The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-06-28
Police Find Evidence That Elsie
SigePs Murderer
Had at Least One Accomplish in
the Affair.
Carried BODY ABOUT
He Tried to Leave Trunk Con-
tanning Girls Remains
with a Number of His Friends
But Without Success.

But Without Success.
New York, June 2S.-Evidence that
Leon Ling, the converted Chinaman.
made more than one desperate effort to
dispose of the body of Elsie Sigel after
he had damned it into a trunk in his
room in Eighth avenue. have been
brought to light. Chung Sin, his room
mate, has established the fact that the
murder was committed about noon on
June 9. Witnesses have now been found
by the police who declare that before
Leon Ling tried to dispose of the body
in Newark the following day, he first
employed a large touring automobile in
which he placed the trunk at p m.
on June 8. From the Eighth avenue
house he rode with the trunk in the
motor car to a laundry in Harlem con-
Quoted by a friend of his who is
member of the Chinese high treason
society known as the Gee Gong Tong.
OF which Leon is also a member. With
him he also had three suitcases in which
| it is believed were Elsie SigePs clothes.
The laundryman refused to keep the
trunk, but did take the suit cases and
the police expect to obtain them.
The trunk was kept in this laundry
Until IL o'clock at night, when Leon
Ling is said to have employed a taxicab
to take him and the trunk to Newark,
lem. In Newark. as has already been
discovered, the Chinese friend of Leon,
" no conducts a restaurant there, also
refused to accept the trunk. The fact
that this man and the Harlem laundry
keeper refused to have anything to do
With the trunk, has led the police to
believe that they had knowledge OF its
greWsome contents.
Early in the morning of June 10, Ling
employed Newark hacknan to bring
hum and the trunk back to New York.
The police have additional evidence that
Ling attempted to leave the trunk at
several other places. but failed and took
| it back to the room where the murder
was committed and where it was found
II;ore than a week later.
These discoveries completely upset
the police theories that Ling was the
man who sent the telegram from Wash
lrgton on June 10 to Elsie Sigers par
ents in this city. But a Chinaman did
send that telegram from Washington
and this convinces the police that Leon
Ling, who was in this vicinity on that
date trying to dispose of the body, lad
at least one accomplice.
| Such crowds have been attracted
| to Chinatown and its restaurants and
other resorts through the publicity
| given to the murder of Elsie Sigel,
that additional police have been de-
/ tailed to that district. It is said that
| never before have the Oriental eat
ing houses been so crowded and most
|
| discussing the murder mystery Deal
ers in souvenirs have also done an
| enormous business and additional
sightseeing automobiles have been
pressed into service.
| An echo of the crime was heard in
| police court when Patrick O'Hara was
| arraigned on complaint of George
| Ching, chop suey expert who said
| that O'Hara pretended to be an Of
fcer and accused him of being Leon
4 ir1rr 1fc0l ,n& 60 l. H.,
on the payment of s25.
A New Theory Advanced.
| New York. June 2s.-Failure to
| find any trace of Leon Ling caused
the police to give some attention to
the theory strongly revived today that
killed Elsie Sigel and that he was
himself the victim of the same hand
| that killed the girl. The line of rea-
soning necessitates the rejection of
the story told by Chung Sin, who said
| he had seen Leon in the room over
| the Eighth avenue restaurant where
| Miss SigeIs body lay.
! In considering the possibility that
Leon was killed. it is regarded as
probable that his body was placed in
a trunk as was the girls, and this has
| drawn renewed attention to the
| baggage checked to Schenectady, N.
Y. near where Chung Sin was found,
and rechecked by Chinaman from
| Schenectady to Cleveland.
| "What about the theory that Leon
| is dead?" Police Inspector McCafferty
| was asked today.
"Well, if Leon is dead, we have one
| of the men that killed him under ar
| rest and we can lay our hands on an
| other in five minutes" he replied.
A story that Elsie Sigel might have
/ been murdered in Washington was
evolved from statements in an
Il ANONYMOUS letter which Louis Fook,
a Chinaman who has given some as
sistance to the police in their work on
| the case, today reported having re-
ceived. Fook says the writer of the
letter which Is in Chinese declares
1 that Miss Sigel and Leon Ling were
seen in Washington on the afternoon
of June 9. The authorities were not
inclined to place much credence in
the letter.