The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-10-20
MINISTER ARRESTED AT
 HOME OF HIS AFFIANCED
 ON CHARGE OF MURDER
Rev. Dr. Rcheso Pastor of Fashionable Baptist Church in Cambridge Accused of Giving Deadly Poison to Another GiTL Whose Wedding Dress Became Her
 Funeral Shroud, Today
Special from United Press.)

Special from United Press.)
 Boston, Oct. 20-Arrested in the
 home of Miss Violet Edmands, the
 heiress he was to have led to the altar
 in less than a fortnight, Rev. Dr.
 Clarence Virgil Thompson Richeson.
 pastor of the fashionable Immanuel Baptist Church, of Cambridge. was to-
 day formally charged with the mur- der of Avis LinneIl, who believed she was to have been the minister's bride. Miss Linnel, instead, was buried to- day, and the wedding gown which l score of her friends had helped her fashion in anticipation of her wed- ding became her funeral shroud-
 Richeson will be tried on October s1. the day on which he was to have : been married to Miss Edmands.
 Trusting implicitly in the love she bore the young divine. the police as sert, Miss Linnell, in her rooms in the ! Young Women's Christian Association, Saturday night swallowed what she ! had been told was harmless head ache potion. dn five minutes she was :. the most deadly drug known. i. The warrant for the formal arrest 1 of the preacher was issued by Judge 1 Duff. of the criminal court, after Will I liam Hhhn, a druggist of Newton, Mass, had positively identified Riche- son as the man to whom he soid a quantity of cyanide of potassium, last week.
 It was in Newton lbat Richeson was schooled in the teachings of the man of Gallilee, whose life he had gone forth to preach. It was in Newton, the police assert. that he later pur- chased the drug that ended the life and love of the girl who fairly wor- shipped him.
 The police scribe two possible mo- tfves for the crime, either one of which would make the case one almost unparalleled in American criminal an- na1S.
 me first is that, fearing Miss Lin nell might interfere with his approach ine marriage to Miss Edmands, the heiress, Rdchesons set about with rare cunning to kill the girl; the other is that he purchased the drug for Miss Linnell in order that she might end her own life when she learned the man she loved was to become the hus- band of another.
 The police ascribe two possible mo- case against the pastor. He has been identified as the man who purchased the cyanide. He IS known to nave in Boston. Friday night. The police charge it was there that he gave her the drug, telling her it was harm less headache potion. That night the girl died from the effects of the poi son. The preacher immediately was notified over the telephone as her companions knew the young woman as his fiancee-
 "weIl. why do you tell me?" he de- manded petulently, and hung up the telephone.
 Sunday, Richeson faced his congre-
 
 expounded to them, with great force, the teachings of Christ.
 Monday, Avis was taken back, dead, to Hyannis, the little Cape Cod town where she was born and from which she had gone to Boston to study mu- sic that she might the better fit her. self for her future life as the wife of the pastor.
 Tuesday, gossip connected Richeson's name with what was at first believed to have been the suicide of the girl. EHe answered nothing, but sought ref uge in the palatial Brooklfne home of Moses Grant Edmands, whose daugh- ter, worth quarter of a million al- ready and the heiress to her fathers great fortune, was to have become 'Richeson's bride in two weeks. The wedding was to have been solemnized on October 31, in the First Baptist Church at Newton Center. More than
  lar divine and his fich bride-to-be had been mailed. They were recalled to- day.
 It was at the home of his intended that Richeson was arrested. Detec- tives and policemen had stood about tho house all night, demanding admit tance that they might question. At 7:30, he came to the door and asked what was wanted.
 We want you to answer some questions regarding the source from which Avis LinneN secured the poison for medicine" the police told him. "1 will go with you," he said, simply, and entered the taxicab. The formal charge was then placed against him.
 At 11:25 after Hahn had identified him as the purchaser of the poison, a warrant charging him with murder in the first degree, was issued
 T am innocent, I know nothing of it at an," he protested, as he was led away to a cell.
 And just at noon, in the little Cape Cod town churchyard, a mournful | group stood about the open grave of i Avis Linnell and listened to the few simple words of the country pastor The body in the coffin was clad in the | gVrgeous gown her friends had helped | her fashion. the gown she was to have worn as she stepped proudly to the altar with Dr. Richeoson to become | his wife.
 Not in years has Boston, or, in fact, the Commonwealth, been confronted | with such a mystery as the present l one. the facts of which are these
 Clarence Virgil Thompson Richeson. sc-n in Rose Hill Va. 8 years ago, studied for the ministry at Amherst, Va, and at the National Theological | Seminary, paying his way by hard | work He served at Louisville, Ky.
 His first real work as a pastor was in the little Baptist church at Hyan- his, where he met Avis Linnell, a | pretty, blue-eyed, lighthaired girl of 17. They became engaged and when | he went to Cambridge to preach in the Immanuel church, he suggested that she come to Boston to study music | Her friends declare that her life at the conservatory and in her quarters at the Y. w. c. A., have been beyond the faintest shadow of suspicion-that she never spoke of but one man. the man whose ring she wore on her en- gagement finger, Rev. Clarence Virgil Thompson Richeson.
 When the young minister had been several months at ImmanueI church he met Miss Edmunds. a handsome oP offrocfiuo pe,SrroI;<xz !