The MYSTERY of the MISSING HEAD

 
This article was written by H. W. CORLEY and appeared in the March 1929 edition of True Detective Mysteries Magazine.  We have transcribed it, word for word here since issues of that magazine are very difficult to find.

EARLY on the morning of February 1St, some years ago, John Howling, a young colored lad, started off to work at a farm which lay a mile from his home down the road to Fort Thomas, Kentucky. His path lay through a field belonging to John Locke, and as there was no snow he decided to cross Locke's farm and thereby shorten his journey.

The air was crisp and he walked along with no sense of impending horror, when suddenly he stopped short and drew back in alarm, gaping at an object that had caught his eye in the grass just off the pathway.

A girl lay there, clad in a thin, cotton-crepe kimono of cheap material. From its edge her bare legs and feet protruded, half hidden in the grass.

She lay on her side in an odd position, her arms with hands together flung in front of her. He could not see her face, or understand for a brief moment how she had managed to hide it.

Why had she fallen there? Was she sleeping? Or-his flesh crept as he wondered-had she died in the bitter cold? Perhaps she had walked in her sleep and the cold had overcome her, letting her fall to freeze and perish.

The boy walked gingerly about the body of the girl and laid a red-mittened hand gently on her shoulder to arouse her. As he did, he drew back sharply, let out a fearful yell, and ran back through the fields, terror-stricken, as fast as his stumbling legs could carry him.

For the body was without a head! And even this untutored boy knew that it had been cut off with a dull knife and very hastily. The ground about was stained dark red. Even in that moment of horror he noticed that the bushes near-by, rising to a height of six feet or more, were splashed with blood to their very topmost branches!

Shrieking and sobbing alternately, the boy stumbled' along to the nearest house and tremblingly blurted out his story to the woman who came to the door as he begged admittance. "A girl with her head cut off, lying in the thicket?" she repeated indulgently. "Johnny, somebody is trying to play a joke on you. You are seeing things!

But the tad insisted and was quaking so violently that the woman, realizing he had received a terrible shock, called her husband to listen to the story.

"She lay dar, like she was daid, or sleepin'. Then I saw she wan't sleepin', nohow, for she ain't got no haid!"

"Johnny means what he says," the farmer told his wife, finally. "I am going along to see about this. You wait here while I call some of the hands to go with me."

By this time a curious head or two had protruded from the barn, and, calling these men to accompany him, the farmer set out for the place where the body lay. The boy refused flatly to go back to the dreadful spot.

There, as the lad had said, lay a woman, headless, about twenty, they judged from the condition of her hands, which were very young in appearance and too well-kept to belong to any of the farm girls of the neighborhood. Although her clothing was cheap, it was apparent that it had been hastily placed on her body after decapitation, for while it was hardly stained, the flesh beneath was covered with dried blood.

Her fingers had been stripped of rings which marks on the flesh indicated she had worn. Yet for some reason the men sensed that the motive behind the deed had not been robbery.

Why, then, had the murderers taken the rings? Why had they cut the head off? Was it for the same reason-to hinder identification of the girl?

A careful examination of the clothing gave no hint of who the girl might be-but the first search of the ground toward the road which ran through the thicket on the way to Fort Thomas caused the men to shout in triumph.

Here, evidently dropped by the fleeing murderers in the darkness, were bits of clothing of a very different type, which proclaimed the wearer a woman of means and refinement. Here were a pair of gloves of delicate kid, hardly worn twice, a new pair of expensive' corsets and a single shoe of far from cheap material. And in the shoe was a dealer's name, with his address-Lewis and Hays, Greencastle, a little town in Indiana.

"THEY have had their pains for nothing," the men remarked. "The body can, without doubt, be identified in half an hour. Greencastle is a small place. Poor little girl!"

Leaving the body covered with a coat, the men hurried to report their pitiful find to the police, who came, looked the body over and examined the articles of clothing found. Without, delay, the police sent detectives to Greencastle to identify the dead girl.

