Cresco plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1913-1945, 1913-10-10
POLICE DECLARE
STORIES FALSE
Chicago Officials Doubt Spen.
GERS Murder Yarns.
CALL THEM OPIUM DREAMS


Of Investigation Only Connects
Him With 1wo-Authorities Assert
They Have Complete Proof Of XIII.
ing Woman.
Chicago, Oct. 7.-Of the nineteen
! murders Henry Spencer, slayer of
Mrs. Mildred Allison-Rexroat, swore
he had committed, the police, after in
vestigating his alleged crimes in va.
r;ous cities, were able to fix upon him
only one murder or possibly two.
Captain Halpin, chief of the de-
tective bureau, announced his convic-
ton that Spencer, in giving his long,
circumstantial confession of fiendish
crime, was a consummate liar.
Four of the murders he says he
committed were perpetrated while
Spencer was in the Illinois state peni-
Tertiary at Joliet.
OF twelve alleged murders the po-
lice in this and other cities have no
record. ...
In one case described by Spencer
police records show that body was
recovered, but the detectives have es-
tablished no connection between Spen.
Ger and the crime. IA.
Except for possibly two murders
Spencer's weird story of killing people
by hammering in their skulls and sink.
ing bodies in lakes seems pure fabri-
cation" said Captain Halpin.
Drugs Stimulate Imagination.
His imagination, stimulated by
drugs, poured out one of the most
fantastic tales of murder that has ever
come from a man whose mind is given
to dreams of crime"
Captain Halpin declared that he has
complete proof that Spencer murdered
Mrs. ReXroat and is almost equally
confident that he murdered Mrs. Anna
Bell Wight. Mrs. Nights house was
robbed Dec. 4, 1912, and she was
beaten so severely that she died July
]3. 1913.
The body of Ida Oliver, recovered
from the drainage canal May 20, 1912,
may correspond to the foreign woman
whom Spencer said he lured along the
canal and killed after robbing her.
Spencer was in the penitentiary
when Policemen Pennelle and Devine
were killed, Aug. IL, 1902. He also
was in prison in 1908 when Fannie
Thompson was killed and when EN-.
NETT McChesny was killed in Septem-
Der. 1911.
Denials were received from police
in other cities mentioned by Spencer
that many of the boosted crimes were
committed.
Officials of Zion City have no record
Of the man said to have been shot and
thrown into the lake.
Most Stories GroundIess.
The chief of police at Walkerville,
Ont, wired that there had not been a
murder there in twenty years.
Information from Goshen, N. Y, was
that there was no record of a murder
near Fort Montgomery, where Spen-
Ger said he had killed his first wife,
Nellie. III
Delavan and Fox Lake, Wis, re.
porte that no bodies were recovered
of the three women and man Spen.
Ger said he killed and threw into the
lake at the two resorts. The st Jo-
seph, Mich, authorities could find no
record of the murder of Mrs. Corners,
reported in the confession.
No records could be found here of !
the old man, alleged to have been !
killed in Jackson park last spring, or
CT the woman he said he killed at
Fulton and Halstead streets eight |
ago or of saloon keeper Oh
the West Side.
Complete identification Of Spencer
as the murderer Of Mrs. Rexroat came
from several different sources, while
at least two sections of his confession,
referring to the holdups and robberies,
were confirmed by visitors to the dc.
tective headquarters.