Why some men kill; or, Murder mysteries revealed

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WHY SOME MEN KILL

OR

Murder Mysteries Revealed

George A. Thacher

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WHY SOME MEN KILL

OR

Murder Mysteries Revealed

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By

George A. Thacher, LL.B.

President Ore}ron Prisoner's Aid Society. Chairman Committee on Juvenile

Phases of Viee, Portland Vice Commission 1012. Chairman Portland

Prison Commission 1913. Author "Feeblemindedne.«s and

Crime in Oregon," and other essays.

Copyrighted 191P, by GEORGE A. THACHER

SOCtM.

I

CONTKXTS

HV65ltr

Introduction by Dr. Henry H. (loddard 1

Chapter 1., The Delinquent Moron 5

Chapter II., Psychology of Confessions of Crime ir>

Chapter III.. Tlie Murder of William Booth and the Convic-
tion of William Branson and Mrs. Booth 22

Chapter IV., WilHam Biggin Shows Warden Murphy

Where He Concealed the Bevolver ',\2

Chai)ter V., Appeal to the Public for the Belease of Wil-
liam Branson and Mrs. Booth 40

Chapter VI., The Murder of Mrs. Daisy Wehrman and Her

Child \:y

Chapter VII., The Crime Indicates the Criminal 'A)

Chapter VIII., The Hair Found in Mrs. Wehrman's Dead

Hands ,"(>

Chapter IX., John Sierks' Letters About the Murder (iO

Chapter X., Confirmation of John Sierks' Confession of the

Murder (51

Chapter XI,, Circumstantial Evidence (58

Supplement to Chapter XL, Containing Judge Pipes' Brief . 80

Chapter XII., Characteristics of Sadism 87

Chapter XIIL, Personal Character of Mr. Pender 01

Chapter XIV., The Sadistic Murder of the Hill Family 04

Chapter XV., William Biggins' Confession 101

Chapter XVL, The Murder of Mary Spina 112

Chapter XVIL, Conclusion 115

Press of Pacific Coast Rescue and Protective Society

599

John Ci. H. SitRKS. :i nicdiuni grade
moron, who confessed to killing Mrs.
Wehrman and her child in Columbia
County, Oregon, in September, 1911, antl
then repudiated his eDnl'essiou. Chap-
ters f.-i:i.

John Arthir P);m)i;r, who was wrong-
fully convicted of the murder of Mrs.
Wehrman and her child. Mr. Pender has
been in different jails and the peniten-
tiary since September 15, 1911.

PREFACE

Some years ago I spent a Sunday afternoon at the Oregon
State Penitentiary in Salem with one of the officers of the insti-
tution and a "trusty." The latter was a veiy intelligent man,
who had received a college education. The conversation turned
to the question of mental defect among the inmates of the insti-
tution, who at that time numbered about 340. Neither of my
companions was an alienist nor a psychologist but they both
knew the men in the institution, and referring to the prison
records they named about 70 men who were (in their opinion)
defective. The deputy warden, to whom I mentioned the sub-
ject of our conversation, said, "Yes, and I could add some to
your list."

I did not feel confident that the list was entirely accurate,
but I realized that eveiy day association with the prisoners prob-
ably made the designation of defective by these men worthy of
thoughtful consideration at least. In jotting down the names of
these prisoners I asked what offenses they had committed. In
this list approximating 70 defective prisoners 36 were serving
sentences for rape and of the 36 there were 13 who had raped
their own daughters. One prisoner was serving his third term
for this same offense. Seventeen of these prisoners were guilty
of the offense which has made ancient Sodom a byword through
the centuries. Six of these men had committed murder and all
of the six were sex perverts.

Naturally these defective beings often have a defective moral
sense. My observation has often confirmed that fact. Kraft-
Ebing remarks that "this psychic degeneration, however, has a
more profound pathological foundation, because often it can be
referred to distinct cerebro-pathologic conditions, and often
enough is associated with anatomic signs of degeneration.

"The sexual instinct in particular is very frequently
abnormal."

It is my purpose in presenting the facts contained in this short
volume to bring the matter before the people of the nation, or,
at least, before those interested in criminal problems and in
social service work.

I also wish to point out the vagaries of the average trial jury
in the matter of so-called circumstantial evidence in cases where
some terrible crime has been committed and where the evidence

iv. Preface

criminal acts, in spite of their apparently harmless natures, that
I submitted the material to Dr. Heniy H. Goddard, who is recog-
nized as the foremost authority on feeble-mindedness in the
United States. Dr. Goddard was for years director of research
at the institution for the feeble-minded at Vineland, New Jersey.
At the present time he is director of the Bureau of Juvenile
Research under the Ohio Board of Administration at Columbus,
Ohio. Dr. Goddard has published several books on the subject:
"Feeble-Mindedness, Its Causes and Consequences"; "The Kal-
likak Family," an account of feeble-minded and normal heredity
for six generations, beginning with a young man in the revolu-
tionary army who had a child by a feeble-minded girl and who
later married a normal woman and left many distinguished
descendants. Their histories are compared with his descendants
by the feeble-minded girl. He also published "The Criminal
Imbecile" describing three feeble-minded murderers, one of
whom, by the way, is serving a life sentence in the Oregon Peni-
tentiary at Salem.

Dr. Goddard writes:
"My Dear Mr. Thacher :

"I have read your manuscript very carefully and have been
intensely interested in it. I have prepared the enclosed intro-
duction which, if it is of any service to you, you are entirely
welcome to use."

The introduction follows.

Portland, Oregon, March 15, 1919,

George A. Thacher

INTRODUCTION

The subject matter contained in this book constitutes an
important human document. Society has had three stages in
its attitude toward crime: The earUest stage was that of re-
venge, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth — a very primi-
tive view seemingly based upon the conception that the crime
and injury were atoned for if the perpetrator was made to
suffer in an equal degree. While there are still some people
who maintain this primitive way of thinking of crime, society
has long since passed into the second stage which was the idea
of punishment in order to deter others from committing similar
crimes. This view is still held by many although it is recognized
by the most thoughtful that both in theory and in fact this is
a wrong attitude. It has been proved beyond question that very
few if any of our crimes are of such character that the fear of
punishment, however great, would deter others froin committing
them. The third stage which has grown out of a more humani-
tarian attitude toward our fellowmen is expressed in the dec-
laration that all punishment should be designed to "reform the
criminal." And we have been busy, in the most enlightened
centers of civiliation, evolving methods for such reform. Even
the names of penal institutions have in many instances been
changed from prison to reformatory.

We are now beginning to glimpse a fourth stage which is
that of a prevention. In other words, we are awakening to the
fact the better plan is not to wait until a person has committed
crime and then reform him, but to anticipate the crime and
prevent its being committed. The social value of such a pro-
cedure can not be questioned. The possibility of success, how-
ever, has been questioned and is still denied by many persons.
It is still declared to be too ideal for practical purposes. Never-
theless it is a proposition that all must admit that if we do not
strive for the ideal we will make no progress. The wise pro-
cedure is obviously to keep the ideal before us and proceed as
fast as we may to ascertain what are the necessary conditions
for obtaining the ideal.

Let us then face the question frankly — Can crime be pre-
vented? Logically the answer is clear. It can if we can deter-
mine the causes and then remove them. We therefore come
at once to the fundamental question — ^What are the causes of
Crime? Some will answer vaguely "human frailty," and con-

2 Introduction

elude at once that human frailty is a thing that we shall always
have, and, therefore, we shall always have crime. But the
conclusion does not follow. It may just as well be argued that
we shall always have physical weakness and all those other con-
ditions which result in sickness and disease. Nevertheless, pre-
ventive medicine has already accomplished wonders for the
comfort and welfare of the human family. The task is no less
hopeful on the moral side. We must discover those people who
are more than usual subject to these frailties that lead to crime,
and if we can not remove the frailties we can at least care for
the people that are subject to them so that they will not be likely
to fall into crime as the result of their weaknesses. It is now
proved beyond question that the one great weakness that leads
all the rest put together is weakness of mind.

Mr. Thacher has collected in this book facts in regard to a
number of crimes that were clearly due to weakness of mind.
He has thus given us a vast amount of data that are of convinc-
ing significance to all those persons who are seeking for the
facts in this great problem. The recognition of weakness of
mind as a potent cause of crime may be considered an unex-
pectedly pleasant surprise. Unexpected certainly, pleasant be-
cause we see at once how easy it may become to prevent it. It
is now possible to detect weakness of mind, and it is perfectly
clear to those who are familiar with the necessary methods, that
the mental weakness of every one of the persons whom Mr.
Thacher describes as the real criminals in these cases could have
been determined when they were still young and they could
have been cared for in such a way that their crimes never would
have happened.

The methods of measuring intelligence in children and in
adults have now become so perfected that there is no longer any
question about them or about the accuracy of the results. The
United States Government after most careful and rigid exam-
ination and testing has set its stamp of approval upon the meth-
ods and given full authority for their use in examining the rela-
tive mentality of men in the United States Army.

We are justly proud of the achievement of our Expeditionary
Force in France, and no small factor in the efficiency of that
force is to be found in the fact that twelve per cent of the drafted
men were kept at home on account of their low intelligence, with
the result that those who were sent over seas were men capable

Introduction S

of carrying forward the purpose of the army with a high degree
of efficiency. Not only was the rank and file selected on account
of superior intelligence but the officers also were selected on
the basis of intelligence as determined by these tests. With this
demonstration before us we can not, as intelligent citizens, long
delay putting into practice the same or similar tests for deter-
mining the mentality of all school children and youth, and then
providing the necessarj' care in some form or other which shall
prevent those of low mentality from ever having the opportunity
to commit crime. This clear setting forth of the facts showing
that these atrocious, but all too common, crimes were committed
by people of low intelligence is of the highest value, and should
lead promptly to putting into operation the necessary machinery
for testing out the population and determining those people who
are of too low mentality to be trusted to manage their own
affairs.

It is unnecessary to discuss here the methods that may be
used to care for these people. Suffice to say that their care
does not mean imprisonment but merely providing an environ-
ment and an oversight which will at the same time render them
harmless and make them happy and contented in their sphere.

Incidentally the facts set out by Mr. Thacher in these cases
involve another question, namely, that innocent persons are suf-
fering punishment for crimes that they did not commit. Some
way for righting the wrong should of course be found as soon
as possible. The fact that some officials entrusted with the
administration of justice may have made mistakes should not
be allowed to interfere with the righting of the wrong or of
introducing better and surer methods. Nor should these offi-
cials feel sensitive that their errors have shown up. Undoubtedly
similar errors have occurred the world over, but they occurred
through lack of knowledge which was not possessed by any
one. In other words we did the best we could in view of the
facts at hand. Until recently we have known almost nothing
about mental defect or its relation to crime. Now that that
relation is discovered it is the part of wise intelligence and broad-
mindedness to utilize that knowledge to the fullest extent. A
way should be found of righting such wrongs as it is still pos-
sible to correct and of inaugurating methods looking toward the
prevention of such errors in the future.

The writer of this introduction has no means of verifying Mr.

4 Introduction

Thacher's statements but apparently he has made his case and
it is certainly true from the standpoint of psychology; and in
view of what is known today of feeble-mindedness his arguments
are sound and his conclusions must be accepted. His methods
of formulating a working hypothesis for determining the true
criminal on the basis of the character of the crime is entirely
sound and has been worked out with remarkable insight, and
this method should be of enormous value as a contribution to
criminal procedure. The facts and explanations of these crimes
as given by the author are not only plausible but agree perfectly
with the vast amount of data that has been collected by others
in other places in connection with similar crimes. We believe
that a perusal of the book will convince any unprejudiced reader
that there is a well-founded hope for preventing a great deal of
crime and that it is well worth working for.

Henry H. Goddard.

THE HUMPHREY BROTHERS

These two brothers were high-grade morons and they lived together on a poor little
farm which they cultivated. They were unmarried and passed as somewhat incapable and
liarmless citizens, though the family physician knew them to be weak-minded. One day they
went to the home of a middle-aged single woman, who lived alone near Philomath, Ore-
gon, and they alternately made repeated sexual assaults on her and finally murdered
her. They then carried her body to a pond near by to conceal it. On being arrested, they
both denied the crime, but made damaging admissions. Later they confessed. They
wei-e both convicted and hanged. They exliil)ited a stolid demeanor on the gallows,
which the newspaper correspondents described as an indication of hardened depravity.

Chapter I
THE DELINQUENT MORON

Tlic word Moron is a recently coined addition to the English
hinguage, and is not to be found in any but the latest and most
up to date dictionaries. It lacks one letter of spelling Mormon,
for which it is sometimes mistaken by the careless reader.
Moron is taken from the Greek word meaning a grown-
up person who is a fool — the kind of person who was
born a fool and for whom, therefore, there is no hope.
The Moron has considerable cunning but no foresight and the
delinquent moron has force enough to try to get what he wants
but not sense enough to foresee consequences of forbidden acts,
and so he becomes a criminal fool, if a born fool can properly
be called a criminal. Solomon had something to say on the
subject in the book of Proverbs, but his bitter comments ex-
pressed more scorn and disgust than anger at the wickedness of
fools.

The conduct of the moron, under stress of temptation, is
strikingly illustrated in the case of Giovanni Monaca, and many
others.

Pretty seventeen-year-old Mary Spina was living with her
father and mother on a quiet street in East Portland in 1918.
Over a j^ear before, a fellow countryman was a boarder in the
family for seven months. His name was Giovanni Monaca and
he was thirty-two years old and had been a day laborer of the
drifting sort. He became infatuated with Mary, and wanted to
marry her, but her family refused their consent and Mary would
not run away with him so he promptly threatened to kill her.
Marj^'s father had Giovanni arrested and he was held in jail one
day and then ordered to leave town. In six months Giovanni
returned and renewed his plea and his threat of murder as an
alternative, and was again arrested and again ordered to leave
town. This was in the Spring of 1918. In August Giovanni
returned to Portland with an automatic revolver he had pur-
chased in Seattle the first time he left Portland and entered the
home of the Spinas at night through a window and went to
Mary's room and shot her seven times as she lay in her bed.
Her dead body looked as if it had been riddled by bullets from
every direction. When Giovanni was arrested after running
away and brought back and questioned he said, "I was crazy

6 Why Some Men Kill

that I was put in jail. I been in jail twice and been ordered out
twice when I love this girl, and I get sore for this. I wanted to
marry her and 1 made up my mind if she going to marry me
it is all right. If not, I kill her."

Q. "Why did you run away?"
"I was scared of the police."
"You knew what you had done?"
"Yes, I knew what I had done."
"You knew it was wrong to do that?"
"Yes."

"Don't you feel badly that you killed this girl?"
"Yes, but I am satisfied now that I have."

Very similar was the case of Fred Tronson. Miss Emma
Ulrick was an attractive and efficient stenographer in a business
office in Portland in 1914. Tronson, aged twenty-four, was ele-
vator man in the same building and decided that he wanted to
marry Miss Ulrick and gave her a trifling present of some letter
paper. Miss Ulrick declined the proposal of marriage, where-
upon Tronson threatened to kill her. Tronson was arrested and
lectured by the police judge and released upon his promise to go
away and go to work and forget his folly. He went away for a
few weeks and brooded over the matter and finally bought two
revolvers in Vancouver and one evening followed Miss Ulrick
home and into the house where he fired all the shots in one of
the revolvers at her as she tried to escape, killing her almost in
the presence of her family. Then, much as Monaca did, he threw
away the revolvers and ran away. Monaca got as far as Canada
before he was arrested, but Tronson only succeeded in getting
one hundred miles from Portland, before the police caught him.
When he was brought back to Portland he said to the District
Attorney, "Yes, I am sorry I had to do it; I acted like a gentle-
man. I had given her one present already."

He said he bought two revolvers and loaded them both, so
that if one failed he would still have the means of killing Emma
Ulrick. Tronson said he felt satisfied, in doing what he did, but
he was afraid they would put blood hounds on his trail. At his
trial his confession to the District Attorney was read in evidence
and he was very obviously proud of the story as a literary pro-
duction in which he had the principal part. He leaned over and
asked the minister who sat by his side, "Well, what do j^ou
think of it?"

The Delinquent Moron 7

When Tronson was being sentenced to prison for life after
his conviction he acted Uke a frightened chiUI who was being
scokied for bad conduct. On the direct question being asked
him by the District Attorney, he admitted that he had no right
to take Emma Llrick's Hfe, which he could not restore to her, but
said that lie did not think of that at the time he killed her.

At Tronson's trial for the murder of Emma Ulrick I secured
the consent of District Attorney Walter H. Evans and his first
assistant, John A. Collier, to the introduction of expert testi-
mony as to Fred Tronson's mental weakness. Mr. Dan Powers,
Tronson's lawyer, placed Miss Grace Lyman, a psychologist from
Leland Stanford University, on the stand, and she testified that
the mental test showed that Tronson had a mental age of about
nine years.

This is the first time in Oregon criminal practice that the
testimony of a psychologist on the subject of feeble-mindedness
has been admitted in a murder trial.

A full account of this case wdth Tronson's confession may be
found in Dr. Henry H. Goddard's, "The Criminal Imbecile."

Tlic same year in New^ York state, Jean Gianini assassinated
an interesting young woman in the most brutal fashion and
dragged her body into the bushes by the side of the lonely road
where he had persuaded her to walk wath him.

Expert testimony of psychologists was admitted at the trial
to show the murderer's mental capacity and with the following
result :

"We find the defendant in this case not guilty as charged; we
acquit the defendant on the ground of criminal imbecility."

This was the verdict of the jury in Herkimer County, New
York, on March 28, 1914, in the case of Jean Gianini who killed
the young woman who had the misfortune to be his school
teacher.

Jean Gianini was a high grade defective who could not make
any progress in his studies, and he said that his teacher humili-
ated him in school, wliich shows that he had brains enough to
realize that he was a failure in his classes. At the same time he
was apparently attracted by his teacher because he had fre-
quently asked her to go with him to visit his family. She finally
consented to go with him and somewhere on the road he
attacked her, whether with a sexual motive, or because of his
"humiliation" in school, will never be proven. He admitted

8 Why Some Men Kill

striking her with a wrench three times and then hitting her with
a knife several times (24 was the number, one blow finally reach-
ing the jugular vein) "to be sure to finish her," Then Jean
dragged her body aside so that it would not be readily discovered
and went home. The next day after breakfast at the place where
he was employed, he went to work for a short time, but soon quit
work and went to the village where he was picked up at the rail-
road depot. He went back without any objection and on being
accused of the murder he readily confessed.

He had started to leave home the night before but as he
missed the train he went back and went to bed. He said he was
as happy as usual, adding, "I did not think anything about it as
I thought I had revenge."

This characteristic murder by a feeble-minded man is de-
scribed in detail together with the evidence at the trial in Henry
H. Goddard's "Criminal Imbecile." The murderer was held to
be irresponsible in view of his weak mentality as pointed out by
experts on the witness stand, but provision was made for his
permanent detention in an institution instead of sending him to
the electric chair.

In both of these last two unprovoked murders of intelligent
young women, who had every possibility of useful and honorable
careers, the immediate cause of their deaths is a matter deserv-
ing consideration.

There was so much of the "ego" in the cosmos of both of
their murderers and so httle abihty to foresee consequences that
they were without any sense of their personal responsibility to
others.

Dr. Goddard points out that these young men understood per-
fectly the character of their acts as shown by their preparations
and the actual killing, but he insists that these feeble-minds did
not realize the quahty of their acts or the inevitable consequences
to anyone (themselves included) of taking human hfe. That
looking ahead and foreseeing results calls for a considerable
abihty in abstract reasoning which the feeble-minds do not pos-
sess. They never get beyond the childish stage of wanting things
and threatening to kill if denied.

There probably never lived an aggressive small boy who did
not fly into a rage and threaten to kill when he was completely
obstructed in his desires. His moral sense, which must be sus-
tained by his ability to reason, has not been developed. He must

The Delinquent Moron 9

be controlled by authority, and in practically all cases he is con-
trolled by the kind, but decisive, will of his parents until his own
reason supports and sustains the moral teaching he has received.

About 1916 two small boys under twelve years of age, who
had been as completely neglected as two little animals, killed a
man in Idaho. They knew the nature of the deed and carried
it out by shooting a rifle, but they were young children and could
not realize the consequences of taking human life. Their horizon
was bounded by the impelling force of their impulses and their
lack of training and ability to reason about the sanctity of life.
These children were not convicted of murder, for the irresponsi-
bilitA' of the child was recognized.

In the grown up feeble-minds this same lack of ability to
reason about the consequences of criminal conduct is the most
noticeable characteristic. Their reasoning powers are too weak
for them ever to learn thoroughlj'^ and as a guide to conduct the
value of ethical teaching. They always remain creatures of
impulse except in so far as fear controls them. At the same time
their powers of perception are often very good and some of them
have unusual mechanical ability.

In 1916 a man over sixty years of age, serving a life sentence
for murder in a Michigan prison, was pardoned and drifted to
the Pacific Coast. He had been in prison over 30 years. I saw
him every day for months, but aside from a vacant eye, a marked
pallor, probably due to long confinement, and indications of
broken health there was no stigmata of mental weakness. He
carried wood for the fires and one day he appeared w^ith a sort
of harness which enabled him to stagger along with a huge arm-
ful of wood. He showed the same delight in this arrangement
that a small boy would manifest in overloading a wheelbarrow
and wasting time in doing it. Then he showed a complete inabil-
ity to reckon his wages for work done, and would become angry
when it was pointed out that there was a debit as well as credit
side to an account. He was obviously sincere in claiming that
he was being cheated because the amount which he owed was
deducted from the amount due him. His capacity for handling
an abstraction of the simplest sort was lacking.

On several occasions he called in a man who had befriended
him to secure fair treatment. This friend proved to be an ex-
guard from the Michigan prison where this man had been con-
fined. He admitted that this ex-prisoner was weak-minded and
said that he was very quarrelsome in prison and was often

10 Why Some Men Kill

engaged in fights with other prisoners. I asked what crime this
prisoner had committed and he told me that he had a quarrel
with his brother and cut his head off with an axe.

This ex-prisoner had only a child's sense of humor in spite of
his sixty odd years of experience. He finally became so incensed
because he thought he was being cheated that he left for Cali-
fornia. He could reckon his wages but he rebelled bitterly at
the thought of being compelled to pay anything out of his wages,
for his room or board. His mental machinery could not enter-
tain or adjust the two sides of a problem. At the same time he
apparently had moderate inteUigence. He had been known as a
bad man, but his old prison guard knew that he was weak-
minded and consequently irresponsible.

In some of these "aments" all the instincts are weak and they
drift through life without committing any crimes, but unable to
make a comfortable living because they are unable to plan and
lack persistence and the will to be industrious. Intellectually
they are very much like an unusually intelligent steer or horse.
However, in many of these defectives the reproductive instinct is
strong enough to keep them in constant trouble and lead them
into criminal conduct. They know no law but the desire for
immediate gratification. Of course there is no arbitrary line
between the feeble-mind and the so-called normal person, and
naturally what are known as the border-zone cases develop into
the worst criminals, as we call them in popular terms.

A young man by the name of Kemp illustrates the border-
zone type. He assaulted a young married woman whom he acci-
dentlj'^ met in a lonely place near Portland and tore every strip
of clothing from her body. Becoming enraged at her resistance
he shot her through the body and then forced her head into a
pool of muddy water. But at the moment her capacity for resist-
ance ceased he became remorseful and wrapped her in some
sacking and poured some whiskey between her lips and placed
her unconscious body in a poor shelter, and then wrote a letter
to the sheriff telling him where to go to find this young woman,
and took the trouble to go to the central postoffice and put a
special delivery stamp on the letter. The sheriff acted promptly
and the young woman, after hovering between life and death
for days, finally made a complete recovery.

The penalty for assault with intent to commit rape is from
one to ten years' imprisonment in Oregon; but Kemp was carried

The Dclinqncnl Moron 11

away by fear, and, after wandering in the woods for a few days
eluding pursuit, finally shot and killed himself with the revolver
he had used to shoot the young woman who had resisted his
criminal attempt. Kemj) showed more capacity for reflection
and abstract reasoning than did either Jean Gianini or Tronson,
but he also showed the same complete yielding to impulse that
they did.

To people, generally, crime is a horrid manifestation of
wickedness which calls for sharp and swift vengeance on the
offender, both to injure him because he has injured others, and
to frighten possible or prospective criminals from doing similar
deeds. That is popular criminology and penology reduced to
their lowest and simplest terms. From this naturally follows
the attempt by the law-making power to measure the amount of
punishment or vengeance by the nature of the offense. *

There is another possible method which would involve con-
sidering the intelligence, the character and training of the of-
fender in order to determine whether or not he is a fit person
(or may become a fit person) to return to society and propagate
his kind.

The philosophy of the latter method is very simple and goes
back to first principles. Most animals are gregarious and have
certain social impulses which benefit the flock or herd, but man
is the only animal who has a conscious moral sense. Man has a
hand with a thumb opposing the fingers so that he can grip and
handle objects, and he has the faculty of communicating with
his fellows by spoken (and written) language, and the two facul-
ties have slowly and painfully led him to material achievement
and to account to himself (and to others) for his acts. That is
to say he has a moral sense or very practical reasons for know-
ing that certain acts are right and certain other acts are wrong
because of their ultimate consequences. He might be told from
infancy to old age that certain things are wrong but unless he
could reason it out and know it as a personal, never-to-be-forgot-
ten fact he would not be a moral creature, or what we call a
responsible creature.

This is the eternal burden of educating the young. Even
where they inherit good bodies and minds and come of families

* Note: Article 1, Section 16, Constitution of Oregon —
"Cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted,
but all penalties shall be proportioned to the offense."

12 Why Some Men Kill

who possess good morals and good habits, it is a commonplace
that boys and girls violate laws and morality through ignorance,
lack of experience and lack of thought. The tendency has grown
very rapidly in recent years to treat minors, not as criminals,
but as young and immature persons whose minds have not been
developed to the point of foreseeing the ultimate consequences of
their acts.

However there are certain persons who, through bad inheri-
tance or disease, have weak and defective minds and who never
can learn to reason about their acts so as to foresee the ultimate
consequences. That is to say they are not moral, responsible
creatures. Experience teaches them no lessons for they can't
deal much in abstractions, and while they may have a parrot-like
knowledge of right and wrong, it does not control their bad or
hurtful tendencies. They can perceive the difference between
right and wrong, but they have no foundation for moral char-
acter because their minds are defective and weak. In other
words they are for all practical purposes as much the creatures
of their impulses as the coyote of the plains or the grizzly bear
in the mountains. Their morality is much like the ignorant sav-
age's abilitj" to count. An abstract number means nothing defi-
nite to a savage, and the abstraction cannot be remembered and
applied to a new situation. The defective moral sense of the
weak-minded is like that lack of mathematical capacity- and
consequently cannot be applied to new situations and problems
as they arise in the defective's life.

That is equivalent to saying that the defective person who
has impulses or tendencies of any unusual strength is practically
certain to be guilty of criminal acts. He know^s the meaning of
no law and is capable of knowing none. His outlook is the crim-
inal outlook but his responsibility is nil.

A good illustration of the "aments" criminal outlook appears
in Aaron, a young man of 25 years who began his delinquent
record in the juvenile court at the age of 14 or less. Since then
he has gone through the mills of justice about ten times and at
present is in the penitentiar3\ He has been convicted of theft
and burglary and is now serving a sentence for receiving stolen
goods. He also has been guilty of sex offenses against Httle girls.
Physically he is an able-bodied man and does not look imbecile,
but the psychological test gives him the rating of a 7-year-old
child.

The Delinquent Moron 13

Aaron never could get beyond the first grade in school and
naturally can do nothing with words or numbers. From the police
point of view he is a bad young man and could be led into any
kind of crime which his intelHgence or cunning is equal to. For
ten years punishment has been measured out to him according
to the offenses he has committed, though in truth he is not a
moral creature.

Naturally, among women, weak mentality leads to their ex-
ploitation as prostitutes — where they are not protected by cir-
cumstances. The lack of ability to foresee ultimate consequences,
even in a small degree, is obviously the chief explanation for the
army of women in the underworld. The extreme youth of many
of these novitiates in an unhappy life explains in great part the
lack of intellectual development or capacity to reason among
those who are not actually feeble-minded.

There is no sharp line, of course, between the feeble-minded
and the so-called "normal" person, and the greater the intelli-
gence short of a full capacity to deal in abstractions and foresee
consequences, the greater the danger of irresonsible and criminal
conduct. Special defects among intelligent persons are often
causes of crime.

There are a great many men and women of the underworld
who escape the technical stigma of being feeble-minded who are
altogether creatures of impulse and apparently entirely lacking
in self-control. Where their impulses or instincts are very strong
they are especially dangerous.

The high-grade feeble-minded, who under favorable circum-
stances can earn a living, are very apt to be considered as respon-
sible beings and treated as such. For thousands of years they
have been regarded as fools whose folly w as wilful. Solomon in
his Proverbs has much to say about them. He refers to fools
constantly and in the 26th chapter of the Book of Proverbs he
sums up his scathing indictment. There are tw^o significant
things in Solomon's account of fools. He points out that a fool
is a hopeless creature — "As a dog returneth to his vomit; so a
fool returneth to his folly." He also differentiates between fools
and criminals — "The great God, that formed all things, both re-
wardeth the fool, and rewardeth transgressors."

It would really seem as if the world had suffered enough from
feeble-minded delinquents to recognize their characteristic
traits. There is one particular kind of weak-minded creature
who has considerable facility in the use of language and who

14 Why Some Men Kill

aspires to be a politician and demands a politician's reward of
"office," and failing in that, takes a feeble-minded man's revenge
on the highest official he can reach. President Garfield was as-
sassinated by Guiteau, who wanted to be appointed an ambassa-
dor. It was recognized at the time of Guiteau's trial for murder
that he was not fully responsible, but there was no proof of ji
insanity (vague as that term is). On the other hand everything
in Guiteau's life, from his childish schemes for making a living,
his lack of honesty, his complete lack of sense in trying to adjust
means to ends, his unrestrained vanity in claiming alliance politi-
cally with the Stalwarts who were led by Roscoe Conklin, his
request for an ambassadorship, his excuse of compulsion or
necessity in killing President Garfield (like Tronson who killed
the girl who would not marry him — "Yes, I am sorry I had to
do it,") his conduct at his trial for murder, and finally when on
the gallows he read his doggerel verse, "I am going to my Goddy
in the sky," all indicate with a weight of cumulative evidence
not to be denied that Guiteau was a high-grade feeble-mind, or
what Solomon called a fool.

