The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1907-05-07
|fROGERS CONFEssES
THE OLNEY MURDERS
Tells How He Shot Brothers and
Slew Ingsrick Child.
HE GOT ONLY SIXTEEN DOLLARS
Admissions Wrung From Him on
Railroad Train En- Route to Mid.
dIetown--KiIIed Three Unaided.
Police Quote Man.

Middletown, N. Y. How little
value attached to "deathbed" identi-
fications under certain conditions was
made clear by a police report of a
confession to three murders and a
murderous assault they said had been
made to them by Charles Henry Rog-
ers, whom they brought from Los
Angeles. Sheriff Decker, Police Chief
McCoach and Under Sheriff Hook as
serted Rogers admitted that he killed
little Alice Ingerick and Willis c. and
Frederick R. OIney and tried to slay
Mrs. Georgia Ingerick, mother of the
girl, on the Olney farm on October 5,
1905. The confession they attributed
to Rogers threw ridicule on most of
the theories advanced by city or coun-
ty authorities in the days and weeks
following the quadruple crime.
But it did more. 1t proved how
utterly mistaken Mrs. Ingerick was
when she identified Alanson
Graham and little Dan" Davis as
men possibly connected with the
crime. Rogers, the police said, as
serted he killed the Olneys and Alice
Ingerick without any ones assistance,
and his story made 1t appear he was
the man Mrs. Ingerick thought she
recognized first as Graham, her for
mer employer, and next as Davis,
man with petty police record. The
erroneous '.identifications" by Mrs.
Ingerick were explained by persons
who recalled that when she made
them year and a half ago she still
was suffering from compound frac-
ture of the skullresulting from blows
rained on her by the murderer.
Rogers related, the police said,
that, after killing three persons and
almost Staying another, he got only
SIG as plumber. He lured Willis and
Frederick Olney into the woods on
their farm, he confessed, by telling
them he was, policeman and wished
them to help him arrest a man hiding
there. In the heart of the woods he
shot both the Olneys, killing them.
Then he went to the house and told
Mrs. Ingerick, housekeeper for the
Olneys, that one of her employers
had been kicked by horse, He
wanted towels and water for the in
jured man, he said. Mrs. Ingerick,
snatching UP an armful of towels and
a pail of water, went with Rogers to
the stable, where she supposed Olney
lay. When she entered the building
Rogers felled her with an iron pipe
wrapped in newspaper. He thought
she was dead, and dragging the body
into stall covered it with hay.
Alice was in the kitchen eating
her dinner. Rogers walked into the
room and told her the cellar door
was open and she would better go
down and close it. The little girl
started down the cellar stairs, Rog-
ers following closely When she
reached the cellar floor the man
struck her with the same iron pipe
with which he had felled her mother
He beat out the child's brains. At
ter satisfying himself the little girl
was dead Rogers went up stairs and
closed all the doors and windows.
He searched the house, but did not
find any money save SIG. In the at
tic he cut open trunk and scattered
papers.
Fleeing the house, Rogers went to
Chicago, whence he worked his way
to Los Angeles He was caught in
California by the Pinkertons when
the police and other authorities had
failed signally after making many ar
rests, several of which were almost
absurd. Three of the police arrests
resulted from blind faith in 'identifi-
cations made by a woman with a
badly fractured skull, Mrs. Ingerick,
who did not recover her health until
months had passed.
The police took Rogers to the spot
on the Olney farm where, they said,
he told them he had hidden the pa
pers and wallets of the Olney broth
ers, but they found nothing. 1t is
understood Rogers will be tried in
October next in Goshen.