Evening star., 1938-12-12
Means
Continued From First Page)

presence OF the Rev. FRANCIS j..
Hurney.
She went to Aiken, S. c., in mid
March of 1882 to meet Means and
said he told her to go to Ell Paso,
Tex, near the purported Mexico
hideout of the kidnapers and the
baby A week or so later, she went
to Ell Paso. She said she became
a little suspicious when Means told
her there of quarrels with the kid
napers which had delayed recovery
of the baby. She returned to WASH
ington.
Means arrest was made after he
allegedly told Mrs. Mclean he
turned over the 100000 to kidnap
contact men in mysterious meet
ing April 81 on a railroad bridge
near Alexandria, Va.
Even after Means was convicted
and sentenced to prison his activities
in the Lindbergh case haunted him.
He was brought from prison for trial
a year later with Norman T.
Whitaker, The Fox" on charges of
attempting to obtain $35 900 more
from Mrs. Mclean on a promise
that with the money they could
obtain $4,000 of the ransom money
paid by Col. Lindbergh. They were
convicted and given two-year sem
tences after trial in which Col.
Lindbergh was a witness and related
his own inside story of the kid
naping.
Means, after graduation from the
University of North Carolina, started
life as a towel company salesman,
but soon entered private detective
work. Then the World War broke
out.
At will trial, which ended in the
judge denouncing the will as fraud
and Means story about it "fabri-
cation" Means testified he had been
paid $700 to $1,000 a week by a
Capt. Boy-Ed" to keep him posted
on supplies shipped to the Allies.
He said he bought commodities for
Germany and sometimes received his
money at designated tombstone in
the Trinity Church yard, New York,
but he emphasized that he quit that
work when the United States en-
tered the war.
In 1917 he was acquitted after a
sensational trial of a charge that
he murdered his client, Mrs. Maude
A. King, once the wife of James C..
King, Chicago millionaire lumber
operator. He testified that Mrs.
King shot herself while with him
at a spring near Concord, N. c.,
with a weapon she was using for
target practice.
In 1921 he became an agent for
the Bureau of Investigation under
William j. Burns, the bureau chief.
When Attorney General Harry
Daugherty heard about it, he
suspended Means, reinstated him
and later dismissed him.
His activities in Washington
figured later in testimony before
Senate committee and in a
book he published in 1880 on
The Strange Death of President
Harding"
His testimony before the Senate
committee included a charge that
he acted as go-between in giving
a Daugherty associate $4,000 to
stop a Government suit to recover
S6,000,0 900 in war time overpayments
from an aircraft concern. He said
he gave the same man $5O,OOO as
a share in profits derived from b
deal permitting the showing of the
Dempsey-Carpentier fight films in
violation of Federal laws. He also
hurled charges at Andrew Mellon,
Secretary of the Treasury. All off,
cials heatedly denied the charges.
Co-Author Repudiates Book.
In his book, later repudiated as
a hoax" by its co-author, he wrote
he was an investigator extraor-
dinary" from 1921 to 1923, was en-
ployed by the wife of President
Harding to establish the falsity of
scandalous reports and that he
purported to know the inside story
concerning mysterious deaths OF
persons in Washington circles.
In 1924 he was convicted in the
prohibition case. While it was being
appealed, he was convicted with
two other men on a charge of con-
spring to bribe Government Off
cials. Witnesses testified the de-
PENDANTS obtained $65,0OO from,
persons involved in sale of a glass
casket company stock under prom
Use to get mail fraud indictments
against them dismissed.
1t was after he had served terms
for those crimes that Means met
Mrs. Mclean in the Lindbergh
hoax case.
Means was an exceptionally plaus-
ible and convincing person. He was
endowed with an extraordinary
talent for conversation, was pos
sessed of what he himself called "a
gift of gab," and he boasted that he
had never met a man who could
"out-talk" him when he was at his
best.
For years he maintained an apart
ment in hotel near the Union
Station and was popular in the
neighborhood among all classes of
people-waiters, taxi drivers, mes
sengers, even policemen frankly ad-
mired him, though many of them
knew that he was professional
fraud.
He was especially liked by children
and enjoyed playing Santa Claus to
them, without waiting for Christ
mas. BY paradoxical instinct, he
was at once an amateur philan-
thropist and a complete and absolute
contradiction Of every humane TN.