The assassin of Carter Harrison, Mayor of Chicago, was an-
other high-grade feeble-mind like Guiteau, who felt the imperi-
ous necessity of killing the Maj^or because the Mayor had not
given him what he wanted. He felt perfectly justified in doing
what he did. His childish mind in a man's world could come to
no other conclusion. "I am sorry I had to do it."

This is the nature of the creatures whose crimes are described
in the following chapters. They know in feeble-minded fashion
the difference between right and wrong but the realization does
not "trickle" in until after the event. Their impulses are the only
things which control them.

There is, of course, the further question of psychoses and
aberrations among the weak-minded as predisposing causes of
criminal conduct. There is no question but what they exist, and
in fact very careful observers consider that the mental and nerv-
ous weaklings are very apt to be afflicted with degenerative
affections which occasionally lead the subject to commit some of
the most terrible crimes known to the human race, such as
sadistic murder, as well as lesser crimes. This is perfectly logical
and observation confirms the conclusion.

Chapter II.
PSYCHOLOGY OF CONFESSIONS OF CRIME

To the more or less morbid creature whom we designate as
criminal the desire for gratification of hmiian impulses and for
some social recognition is very strong.

I have listened to the stories of offenders who have commit-
ted various crimes ranging from forgery and obtaining money
by false pretenses and burglary to perverted sexual offenses and
murder, and the burden of the story is almost invariably the
same. It seems to be one of the absolute needs of human beings
to talk about personal experiences and attempts at achievement.
A man who was indicted for an assault on a child had a long
story about his unsuccessful career and broken family and his
fondness for children. He denied the offense and condemned
it in unmeasured terms but went on to explain the circum-
stances which he said had deceived the witnesses. His explan-
ations and admissions proved his guilt beyond a reasonable
doubt, but not content with indirectly damning himself he then
began to ask questions about the length of sentence imposed
for this particular crime. He did not w^ant to admit that he
was a criminal but his point of view was his experience and
he could not let it alone. If his experience had not been a
guilty one he would have had verj'^ little to say. He would
have asserted his innocence and been contemptuous perhaps
about the charges, but that would have closed the tale.

The disposition of men who are guilty of offenses to talk
about them and make partial admissions which lead up to the
criminal act but deny the culminating or actual performance
is verj^ common. A pervert who had made a public nuisance
of himself prefaced his statement by saying that he knew that
men sometimes did this thing but that he was a virtuous citi-
zen, and that he was getting old, and that he had too great a
respect for his fellow^s to do anything of the sort. He repeated
several times that he knew this thing was done but that he did
not do it. He did not know that he was confessing his guilt,
but the court knew and sent him to prison.

It has been said that a liar needs a long memory, but the fact
is that his memory is his undoing as soon as he attemj)ts to
weave a different story than the true one. He is so fearful of
not explaining all the damning facts that he remembers tliat he
overdoes it. Self-deception and self-pity help him to distort his
story and also to forget some important details.

16 Why Some Men Kill

There are two classes of criminals who make truthful con-
fessions when the pressure of circumstances becomes so cruel
as to make it seem possible that a clearing up of the mystery
will be of advantage, or when mental distress or remorse leads
the offender to unburden his heart. Of course the motive is
selfish in either case. In saying that the confession is truthful
I do not mean that it is apt to be literally true, but that it is
true in its main features. There may be a vital fact omitted
but enough will be told so that the balance can be worked out,
remembering that the criminal is seeking some means of justi-
fying himself. Take the confession of the man in the Green
Trunk murder mystery in Portland in 1917. A green trunk had
been found floating in the Willamette river and upon investi-
gation it was found to contain the murdered body of a middle
aged man. It was known that this man had come to Portland
a few weeks before with a male companion, but this other man
had disappeared. The horse and wagon was found which
hauled the trunk from the lodging house to the river but there
the clues ended.

The circumstances indicated, however, that these men were
homosexual lovers and a search was instituted in the under-
world of the Pacific Coast for the missing man. It was a year
before he was found and brought back to Portland for trial.
He admitted that he belonged to the tragically unfortunate class
who are born into the world with the homosexual temperament
and he explained his partnership with the murdered man. He
possessed, as all persons of that type do, an inferior nervous
system, which accounts for what is described as sexual inver-
sion. He did not find it out until he was twenty years old and
then he knew why he was "queer."

The normal ways of living and loving were closed to him
and so he drifted into perverted ways and finally while under
the influence of an unusual amount of liquor he became a homi-
cide in a moment of exasperation. He admitted that he drove
that horse and wagon around the city for two or three hours
before he put the trunk in the river. He did not tell the whole
story to one person but made partial confessions to different
ones. His opinion of his situation had a good deal of interest.
His own verdict was, "I am the victim of circumstances." In
the penitentiary he is a model prisoner and has nothing to
distinguish him except the fact that he is the man of the Green
Trunk Murder Mystery.

Confessions of Crime 17

There is another type of the nieiitally and nervously abnor-
mal who are possessed or obsessed with an ugly and contrary
disposition which impels them to defy all conventions and to
despise tlieir fellows. Breaking the law^ is in the nature of a
diversion to these individuals which gives satisfaction to a brain
and nervous system at war with itself. When the crisis comes
such a man rather enjoys telling how cleverly he defied the
law though he admits its unwisdom so far as it touched his
personal fortunes. These men have good intentions but the
world would have to be made over to harmonize with their
pathologically crooked habits of thought. These delinquents are
recidivists invariably and their performances would read like
the story of a huge practical joke perpetrated with the design
of making themselves the butt, if it were not for the tragic side.

Another kind of criminal who almost invariably confesses
belongs to w^hat is called the moron type. An adult in years and
with the physical needs of a man the moron reasons like a
child and has little power of self-control. He is extremely irri-
table and has entirely uncontrolled fits of rage and is often
outrageously profane and lacking in the sense of modesty. At
the same time he has the child's desire for approbation and
enjoys the emotional exaltation of being the center of interest.
He is very cunning and enjoys telling of his "smart" actions,
but he has no foresight.

This kind of a criminal will almost always confess if treated
with tact and he will give details of a personal nature which
no member of the class previously mentioned would allude to.

These personal revelations are so naive and childlike that
they stamp the truth upon the confession or its principal fea-
tures. At the same time these criminals may have an excessive
vanity, and if they do they are certain to lie about details of
their crimes in order to make them appear as very remarkable
acliievements. The combination of child-like remorse for wrong
done for which an innocent person may be suffering, a desire
for approbation, and possibly a streak of intense vanity which
has never had much to feed upon, leads the criminal of this
type to make a confession which is a hodge-podge of fact and
fiction.

In the chapters which follow there is an account of a murder
and a confession relating to it which is of this type. Some of
the details of the confession are grotesque fabrications but the
central facts are undoubtedly true.

18 Why Some Men Kill

The other murder and confession which is the first of the
two accounts as printed in the following chapters does not have
these grotesque details but is very matter of fact and has been
verified in the majority of details given. This difference in
the two confessions indicates of course the difference in per-
sonality of the two feeble-minded offenders.

The account of the murder and confession in the first chap-
ters following involves a man of nearly 40 years old. He is
physically slight, weighing about 125 pounds, and with very
small hands and an asymetrical head and face. All his life
he has gone into ungovernable fits of rage on very slight provo-
cation and he also nurses his anger until he has an opportunity
to gratify it. After the explosion he realizes what he has done
and the possible penalty but this does not deter him from doing
much the same thing the next time he loses his temper. Expe-
rience is altogether wasted on him for while he does not forget,
he does not learn from anj'^ experience. He has a certain
shrewdness of observation and forms conclusions quickly, but
anything like patient thought is outside of his realm of mind.

The most vivid impression which I shall always retain of
him is that he is now at 38 years still in the mental attitude
of a boy of ten whose greatest delight is to play Indian and
take scalps and trot around in the woods and fish and hunt
and shoot at a mark. Instead, however, of using tin knives, a
tomahawk made out of a shingle and dipped in red paint and
a wooden gun, this boy-man when he is not in some jail or
penitentiary, carries a very business-like knife, and a small
arsenal of firearms which he can use with skill. He likes noth-
ing better than to live in the jungle with some hobo of criminal
tendencies and exist by petty stealing varied by an occasional
job. It is the serious business of life for him to know all the
criminal slang and the ritual of jungle crooks including the
significance of various marks made on fences, trees and barns
and the signs of a turned up trouser leg or a hat of a particular
color or one worn in a certain way. The deadly seriousness
with which he will tell of the significance of a certain kind of
hat and the signs by which the predatory crooks of the jungle
recognize each other would be convulsing if there were not a
grim reality behind this child's play which accounts for the
brotherhood of criminal tramps who live in the woods and
along the highways and in the suburbs of large towns, loafing
and stealing and occasionally mistreating women and children.

Confessions of (.rime 19

Their career of adventure is enlivened by occasional visits to
the lowest places of amusement in the cities and by evading
and deceiving the police and sheriffs to whom they ap|)car as
more or less harmless hoboes. To this brotherhood belongs the
man Mho killed William Booth at Willamina, Oregon, on Octo-
ber 8, lOin, and who says of Booth, "I told him I would get him
and I did get him!"

There is probably no doubt but that the fact that Booth's
widow and a young man who was a neighbor of the Booths in
Willamina were found guilty of Booth's murder and are now
in the state penitentiary where Booth's actual murderer is doing
time for larceny committed after Booth's death, has worked on
his mind until he imagined that the authorities knew of his
guilt. His mental powers of resistance are not great and so
he found it a relief to confess — this sorry boy-Indian-bad man
of the jungle.

Mrs. Wehrman's murderer who is of a slightly different type
is the man involved in the second tragedy of murder related
in the following chapters.

John G. H. Sierks is nearly 30 years old and he also belongs
to the moron class. He was born in the woods of Columbia
County and never went to school in his life, but his father
taught him to read and write and he is quite proud of his
ability to write a letter. John never has been able to master
mathematics. If his father attempted to correct his erratic
use of the multiplication table John would fly into a passion

and ask, "What the difference does it make to you? I am

doing this!" John preferred children for playmates when he
was 18 to 20 years old and was very jealous if not allowed to
associate with them. His greatest delight was to wander through
the woods with a gun and revolver, for he has a passionate
fondness for firearms. He has a good sense of location, and
it would be impossible for him to lose himself in the woods.

He is much attracted by the opposite sex but he is awkward
in showing his fondness. The wife of a neighbor tells of his
meeting her in a wood road and after passing her of his hur-
rj-^ing back through the timber in order to meet and pass her
again and of repeating this attention until she was exceedingly
frightened. Of course he has been made the victim of all
sorts of stupid practical jokes concerning his interest in women,
which has made it more difficult for him to approach women
and girls in an easy way. His father tells of John's attempts to

20 Why Some Men Kill

kill him and other members of the family. On one occasion
his father was at work on a scaffold and John said to his sister
and the folks there that he was going to shoot the old man
and every damned thing off of the scaffold to see them fall.

On another occasion he gave his sister some poisoned wheat
to give to his little brother and when she did not do it he told J
his father to look out for Lena as she had some poisoned wheat
and w^as going to take it to kill herself. The sister, however,
had buried the wheat and did not say anything about it until
questioned because John had a habit of making life miserable
for her when she told of his bad conduct.

At another time John placed a charge of dynamite in a ]
stump near the house with the plan of setting it off when his
father was near, but Lena set it off when no one was about,
which led John to tell her, "You are always sticking your nose
in my business. I'll put a stop to that," etc. One of the neigh-
bors said that John told him that he set giant powder under a
stump and if it had not been for the girl not keeping her
damned mouth shut, he would have gotten the old man all
right.

His father said John often asked him to go hunting with ,
him, but that he would never go because he was afraid John 1
would shoot him in the back. I

John's father said that a neighbor had three or four young
girls and that his children used to go to play with them but ,
that the neighbors objected to John's coming. John became j
very angry and said that his brother and sister should not go
either. They did go, however, and while there playing in the ,
chicken house three shots were fired and one bullet went
through the chicken house w^hile the children were there. It
was not long until John came along with a rifle and said to the ,
children, "I want you damned kids to come home." I

This gives an idea of John's conduct when he was crossed,
and of course when he had been drinking (he was now 21)
he was more irresponsible than ever.

John is very vain and broods over schemes to make it appear j
that he is smart and clever. '■

His confession of how he killed Mrs. Wehrman in Columbia
County because she would not respond to his request shows
this tendency in describing how he made the trip to Scappoose
at night and got the revolver out of Riley and Hassen's cabin
and committed the murder and got back to Washington County

Confessions of Crinit' 21

by the next mornini>. Thai wouhl have been a (hffieult feat,
but it has since come to hght through the statement of John's
sister that he was at home for nearly two days before they
discovered the body of Mrs. Wehrman and her child. The story
of all the circumstances in later chapters shows John's cunning
and how he came to repudiate the confession after he had made
it. John's responsibility is not very great but this brief account
shows his capacity for crime and the temptations which he
could not resist. At the same time he knows the difference
between right and wrong and has been constantly unhappy
about what he did and cannot refrain from talking about it.
He cannot learn from experience and will always be a menace
to society unless he is confined.

Chapter III

THE MURDER OF WILLIAM BOOTH AND THE CONVICTION
OF WILLIAM BRANSON AND MRS. BOOTH

In the pleasant village of Willamina on the banks of the
Willamina river just at the gateway of the crossing of the Coast i
mountains to the Pacific ocean, the Booth family was living
in October of 1915. The husband and father was William
Booth, a laborer and mechanic in Willamina. His wife, Anna
Booth, was 32 years old and the mother of two children, Lora,
aged twelve years, and Ermel, a boy several years younger.
Mrs. Booth's father and mother lived about two miles or more
to the west and north of Willamina, and Mrs. Booth was in the
habit of walking out frequently to see her mother who was not
in good health.

On October 8th, immediately after the noonday meal, Mrs.
Booth left her home to walk to her mother's. Within half an
hour later, Mr. Booth left the home and while he started in a
different direction at first he took the same road outside of the
village that his wife had to follow to go to her mother's. It
was rumored in Willamina that Mr. Booth was jealous, at least
this was the story given in evidence later, for on this day Wil-
liam Booth was shot and killed by someone among the trees
and bushes on the bank of the river a mile and a half from
Willamina. This spot was near the road which Mrs. Booth had
to follow to go to her mother's and which Mr. Booth also fol-
lowed. Mr. Booth's murdered body was accidentally discovered
about two hours after the killing.

During the afternoon of October 8, 1915, G. D. Carter, who
lived a few miles west of Willamina, Yamhill County, Oregon,
was on his way home from the village when he discovered the
dead body of William Booth lying by the edge of Willamina
river. Booth had been killed by a bullet from a .38 caliber
revolver.

The body lay on its back by the edge of the stream, the
feet upstream, and one hand in the water. Apparently Mr.
Booth had just got over the fence which came down to the
stream at right angles, for his body was above or on the up-
stream side with his head near the fence post. He had been
seen by Mrs. Yates, a neighbor, at half-past one o'clock, going
towards the bushes and trees on the river bank on the lower

Willi <.M Hi(.(.i.\. ;m iiuiiatc of the Ore-
gon peiiitciitiiiry, who confessed to the
murder ol' William Hooth at Willamina,
Oregon, on October S. I'.ll"), and whose
story is corroborated in many details —
(Chapters :'>-.">. Rij^inln is a liis'i - tirade
moron.

The Booth Murdrr 23

side of the fence just before the shot was fired. Mrs. Yates,
however, did not attach any particuhir significance to the sound
of the shot which she heard very soon after Mr. liooth disap-
peared among the hushes and trees, and it was two hours later
or 3:30 P. M. before the body was accidentally discovered by
Carter.

There was no direct evidence whatever as to who did the
shooting, though the sheriff's deputy and the coroner and
neighbors searched the narrow^ strip of woods along the river
bank until dark, and also again the next morning. After the
conclusion of the coroner's inquest the next day William Bran-
son, a young man of 23 years and a neighbor of Booth's, was
arrested for the murder. Mrs. Anna Booth, aged 32 years, the
widow of William Booth, was also arrested. It was the assump-
tion in the neighborhood that young Branson was improperly
intimate with Mrs. Booth, and that Mr. Booth had followed
Mrs. Booth, who was on her way to visit her mother, and that
Mrs. Booth and young Branson were surprised by the injured
husband, whereupon Branson promptly shot and killed Mr.
Booth. This theory was adopted by the district attorney at
William Branson's trial for murder, but the only evidence of-
fered the jury of improper intimacy between Mrs. Booth and her
young neighbor was that Branson had been seen on numerous
occasions some months before talking to Mrs. Booth as she
stood on the front porch of her house in Willamina while he
(Branson) was on the sidewalk outside of the yard.

Judge H. H. Belt, who was the trial judge, said in his charge
to the jury, "It is claimed in this case on the part of the prose-
cution for the purpose of establishing a motive on the part of
the defendants for the killing of William Booth that illicit or
improper relations existed between the said defendants, William
Branson and Anna Booth.

"You are instructed as a matter of law, that there is no
evidence in this case establishing adulterous relations existing
between the defendant Branson and Anna Booth."

It was admitted by the defendant Branson that he had bor-
rowed a .38 caliber revolver from his uncle Milton Carter to
take on a fishing trip in August of 1915. Mr. Carter says this
revolver was never returned to him, and that he did not ask
for its return until the day of the preliminary hearing, though
he admitted that Branson told him in hop-picking time to go

24 Why Some Men Kill

to his house and get the revolver if he wanted it. Branson says?
that the revolver had disappeared and it has never been found, i'
Some small articles of jev^elry disappeared from the Branson
home at the same time.

There is no doubt but that Mrs. Booth was somewhere in
the neighborhood when her husband was killed. The shot was, I
heard at about 1:30 P. M. t

As to Branson, various witnesses testified to seeing him at »
the brick plant (which is three-eighths of a mile from the place |
of the murder) going towards the localitj'^ on a bicycle at about }.
one o'clock on the day the murder was committed. Other wit-
nesses testified to seeing Branson in Willamina at the time the
murder was committed. Branson wore a red sweater on the 3
day of the murder and was a noticeable figure in consequence.
There was a discrepancy in the time as to when the different
persons involved were seen at the brick plant and bridge ac-
cording to the testimony at the preliminary hearing and at the '
trial. There was no direct testimony as to the presence of
anyone concerned at or near the place of the murder except
Booth, who was seen in a nearby garden just before the shot
was heard. Mrs. Booth was seen within half an hour later
near the place. That is to say, all the evidence was circum-
stantial. At the first trial the jury disagreed. Branson and
Mrs. Booth were convicted at the second trial but the verdict
was reversed by the supreme court. At the third trial Branson
was convicted of murder and sentenced to the penitentian^'^ for
life. Mrs. Booth was not tried with Branson at this time, but
upon advice of her counsel and wdth the understanding that
she would be paroled from the penitentiar^^ at the end of one
year, she pleaded guilt}^ to manslaughter and was sentenced
to from one to fifteen years. Mrs. Booth has two children to
whom she is devoted and the prospect of being able to go back
to them at the end of a year decided her to plead guiltj^ as a
conviction with a life sentence seemed certain if she insisted
on denying her guilt.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

This case illustrates the weight of circumstantial evidence
where the suspicions of a community have been aroused, and
how a jur3'^ near the time of a murder may disagree as to the
weight of the circumstances and how later public feeling crys-
talizes into a conviction of guilt.

One of the best prosecuting attorneys I know, who had no

The Booth Murder 25

interest in the case, said to me that in view of the evidence he
did not sec what tlie jury convicted Branson on. 01" course
somebody killed Booth and there were several witnesses who
claimed they saw Branson and Mrs. Booth going in the direc-
tion of the place separately (not together) before the time of
the killing. On the strength of that testimony a boy of 23 was
sent to prison for life and the widow of the murdered man
would have received the same sentence, if she had not tried to
get back to her children in a j^ear by pleading guilty to man-
slaughter.

However, here is another piece of circumstantial evidence
quite significant which was brought out at Branson's trial for
murder :

It will be remembered that Branson, according to all wit-
nesses, wore a red sweater on the day of the murder.

At William Branson's trial Harold Lewis and Clarence Car-
ter testified that on the day of the murder they were at work
with their teams in a field about half a mile or more down the
Willamina creek from the place of the murder, and that at
about half past one they heard a shot and that shortly after-
wards they "saw a man walking pretty fast down the creek in
the brush right in the edge of the creek." They stopped their
horses to watch this man who was some 250 j^ards distant.
After they stopped their horses this man ducked down in the
hollow and the witnesses could only see the upper part of liis
body.

The district attorney asked, "How was he dressed?"

Answer, "He had on either a black or dark blue jersey
sweater and a black hat."

This man was seen by reputable witnesses and he ducked
out of sight when they stopped their teams to watch him, and
this occurred shortly after the shot at 1 :30 which undoubtedly
killed William Booth. No one but Branson was under sus-
picion at this trial and it was admitted that he wore a red
sweater on the day of the murder. Several witnesses claimed
they saw him at the bridge a quarter of a mile from the place
of the shooting and several others claimed they saw^ him in
Willamina near the time the shooting occurred.

The story of the man seen hurrying down the creek by
Lewds and Carter (which was told at Branson's trial) has a
particular interest in view of the confession of William Biggin
in May of 1917 that it was he who killed William Booth on
October 8, 1915.

26 Why Some Men Kill •

The circumstances of William Riggin's confession indicate!
that he was suffering from remorse for his crime and also
because Booth's widow and young Branson were paying the pen-
alty for this murder. f

In making this confession to his father, G. L. Riggin, whom '
he had requested to be present, and to Sheriff Applegate audi
Deputy Sheriff McQuillan at Hillsboro, William Riggin began by
holding up two fingers and saying, "two are suffering for some-
thing they haven't done," and went on and gave the details of
his killing William Booth at Willamina.

In explaining his motive for killing Booth, Riggin said that 1
Booth "had it in for him" and had publicly called him a "con"
and had warned him to keep away from his (Booth's) wife.
Riggin is vindictive and uncontrolled in his passions and has .
homicidal tendencies.

Riggin described in his confession the place where he shot
Booth and said that afterwards he walked down through the
brush to where he left his horse which he had hired in McMinn-
ville. "At the time the shooting took place I wore a blue shirt,
corduroy pants and high-top corked shoes," In a latter statement
to me he volunteered the information that he wore a black hat.

There is also some significant circumstantial evidence about
Riggin's shoes. At the third trial it came out incidentally that
marks of hob-nailed shoes were found in the soft soil by Booth's
dead body. On the day of the murder Branson was wearing but-
ton shoes with smooth soles, while the shoes that Riggin said he
wore had projecting nails.

Riggin's confession, made many months after Branson's trial,
is thus clearly confirmed by testimony given at Branson's trial
for the murder of Booth in these particulars which obviously at
the time had no possible bearing on Branson's guilt. Harold
Lewis and Clarence Carter testified that they "saw a man walk-
ing pretty fast down the creek in the brush right in the edge of
the creek," shortly after they heard the shot at 1 :30 P. M. When
they stopped their teams to watch him he ducked down and
soon disappeared. They said this man "had on either a black or
dark blue jersey sweater and a black hat."

Branson wore a red sweater and was riding a bicycle on the
public highway. Branson also wore button shoes with smooth
soles, while Riggin says he wore "corked shoes" and the testi-
mony at the third trial of Branson showed that someone with
hob-nailed shoes had stood near Booth's body.

The Booth Murder 27

Riggin said in his confession that he shot Wilhani Hoolh.
Then he went on to say that he went to Willamina on Octoher
7th, 1915, on a horse which he hired at a stable in McMinnville.
He stayed over night in Wiihiniina and on the 8th he walked up
the river and practiced shooting in the timber for a couple of
hours. Then he came down the road and saw Billy Branson and
Mrs. Booth talking together but he did not know if they saw him.
Riggin said he had talked with a man in Willamina who spoke
of Branson going with Mrs. Booth and of William Booth "trailing
them," (One of the state's witnesses testified that he talked to
William Branson about Booth being jealous and that Branson
was defiant and threatening. , Branson denied this on the stand,
however.) Soon after seeing Branson and Mrs. Booth talking,
Riggin saw Mr. Booth coming across a field and he shot at him
but missed. He ducked down out of sight and when Booth came
on again he waited until he was about thirty j'ards away and
then shot him with his revolver, a thirty-eight Smith and Wesson.
"After I shot he partly turned around and fell kind of on his left
side."

Apparently after assuring himself that Mr. Booth was dead,
Riggin said that he "lit out to the left and went down through the
brush." He went to a vacant shed near an old sawmill on the
edge of Willamina where he had put his horse. "It was a spotted
pony with a roached mane." He rode to McMinnville b}' way of
Walker Flat and turned the horse loose in the stable. There was
no one in the stable at the time.

Then Riggin says he walked back to Walker Flat and stayed
there three days with a man who was making boards and posts.
After this, "I went on over to Tillamook and ditched the revolver
and belt at Pinky Stillwell's place. I put the revolver inside the
picket fence. At the time the shooting took place I wore a blue
shirt, corduroy pants and high-topped corked shoes."

William Riggin is about 38 years old and has been a "bad
man" for these 20 years. He has a vindictive, revengeful nature
and suffers from uncontrolled fits of rage. He began his career
of crime as a youth by stealing a horse and saddle. For this he
was sent to the reform school at Salem. At a later period he
went to the penitentiary for larceny, and served various senten-
ces in county jails, according to his own account. Within two
weeks after the murder of Booth Riggin was arrested for stealing

* Note: William Riggin's confession is given in full in
Appendix A.

28 Why Some Men Kill

a gun, was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary where he
is now. Riggin's reputation as a thief was such that the sheriff
of Washington County asked the Governor for permission to
take him to Hillsboro to clear up some robberies. Riggin was
very much disturbed by being taken to the Hillsboro jail from the
penitentiary and he finally blurted out to the sheriff: "I know
what you want me for; you want me for the Booth murder." '

Riggin's vindictive, uncontrolled rage, which led him to lie
in wait for Booth and kill him, had been satisfied and remorse
had followed and he told the sheriff if he would send for his
(Riggin's) father he would tell the whole story, which he did
upon his father's arrival at the Hillsboro jail.

For the sake of brevity I will give the facts corroborating his
confession as I go along. Riggin said he hired a horse in
McMinnville to ride to Willamina at the time he killed Booth.
Here follows sworn statement of A. R. White, who kept a livery
stable in McMinnville :

"I, A. R. White, being sworn depose and say that I keep a
livery and feed stable in McMinnville and have been in that busi-
ness for the past five or six years. I remember renting a spotted
pony with a roached mane to Bill Riggin about the time that
William Booth was killed in Willamina in 1915, I think that
Bill said he wanted to ride the pony to Willamina but I cannot
speak with absolute certainty. I remember that I told Bill Riggin
that I had a bunch grass pony who was mean to ride. Bill said
that did not matter, I remember that Bill had the pony about
three days and that I found the pony in the stable one morning
and did not see Bill Riggin again at all after he hired the pony.
I also remember very distinctly that Bill never paid for the use
of the pony at the time mentioned in October, 1915."

(Signed) A. R. White.

In regard to Riggin being seen in Willamina, Mrs. Lottie
Smith, half-sister of Riggin's, says that she knows that Riggin
was in Willamina at the time of the murder, though she does
not remember seeing him that day. The brother and sister talked
it over in my presence and Riggin told his sister of seeing her on
a load of ties coming into Willamina. She admitted making such
a trip and described the pony Riggin rode but said she did not
remember the exact day, but that it was about the time of the
killing of Booth. This Mrs. Lottie Smith was living a few miles
from Willamina at the time of the murder.

The Booth Murder 29

At the trial of William Branson Mrs. Yates testified to seeing
Booth in her garden just hcfore the shooting and said that he
went towards the road and jumped over the fence and turned to
the east towards the creek and went right into the brush. About
a minute after Booth went into the brush she heard a shot. Some
two hours later Booth's body was discovered at this point on the
water's edge.

In a supplementary statement made by Riggin to District At-
torney Conners on July 25, 1917, Riggin said, in answer to ques-
tions that Booth was in the garden patch (Yates'), that he "went
out and came around"; that he "went to the edge of the road and
then came back," and that he went to the river bank.

Riggin's statement, made in July, 1917, of Booth's movements
just before he shot him thus corroborates Mrs. Y'^ates' testimony
at William Branson's trial in February, 1916.

There is another point which seems to prove conclusively that
Riggin was at the scene of the murder. On July 19, 1917, Warden
Murphy, at Governor Withycombe's direction, took Riggin to
Willamina with the idea that Riggin would show by his descrip-
tion of the killing on the spot and by his location of the place
where the body w^as found whether or not he was telling the truth
in his confession. Riggin directed the party, of w^hich I was one,
to the spot where the shooting occurred. Warden Murphy had
never visited the scene of the crime and had to depend on Rig-
gin's directions. I will quote from his report to the Governor:

"I asked him if he was positive that this was the place. He
stated that he was, and I also asked him if he was positive where
Booth stood and he said he was. I then asked him what he did
when he shot him and he said he went down the creek where the
body lay and then came back up the creek, crossing in and w^ent
along back of the rOck quarry and then he made his way to Wil-
lamina where his horse w^as tied. I then asked him to show where
the body lay and to describe how it lay. He said that it lay by
the fence that ran down to the river with one hand in the water,
and the head down stream. At this point I asked the guard to
take Riggin away that I might talk freely with the parties as I
did not know whether he had stated the location correctly or not.
After Riggin was out of hearing, I inquired of the parties, espe-
cially Mr. Sherwin, who w^as as I said before a member of the
coroner's jury, I believe being the foreman, and who had viewed
the body in an official capacity and he said Riggin had stated
the condition correctly. At this point Mr. Conner stated that

30 Why Some Men Kill

Riggin had erred in saying that the body was on the down stream
side. In order to be exactly fair about this very important point
I requested the party to step back from the scene 25 or 30 paces
and had Riggin brought up and asked Mr. Sherwin to take Riggin
to the water's edge and have him show him exactly how the body
lay and where. This he did and Riggin told him that the body
lay on the upper side of the fence and the head down stream, the
hand in the water. I then asked Mr. Sherwin if it was the exact
position in which he had viewed the body in the first instance
and he said it was."

