The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1909-06-28

. L . -hiNAiTkSi-A'f tibf buht -S-
authorities of this county will begin
Iigging for human bodies today !
lround the bungalow of Robert En- |
nett Eastman, the fugitive Wall Street
iwindler, who committed suicide in
his row boat on the Back river as he
was about to be captured, for the MUIR
der OF beautiful Mrs. Edith May
Woodill. Certain unsani-
tary conditions on the premises
aroused strong suspicion IL the minds
of the authorities. The mans past
and the savagery of his nature as dis
played during his last days combined
with developments, suggest the possf-
bilities of another Guinness mystery.
Freshly turned dirt in several places
prompts the belief that Eastman may
have had a private grave yard. A
great number of letters involving men
and women Of high social standing
and unblemished regulations have
been found in Eastman's bungalow.
States Attorney Turner, however, re-
fuses to divulge the contents of sing
lie one of them on the ground that he
might be doing injustice. Unless he
has made sure that what Eastman
wrote concerning these persons and
the replies received from them were
predicated on facts he will not let
them get out of his hands.
Light continued yesterday to filter
upon the tragedy. AS the tangled
skeins of the story are picked up one
by one they end more and more to
dissipate the claim advanced by East
man that 1t was a woman and not he
who killed Mrs. Woodill.
The jewels worn by the woman at
the time Of her disappearance were
found in a pawn shop in Baltimore,
placed there last Tuesday by a man
who answered fully the description of
Eastman. The man got 5000 on the
two diamond rings and on a pearl
brooch. Two hundred dollars which
Mrs. Woodrill had when she left her
foster fathers home last week is miss
ing. Eastman repaid loan last week
of 5000 and when he returned here
from Baltimore on Tuesday night he
seemed plentifully supplied with
money.
In all of the strange phases of this
been no more weird features than the
been no more weir dfeatures than the
burial Of Eastman in a grave beneath
the pines of his own farm near the
unfinished bungalow, where Mrs.
Woodill was done to death.
There promised for time to be a
fight for the legal custody of East
mans body. A. S. Rosenthal, of New
York, an attorney, who represented
Eastman when he was charged with
grand larceny, and who got for him
the bail which he forfeited by flight,
arrived upon the scene and acting for
Mrs. Ida s. Eckstein, of New York,
one of the sureties, who lost heavily
by the forfeiture of the bond, demanded
the custody of the body in order that
he might make delivery of it to the
New York authorities by whom a re-
ward of $1,000 had been offered. The
local authorities declined to give up
the body.
In an interview last night Mr.. Ros-
enthal declared that Eastman and Mrs
Woodill had an acquaintance of long
standing and that as Eastman's law
yer, he knew that his client had visit
ed the women at her California home
Witness William Sutton, who it was
said, had heard a party Of men and
women merry-making in bungalow
on Sunday night, declared that it was
late Saturday night that he went to
visit Eastman's place and that he
heard only the voices of one man ant
one woman in the bungalow. That the
voice of the woman was that of Mrs
Woodill. Sutton did not make his
presence known outside the house and
went away.
When the cabin was searched fol
lowing the discovery of the body