The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1913-12-24
BY Her Prompt and Des-
perate Action.
FRANTIC MOTHERS BOLD ACT
True Story of Double Identity
Which Baffled Detec.
tiveS' Search.
MoTHER-IOvE INSPIRATION

serial StOTy eHtitieu Inc Wohdh
Law" based on double identity, in
which a mother, to save her child,
substituted an innocent man for a
murderer. In the course of recent
interview the author of this piece of
fiction revealed many of the facts in
her possession on the subject of
double identity. 1t appears that she
has been interested in the subject
for many years. First she found
her own double, Annie Walsh, a Bos-
ton woman whose resemblance to
Mrs. Thompson is marvellous. Then
she became interested in the COM
ments of Judge who said that a
criminal is foolish to quake before a
published description of himself, be-
cause any description would fit at
least two men in each block. This
Judge went on to say that he could
find his double in half an hour in
any crowded thoroughfare-his
double so far as height, weight,
shape of head and color of eyes and
hair can be conveyed by description.
Later, she found many police prose-
cutors who told her that identified
ton by finger prints and other
scientific means is developing sim
ply because the old method of de-
pending on descriptions for identifi-
cation is a failure. Following is a
true story Mrs. Thompson tells of
double identity, in which mother
saves her son from the hangman's
) moose:
"This mother was sixty-nine years
old and her son forty-three. He was
a dope fiend.
1T was a sweltering July. Hos
pitfalls and relief stations were crowd
ed with patients Frustrated with
the heat. Mary's husband had died
from sunstroke. The first thing her
eye sought in her morning paper
was list of the heat victims. One
morning at the bottom of the list
was Unknown man, about forty
five, five feet seven, weight $50 or
whereabouts, mixed gray and brown
hair and beard, blue serge suit,
pockets empty, delirious.'
MARY read this and turned white.
1t was a description of her son. She
had sat up till midnight and he had
not come in. And she had feared
'She went to his room. Her son
was there, lying upon his bed. dress
ed. and asleep. His face was
scratched as from an encounter with
Brambies. The mother felt in his
pocket for the morphine bottle to
see how much he had taken since
yesterday. Her hand encountered a
ring. mans big solitaire in old
fashioned setting. and leather
pouch containing $4,000 in currency
bills.
"She hid the ring and the pouch
involuntarily, in wild maternal in
stinct to save her offspring. Then
she went back to the sitting room;
the newspaper lay outspread on the
table where she had left it. In big
black headlines she read
"AGED MAN MURDERED IN
HIS BED" Then followed the story.
The man had no immediate family.
He lived alone with one old servant.
The house was isolated, surrounded
by hedge fence. Three persons had
seen a man in that vicinity about
midnight. the time of the murder, a
man with a beard.
THE woman of sixty-nine, simple.
honest. blunt of Imagination, looked
from this matter over to the other
matter-'Unknown man. Just what
happened in Mary's soul she nor no
one else will ever know Her own
statement. ON record. is merely. 1t
came to me. and ! did 1t. | had to
save my son.
'She put on her hat, then took
thc iiu6 anu ehc partly hiiSu S>ss'~
of morphine and went to the relief
station where the unknown man
was. He lay. dressed in his street
clothes. upon a cot, his head upon
an ice pack. Overworked doctors
and nurses were busy administering
relief to the fast accruing patients.
There was the attendant confusion
and crowding. Mary. unnoticed.
sought out the unknown man. He
looked very much like her son.
'Providentially like in Mary's
words.
She bent over him and left the
ring and the morphine bottle-in
his pocket? No. And here Is Mary's
one great stroke that makes her, a
novice in crime. remembered In po-