This checks up Riggin's confession to the time after the mur-
der when a man dressed as Riggin said he was went down the
creek after the shooting and was seen by two witnesses who tes-
tified at Branson's trial.

Riggin said he returned the horse to McMinnville and "I
walked back to Walker Flat and stayed three days with a man
who was making boards and posts. I went on over to Tillamook
and ditched the revolver and belt at Pinkey Stillwell's place on
the road to Tillamook."

The murder occurred on the 8th of October, 1915. Riggin
says he stopped three days at Walkers Flat which would bring
it to the 11th or 12th. I saw Mrs. Annie Springer, a half-sister of
Riggin's, who was living in Moores Valley at that time, on the
route Riggin said he took to Tillamook. Her sworn statement
follows :

"I, Annie Springer, being sworn depose and say that William
Riggin is my half-brother. During the month of October, 1915, I
was living with my husband, Albert Springer, on the Sunnybrook
farm in Moore's Valley, about eight miles west of the town of
Yamhill. Will Riggin came to our place on the morning of Oc-
tober 12th, 1915. He seemed awful nervous about something.
I asked him to come into the house, but he said he was in a hurry
and, as a matter of fact, he only remained in the yard some fif-
teen minutes.

"I urged him to come in and he said, 'The sheriff is after me.
I asked him what he had done and he said in his short way, '
ain't done nothing.'

"The reason that I can tell the day of October in 1915 whe
Bill came to our place is that we were getting ready to come to
Moose Lodge banquet in McMinnville, which was held that day
and because the day before, October 11th, is my birthday."

(Signed) Mrs. Annie Springer

y

The Booth Murder 31

In Riggin's verbal statement to me he said that he also
stopped at F. L. Smith's, a neighbor of Mrs. Annie Springer's. John
Riggin, a half-brother, lived at F. L. Smith's and he has made a
sworn statement saying that when he came home, the Smith fam-
ily told him that Rill Riggin had stopped there and said he was
going to Tillamook. Mrs. Annie Springer had also told him that
Rill Riggin was at her home on October 12.

Rill Riggin's father made an investigation of Rill's move-
ments at the time of the murder and his conclusions agree with
this account. The Riggin family were unwilling to believe that
Rill committed this murder but the facts which they personally
knew in connection with Rill's confession finally convinced them
that Rill was telling the truth. Riggin's father says that Rill ought
to be permanently confined so that he won't do any more harm.

Chapter IV.

WILLIAM RIGGIN SHOWS WARDEN MURPHY WHERE HE "
CONCEALED THE REVOLVER

William Riggin, in his confession describing how he killed
Booth, told what he did with the revolver. He said he took it
with him on his trip to Tillamook a few days after the murder
and hid it on Pinkey Stillwell's place, some 15 miles east of Tilla-
mook. Inasmuch as Riggin was arrested soon after his arrival at
Tillamook and has been confined in jail ever since, he has had no
opportunity to "plant" the revolver since his trip to Tillamook.
We know from the independent testimony of various witnesses
that Riggin made this trip to Tillamook almost immediately after
Booth was killed, and the revolver plainly shows that it was ex-
posed to the weather for a long period. It's a .38 caliber revolver
and Booth was killed by a .38 caliber bullet. I

On May 22, 1917, Warden Murphy took Riggin to Tillamook
at Governor Withycombe's direction and out to the place where
Riggin said he hid the revolver. Warden Murphy says that Rig-
gin "unhesitatingly kicked aside the leaves and released a .38
Smith and Wesson revolver with which he claimed he commit-
ted the deed." This revolver is now in the possession of the
warden.

In August of 1917 I was in Tillamook and became acquainted,,
with Malcolm Easton, whose sworn statement follows: |

"I, Malcolm Easton, being sworn depose and say that I am a
resident of Tillamook, Oregon, and that I have lived there for
the past seven years, and that at the present time I am night clerk,
in the Tillamook Hotel. In the fall of 1915 I was at work in ai
railroad camp at Tillamook and had been in the town of Tilla-
mook for a number of days spending my money in the saloons.
Norman Myers, marshal in Tillamook, asked me one evening,
when I had spent all my money and was f eehng disgusted with
myself, where I was going to sleep that night, and offered me a
bed in the county jail, which I accepted. Myers put me in a cell
with a man by the name of William Riggin who had been ar- ■
rested for steahng a gun. Riggin was a good deal excited and ,,
talked to me all night especially about guns of different kindsrj
and about criminal things he had done and of crimes he knew ,,
about. Among other things Riggin told me that he had shot at a ,
farmer as he came across a field before he came to Tillamool-

The Booth Murder 33

and that he had hidden a gun on Pinkey Stillwell's place, east of
Tillaniook, as he came across the mountains.

"Riggin did not tell me that he killed this man, and I did not
think of the matter in connection with the murder of William
Booth at Willamina until this summer when Riggin was brought
to Tillamook by Warden Murphy. Clark Hadley told me that
Riggin found the revolver on Pinkey Stillwell's place that he said
he had hidden there after he used it to kill Booth. Then I remem-
bered the stoiy Riggin told me in the county jail of his shooting
at a farmer as he crossed a field and of hiding a gun on Pinkey
Stilhveirs place as he came across the mountains. I asked Con-
stable Epplett to speak to Warden Murphy about my knowledge
of Riggin's story. I talked to Clark Hadle}^ about my experience
with Riggin and also to Norman Myers. Later I mentioned it to
Mr. Gregory, who, I understand, was on the Oregonian staff, and
asked his advice about informing the warden of the penitentiary
or the Governor.

"I felt that I ought to inform the authorities of my knowledge
of the matter, and, in fact, I had written a letter to Warden
Murphy when I read in the Oregonian Mr. Murphy's report of how
Riggin showed where Booth's body lay after he shot him.

"I spoke to Mr. Myers about it and he said it would not be
necessar\' for me to send the letter for nobody could have any
doubt of the truth of Riggin's confession after reading the report
of Warden Murphy's investigation.

"1 realize that the truth of my statement of what Riggin told
me in the county jail at Tillamook about his shooting at a farmer
as he crossed a field and of his hiding a gun on Pinkey Stillwell's
place afterwards as he came across the mountains will be re-
garded as depending upon my reputation, and that my irregu-
larities in the way of drinking may be held to damage my credi-
bility, but I have lived in Tillamook for a number of years and
quite a number of people know me, and I am willing to leave
the question of my honesty and truthfulness with them.

"I was not intoxicated the night I spent in jail with Riggin in

Ithc fall of 1915, but I had been drinking and had spent all my
money and was disgusted with myself and accepted Marshal
. Myers offer of a bed in the jail. I told Myers in the morning
ef what kind of a chap he had put me in with, but as I was not
anxious to be mixed up with a fellow who told stories of law
breaking that Riggin told, I put the matter out of my mind until

34 Why Some Men Kill

Riggin was brought to Tillamook by Warden Murphy and found
the revolver that he said he had hidden."

(Signed) Malcolm Easton.

Malcolm Easton is evidently sincere in his desire to tell of
Bill Riggin's statement to him in October of 1915 and gave me
the names of a number of citizens of Tillamook who would
vouch for his honesty.

I made inquiries in Tillamook about Mr. Easton and the re-
sponses from several men of good standing in the community
satisfied me that Mr. Easton is thoroughly reliable and that he
has given the information concerning Riggin because he believes
it is a duty which he owes the public.

WHO KILLED WILLIAM BOOTH.'*

The solving of a murder mystery where the only evidence
consists of inferences from known or proven facts, and where
there is no direct evidence, is very much like solving a Chinese
puzzle consisting of many pieces of irregular shapes. When all
the pieces are in their proper places, all the pieces are used and
the puzzle is complete and perfect in form. Sometimes the puz-
zle is apparently solved without using all the pieces, but there
are no superfluous parts in a puzzle; they all must be used.

So in solving the Booth murder it is absurd to say that there
were superfluous facts at Branson's trial which meant nothing.
And yet it is beyond dispute that the jury which convicted Bran-
son did not consider all the facts in the case.

To be blunt the jury assumed that Branson and Mrs. Booth
were together near the Yates place and that Branson and his
witnesses were lying. They were so sure Branson was lying that
they convicted him of murder though to do that they had to
assume a motive of criminal intimacy between Branson and
Mrs. Booth, which the judge instructed them was not proven.

There was evidence given at the trial to show that the day
after the murder a woman's hair "rat" was picked up in the
brush 60 to 80 feet from where Booth was killed, and certain
witnesses who were admittedly not experts, told the jury that
this "rat" was similar to hair rats owned by Mrs. Booth. Mrs.
Booth's sister testified that Mrs. Booth's "rats" contained human
hair and that the "rat" found in the brush did not. This ques-
tion was thus left very much in the air and the jury drew their
conclusions from the testimony of witnesses who did not qualify
as experts. The vagueness of the inference to be drawn even if

The Booth Murder 35

the "rat" found in the brush was actually similar to Mrs. Booth's
rats is evident. It was not compolent to prove that Mrs. Booth
was near the scene of the murder at the time it was committed,
and no attempt was made to prove that the spot where the rai
was found was a rendezvous for Mrs. Booth and William Bran-
son, About all that could be said for it was that it tended to
give color to suspicion against Mrs. Booth.

The jury was willing to go counter to the courts instructions
that there was no proof of adulterous relations between Mrs,
Booth and William Branson, and imagine the motive because
they were so certain that Branson was Ij'ing about not being with
Mrs. Booth in the neighborhood of Mrs. Yates' place that day.

This comi)elled the members of the jury to overlook or forget
as superfluous certain facts which certainly were part of the
mystery of the murder.

The first of these facts was that when Booth's body was dis-
covered there were footprints found beside the body in the soft
soil in the edge of the river. These footprints were made by
shoes with hob-nails. The law^-^ers for the defendant say that
undisputed testimony was given to this fact at Branson's third
trial by a witness for the prosecution. Apparently it was given
incidentally, but at any rate it was not given at either of the
previous trials. The reason that this is an important fact in
solving the puzle as to w^ho killed William Booth is the signifi-
cant circumstance that William Branson wore button shoes with
smooth soles on the day of the murder. That is to say some other
man than William Branson stood beside Booth's dead body.

And yet because the jury believed that Branson lied they were
willing to leave out this important evidence. They were willing
to admit in effect that some other man who had hob-nailed shoes
must have stopped by the spot where Booth's body lay in order
to find Branson guilt^^ of murder.

Another piece of the puzzle which the jury left out of consid-
eration was the testimony of Harold Lewis and Clarence Carter
at Branson's trial, Lewis and Carter were at work with their
teams on disc plows in a field down the river from the scene of
the murder on that afternoon. Lewis testified that they heard
a shot at about 1 :30 P, M. and that shortly after he "saw a maD
walking pretty fast down the creek in the brush, right in the
edge of the creek." This man was 250 or 300 yards from Lewis.
Lewis stopped his horses and watched him. This man then

36 Why Some Men Kill

ducked down in the hollow and Lewis could only see him from
the waist up and he soon disappeared.

Question — "How was he dressed?"

Answer — "He had on either a black or dark blue jersej
sweater and a black hat."

Lewis could not see his face. Clarence Carter's testimony
was identical with that of Lewis.

Here was a man hurrying away from what later proved
to be the scene of a murder, and who was apparently anxious to
get out of sight when a couple of men stopped their teams to
watch him. This man obviously could not have been Branson
because Branson, according to all the witnesses wore a red
sweater on the day of the murder, and the witnesses who said
they saw him down the river from the spot where Booth was
killed testified that he was riding a bicycle and was riding on the
road without attempt at concealment.

Certainly this man hurrying down the creek in the brush
immediately after the shooting was quite as important a piece of
the puzzle as Branson on his wheel on the road. However the
• jury left him out of their considerations.

There is no question but what the jury ignored these two ele-
ments of the mystery of the murder, and guessed that Branson
was intimate with Mrs. Booth and guessed that Mr. Booth caught
them in the brush in a compromising situation and guessed that
then Branson killed Booth.

WILLIAM RIGGIN's CONFESSION

It is a crucial test of William Biggin's confession to see if all
of the circumstances "fit in" and make a solution of the murder
which is complete.

Biggin says he hired a spotted pony with a roached mane and
rode to Willamina from McMinnville. Mr. White says he rented
such a pony to Biggin in McMinnville at the time Booth was
killed. Mrs. Lottie Smith, Biggin's sister, says she saw Biggin in
Willamina and described the pony he rode.

Biggin says, in a statement to the District Attorney, that he
was at Mrs. Yates' place when Booth was in her garden and he
described Booth's going to the road from the garden and thence
back to the brush at the bank of the river where his body was
afterwards found.

At Wilham Branson's trial Mrs. Yates described Mr. Booth's
movements in her garden and his going to the road and then into
the brush on the river bank where his dead body was found two

The Booth Murder 37

hours later. The two descriptions of Booth's actions just before
he was killed agree.

Riggin told of leaving the spot thus: "I lit out to the left and
went down through the brush. I walked to a vacant shed near
Willamina."

Riggin has said that he wore a blue sweater, corked shoes and
a black hat.

Lewis and Carter testified that this man, hurrying down
through the brush, wore a black or blue sweater and a black hat.

Thus it appears that the testimony of Mrs. Yates, also the wit-
ness who said there were footprints made by hob-nailed shoes by
Booth's body, and the testimony of Lewis and Carter, all agree
with the facts and with William Riggin's confession describing
how he killed Booth.

Curiously enough Riggin says, in his confession, that he saw
Mrs. Booth and Branson talking together near Mrs. Yates' place.
This seems to fit with the testimony of the prosecution that Bran-
son followed Mrs. Booth and was but a few minutes behind her
on the road when she crossed the bridge three-eighths of a mile
below Mrs. Yates' place.

Booth was killed on October 8, 1915, and on July 19, 1917,
Warden Murphy took Riggin to Willamina to have him point out
the spot where Booth was killed and show where and how his
body lay.

The foreman of the coroner's jury that viewed Booth's body
where it was found and later held an inquest was present. The
warden asked Riggin to show this foreman of the coroner's jury
exactly where Booth's body lay and its position. Riggin did this
and the foreman of the coroner's jury said that Riggin showed
him the exact position in which Booth's body lay as he, the fore-
man, had seen it when Booth was killed.

Riggin says, after taking the pony back to McMinnville, that
he went to Walker Flat and stayed with a man there three days
and that he then went on to Tillamook.

Mrs. Annie Springer, Riggin's half-sister, who was very loath
to believe that her brother had killed Booth, says that William
Riggin came to her home in Moores Valley on October 12, 1915,
but was very nervous and would not stop. On being urged to,
he said, "The sheriff is after me."

The murder occurred October 8. Allowing one day for Riggin
to take the pony to McMinnville and to go to Walker Flat, where
he says he remained three days, it would be the 12th when he

38 Why Some Men Kill

started for Tillamook, which would take him through Moores
Valley where his sister, Mrs. Springer, lived. This fits. Why
Riggin should say to his sister, when urged to stop, "The sheriff
is after me," unless he had some fear that he might be after him,
is inconceivable.

It seems that when Riggin was crossing the summit of the
Coast Range, on the Tillamook trail, that he met four young men
who had been fishing in the mountain streams and that he
camped with them in a deserted cabin. They said that Riggin
acted so strangely and insisted on sleeping with his weapons that
two of the four kept watch the first half of the night and that the
other two did guard duty the second half of the night. There is
no doubt that Riggin frightened them thoroughly. They were too
much scared to realize that Riggin was possibly afraid of some-
body following him and getting the drop on him.

Riggin, in his confession, said that he "ditched the revolver"
with which he killed Rooth on the Pinkey Stillwell place. On
May 22, 1917, Warden Murphy, at the direction of Governor
Withycombe, took Riggin to Tillamook and they went from there
up the Trask River and on arriving at the spot the warden says
Riggin "unhesitatingly kicked aside the leaves and released a
.38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver with which he claimed he
committed the deed."

While Riggin was in jail in Tillamook he told Malcolm
Eastori, as previously related, about shooting at a man east of
the mountains and of hiding the gun on Pinkey Stillwell's place.
The finding of the revolver, Easton's testimony about Riggin's
story to him soon after the murder of Booth, and Riggin's con-
fession of the murder and of where he hid the revolver, made in
the spring of 1917, thus fit together as component parts of the
puzzle.

Here are two possible solutions to the mystery of who killed
William Booth. The solution which points to the guilt of Wil-
liam Branson and Mrs. Booth ignores absolutely two important
facts brought out at Branson's trial, and imagines a motive for
the killing, which the judge cautioned the jury against, and bases
inference on inference to reach a conclusion. Branson had al-
ways borne a good reputation and is spoken of highly by all
his acquaintances and friends.

The other solution, which points to William Riggin as the
murderer, accounts for all the facts testified to by the various
witnesses, and Riggin's confession is corroborated in many par-

The Booth Murder 39

ticulars as I have just pointed out. A year and a half after his
confession he still says that he killed Booth. If it is admitted
that the correct solution of a criminal mystery must account for
and explain all the facts brought out, and must form a complete
whole, like the parts of an intricate puzzle, then the solution of
the mystery of the killing of William Booth is that William Rig-
gin killed him as he has confessed that he did.

Chapter V.

APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC FOR THE RELEASE OF WILLIAM
BRANSON AND MRS. BOOTH

The various trials of William Branson and Mrs. Anna Booth
for the murder of William Booth received the widest publicity.
Public sentiment was very deeply aroused, chiefly because the
murder was apparently unprovoked and because there was no
direct testimony connecting Branson and Mrs. Booth with the
crime. It was all circumstantial evidence, which is to say people
could only come to a conclusion as to who committed the murder
by drawing inferences from the known facts. The known facts
were that on October 8 Mrs. Booth started to visit her mother and
left her home a little before half past twelve P. M., going north
from Willamina. A little time after Mr. Booth started west from
Willamina and reached a point about one hour later on the road
Mrs. Booth followed to visit her mother. He was seen near this
point by several people, and at 1 : 30 P. M. a shot was heard, which
presumably killed him. William Branson was seen, according
to a number of witnesses, three-eighths of a mile from the scene
of the murder going in the same direction that Mrs. Booth had
gone. This was about half an hour before the shot was fired.
Other witnesses testified that William Branson was in Willamina
at the time the murder was committed.

The only circumstance which was established as certain was
that William Booth was seen close to the point of the shooting
just before the shot. Mrs. Booth was seen about half an hour
later on the road some 10 rods or more from the scene of the
murder, according to the testimony at the inquest. At the trial
the same witness said she saw Mrs. Booth ten minutes after the
shot was heard.

The jury drew the inference that Mrs. Booth and young Bran-
son were together in the brush at the point where Booth was
killed. From that inference they draw the second inference that
Mrs. Booth, and young Branson, who was 23 years old (Mrs.
Booth was 32) were found in a compromising situation by Mr.
Booth, and from that inference they drew the third inference
that upon being discovered in a compromising situation that
young Branson promptly shot William Booth and killed him. If
it had been estabhshed as a fact that Branson and Mrs. Booth
were guilty of adulterous relations there would have been a

The Booth Murder 41

motive and these two inferences based upon another inference
would have had a semblance of probability, but the court spe-
cifically instructed the jury that there was no evidence establish-
ing adulterous relations between the two defendants. However,
even on that supposition, which the jury accepted in opposition
to the judge's charge, it is worth while to remember that while an
injured husband has often killed his wife's seducer at the
moment of discovery, as many a court trial will witness, and as
many a verdict of acquittal on the ground of "the higher law"
will confirm, there is no record that I ever saw or heard of where
the seducer killed the husband on the instant of the husband dis-
covering him in a compromising situation with his wife. It is
true that the seducer has often killed the husband, with or with-
out the aid of the wife, but not at the instant of discovery by the
husband of the criminal relation.

It is proper to consider this because as part of the assumed
circumstantial evidence Branson's motive for kilhng Booth was
decided by the jury to be the fact that Booth caught Branson
with Mrs, Booth in the brush. The Oregon statute says, "An
inference must be founded on a fact legally proved."

To brand a man as a murderer and take away his liberty for
life, especially a young man who had always borne a good repu-
tation, on two inferences based on a third inference which "may"
have been true but which was at least open to doubt, is simply
to call suspicion circumstantial evidence. * The woman in the
case has two young children, Lora Booth, a girl of 12 years at
the time of the trial, who is being cared for by relatives, and also
a httle boy, Ermel, who is younger than his sister. The court did
not administer the oath to Ermel, as he was too young to realize
what testifying under the oath meant, but he promised to tell
the truth.

Of course it should be remembered that the community was
desperately exercised about this murder and Branson had been
accused and he could not prove that he was innocent.

To show the hysterical spirit which prompted this conviction
it is onlj^ necessary to give another case of a murder trial where
the community was not much interested and where the accused
persons were not convicted. In the spring of 1918 two men were
* Note : The question of proving a motive for a crime
where there is only circumstantial evidence, and the fur-
ther question of basing inferences upon inferences is taken
up at length in Chapter No. 11 on circumstantial evidence.

42 Why Some Men Kill

indicted for the murder of a woman found dead on the sidewalk
of Washington street, Portland. The two men and the woman
were in a room on the third floor of a building on Washington
street. All three were more or less drunk and they were quarrel-
ing and it is certain that either the woman fell out or jumped out
or was thrown out of the window. The facts were fully estab-
lished that the three were in the room and were drunk and were
quarreling. The inference was very obviously plain that the
woman might have fallen out of the window. Because of that
possible explanation the jury could not agree, and a second jury
also failed to agree, and so the case was dismissed.

In the Booth case there was no testimony to show that Bran-
son and Mrs. Booth were together in the brush. It was inferred
that they were because they had been seen going along the road,
one behind the other. The inference that Branson and Mrs. Booth
were in a compromising position was based on the inference that
they were together in the brush, and the inference that Branson
killed Booth was based on the inference that they were discov-
ered by Mr. Booth in a compromising situation.

Booth was killed in an open field. He might have been shot
from across the river or from a distance up the river. The shot
might have been an accidental one or it might have been fired
with the intent of killing Booth. From the circumstances there
were no legitimate inferences to be drawn either in law or in
logic, but evil-minded gossip suggested a motive and the jury
found Branson guilty of murder notwithstanding the eminently
fair charge of the judge to the jury after the evidence was in.

THE ACTUAL MURDERER

Nearly two years after the murder William Biggin confessed
to killing William Booth, and the investigation which I have
made shows that his confession is corroborated by the facts given
in the preceding chapters, but District Attorney Conner refuses
to admit his mistake in convicting Branson. Branson is in the
penitentiary under a life sentence for murder and Mrs. Booth is
also in the penitentiary.

Oregon has a democratic form of government, and every citi-
zen has a personal interest in the proper administration of the
criminal law and in procuring justice.

In a matter where the laws provide no remedy for such a
terrible injustice as the continued imprisonment of citizens

The Booth Murder 43

wrongfully convicted of crime, and where the actual criminal
has been discovered, nothing remains but an appeal to public
opinion to secure the pardon of these innocent persons by the
Governor, who has this judicial power conferred on him by the
constitution.

An appeal to the public opinion must be made by responsible
citizens to be successful. For that reason the complete report of
the investigation of this case, including a brief of the testimony
given at the trial and the sworn statements of all witnesses who
have given important evidence, and also accounts by the w^arden
of the penitentiary, and others who have been concerned in this
matter, have been submitted to many citizens who are prominent
in the state. Thej' have read the complete reports and have had
the advice of a thoroughly competent lawyer. Afterwards they
have signed the following statement in order to get the whole
matter before the people of the state of Oregon.

The committee appeal to the voters of Oregon, irrespective
of party, to petition the Chief Executive of the state to pardon
William Branson and Anna Booth, who were wrongfully con-
victed of the murder of William Booth at Willamina, Yamhill
County, on October 8, 1915, and to restore them to the full rights
of citizenship.

The members of this committee have each read and consid-
ered carefully the report on this case, which includes a brief of
the evidence given at the trial.

In order to be fully assured of the merits of the report, the
committee secured the services of a lawyer of recognized ability
who has had experience as a prosecutor. This lawyer is widely
known, and he was employed and paid by this committee to
study carefully all the evidence given at the trial of William
Branson and Anna Booth, and to examine and weigh the report
on the case and to advise this committee.

His statement follows :

The undersigned was employed by Mr. George A. Thacher,
representing the committee, to examine the record of the trial
of William Branson, convicted of the murder of William Booth,
and to report his opinion as to the guilt or innocence of Branson,
based on said record.

I have examined the record, and the brief of the testimony,
as prepared by Mr. Thacher, and also his report. It is my opinion.

44 Why Some Men Kill

based on the record, and aided by the investigation of Mr.
Thacher, also aided by reading and considering the confession
of one Wilham Riggin, that neither Wilham Branson nor Mrs.
WiUiam Booth are guilty of the murder of William Booth. The
report, as prepared by Mr. Thacher, is so complete in detail, and
so well analyzes the facts that I suggest that it be made the basis
of any future action by the committee in presenting the matter
to the Governor. Mr. Thacher has devoted considerable time
and study to this case, and, in my judgment, he is correct in his
deductions.

Respectfully submitted,

Frank S. Grant.

Chapter VI.
THE MURDER OF MRS. DAISY WEHRMAN AND HER CHILD

There is a little hamlet, five or six miles in a westerly direc-
tion from Scappoose, Columbia County, Oregon, which is known
as Schnitzcrville. In 1911 there were possibly a dozen families
living within a radius of a mile. There was no local postoffice
and the neighbors brought the mail for each other from the post-
office at Scappoose and placed it in a box at the cross-roads.
There was a logging railroad with a siding half a mile away and
the neighbors used the track in walking to and from Scappoose.
The country is broken and the wagon roads, which are more or
less impassable in the rainy season, wind around the hills and
through occasional stretches of timber.

Several families from Portland had undertaken to make
homes here and had begun to build small houses and to cultivate
little patches of ground. Among the number were two bach-
elors, Mr. Riley and Mr. Hassen; Mr. John Arthur Pender and
his wife, and Mr. Frank Wehrman and his wife and little boy,
Harold, four years old. Mr. Pender and his wife were living in
a tent until they could build them a house and were engaged in
raising ducks and chickens and geese. Messrs. Riley and Hassen
had a cabin close by, but they were at work in Portland and
spent only Sundays and holidays at their little place in Schnitzcr-
ville. Mr. Frank Wehrman and his wife had purchased a few
acres a mile away to the southwest and had built a small house.
Mr. Wehrman was a baker and worked in a bakery in Portland
but came home Saturday nights to spend Sunday. Mrs. Wehr-
man and her little four-year-old boy, Harold, spent all their time
in the new home. There were other neighbors, making a small
community with more or less common interests.

This part of Columbia County is an old but rather sparsely
settled section and was originally covered with heavy timber.

Among the old settlers is G. H. Sierks, who lived with his wife
and three children about half a mile from the Wehrman's in an
opposite direction from Schnitzcrville. The oldest of the chil-
dren was a young man named John G. H. Sierks, who was nearly
twenty-one years old at this time. John was feeble-minded and
vicious in his habits and showed such marked homicidal tenden-
cies that all the family lived in fear of what he would attempt
next. His father has told the story of his attempts to kill him

46 Why Some Men Kill

and different members of the family when he was thwarted or
angry. Two years later, on his father's complaint, John was com-
mitted to the institution for the insane where the records show
that he was regarded as a moral imbecile.

In the summer of 1911, John G. H. Sierks was at work on a
farm in Washington County, about twenty miles from his
father's home in Columbia County, going home for occasional
visits. This was the setting of surrounding circumstances when
on September 6, 1911, Mrs. G. H. Sierks and her daughter, Lena,
walked to Scappoose and brought word to the authorities that
something had happened in the little house where Mrs. Frank
Wehrman and her child were living while Mr. Wehrman was
at his work in Portland. Mr. Wehrman had been at home the
week before but had left for Portland Sunday afternoon. This
was Wednesday that Mrs. Sierks brought news of a tragedy, for
she had found on Tuesday, she said, that the Wehrman house
was padlocked on the outside and that a pool of blood had
dripped from the inside of the house to the ground and that she
and her daughter had looked through the window and saw Mrs.
Wehrman's body, with her limbs bare, and hanging over the side
of the bed, her feet (with shoes and rubbers on) touching the
floor. This information Mrs. Sierks admitted she had kept to
herself twenty-four hours before going to Scappoose to tell her
husband, who was at work there as a carpenter. (The Sierks
family said that John Sierks was not at home, but in 1916 Lena
Sierks, John's sister, said that John was at home a couple of days
before they found Mrs. Wehrman's dead body.) Mrs. Wehrman
was dead, the sheriff discovered, with her four-year-old child
lying dead in her arms. Both mother and child had been most
brutally murdered and the cabin locked with a padlock on the
outside to conceal the tragedy. The physicians testified that the
woman and the child had been dead two or three days when the
bodies were discovered.

There were no clues to the double murder except that three
shots had been fired into each body with a thirty-eight caliber
Colts revolver, which was held so close that the wounds were
badly powder burned, and a hatchet had been used on Mrs.
Wehrman's head.

As the result of a two-year struggle to convict Mr. Pender of
this crime, he was finally found guilty of murder in the first
degree and sentenced to be hung, though he did not own a Colts
revolver and there was no evidence to show that he was nearer

The Wehrman Murder 47

than a mile from the Wehrman cabin when the murder was com-
mitted. The jury could not agree at the first trial, nine months
after the murder, but two years after the murder Mr, Pender was
convicted. In 1914 his sentence was commuted to life imprison-
ment.

THEORY OF PROSECUTION

There was a newspaper in its wrapper and a small unopened
package containing a curtain made out of a flour sack, which
had been taken to the Wehrman cabin by someone from an
improvised mail box at Schnitzerville and had not been opened
at the time the bodies were found. Mr. Wehrman testified at
the preliminary hearing soon after the murder that the package
was at the house before he left for Portland on Sunday after-
noon, September 3, but no question was asked about the news-
paper. It was the theory of the prosecution that Mr. Pender
broke into Riley and Hassen's cabin close to his tent house after
or about 6 P. M., Monday evening, September 4, and broke open
the trunk and took the Colts revolver and visited Mrs. Wehrman,
taking her mail from the neighborhood box and the paper from
the post office at Scappoose, and made improper proposals to
Mrs. Wehrman, and upon her refusal went into an insane rage
and fired three shots into her body and three shots into her
child's body, holding the revolver so close that the wounds were
badlj' powder burned, and then took the hatchet and chopped
the woman's head open. Her body was left partially disrobed
with the bare limbs hanging over the edge of the bed. The
door was then padlocked on the outside and the tragedy awaited
discoveiy for several days.

