Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-18

the motive. without it they are left
fioundering in the midst of a seemingly
impossible situation-that Of crime
without reason. But when 1t Is known,
they say, the battling riddle will be
answered and the way to the identlhca-
ton of the slayer unerringly indicated.
AS a result Of their week of inveSti-
CATION the police have been able to
establish definitely only the most
meager details of the murder.
They know Mary Baker was killed
sometime after $40 o'clock Friday
evening. They know she was brutally
beaten and criminally assaulted and
they know how her death was erected.
They know the murderer drove her
blood-soaked automobile to point
nearly a mile distant from the place
where the body was found and aban-
doned it there.
They have good reason to believe
she met a man in gray cap at Seven
tenth and B streets and that the
couple quarrelede before driving away
in her car, but they have no clue to
the identity of this man.
Several PuZzIing Aspects.
AS for the rest, the exact place and
time of the Staying, the motive, the
whereabouts of the pistol and the
identity Of the killer, they know little
or nothing.
There are several singularly puzzling
aspects to the crime.
First, there is the strange disap-
pearance Of the young woman's coat,
hat and pocketbook. She had these
articles with her when last seen by her
| friend, Miss Inez M. Eyre, but an in
! tensive search of the vicinity where the
| BODY and automobile were found has
failed to reveal any trace of them.
It is incredible, the police say, that
| the slayer would have taken these arti-
| Giles with him when he abandoned the
car and fed on foot and left more
valuable wrist watch and ring on the
body They point out that he made
only the most casual effort to hide the
body and no effort at all to dispose OF
the car.
The police attach considerable i'm
| portance to the finding of these articles.
Unless they have been carried away
| by someone who had no connection
with the crime. they believe their To-
| cation will tend to establish more def
nitely the place where the murder &C.
CURED.
Two Theories About Keys.
| Another development, as yet uneX-
! planned, is the finding of the keys to
! the young woman's automobile and
! house alongside a lane leading from
East Cemetery road, beside which the
body was found, into the Government
| Experimental Farm Two theories to
| account for the keys being there have
| been advanced.
One, that the slayer and girl parked
their car at this point before the muir
| der had been committed and another
that they were dropped there by the
murderer as he was making his escape
! on foot across the farm after aban-
! doning the car.
| Neither theory is regarded as highly
| probable, however, for it has been point
! ed out that even had the car been
| parked there, the Keys were found nearly
| 20 feet from the side of the lane. The
police also doubt that the slayer escaped
on foot In that direction, pointing out
| that the route he would have been
! following could have taken him only
into a swampy region bounded by the
| Potomac River East Cemetery road and
the town of Rosslyn. Better avenues of
| escape, they say, lay in other direc-
! tons.
Still another factor which police cam
not explain is the report by night
| Waterman on the Arlington Memorial
Bridge that he heard three shots and a
woman's screams about $50 o'clock Sat-
| urday morning. The Waterman, who
was stationed only few hundred yards
| from the culvert where the. body was
| found, said the sounds came from that
direction, and were clearly distinguish
able. The amount Of blood in the car,
| however, indicates according to the
police, that the young woman was car
ried some distance after she had been
mortally wounded
I Even the day-by-day developments as
the investigation of this crime pro-
crossed have been surprisingly few
Every possible clue has been run down
by the investigators without any tan
gible results, so far as is known.
Male Friends Questioned.
A theory that Mary Baker was killed
| at 1890 o'clock in Rosslyn, Va, based
on reports by residents and night
watchmen that they saw a small sedan
being driven rapidly away in the di-
rection of the culvert after hearing
two shots, has been virtually discarded,
| the police having received other in
| formation which leads them to believe
that the crime was committed and the
car abandoned before $50 o'clock that
night
Every known male acquaintance of the
| young woman has been questioned. but
little information of value has been
secured from them.
Several individuals, whose actions
| aroused suspicion, have been taken into
custody only to be released after
thorough questioning.
Miss Sperry and Miss Skinner have
been questioned on two occasions, but
If they divulged any information of
value, 1t Is being closely guarded by the
| police.
Other minor leads have been run
down, but the net result has been neg
ligible, The police are back where
they started.
And so, the murder of Mary Baker
begins to resemble the perfect crime,
which criminologiStS say does not exist.
The investigators do not believe the
young woman was killed by any master
criminal, but rather that the perpetra-
tor of the crime was extraordinarily
lucky The near perfection of his act,
they believe, is due more to a fortu-
nate avoidance of blunders than to
careful planning.
AS the investigators begin to go back
over their own tracks in the hunt for
some significant detail which may have
escaped them in the first investigation,
they are concentrating more and more
on establishing the motive.