"Yes," said the dealer in Greencastle, after he had turned the shoe over in his hands thoughtfully for a moment. "I remember selling those shoes to a Miss Pearl Bryan, not more than three weeks ago. As you can see, they haven't been worn much. She was going to visit some friends out of town, she told me, and was getting some pretty clothes. But then, she was always buying shoes -she was one of our best customers."

"Where was she going to visit?" asked the detectives with alacrity. But the man, after a moment, shook his head. "I didn't ask her and if she mentioned it, it has slipped my memory. But Pearl was always traveling. She had lots of well-to-do-relatives."

"Who is Pearl Bryan?" he was asked.

"She is the daughter of one of our most well-to-do citizens. A fine, pretty girl, moving in the very best social circles in town. How did you get the shoe?  I would be sorry to hear that anything has happened to the girl. Was there an accident? 

Evading this question, the men asked to be directed to Mr. Bryan's home, a fine structure on the best residential street in Greencastle. Mr. Bryan was at home when the detectives reached there.

He Looked On In Horror

Yes, he had a daughter Pearl. She was not at home just now, as she was visiting friends in Indianapolis.

 No he had not heard from her for several days, possibly a week. Why did they ask? Was anything wrong?

Then they laid the clothing before him, and he identified everything, even to the handful of hairpins scooped up by the detectives from the path leading to the Fort Thomas road by which the girl had evident1y come to the spot where, as seemed likely, she had met her terrible fate.

"Yes, these belong to my girl," he said. "What is the trouble?"

As gently as they could, they broke the news of the girl's death, intimating an accident and refraining from telling the sorrowing man the true facts, that she not only had been murdered but had been decapitated also.

When they told him that her body had been found in Kentucky, the heart-broken father was as mystified as they. Kentucky? She knew no one there. What was his girl doing in Kentucky?

This interview occurred February 4th. Less than four days, therefore, had been consumed in the identification of the headless body - a record case, and one which filled the local Police Department with much pride, for many a body whose head remained intact had lain in the Morgue unclaimed and unidentified for twice that time. The Kentuckians were justly proud of their efficient police.

BUT in solving the mystery of why Pearl-who had never reached Indianapolis at all-had changed her plans and gone to Kentucky, or, as seemed more probable, to Cincinnati, just over the river from the Kentucky county in which Fort Thomas is located, the police were completely at sea. Pearl's father, Mr. Bryan, said that, as far as he knew, she knew no one in Cincinnati.

They began careful questioning of the father, who might, they felt, be holding something back. But they soon found that they knew more of his daughter's past life than the poor man ever dreamed of.

 As in similar cases, they sought a man-one in 'whom the girl might have placed her trust-a sweetheart, perhaps, to whom she was openly or secretly engaged.

But Pearl, though vastly charming and popular, had no such sweetheart, it seemed. She went to the little balls and parties of' the neighborhood in the safe company of her mother, where, to be sure, her partners flocked about her. But she had no sweetheart, her father said.

Was it possible that the girl might have developed a secret, love for one of these young men, and have eloped, using the visit to Indianapolis as a blind until time to announce the wedding to her father? Was there any young man who had paid attention to Pearl and who was now absent from Greencastle?

But  no such young man could be discovered who was absent either then or at any time prior to the discovery of the girl's body.

Mr. Bryan flinched at the implication that his daughter might have deceived him, and stoutly denied that it could be true. He had always been in his daughter's confidence, he said.

"She was studious and quiet, and would do nothing of her own initiative. She had no secret fancy for any young man. Of that I am sure!"

"H'm," detectives remarked, and kept to themselves certain information which bad been given them by the coroner. For at the time of her death this delicately reared, carefully nurtured girl was shortly to have become a mother! Yet, apparently, her father had not the slightest idea in the world that this might be so.

