Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-03-28
his sweetheart had fed from a few
hours earlier.
woIter's Girl Is Arrested.

Katie Muller, whose name wa.
given to the police as Miller, was ar
rested shortly before noon yesterday
and gave some valuable corrobora,
tive evidence against WoIter.
Katie Muller was arrested at the
house in East One Hundred and Fifth
street, in which she and Wolter had
taken rooms after their flight from
the house of murder in East Seventy
fifth street. She was taken to a po-
lice station, where she told what is
believed to be the most of what she
may have to tell. She was sure that
Wolter. since she had lived with him,
had had nothing to do with other
girls. He always was kind "and
wouldn't do anything to any girl"
Identified Shirt.
When she was shown the night
shirt in which part of the charred
body had been wrapped, however,
the girl positively identified the gar
ment as VOTERS.
THAT letter w. said the girl, in
dicating an initial worked on the
shirt, was embroidered by AIbert's
mother"
She also identified the gunnysack
in which the head and trunk of the
victim had been placed as having
been used by her and Wolter to hold
kindling wood.
The Mueller girl was detained as
a material witness.
The police found in VOTERS
trunks a spool of wire of the same
sort that had been used to bind Ruth
Wheeler's limbs together when her
body was thrust into the fireplace.
Lured from Home.
The body of Ruth w. Wheeler, a
little girl graduate who was lured
from her widowed mother on Thurs
day last by decoy offer of employ
ment, was found late Saturday af-
ternoon huddled in a gunny sack on
a fire escape outside the apartment
of Albert Wolter, the man charged
with her abduction. She had been
strangled with a short end of a
three-eighths rope, hacked with a
knife, burned beyond recognition and
thrust carelessly out of doors like so
much rubbish
Little to Identify.
Identification was only possible by
shreds of clothing and fragments of
jewelry, but there was abundant evil
dence of how the murder had been
done. Around the neck were the
charred fibers of Manila burnt into
the flesh. The apartment reeked with
the odor of kerosene. There were oil
stains in front of the newly painted
fire board that. hid an open crate.
Fully dressed, the girls clothing and
hair had been saturated with kero-
sene, the fire board had been remov-
ed and the body thrust up the chin
ney standing. When the match was
touched she burned like a torch.
Probably the murderer had hoped
for an opportunity to remove the
body under cover of night, but when
the girls disappearance Ihised such
an uproar and he began to suspect
he was shadowed, he had packed and
fed in terror.
NeighbOr Finds Body.
Saturday afternoon a neighbor liv-
ing on the same floor of an adjoining
house noticed the lumpy bundle out
side his window, and thinking it ref
use, had poked it off the fire escape !
into the back yard with a broom |
handle. The bundle moved obsti- |
nately and fell with a crash. His |
curiosity more than his suspicious
aroused, the neighbor hurried down /
stairs, for the janitor to investigate. /
When the two men cut the strings /
that bound the sacking there rolled /
out before them the full horror of an .
atrocious murder. Both fed for the !
police.
Ruth Wheeler was 1 > years old,
the youngest of three sisters brought !
up by their mother, a dressmaker, to |
self support. Both the elder sisters .
we're stenographers, and Ruth had 7.
just graduated from a business col /
Iege, eager for employment and proud .
Of her diploma. An employment 1
agency for graduates is conducted by
the college, and Ruth called there
often to look for situation. Thurs
day morning she left home on her
usual errand and never returned.
Supported by Woman.
Wolter was arrested. Before a
magistrate he had nothing to say,
but to the others he admitted that the
woman with whom he was living is
not his wife. He met her shortly .
after coming to this country from
Germany two years ago, he said;
hey fell in love and set up house
keeping Last summer he and she
lad worked at Irvington-on-the-Hud-
son at a boarding house. They came
10 this city last month and since
hen the woman had supported him
1y working in laundry.