Seward daily gateway., 1924-10-01
The Case.

TACOMA, Sept. 30.-In trials be- ginning here today in which Robert Rosenbluth and Roland Pothier are charged with wilful murder, the fed death mystery that goes back to the fall of 1918 and into the great war cantonment at Camp Lewis, Wash. On October 25, of that year, while some 50,000 soldiers were training 1 in the camp, Major Alexander Cronk hite, a graduate of West Point and a son of Major General Adelbert Cronk- hite, was on a practice copse of timber, followed by Captain Rosen- bluth and Sergeant Major Pothier A few minutes later several shots were heard, and it was reported that Major Cronkhite was wounded An examination revealed that he had been shot in the breast, and he expired before medical aid could be summoned The body of the officer was taken to the Camp Lewis Hospi- tai, where it was found that he had been killed by a bullet that entered his chest on the right side, a few inches below and in front of the arm pit.
 Five days later the usual investi- gation by an Army Board was con- ducted This board arrived at the conclusion that the major had ac- cidentally shot himself while firing at a target. At the time it was the general rumor that it was a case Iof suicide, according to subsequent statements of army officers.
 Rosenbluth and Pothier both testi- fled at the military investigation and their testimony was substantially the same. They said that Major Cronk- hite had pulled out his pistol to fire at a tin can, that two or three shots were fired, and then the major fell mortally wounded
 The findings were sent to the war department and apparently the mat ter was ended with the burial of the brilliant young officer, and the de- posit of the official decree of the in Ivestigation board in the govern mental archives.
 Major General Cronkhite, however, came home from France in June, 1919, and reopened the investigation in the belief that his son did not commit suicide, that he was too ex- pert with pistol to have shot him. self accidentally, and that it was impossible for an accidental shot to have wounded him in the spot where the fatal bullet entered.
 General Cronkhite consulted all available records in the case and declared them faulty. He then took the matter up with A. Mitchell Pal mer, attorney general under Presi- dent Wilson, and several government investigators were set to work. Rosen- bluth and Pothier, the last persons with Major Cronkhite before his death, were questioned again. On March 19, 1921, Pothier signed a con- fession that he was responsible for the death of Major Cronkhite. Poth- fer said his pistol was discharged ac- cidentally.
 The next day Pothier altered his story and confessed that he had will fully shot and killed Major Cronk- hite at the request and command of Captain Rosenbluth. Pothier said he had borrowed a pistol and ammuni- tion at the instigation of Rosenbluth, and had killed Major Cronkhite ac- cording to a plan mapped out by Rosenbluth. Pothier explained that Rosenbluth had a strange influence over him, but denied that he had received any reward, or promise, for accomplishing the alleged murder beyond the pledge that he would be protected completely.
 Pothier made several statements in the course of his confessions, and they varied considerably from each