Bridgeton pioneer., 1917-05-24
A Pulling
Case
By WARREN MILLER

dTe SluDly WudJ 10 ICuuioitC W pAC-
vent the punishment of innocent per
sons. One of these precautions that
has been condemned is the admission
of plea of insanity. When people
hear of a case of poisoning they are
apt to say the poisoner will be proved
insane. My own view, based on my ex-
perience, is that an insane person is
liable to be proved guilty of murder.
was once called upon by gentle
man named Farnsworth, who inform
ed me that some one had sent anony-
mously a bottle of port wine to his
wife. The lady had recently presented
him with an infant The bottle had
been opened by her nurse, who took
the precaution to taste the wine before
permitting her charge to take any of
1t. There was peculiar flavor to the
wine, which rendered the nurse suspi-
cious, and she refrained from taking
more than a taste. When the doctor
came again she turned the beverage
over to him. He analyZed 1t and found
that it contained arsenic.
I made every inquiry as to any per-
son who might harbor any enmity
against Mrs. Farnsworth, but could
find no clew. I inquired minutely if
she had ever had trouble with any of
her servants, but learned that she had
not. Those who had left her service
had expressed very kindly feeling
for her, and those she employed at the
time of the receipt Of the wine had
been with her for years.
The only clew afforded me was the
wrapper to the bottle. on which there
was pen and ink address. The goods
had been put in long box shaped to
inclose bottle and the whole wrapped
in brown paper. The address was not
written on the wrapper, but on a tag
that was attached to the parcel The
handwriting was that of woman.
This fact of course suggested that the
criminal might be feminine. Though
this was only suggestion, inclined
to the theory that a woman was more
likely to have made the attempt than
man. There was the tag, on which
was written the address plainly and
evidently with no attempt to disguise
the hand. But how was l to find the
person who had written it? l obtained
specimens of the writing of those COM
posing the household and many others
having any connection whatever with
the family, but none Of them had any
resemblance whatever to that on the
tag.
Having made no headway while
keeping the matter secret, I resolved
to let it become public, hoping that
some one who might know something
about the sending Of the bottle would
come forward with clew. caused
an item to be inserted in a newspaper
stating that lady had received bot
tie of poisoned wine. A lot of sugges-
tions were made, but none Of them of
any value.
The fact that there had been no
attempt to disguise the handwriting
caused me to believe that the sender
had employed some innocent person to
address the tag. With this theory in
view I had facsimile of the address
made and inserted it in a newspaper.
The facsimile purported to be merely
a matter of news, but 1 had a faint
hope that if some innocent person had
written the address the publication
might meet that persons eye. o. sts
It did, 4 few days after the publ
cation the chief Of police handed me
letter from a girl which said she had
been called upon to write such an ad-
dress and she recognized the one pub
Ished as her own chirography. 4.
I called at once on the writGr-she
gave her place Of employment as her
address-and found a girl Of sixteen
in small store. She told me that a
gentleman had come into the store,
bought pair Of gloves and had asked
her to write the address on the tag.
She duplicated what she had written.
When 1 asked her to describe the
man for whom she had done the writ
ing she said that he was about thir-
ty-fve years old, light hair and blue
eyes, medium height mustache only
and evidently a gentleman. I had
with me photographs Of every mem
ber of the Farnsworth family, the
servants and some forty associates. I
gave them to the girl. who ran them
over, and when she came to the picture
OF Mr.. FarnswOrth handed it back to
me, saying:
"That's the man.
A detective is never staggered. At
any rate, controlled my surprise. 1
dropped five dollar bill into the girls
hand, exacting a promise Of secrecy,
and went straight with my informa-
ton to the family physician of the
Farnsworths. Before left him it had
been arranged that we should both in
vestigate the medical record Of Mr.
Farnsworth and his progenitors. We
found that a brother of his GRANDPA
ther had been an inmate of lunatic
asylum and an aunt had committed
suicide
1t was evident that Mr. Farnsworth
had tried to poison his wife while in