Evening star., 1936-02-19
WIDOW
WILL FLEE STATE
Fears for Life if She Stays
With Paper-"Kid Cam"
Acquitted.
BY the Associated Press.


MINNEAPOLIS, February 19.-Giv-
ing herself about a month to live"
should she carry on with her slain
husbands crusading weekly paper,
Mrs. Edith Liggett disclosed today she
Is leaving Minnesota.
With Isadore (Kid Cann) Blumen-
field, former bootlegger. acquitted of
numbering Liggett, new attempt to
solve the crime was ordered by Gov.
Floyd B. Olson today.
Blumenfield, a liquor salesman and
former boxer, was acquitted by a jury
in district court last night.
Gov. Olson said every available
State agency would be used in an
effort to locate the actual slayers. Re-
sponsibility for the investigation was
delegated to the State attorney gen.
erals office.
Gov Olson was a frequent target of
editorial attacks by Liggett.
Defendant Overjoyed.
Blumenfelds relief at hearing the
verdict was too great to suppress. The
kid" rushed to the jury box to kiss
the hands of the four woman Jurors
and shake hands with the men Al
most at once he was swept by his
friends out Of the court room.
Mrs. Liggett. informed of the verdict,
prepared statement for interviewers
in which she said, "the Minneapolis
police force has done nothing"
Killed Last December.
The assassination of Liggett last
December 9 focused national attention
once more on a record which once
prompted Attorney General Homer
Cummings to designate Minneapolis
and st. Paul as poison spots of
crime"
Lggett's Staying was the second
here within Is months of a militant
weekly newspaper publisher.
But unlike the earlier killing of
Editor Howard Guilford, Lggett's was
quickly followed by an arrest-that
of Blumenfield, who once essayed to
be prizefighter under the ring name
of kid Cam"
Shortly after Liggett had mailed
out his regular issue of the Mid West
American, the afternoon of December
9, he stepped from his car. back of
his apartment. into a stream of ma
chine gun bullets. .-.
Widow Testifies.
His wife, and daughter, Marda,
aged 10. saw him fall. The widow
testified she saw "leering face" as
the killer drove past in the death
car. She said the face was Cams,
Lggett had assailed Cam" in his
papers attack on an alleged alliance
Of politics and crime"
Blumeufield surrendered to police
q few hours after the staying, declared
he knew nothing of it, and stated he
would prove by a score of witnesses
he was in downtown barbershop
when the fatal bullets were fired.
He was indicted for first degree
murder, largely on the testimony OF
Liggett's widow and Wesley Andersen
a mechanic, and witness Of the
shooting who also pointed him out
as the slayer.
His trial opened January 20.
Mrs. Liggett brought the name OF
Gov. Olson into the record
when she testified she called her
mother after her husbands death and
said Gov. Olson's gang got Walter.
She later said she did not mean to
claim Gov. Olson's mob shot her
husband" and stuck with her identi-
fication of Cam" as the killer.
Olson Answers.
Her statement, however, brought q
reply from the chief executive re-
cuperating from an operation al
Rochester, In which. he said he fell
only deep sympathy for the widow OF
the man who had once been his po-
litical ally but had turned into q
bitter critic Of the Olson regime. The
Governor said his political enemies
had inspired Mrs. Lggett's statements
against him.