The searchlight. [volume] (Culbertson, Mont.) 1902-current, 1911-10-27
CLARENCE RIcHEsoN OF CAM.
BRIDGE. MASS, CHARGED WITH
DEATH OF AVIS LINNELL.
CYANIDE OF POTASSIUM
Music Student Dies as Result Of Poison
Clergyman Taken From Home
of Fashionable Heiress He 10
About to Wed.

Boston, Mass. Arrested in the
home of Miss Violet Edmands, the
heiress he was to have wed in less
than a fortnight, Rev. Clarence Vigil
Thompson Richeson, pastor OF the
fashionable Emmanuel Baptist church
of Cambridge, was formally charged
with the murder of Avis Linnell. who
believed she was TO have been the min
isters bride. Miss Linnell, instead,
was buried and the wedding gown,
which a score of her friends had
helped her fashion in anticipation Of
her wedding. became her funeral
shroud. Richeson was arraigned at a
preliminary hearing and pleaded not
guilty. The case was continued TO
Oct. 81. the day on which he was to
have married Miss Edmunds.
Trusting implicitly in the love she
bore the clergyman, Miss Linnell, in
her rooms in the local Y. w. c. A.
swallowed what she had been told was
a harmless headache potion. In five
minutes she died. killed by cyanide of
potassium. the dealiest drug known.
The warrant for the formal arrest
of the preacher was issued by Judge
Dun OF the criminal court. after Will
liam Hahan. a druggist of Newton,
Mass, had positively identified Rich.
eson as the man to whom he sold a
quantity of cyanide of potassium last
week.
Two Possible Motives for Crime.
The police ascribe two possible mo-
tives for the crime, either one of
which would make the case one almost
unparalleled in American criminal an
nails.
The first is that. fearing that Miss
Linnell might interfere with his ap-
preaching marriage to Miss Edmunds,
the heiress, Richeson set about 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 be-
come the husband of another.
Gossip connected Rev. NJ. Richeson's
name with what was at first believed
TO have been the suicide of the girl.
He answered nothing. but sought re-
fuge in the palatial Brookline home OF
Moses Grant Edmands, whose daugh-
ter, worth s25O.OO0. 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 Oct. 81. in the First
Baptist church at Newton Center.
More than seven hundred invitations
to friends OF the popular clergyman
and his rich bride-to-be had been
mailed. They have been recalled.
Pretty little Miss Linnell. a student
at the Boston Conservatory Of Music,
believed she was to marry Rev. Mr..
Richeson. One the day Of her death
she had read In the Boston papers the
announcement Of Rev. Mr.. Richeson's
engagement to Miss Violet Edmands.
laughter of Moses Grant Edmands, q
resident of fashionable Brookline. n
Boston suburb. A few hours later she
was found dead. n victim of cyanide
poisoning. in the bathroom of the Y.
w. c. A. At first the police believed
she had killed herself; later develop,
ments, they maintain. indicate that she
took the drug in the belief that IL was
a medicine.
Police Judge Murray has issued a
warrant charging Richeson with first
degree murder.