The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1928-10-02
POLICE UNABLE
T0S0LVE CASE
OF N0RTHC0TT
Los Angeles Officials Can't
Decide About Alleged
Murderer
BOY is ACC u S e K
Young Man, Held in Van
cOuver. Says He Is Victim
of Gossipers
BOY is ACCUs Err
BY DAN THOMAS
(NEA Service Writer)

Los Angeles, Calf, Oct. Mod
ern Bluebeard, or victim Of an APP
palling frame-up?
That question revolving about the
person Of Gordon Northcott, q, now
in a Jail cell at Vancouver. B. C., is
pnzzling Los Angeles as nothing has
in years.
Los Angeles cannot quite make up
it's mind whether to get aroused over
q murder tale of unbelievable atroc-
ity, or to dismiss the whole thing
as a CHASTITY hoax. Indeed, the po-
lice themselves are Z bit puzzled.
They think they are on the trail OF
something: yet they are not now
ready to go into court and try
Northcott on murder charge.
Northcott, meanwhile. protests
volubly that he is innocent.
Boy Is Accuser
The case against him, to date
rests almost solely on the amaz-
ing story told officials by 15-year-
old Sanford Clark, Northcott's
nephew.
Young Clark had lived at the
Northcott chicken farm near Corona.
Calf. He came, not long ago. to
the police with grisly tale OF
wholesale murders at the farm.
Young boys had been lured to the
farm and killed by Northcott, he
said. He added that Northcott's
mother, 6O-year-old Mrs. Louise
Northcott. aided in the murders.
Four of these murders, he said, he
himself saw.
Walter Collins, aged 8, was named
by Clark as the first victim. Fol-
lowing him, he said, were the MUIR
ders of Nelson and Louis Winslow
and an unidentified Mexican or
Filipino. Northcott killed the boys
with an axe, his mother assisting,
and then dismembered their bodies
and buried them in quicklime on the
farm, Clark said.
Police Lack Evidence
To date the police have not been
able to confirm or disprove his
story.
Once it was reported that the Col
Inns boy had been found alive and
unframed at DeKalb. ILL.,; but in
vestigation proved that this was an
other lad. Collins, and the other
two boys named by Clark, are in
dubitably missing.
Cyrus Northcott, father of the
alleged murderer, seems to believe
that the Clark boys story is true.
He has said that he "knew of the
killings" but never saw them; and
once he told the police that his wife
would go to any extreme, not except
ing murder, to please her son. His
daughter, Jessie, aged 10, also seems
to credit the tale; but she cannot
give any definite evidence.
Search of the farm has been going
on for days. and the police frankly
admit that they do not know
whether they have uncovered any
corroborative evidence Or not. They
have found fragments Of bones
blood-soaked ground and the like;
but thus far they cannot tell fol
certain whether the bones and blood
are those of human beings or from
animals.
A murder case cannot very vel
be tried without corpus delicti-
Z dead body. And, to date. the pc.
lice have nothing resembling one.
Protests Innocence
Northcott, under arrest at Van
couver, insists he is innocent.
1.-THE whole case is simply that Of
. dissatisfied husband seeking d.
vorce grounds, girl mad for movie
publicity. from whose mind all o.
this idea came, and q lazy stupis
boy half cracked from reading tot
many detective stories and seeini
too many wild west movies" he il
quoted as saying.
The police are basing their hop
chiefly on the belief that they cal
wiring some sort of admission from
\ Northcott when they get him in Lo
Angeles. They will confront hin
with Clark, and they hope this ma.
lead to . confession.
On the other hand, however, ]
the thought that Clark himself ma,
\ break down and confess that hi
story is all fabrication.
Either Northcott is guilty Of on
/ Of the most amazing, shocking
crimes in southern California's his
tory, or he is the victim Of one o
the most damaging hoaxes on record
And just at the present momen
the police would not like to be aske
h to ray definitely which is the case