There was no proof that Pender stole the revolver and later
returned it, or that anyone stole it. Riley and Hassen said that
their cabin had been broken into and the trunk opened but they
were contradictory in their testimony at the different trials as
to whether they discovered that the cabin had been broken into
"before" or "after" September 10. They worked in Portland and
visited the cabin on Sundays. They were also contradictory as
to whether the revolver was loaded when placed in the trunk. In
fact, there was no testimony about the revolver with any direct
bearing on the crime except that the Colts revolver bullets which
killed Mrs. Wehrman and her child were scratched, and it was
attempted to be shown that the revolver in Riley and Hassen's
trunk, which was a Colt, had gas pits in the barrel which would

48 Why Some Men Kill

scratch a bullet in a similar manner. It was also testified to by
some witnesses that Pender's face was scratched though other
witnesses had no recollection of this. There was foreign matter
found under the finger nails of Mrs. Wehrman's hands and some
brown hairs in her fingers. Pender's hair is black.

It was also testified to that Pender on a certain day had not
spoken to Mrs. Wehrman from which the inference was drawn
that he had previously insulted her. Finally the stories were
circulated outside of court that Pender was a Sadie and had
boasted of mistreating Filipino girls and then killing them when
he was in the army.

On this testimony Mr. Pender was convicted two years after
the murder and sentenced to be hung. To show how intelligent
men may be carried away by their horror of an awful crime I
will quote from the opinion of the Supreme Court of Oregon
affirming the death sentence.

Referring to the hopelessly contradictory testimony as to
whether Pender got the Wehrman paper in the post office on
Monday, September 4, Justice Ramsey, who wrote the opinion,
said it "tends to connect the defendant with the Iowa paper,"
etc. He then offers a theory as to what Mr. Pender did which
would have been proper for the prosecuting attorney, but is in-
conceivable for a supreme court review and opinion. "He (Pen-
der) may have taken the Bates package and have kept it until
he obtained the Iowa paper the next day, and he may have taken
the package and the paper to the Wehrman cabin on Monday
night as an excuse for making a call on Mrs. Wehrman, and the
murder may have been committed immediately thereafter." Jus-
tice Ramsey even went so far as to carelessly misquote testimony
to sustain a preconceived opinion.

THE STOLEN REVOLVER

It was the theory of the prosecution that Pender stole a re-
volver from a locked trunk in Riley and Hassen's cabin on Labor
Day evening after 5:30 or 6 o'clock and used it to commit this
murder. Riley and Hassen were at home Sunday and on Mon-
day until 5:30 or 6 o'clock when they left for Portland.

Justice Ramsey says of this matter: "A day or two before
the murder Riley and Hassen went away and locked the cabin.
This pistol was in the trunk in the cabin, and it was not loaded
when they left the cabin, and the trunk was locked. Some weeks
before the murder the defendant had this pistol borrowed to

The Wehrman Murder 49

shooi wild animals that bothered his chickens. He had it two
or three weeks, and returned it to Mr. Riley.

"A short time before the murder the defendant borrowed the
key of the cabin and had it for a short time, and a person, vis-
iting at his tents, slept in said cabin. He returned the key to
the owners of the cabin a short time before the murder."

Justice Ramsey also says: "The evidence tends to show that
when Riley and Hassen locked this trunk and the cabin and
went away, the pistol was in the trunk and unloaded. Nothing
that had been in the trunk was missing, but the pistol was loaded
when the sheriff found it. This fact tends to prove that someone
had been using the pistol and had returned it loaded."

As a matter of fact Riley and Hassen did not go away a day
or two before the murder and no one says that they did except
Justice Ramsey. They were at home on Sunday and Monday
and locked their cabin Monday night about 5:30 and went away.

As to the revolver being loaned to Pender some weeks before
the murder to shoot wild animals there is no evidence to show
whether it was some weeks or some months before the murder
that Pender had the revolver. This is referred to on pages 332,
350, 351, 365 and 366 of the transcript. Justice Ramsey's state-
ment is altogether gratuitous.

His statement that Pender borrowed the key to Riley and
Hassen's cabin a short time before the murder is in direct oppo-
sition to the testimony. On pages 333 and 365 is the testimony.
On page 365 Riley said he loaned the key to Pender once "a
long time before the murder." On pages 117-118 of the transcript
of the first trial Riley said the key to the cabin was loaned in
the spring to Pender. The murder occurred in September. Jus-
tice Ramsey has misquoted this testimony changing "a long time
before the murder" to a "short time before the murder."

The opinion of the supreme court affirming Pender's death
sentence has a number of entirely inaccurate stateinents like
the above, but there is this to be said of the members of the
supreme court, and that is that several of them who signed this
opinion were bound by ties of personal interest and association
to St. Helens and Columbia County. The sentiment in Columbia
County in regard to this murder was very bitter, and public opin-
ion demanded that somebody should be punished for it.

Chapter VII.
THE CRIME INDICATES THE CRIMINAL

Comparatively little attention is paid by detectives and sher-
iffs to the minor details of a murder, though these often reveal
the character of the man who committed it. Sheriffs are too
apt to be elected to office because they are popular and good
"hand-shakers" and are more or less wise politicians. These
pleasant qualities are very necessary of course, but they don't
include any knowledge of feeble-minded or insane persons who
have homicidal tendencies. Very obviously in murder cases
where there is no direct evidence but only what is called "cir-
cumstantial evidence," persons who make a business of detecting
crime should be fully informed of the characteristics of all kinds
of criminals. For instance, the ordinary murderer is completely
satisfied when he kills his victim. He does not continue to assault
the dead body the way a baboon or wild animal would do. We
do know, however, that half-witted men sometimes commit mur-
der and that they act like wild animals. Dr. Goddard in his
"Criminal Imbecile" tells of a weak-minded young man who
killed his school teacher. He stabbed her body 24 times in order
to make a "good job of it."

In this Columbia County murder Mrs. Wehrman's body was
shot three times, the revolver being held so close that each time
the flesh was badly powder burned. The doctor said any one
of these shots would have killed her. Then the murderer picked
up a hatchet and smashed her skull with it. The body of the
child was also shot three times and the wounds were all badly
powder burned. Any one of the shots would have killed the
child.

Here is circumstantial evidence of genuine value that a feeble-
minded man killed Mrs. Wehrman. Notice how this circum-
stantial evidence coincides with the facts. The Wehrmans had
nearer neighbors than the Fenders, and in one of them, the G. H.
Sierks family, there was a defective and thoroughly vicious
young man by the name of John Sierks. This young man accord-
ing to his own father had homicidal tendencies when he was
opposed and had tried on different occasions to kill different
members of his own family. He had a weakness for liquor and
guns and his sex habits were vicious. His ambition in life was

once expressed by him in a desire to kill the old son of ,

his father, and then he could get rid of the rest of the family and

The Wehrman Murder 51

inherit the property and get married and be somebody. He had
failed both in poisoning his brother and in killing his father
and was away from home and in Washington County, where he
was at work for Louie Schmidt near Helvetia, However, he went
home frequently and his sister Lena Sierks, who was removed
from her father's home in the spring of 1916 upon the request of
citizens and officials in Scappoose, has volunteered the informa-
tion, and repeated it, that her brother John Sierks was at home
two days before the Sierks family discovered the dead bodies
of their neighbors, Mrs. Wehrman and her child. For it was
the Sierks family who discovered the murder and who kept it
to themselves twenty-four hours, according to Mrs. Sierks' tes-
timony at the trials of John Pender for murder. Here are her
words: "It was the second (?) of September when I went to
the Wehrman's house, and the door was locked with a padlock;
I thought she was gone. I wanted to see what time it was, and
we looked into the wdndow, my daughter and L We saw Mrs.
Wehrman lying on the bed; she was bare, her legs were bare.
I went around the house. I saw some blood there, but I did not
know where the blood came from, so I went home. I thought
she was asleep. In the night I worried. I didn't know how it
came the door w^as locked from the outside; I worried all night
about the padlock. The next morning my daughter said, "We
shall go back again." We went back. We saw the door was
locked; we looked into the window again, and we saw her lying
the same way that she did on Tuesday. So I went around the
house alone, and I saw blood there, and then we went home
and notified Scappoose that something had happened there, and
notified the sheriff, and Mr. Grant he came out there and looked
after it."

The idea that John's mother could imagine that Mrs. Wehr-
man was asleep with her body partially naked hanging over the
bed so that the feet touched the floor, with the window blind
up so that outsiders could look in and tell the time by the clock,
is foolish. Then to say that she saw blood on the ground by the
house and that she did not know where it came from, adding,
"So I went home; I thought she was asleep," is evidently untrue.
Mrs. Sierks practically admits the untruth by saying she went
home and worried all night about the padlock which locked the
door on the outside, and the next day went back and looked at
the body and padlock and the blood and then "notified Scap-
poose that something had happened there."

52 Why Some Men Kill

Such a terrible murder must have made a great impression
on all the Sierks family and it is natural that John's childlike
mind remembered and repeated what his mother said to his
sister when they thought he was asleep — "John did that." They
knew from experience that John was quite capable of murder.

John Sierks was placed in the hospital for the insane by his
family before Mr. Pender's second trial in 1913. John explained
that he was in the hospital because his family thought he killed
Mrs. Wehrman and said he heard his mother say to his sister
Lena, "John did that."

About the first of January, 1915, John made a confession of
the murder and it is given in full in Appendix B. After he con-
fessed he said to a reporter that after he got back to Louie
Schmidt's, near Helvetia, he wrote home that he saw in the pa-
pers that his mother committed the crime, and that he would
bet that letter was around their home now. As it happened
this was printed in a Portland newspaper, and the next day John
Sierks' father appeared in Salem with this letter but the father
said John meant "discovered" instead of "committed." Mr. Sierks
had corrected the letter to read "discovered."

John told in his confession of going from the neighborhood
of Hillsboro to Scappoose on the evening of Labor Day, 1911,
getting a revolver from Riley and Hassen's cabin in Schnitzer-
ville and killing Mrs. Wehrman and her child and then going
back to Hillsboro the same night. This seemed a difficult feat,
but two years later John's sister Lena explained that John was
at home on a visit for a couple of days just before they found
Mrs. Wehrman's dead body. He was at home at the time of
the murder but did not go and come as he said he did.

John said Mrs. Wehrman fired her revolver at him as he
went into the cabin. The sheriff testified at Mr. Pender's trial
that he found a .32 caliber bullet in the wall to the right of the
door. Mrs. Wehrman had a .32 caliber revolver.

John said he found a hatchet in the wood box and "chopped
and split her skull." The testimony of Mr. Wehrman was to
the effect that the hatchet was kept in the wood box.

John said he took off an undergarment from Mrs. Wehrman.
This was done by some one. John said he washed his hands in
the basin and padlocked the door on the outside. These things
were done according to the testimony.

John said he buried Mrs. Wehrman's revolver. This has not
been verified, but the revolver has disappeared.

The Wehrman Murder 53

After John's confession his father wrote him he had dis-
graced the family and that they wouUl go away. John wrote him
an answer without anyone's knowledge and said he was sorry
they had given him up, hut that he killed Mrs. Wehrman. Then
when his father arrived in Salem John repudiated his confession.

After John Sierks' confession was repudiated it was consid-
ered that John had a good alihi, as his employer. Louis Schmidt,
thought John was not away at the time of the murder. How-
ever, two citizens of Washington County told me that John was
in Holhrook and that he came from the direction of Scappoose
just at the time of the murder.

Following is a sworn statement:

I, L. Nitchman, being duly sworn, depose and say that I live
on my farm in Shady Brook School District, where I have Hved
about three years, and previous to this time I lived on my farm
in Mason Hill School District, in Washington County, and that
I was living there during the years of 1910 and 1911. I have
known John G. H. Sierks for about six years. He came to my
farm in Mason Hill about six years ago and asked for work,
and I gave him work slashing timber, and he boarded in my
family while working for us, and for several years he came to
me at intervals for work, and I gave him work for short periods,
and he lived in my family, so that I knew him well. He did fair
work by being looked after. John Sierks did some work for
me in the spring of 1911, and on leaving me I got him a job with
Louie Schmidt, whom I know. It is about six miles in a direct
line from my farm on Mason Hill to Louie Schmidt's, and John
came to see us twice, I am positive, and perhaps three times
while he was at work for Louie Schmidt.

1 remember that John Sierks came to our farm at just about
the time of the murder of Mrs. Wehrman, but whether it was
before or after I cannot say, and said that he came from Hol-
brook and had been in Scappoose. This was either on a Sunday
or a holiday, for I was not at work in the field on the farm at
the time. It was late in the afternoon when John came and he
sat with his head in his hands and cried and cried until my wife
was frightened and called me in from doing my chores. She
said John was in trouble and said among other things, "I am
so sorn>'." I told my wife that John was drunk. He was telling
how harsh his family was to him. John said that his watch was
broken, and that he had been in a fight, and I think that his
face was scratched.

54 Why Some Men Kill

In regard to the Wehrman murder, I think that John told us
about it before we saw the news in the papers. I remember his
saying something about its being lucky that he was not at home
or they would have blamed him for it.

After John left Louie Schmidt in the fall of 1911, he came to
my place for a short time and then he went to work for one of
my neighbors, a Mr. Dean.

It is impossible to remember exactly as to the dates of John's
visits, but I am positive that he did come to visit us while he
was at work for Louie Schmidt, and at about the time of the
murder he came and I thought he was drunk because he was
crying constantly, which was a thing he had never done before
while at my house, and said he came from Holbrook and had
been in a fight. It is my recollection that John slept in the barn
that night, but of this I cannot be positive. It is also mj'^ recollec-
tion that John told us about the murder before we saw it in the
papers. L. Nitchman.

December 2, 1915.

W. C. Hunt, a blacksmith of Holbrook at the time of the
Wehrman murder, had employed John Sierks, and John stopped
at his place in going and coming from Washington County. Mr.
Hunt says that just about the time of the murder of Mrs. Wehr-
man and her little boy, John Sierks came on foot from the direc-
tion of Scappoose with the bundle of blankets and stuff that he
usually carried when going back and forth, and stopped at Mr.
Hunt's for dinner, Mr. Hunt does not remember whether it was
Sunday or not, but he does remember that he was not at work
in his shop. He noticed that John's face had some fresh scratches
as if he had been through some briars, and he asked him, "Who
peeled j'^our face?" John replied that he had been in a fight with
a man in Dutch Canyon, and that he had his watch broken in
the fight."

Mrs. Hunt also remembered of John coming from Scappoose
on Labor Day, as she believes, and stopping for dinner on his
way to Mr. Nitchman's, John was scratched up and told of being
in a fight and of having his watch broken.

In May of 1916 three of John's former employers, L. Nitch-
man, W. C. Hunt and Walter Dean, visited John in the hospital.
John told them of dates he went to work for each one and spoke
of stopping at Mr. Hunt's for dinner on Labor Day, September
4, 1911, on his way back to Washington County from his home

The Wehrmaii Murder 55

near Scappoose, and of eating supper the same day at Nitch-
man's.

On the 23rd day of June, 191G, when I took Lena Sierks to
see her brother, the matter of John's memory was mentioned
and he gave the dates he went to work for his different employ-
ers and spoke of being in Scappoose at his father's on Sunday
and the following Monday, Labor Day, September 4, 1911, and
of stopping at Mr. Hunt's at Holbrook and at Mr. Nitchman's at
Mason Hill on September 4.

I asked Lena Sierks if it was true that John was at home at
the time he said he was and she replied that he was at home
a couple of days before they found the dead body of Mrs. Wehr-
man, and that he was also at home two weeks later.

John Sierks told us of being in a fight in Dutch Canyon
(where the Sierks and Wehrmans lived) and of getting badly
scratched up on the occasion of his visit on Sunday and Labor
Day, September 3 and 4, 1911.

I asked Lena Sierks if it was true and she said that John came
home with the side of his face badly scratched and also the back
of his neck scratched and she showed us where the scratches
were.

I made no allusion to the murder and that subject was not
discussed.

On July 15, 1916, at the Boys' and Girls' Aid Society in Port-
land, Mr. John F. Logan, with his stenographer, talked with Lena
Sierks, Mrs. Harriet H. Heller and I being present.

Lena Sierks said to us repeatedly that John was at home a
couple of days before they found Mrs. Wehrman's body and
also two weeks later.

This destroys the claim that John never left Louie Schmidt's
all summer to go home. It also establishes the 'fact beyond a
reasonable doubt that John Sierks was at his father's home about
half a mile from the Wehrman cabin on the day when Mrs.
Wehrman and her child were killed. The Sierks family con-
cealed this fact for several years, but the truth came out in 1916
when Lena Sierks left home and went to Portland to live. The
reasons for the concealment can be easily imagined.

Chapter VIII
THE HAIR FOUND IN MRS. WEHRMAN'S DEAD HANDS

When Mrs. Wehrman's body was examined by a physician
it was found that there was considerable foreign matter under
her finger nails. There was no microscopic examination made of
this foreign matter but it is assumed, and probably correctly,
that Mrs. Weshman endeavored to fight off the man who killed
her and that she scratched his face and head. Some brown hair
was also found clutched in her dead hands. There was one
brown hair found in one hand and a little tuft of brown hair
of a hghter color found in the other hand.

It was assumed, without any proof of course, that Mrs. Wehr-
man, after she had scratched the murderer's face and got the for-
eign matter under her finger nails, proceeded to pull a hair out
of her own head with one hand and then to pull several hairs
out of her child's head with the other hand just before she died.

Arthur Pender had black hair, while the hair found in Mrs.
Wehrman's hands was brown. Examination under the micro-
scope by Dr. J. Allen Gilbert gave the following results in the
matter of the hair:

The hair found in Mrs. Wehrman's hand looked very much
like the hair out of John Sierks' head. However, the hair cut
from Mr. Wehrman's head and from Mrs. Wehrman's head did
not differ in any noticeable fashion from the hair found in Mrs.
Wehrman's left hand, so the results of the examination were
entirely negative. They did not prove anything either way. The
hair found in Mrs. Wehrman's right hand, which was lighter in
color, appeared to be much like the hair of Mrs. Wehrman's
little boy.

Later I had the professor of biology at Reed College look at
these slides through his microscope, and he expressed the opinion
that the hair cut from Mrs. Wehrman's head was darker than
the hair found in her hand.

I was told that the only way to make a satisfactory test would
be to have two microscopes arranged with a reflection of glasses
so that one could look through the aperture for the eye and see
the two samples in the two microscopes at the same time. This
is called, I believe, a comparison microscope, but nothing of the
kind is to be found in Portland. It is impossible to look at one
sample of hair and change the shde and notice small differences.

The Wehrmon Murder 57

The net result of this examination of the hair simply proved
that the hair found in the dead woman's hands was not Mr.
Pender's. Beyond that the results were negative and neither
proved nor disproved that the hair was John Sierks'. It looked
like John Sierks' hair and that is all that can be said. As for
the fine hair of lighter color in Mrs. Wehrman's right hand, I
am informed by reliable witnesses that John Sierks allowed his
hair to grow long and that he had an unusual growth on his
neck. The latter fact I know to be true. When John Sierks
lived out of doors his hair bleached to a light color in the sun
of the summer, and it is possible that this fine hair of light
color was pulled from the neck of the man who shot her to
death, for the powder burns proved that the murderer was close
to her and held the revolver against her body.

The following curious information was volunteered by N. E.
Persinger, an intelligent young man in Washington County :

"I, N. E. Persinger, being sworn, depose and say that I live in
Shadybrook, Washington County, and that in September, 1911,
I lived at my father's place in Mason Hill, Washington County.
I knew John G. H. Sierks at the time he worked for L. Nitchman
and during the following two years. He used to come to our
house occasionally and I went out hunting with him on one occa-
sion and I became well acquainted with him.

Some days after the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her little
boy at Scappoose early in September, 1911, John Sierks was
talking to me about the murder and said "Pender did it; I know
he did," and he cursed Pender and said he would get him for it.
About the time of this conversation John Sierks asked me if
hair would grow in again and took off his hat and showed me
a small spot on the top of his head where the hair had been
pulled out by the roots. He was quite anxious to know whether
the hair would grow again.

John Sierks wore his hair long on his neck and it was bleached
to a very much lighter color than the hair of his head.

John said he knew Mrs. Wehrman well.

N. E. Persinger."

The sworn statement of Frank Persinger agrees in the main
points with his brother's.

THE RECONSTRUCTED STORY

A simple way to analyze the various facts which have been
slowly discovered about John Sierks is to relate the main inci-

58 Why Some Men Kill

dents of his confession and examine the details and see if it will
be generally corroborated by independent testimony.

John Sierks, who has the mind of a boy of nine years plus
nearly 20 years' experience (Dr. De Busk of the University of
Oregon estimates John's mental age as nine), could not get along
at home nor could he go away from home and stay without fre-
quent visits. That is characteristic of weak-minded persons. He
was at work for Louie Schmidt near Helvetia on the United
Railways, but he had to visit home often. His sister Lena, now
that she is away from her father's influence, has said on two
occasions that John was at home a couple of days before they
found Mrs. Wehrman's body and also two weeks later.

John was attracted by Mrs. Wehrman and finding her alone
on Sunday (after her husband started for Portland), he made
improper proposals to her probably while he was under the in-
fluence of liquor, and she attempted to defend herself. She had
a .32 caliber revolver and John says she fired at him and the
bullet passed to his right as he entered the door. At Mr. Pender's
trial Sheriff Thompson testified that he dug a .32 bullet out of
the wall at the head of the bed. Examination shows that the
head of the bed stood against the wall to the right of the door
as you enter, so this detail is corroborated.

John had a .38 caliber revolver and advanced on Mrs. Wehr-
man and fired three shots into her body after a struggle with her
and emptied the other chambers into the head of the child, hold-
ing the revolver so close that all the wounds were badly powder-
burned.

During the struggle previous to John's shooting, Mrs. Wehr-
man scratched his face and neck and pulled his hair out in a
vain attempt to fight him off.

John, feeble-minded fashion, after he had shot the woman
to death, took the hatchet and broke in her skull so as to be
certain that he had done a good job. Then he took off her
drawers and placed them under her and assaulted her. He
told of this, and when he repudiated his confession he said he
saw about the drawers in the St. Helens Mist. The paper printed
no such detail.

The drawers were found under Mrs. Wehrman's body where
John said he placed them.

Then John washed his hands in the basin at the door, locked
the door with the padlock on the outside and threw away the
key.

The Wehrman Murder 59

Later Mrs. Sierks said she was much troubled at seeing Mrs.
Wehrman on the bed with her bare legs hanging over the edge
and her feet on the floor, while the door was padlocked on the
outside and blood had dripped to the ground from the cabin.

John went home and the family saw the evidence of the
struggle and the scratches on his face and neck as his sister
Lena has described. The family knew John from bitter experi-
ence— his homicidal tendencies when he was opposed and his
lustful inclinations. Of course they made inquiries and guessed
what had happened. However, they were in no way responsible
and they did not absolutely know. At the same time they could
not stay away from the cabin where there was blood on the
ground and a door locked on the outside and a woman across
a bed with legs uncovered, but they professed to believe that
the woman was asleep. Finally on Wednesday, as no one else^
had discovered the murder, Mrs. Sierks and Lena went to Scap-
poose and told Mr. Sierks that something must be done. They
did not tell anj^ of their neighbors though they met at least one
on their way to Scappoose.

Sometime previous to the murder, G. H. Sierks and John A.
Pender had a quarrel decidedly bitter on Sierks' part. He wanted
Mr. Pender to sign a road petition and Pender declined. On one
occasion Mr. Pender had a valuable bull dog belonging to his
brother-in-law, and he had the dog fastened near his tent house
at Schnitzerville. Sierks attempted to make friends with the
bull dog and though Pender warned him to leave the dog alone
he would not. The dog broke loose and bit G. H. Sierks, which
angered him greatly.

On a later occasion Mr. Sierks came to Pender's place and
had his son John Sierks with him. At that time Sierks threatened
to shoot Mr. Pender and actually pointed his gun at him, but
Mrs. Pender says she grabbed the gun barrel and threw it up.
She thought Mr. Sierks was temporarily insane. Sierks, however,
did shoot and kill the bull dog.

Chapter IX
JOHN SIERKS' LETTERS ABOUT THE MURDER

On Wednesday, September 6, the murder was discovered and
the indications were that it had been committed on the Sunday
previous, September 3, and this was printed in some of the news-
papers at the time.

Nobody knows who first suggested Mr. Pender's name in con-
nection with the murder, but the news of the murder came from
the Sierks family on Wednesday, September 6, and Mrs. Sierks
and Lena admitted their knowledge of the situation for one day
before they told of it. This is suggestive in view of what we
now know about John Sierks being at home on September 3 and
4. He started back to Washington County on Monday, Labor
Day, September 4, and stopped at Holbrook and ate dinner with
Mr. and Mrs. Hunt. He explained his scratched up condition
by saying he had been in a fight. He went on to Mason Hill in
the afternoon and stopped at Mr. Nitchman's, whom he often
worked for. He explained here also his scratches and told of
his broken watch and then frightened Mrs. Nitchman by break-
ing down and crying bitterly and exclaiming that he was so
sorry. Mrs. Nitchman called her husband and he assured her
that John was probably drunk. John slept that night in the barn
and left early for Schmidt's. This was on September 5, 1911.
On September 8, 1911, he writes the following letter to his father:

"September 8, 1911.
"My dear father:

Your letter to the 23rd (?) of September is received. I was
glad to hear from you. I have read a piece in the paper yes-
terday, the 7th of September, of Mrs. Wehrman and her little
boy Harold, our nearest neighbor got killed by a murderer.
They got shot and then hacked up with a hatchet. That was
an awful dirty trick whoever done it. I never thought a thing
like that would happen in our home. How is mamma and the
children getting along? Are they still alive? I will be out of
work in a few weeks and then I will pick up my clothes and
come home. I would be a damned fool if I would want to do
a thing like that to go and murder anyone of my folks; I would
rather have a bullet thru my head before I would do a thing
like that is, to go and be a murderer, liar and thief. Them things
won't go at all; that is lying, stealing and murder business. That

The Wehrman Murder 61

man who did that will be sure to find his grace, it don't make
any difference whoever it may be, he is not sure of his life. He
will be punished all of his life for that what he done today. The
10th of September, I read about him in another paper that he
had fired five shots; three shots were fired in Mrs. Wehrman
and two were fired in the little boy, Harold, and that they were
all found and mamma, her name was also in both papers that
she committed (Mr. Sierks says he ineant to write discovered)
the crime. That is too bad about that poor woman anyhow that
she had to lose her life on account of a misery. Everybody that
read about her say that he will find the way into the pen for
that, if the Sheriff finds him they say. If they put blood hounds
out he is sure they would soon find him. I hope that nothing
like that will happen at our home for I don't want to lose mamma
and the children. I have got trouble enough without that that
I have to bear that something has happened to mamma and the
children, are you? If I should happen to come and not find
you there, it will be all off with me.

Well I must close for this time for news are running short,
I remain,

Your loving and faithful son,

John G. H. Sierks.

R. R. 1 box 122, in care of J. S. Schmidtt.

Write as soon as possible again and will you please tell
mamma to write to me also."

The letter tells its ow^n story. The father preserved it and
over three years later when John confessed that he did kill Mrs.
Wehrman, G. H. Sierks went to Salem and took this letter to
prove that John was innocent.

However, John, who has unusual memory, got ahead of his
father and told a reporter of the Portland News about this letter
and what he said in it and the News printed what John said
about this letter before G. H. Sierks arrived in Salem.

The News account follows:

Portland News, Jan. 5, 1915.
(Interview with John Sierks.)
"After I went back to the farm, I read about this about four
or five days afterwards. Then I wrote my mother. I told her
that I had read in the papers that Daisy Wehrman and her boy
had been killed and that she had found the bodies. I accused
her of doing it. That was only a blind (here you could see a

62 Why Some Men Kill

look of cunning in his eyes) because I didn't want her to think
I did it. I bet that letter is in the house now.

"After I came home I heard my mother tell my sister that
she bet John did that."

It was at this time within a couple of weeks after the murder
that John consulted N. E. Persinger and his brother Frank as
to whether his hair would grow in where it had been pulled out.
He also talked of the murder and was violent in his denuncia-
tions of Pender as the murderer. Mr. Pender was not arrested
until the 15th of September.

We know from Lena Sierks, as well as John, that he visited
home again two weeks after the murder. That would be about
September 17. This was after John had left Louie Schmidt and
had gone to work for W. P. Dean. After the murder, according
to Hedinger who worked at Schmidt's, John talked a good deal
about the murder and wrote and received letters from home
about it, and became of no use on the farm, so Mr. Schmidt
let him go about September 11 or 12. On September 14 John
went to work for W. P. Dean as John volunteered from his
memory, and as W. P. Dean's account book shows. Mr. Dean
says that John was nervous about something and always wanted
to get the newspapers to read before anyone else in the family
saw them. Dean thought it was because the Wehrman's were
neighbors.