Without divulging this side of the case--for no one had the heart to add to the poor father's sorrow-tbe detectives looked about the neighborhood in the hope of deciding who Pearl's secret suitor might be. But no one had ever seen her alone with a young man, so carefully had she been guarded. No one could aid the detectives in any way.

And then, when everything looked hopeless, came a bit of information which set them on a track that promised to lead directly to the murderers. The detectives were seated in one of the hotel rooms, discussing the futility of remaining longer In Greencastle. "I'll run up to the station and wire the Chief that the case is dead here," said one of the men. rising from his chair as the discussion abated. "Then we can get out of this burg!"

In less than fifteen minutes he returned, his eyes blazing, every trace of lethargy swept from his countenance.

"BOYS," he cried "come down and hear what the wire operator has to say!"

The men rose, knowing that their companion had found the trail, every nerve alert as they clattered down the stairs after him.

A. W. Early, the telegraph operator, took them into the inner office and closed the door before he told his amazing story.

"He is a young friend of mine," he began slowly, "and I expect I am telling tales out of school. But the wires you fellows have been sending have made me realize that I have no right to keep my mouth shut. I will tell you all I know.

"This boy, William Wood, is the son of the Methodist minister here in Greencastle. Great friend of Pearl's, I don't care what her father says about that. They were always meeting when the folks thought they were at home in their beds.

"He didn't say he was responsible, mind, but I put two and two together.  A little while ago Wood came to me with the tale that Pearl had gotten into difficulties.  He was near crazy-the girl had a fine reputation, and he wanted to help her keep it.

"Well, last summer, and a few other summers back, there was a young man about Bill's age who used to visit his grandmother on his vacations, here in Greencastle. He and Bill were chummy, and of course he knew Pearl-saw her at parties and picnics like the other boys of the neighborhood'

"Bill told me that this young fellow, Scott Jackson, was taking a medical course in Cincinnati and that he knew of someone who would help Pearl. "So the girl got ready to go to Cincinnati-her father gave her a lot of money to buy clothes 'with, thinking she was going to Indianapolis-and the next thing I knew, I saw her on the platform there, being kissed by her dad.... Well, it's the last time he ever kissed her.•.. You know the rest."

That might explain, of course, how Pearl had come to Kentucky, for Cincinnati is just across the bridge from Newport, Kentucky, the city nearest Fort Thomas. It did not explain many other 'things, but it was probable that young Jackson could throw light on many phases of the mystery-and they determined to give him the opportunity.

HOT on the trail now, the detectives wired the authorities at Cincinnati to arrest Jackson at the medical school and hold him for questioning. Then they took young Bill Wood, the minister's son, into custody. But Wood merely repeated the story as told them by Early. Pearl had been badly in need of help, he said. He had arranged with his friend, Scott Jackson, to see that she was cared for in Cincinnati, both young men wishing to help the girl preserve her very excellent reputation.

He was vague as to who was responsible for her condition, and the detectives, at the moment, did not press him. This, they thought, could wait. They went to Cincinnati.

Jackson, the medical student, however, was not so affable as Wood and far more wary in his answers. He fluctuated between attitudes of indifference to the fast-forming suspicion against him and amusement that the detectives should waste valuable time barking up the wrong tree.

He denied that he had ever laid eyes on Pearl Bryan outside of the little town in which he had met her casually, as a visitor will meet all the prettiest girls in the social set. Nor had he heard from Wood, he said, on this or any other subject-certainly he had not arranged for an illegal as well as dangerous operation for a girl whom he barely knew. And that was that.

He admitted chumming with Wood in Greencastle, and admitted, too, that were Wood to write him, if caught in a difficulty, it would not be strange, as they had been close friends.

The authorities were not quite satisfied with Jackson's answers or his attitude and declined to free him.  Then one day - as they had hoped - he weakened.   Angrily, he declared that while he knew nothing about the case, the authorities would do well to see what was known by his roommate, Alonzo Walling, also a student at the medical school.

