Daily Kennebec journal., 1922-05-25
EFFORT TO HUSH
BLACKMAIL CASE
ANCERS co. ATTY.
Determined to Probe
Affairs of Million
aires Son
Resents Family's Attempt to
Keep Secret Nature of Black
mail Threat Which Resulted
in killing of One of Gang by
Young Ward-Says Woman
is in Case

White Plains, \. Y, May c4.--(By
A. P.)-Walter S. Ward, millionaire
bakers son. late today resigned as
police commissioner of New Rochelle,
maintaining silence concerning the
nature of the blackmau threat which
he asserted had led up to his shoot
ing OF Clarence Peters, ex-marire.
This afternoon, a man close to the
Wards told the army reporters
modified here that they might as
well go home, as the family has the
case sewed up tighter than a drum"
When this was repeated to Distric.
Attorney Weeks of West Chester
county who earlier in the day as
serted. he had not swallowed hook,
line and sinker," the story told oy
Ward having fired in self defense,
he pounded the table in front of him
and roared:
"Sewed up. eh? Well. let me set
you fellows right. Nobody can de-
liver us. We're going through with
this thing. running down every pos
sibe angle"
But neverthelesss the public re-
manned as ignorant of the secret hold
which Peters and his band of alleged
blackmailers may have had on Ward
as on last Saturday, when the young
police official surrendered, a week
after Peters had been found shot
to death near the kensico Reservoir,
where Ward claimed to have motored
for a tryst and had been forced into
a pistol battle.
In answers to questions by the
reporters, Mr.. Weeks said:
The coroner will hold no inquest
until the sheriff is through with his
Investigation, because l intend ID
have all the facts brought out in the
open"
Mr.. Weeks ed positively that
he knew of a woman connected with
the case
His assertion was made after he
had been questioned concerned a
woman alleged to have been seen
frequently in the company of Peters.
New York reports stated that the
young woman, described as a dainty
dresser, had often been seen with
Peters, shabbily dressed, in her high
priced car. at race tracks and along
the Gay White Way.
Sergeant Edward McGarvey of the
state police told an Associated Press
representative of the report made t.
him by Trooper Joseph Collins. who
went to get the body after it had
been found.
According to Collins whereas Ward
has claimed his car and that OF The
blackmailerS were on the scene of
battle, he could find no marks of
only one set of tires. These were
Is feet from the spot where the body
lay.
Collins told his superior there had
been no signs of a fight, nor could
he find any one who had heard
number of shots. The fact that gravel
clung to heels and soles on ooth
the dead mans shoes led him TO he
lieve he had been standing when he
was shot.
Peters coat was open. The bullet
passed through vest, sllilt and TN
dershirt and came out the back.
In the pockets were found S132,
cards and dice.
Mr.. Weeks received today an anoy-
nous letter mailed in New Yor.. City,
which he said, threw some light on
the compromising knowledge that the
alleged blackmailers may have had
over Ward"
The writer, a man, declared that
while he was in the army, stationed at
Fort Slocum, \. Y, Ward had visited
the post several times and had often
talked at length of his family.
Il don't know what to thing of it,
he said "It doesn't strike me as a
crank letter"
Mr.. Weeks said tonight that he did
mot wholly accept the story that two
other men were present" when Ward
shot and killed Peters. He said he
did not mean to infer that he had lost
his belief in Wards blackmail story
entirely. but that he thought the pres
ence of the roadster from which two
other men fred. according to Ward,
was questionable.