The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-11-12
Letter From Man Claiming to Be
Missing Kansan, Puzzles.
Messages Compared Show Differ
ence in Grammar and Style.
HAS A ST. LOUIS END.
CaseInVOlVes Settlement of $685.
900 Insurance Policy.
Other Items of General Interest
to State Readers.
SUNDAY.

Spokane, Wash, Nov. 12.-The
Spokesman Review prints the following
special correspondence from North
Yakima, Wash; Whether Andrew J.
White, convict in the Auburn peni-
Tertiary in New York, is George A.
Kimmel, the missing Arkansas City,
Kansas, bank cashier. as he claims, is
the question puzzling not only eastern
courts but also several North Yakima
men who have scruttnized two letters,
one written by Kimmel to friend in
1895, the other written to the same
friend, dated October 26, 1910.
In the first letter Kimmel writes
w D. Wrighter in the most personal
way-in the second the convict who
was known as White and now says he
is Kimmel claims he does not. remem-
Der Wrighter, but that he may have
met him in Sheridan, Wyo., and not
recollected the fact.
Wrighter met Kimmel in Wyoming
in the '90s and for a time employed
him, the two becoming friends. KIM
mel was then out west for his health.
Later he returned to Niles, Mich,
where he was connected with the First
National bank, and it was from Niles
that he wrote Wrighter in 1896.
Newspaper articles relative to suit
in the United States court at St
Louis, in which Mrs. Edna KimmeI
Bonslett is suing the New York Life
Insurance company for $4,000, the
amount of insurance carried by KIM
mel on his life and in favor of his sis
ter. attracted the attention of Wright
er, who wrote to COrdello Herrick
chaplain of the Auburn penitentiary,
where Kimmel was reported to be
lodged. The chaplain showed the let
TO-.
wer has just been received.
The writer says that he suffered
from an accident and injury to his
head in 1898, which sent him to the
hospital and then to the penitentiary,
and that it is difficult for him to re-
call the past.
'I am not criminal or an impos-
ter" he writes, but the victim of
avarice-that is, the $4,000 insurance
on my life blocks my identity being
established"
Kimmel disappeared in 1898 from
Arkansas City on business trip
Nothing was heard from him or about
him until 1908 when a convict of the
New York asylum, for he was then in
Matteawan, claimed to be Kimmel al
though there under the name of An
drew J. White. White was later found
to be sane and sent to Auburn.
The convict claims that he disap-
peared because a relative was impIi-
Gated in 100000 ENLIGHTENMENT and
he was drugged and kept prisoner at
st. Louis, that he was released, met
the relative on the street, was knocked
senseless and when he recovered.
found himself in the hospital.
He went from st. Louis, he claims.
to Philadelphia, and then to New
York, where he became involved in
trouble and was sent to prison.
Mrs. Bonslett brought suit to re-
cover on the insurance after the time
had passed set by statute to show that
disappearance was considered death
under law. She obtained a verdict in
the st. Louis court but it was taken
to the United States court and there
reversed, on the ground that the evil
dence as to KimmePs disappearance
was not sufficient. In the retrial the
convict's deposition of 700 written
pages has been used.
The letters received by Wrighter
show a difference in grammar, style.
spelling and writing.