 Walling was younger than Jackson, twenty-one years old to the latter's twenty-eight years, and seemed a man of far less initiative.   He was also far more easily handled.  After declaring at first that he had never heard of Pearl Bryan beyond what the newspapers were saying, he admitted that he had heard Jackson speak of her.

Now, as Walling had not fled when Jackson was taken into custody, it seemed to the police logical to infer that he was not seriously involved or afraid of being questioned.  So, after a little more questioning, they let him go free, whereat he departed expressing contempt for what he called a practical joke on the part of Jackson in getting him into the affair.

But his triumph was short-lived.  His sang-froid had convinced them all of his innocence - except one veteran detective who had said little, and who within an hour swore out a warrant for Walling's arrest and brought him back to the station.

"Mark my words, that boy knows what is what in this case," this detective said.  "I don't know whether he is guilty, but I do believe he knows all that we want to know.  Keep him here a while and he will tell us all about it!"

Then William Wood was brought from Greencastle and lodged in the same jail with the other two, who were loud in their denouncements of him for getting t hem into the mess, as they called it.

For some time, sulky and silent, all three languished in jail, while the police began to wonder if they were, after all, on the right track of t he mystery.

Wood stoutly insisted on his own innocence, said that he knew nothing about the whole affair beyond sending Pearl  to Cincinnati to meet Scott, and was released finally on $5,000 bail.

Wood's release infuriated the other two, but did not have the hoped-for effect of wringing either accusations or confessions of value out of them.

The case rested.  Every clue followed by the police led to blind alleys, and the detectives who had distinguished themselves by a swift identification now were completely nonplused.   Nothing more developed.   The prisoners waxed sarcastic and made cutting remarks regarding  the efficiency of those responsible for their incarceration.

Then, just when it looked as if, after all, the prisoners would be allowed to go free, there occurred a startling development that  served to strengthen the frail thread of evidence against them.

A colored man, waiter in a Cincinnati saloon of ill repute, dropped into Headquarters.

He recalled that the two men in custody - identifying them by the pictures in the newspapers - had been in his saloon  the night before Pearl Bryan's body was discovered.  A young girl, closely resembling the published pictures of the dead girl, had been with them, and the party had been served in a private room.

The owner of the café was summoned. He corroborated his waiter's story.

"Did anything occur- did you overhear anything - that served to fix the trio in your mind?" t he proprietor was asked.

Beads of perspiration stood on the man's forehead as he answered:

"Yes! The girl looked nervous and out-of-place in her surroundings.  But - more than that-once, when I entered the room myself, I saw her g et up and leave the table to go to the retiring room in the back, and just then I overheard one of  the men say " ' Gee, I'd like a woman's head t o dissect!'

"I saw the girl turn, a look of fear on her face, but just then she saw me and kept on going.  I knew the men were medical students, put down the remark to youthful enthusiasm, and forgot all about it - until the next day."

Then, with the newspapers full of stories of a headless body found just across the river, the proprietor speculated. Only after he had convinced himself that it was his duty to tell all he knew, had he allowed his waiter to talk.

Without hesitation, both men identified Jackson and Walling as the men in the café that evening.  Jackson hotly argued that anyone could so identify him if they chose to, as his picture had been public property in all the papers, and scornfully denied ever having set foot in the cafe. 

He faced his accusers with an insolent air of boredom and refused to allow their accusations to shake his testimony.

Walling, however, did not  quite bear his former roommate out, now, in all his statements.  Yes, he admitted, he had been in the saloon that particular night; he placed the date because it had been the night before he first read of the frightful discovery of a girl's headless body.  He had not quite sensed the s tory in all its horror, he said, because of the "morning after" head with which he had read the news.

"But there was no girl with us, and as for the remark about dissection- that's pure fabrication!" he insisted. 

Walling, obviously the weaker, was  then treated to several hours of relentless questioning.  Finally he begged his inquisitors to cease and, breaking down, told the most complete story he had given so far. 

