |
might go long way towards solving |
the mystery, but no motive has yet ap- !
peared, and the man tells his story /
with such a conviction of innocence
that one is impelled to believe it.
At this time. in view of the outcome.
it is easy to see that Whitlow should
have told his wife of Miss Sapp's
actions at the start, but in the imper-
lection of human judgment one can
see how a man could easily err in the
matter, disliking to provoke possible
public scandal and to endanger The
girls reputation, and living in the hope
that she would outgrow her unhappy
Truly it is a case, the psychology of
which Is too deep for most men. And