Newark evening star and Newark advertiser., 1914-12-31
'DOYING, SHE HIDES
MYSTERY Of TWO
ROGERS WIVES
Mrs. Rogers" Poisoned, Is Si-
Ient-Lawyer Denies He's
Bigamist.


street, the Bronx, to administer BIZ
chloride of mercury to her small son
and infant daughter and take the
drug herself on Tuesday afternoon.
The police and hospital records
showed she gave the name OF her
husband as Lorlys Elton Rogers, q
lawyer, at 38 Park row.
The other Mrs. Lorlys Elton Rogers
before her marriage was Miss Caro-
line Giddings, sister Of Professor
franklin Henry Giddings, of Colum-
bia University, the famous sociolo-
Sist. Until last October 1 she and
her husband lived at 552 Riverside
drive. His business address was 36
Park row.
The aforementioned Mrs. Lorlys
Elton Rogers I'd her son John, two
years, lay dying In Lebanon Hospi-
tai yesterday from the poison which
earlier in the day caused the death
Of the infant, Loretta Rogers. The
detectives OF the Fifth Branch De-
tective Bureau are searching for evil
1ence to solve the domestic puzzle.
because the lawyer, when questioned
at the hospital by District Attorney
Martin, asserted that time spent try
ing to work up a bigamy case"
against him would be spent in vain.
The Riverside drive address is the
earned that Professor Giddings's
erother-in-law and Mrs. Rogers
lad occupied an expensively fur
nlshed apartment there. On October
| they sublet 1t to Louis Brooks. a
member of the New York Cotton Ex-
change, and went to Mountain View,
N. j.. where they had a cottage
Rogers ut Bedside.
After Mrs. Ida Rogers and her two
little ones were removed to the hos.
pita1 Mr.. Rogers was near her bed
side and the ohildren's every hour of
the day and night. He apparently
was overcome with grief. He was
pacing up and down the corridor of
the hospital last night at 7:46 O'Clock
when District Attorney Martin and
Coroner Heaiy, of the Bronx, arrived
there to obtain an ante-mortem
statement from Mrs. Rogers, and to
question the man whom she described
IS her husband.
The county authorities questioned
the dying woman and then tried to
obtain further information from Mr..
Rogers At the end of an hour and
a half they returned to the adninis-
trative offices of the hospital and said
that Mr.. Rogers had refused to give
them much information about him
a lawyer and that he knew what
were his rights, However, he did
say, according to the district attor-
ney:
"As a lawyer ! want to tell you
that If you are trying to work up a
oigamy case against me you're sim
ply wasting time"
The district attorney said he be-
iieved the man knew what he was
talking about, and that while Mrs.
Rogers in her sworn statement as
serted she was the wife of Lorlys
Elton Rogers she did not assert she
was married legally to him.
When Mrs. Rogers was asked <s
make an ante-mortem statement she
admitted that she did not know that
her condition was so serious. 1t was
with great effort that she feebly wrote
her signature to the following state
ment:
II had kept bi-chloride of mercury
tablets In the house since my last
baby was born. l dissolved one tablet
n an ounce of water and 1 gave it to
Loretta. I powdered another tablet
with sugar which l gave to my son,
John. I took the remaining three
tablets myself.
-" 1T have felt terribly depressed the
last six weeks. I had no words or
trouble at all with my husband;
regret having committed this act"
Hides Identity.
A statement almost identical with
this one was made by Mrs. Rogers
on Tuesday after she was taken to
the hospital. Both were witnessed by
DR.. Henry Furstenberg, coroner's
physician.
Mrs. Rogers refused to tell the coro-
ner or the district attorney the name
of her parents, but she said she was
born in New York city. Immediately
the district attorney questioned her
further about her birthplace, because
he said he detected a pronounced
Southern accent in her speech. He
told her of his suspicious, but Mrs.
Rogers insisted she was a native of
New York.
Lorlys Elton Rogers was born in
Paris In 1870, of American parents
Francis Lorraine Rogers and Char
lotte Thompson Rogers. He was grad
uated from the College of the City of
New York in 1889. and in 1894 mar
ried Miss Annie Dupree Roquemore
of Montgomery, Ala. In 1896 a son,
Lorlys Roquemore Rogers, was born
10 them.
After leaving college Mr.. Rogers
went on the stage In 1892 he left the
stage and studied law in Brooklyn in
a private Office. He went to Mont
gomery, where his parents owned q
large plantation, was admitted to the
Alabama bar in 1892, and formed the
partnership of Hill e. Rogers, which
later became Hill, Roquenore & Rog-
ers. He returned to New York in
1893 and formed a partnership with
ex-Lieutenant- Gov vernor Lewis Stuy-
vesant Chanler. He is member of
O half dozen clubs and had a country
place near Suffern, Rockland county,
N. Y, where he was living when he
and his first wife, Annie Roquemore
Rogers, were divorced in 1909. Later
he married Miss Giddings.
+ PRINCETON, N. T., Dec. 31.-Pro-
fessor Franklin H. Giddings, the emil
nent sociologist of Columbia Univer-
sity, said that the news of the domes-
tic affairs of his brother-in-law,
Lorlys Elton Rogers. surprised him
Professor Giddings stated that his
sister. whose present address he gave
as Mountain View. N. j., was married
to Mr.. Rogers between four and five
years ago, and since that time he had
no intima ton of domestic difficulties.
He never had heard of Mrs. Ida
Rogers, who yesterday poisoned her.
self and her two children. he added.
Professor q ddings has been attend
ing the convention here of the Ameri-
can Economic Association.
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