The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-10-09
Samuel f. Whitlow, Who Made Sensa-
tional Confession in Sapp Case.

Samuel F. Whitlow, the married
man, who yesterday told the jury that
Miss Sapp was infatuated with him and
killed herself because of his refusal
to desert his family and elope with her,
is being closely guarded in the county
Jail here. --lsess-4
The brothers of Whitlow visited
him yesterday but his wife and three
children, who live at Moran, have ap-
parently made no effort to see him.
Whitlow told his first story in the pres
ence of G. o. Bollinger, sheriff; G. j.
Peterson, county attorney; J. N. Sapp,
the father of the dead girl; Ray Smock
her brother-in-law; D. w. Reid, cor
oner, and a Pinkerton detective.
Whitlow said that for more than two
years the girl had made life burden
for him by her unceaSing attentions.
He said he went to the Sapp home
week ago last Friday night, for the last
time, to ask her to cease her unwel-
come attentions, and that she made
peatedly made before. She demanded,
he said that he agree to go away with
her.
1.-The next thing ] knew" he said,
''she made a slash with the razor
toward her throat. I thought she was
irving to scare me. She made a second
slash and then gave couple of mania
cal screams. She made a second cut
across her throat and staggered back
against the fence. / grabbed at her
and seized her right hand. I got the
razor. 1 heard a gurgle in her throat
Then I heard her mother coming from
the kitchen. I stepped over the back
fence.
Il walked south down the alley,
walked west to the next street and
then stopped and listened. 1 heard the
mother scream and then ran straight
home. AS entered my back yard L
suddenly rememb beTed for the first time
that I held the razor. 1 washed it off
in a bucket of water and slipped 1t in
my pocket.
II could still hear the girls mother
screaming. L ran into the mouse ana
told my wife and family that something
awful had happened. left the house
and walked up to the Sapp residence
pushed into the crowd and dropped
the razor on the ground. That is the
way the affair happened"
Whitlow told the officers that he and
the girl had never been intimate. He
is the school teacher with whom May
Sapp's name was connected years ago
when she was a pupil in the country
school near Bronson, of which he was
the teacher He declared that the
stories told then were lies and that he
has never been guilty since of any
improper conduct toward ner
WhitIow said that he had seen her
only a few times since she went to
school to him until two years ago last
August, several months after the Sapp
family moved to Moran He said that
him one day as he was passing along
the street in a dray. She asked him
to come over to see her that night as
she wanted to tell him something. He
went and says the girl told him she
loved him and could not live without
him He told her, he said, that he was
a married man and loved his family
and could see no reason why she should
want to bother him, a poor man.
The ex-teacher asserted that she
continued to urge him to go away
some place with her. He refused
but according to his story. he met her
often clandestinely and tried to argue
her out of her infatuation for him
These secret meetings, he said, usually
lasted only a few minutes and Were, at
first, at night near the fence of the
Sapp home. When winter began he
quit going for a time, he said. Along
in the following February she came
to his home one night, he said, and
left her footprints about the yard so
that he would see them.
Because of the scandal which would
attach to his name if their meetings
were known about, he said, he made
appointments with her only at night
and saw her as seldom as possible
After her first visit to his home, Whit
low said, Miss Sapp came there often
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