After John returned from his visit at Scappoose on or about
September 17, he wrote another letter to his father about the
murder and about his scratches and broken watch. He got these
scratches before September 4 as we know from John, from Lena,
from Mr. and Mrs. Hunt and from Mr. and Mrs. Nitchman, and
he got them when he was at home, but still after another visit
home he wrote home how it happened. Here is the letter:

"Hillsboro, Oregon, Sept. 24, 1911.
"My dear Father:

I write you a few lines and tell you that I am well yet and
hope the same of you. I read in a paper the other day about
the crime that happened down there in Scappoose. I read in the
paper yesterday that they thought that Mr. J. A. Pender might
be the murderer of this woman and her little son. It was an
awful dirty trick whoever done it. He ought to be hung up by
his ears for doing that. I wish they could find the right man
that done that. I would put in a word that they hang him up
for that murder business. I was figuring to come home the 30th

I

'

The Wchrinaii Murder 63

of October but I don't think I will for awhile now that I can get
plenty of work yet. I am done at J. L. Schmidt's and now I
am at a man named W. P. Dean digging potatoes. I will have
two months' work there and from there I will go to Mr. Nitchman
and stay over winter. I have tried to save up a little money
and buy me a new watch. I broke mine all to pieces. I got in
a fight with a couple of drunkards and got my clothes all torn
up and besides my face beaten in and all fixed up in good shape
for awhile. I had to buy me some new clothes again and also
medicine to heal myself up. I am all right now though I have
an awful headache about them damned fools that broke my
watch up for me, but I will get even on them yet. I will shoot
their damned heads off if I ever get a hold of them and I don't
care if they put me in the place where Pender is. I don't care
a bit for that. I have to have my money to buy a new watch
again. I could not be without one. I will try with all my might
so that I get something out of them if I can. Well I must close
for this time. I remain Your son,

John G. H. Sierks.
R. F. D. No. 1 box 43 in care of L. Nitchman, write soon."

This letter the father preserved also, and when he came to
Salem after John had confessed to the murder about the first
of January, 1915, he brought this letter with the previous one
to prove that John was innocent and that he merely imagined
that he had killed Mrs. Wehrman. This letter is very significant
because it explains elaborately the scratches and broken watch
which the Sierks family, the Hunt family and the Nitchman
family all knew about as early as September 4.

There is no escape from the conclusion that John and his
father were trying to establish an alibi for John by means of
these letters in case John should be accused of the murder.

G. H. Sierks has persistently to this day denied that John was
at home at the time of the murder or even soon after, and the
truth has come out only through Lena Sierks leaving home in
1916, where she was 'so unkindly treated that the neighbors com-
plained and had her removed from her father's control. The
sworn statements of the Hunt family and the Nitchmans also
confirm Lena's statements that John was at home just before
Mrs. Wehrman's dead body was discovered.

These late discovered facts explain why Mrs. Sierks and Lena
did not tell their neighbors or the authorities as soon as they

64 Why Some Men Kill

discovered that Mrs. Wehrman had been murdered. They evi-
dently hoped that somebody else would discover the murder.
These facts indicate how John Pender, whom G. H. Sierks hated
and had threatened to kill, came to be accused of the crime.
John Sierks was to be saved from the disgrace of a murder and
Sierks' hatred of Pender was to be gratified. Sheriff Thompson
and Detective Levings accepted the theory and worked with
great industry and expense to convict Pender and finally suc-
ceeded though the jury at the first trial refused to convict. There
was a doubt of Penders' guilt that hung the first jury but after
many months public opinion became crystalized.

Chapter X
CONFIRMATION OF JOHN SIERKS' CONFESSION OF THE

MURDER

It has taken five years for the true story of this murder to
be discovered, and the two years that have passed since the
facts came out have not altered the situation. John Sierks was
at home when the inurder was committed, and the Wehrmans
and the Sierks were near neighbors. John's letters to his father,
which Mr. Sierks, Sr., was so careful to keep for several years
and then produce after John confessed, were written on John's
return to Louie Schmidt's in Washington County to establish an
alibi evidently. These letters were possibly suggested by some
friend of John's though that will probably never be known. We
only know that there must have been some motive in these letters
because John was actually at home according to his sister Lena,
and the letters pretend that he was away. The only possible
motive was to set up an alibi and throw suspicion on Mr. Pender.

The reconstructed story as related in the previous chapters
is all proven by independent testimony except the act of murder
by John Sierks in the Wehrman cabin. For that there was no
witness.

REPUDIATION OF THE CONFESSION

Some sixty hours after John Sierks had made this confession j
and after receiving a letter from his father, G. H. Sierks of Scap-
poose, saying that he had disgraced the family and that theyj

The Wehrnuin Murder 65

would pack up their goods and leave the country and never
see him again, John of his own motion wrote the following let-
ter and without consulting anyone. In fact, no one knew of it
until it came into Dr. Steiner's hands. Dr. Steiner is Superin-
tendent of the Salem Hospital.

"Salem, Oregon, Hospital Station,
"My dear Father:

January 5, 1915.

I received your letter and also the presents that my uncle and
aunts and cousins sent to me. I thank j'^ou very much for sending
them to me, I feel awful sorry that you have given me up. My
dear Father, but there is no one else to blame but myself. I
would rather be in the penitentiary than to stay all my life long
in the asylum where I cannot have my liberty. If I am at the
penitentiary I would have my liberty no matter how bad I am.
I know that when I was a boy of 14 years old what a little Devil
I was and the older I got the worse I got until I finally had to
be sent to a place where I have to behave whether I want to or
not. But I am going to make my life pretty some day when I
get a chance for I am tired of living any longer. I would rather
be dead than alive for I am convicted of murder in the first
degree. I am the murderer of Mrs. Daisy Wehrman and her
little son. I am the man that done the dirty trick and lied on
Pender. I may be in St. Helens in a few days or so on my trial
and I may see you and mother and sister and brother. Otto, for
the last time and no more.

Well, I will close for this time. With love and best regards
to you all, I remain, Your loving son,

John Sierks."

If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy,
Mrs. Sierks and Lena would not have concealed the murder for
24 hours as they admit doing (and probably 48 hours) on the
pretense that they believed Mrs. Wehrman to be asleep lying
across the bed with her bare legs hanging over the side and her
feet on the floor, and when the door to the cabin was padlocked
on the outside and blood was on the ground which had dripped
from the cabin. If they had not been reasonably certain that
John did the deed they would have raised a hue and cry at once
when they visited her cabin.

If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy
Mr. Sierks and his family would not have denied that John was

66 Why Some Men Kill

at home when the murder was committed, nor would these two
partly cunning and partly simple letters have been written by
John to his father and then carefully preserved by G. H. Sierks
to prove an alibi for John when the time came that John was
suspected.

If Lena Sierks had not been taken away from her father's
control the fact that John was at home at the time of the murder
would never, probably, have been established.

If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy
he would not have gone back to work scratched up so that the
Hunt family and the Nitchman family noticed it, and John's
various explanations of it would not have been made, beginning
Labor Day and finally culminating in an elaborate letter to his
father on September 24, which was written after he had been at
home on or about September 17.

If John Sierks had not been guilty he would not have had to
inquire of the Persingers within two weeks after the murder if
his hair would grow in where it had been pulled out.

If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy
he would not voluntarily and without suggestion said to Mr.
MacLaren that his family put him in the hospital because they
thought he killed Mrs. Wehrman.

If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy
he would not have confessed to the crime to ease his unhappy
soul.

If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy
he could not have told the details of the murder with the accu-
racy he showed. He did not refer to the fact that a .32 caliber bul-
let was found in the wall at the head of the bed. He only said that
Mrs. Wehrman fired her revolver at him and that the bullet
went to his right. The fact that Mrs. Wehrman had a .32 caliber
revolver was brought out at the trial and also that a .32 bullet
was dug out of the wall at the head of the bed. The fact that
the head of the bed was against the wall to the right of the door
as you enter the cabin was not brought out directly at all, but
the fact was disclosed at the time of the murder by drawings
reproduced in the newspapers and by the testimony of witnesses.
John in his story of the murder told how he took Mrs. Wehrman's
drawers off and for what purpose and where he placed them.
In repudiating his confession he said he saw that detail in a
newspaper, which is absurd.

If John Sierks had nqt killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy the

The Wehrman Murder 67

people of Columbia County would not have been imposed upon
by a clever scheme to saddle a terrible crime on John Pender
who was hated by Sierks.

The detectives employed by the State and also the detectives
employed by the Pender family showed a complete ignorance of
the nature of the murder and the kind of man who must have
committed it, and accepted as final the statements of the Sierks
family that John was not at home at the time of the crime. If
they had been moved by a desire for scientific accuracy they
would have travelled some 15 miles and looked up John Sierks,
and then the whole thing would have come out. This would
have saved the taxpayers of Columbia County some six thousand
dollars, and would have saved them the tragedy of convicting an
innocent man.

Chapter XI
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

It is claimed to be a rule of law and evidence that an accused
person must be regarded innocent until he has been proven
guilty. This is the theory, but as a matter of fact we all know
that when a man is suspected of murder, arrested and accused,
we all begin to wonder how he is going to clear himself of the
charge. As a matter of fact no man can clear himself unless he
can prove an alibi — that he was somewhere else at the time — or
unless it is clearly shown that someone else committed the crime.

Circumstantial evidence from its very name obviously con-
sists of inferences from proved facts. In criminal trials, like that
of Arthur Pender, where there is nothing but circumstantial evi-
dence, it means that there is no testimony from any person as to
any overt act by the accused which tends to show that he com-
mitted the crime. It is all a question of circumstances, and those
circumstances must be such that the ordinary, every day experi-
ences of mankind justify the inferences that the conduct of the
accused person in view of the circumstances was criminal, or
else the accusation of crime falls to the ground. We frequently
hear of a "Scotch verdict," which describes the verdict "Not
Proven" in Scotland when the jury thinks there is some founda-
tion for the charge but where the evidence does not warrant a
verdict of guilty. This peculiar form of verdict does honor to
perhaps the most intellectually acute people of the modern world
for the words "not proven" may actually describe the conclusions
of intelligent men who weigh evidence and who cannot consci-
entiously convict or acquit the accused on the inferences to be
drawn from the facts or circumstances.

There are three risks in accepting circumstantial evidence as
proving or disproving an accusation of crime. The first is that
the chain of circumstances may not be complete and that the
inferences in consequence may be false. The second is that the
circumstances may not be fully or absolutely estabhshed. This
is the greatest danger of all, for it is the most common faihng of
men and women to assume offhand that a certain circumstance
is absolutely a fact when it may not be so at all. Of course an
inference from a false assumption is bound to be false. In the
every day affairs of life this is perhaps the most common cause
of failure. Men often do not get their facts absolutely, but guess

Circumstantial Evidence 69

at them in part and so frequently fail in their undertakings. In
the case of a jury trying a man for murder the careless readiness
to assume that certain circumstances arc proved when they are
really hased on an inference or a "maybe" or "might be" has
been responsible for many a miscarriage of justice. This is the
most vicious defect in the administration of the criminal law in
the United States. The trial judges leave it to the juries because
the juries are judges of the facts, and superior courts as a rule
affirm all convictions where the trial has been formally correct.
The third danger from the acceptance of the inferences from
the circumstances is that the accused person may have been
actuated by some motive known only to himself and not obvi-
ously apparent. That motive may have its roots in some per-
sonal peculiarity or even aberration which leads the accused to
act in a different way from the mass of men. For instance the
crime of murder involves wilful malice. In 1917 a man was con-
victed of murder in Multnomah County and sentenced to the
penitentiary for life. The killing was proved and the inference
from the proved circumstances was that the murder was done
with malice aforethought. However it developed wuthin 90 days
that this so-called wilful murderer was a paranoiac and had
"delusions of persecution" which rendered him entirely irrespon-
sible. The disease developed so fast after he was confined in
the penitentiary that he had to be removed to the criminal insane
ward of the state hospital. In this case the man needed to be
confined and the only injustice was the destroying of the repu-
tation of an unfortunate and wholly irresponsible person.

ARTHUR Pender's trial

In Arthur Pender's trial there was no circumstance of any
kind which necessarily connected him with the crime. In addi-
tion there was no circumstance which stood by itself as firmly
established. Even on the theory of District Attorney Tongue and
Mr. Lcvings, the detective, the validity of the circumstances all
depended upon each other. That is to say, the inference drawn
from a disputed fact was needed to help bolster up another fact
also of uncertain standing This is not only bad logic but it is
condemned in law. Its basing one inference upon another which
is forbidden. An inference based upon a fact is legitimate but a
double inference is not allowed.

THE SCRATCHED BULLETS

On Wednesday, September 6, the Sierks family informed the

70 Why Some Men Kill

sheriff that Mrs. Wehrman had been killed. It was assumed by
the sheriff from indications that the murder was committed on
Sunday, the 3rd. Then Monday, September 4, was fixed as the
day, and as the detective's theory came to be developed the time
was set sometime Monday night after 6 P. M. There was no evi-
dence to support this idea but the theory offered was that a
Colts revolver had been stolen by Pender from Riley and Has-
sen's cabin, as Pender had no Colts revolver, and that the killing
was done with this gun. The evidence that this gun was used
consisted in the fact that the bullets were scratched by a gas pit
in the barrel and that this particular gun had a gas pit which did
scratch the bullets fired out of it in a similar manner. Mr. Lev-
ings was the expert witness for the prosecution and his testimony
was absolutely contradicted by Detective Craddock, a revolver
expert on the Portland police force.

It cannot be claimed Mr. Levings expert testimony to sustain
his own theory proved the fact that a gas pit in a revolver barrel
would scratch a bullet in face of the opposing testimony of
Detective Craddock, a recognized revolver expert of years of
experience. It was simply a case of "maybe." Even if Mr. Lev-
ings was right it did not prove that this particular Colts revolver
was the only one with a gas pit in the barrel.

Then the theory that the revolver was stolen made it neces-
sary to claim that the murder was done sometime Monday night
because Riley and Hassen were at home all day Sunday and all
day Monday until nearly 6 P. M., when they left for Portland. So
the time of the murder was made to depend upon the scratch on
the bullets from which the inference was drawn that they were
fired from the revolver in Riley's cabin, but that could not have
been stolen before Monday night at 6 P. M. because the owner
was at home up to that time. In addition there was no direct
proof that the revolver had ever been stolen by anybody. That,
too, depended on the inference that the bullets could not have
been scratched by being fired from any other revolver. If the
revolver was stolen it was returned, as admitted by the prosecu-
tion. Here was another "maybe." Riley and Hassen's testimony
as to whether their cabin was entered depended on the appear-
ance of a window blind and the condition of the trunk. The time
when it was entered was also disputed by the very owners of the
cabin at the different trials. They came home on September 10
and on September 17 . If they did not discover the signs of en-
trance on September 10 (the murder occurred a week before)

Circumstantial Evidence 71

then the whole theory that this particuhir revolver was used fails.
Here is another "niaybe" for the testimony of the prosecution's
witnesses was contradictory. There was also a complete uncer-
tainty as to whether the revolver was loaded when placed in the
trunk and when found afterwards or whether it was placed in
the trunk unloaded and later found loaded. Here is still another
"maybe."

The accusation of murder against Mr. Pender depends on the
theory that he stole the revolver Monday night, used it to kill
Mrs. Wehrman and returned it loaded, and that theory rests
entirely on the fact that the bullets were scratched. That is to
say '*maybe" the bullets were scratched by Riley's revolver and
"maybe" not. "Maybe" Riley's cabin was entered before the
murder and "maybe" not. "Maybe" the revolver was taken from
the trunk and "maybe" not. "Maybe" the revolver was loaded
when placed in the trunk and "maybe" not. "Maybe" Mrs. Wehr-
man and her child were murdered Monday night and "maybe"
not. "Maybe" Mrs. Wehrman and her child were killed with
Riley's revolver and "maybe" not. It all depends upon the
scratches on the bullets found in the Wehrman cabin. There was
nothing but "maybes" offered by the prosecution in addition to
the bullets.

WHERE WAS MR. PENDER?

The theory of the use of the revolver just referred to depends
upon Mr. Pender's stealing it sometime in the evening of Septem-
ber 4 and then going to the Wehrman cabin. Mr. Pender said he
was in his tent house near Riley's (which was a mile from Wehr-
man's cabin) the evening of September 4 and that he had a lan-
tern lit inside. A neighbor who passed testified that he did not
see the light from the lantern shining through the tent fly. It was
not claimed that anybody saw Pender. The witness did not see
the light in the tent so the inference was offered to the jury that
Mr. Pender had stolen the revolver and gone to the Wehrman
cabin — "maybe."

Mr. Pender used to get the mail at Scappoose and put it in a
box near his tent house for his neighbors to help themselves. An
Iowa paper and a small package were found unopened in the
Wehrman cabin, and to support the theory that Mr. Pender took
them there was the testimony of a very contradictory nature that
Mr. Pender asked for the Wehrman mail on Monday. "Maybe"
he did. The Supreme Court of Oregon in its opinion on the
Pender case uses the following words : "He (Pender) may have

72 Why Some Men Kill

taken the Bates package and have kept it until he obtained the
Iowa paper the next day, and he may have taken the package
and the paper to the Wehrman cabin on Monday night as an
excuse for making a call on Mrs. Wehrman, and the murder
may have been committed immediately thereafter." The highest
court in Oregon thus tells how "maybe" the whole thing hap-
pened. The Supreme Court did not know that Mr. Wehrman
testified at the preliminary hearing a few^ weeks after the mur-
der that the "package" was at his cabin on Sunday before he left
for Portland. This eliminates the package, but it's pure guess
work as to the paper, as the Supreme Court admits in saying that
Pender may have taken the paper to the Wehrman cabin.

SCRATCHES ON MR. PENDER's FACE

Foreign matter was found under Mrs. Wehrman's finger nails
and some witnesses testified that Pender's face was scratched.
Other witnesses as well qualified apparently as the first did not
see any scratches. The inference that Mrs. Wehrman scratched
Pender's face from the fact that there was foreign matter under
the finger nails of Mrs. Wehrman's hands was not sustained by
testimony. It's another case of "maybe." This is a doubtful
"maybe" because Mrs. Wehrman in her struggles had pulled out
some brown hair from someone's head and the hair was found
in her dead hands. The hair was brown and Pender's hair is
black.

In the Pender trial there were no circumstances established
in connection with the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her child
from which any legitimate inferences could be drawn connecting
Mr. Pender with the murder. The only facts were that the bullets
found in the Wehrman cabin were slightly scratched and that
there was foreign matter under the finger nails of Mrs. Wehr-
man's hands and some brown hairs in her fingers. It was not a
fair inference nor a safe inference that Riley and Hassen's Colts
revolver locked in a trunk in a locked house a mile away was the
only revolver from which these bullets could have been fired.
Neither was it a fair inference nor a safe inference that Mrs.
Wehrman scratched Mr. Pender's face. The fact that the hair
in her fingers was brown while Mr. Pender's hair is black goes
directly against the inference that Mr. Pender was assaulting her
and that she fought and scratched him.

The whole theory of the prosecution of Mr. Pender rested on
the bullets and foreign matter under Mrs. Wehrman's finger

Circnmstantiiil Evidence 73

nails and the brown hairs. The stolen revolver, the mail, Pen-
der's presence at the scene of the murder are all inferences or
"maybes," and each of these inferences had to depend upon the
others for mutual support.

However the jury convicted Mr. Pender of murder and the
court sentenced him to be hung. This sort of thing was accepted
as circumstantial evidence under the laws of Oregon and ap-
proved by trial judge and accepted by the Supreme Court of
the state in this fashion. Mr. Pender "may" have taken the pack-
age, he "may" have kept it till he got the Iowa paper, he "may"
have taken the paper and package to the Wehrman cabin as an
excuse and the murder "may" have been committed immediately
thereafter.

The distressing thing in the Pender trial as well as in the
Branson trial where inferences were based on inferences and
they in turn on other inferences in order to justify the convic-
tions which were obtained in the trial courts, and w^hich were
tacitly approved by the Supreme Court of Oregon, is the undeni-
able fact that in Sections 783, 784, 785 of Bellingers and Cotton's
Code, and Sections 794, 795, 796 of Lord's Oregon Laws, it is ex-
plicitly stated as the law of Oregon that "an inference must be
founded on a fact legally proved." These laws were adopted in
Oregon as long ago as 1862 and there is more than one decision
of the Supreme Court resting entirely on this state law concern-
ing indirect evidence.

The most noteworthy case was the Hembree murder trial
where a conviction was reversed by the Supreme Court on this
particular point. The case is to be found in the 54th Oregon
Beports.

A. J. Hembree lived on a farm in Tillamook County with his
wife and daughter, Ora, and two boys. Ora was 18 years old.
On December 26, 1905, the two boys went aw^ay from home to
visit some relatives. On December 28 at 2:45 A. M., Mr. Hembree
appeared at the home of Mr. Hoyt, a neighbor, and inquired if
his wife and daughter had arrived. On receiving a negative
answer he said his house had burned down and that his wife and
daughter were out in the cold. Mr. Hembree had arrived at the
Hoyt's onl}^ partly clad and was suffering acutely from hernia, as
he had left his truss off on going to bed, and so he asked that
James Thompson, a brother-in-law of Mr. Hoyt's go and look
for his wife and daughter.

Thompson found a bed of coals six feet square and three feet

74 Why Some Men Kill

high on what had been the center of the Hembree house site, but
he could find no trace of Mrs. Hembree and Ora. Thompson
notified two neighbors and they went to the site of the home and
found in the embers two human skeletons, which it was admitted
were the remains of Mrs. Hembree and Ora Hembree.

Hembree's story was that he and his wife occupied a bedroom
upstairs and that Ora occupied another room upstairs. They were
awakened in the night and found the house on fire and rushed
out of doors partially dressed. Ora exclaimed that all her good
clothes were in her room and wanted to go back to get them. Mr.
Hembree said that he looked at the stairway and saw that it
was burning underneath and told Ora not to try to go back to
her room as it was dangerous. Mr, Hembree then went into the
kitchen and threw a number of things outside, which were after-
wards found. When he went out he did not find his wife and
daughter and after looking in the barn concluded that they had
gone to Mr. Hoyt's and so followed. This was Mr. Hembree's
account of the tragedy, but he was arrested for the murder and
tried and convicted. There was no direct evidence connecting
Hembree with the alleged murder, but it was sought to establish
certain circumstances from which a certain inference was of-
fered to the jury and on that inference another inference was
based to account for Hembree's motive for killing his wife and
daughter.

The motive claimed was Hembree's alleged or inferred im-
proper intimacy with his daughter, Ora. This was attempted to
be proved by the testimony of a hotel-keeper in Tillamook who
said that Hembree brought his daughter to his hotel a number
of times when she was attending school. On February 22, 1905,
Larsen, the hotel-keeper, said Hembree had been to his daugh-
ter's room "because of marks of feet there."

In June of 1905 Hembree took his daughter to the hotel and
late in the night insisted on going to her room to tell her some-
thing important. Hembree testified in his own behalf that he had
given his daughter money to keep for him to prevent him spend-
ing it for drink and that he went to Ora's room to get a few dol-
lars to buy some liquor. Three men corroborated this to the
extent of saying that he went to the hotel and when he came
back exhibited some money and went and bought some liquor
with it.

Hembree's lawyers argued that Hembree in going to his
daughter's room at the hotel without any attempt at concealment

Circumstantial Evidence 75

was not necessarily guilty of misconduct and that the jury was
incorrectly permitted to infer that Hembree was on terms of
improper intimacy with his daughter.

The Supreme Court said "Evidence showing that a party
charged with crime had a motive for committing it is not requi-
site, though such proof is of great importance in cases depend-
ing on circumstantial evidence." The court also quotes from
"People vs. Stout," a New York case, as bearing directly on this
point. In the 4th volume of Parker's Criminal Reports (New
York) this matter of inferential evidence from proved facts is
discussed at length (pages 71 to 128) on an appeal from the trial
court. Ira Stout was tried for the murder of his sister's husband,
but the evidence against him was purely circumstantial, or infer-
ential as we say in other matters. The prosecution recognized
that under the rulings of the New York courts the motive for the
murder must be established before Stout could be convicted in
view of the fact that there was no direct evidence, but only cir-
cumstantial, that he did commit the murder.

The prosecution established the fact by competent evidence
that Stout had been on terms of improper intimacy (incestuous)
with his married sister for several months before her husband
was killed. The court held on the appeal from the trial court
that Stout's motive for killing his brother-in-law was properly
deduced from this criminal intimacy with his sister and together
with the circumstantial evidence that he, Stout, did kill his
brother-in-law was sufficient to sustain the conviction of murder
in the trial court.

ANOTHER CASE

In Volume 3 of Parker's Criminal Reports (New York) on
pages 681-686 is given the decision on appeal in "The People vs.
Wood." This also was a murder case where there was nothing
but circumstantial or inferential evidence. Wood attempted to
kill his brother and sister-in-law and their children by giving
them poison. He failed in the case of the children but then got
himself appointed guardian of the children's estate and then cre-
ated forged claims against the estate. On his trial for murder
evidence was offered and admitted over protest tending to prove
these other crimes in order to establish a motive for the murder
for which he was being tried.

The case was appealed for a writ of error on the ground that
evidence had been admitted tending to prove other crimes

76 Why Some Men Kill

against the defendant. The court refused to grant a new trial
because the evidence offered concerning other crimes of the de-
fendant was legitimate in this case because such evidence tended
to establish the motive for the murder for which Wood was
being tried.

Justice Johnson said: "The case being one of circumstantial
evidence wholly, proof of the existence of a criminal inotive in
the mind of the prisoner to commit the act was essential to mak-
ing out a case against him which would justify a verdict of
guilty."

The Oregon Supreme Court in reversing the conviction of
Hembree for murder and in ordering a new trial also referred to
the principles laid down in "The People vs. Bennett," a case
passed on by the New York Court of Appeals which is given in
Vol. 49 of the New York Reports on pages 137-149. The prin-
ciples involved in this decision have such an important bearing
on both the Branson case and the Pender case that it is worth
while to quote from it more fully than did the Oregon Supreme
Court in the Hembree case.

Bennett had been tried for killing his wife but the evidence
was wholly circumstantial. Moreover the manner of the homi-
cide was so peculiar that the question of the motive became very
important. * The court said: "Motive is an inducement, or that
which leads or tempts the mind to indulge the criminal act. It
is resorted to as a means of arriving at an ultimate fact, not for
the purpose of explaining the reason of a criminal act which has
been clearly proved, but from the important aid it may render in
completing the proof of the commission of the act when it might
otherwise remain in doubt. With motives in any speculative
sense, neither the law nor the tribunal which administers it has
any concern.

* Note : In the Bennett case the motive appeared from
the evidence to apply to the husband alone. In the Bran-
son case in Oregon the court instructed the jury that there
was no evidence tending to prove adulterous relations
between Branson and Mrs. Booth, or in other words that
no motive was established. In the Pender case the Supreme
Court said the motive of the murderer was clear; that Mrs.
Wehrman died rather than submit to dishonor, but there
was nothing to show that Pender had any such motive. It
might have been some other man.

(Jrciunstantial Evidence 11

"It is in cases of proof by circumstantial evidence tliat the
motive often becomes not only material, but controlling, and in
such cases the facts from which it may be inferred must be
proved. It cannot be imagined any more than any other circum-
stance in the case."

The New York Court of Appeals also said in this case, "In de-
termining a cpiestion of fact from circumstantial evidence, there
are two general rules to be observed : 1. The hypothesis of delin-
(juency or guilt should flow naturally from the facts proved, and
be consistent with them all. 2. The evidence must be such as to
exclude, to a moral certainty, every hypothesis but that of his
guilt of the offense imputed to him; or, in other words, the facts
proved must all be consistent with and point to his guilt not only,
but they must be inconsistent with his innocence."

The Oregon Supreme Court in the Hembree case clearly up-
held the principle established in many cases in other courts of
appeal that the motive for a crime is of great importance where
the evidence is wholly circumstantial, and also that the infer-
ences as to a motive must depend upon facts legally proved. The
Hembree decision on which hinged a man's life rested on this
point, and the court in discussing the matter of inferences re-
ferred to Section 783, 784 and 785 of Bellinger and Cotton's Code
and Statutes of Oregon where it is explicitly stated that "An in-
ference must be founded on a fact legally proved."

On the general rule that one inference cannot be based on
another and especially in view^ of the Oregon statute the court
held as to the testimony concerning Hembree's going to his
daughter's room under the known circumstances that it did not
justify the inference that he was on terms of improper intimacy
with his daughter, and that consequently the further inference
that his alleged improper intimacy with his daughter was a
motive for killing her and his wife was also a false inference
and did not in connection with the circumstances of the death of
the wife and daughter justify the verdict of guilty. The case was
reversed and a new trial ordered.

Supposing that in the trial of William Branson for the mur-
der of William Booth the case had been appealed to the Supreme
Court on the ground that there was no direct evidence whatever
of the killing of Booth by Branson and that there was no fact
established from which a motive could be properly inferred for
such alleged killing. The judge in the trial court charged the
jury: "It is claimed in this case on the part of the prosecution

78 Why Some Men Kill

for the purpose of establishing a motive on the part of the de-
fendants for the kiUing of Wilham Booth that ilHcit or improper
relations existed between the said defendants, William Branson
and Anna Booth.

"You are instructed as a matter of law, that there is no evi-
dence in this case establishing adulterous relations existing be-
tween the defendant Branson and Anna Booth."

Supposing in addition to the absence of any proven fact from
which to deduce a motive the appeal to the Supreme Court had
shown that the inference was offered to the jury that because
Mrs. Booth was seen walking along a certain road and that per-
haps Branson was riding a bicycle in the same direction coming
along at a distance behind her, that Branson and Mrs. Booth
were together in the brush near the spot where Booth was killed,
and based on that inference the second inference was offered to
the jury that Branson and Mrs. Booth were in a compromising
situation, and based on the second inference the third inference
was offered to the jury that Booth must have caught his wife
and Branson in a compromising position and that then and be-
cause of these supposed happenings Branson shot and killed
Booth.

What would the Supreme Court have done in view of the
statute that "an inference must be founded on a fact legally
proved," and in view of its remarkably clear exposition of the
law both as to proving a motive and as to indirect evidence gen-
erally in the case of the State vs. Hembree?

Supposing that in the trial of John Arthur Pender for the
murder of Mrs. Wehrman the case had been appealed to the
Supreme Court on the grounds that the prosecution had estab-
lished no fact whatever from which a motive for the murder
could be deduced, and that the only evidence against Pender
consisted of inferences based on other inferences. It is true that
the prosecution introduced testimony to show that Mrs. Wehr-
man did not speak to Arthur Pender on a certain day, but three
witnesses for the defense testified that Pender was elsewhere
fighting fire on the day in question. It is also true that the
Supreme Court offered the inference that Mrs. Wehrman did not
speak to Mr. Pender because something might have happened
between them which made it impossible for her to recognize
him and that she died rather than submit to dishonor. This
contains the imphcation of course that Mr. Pender insulted Mrs.
Wehrman on some occasion. As a voluntary offering by the

Circumstantial Euideiirr 79

Supreme Court this lias a very curious sound when compared
with the opinion given by the same court in the Hembree case —
"evidence showing that a party charged with crime had a motive
for committing it is not requisite though such proof is of great
importance in cases depending on circumstantial evidence" and
the quotation from Reports of New York to the effect that in
such cases the motive "often becomes not only material but con-
trolling, and in such cases the facts from which it may be in-
ferred must be proved. It cannot be imagined any more than
any other circumstances in the case."

