The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1910-03-28
Young stenographer Stuffed
live into Fireplace and Set
on Fire -.
AUTHORITIES ARE NOW SEENNG
!. FOR MOTIVE FOR THE CRIxE
Woman With Whom Accused Man Liy.
ed and Who Supported Him, Held
as an Important Witness Man
Denies knowledge of Crime.

new York, March 2S.@Spurred on
by the discovery that Ruth Wheeler,
the girl stenographer victim of the
sensational murder uncovered last
Saturday, was by every evidence
smothered and stuffed alive, though
unconscious, into the fireplace of AL
bert VOTERS apartments and there
burned to death, the authorities today
continued the task of trying to de-
velop the real motive for the crime.
After the autopsy on the body, Cor
oner's Physician o. Hanson declared
that the traces Of SCOT in the nostrils
and lungs convinced him the girl was
still living when her body was set on
fire by the murderer.
Hours of questioning of the closest
sort have failed to shake young VOL
teer in his declaration that he never
had seen the Wheeler girl and knew
nothing Of the way in which she met
her fate. He steadfastly declines to
explain the entry of Ruth Wheeler"s
name in his memorandum books, or to
account to the satisfaction of the po-
lice for his movements on the day
when it was learned Miss Wheeler
visited his rooms in answer to an ad-
vertisement for q stenographer and
was not again seen alive outside the
East Seventy-fifth street house in
which Wolter lived. He persist
ed in his denials that he had ever
seen the girl, ever had written to her,
or knew how her body came to be on
the fire escape outside his window, or
why fragments of human feet, hands
and arms were found in the ashes of
his fireplace.
Katie Miller, or Katchen Mueller,
the girl with whom he lived, was ar
rested today as she approached the
house where the murder was commit
ted. She was reading the details In q
German newspaper as she walked. and
smiling as she read. During long
cross-examination by the police she
held sturdily to a consistent story
that she knew nothing of the crime
until she read of it in the newspa-
pers. On Thursday night, when she
returned from work at the laundry
where she earned six dollars-and
gave it all to Wolter-she said she
noticed that the stove in front of the
fireplace had been moved, the fire.
board newly painted and colored
lithograph pasted over the hole where
the stove pipe formerly entered.
When she asked Wolter why he had
done this, he had answered that sum-
mer was coming, and they wouldn't
need the stove.
She had not even known that VOL
ter had received visitor, she says,
until Pearl Wheeler, the dead girls
elder sister, had called on Friday
morning to ask If Ruth had been
there. Wolter had denied 1t, but the
Miller or Mueller girl says he was
uneasy after the interview and that
she became jealous and accused him
Of harboring another woman in the
fiat. Again he denied it. Friday
morning she went to work again and
that afternoon Wolter was arrested.
The girl was committed to the house
of detention as a material witness.
The information obtained from Miss
Miller or Mueller, was mostly of
negative character.
A fresh trail In the case, however,
was struck by the authorities in the
story told them by young woman,
who confessed to having known VOL
ter we'll. Her tale of many young
girls who, she said, had been associat-
ed with the prisoner, set the authori-
ties to looking up the numerous names
and addresses found in VOTERS
memorandum book. The investigation
is expected to reveal whether Wolter
had any active connection with the
white slave" operations. Since the
latter part of January more than girls
between the ages Of Is and II years
have been reported to the police miss
ing. All but fifteen have been ac-
counted for.
An autopsy today showed that Ruth
Wheeler had been killed in the man
ner indicated by the first superficial
examination. First she had been
strangled with rope. and then the
bones of the arms and legs were brok-
en- to admit the body more readily to
the narrow throat of the chimney.
Why the cuts on the body were made
does not appear.
FATHER OF "a