Evening star., 1941-06-20
Woman S Story
Provides New
Murder Lead
Driver of Car Suid
To Be rk-Huired
And Heovy-Set
picture on Page All
By PAT JONES.

A woman who says she saw
Jessie Elizabeth Strieff alight
from a car driven by a dark
haired, heavy-Set white man
Sunday afternoon at the time
she entered the Peter Duncan
delicateSSen was discovered by
The Star today. The same wit
ness later saw Miss Strieff come
out of the delicatessen, enter the
same car and drive off.
This woman is the only person
known who may have seen the girl
alive after she left the store, q
hours before her body was found
in a @ street garage.
Miss Strieff bought a l2-cent stick
of butter at 1910 Florida avenue
NV. during a heavy thunderstorm
Sunday afternoon. A girl was seen
to alight from a double-parked
black coach or sedan at approx
mately the same time by a resident
on the second floor of the delicates-
sen building who happened to be
watching the street for her husband.
This woman is Mrs. Maggie Will
liams Foutz, colored, a domestic,
who lives above the delicatessen
with her husband Charles, employe
of a children's home in the 2400
block of Fifteenth street NV.
Although the woman assured a
reporter she was positive about her
identification of Miss Strieff, de-
tectives who interviewed her were
inclined to discount the value of
her information because of certain
discrepancies.
Capt. Ira E. Keck, acting chief
of detectives. said the woman told
Detective Sergt. Dewey Guest she
saw the girl enter the store before
the heavy rain began. The rain,
Weather Bureau records show,
started at 2 pm. and half an inch
of precipitation had fallen by $40
pm. The girls friends were sure
she did not leave home until after
the downpour started.
Mrs. Foutz told Sergt. Guest, he
reported, that the girl was not
wearing a blue raincoat, but had
one over her arm. She was quoted
by the detectives as saying she had
only glimpse of the man in the car.
Was Looking for Husband.
Mrs. Fout7 was expecting her
husband home from work Sunday
afternoon and when the rein set in,
she told The Star, she kept watching
to see if he was going to be caught
in the storm.
About 2:30 pm, she continued, a
newish black sedan pulled up i'm
medistely beneath her window. A
girl clad in a blue raincoat with
hood alighted and ran into the
delicateSsen.
Miss Strieff previously had been
identified from photographs by Mr.
Duncan.
The car was pointed east on Flor
ida avenue toward the intersection
of Eighteenth street and the man at
the wheel was on the side opposite
from Mrs. Foutz. He did not alight,
she told The Star, but she saw him
open the door for the girl from the
inside.
The man at the wheel was de-
scribed as heavy set and dressed in
dark clothing. He was bareheaded
and his hair was black. Mrs. Foutz
believed he was between 20 and 80
years old. She did not notice the
license tag of the automobile, which
she described as shiny black" and
apparently almost new.
A moment later the girl hurried
from the store and, Mrs. Foutz told
The Star she got another view of
the man as he again swung open
the door for the girl. The car drove
off toward Eighteenth street md
passed from view of the witness.
Mrs. Foutz, employed as a maid at
2939 Twenty eighth street NV, said
she attached little importance to
what she had seen. She mentioned
the incident to her employer and re-
peated it to her husband, she said.
The couple is at home only on Sum
days and at night.
Mrs. Foutz said she was convinced
from photographs she had seen of
Miss Strieff that she was the girl
who got out of the car.
Up until today, all efforts to trace
the movements of Miss Strieff after
she left the delicatesSen have been
entirely unsuccessful. The girls
roommate said she hurried from
their apartment, in the 2100 block of
Nineteenth street NV, Sunday aft
ernoon for more supplies to make a
lemon pie for her f1ance.
At that time the War Department
clerk was dressed in a blue playsuit,
Continued on Page AS, Col. ID