The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1936-08-13
Wife of Victim Plainly Saw
Murderers But So Far Law Is
Unable to Trace Them


deep, as inexplicable today as it was
that morning of September 10, five
years ago, when Mrs. Ceilings look
ed wanly into the face of country
constable and said:
"Simething terrible has happened
Her 38-year-old husband had beer
murdered. Their five-year-old daugh.
ter, Barbara, had been left alone or
on drifting mortoboat. She herself
had been criminally assaulted.
Five days later the body of hel
husband was washed ashore from
Long Island sound on the beach oil
the Marshall Field estate in Suffolk
county, Long Island. The legs and
wrists were firmly trussed. There
were the marks of eight blows on
the head.
1t was murder plainly enough; but
by whom? For what motive? And
how?
OdAU OOAAAASS OAOWACu
One medical expert said Ceilings
drowned. Another said he was killed
by the blows that crushed his skull.
The definite cause of death was
never established.
By whom was Ceilings killed? The
killer, said Mrs. Ceilings, was about
SO years old, deeply tanned and
broad of chest. With him was a
youth-a ''grinning river lout' is the
way police pictured him.
Why was Ceilings killed? The only
explanation police ever offered was
that the two men who had boarded
his little cabin motorboat the night
of September 9, 1881, were desperate
characters and elected to kill Coll
ings rather than to chance later
Identification by him.
The only witness to the crime
and she only an ''ear witness" was
Mrs. Ceilings, the black-eyed Smith
college graduate. By her own story
she was asleep in the small trunk
cabin of the Ceilings boat-the Pen
gum, it was called-when the two
men came alongside it in green
canoe and boarded the boat.
Ceilings, by his widows story, was
slowing gear in the after part of his
modest craft which was riding at
anchor on the calm waters of Prices
bend. The men from the canoe said
they had companion who had been
hurt, and they demanded that Col
lings take them to South Norwalk,
Connecticut, across the sound.
Ceilings demurred. She said the
night was too dark. The elder of the
two unlimited visitors insisted, and
said that despite the blackness of the
night the trip should be made with
out lights.
The motor was started. The boat
crossed the sound.
Mrs. Ceilings said she was half
asleep most of the time, but that fin
ally she heard her husband say:
''This isn't Norwalk, it's Stamford. Z"
Then there was sound of scuff-
ing and muffied sound, though a
blow had been struck. Then the
voice of her husband: ''They are ty-
ing me up" Then: "They are putting
me overheard" Then: A splash, and
a cry of help from the water.
Woman Saw Men
Mrs. Ceilings had peered stealth
lily from the hatch and had seen the
men in the cockpit. When her hus-
bands cry for help reached her, she
said, she pushed her way from the
cabin and tossed pneumatic mat
tress overheard for her husband.
The murderer told Mrs. Ceilings to
get into the canoe. He fixed nest
of blankets in the center for her.
The younger man got in one end, the
leader in the other. They padded
softly away from the now anchorless
Penguin, elaving her adrift in the
sound with a fve-year-old child
asleep aboard.
It was while in the canoe, Mrs.
Ceilings related, that the elder man
attacked her. Afterward, and while
the younger man padded silently
along, the murderer remarked, ir
relevantly:
81 have always had desire to
write. Somehow / never got a
chance"
The canoe came finally to cove
in which several small boats, UNI
attended, rode at anchor. Mrs. Col
lings was lifted to the deck of one