The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1919-06-26
law MAN MURDERED
| 1.-THE DIXIE" NEAR CLIO
ARKE WARNER, LEATHER
ALER, SHOT TO DEATH
5meared and Abandoned Auto
obile Leads to Discovery of
Brutal Crime

In the absence of accurate knowl-
edge, it seems highly probable that
the highwaymen were familiar with
the fact that Mr. Warner had col
lected large sum of money in Flint,
that they left the city at about the
same time as he, and that they
trailed or slightly preceded their
unsuspecting victim until the lonely
and untennanted stretch of road
north of the old Vienna cemetery
was reached, place as we'll suited
to their purpose, perhaps, as any that
could have been found. Here, on
the day of the discovery of the crime,
it was observed that there were sew
eral streaks of rubber zigzaging
across the concrete roadway where
it had been scraped off the tires of
some car as it had skidded from side
to side of the road, evidently while
under high speed. In view of this,
it seems quite possible that Mr.. War
ner did not know of his danger until
he reached this point, where his as
sailants attempted to head him off
and stop him and that he lodged
from side to side of the road in a
desperate attempt to evade the vul-
lures whose fell purpose he had
OWNED. Mr.. Warmers car stood on
a practically unused road turning in
to the fields to the right of the Dixie
Highway and tracks indicated that
it had been preceded to this position
by smaller car, which, on turning
back to the Dixie again, had passed
close to the big machine. These
facts are thought by some to indicate
that the body was transferred from
the large car to the smaller one at
this point
On Sunday morning Sheriff Ches-
nut and party of searchers made
up of men from Flint, Saginaw and
/ this locality, conducted an extended
but fruitless search for the body of
the missing man. On Monday re-
wards aggregating $4,000 for the
discovery of the body were offered
by the Saginaw Rotary Club, the
United Commercial Travellers, the
Retail Shoe Dealers Association and
the Board of Supervisors of Saginaw
County.
On Saturday morning preceding
the offer of these rewards, and be-
fore any evidence of the crime was
known to anyone, Charles King, who
lives three miles straight north Of
Clio, discovered some blood stained
papers in the highway that. skirts
a tract of timber, known as Powers
woods, on it's eastern side, but as he
knew nothing of any crime he at
tached no Importance to them and
threw them into the ditch. On Mon
day afternoon, however, when his
wife came home, after picking ber-
ries during the day, and told him of
the crime that was suspected and of
the reward that had been offered for
the recovery of the body, he be-
thought him of the bloody papers he
had found in the road and of the
fact that on the night the murder
was thought to have been committed
he had seen small Pickering light,
like a ffashlight, in about the same
spot. Telling his wife that he be-
lieved he could find the body, and
directing the children to attend to
the evening chores, he went to the
point where he had found the papers
and noticed the light and after very
brief search, on pulling aside some
weeds and willows, discovered the
body lying in the bottom of ditch
The dead man lay within three feet
of the track traversed daily by auto
mobiles and other vehicles, although
it is not a busy road. The body lay
face downward, with arms out
stretched above the head, in po-
sition indicating that it might have
been hauled from an automobile and
into the ditch by the feet, and that
the murderers were in so much of a
hurry to dispose of the body of their
victim that they did not take time
to remove it to some more remote
place of concealment. Near the
body laid the dead mans coat, which
evidently had been stripped off while
he was being pulled into the ditch or
had been taken off by his assailants
in order that they might rifle its
pockets.
After finding the body Mr.. King at
once came to Clio and notified Sher-
iff Chestnut Of the fact by telephone
and the latter in company with sever
al deputies, arrived in the village
within short time. The party then
proceeded to where the body lay,
which was just at the northeast cor
ner of Powers woods. Here Justice
of the Peace Orkie Hempsted impan--
eled coroner's jury, consisting of
Hugh Mccormick, Chas. l.. Best, M.
c. Doyle, Charles r. Robertson Os.
car Pomeroy and Carl Beeman, who
viewed the body, after which it was
removed to the undertaking rooms of
Mccormick & Conlee, where the
character of the wounds that had
been inflicted were determined.
This examination showed that Mr..
Warner had been shot four times,
two of the bullets traversing the
chest from left to right, in the region
of the heart, passing completely