New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-07-07
While Guard Is Away
Dives to Floor in
Corridor
LANDS ON HEAD,
CRUSHING SKULL
Crash of Fall Starts Ru-
NOR of Suicide by Bit
ing Illuminating Cap.
FIRST ATTEMPT FAILS
Police Find House in Central
Valley, L. l., Where He Plot
ted Reign of Terror.

ted Reign OF Terror.
Frank Holt, who on Saturday
tried to murder j. Pierpont Morgan
in his home at Glen Cove, committed
suicide in the Nassau County jail
in Mineola at 1925 o'clock last
night. According to the prison au-
thorities, Holt killed himself by div
ing head first from his cell TO the
floor. An earlier report, based on
the statements of Keeper O'Ryan,
asserted that the prisoner blew the
top of his head off with a fulminat-
ing cap.
District Attorney Lewis J. Smith
and Jail Physician Cleghorn
proved to their own satisfaction
that he had dived from the grill
outside of his cell, and that there
was no foundation for the theory
that Holt had placed an explosive
in his mouth before leaping
DR.. Cleghorn explained this re-
port by saying that the sound as
of an explosion heard by Deputy
Sheriff Jeremiah Organ. Holt's
keeper. was probably caused by the
prisoners head striking a loose
board.
The first report Of Holt's suicide
was made public just before II
o'clock. 1t was then said that he
had died about 1920 o'clock, in the
absence of jeremiah
Organ, his guard.
Right there reports begin to diff
fer. One of these was that there
was a loud explosion, loud enough
to bring Warden Hulst and other
Jail officers rushing TO the cell room.
Organ was quoted as saying that
the noise Of Holt landing on the floor
was like that of an explosion, and
his insistence upon this point and the
volume of the noise heard by others
was the one sustaining feature Of
the report that Holt exploded a cap
in his mouth, much as did one Of the
anarchists a few days
before he was to have been hanged.
Immediately after the prisoner
was found unconscious, DR.. Guy +.
Cleghorn, the prison physician, was
called. He found Holt alive, but the
heart beats continued only a few
minutes. His skull, the doctor said
was horribly crushed. Coroner Wal
ter R. Jones, notified, began an in
quiry and ordered an autopsy. At
the jail it was said early this morn
ing that this would be held before
Uncertainty as TO the manner in
which Holt met death was increased
early this morning by a report from
Washington that the New York po-
lice had notified Superintendent Pull
man that Holt had been shot from
outside the Jail.
Over the long-distance telephone
Sergeant Weeks, on duty in Police
Headquarters in Washington, told
The Tribune that a dispatch, timed
11;40, had been received from Com
missioner Woods declaring that
Holt had been shot from outside the
jail. Police Headquarters here knew
nothing Of the report, and until
Commissioner Woods could be
reached at the Harvard Club this
feature, too, was a mystery.
Commissioner Woods finally ex-
planned that he had telephoned
Washington that Holt was dead and
that, apparently, he had been mis-
DR.. Guy Cleghorn, after perform
ing an autopsy on Holt's body at
Hampstead, stated at 2 o'clock this
that Holt had died Of a
nemorrhage of the brain, caused by
q depressed fracture of the skull.
DR.. Cleghorn said that he found a
arge confused wound, which extend
I'd from the top Of the head TO below
the eyes, and that both the top and
tase Of the skull had been fractured.
He found no evidences of an ex-
plosion or bullet wound.
Mr.. Woods was then in a confer
ence at the Harvard Club with all
of his deputies and a number Of
frst-grade detectives, whose cali 70