It was imagined, however, in Mr. Pender's case, and it is fair
to say that the court endorsed the powers of imagination
gratuituously.

As to the circumstantial evidence against Mr. Pender in the
matter of the killing, because the bullets found in the cabin were
scratched it did not necessarily follow that they were fired out
of the revolver belonging to Riley and Hassen; because some
Colts revolver was used it did not follow that Riley and Hassen's
revolver w^as stolen and used, or that Mr. Pender stole the re-
volver, or that the murder was committed Monday night because
Riley and Hassen's revolver could not have been stolen before 6
P. M. Monday. No fact was legally established which made
these inferences legitimate. Because a neighbor passing Mr.
Pender's tent house Monday night did not notice a light in the
tent it does not follow that Pender had gone to the Wehrman
cabin. That is not a legitimate inference based on a fact. It was
not a legitimate inference that Mr. Pender took the mail to the
Wehrman cabin, even if he took it to the mail box from Scap-
poose, which is uncertain at least.

The inference that Mrs. Wehrman scratched Pender's face
because there was foreign matter under her finger nails and
some brown hairs in her dead fingers (Pender's hair is black)
was not justified because she might have scratched some other
man's face and neck and probably a man who had brown hair.

What would the Supreme Court have done if the Pender con-
viction had been appealed on these points in view of the law on
indirect evidence, and in view of the court's decision in the Hem-
bree case?

The Oregon law on indirect evidence is not peculiar to this
state, as has been shown, and there are many decisions in other
states based on the same principle that basic facts must be
established before inferences can be drawn.

80 Why Some Men Kill

Supplement to Chapter XI.

(After Chapter XL had been written I had the privilege of
reading the following brief in the case of Mr. Pender which had
been voluntarily prepared by Judge Martin L. Pipes. Judge
Pipes is one of the leading lawyers of Oregon and has taken a
great interest in the cases of Mr. Pender and William Branson
and Mrs. Booth. I was so fortunate as to secure his consent to
printing his brief in this account of these murder cases. — G.A.T.)

We submit that Pender is innocent and ought to be pardoned.
We refer to the record of his cause on trial to show that.

A murder was committed. The circumstances proved show
that probably on Sunday, September 3, or Monda3% September
4, 1911, some person entered the cabin of Mistress Wehrman,
attempted a criminal assault on her, struck her on the head with
a hatchet, shot her three times in the head, kiUing her, and shot
her little boy, six years old, three times in the head, kilhng him.

The evidence relied on to sustain the conviction of Pender
for the murder consists of three principal circumstances.

1st: That some mail consisting of a paper in a wrapper was
delivered to Pender by the postoffice at Scappoose on Labor Day.

2nd: That the pistol, a .38 calibre, with which the shooting
was done, belonged to Riley and Hassen, who lived near Pender;
that someone entered their cabin and took their pistol out of a
trunk and that it was afterwards replaced in the trunk and that
Pender knew that Riley and Hassen had a pistoL

3rd: That several days after the murder persons observed
that Pender's face was scratched, as if by finger nails.

None of these facts were certainly proved, but for the purpose
of the point now to be argued it will be assumed that these facts
were established. If they were established they fall far short of
proving that Pender was the guilty man. Aside from these facts
there is no other evidence justifying even a suspicion against
Pender.

Before examining the question we make the preliminary
statement that under the law of Oregon contained in the code
and construed by the Supreme Court, an inference cannot be
based upon another inference to prove any fact in dispute, either
in a civil or criminal case, but every conclusion must be founded
upon a fact proved. In the case of State vs. Lem Woon (57 Ore-
gon, 482 and 504) a pistol was admitted in evidence. The court
said: "To admit the weapon under the proof accompanying it is
to rely on an inference from an inference and not a deduction

Judge Pipes' Brief 81

from an established fact," and this character of evidence is ex-
pressly excluded by Section 785, B. & C. Conip,, which provides
that the inference must be founded (1) on a fact legally proved
and (2) on such a deduction from that fact as is warranted by a
consideration of the usual propensities or passions of man, the
particular propensities or passions of the person whose act is in
question, the course of business or the course of nature. The
same doctrine is applied in State vs. Hembree, 54 Oregon, 463,
and in Lintner vs. Wiles, 70 Oregon, 350.

But it is not intended to argue a legal question. This rule is
not onh' the law of the land but it is the law of the human mind.
The question was not raised in this case in the Supreme Court
or it must have resulted in a reversal. The consequences of a
disregard of this rule are derived from human experience; it is
an every-day rule used by all prudent persons in their own
affairs and in their judgment of others. No prudent man would
make an important decision in his own business upon a conjec-
ture, and no just man would condemn another upon an inference
that might or might not be true. With this rule of ordinary rea-
soning in mind, let us examine the evidence.

If Pender took the paper out of the postoffice on Labor Day
there is a justifiable inference that he intended it should be
delivered to Mrs. Wehrman. The evidence is undisputed that
Pender lived five or six miles from Scappoose, that the Wehr-
mans lived about a mile further on, and that a box was kept at
Pender's cabin where the neighbors brought the mail of the
neighborhood and placed it for their convenience. Now, the
fact relied on to prove Pender's guilt was that he went to the
cabin. If he did not go to the cabin he was not the murderer.
His presence at the cabin is the fact from which guilt is to be
inferred, but that he went to the cabin at all is inferred only from
the fact that he got the paper out of the postoffice. It is one
inference drawn from another inference but an inference estab-
lishing innocence is the more reasonable inference, that is to say,

that he did what he and his neighbors were accustomed to do

put the paper in the box at his home, so of the two inferences, to
find him guilty, the jury would have to discard the innocent
inference and adopt the guilty inference.

It is not proved, therefore, that Pender went to the cabin and
if that is not proved the whole postoffice circumstances is out of
the case.

It will not do to infer that Pender took the paper to the cabin

82 Why Some Men Kill

a mile beyond his place upon the theory or supposition that he
had a criminal intent against Mrs. Wehrman, for that is to
assume the fact in issue; it is reasoning in a circle. The crimi-
nal intent must be derived from a fact, not the fact inferred
from a supposed criminal intent.

We have assumed that the delivery of the paper to Pender
on Labor Day was proved, but it was not. The testimony was too
uncertain about that to be the basis of any certain conclusion.
To test the question, suppose the question whether Pender took
the paper to the cabin were the only question in issue. Suppose
a friendly wager about that stripped the question of all those
suggestions and prejudices growing out of the crime and say
whether it has been proved even in a case of small importance
that it was Pender who got the paper or Pender who took the
paper to the cabin, or whether in fact it was not delivered to the
cabin by an innocent person on some other day before Labor
Day. But there is still another inference intervening before the
final conclusion. It is inferred that the person who delivered the
paper at the cabin did the killing; no fact of time or circum-
stance justifies such a conclusion — the probabilities are all the
other way. It was a possibility, of course, but it could just as
well happen that a neighbor, Pender or another, passing by, left
the paper and that the murderer afterwards made the visit and
committed the murder.

The second principal fact relied on is the circumstance of the
pistol. It was a 38-calibre; that is a common size and is not
sufficient to identify of itself any particular pistol, but a par-
ticular pistol — the Riley-Hassen pistol is supposed to be identi-
fied as the fatal weapon. For the present, let us suppose the
identification is complete; it was kept in a trunk; there is evidence
that it was taken out of the trunk by somebody during the ab-
sence of the owners after 6 o'clock on Labor Day, but there is not
the slightest evidence that Pender took it; there is no fact proved
tending to show that he took it. The inference that he took it is
based upon the fact that he knew that Riley and Hassen owned
such a pistol because he had borrowed it and returned it some-
time before. It is no more to be inferred that he took it than
that anybody else with the same knowledge took it — no stronger
evidence against Pender than against the owners of the pistol
themselves. They had the pistol and could have taken it on
Sunday or Monday and killed the woman with it, and that is the
most that can be said as to Pender, that he could have done it.

Judge Pipes' Brief 83

It is not meant here that the evidence even looks towards those
men and their friends would doubtless be indignant at the sug-
gestion, and justifiably so. But is Pender in a different case
merely because he is accused and they are not? Let us again
suppose that Pender's getting the pistol was the only issue; that
the owners had missed the pistol and had charged Pender with
stealing it. Would any court or jury sustain a conviction of
theft upon the proof that the accused knew where the pistol
was and could have taken it? And yet the inference that he did
take it is the foundation and the only foundation of the conclu-
sion therefrom that Pender murdered the woman with that
pistol. If you put the pistol out of the case and the mail circum-
stance out of the case you have put Pender out of the case.

We have assumed that it is completely proved that the Riley-
Hassen pistol did the killing, but in our opinion the proof is not
worthj^ of serious consideration; it is based mainly upon the
testimony of Levings, as an expert, that the bullet was marked
by a powder pit in the barrel of the pistol. Levings was the pri-
vate detective who worked up the case. Admitting that some
sleuths try to be honest and fair, it nevertheless is common
knowledge that the strong prejudice they come to have in a case
and their professional pride tincture their evidence, to say the
least, either consciously or unconsciously. This is so when they
testify about tangible and proved facts; it is more so when the
evidence is an opinion only. Levings' opinion is offset by that
of another expert to the contrarj^ but it is offset by the simplest
facts of common knowledge. Here is a bullet that was shot into
a woman's head and met with enough resistance in its course to
be stopped by the flesh and bones when fired at a few inches
distance. To say that a soft leaden bullet would show no marks
or abrasion from being so stopped is against experience and to
say that any human eye could from these marks distinguish a
mark made by a powder pit in the barrel is to task credulity.
It is also obvious that the pit would not mark the bullet unless
its edges were raised, which is improbable. But it is not neces-
sary to dwell on this feature, for as we have shown there is not
a fact proved that tends to establish in the slightest degree that
Pender got the pistol from the trunk.

The third circumstance is the marks on Pender's face. Assum-
ing the existence of the marks, it is inferred from them, without
any proof, that there was a struggle and that the woman
scratched him; it is inferred that the marks were made by finger

84 Why Some Men Kill

nails, and all of this is based upon the previous inference built
upon inferences that Pender was at the cabin, which we have
shown is not a fact. That the marks were made by finger nails
at all is a poor inference and disputed by Pender, who explains
them by stating that he had a breaking out. The weakness of
this testimony was appreciated because it was sought to be
strengthened by evidence that the woman had foreign matter
under her nails. It is wonderful that such evidence should be
seriously offered; it would be remarkable if a housewife, at the
end of a day of work, would not have foreign matter under her
nails. The inference again is that the foreign matter was cuticle
from Pender's face. It is difficult to be patient with such evi-
dence where a man's life at first and now his life-long liberty, is
at stake.

It is stating the case as strongly as it can be stated against
Pender to say that Pender might have got the paper from the
postoffice on Labor Day, he might have taken it past the box
and his own house to the Wehrman cabin, he might have, on his
way, stolen the Riley-Hassen pistol, he might have assaulted the
woman, and upon her resistance he might have shot and killed
her and her boy. But that case is purely conjectured and not
proved by any evidence worthy of the name. But if the facts
to which the testimony looks as to the mail and the pistol and
the face marks were all true and clearly established, there is
between these facts and the conclusion of guilt a series of infer-
ences and conjecture, no one of which is certain, and a reason-
ing resulting in a belief of Pender's guilt is violative not only of
the legal rule but of the rule of common sense. We shall be
asked how it comes that a jury found the defendant guilty upon
such flimsy pretext. A long experience enables this writer to
give the reason: In theory of law the defendant must be con-
victed beyond a reasonable doubt and the fact of the indict-
ment against him is not to be taken as evidence; in actual prac-
tice, the contrary is the case. The attitude of mind of juries and
of everybody else is that when a person is accused of crime, the
burden is on him to show that he is not guilty. The inquiry is to
see if the facts in evidence against the accused are consistent
with his guilt. If they are, juries, unless carefully instructed, are
apt to assume his guilt, especially where no one else is suspected.
But that is neither the legal nor the just way to look at the evi-
dence; the true, safe and just process is to inquire if the facts
in evidence are consistent also with innocence. If they are, the

Judge Pipes' Brief 85

accused is entitled before the law and before the court of human
justice to go free. Pender was convicted because the jury ac-
cepted all of the inferences that were against him and rejected
all that were in his favor and so finding, since he could have
been guilty, they found him guilty. The rational way is to say
that any innocent man might have got the paper out of the mail,
might have known of the Riley-Hassen pistol, might have had
scratches on his face, and still be innocent of this horrible crime,
and that is exactly Pender's case. It is urged against this pardon,
as we understand, that it is not the province of the executive to
review the decision of the jury and of the Supreme Court, but
the pardoning power has no limits except the conscience of the
Governor; he is the last of the instrumentalities of the state to
stand between innocence and unjust punishment; he is as much
charged on his conscience with the duty of preventing injustice
as the jury courts. It is true that where conflicting evidence
has been passed on by juries and questions of law by courts that
the executive is justified in refusing to disturb convictions upon
mere review of the evidence. But where there has been a plain
miscarriage of justice and a conviction upon conjecture and such
insufficient proof as in this case, it is within the province and it
is the duty of the Governor to say that the terrible injustice of a
life-time shall not be suffered by a man who is innocent. We
have read the decision of the Supreme Court in this case, where
it will be assumed the evidence is recited as strongly as possible
against Pender. The principal question before the court was
whether there was any evidence of the slightest kind sufficient
to be submitted to the jury. The court thought there was, but the
court did not occupy the same position as the Governor; it did
not and could not consider whether Pender was innocent or
guilty but only whether error had been committed in the case.
The Governor's province is to make such an examination, not
only of the evidence in the case but extraneous evidence as to
satisfy him whether justice requires a pardon. If it does, then a
legal duty arises and it is his duty; the case is up to him. He is
not bound by previous proceedings against his own conscience
and judgment. That is what the pardoning power is for; indeed
that power exists in all civilized countries because it is recog-
nized that judicial procedure sometimes results in mistakes and
it is the crowning virtue of the humane age that justice shall
never be barred but that every man shall have somewhere and

86 Why Some Men Kill

all the time a chance for his life and his liberty when he has
been unjustly convicted.

There is another consideration to which Pender is entitled.
The crime in this case was unnatural and proves a debased
nature. No normal man could commit it. The murderer in this
case was a murderer at heart, a man of ungoverned passion and
illogical mind. It is inconceivable that a man of thirty-two years
who had never evinced the peculiar passions of this murderer
could be guilty of the crime unless we suppose the accession of
sudden insanity, and it is impossible to believe that this murder
would be the only exhibition of his brutal nature. Pender has
been under the eye of officers of the law for seven years; in all
that time, as we understand the evidence to be, he has behaved
himself and has won the confidence and respect of his guardians.
It would be just as impossible for the murderer of Mrs. Wehr-
man to have successfully stood that test without a break as it
would be for a leopard to change his spots.

We would not recommend a pardon of Pender if there were
the least doubt in our minds of his innocence, but a careful
examination of his whole case convinces us that the wrong man
has been convicted and that the real murderer has escaped
punishment.

Martin L. Pipes.

r

Chapter XII.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SADISM

One of the most shocking perversities of animal hfe is demon-
strated when a mother kills her own young soon after birth.
This is complete defeat of nature's plan of reproduction, and it
is caused by emotional disturbance of the mother.

In the human family the most terrible perversion is shown
when the male under the emotional stress of the sex impulse
kills the female. The perversion in its milder forms is very com-
mon, and the emotional disturbance caused by the sex impulse
includes an intense wish to suffer pain as well as to inflict pain.
In the mentally unbalanced, the feeble-minded, the epileptic and
in senile dementia this perversion shows the greatest violence
and is often the cause of murder. This fact is not generally
known, probably because the Anglo Saxon race has been taught
for centuries to hide under the veil of silence everything touch-
ing reproduction.

The scientific name of this emotional disturbance, amounting
sometimes to an aberration, is algolagnia. This describes a com-
plex emotional state which for practical purposes has been
divided and called by two different names. The desire to endure
suffering is called masochism from the name of Sacher-Masoch,
an Austrian novelist, who was a victim of the desire for punish-
ment at the hands of his wife. He persuaded her, against her
wish, to whip him with a whip having nails attached to it, and
took great pleasure in his pain.

Rousseau was also a victim of this amazing perverted emo-
tion (see his "Confessions") and there have been many cases
known to physicians and alienists.

The other perversion is known as Sadism. Here the patient
desires to inflict punishment such as whipping or strangling or
causing the flowing of blood. This is the perversion which leads
to murder in extreme cases. The murder of the Hill family in
Portland in 1911, which is described in Chapters 14 and 15, was
a case of Sadism.

The name comes from the Marquis de Sade who lived in
France over a hundred years ago and whom Napoleon had con-
fined in an asylum for the insane. But the perverse and wicked
conduct which made Marquis de Sade infamous was told about
three hundred years before de Sade was born in the horridly

88 Why Some Men Kill

fascinating tale of Bluebeard, who cut off the heads of numerous
wives because of their curiosity and disobedience.

Bluebeard's life of wicked and bloody love must have had a
thrilling appeal for men and women, witness its being worked
into a clever drama and also made a part of a popular opera.
The historic original was Chevalier Raoul, who was made a
Marshal of France in 1429. He was a brave soldier, but cruel
and wicked, and he delighted in corrupting young persons of
both sexes and afterwards murdering them and using their
blood in diabolical incantations.

There is a sure foundation in human nature for these tales,
and that is the perverse desire to inflict pain upon a loved
object, possibly from a wish to absolutely dominate the object
of desire. Where the individual is mentally and nervously ab-
normal and unbalanced this desire to inflict pain becomes an
aberration or a species of insanity. Such a person under the
influence of sexual passion may commit murder by strangling or
by stabbing or cutting with any sharp instrument. The effusion
of the victim's blood seems to gratify this insane perversity
which, since the time of the Marquis de Sade, has been called
Sadism. This pathological occurrence either precedes or follows
copulation, but occasionally it becomes a substitute for sexual
indulgence. Lombroso discusses the case of Verzeni, who said in
his last confession, "I had an unspeakable delight in strangling
women," and referring to one of his victims by name, said, "I
took great delight in drinking Matta's blood."

A number of years ago the civilized world was intensely
aroused by the "Jack the ripper" or Whitechapel murders in
London, which were the work of a Sadie. The perverted acts
of this insane devil defy description.

In the last seven years there have been quite a number of
sadistic murders in the United States. In the spring of 1911 the
people of Portland were horrified by the strangling of little
Barbara Holzman in Albina. In June of the same year the Hill
family in Ardenwald were chopped to death with an axe by a
Sadie. Four persons were killed.

In August of the same year, 1911, the Goble family of Rainier,
Washington, were chopped to death with an axe. Two persons
were killed.

Last August Lynn George J. Kelly confessed to killing a fam-
ily of six persons at Valisca, Iowa, with an axe several years
ago. The testimony at the trial showed the nature of the Sadie

Nature of Sadism 89

in unmistakable fashion. Attorney General Havner of Des
Moines sent me a copy of Kelly's confession, which, however, he
repudiated at the trial. There is a great deal of interest in this
confession to a student of sadistic murders, but the man was a
minister and the crime was so overwhelmingly terrible that the
jury of laymen could not believe that a minister would commit
such a wholesale slaughter without an apparent motive.

In 1913 Dr. Knabe, a woman physician in Indianapolis had
her throat cut in her own apartments by a Sadie.

In 1914 in Sacramento, California, a young girl was strangled
by a Sadie.

In February, 1915, there was a sadistic murder at the county
farm in Multnomah County where the victim's throat was cut.

It was about the same time that there was an attempted
sadistic murder of a woman at La Grande, Oregon. The weapon
used in this case was an axe, but the victim finally recovered.

This limited number of cases is enough to indicate the patho-
logical character of sadistic murder. It is literally an insane per-
version of the sex impulse and in these cases where it proceeds
to the point of assassination it is accomplished by strangling, or
cutting or chopping or stabbing. Kraft-Ebing, who is perhaps the
oldest and best recognized authority on sadism, believes that the
Sadie's motor centers are involved to a great degree in his aber-
ration and that the unnecessary violence of the assassinations
are thus accounted for. All of the authorities on the subject,
Kraft-Ebing, Lombroso, Dr. Thoinot, August Forel, Havelock
EUis, Iwan Block, Dr. Healey and Dr. Jacoby, agree that the acts
of a Sadie in his frenzy are those of an abnormal and perverted
being who, like other insane persons, seems to be only partly
conscious of what he is doing. Such are the characteristic quali-
ties of Sadism, which in feeble-minded and unbalanced men has
often led to murder.

There was no evidence given in the trial of Mr. Pender for
the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her child tending to indicate
that he was a Sadie, but this trial was unusual both because of
the lack of evidence and because of a highly inflamed public
sentiment against the accused. Stories were widely circulated in
Columbia County, especially, that Arthur Pender was a Sadie
and that he boasted of mistreating Filipino girls and then killing
them. Like the old tales of pirates and the stories of soldiers
returned from foreign conquest these yarns were greedily lis-
tened to and swallowed, for Pender had been a soldier and had

90 Why Some Men Kill

fought in the United States army against the savages and bar-
barians in the Phihppine Islands, and now a woman and child
had been brutally murdered and Pender lived only a mile away.

According to the popular notions of circumstantial evidence
that was very damaging. Nobody knows who started these stories
of Mr. Pender's wild doings in the Philippine Islands but they
were put in circulation by somebody who wanted to explain the
murder of Mrs. Wehrman. Even the prosecuting attorney, Mr.
Tongue, did not hesitate to build on this foundation. He has
several times told that Pender's wife in seeking a divorce accused
Pender of threatening her with a knife. However, the divorce
was obtained by default, and so no evidence was given about the
"cruel and inhuman" treatment which is so commonly charged
in divorce proceedin£,'s. Without proof of sadistic tendencies in
the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her child this theory falls to
the ground. Pressing the finger on a revolver trigger and caus-
ing an explosion of gunpowder caused Mrs. Wehrman's death,
while sadistic murder since the days of Bluebeard has involved
strangling or cutting or stabbing or chopping the victim to
death as illustrated in the cases referred to in this chapter.

Chapter XIII
PERSONAL CHARACTER OF JOHN ARTHUR PENDER

It's always a matter of great interest to know what kind of
a person the man is who has been accused of crime. The general
pubhc is curious, and the prosecuting officers and the court and
jailers go verj'^ far in coming to a conclusion about the prisoner's
guilt or innocence from their personal impressions of the man.
This is especially true where there is nothing but circumstan-
tial evidence to connect him with the crime, for everyone knows
that circumstantial evidence is apt to be a delusion and a snare
in the every day affairs of life. Of course it arouses suspicion,
and where a terrible crime has been committed it is worth while
to test the suspicions out to see if they amount to proof.

Personal impressions from a close acquaintance give us all
our best means of judging character unless there is direct evi-
dence to the contrary That is why a prisoner's law^^ers always
make up their minds before they finish a case whether the
accused person is guilty or innocent. Criminal lawyers say that
when they are defending a guilty man he will always give him-
self away in some trifling detail even though he protest his inno-
cence. Guilt is alwaj^s trying to excuse or explain, or throw
dust on the trail, and it reasons from guilty knowledge. That
attitude alone is enough to satisfy a prisoner's lawyer.

On the other hand an innocent person accused of crime does
not do the little self-revealing things which the guilty man does.
He may be unable to prove his innocence but the most intimate
acquaintance with him does not suggest guilt.

In the case of Arthur Pender all of his acquaintances and
friends believe him to be an innocent man. His lawyers have
always been satisfied that he is innocent. Arthur Pender's
mother and sisters, in the many little indefinable ways that a
man's family always indicate their feelings, show beyond a doubt
that he has been a good son and a kind-hearted brother.

Mr. Pender is just 40 years old and has spent nearly eight
years in prison. He served in the Spanish-American war, and
Mr. H. E. Coolidge, now cashier in the La Grande, Ore., National
Bank, says of him : "I knew Pender as a soldier in the Philip-
pines in 1898-99. He was a member of the same battery and
one of the gun detachment of which I had charge as chief of
section. He was a splendid soldier and of such a character and

92 Why Some Men Kill

disposition that he held the confidence and respect of his com-
rades at all times. His unselfish devotion to duty and manly
conduct marked him as the best type of American soldier. Dur-
ing all my intimate association with this man, I never knew of
a single act of his that would reflect in any way upon his record
as a soldier or his character as a moral and upright American
citizen."

The Captain of Pender's company also speaks of him in the
highest terms both as a man and as a soldier who did not hesi-
tate to risk his life again and again in the Philippines.

A prosecutor in Utah and later in the United States Attor-
ney General's office refers to Mr. Pender as a normal man of
good instincts whom he had known personally for many years,
and he voluntarily pointed out that such men very rarely com-
mitted crimes.

My own impressions of him are that he is an amiable and
faithful fellow with a kind heart for the children and women
folks of his family. He is not brilliant but is an intelligent man
and one who inspires confidence, and he is about as far removed
from the criminal type as it is easy to imagine. Even the prose-
cuting attorney, who is notorious as a zealous prosecutor, has
said of Mr. Pender in my hearing, "I have a doubt of his guilt."

Governor Withycombe has said to me on different occasions
and to others also, that he believed Pender to be innocent, but
that he did not feel justified in pardoning him. He said that
people in Columbia County feel very bitter about Pender. My
own conviction is that they would feel more bitter about Sierks
— father and son — if they knew the facts.

There has always been a grave question in the minds of
thoughtful people throughout the state as to Mr. Pender's guilt.
To people outside of the community, and to some of the intelli-
gent citizens of Columbia County, there did not appear to be
any evidence which necessarily connected Pender with the crime.
Mrs. Wehrman and her child were most brutally — nay, fiendish-
ly— murdered by some being who showed no more restraint than
ape. Somebody must have done it, but there was no evidence
to show that Pender was even away from his tent house on
the night the prosecution claimed that the murder was com-
mitted (and as a matter of fact nobody knows whether the mur-
der was committed on Sunday or Monday). There was certain
negative evidence that Pender did not have a light in his tent
Monday evening, September 4, but the witness testified to this

Mr. Pender's Innocence 93

about the first of June, 1912, and again in 1913. This was all
the prosecution had to go on.

THE FINAL OUTCOME

Eventually it must be recognized that Mr. Pender is innocent
and that he should be released from the penitentiary. My own
personal interest in Pender is simply that of the President of
the Oregon Prisoners' Aid Society, a body of men and women
who have taken a very active part for many years in securing
better criminal laws and more humane prison administration.
My predecessor in office was Mr. Ben Selling, now one of the
directors of the Society.

It is one of the recognized duties of the Society to bring to
public attention miscarriages of justice, not only for the sake
of the prisoner, but especially to secure in the future a better
administration of the criminal law throughout the state. The
cases of John Arthur Pender and of William Branson and Mrs.
William Booth are noticeable only because they have aroused
interest through the conviction of these persons for wholly un-
provoked murders, and because these convictions were secured
on circumstantial evidence of a very inconclusive character. It
is unnecessary to point out the dangers to the liberties of any
citizen if such unjustified convictions should stand after the
actual criminals have been discovered.

In the case of Mr. Pender, many highly intelligent and respon-
sible citizens of the state are satisfied of his innocence as the
result of this investigation and report, and they have, after
studying the report, signed their names to the following state-
ment in order that the public may know the facts.

This appeal to the people of Oregon to petition the chief
executive to grant a full pardon to John Arthur Pender is made
after mature consideration by each member of the committee
of the report of this investigation and after receiving the advice
and counsel of former City Attorney Frank S. Grant.

Mr. Grant says: "I have examined the record of the case of
the State of Oregon against John A. Pender, convicted of the
murder of Mrs. Frank Wehrman. Based upon the examination
of the record, it is my opinion that John A. Pender never should
have been convicted of this crime."

Chapter XIV
THE SADISTIC MURDER OF THE HILL FAMILY

On the southern boundary of the City of Portland is a suburb
known as Ardenwald, which hes partly in each of two counties,
Multnomah and Clackamas. There wdnds through this suburb
a stream known as Johnson's Creek, which in its setting of trees
and bushes is the delight of small boys and the hoboes who like
to have more or less permanent camps in the neighborhood of
a city. On the Clackamas side of Ardenwald there is a grove
of perhaps 40 acres of first growth timber containing many huge
fir trees. The Southern Pacific Railroad running south from
Portland marks the w^estern boundary of this grove, which is
known as Scott's Woods, while at the north end and on the east
side is the town of Ardenwald. There are comparatively few
houses on the east of Scott's Woods and here it was, in the
spring of 1911, that William Hill built a cottage for his family
close to some of the old residences near the south end of the
woods. Mr. Hill was a comparatively young man of 32 years.
He had been married but a short time to a Mrs. Rintoul, a widow
of about his own age. Mrs. Rintoul had two children, Philip
Rintoul, aged 8 years, and Dorothy, aged 6 years

Mr. and Mrs. Hill with their two children moved into the cot-
tage about the first of May, 1911, before it was completed. The
Hills had two near neighbors on the south, the Matthews famil}^
and the Harvey family, both within a few hundred feet. The
houses all faced the road running along the east side of Scott's
Woods, and the neighbors all used this road in walking to the
Ardenwald station on the suburban electric line to Portland.

On June 8, 1911, in the afternoon, Mrs. Hill went to Portland
and saw her father and brother in their law office. Mrs. Hill
w^as apparently much disturbed about something, but on account
of some interruptions neither her father nor brother learned
what had happened.

They never saw her again alive, for some time during that
night Mr. and Mrs. Hill and their two children, Philip and Doro-
thy, were chopped to death with an axe taken from the porch of
Joe Delk's house. Mr. Delk lived with his family one-fourth of
a mile to the north of the Hills, and he had sharpened his axe
that evening and left it on the step of a side porch of his house.

