The Newark star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1909, 1909-10-12
GIRL VICTIM
IN NEWPORT SUIT
CASE MYSTERY
Murder Revealed When Letter.
Carrier Makes CHASTITY Find
in Dismal Swamp.
BOSTON WOMAN MISSING
AND HUNT FOR HER BEGINS
Newspaper Dated October 10
and Fresh Blood Stains Point
to Recent Crime.

NEWPORT, r.. l., Oct. 12.-The police
are today looking for the slayer of a
girl in a lonely clump OF woods at
Bliss -Four Corners, near Tiyerton,
which is4jast across the Sakonnet river
from here. The severed limbs of the
girl were found in a sui case and a
bag and the authorities are positive she
was slain.
The limbs were found by Charles
Potter, a l~etter-carrier, on the Bedford
road, about eight miles from New Bed
ford. He Immediately raised the alarm
and within a short time the news had
spread for miles.
The limbs We're wrapped in a New
Bedford newspaper of October 10. This
was stained with blood. The blood and
the fact that the several limbs were
sill warm convinced the police that the
case was not a medical hoax or the
throwing away of part of. a cadaver by
students. The date of the newspaper,
as we'll as the appearance of the sew
cred members. made it appear certain
that they had been cut off and placed
where they were found either on Sun
day night late or early Monday morn
ing.
Ill llt Da6. 1ooS1iy "ioPPoo
newspaper, was the upper part of a
right leg, from the thigh to the knee.
Resting upon the cover of the bag was
a similar portion of a left leg, In the
thicket a few feet off In another direc-
ton was the lower part of the left
leg.
Medical Examiner Stimson hurried
out to Bliss Four Corners with the first
a ofnc1,r,op4 Cf nn1ion aDd made nn px-
animation which convinced him, he
said, that the legs were those Of a
young girl.
The police Immediately began work.
ing upon the theory that the case was
similar to the famous Susan Geary
case in Boston a few years ago, where
a dismembered body was found.
DR.. Stimson found that the left leg
was twenty-eight inches long, and that
the foot was of a size upon which a
No. 3 shoe might be worn. He figured
from this that the victim was prob
ably 8 feet 3 inches tall and weighed
about 120 pounds.
On the sole of the left foot was found
a calloused spot. DR.. Stimson and the
police believe that this indicated that
the girl had been employed as a shop
girl.
The police learned today of a miss
ing woman who resembled the hypothe-
tical description of the victim given
by the medical examiner.
Miss Elizabeth G.. Johnson, a stenog-
rapher, who was five feet two inches
tall and weighed about lis pounds, dis
appeared from Boston on August IL.
She was the daughter of a former New
Bedford physician, and II was supposed
that she went to New Bedford when
she left Boston.
On October 4, her brother, Fl. b. John
son, and her uncle, Professor Pope. of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy, went to New Bedford and insti-
tuted inquiries for her. They learned
nothing.
The last person who saw Miss john
son in Boston was Mrs. F. G. Shears, of
1874 Canton street, that city. She said
that when the girl went away she car
ried a suitcase. The case found in tue
woods is of strawboard, covered with
heavy cloth, and is rather unusual In
texture and appearance.
The legs were cut from the body, it
appears, with an ordinary handsaw, and
not with the finer instrument used by
medical men. %
There are miles of swamps about Tiv-
erton and many other thick woods.
These are being carefully searched.
The police think they will find the rest
of the body somewhere along the Bull
garmarsh road. Meanwhile all the
nearby towns and cities are being
searched for records of missing women.
There were no footprints along the
little path leading from the highway
except those of the letter-carrier who
made the discovery and no indication
that bushes in any direction had been
disturbed to make way for the passing
of any person. The case, with its con-
tents, lay Immediately in the path. The
authorities believe that the case was
throw from an automobile or carriage |
to the bushes.
An empty beer bottle was also found
near the suitcase. If 1t has any bear
ing on the case, 1t Is thought to
strengthen the theory that the party
which threw away the suitcase came
from New Bedford rather than from the
Newport end of the road. There is a
road on the Rhode Island sid of
the line where beer may re purchased.
People living in two f%arm-houses near
the scene recall that they heard much
loud talking and swearing in that di-
rection Just before 6 o'clock Sunday
They supposed the noise was
by some pleasure party and made
no investigation. A little girl named
Lillian Coggeshall, who lives at the
home of Martin Gray at Bliss Four
was one of those who heard
the cutlery. A woman who lives in an
other house along the road remembered
seeing two men and a woman carrying
a heavy bundle pass along the road,
but she was not certain whether it
was Sunday or Saturday night.