They were right- he sobbed aloud as he told it.  He had known Pearl Bryan. And Jackson, with either an injection of cocaine or one of prussic acid, had caused her death in  his rooms that night, while Walling looked on in helpless horror.  But that was all he knew.  How she got to Fort Thomas was as big a mystery to him as it was his tormentors.  

This put  another aspect on things, and the police encouraged the boy to talk a little further. For, although it had not been made public, the coroner's investigation had resulted in the discovery of cocaine in the body. just a Walling had said.

The boy could not have guessed this -he must therefore, to some extent, be telling the truth.

Jackson refused to add to the story and swore that  Walling was lying. Then he began to add a few accusations of his own. Walling had killed the girl and was shielding himself by throwing the blame on his friend and roommate.

Walling, he said, had killed Pearl. Walling had agreed to perform the operation. It had been unsuccessful and she had died, To cover his crime, Walling  had caused her to be placed in the thicket near Fort Thomas . Jackson had no idea who had cut off her head, he said he hardly believed that Walling would commit an atrocity like that.

"And if you don't believe me," Jackson told the police, "just look over Walling's effects back at school!"

The police followed his suggestion promptly, with gratifying results. In a locker belonging to Walling, they found an old pair of trousers, caked with mud such as might be found out Fort Thomas way, and darkly stained with blood.

When he was confronted with them, Walling broke down completely. He said that if they would look in a sewer at the corner of John and Richmond Streets, they would find clothing in a similar condition belonging to Jackson. Moreover, the pockets were filled with belonging of the dead girl.

Guided by Walling, the police found the bloodstained trousers in the sewer. The pockets contained a blood-covered shirt, and six little handkerchiefs marked "P. B." Later, the handkerchiefs were identified by Pearl's father.

Now, although it seemed an easy case, there was -and the boys knew it-an amazingly delicate situation. The police believed that they had proof of Jackson's and Walling's guilt, but it was practically useless without certain important additions.

For it entangled the legal machinery of two States, Kentucky and Ohio. Where had the girl died-in Cincinnati or near Fort Thomas? Had she been dead when the body was taken to the thicket where it was found, or had she gone there alive and come to her end at this fateful spot?

And where was her head now? No one could - or would-answer these questions.

And at the advice of their lawyers the two young men, now staunch enemies and bitterly accusing each other, maintained a dignified silence, hoping against hope that the mysterious elements of the case would work to set them free.

For a man can stand only once in jeopardy of his life, before the Law. Try him in the wrong state-and let the defense prove this-and he would go free! He could not then be brought back to go to trial for the same crime in the other State.

Every bit of mystery was to the advantage of the prisoners , and they made the most of it. Although there was no doubt of their guilt, there were many flaws in the proof of it, and detectives scouring the city for missing links in the chain found it hard sledding. Nothing that they turned up served to draw the net any closer about their catch.

In vain the detectives tried to account for the week which they believed Pearl had spent in Cincinnati-for she had left home on January 26th, and thereafter, until she was seen that night in the café, there was no trace of her.

Then they found that on Thursday morning, the day before he was found dead in Kentucky, she had been in the Cincinnati railway station, apparently about to start for home. But he had not bought a ticket, and a dark young man, who later proved to be 'Walling, had accompanied her out of the station again.

Why had she changed her mind about leaving?

Was murder at that moment in the mind of the one who dealt the mortal blow? If Jackson had dealt it, why had Walling prevailed upon her to remain, and for what purpose? Had he knowingly taken her back to her subsequent death?

But Walling was weak-it seemed unlikely that he alone had instigated the foul deed. Yet why should he have taken this terrible risk for Jackson?

Another bit of news-gruesome in its implications- drifted in from the college.  For the few days between the finding of the body and his arrest, Jackson had carried a valise about with him everywhere he went - to his classrooms or to the dining hall-which was so conspicuous that the boys joked him about it. He would not let it out of his sight.

Upon investigation, the police found the bag. It was empty, but blood-stained on the inner lining!