Some sexual perverts of the type known as Sadies had either

I.i). Hamsky. alias Frctlerick Alexander, alias Alexander Raiiili)rd, alias William
l-lyiiii, and known to many small boys as "Nutty Ed.," who was accusod by William
Higgin of being his companion in killing the Hill I'amily in Ardenwald on .Uiiie 8,
1911. Ramsey is a high-grade moron, and has lived in the jungles I'oi- years. It is
knoNxn that lUggin and Ramsey were living together in the .jungle in lilll when this
sadistie nnirder nl' the Hill family was eommittcd.

The Hill Murder 95

taken the axe, or had it brought to tliem by a companion, and
they had then used it in wiping out a whole family as a prelim-
inary to a pathological sexual orgy.

The members ol" the Hill lamily were murdered in their beds
and the bloody axe was left standing at the foot of the cot on
which lay the body of little Dorothy Rintoul. The axe was posi-
tively identified by the owner who lived about one-fourth of a
mile towards the city from the Hill home. Mrs. Matthews dis-
covered the murder at about 8 o'clock A, M. on the 9lh of June.
The windows had been covered with garments and pieces of
cloth which indicated that the murderers had spent some time
in the house and that they had a light.

The surgeon at the coroner's inquest testified in part as fol-
lows :

Question. "What wounds did j'ou find on Mr. Hill?"

A. "His face and head were completely chopped to pieces
on the right side; especially on the right side above the eye,
deforming whole face."

Q. "What wounds did you find on Mrs. Hill?"

A. "There was a wound starting in the middle of the eye-
brow above the right eye, extending clear across; the wliole skull
was fractured. There was a cut on left side of nose down into
the bone, breaking out front upper teeth. Her lower jaw was
broken on left side."

Q. "What wounds did you find on Dorothy Hintoul?"

A. "There was cut on angle of right eye, extending up for
three inches, fracturing skull, going through it. Cuts were done
with sharp edge of axe. There was a cut two inches above left
eye extending three inches, went through skull; done with sharp
edge of axe, a blow on the back of the head completely smashed
skull."

Q. "What wounds did you find on Philip Rintoul?"

A. "Whole skull battered in; several bruises along side of
right eye and forehead. Occipital bone in skull only bone not
broken. Right arm bloody; shows bloody finger prints on arm.
Head all mashed over to left side. Looks like wound was caused
by side of axe."

Q. "Was there evidence that someone had washed U]) before
leaving house?"

A. "Yes."

Q. "Could you tell how long the bodies had been dead?"

A. "No; it's hard to say."

96 Why Some Men Kill

Q. "Any bloody finger prints on bodies?"

A. "Yes."

Q. "Other than on the boy's arm?"

A. "Yes, several."

The testimony of the surgeon also showed that the bodies of
Mrs. Hill and her -6year-old daughter, Dorothy, had been assault-
ed in outrageous fashion. The murderers left conclusive proof
that they were not only Sadies, or insane sexual perverts, who,
like the Whitechapel murderers in London years ago, delighted
in the effusion of the blood of their victims, but were the lineal
degenerate descendants of the vicious inhabitants of ancient
Sodom.

However, there was no clue whatever as to the Sadies who
had destroyed this whole family and who so shockingly muti-
lated their bodies. Several thousand dollars in rewards were
offered by the State and by private individuals for the detection
of the murderers, but aside from the arrest of a neighbor of the
Hills, whom the grand jury refused to indict for the murder,
very little progress was made. At the same time public interest
was intense and has continued in great measure through the
years that have elapsed since the murder. All the elements of
the crime combined to stir the community. Public sympathy in
a murder of this sort reflects the personal element of fear of
meeting a similar fate, which in this case combined the horror
of butchery with that of indecent assault. To aggravate the ter-
ror and resentment caused by this ignominous destruction of a
family was added the element of mystery which was as complete
as if some unknown and invisible animals had suddenly demon-
strated their presence by the mysterious destruction of the lives
of a whole family of reputable citizens.

Usually in cases of mysterious murder the motive is not ap-
parent and remains more or less a matter of speculation, but in
the murder of the Hill family the motive was established abso-
lutely by circumstantial evidence. There remains then the prob-
lem of discovering who were the perverted and abnormal men
who entered the Hill home that night in June. This is another
point to be remembered, for abnormality of such a marked
character is exceedingly rare. The verdict of students of sexual
pathology is unanimous in declaring that Sadies of this extreme
type are afflicted with defective nervous systems or defective
brains or both.*

Note. Dr. Jatoby in his recent volume, "The Unsound

The Hill Murder 97

That is not only the conclusion from numerous investigations
by specialists, but it is also the verdict of common sense, be-
cause only an abnormal being could be guilty of such out-
rageously abnormal conduct. This narrows the field of investi-
gation to a search for the abnormal men who were in the imme-
diate vicinity of the home of the Hills on the night of the mur-
der. It is possible of course that the perverted murderers were
birds of passage and were in the vicinity only a few hours, but
the probabilities are very strong that they were thoroughly fa-
miliar with the neighborhood and were at least transient resi-
dents.

Quite a number of defective men were picked up by sheriffs
and questioned as to their whereabouts at the time of the mur-
der and then were released. One of the number was a man of
55 years of age by the name of Ed Ramsey. He claimed that
his true name was Frederick Alexander. He was what is known
as a "jungle" man, and while he worked at intervals, his favorite
occupation was loafing in the woods in the suburbs of Portland
and inducing young children to go to his camp. He was gen-
erally regarded as a thief and people were afraid of him as his
actions were peculiar. Ramsey w^as picked up on June 18, ten
days after the murder, as he was crossing the Willamette River
on a raft. It was well known to the authorities that he had been
living in the strip of hea\'y timber between the home of the Hill
family and the Southern Pacific Railroad. Upon his arrest he
said that he was a San Francisco earthquake refugee and that
his memory was poor and that he could not tell where he was
the night of the murder of the Hills.

When Ramsey was picked up, ten days after the murder,
he was barefoot and unkempt and had injured one leg by burn-
ing it, so he claimed.

On June 19, 1911, an insanity complaint was filed against
Ramsey and he w^as committed to the asylum at Salem. Com-
mitment says he was morose and had hallucinations and illu-
sions of sight. His description says he was 5 feet 7 inches tall,
weighed 145 pounds, had blue eyes and gray hair and was some-

Mind and the Law,' says: "As a psychopathological man-
ifestation Sadism is dependent pre-eminently, at any rate
in its most pronounced form, upon congenital or acquired
feeble mindedness, upon alcoholism, hysteria, epileptic
psychoses or senile dementia."

98 Why Some Men Kill

what bald. He gave his age as 55 years and said he was born
in Canada,

The State Hospital notes say of Ramsey that he "does not
appear to be insane, no delusions or hallucinations discoverable,
is coherent, reasons sanely and appears normal, works well and
is a quiet, nice patient." On this hospital record Ramsey was
discharged on July 25, 1911, about a month after he was com-
mitted.

Ramsey has continued to live on the outskirts of Portland
with occasional visits elsewhere.

1 have talked with a number of boys, at least half a dozen
whom Ramsey has mistreated sexually, and several of them
signed sworn statements as to details. These statements I turned
over to the district attorney of Clackamas County in the fall of
1915 when Ramsey was arrested on a vagrancy complaint signed
by L. G. McKenny, who first brought the matter of Ramsey's
assaults on children to my attention and also the further fact
that Ramsey was living in the neighborhood of the Hills at the
time of the murder. Ramsey's reputation in the matter of his
mistreatment of children was notorious and also his habits as
a jungle man and suspected thief.

Deputy Sheriff August Scholtz, of Multnomah County, gave
me* his sworn statement about his knowledge of Ramsey's bad
habits where children were concerned, and of his various at-
tempts to get evidence to convict Ramsey as a thief.

Mr. L. G. McKenny suspected Ramsey of being implicated
in the murder of the Hill family because of his presence in the
community and because of his peculiar and vicious sexual as-
saults on small boys, which corresponded with the assaults made
on the bodies of Mrs. Hill and her little daughter the night of
the murder.

This attracted my interest and attention because of the well-
recognized connection between sexual assaults on children and
the perversion known as Sadism. The murder of the Hills was
one of the most clearly demonstrated cases of sadistic murder
ever recorded. Dr. Albert Moll, the great Euorpean authority,
in his book, "The Sexual Life of the Child," says on page 234,
"Sexual inclinations towards children are especially apt to be
associated with sadistic acts."

Conclusive evidence of Ramsey's presence in the neighbor-
hood of the Hill home on the evening of the murder was dis-
covered by L. G. McKenny, the detective whom I have men-

The Hill Murder 99

tioned. A Mr. and Mrs. Tliomas 1^. Vale, a reputable couple
who lived at Berkely, a short distance from Ardenwald station,
took a walk after supper on the evening of June 8, the night
of the murder, in the general direction of Ardenwald, and they
met a jungle man with his gunny sack and tomato can who was
muttering threats against some woman or girl. Here is Mrs.
Vale's statement:

"State of Oregon, County of Yamhill — ss.

I, Nancy Vale, being first duly sworn, depose and say that I
am the wife of Thomas B. Vale, and that at present I am a
resident of McMinnville, Yamhill County, Oregon, and that in
June of 1911, I was living with my husband in Berkely, Mult-
nomah County, Oregon; that on the evening of the murder of
the Hill family in Ardenwald, immediately after supper, I walked
with my husband towards the picnic grounds on Johnson Creek
at some time between G and 7 o'clock P. M., and that before
we reached the creek we met and passed a crazy looking man
carrying a small paper sack and a tomato can. He was horribly
dirty and tough looking and was hanging his head forward and
muttering to himself as he passed on. After he had got by us
I heard him say, 'Damn her, I'll her yet." I told my hus-
band what the man said and I felt so horrified at his appear-
ance and his threat against some woman that I said I wanted
to go back home and we did go home. This man was about 50
years old and medium height and fairly heavy set and looked
as if he had not been shaved for a month. I think I should
know this man, though it is four years since this happened,
because he made such a strong impression upon me because of
his filthy and wild appearance and his threat against some
woman, unless of course he has changed very much in appear-
ance. (Signed) Nancy Vale."

Mr. Vale's statement corresponds with his wife's. Mr. Vale
was so much impressed by this occurrence when he learned tlie
next morning that the Hills had been murdered and Mrs. Hill
and her little daughter assaulted that he reported it to a police
officer, but probably it never got any farther than the officer
whom Mr. Vale talked to.

It seems that on the afternoon before her death Mrs. Hill
called on her father and brother in their office in Portland and
that she was disturbed and excited by something that had hap-
pened. Mr. Tom Cowing, a brother of Mrs. Hill's, will testify

100 Why Some Men Kill

that this is true. The place where the Vales met Ramsey is not
far from the road Mrs. Hill went and came on the afternoon
of her trip to Portland, and it is possible, though not certain,
that Ramsey accosted her that afternoon or evening.

After Ramsey was arrested in 1915 on a vagrancy charge,
I took Mr. and Mrs. Vale to the Clackamas jail to see if they
could identify Ramsey. They both identified him positively as
the man they saw near Johnson Creek the evening of the Hill
murder and who uttered threats against some woman.

These facts concerning Ed Ramsey, including his presence
in the neighborhood of the Hill home the evening of the murder,
and his character in the matter of his treatment of children,
were presented to the grand jury of Clackamas County in the
fall of 1915, but were evidently regarded as absurd by the dis-
trict attorney and the grand jury.

In a private conversation with the district attorney a short
time before the grand jury met he assured me that "there would
be something doing if I were trying to railroad a harmless old
man to the penitentiary." He said that he knew where I had
been, and named the office of the lawyer who was attorney for
the man suspected of this murder, the intimation being that 1
had been hired to divert suspicion from this man to a poor,
harmless half-wit.

The district attorney had previously hired a private detective
for the sum of $2000 to get the evidence in this murder case,
and this same summer this detective had collected his $2000 by
a suit in court, as the county had refused to pay the amount
because no conclusive evidence had been secured. The detective
believed that this neighbor of Hills who had been arrested, but
whom the grand jury refused to indict, was the guilty man.

The district attorney intimated that the boys who had made
detailed statements under oath of Ramsey's assaulting them
sexually were irresponsible, and asked if one of them had not
been in the reform school.

Ed Ramsey was released after this grand jury hearing and
the matter seemed closed.

William Ru.ciiN ( Iroiit view), who, ;it
the time he confessed to the murder of
William Booth on October 8, 1915, also
confessed to his part in the sadistic mur-
der of the Hill family on June 8, 1911.
and who said that Charles Brown and
William Flynn were his accomplices.

Chapter XV

WILLIAM RIGGIN'S CONFESSION

In May of 1917, when Bill Riggin confessed to shooting and
killing William Booth at Willamina on October 8, 1915, he made
a statement about taking part in the Hill murder on June 8,
1911. The statement follows:

Office of Sheriff of Washington

J. C. Applegate

Hillsboro, Ore.

State of Oregon, County of Washington — ss.

Under oath, I, William Riggin, do make this my free and vol-
untary statement, to-wit:

In 1911 I was standing on the street, right by the bridge at
Oregon City, when this Mexican named Brown and William
Flynn came up to me and said : "Will, we know where we can
get some money." I said, "All right, we'll go get it." This was
about half-past-four in the afternoon when they came to me.
Brown gave me a .38 automatic revolver. We went across the
Willamette River, across the bridge, and set down near where
an old store stood, and talked. We talked there, I guess for
about twenty minutes. Brown said, "You stay out. Bill, and be
a spotter in case anything turns up, and give a signal by firing
a shot, and we'll do the rest." Brown said: "After we go in
and come out again, you beat it, and we will meet again tomor-
row night." The meeting place was to be down below the Glad-
stone Park. We then walked over to where the Hill family
lived and got there about half-past-nine at night. The lights
were still burning in the house. They had not gone to bed. The
front door of the house stood out. They went to bed at about
half-past-nine. Brown told me to get back quite a ways so that
I could see good, and if anyone came, to fire the shot. I went
back from the house, and stayed about forty yards from the
house. I was to shoot with a gun down close to the ground,
so that it would not pop loud. They waited until about 11 o'clock
before they went into the house. Then one went in through the
window, and the other one went in through the door. Brown
took the axe from the woodshed. Flynn went in the window
and Brown went in the door. They were in the house for about
half-hour. I heard the children scream. I heard a noise that

102 Why Some Men Kill

sounded like chopping, and heard the screams. They came out
through the back door, and went one way, and I went the other.
I went down to Gladstone Park and laid around until they came.
They came in about daylight. They had $1400, part in gold and
part in silver. I don't remember whether there was any paper
money or not. I got $100.00 for my part. They divided the
money. They went one way and I went the other. I haven't
seen them since.

(Signed) William Riggin.

State of Oregon, County of Washington — ss.

I, William Riggin, being first duly sworn, depose and say that
the foregoing statement is true, as I verily believe, so help me
God.

(Signed) William Riggin.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 18th day of May,
1917.

(Signed) H. A. Kurath,
County Clerk, Washington County, Oregon.

Late in July, 1917, I saw William Riggin at Willamina, where
he located the spot where Rooth's body was found and described
the position of the body with absolute accuracy, according to
Mr. Sherwin, foreman of the coroner's jury.

In conversation with Riggin, I referred to Ed Ramsey with-
out mentioning the Hill murder. Riggin was surprised that I
knew anything of Ramsey, and when I told him some of Ram-
sey's peculiarities, he was evidently very much surprised that
I should know anything about him.

At this time I had not seen Riggin's statement about the Hill
murder but had heard of it. Riggin exclaimed with an oath
that he might as well tell the whole story of the murder of the
Hills and the next day he gave a statement which follows:

State of Oregon, County of Marion — ss.

I, William Riggin, first being duly sworn, depose and say in
regard to the Hill murder, that I had been living around with
Ed Ramsey about six or eight months before the Hill family
was killed. I had been at work for the Fitzgerald Brothers at
the Blue Ridge farm and Ramsey came there and saw me. I
had seen him several times before this, but it was after I left
the farm that I lived with him in different places in the woods
and around the country to the south of Portland and in Yamhill
County. On the afternoon before the murder I was in Oregon

The Hill Murder 103

City and sal on the bridge for about an hour, and 1 went to Mil-
waukie in a rig that evening.

lianisey and 1 made a plan about 9 o'clock to go to the Hill
house. I met Ramsey down close to Ardenwald. I went and
got an axe from a fellow's house on the road to Ardenwald. I
think 1 could go and pick out the place. I know that I went up
some steps to get the axe, but I don't remember how many
steps there were. It was a sharp axe. We went together to
the house about midnight. I saw Ramsey go in. I was on the
lookout on the outside and had my orders to shoot close to the
ground if anything happened. I never seen her. I didn't go
into the house. I do not remember what time Ramsey came
out but think it was about 3:30 A. M. No, I was not in there
with him. That is one reason I didn't hang around Oregon City
afterwards. I saw him afterwards. He said: "I got the best of
the people." He didn't tell me what he did to the woman or
the little girl. He gave me i}>100.00. I do not know where he
got the money. His plans were to get money — and hate. I know
of many things Ed did but the police were not smooth enough
to get him. After this was over that night we went down by
Gladstone Park and stayed around the shack in Scott's Woods.
The next morning Ramsey told me about his meeting Mrs. Hill
on the road to Ardenwald the afternoon before, and about his
asking her for and about her running away from him.

After this affair I lived with Ramsey off and on for several
years, though I did not see him for some time after the killing
of the Hill family. My father asked me several times who this
strange man was that I was monkeying around with and wanted
me to leave him.

I thought about the Hill family a good deal and it troubled
me so that I did not go to that neighborhood. My brother John
asked me at one time what it was that troubled me, and at
another time my father wanted to know what it was that made
me so troubled. I told him it wasn't worth while for him to
know everything. In May of this year when I was at Hillsboro
I told my father for the first time about my connection with
the Hill matter.

(Signed) Wuxiam Riggin.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 21st day of July, 1917.

(Signed) Frank Davey,

Notary Public for Oregon.

The discrepancies in the two statements are very interesting,

104 Why Some Men Kill

especially as they are the wholly voluntary statements of a high-
grade defective, no attempt being made to lead him.

In the confession of May, 1917, Riggin told of two men, Brown
and Flynn, proposing to rob the Hill family and of their asking
him to be outside guard. The men met in Oregon City, and
Riggin said they walked to the site of the Hill home and got
there about 9:30 P. M. In Riggin's statement in July, 1917, he
said he rode from Oregon City in a rig. In his statement to
Attorney General Brown in August, 1918, Riggin said the other
men had a team and he had a saddle horse.

In the May, 1917, statement Riggin said the front door of the
Hill cabin "stood out." It was typed "open" and changed after-
wards. It is fair to assume that he meant that the door would
not open, judging from the change of wording and his statement
in August and later that they went in at the back door. It is
true that the front door was fastened shut and could not be
opened and that the murderers did use the back door.

In his first statement Riggin said Brown took the axe from
the woodshed. In his second statement Riggin said he got the
axe himself and thought he could take me to the house where
he got it. He did this a year later and showed where the axe
was taken, and curiously, in view of the previous account, he
was entirely accurate in showing where the axe was secured,
and during this year he was in the penitentiary and without any
opportunity of getting the information.

In his first statement Riggin said Brown and Flynn were
his accomplices in the murder. At the time I first talked to
Riggin in July, 1917, I had not seen his confession of May, 1917,
and did not know the names. I asked some questions about
Ramsey and he was very much surprised that I knew him, and
he finally admitted that he knew Ramsey and was living with
him in the early summer of 1911, and said that his father and
brothers knew who Ramsey was. In telling me the story of
the murder he placed all the blame on Ramsey and did not
mention Brown. In August, 1918, Riggin told Attorney General
Brown, Warden Murphy, the stenographer and I being present,
that Ramsey sometimes went by the name of William Flynn.
He also said that Brown was the name that Charlie Daniels went
by and that Daniels was an old friend of his and that they were
in the reform school together. He said he kept Daniels out of
it as much as he could because of their friendship. Upon making
inquiries I found that Charlie Daniels was in the reform school

The Hill Murder 105

froir. the time he was 11 years old until he was 21 and that
Riggin was in the reform school several years during this period.
Riggin's father and two brothers knew of the friendship between
Riggin and Daniels. Daniels had a very bad record in the
reform school and the school records showed that his mentality
was poor and his habits depraved. One of Riggin's brothers said
that Daniels, alias Brown, hkc Ramsey, was known as a "kid"
man, or one with a sexual preference for children.

After Riggin's statement to me in July, 1917, I asked him
where Ramsey was and he told me that some weeks previous
he saw Ramsey in Tillamook when Warden Murphy took him
to find the revolver he said he killed Booth with, and that Ram-
sey came to the restaurant where they were eating supper and
attempted to talk to him. Warden Murphy told me that a man
did come into the restaurant and attempt to talk to Riggin but
that he sent him away. Later Riggin said that this was Daniels
and not Ramsey.

In August of 1918 Ramsey was arrested on the charge of
vagrancy and was sentenced to three months in the county
jail. I took Riggin's father and brother on one occasion, and
another brother later to the jail, and all three unhesitatingly
picked Ramsey out of a group of prisoners as William Riggin's
friend and associate at the time the Hill murder w-as committed.
They were absolutely' positive in their identification of Ramsey,
and two of them had given me a fairly good description of
Ramsey the year before, so this question w^as settled that Ram-
sey (by whatever name) and Riggin were living in the jungle
as hoboes at the time the Hill murder was committed.

A few days before this I arranged with Governor Withycombe
to have Warden Murphy bring Riggin to the Multnomah county
jail in order that he and Ramsey might be questioned about the
Hill murder. Attorney General Brown and First Assistant Dis-
trict Attorney John Collier of Multnomah County were present.
Riggin told the story of the murder substantially as he had told
it before, but when Ramsey was brought into the room he said,
"This was not Ramsey"; that Ramsey was a tall man wdth black
hair. Ramsey denied ever having seen Riggin, but he added his
comment about the tall man who was in the vicinity of the Hill
home at the time of the murder. Ramsey said there was such
a man in the neighborhood of the Hills at the time of the mur-
der and that he ought to be looked up. Riggin was much dis-
turbed at Ramsey's presence and trembled so noticeably as to

106 Why Some Men Kill

attract attention. John Riggin, Bill's brother, said that Bill told
him Ramsey had threatened to kill him if he did not do as he
said.

On this same day Attorney General Brown, Mr, Collier, Wil-
liam Riggin and I went to the neighborhood of the murder and
Riggin gave directions as to stopping at the different points.
Near Ardenwald station Riggin pointed out the spot where he
and Ramsey met. Then he showed us just where he got the axe
from a neighbor's house. This was accurate. Then he showed
the former site of the Hill home and was entirely accurate in
this, though the house was torn down within a year or two of
the murder and no sign remains of its location. There is now
a plowed field where the house stood. Riggin described vividly
what happened the night of the murder and pointed out where
he and Ramsey crossed the road afterwards and followed a
cow trail back to near the spot where he got the axe, and where
their team was hitched. A number of days after the murder
bloodhounds followed a trail from the Hill house along this cow
path and lost it at the spot where a bloody cloth was found.
This was about where Riggin said the team was standing.

Then Riggin directed us to where he and Ramsey had a camp
and where he said Ramsey buried his trousers, which were
bloody.

Within a couple of weeks I took Riggin's father to Salem,
and we had a lengthy interview with Riggin in Attorney General
Brown's office. Warden Murphy, William Riggin, Riggin's fa-
ther, the Attorney General and I being present. Riggin admitted
to his father and then to all of us that he recognized Ramsey
when he saw him in Portland but was afraid of him and so said
he was not Ramsey, He also admitted that Charlie Daniels,
alias Brown, was with them on the night of the murder, and
said that Daniels had been a good friend of his and that he
did not like to tell about his part in the murder.

Later Riggin saw Ramsey in the Multnomah jail and said
that Ramsey was the man. Ramsey denied ever having seen
Riggin but the look in his eyes when Riggin came into the room
together with the positive identification of Ramsey by Riggin's
father and Riggin's two brothers was conclusive that Ramsey
and Riggin knew each other.

At this time Riggin admitted for the first time that he was
inside the Hill house the night of the murder.

Riggin insisted in his story to Attorney General Brown that
he was paid -$100 for watching outside and the motive of the

The Hill Murder 107

murder was robbery. This is palpably unlriie. Kig^in said lie had
a saddle horse and that the Fitzgerald laniily at IMue Lake farm
would corroborate this. 1 learned that Higgin worked lor the
Fitzgeralds at intervals lor a number of years as he said he
did, but they knew nothing of his saddle horse. Uiggin told the
Attorney General that it was a light night when the murder was
committed. This is true as there was a brilliant moon. Biggin
was badly confused in telling of the time the men spent inside
the house, but in common with defectives generally he has no
idea of estimating time. He shows this clearly, and his father
says he never could tell about the passage of time.

Riggin told of his association with Daniels after the murder
and of some of their illegal operations together. Daniels had a
rendezvous in the coast mountains and Higgin admitted that
Daniels was the man who tried to talk to him when he was in
Tillamook with Warden Murphy. This confusing Daniels with
Ramsey, which Riggin said he did to protect Daniels, together
with the aliases of the two men, has made the story hard to
unravel. However, we know that Riggin and Daniels had been
friends for years, and Riggin and Ramsey lived together in the
jungle at the time of the murder, and that Riggin has described
the murder and given details which are true.

Before analyzing the confession there are two points to be
remembered and held in mind constantly:

First, it makes no difference whether Riggin is weak-minded
or crazy or normal if his story is corroborated by the facts. A
fact does not cease to be a fact, if corroborated, because a crazy
man or a weak-minded man relates it, though there is apt to be
confusion and exaggerations and false statements about details
if a weak-minded man tells a story of crime.

Second, the question of Riggin's confession being an inven-
tion must be weighed carefully. If it was invented, was it in-
vented six and seven years after the murder, or was it invented
at the time and concealed six years and then partially told and
fully told a year later? Could it have been invented six years
after?

ANALYSIS 01" TlIK CONFESSION

In William Riggin's confession of the Hill murder, if we
eliminate his statements which are obviously untrue and then
consider the facts which have been corroborated, we shall be in
a position to decide whether the confession is an invention to
obtain notoriety, or whether it is the truth as to the central facts

108 Why Some Men Kill

but colored by the vanity of a defective man. There is no middle
ground. Either Riggin was implicated in this murder or the
story is palpably absurd. Riggin has been in prison since Octo-
ber, 1915, and since he confessed he has stood by his story,
though some of the details are false. Nobody had suspected him
of the crime and there is nobody in the prison who would derive
any advantage from Riggin making this confession.

Riggin says that the motive for this murder was robbery.
This is untrue and absurd as well. The treatment of the bodies
settles that as well as the known poverty of the Hills.

Riggin made conflicting statements about the time the mur-
derers were in the house, but he cannot estimate the passage of
time. Few defectives can, and some normal people are lacking
in that capacity.

Riggin told different stories about walking, riding in a rig
and riding horseback to the scene of the murder. This detail
is not vital either way, but it tends to discredit him generally.
Riggin's imagination ran away with him here as a defective's
is apt to do in giving details.

Riggin placed all the blame on Ramsey when he found that
I knew Ramsey, though after he talked with his father he cleared
up this and other misstatements. Riggin told Attorney General
Brown in August, 1918, that Ramsey went by the name of Flynn.
In Riggin's confession to the sheriff of Washington County in
May of 1917, he said Flynn was one of the murderers. He also
said Brown was one. Later it developed that Brown was an
alias of Charlie Daniels, a reform school chum of Riggin's.

Riggin told me that Ramsey tried to talk to him in Tillamook
when he was there with Warden Murphy. Warden Murphy
said that some man tried to talk to Riggin but that he sent him
away. Later Riggin admitted that this man was Daniels, alias
Brown, and not Ramsey. Riggin explained that he was trying
to protect Daniels as Daniels had been good to him.

Riggin when he first met Ramsey in Portland in August, 1918,
denied that it was Ramsey, but the meeting was absolutely unex-
pected to Riggin and he trembled very much on meeting Ram-
sey. However, there is no doubt of Ramsey's identity. That's
absolutely settled, and Riggin's father and two brothers posi-
tively identified him in the jail as the man Bill Riggin was
living with in 1911. Riggin admitted that it was Ramsey the
next time he saw him, so while Riggin did not tell the truth at

The Hill Murder 109

first, he admitted it later and explained that his fear of Ramsey
induced him to deny that Ramsey was the man.

These are the statements in the confessions which tend to
discredit Riggin's story of the murder.

STATEMENTS CORROBORATED

Riggin says that the night of the murder was a light night.
This is true as there was a brilliant moon.

Riggin has said on every occasion that the murderers did not
go in at the front door of the Hill house but went in at the back
door. This is true, though the only Portland newspaper which
referred in any way to the doors said that the front door was
found open the next morning. This is untrue. Riggin's story
is correct about this detail and it was impossible that he should
have got it from a Portland newspaper. He had some other
source of information. He said one man got in a window, but
this is unreasonable.

Riggin showed Attorney General Brown, Mr. Collier and me
just where the Hill cabin stood. This was accurate and showed
that Riggin had personal knowledge of where the Hill cabin
stood. However, it is absolutely established that Ramsey lived
in the vicinity and that Riggin was living with him at about the
time of the murder. Riggin could have learned of the location
of the house even if he had no connection with the murder.

Riggin showed Attorney General Brown, Mr. Collier and me
just where he got the axe. This was exactly accurate. At the
time of the murder there were five different newspaper stories
as to where the axe was and only one of the five was accurate.
If Riggin got this detail from the newspapers he picked the
right story out of five different stories. Then too he showed
us the spot in August, 1918. The murder occurred June 8, 1911,
and the newspaper stories were printed in three days following.

R. A. Delk said at the inquest, June 9, 1911, that the axe was
"on our rear step porch — south side."

The Portland News said that the axe was left leaning against
front step of his (Delk's) home.

The Journal of June 9 said the axe was standing in front of
his (Delk's) house and that probably the moon shone on it and
attracted the murderer, but the next day the Journal said that
"he (the murderer) picked the axe from the side steps of J. T.
Delk's house." (This is correct.)

The Oregonian said that the axe "leaned against a side porch."

110 Why Some Men Kill

The Telegram said that the axe was "taken from rear of
house."

So if Riggin learned where the axe was from the papers,
taking pains to pick the right story out of five, he must have
remembered it most tenaciously for over seven years to enable
him to go to the spot and put his hand on the step where the
axe was taken.

