Evening star., 1909-05-02
TELLS OF DISAPPEARANCE
Alleges He Was Kidnapped and
Drugged by Relative.
FAMILY DENIES HIS IDENTITY
Trying to Collect $25, 900 on Life of
Man Declared Dead
by Court.

ST. LOUIS. Mo-, May 1.-Another devel
case was revealed today when attorneys
for the New York Life Insurance Com
pany filed in the United States circuit
court the deposition Of Andrew j. White.
a convict in the Auburn. N. Y. state
prison. White declares he is George A.
Kimmel. cashier of the Farmers State
Bank of Arkansas City. Kansas. who dis
appeared more than ten years ago.
The witness graphically tells a story
Of being drugged and imprisoned in a
rooming house in st. Louis for three
weeks.
The convict's Identity as Kimmel is
denied by kimmers relatives. who are
suing for insurance on his life.
Kimmel had already been declared dead
by the st. Louis court. but the United
States circuit court of appeals declared
the evidence insufficient, the judgment
against the insurance company was an
nulled and the case Is to be tried anew.
Shortly after insuring his life for So, 900
in 1898 in favor Of his sister, Mrs. Edna
K. Bonslett, Kimmel disappeared from
Arkansas City. Detectives followed him
to Kansas City, but could find no fur
ther trace OF him until White, an inmate
of New York asylum for the criminal
insane, three years ago declared him
SELF to be Kimmel. He later was pro-
nounced sane and transferred to Auburn.
Tells Life History.
Kimmel's deposition consists of 700
typewriter pages. throughout which he
endeavors to identify himself as Kimmel.
His explanation Of his disappearance is
that relative was implicated in the en-
bezzlement of 100000 from the Pacific
Express Company, and that he had dam
aging evidence against him. He de-
clares that the relative and others caused
him to be drugged and kept prisoner
in ST. Louis. Kimmel tells of leaving
Arkansas City, July 70. 1898. and going to
Topeka, Kan. to dispose of some county
bonds. Transacting that business, he
went to the Midland Hotel in Kansas
City. There, he said, he received mes
sage from the relative, asking him to
meet him.
The message was delivered by a man
named Hartman, whom Kimmel had met
several months before in Kansas City.
kimmel entered cab with Hartman.
A cigar which Hartman gave him made
him dizzy, and when they entered a
room after short cab ride he found
his relative and several other persons
present He drank glass Of liquor, lost
consciousness. and awoke in a strange
room, which he afterward learned was in
st. Louis, near 10Th and Olive streets
He was kept there. he AYERS, under
Hartman's guard for three weeks, and
when he escaped was beaten on the
street by the relative and the latter s
friends
Kimmel says that he awakened from
the second encounter in a hospital. re-
mafned there several months and left st.
Louis in the spring of 1899, going to Gin
cinnati and Philadelphia.
Describes Old Swimming Hole.
The suit in which the deposition was
taken was brought by the receiver of the
First National Bank of Niles. Mich,
Mrs Bonslett having assigned the insur-
ance policies to him.
The deposition recites every detail of
kimmefs life from the time he was a boy
in Niles until his disappearance. He was
required to give the name of the old
swimming hole and the name of the pond
where he skated when a boy. and also to
tell minute details of his relationships in
every city in which he had lived.