The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1913-08-30
KirkwOOd Says Ii Receipt as
"Planted" Two Must
Have Done 1t
LOOSE CHIMNEY CAP
GAVE HIM THE CLEW
Not Believed Here that Wren Would
Put Receipt in Stovepipe Hole -
Could Have Been Drawn Into Chin
ney by Draft from Stove.

The statement issued yesterday at
Keene by Ray NJ Pickard Of counsel
for John Wren, convicted of the muir
der Of James Stewart Hamilton at
Hinsdale last February in which it is
charged that the post Office receipt for
Il registered letter made out to the muir
dered man and found at the bottom Of
the chimney in the Kirkwood house on
Birge street, where Wren lived iu the
upper tenement, was planted there,
leads to the question rs to who had the
opportunity to ,'plant it.
Ralph kirkwood, the young man who
found the receipt while inspecting the
chimney several DAYS after the muir
der, said this morning that no one of
the officers or detectives whc were at
the house had an opportunity TO put
the receipt in the chimney as no one
Of them was there alone, but always
was accompanied by another.
y paragraph in the statement of yes
terday. which removes any reflection
upon the state or county officials. con
cIuded with the statement: I'VE be
/ Ieve that they have been imposed up
Oh. 1t Is known, however. that ut
least one other person who stvled him
self an officer and who was not a resi-
| dent OF Vermont or New Hampshire
was greatly Interested in the ease and
+ visited the scene of the murder and the
/ kirkwood house.
/ The inference, further ON in the
statement. that there Is doubt as To
whether the receipt WAS ever i'm the
chimney, appears to many TO be a lit
/ tie far fetched as there is hardly q
probability that youug Kirkwood did
i not tIud it there. lie showed il to his
mother and She had him turn it over
/ to Police Chief George Wilson mt once.
from whose keeping it went into the
/ possession of the Cheshire county of
/ Gcials.
The kirkwood boy sand this morning
/ that he had not been in the vicinity of
where the murder was committed since
/ he was q child and had no knowledge
OF the existence of such a receipt until
he Glanced TO discover it in the base OF
/ the chimney. lie said he discovered
that the cap on chimney hole in the
/ Wren tenement was not properly in
place which suggested to him the pos
sihility that something might have been
placed in the chimney for the purpose
of hiding it and caused him to go to the
cellar and inspect the clean-out hole
in the chimney.
lie says he is not surprised at the
turn the ease has taken, but says he
can think Of no chance that anyone but
Wren could have had to 'rlant the
evidence in the chimney, unless two or
more persons and one of them an Of
iicer, were concerned in manufacturing
that bit of evidence.
1t is not generally believed i'm Brat
tlehoro that Wren ever removed the
chimney cap to place the receipt in the
chimney. 1t could have been drawn in
from the stove through the short pipe,
but if 4 man had piece of damaging
evidence against him in the form OF a
scrap Of paper as is charged against
Wren in this ease it is not reasonable
to suppose he would 90 to the trouble
OF removing a chimney cap and stuffing
it into the chimney, which would not
destroy Int simply hide it, when it
could easily have been torn up or de-
| stroyed IN match.