Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-04-12
All Phases of Famous Mys-
terry Described in Detail.
Prosecution Has Been Un-
reIenting
Atlanta Journal News Bureau,
40S Evans Building.
BY THEODORE TILLER

w ASt1lNGION, April 1U.-1 he
department Of justice Monday issued
statement dealing with the new
phases of the Victor e. Times case.
The comment of the department is
as follows:
After serving a term of seven
years in the Georgia state prison
upon conviction of embeZZlement
after trust, Victor E. Innes was re-
leased only to be arrested, tried and
convicted on another charge, using
the mails 10 defraud. and sentenced
to a new term of years and fine of
$1,000 as result of the relentless pur-
suit of the man by department of
justice agents over a period of more
than nine years.
Since 1914, department special
agents have been Investigating Innes
and his wife, Ida H. Innes, in con-
nection with one of the most re-
markable murder mysteries in the
annals Of the criminal division and
one that caused a sensation in half
a dozen western states, as well as
in several eastern and southern
states. Captain Fred A Watt. chief
of the Portland, Ore, office of the
bureau of investigation, department
of justice, who has worked on the
several phases of the Times case ever
since it came up, has reached Wash
ington from Atlanta and made a
complete report to the bureau.
First Arrested
"Vctor +. InneS, or Victor 1.
Ennes, as he sometimes called him
L. En- ,,1,- low
several aliases, were arrested by
agents acting under Captain Watt
near Eugene, Ore, in August, 1914,
following a nationwide search for
Mrs. Eloise helms Dennis and her
sister, Miss Beatrice Nelms.
THE first suspicious against
Inres and his wife were that they
were engaged in the white slave traf-
tic, but later, when it was found that
the two young women had disap-
peared under mysterious circum-
stances, the officers proceeded on
the theory that murder had been
committed to hide the misappropria-
ton Of money stolen, from them.
Investigation of the murder phase
was started by death note" mailed
in San Francisco III July, 1914, to
Mrs. John w. Nelms, of Atlanta,
Ga, mother of the sisters. The let
tiers, which purported to have been
written by Mrs. Dennis, and was
said to have been N9cOgniZed by Mrs.
helms as the handwriting of her
daughter. said that she had muir
dered her sister and intended to kill
her young brother, Marshall Nelms,
in San Francisco.
hines and Ills wife early in 1914
had moved from Portland, Oregon,
to San Antonio, Texas, where they
hired and occupied a cottage on the
outskirts of the city. The evidence
upon which Innes and his wife were
later arrested at Eugene, Oregon,
showed that the missing sisters
visited this cottage in June, 1914,
and were not afterward seen or
heard from. A huge meat grinder,
said to be too large for family use,
and an empty acid carboy found
near the cottage were brought out
as gruesome suggestions of a solu
ton to the disappearance of the sis
ters. It was believed that they had
reduced to bits in the meat chopper,
dissolved in the powerful acid and
then poured into d nearby sewer.
Escape Under Texas Law
"Innes and his wife were jointly
indicted for murder on the testi-
mony of department of justice
agents and others. But, as the
Texas law requires that body must
be viewed before a charge of muir
der can be prosecuted, and as no
material parts of the bodies of the
sisters could be found and identified,
the pair were never brought to trial
on the murder indictment. Innes
and his wife were, however, held on
the embezZlement charge and re
moved to Atlanta, Ga, where they
were tried and convicted, and lines
was sentenced to the prison term
which has just expired. The wife,
also. was found guilty and sentenced
to three years, but was pardoned in
short time on account, it is said,
of being a hopeless tubercular vic
tim. She also was indicted with
Innes for using the mails to defraud
but has not yet been brought to
trial. She is now living in Port
land, Ore, under surveillance ac-
cording to Captain Watts report.
suspicion against Innes in con
nectiOn with the disappearance OF
the sisters was first aroused when
it was found that one of the sis
tcrs, Mrs. Dennis. had intruste5
him with considerable sums of
money supposedly for investment,
and it was through these alleged
transactions that the indictments
for misuse of the mails arose and
for which Innes has now been re-
committed 20 prison at Atlanta.
Innes, when arrested at Eugene.
Ore, to which place he went after
leaving the San Antonio cottage, de-
MED ever having seen'or heard from
Mrs Dennis, after he had, as law
yer, obtained a divorce for her in
Nevada, in 1911.
Times also served for a short
time in 1911 as a deputy United
States district attorney"
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