Riggin showed where the murderers went after the murder.
This corresponded to the trail followed by the bloodhounds to
the point where the bloody rag was discovered. The story of
the bloodhounds was printed in June, 1911. Riggin told his
story on the ground in August, 1918.

CAN THE CONFESSION BE AN INVENTION?

In view of all the confusion of Riggin's confession and his
contradictions and his obviously untruthful statement of the
motive, can it be said fairly that the confession is an invention
of a weak-minded man? If it was an invention, when was it
invented? Was it invented in 1917 and 1918 or was it invented
in June of 1911? Riggin had been in prison nearly two years
when he told the story of this murder and he told it at the same
time he told of the murder of William Rooth, which he undoubt-
edly committed.

Ramsey denies all knowledge of the Hill murder but he ad-
mits that he was living in the neighborhood when it occurred.

Ramsey also says that the tall man described by Riggin was
in the neighborhood at the time of the murder and that he
should be looked up. Charlie Daniels is a tall man.

To go back to Riggin's wholly voluntary and surprising con-
fession to Sheriff Applegatc of Washington County in May of
1917 we find that Riggin said his accomplices in the Hill murder
were Flynn and Rrown. That confession was received with
incredulity and ridicule, but a year and a half later Attorney
General Rrown, whom nobody would accuse of leading a wit-
ness, brought out the fact that Flynn was one of the names that
Ed Ramsey went by. Ramsey was Riggin's partner or com-
panion at the time of the murder, as we know from independent
testimony, and was in the vicinity of the Hill house the night
of the murder. It also appeared at this conference in Attorney
General Rrown's office in 1918 that Rrown, whom Riggin told
Sheriff Applegate about in 1917, was Charlie Daniels, also known
to be a companion of Riggin and a friend of his in the reform
school. I called up the reform school by telephone from Attor-

The Hill Murder 111

noy (icncral Brown's oflicc and got tlu' record of Daniels'
detention and the story of liis low mentality and depraved habits.

So we have a clear thread of facts rinining Ihrongh the con-
fessions given by Higgin in his apparently contradictory and
confusing statements. This was secured by patiently following
Riggin's story, verifying every feature and asking for explana-
tion of the discrepancies.

Riggin's father, who has been an industrious and respectable
citizen of Oregon for many years, was especially helpful in get-
ting explanations of contradictions and misstatements from his
son.

Nothing is known of Daniels in connection with the murder
except that a man answering his description was in the vicinity
at the time and it is known that Daniels and Riggin were old
chums.

Applying the sound principle that Riggin's confession is either
palpably absurd or else that Riggin was implicated in the mur-
der, it seems reasonable to believe that Riggin was guilty as he
says he was. If he was guilty, the fact that he was living with
Ramsey does not prove that Ramsey was guilty too, though
Ramsey is a weak-minded man but shrewder and stronger both
mentally and physically than Riggin.

However, the condition of the bodies of the murdered family
indicates strongly that one man could not have been guilty of
the sexual atrocities practiced. Ramsey's character in the matter
of the abuse of children is known to be vicious, and Moll, whom
I ha^ve quoted, points out the sadistic tendencies of men of this
kind.

However, in Oregon, no man may be convicted of murder
on the testimony of an accomplice unless there is corroborative
evidence. Ramsey's presence near the scene of the murder early
in the evening, and his threats against some woman or girl as
testified to by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Vale, might be construed
as corroboration in view of Riggin's confession, especially in
view of Ramsey's character and his known sexual perversion.
If the facts could have been presented to a trial jury at the time
of the murder, there is little doubt but that such a jury would
have convicted both Riggin and Ramsey whatever it might have
done about Daniels. Here were three defective men and one
was known to be sexually abnormal, and another one confessed,
and thej-^ were at the scene of the murder or near by.

However, at a distance of over seven years there is little

112 Why Some Men Kill

interest in any murder so far as securing a conviction goes. And
yet as a study of the criminal capacities of weak-minded and
abnormal men this account of the Hill murder is a contribution
of considerable value to the subject. The time has passed when
any innocent man could be convicted of this murder on so-called
circumstantial evidence, but suspicions and doubts must remain
while the theory of the detective is not shown to be unreasonable
and improbable.

Chapter XVI

THE MURDER OF MARY SPINA

In August of 1918 Giovanni Monaco, aged 32 years, shot and
killed Mary Spina, aged 17 years, in her father's home in Port-
land, Ore., because she would not marry him. He went to the
room of the girl he loved, at night, and shot her seven times
with an automatic revolver. He said on the stand that the
reason he did not shoot her more times was because while he
kept pulhng the trigger there were no more shots in the revolver.
The girl was asleep when he entered the room. She had refused
to marry Monaco, and so he killed his love because he loved
her so. Poor Mary Spina's body was riddled with bullets as
she lay asleep in her father's house, and then Monaco started
for Canada. He was brought back and tried for murder in
October, 1918. With all the naivete of a child he testified on
the stand that he was insane when he killed his love, and he
gave as the chief symptom of his mental disease the fact that
he had cried every day for months because his love for this
girl whom he wanted to marry. When asked by the district
attorney what made him crazy he replied, "Love." This com-
pletes the circle and incidentally illustrates the type of mind
possessed by Monaco.

Monaco's attorney bolstered up the defense of insanity by
evidence tending to show that crazy people always know when
they are crazy, which will doubtless be of interest to alienists.
He also brought out the statement from Monaco that he forgot
about killing Mary Spina until he saw the fact mentioned in a
newspaper. On cross-examination by the district attorney Mon-

I

Giovanni Monac.a. a high-j^radc inoinii, who kilh'd M:ii\ Sjiiiia, ujivd 17 ycais. in
Allfilist. 1!I1S, because slie would not niariv him. Moiiaca has {^oiie to the peiiiteiitiarx
lor life.

The Spin a Murder 1 1 3

aco said in answer to a question as to why he did not talk about
killing Mary Spina while he was on his way to Canada imme-
diately after the killing, that he had forgotten all about it. Then
he was asked by the district attorney what he thought when he
saw the account of the murder in the papers. His response,
accompanied by an eloquent shrug, was that it was in the papers
and so it was of no use to deny it.

All this story demonstrates is the childish lack of ability to
reason about the effect of this silly story on the court and the
jury.

The murder was a peculiarly cold-blooded and brutal one
and the explanation is so silly — if it was intended seriously —
that it raises a question about Monaco's mental condition.

I had a long talk with Monaco just after he was brought back
from Canada and finally I asked him why he did not kill him-
self too. He said, "I did think about jumping off Broadway
bridge that night." This is like Tronson's statement in his con-
fession of murdering the girl who would not marry him in South
Portland in 1914. Tronson got as far as Castle Rock, Wash.,
immediately after the murder of his loved one, but said he was
planning to come back and kill himself.

Monaco shot his love seven times and snapped the revolver
alter that. His story and his cross-examination showed beyond
any possibility of doubt that he is weak-minded or in other
words that he is a child in mind. He was denied what he wanted
and so he killed.

The members of the trial jury eyed Monaco in intent and
puzzled curiosity, for he showed no signs of distress aside from
being rather pale, and he was apparently perfectly sincere in
his defense and told his story as though he were a disinterested
witness. The jury did not know that Monaco was a moron, or
high-grade feeble-mind, and consequently an irresponsible per-
son. The ^ury convicted Monaco of murder and he was sen-
tenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary.

In his statement to the district attorney Monaco answered all
questions readily. Q. Her father wouldn't let her go with you?
A. Yes. Q. When was that? A. That was last June. Q, June of
this year? A. No, June of last year. Q. After that did you
stay here in Portland? A. No; not when I was going to jail the
first time. Q. How long were you in jail? A. Nineteen hours.
Q. Then where did you go? A. I go in British Columbia. Q, You
go in British Columbia? A. Yes, for six months. Q. You were

114 Why Some Men Kill

in jail for threatening to kill her, weren't you? You said you
were going to kill her, or something like that? A. No, she had
a letter from me. I wrote her a letter to go away, she with me.
Q. As I understand it, you have been ordered out of town twice
for threatening to kill this girl? A. Yes. Q. That is right, is it?
A. Yes. Q. When did you come back to Portland the last time
after you were ordered out? When did you come back? A. The
3rd of this month; August. Q. What did you come back for?
A. I was crazy. Q. Did you kill this girl? A. Yes. Q. Where
did you get the gun? A. I get the gun in Seattle. Q. What kind
of a gun was it? A. A little pistol. Q. An automatic? Inspector
Morak: Do you want to show it to him? Mr. Collier: Yes.
(Inspector Morak produces gun). Q, Examine the gun I hand
you and state if that is the gun you used. (Hands gun to pris-
oner.) A. I guess it is, yes. Yes. (The gun so handed to pris-
oner is identified as a ,25 Colt's automatic. No. 168199). Q. Is
that the gun you got in Seattle? A. Yes. Q. When did you get
the gun? A. When I was going to Vancouver last year. Q. When
they sent you to jail in the month of May, you made up your
mind if you got out you would kill her? A. Yes. If she married
me, all right. If she didn't, I going to kill her. Q. And you
made up your mind to do that last May? A. Yes. Q. That was
why you came back? A. Yes, that is all, for that cause, I was
crazy, I never can get in the city and all the time will be cry-
ing and sore of that thing. Q. So you didn't have any other
business in Portland, but came back here for the express pur-
pose of killing her? A. Yes, that is all. Just for this deed. That
is true. I don't care if they send me to jail all my life. I want
to tell the truth. Q. You knew it was wrong to kill her, didn't
you? A. She done me wrong and sent me to jail twice. Q. You
knew it was wrong to take life, didn't you? (Talks in Italian to
Morak.) Inspector Morak: I didn't have no more brains then.
Q. As a matter of fact, you know you shot her while she was
asleep. She didn't wake up at all when you shot her? A. No,
she was waked up a little bit. Q. Did she say anything to you?
A. No. Q. Did she say anything to anybody? A, Just "Oh, Ma."
Q. Started to call for her mother? A. Yes. Q. And then you
shot her? A. Yes. Q. Where did you shoot her first? A. I don't
know. Q. How many times did you shoot her? A. Oh, I think
all seven times. Q, Why did you run away? A, I was scared
of the police. Q. Why? Did you think they would kill you?
A. No. Q. Why were you scared of the police then? A. Afraid

115

of arresting. Q. Afraid of bcinif arrested? A. Yes. Q. You
wanted to get away? A. Yes. Q. You knew what you had done?
A. Yes, I knew what I had done. Q. You knew that it was wrong
to do that? A. Yes. Q. And you were running and trying to get
away from that? A. Yes. Q. You didn't want to be caught?
A. No. Q. You knew that if they caught you you wouUl be pun-
ished? A. Yes. Q. You knew you would be punished for doing
wrong, and you knew you had done something that was wrong?
A. Oh, yes, sure. Q. And that was the reason you were running
away? A. Yes. Q. Don't you feel badly that you killed this
girl? A. Yes, but 1 am satisfied now that I have.

There has been no psychological test made of Monaco, and
so I shall have to let the story of his crime and his confession
(as compared with confessions of feeble-minded delinquents)
indicate his mental status.

Chapter XVII

CONCLUSION

There can be no doubt but that sooner or later society must
take an intelligent interest in defective and delinquent children
not only because the defective and delinquent child is practically
certain to grow into a criminal, but because defective stock re-
produces its own kind. Of course the union of defective and
normal individuals will produce some normal offspring as well
as defective offspring, but even here succeeding generations will
show defective beings born of apparently normal parents.
Among individuals blessed with more sentiment than hard sense
the theory that good environment will radically improve a de-
fective strain is still very common, but it is inconceivable that
anyone who professes to believe that human beings can breed
in haphazard fashion with good results would for an instant
contemplate breeding a thoroughbred horse with a scrub, or a
greyhound with a mongrel, with any hope of protecting the
progeny from deterioration.

Of course the conditions of civilized society have made the
ideas of personal freedom and the sanctity of life the most im-
portant subjects for human thought, but personal freedom in

116 Why Some Men Kill

society involves a degree of responsibility and self-discipline
which a defective being cannot comprehend, much less exercise.

The idea of the sanctity of human life does not even require
defense or discussion if we are wilUng to apply its first prin-
ciples to the question of reproduction. To grant whelesale li-
cense to defective men and women to propagate defectives who
are certain in many instances to destroy human life as the weak-
minded beings whose life stories have been told in the preceding
chapters have done, is to disregard the sanctity of human life
instead of striving to protect it. The sanctity of human life is
a mutual affair if there is anything in the idea at all. We can-
not guard the defectives alone from destruction and allow them
the liberty to kill normal people, and in view of that truth we
are bound to segregate the dangerous defectives and to prevent
all of them so far as possible from reproducing their kind. Of
course there will always be a certain number of the defectives
due to inherited syphilis, alcoholism in the parents at the time
of conception, injuries at the time of birth and acute diseases
in infancy, not to mention the family strains where there is an
inheritance from some defective ancestor which occasionally
produces a defective child. This burden society must always
carry just as it must provide for the crippled, the diseased and
the insane, but it is quite unnecessary to encourage or tolerate
the certain reproduction of any defective stock. The kindest
regard and support of those defectives who are here does not
include encouraging them to become parents. That is as foolish
as to propose wholesale euthanasia.

There will be difficulties in the way, of course, in limiting
the reproduction of defectives, but the colonization of females
of the child bearing age will undoubtedly be the principal meth-
od, for the simple reason that a normal woman will very rarely
mate with a feeble-minded man, while there are unlimited num-
bers of men who will cohabit with feeble-minded women. Then,
too, sterilization of the feeble-minded male is a very simple
operation. A number of states have sterilization laws for indi-
viduals in prisons and other state institutions, but while some
of these laws have been decided to be unconstitutional for the
obvious reason that such a law is class legislation, still if such
a law were made generally applicable to males at least it would
not be open to that objection.

As I have said in a previous chapter, not all the defectives
have strong criminal tendencies, but many of them do have

117

such inclination and they usually appear in the adolescent years,
not perhaps as criminal acts but as tendencies which are bound
to grow. Very little can be done to check them because a weak-
mind offers no foundation on which to build character, though
such a mind may and often does know the difference between
right and wrong.

This knowledge of right and wrong combined as it is in the
weak-minded with lack of ability to deal in abstractions and the
consequent inability to foresee consequences together with an
almost utter lack of power of inhibition or self-control forms
the great stumbling block for the public in understanding and
dealing with the feeble-minded criminal. It has been the iron-
clad custom for hundreds of generations to hold the individual
responsible for his conduct when he knows the difference be-
tween right and wrong, and this custom may be said to be the
foundation principle of the criminal law in all countries. The
principle is perfectly sound of course for all normal persons,
but it has been recognized by the courts that it does not apply to
insane persons for obvious reasons. In the case of Jean Gianini,
reported by Dr. Goddard in his "Criminal Imbecile," it was
recognized by the court that Jean was a high-grade defective
and that his rudimentary knowledge of right and wrong did not
make him morally responsible for his acts, though the necessity
of permanently confining him was recognized and acted upon.

At the trial of Guiteau for the assassination of President Gar-
field insanity was made the defense. The experts differed wide-
ly, as usual, and Judge Cox in his charge to the jury laid down
the principle that if it was apparent in view of all the testimony,
including of course that of the alienists, that Guiteau knew the
difference between right and wrong that the jury should hold
him responsible for his criminal act and should find him guilty
of murder in the first degree. The jury did so find, and in view
of public opinion it could not have done anything else. Indeed,
so deeply is this idea of moral responsibility held to apply to
any human being who has any intelligence at all, and by that
I mean the average intelligence of a child of say seven years,
that it is a matter of policy to convict paranoiacs or imbeciles,
as the legal term has it, who present no violent or obtrusive symp-
toms for the jury to witness, where the evidence shows that the
individual has committed a crime. So far as the individual is
concerned it may not make much difference to society, but the
alternative logical application of the principle to other defective

118 Why Some Men Kill

persons is tragic in its consequences, for they ar€ allowed to go
their ways and given opportunities to commit terrible crimes,
and to reproduce their own kind.

This system also fosters general ignorance of the criminal
capacities of the weak-minded and encourages the belief that
such persons are harmless. It is true that some of them are
harmless, but the preceding chapters show what terrible crimes
are committed by the high-grade defectives and how because of
their reputation as harmless beings innocent persons may be
convicted of murder and their lives practically destroyed.

This is the direct outcome of popular ignorance on the sub-
ject, which is fostered and maintained by the courts and prose-
cuting attorneys partly through ignorance and partly through
slavish obedience to custom. One of the worst consequences of
this attitude of the courts and prosecuting officers is the effect
on sheriffs, police officers and detectives whose business it is to
discover the perpetrators of crime. They are selected somewhat
at random and given the power of the state to pursue and arrest
criminals, but it is beyond the bounds of reason to expect un-
trained minds to understand the criminal capabilities of such
delinquent defectives as John Sierks, William Riggin and others
described in this volume. Unless there is direct evidence of
such a feeble-mind committing a crime, the detectives in cases
where there is only circumstantial evidence, would be the first
to eliminate the weak-minded persons as beyond suspicion. The
more horrible and apparently unprovoked the crime the less
they would be disposed to suspect a member of an unfortunate
class Avho have been known as "innocents," "half-wits," "natu-
rals," "simple-minded," "fools" and other names indicating their
weakness of mind. At the same time the officers argue that as
a crime has been committed somebody must have committed it,
and in the absence of any legitimate clue suspicion is certain to
be raised against some person within reach by soine ill-natured
gossip or by some interested person, as in the case of the Wehr-
man murder.

Our system of detection and punishment of crime is not only
based on very incomplete knowledge of the subject but through
t)ur system of election and appointment of officers of the law
it becomes in part a matter of politics, which means that if a
terrible crime is committed our politically selected officers must
find somebody to punish for it or they will go out of office at
the next election. In cases where there is no direct evidence the

Conclusion llO

only thing to do is after a man is lonnd who was mar onough
to the scene of the crime to have made it ])hysically possible for
him to have done it, and who cannot establish an alibi, to raise
the hue and cry, as was done in the case of Arthur Pender, by
saying that as a soldier in the Philippines he killed Filipino
girls. This was justified on the ground that somebody killed
Mrs. Wehrman, and Mr. Pender lived only a mile away, and as
there was no evidence that anybody else did it he must have been
the murderer. The weight and influence of official proceedings
convinces the public through the newspapers that probably the
man who has been arrested by the sheriff is the guilty one.

In the case of Arthur Pender by means of an industrious
propaganda he was made out a perverted brute, and the detective
who secured his conviction was paid by the county where the
murder was committed, though he was not paid as much as
the sheriff wished to have him paid. The sheriff was in serious
trouble himself on account of charges affecting his honesty as
an official, and he needed some sort of vindication badly, while
the public wanted somebody punished for this terrible double
murder.

If district attorneys had the power to direct criminal investi-
gations there would probably have been a different sort of an
investigation of the Wehrman murder, but the district attorney
had to take what the sheriff furnished him. He also was in a
difficult situation, for the Wehrman murder was committed only
three months after the sadistic murder of the four members of
the Hill family, and that murder occurred in his district and
he had resolutely stood against the prosecution of an innocent
man who happened to be a neighbor of the Hills. To the disin-
terested observer it was apparent that the district attorney must
take the sherifrs evidence and fight to convict Arthur Pender
or retire from public life.

The district attorney did not retire from public life. He
did accept the evidence furnished by the sheriff and the detec-
tive hired by the sheriff and he succeeded in convicting Mr.
Pender of murder in the first degree two years after the crime
was committed on the extremely flimsy circumstantial evidence
which was offered and the court imposed the death sentence by
hanging.

THE governor's ATTITUDE

John Arthur Pender was taken to the state penitentiary to
be hanged in the latter part of Governor Oswald West's admin-

120 Why Some Men Kill

istration. Upon application made to Governor West for pardon
for Mr. Pender he commuted the sentence of hanging to hfe im-
prisonment. Just in the last days of Governor West's adminis-
tration John G. H. Sierks confessed to the murder of Mrs. Wehr-
man and her child, but within three days he repudiated his con-
fession after hearing from his father that the family would go
away and never see him again as he had disgraced them. That
was doubtless the strongest appeal which could have been made
to a childish intellect, and the man with the child's mind after
writing a frank letter to his father (unknown to anyone) in which
he admitted his guilt, decided the next day to back out of his
confession and say it was a "black lie." In this situation Gov-
ernor West decided to pass the problem on to his successor,
Governor Withycombe.

Governor Withycombe never believed that John Arthur Pen-
der was guilty of the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her child
and he was greatly interested in the investigation which I had
begun before he went into office. In fact, he furnished about
$200 for expense money for the investigation of clues which
were furnished by John Sierks in his confession. In the Spring
of 1916 the facts were all verified apparently to Governor Withy-
combe's satisfaction, but to further satisfy himself he appointed
Mr. Richard C. Lee, a former newspaper man of high standing
and intelligence, to make an independent investigation. Mr. Lee
went over the ground and interviewed all the witnesses whom
he could find and talked to the judges who presided at the trials.
He also read all the evidence from that at the coroner's inquest
and the preliminary hearing to the second trial. His conclusion
in his report to Governor Withycombe was that it was absurd
to claim that Mr. Pender had any connection with the murder
except that he lived about a mile from where it happened. Mr.
Lee says that his report contains some curious facts. One was
that Judge Campbell, who tried the case the first time (when
the jury disagreed) said to him that he decided if the jury
brought in a verdict of guilty to set aside the verdict.

In the matter of the murder of William Booth in 1915 and
the confession of the crime by William Riggin in the spring of
1917, Governor Withycombe, upon my pointing out to him the
possibility that the confession was true in view of the fact that
the evidence against William Branson and Mrs. Anna Booth was
purely circumstantial, gave the warden of the penitentiary in-
structions to make an investigation of all the facts of Biggin's

Conclusion 121

confession. Warden Murphy invited me to join with him in
this investigation and I was ghid lo do so. A detailed report
was presented to Governor Withycombe on December 1, 1917,
by me, and the report of Warden Murphy was presented to the
Governor four months earher.

District Attorney Conner, who convicted Wilham Branson,
and who agreed to consent to a pardon for Mrs. Booth in a
year's time if she would plead guilty to manslaughter, made a
most positive protest against a pardon for William Branson and
Anna Booth. Mr. Conner was elected in a three-cornered fight
by a narrow majority, and this murder trial was the big event
of his term of office and incidentally it cost the county $11,000.

Governor Withycombe made a rule not to grant pardons
without the consent of the prosecuting attorneys. The Governor
is required by law before granting pardons to inquire of the
judge or district attorney concerning the case, but of course he
is under no obligation to follow the suggestion of either. He
has absolute power under the constitution to pardon any person
convicted of crime, and in fact this is the only method provided
by which a person unjustly convicted of crime may be saved
from an unjust fate.

In the matter of the pardons of John Arthur Pender and of
William Branson and Anna Booth the Federation of Women's
Clubs in Portland appointed a committee in December, 1918,
to intercede with the Governor for these persons unjustly con-
victed of murder, but the Governor wrote the committee that he
could do nothing in these cases as the district attorneys who
had convicted these persons objected to his taking any action.

This brings into strong relief the political power of the dis-
trict attorneys of Oregon and indicates the truth of the remarks
of students from other nations "that the American people do
not govern themselves, but are ruled by a class of men who are
known as politicians." However at the last election less than
50 per cent of the voters went to the polls in Oregon, so perhaps
the voters prefer that the politicians should rule.

In the matter of the Hill murder, the district attorney of
Clackamas County, who by the way is a very different person
from the district attorney who refused to prosecute (in effect)
a neighbor of the Hills, has treated the information which I have
furnished him with the most profound contempt and has abso-
lutely refused to investigate for himself. It is true that he made
a contract with a consideration of $2000 with the private de-

Why Some Men Kill

tective who was hired by the sheriff who collected the evidence
against Mr. Pender in the Wehrman murder, to secure the evi-
dence in the Hill murder. However, Clackamas County refused
to pay the $2000, and the detective had to enforce collection
by a suit in court which he won. It is also true that the district
attorney has never attempted to use this evidence, which cost so
much, in any prosecution.

In the Hill murder case, William Riggin, who confessed, is
in the penitentiary but is eligible for release, and one of his
alleged accomplices was living in the woods in a suburb of Port-
land in February of 1919. Riggin's term will expire in a year or
two and he will be free to "get" one other man whom he has
threatened.

The practical thing for consideration in these three murder
cases involving the destruction of the lives of seven people, is
that out of all the warring influences and bitter personalities
sufficient interest has been aroused to actually secure careful
investigations of the murders, and it undoubtedly now rests with
the general public to say whether the three innocent persons
in the penitentiary who were wrongfullj'^ convicted shall be re-
leased in the name of common justice, and whether the defective
and criminal beings who killed the Hill family shall be permitted
to go at large.

This volume was prepared for this purpose, and for the in-
finitely larger purpose of bringing the question of the criminal
tendencies of high-grade feeble-minded men before the public
in order that sensible measures may be considered for limiting
the procreation of feeble-minded stock.

The End.

APPENDIX A
CONFESSION OF WILLIAM RIGGIN

"I, WilHam Riggin, under oath, do make this my true and
voluntary statement, to-wit: Rranson and Mrs. Rooth are not
guilty of kilHng Rooth. I shot William Rooth; Rooth always
had it in for me, and one time called me out of the poolhall in

Willainina aiui told mo thai I had a bad nanu-; said lor mc to
leave his wife alone. 1 told him, "To hell with him." He slapi)ed
me one the side of the head. Another lime I was standing on
a street in Willamina and Booth eame along and said to the
other fellow he was with, "There is a con."

"He always had it in for me. I said to myself that 1 was
going to get him. I think he tipped me off to the (lame Warden.
He always kept j)icking at me. On October 7, in the forenoon,
I went down past Dud Lee's place and got to talking with him
about Booth. He knew that Mrs. Booth and Branson wer(> going
together and that Booth was jealous. He told me that Booth
was going up in there all the time, trailing Billy Branson. Booth
watched me like a hawk and was jealous of me.

THREE SHOTS FIRED

"On October 8, in the morning, I took a .32-20 rifle and a .38
Smith and Wesson hammerless revolver, blue steel, and went
up to the timber to practice shooting and wait for Booth. 1 had
a lot of mixed sheHs for the .38; some hand-loaded and some
were not. I practiced shooting for about two hours; 1 did not
expect to find Booth; I came down the road and saw Billy
Branson and Mrs. Booth talking together; when I passed them
they were off at the edge of the road just a few feet from the
edge of the road; they did not see me, or did not let on that
they saw me.

"I don't know that they saw me. I passed them and went
down the road for about 200 yards and circled around and came
back. I circled around to the left. I was about 40 yards from
them. There was some brush and timber between me and them,
I stood there and watched them. I saw Booth coming across the
field to the left of me, and when he was about 100 yards off I
shot at him with the rifle. He stopped and looked around and
i ducked down on the ground. He came on across and I waited
until he got to about 30 yards from me and I shot him with the
revolver. After I shot he partly turned around and fell kind of
on his left side. He said 'Oh, my God.' I shot at him again
and when he was on the ground, but I think I missed him.

ESCAPE IS EXPLAINED

"I would have shot all the shells at him, but I was afraid
someone would see me. I lit out to the left and went down
through the brush. I walked to a vacant shed near Willamina
where I had a horse that 1 hired from a stable in McMinnville,
got on the horse and beat it. The shed is near an old sawmill
at the edge of Willamina. It was a spotted pony with roached
mane. I rode out through (iopher Valley and past Baker Creek
Falls and passed Jerry Funk's place to Walker Flat. I took the
horse into McMinnville and turned him loose in the stable, but
not the stable tliat I hired him from. I got the horse out of the
Red Front barn and turned him loose in the barn below the
Commercial Hotel. There was no one in the barn. I rode right
in the barn and jerked the bridle off him and loosened the saddle
and put him in the stall and left. I walked back to Walker Flat

and stayed for three days with a man who was making boards
and posts. I went on over to Tillamook and ditched the revolver
and belt at Pinkey Stillwell's place on the road to Tillamook.
I put the revolver inside the picket fence. At the time the shoot-
ing took place I wore a blue shirt, corduroy pants and high-top
corked shoes. William Riggin."

APPENDIX B
CONFESSION OF JOHN G. H. SIERKS

"I, John G. H. Sierks, say that on Labor Day, September 4,
1911, I had been drinking with some men on the farm of J. L.
Smith, about five miles from Hillsboro, and went to bed about
seven o'clock; then got up about seven thirty and walked over
to Allavatch, a station on the United Railways, and took the
Electric car for Burlington. There I got off and stole a speeder
from the Burlington car shop section boss and went down to
Scappoose on the Northern Pacific line, there crossed over and
went on the logging road which crossed over to this woman's
place — crossed at Parson's Station. There I ditched it and went
over and stole a revolver out of a trunk in Hasson and Riley's
cabin, broke it open with a claw hammer in Hasson and Riley's
cabin. This claw hammer had only one claw. 1 took this claw
hammer and threw it in Pender's tent, then went up to this
woman's cabin. I found Mrs. Wehrman coming from the house
with a lantern — this was about ten o'clock. I saw her go in the

house and asked her for and she objected and spoke to

me harshly. She went into the house and got a gun and shot
at me. The bullet went into the cabin at the right hand of me
as I went in. I pulled out my revolver from my hip pocket and
fired three shots at her. I fired one shot at her from a distance
and she fell and then I placed the gun close to her forehead and
fired; I then placed it on her chest and fired again. The boy
was lying in bed with his clothes on. I thought he would wake
up and squeal on me so I fired at him. I placed the gun close
to his head and fired two shots. I found a hatchet in the wood
box and chopped and split her skull. I went over and took her
drawers off, then I ravished her. 1 was afraid someone would
catch me. I ran out and washed my hands in a basin on the
porch; the towel was hanging by the door and I wiped my hands
on it. Then I padlocked the door. I took the key and throwed
it away, then I took the gun back to Riley and Hasson's cabin
and put it in the trunk. The gun I took from Mrs. Wehrman I
buried in the edge of the garden. Then I went down where my
car was, put it on the track and rode to Burlington; then I took
the midnight out from Burlington to Allavatch Station. 1 got
home about four o'clock in the morning. I went to bed. 1 got
up about six o'clock that morning and went to work shocking
grain. My mother and I talked this over but I refused to say
anything about it. She believed that I did it.

John G. H. Sierks."

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