Had the valise contained the head?

If so, where was it now?

Then the case rested again-the authorities dared not risk a trial even with the evidence they had. Popular opinion was with them, to be sure. Nevertheless, popular controversy centered about the jurisdictional difficulties presented by the two states. Everything had to be done carefully.


LITTLE by little, additional evidence came to hand. A man from Covington, Kentucky, dropped in to say that he had seen two men haggling with a colored man on the corner of George and Elm Streets in Cincinnati on the night of the murder. They were arguing over a price concerning a closed surrey, which had later driven off in the direction of a bridge leading to Kentucky. The men, he felt sure, were Walling and Jackson, whom he subsequently identified.

The colored man he could not describe - they all looked alike, he said, after sundown! The police offered no only immunity but a reward as well if the Negro would put in an appearance. News of this was circulated through the colored districts and through every colored organization. It met with no response.

At this point a  Miss Lulu Hollingsworth stepped into the fray.  She came, she said, all the way from Knox City to help the police in their baffling problem. She had been a friend of the dead Bryan girl. She knew that Pearl had come to Cincinnati for an illegal operation - Pearl had, in fact, asked Lulu to meet her at the train, she said.

As was obvious, Pearl had died instead of returning home to Greencastle. She had died in Jackson's rooms, said Miss Hollingsworth, and the young man, alarmed at the occurrence, had written to Lulu in great agitation, telling her everything!

Decapitation had taken place in Kentucky after the death of the girl. A colored man, hired in Cincinnati, had driven the body thither, had cut off the head and had cast it from the bridge on his way back from Newport.

This story made hardly a ripple in official circles. In the first place, it told nothing save that which had been published in the paper, or that which could not be proved -for Miss Hollingsworth, unfortunately, could not produce the letter, saying that in her agitation she had destroyed it immediately. Then, too, the police felt hat as astute a young man as Jackson, were he to commit murder, would hardly put his guilt in writing, particularly when that writing was to be entrusted to Lulu's hands.

Moreover, the authorities were inclined to believe that she did not even know the trio involved in the affair. She could give only hazy descriptions of Pearl, or of the young men, and when they hotly declared that they never before had laid eyes on her, the police believed them, probably for the first time.

O February 12th, just twelve days after the discovery of Pearl Bryan's body-so rapidly did the case move-the coroner's jury met and found:

1. That the headless body found on February 1st on the road near Fort Thomas was that of Pearl Bryan, of Greencastle, Indiana; that cocaine had been administered, and that decapitation had taken place while the girl was still living, and at the place where the body was found.

2. They found that Pearl Bryan, Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling had been seen entering a cab together at one A.M., February 1st, at the corner of George and Oak Streets, Cincinnati, [an intersection was not far from George and Elm Streets], which had driven off in the direction one would take to the bridge leading to Kentucky.

They based the finding that Pearl Bryan had been alive when her head was removed on an important and remarkable point: that blood had spurted to a height of six feet on the surrounding bushes and was found only on the under-side of the leaves, which proved that it had not been spattered in passing. And only blood from a living body spurts.

Formal charges were brought at once against the two men in Ohio, following these revelations. But they were indicted in Kentucky, and the Governor of Ohio finally released them and sent them across the state line for trial. While they remained in a jail at Newport, the prosecution went ahead with unusual care.

If the defense could still show that the trial was being held in the wrong state, the young men would go free, and by a fluke of technicalities the prosecution would be helpless . They delayed the trial, accordingly, as long as they could, hoping for more evidence to drop like manna from Heaven into their hands.

And then the star witness for the State walked into the police station arm in arm with Patrolman Swain.

Swain's beat lay past the grounds belonging to a Major Widdekind at Mount Auburn, and he had often seen the Major's coachman, an old 'darky, pottering about the stables and the lawns. Therefore he was not surprised when the old fellow hailed him one day.

They discussed a few topics of local interest and then, as did everyone, touched upon the Pearl Bryan case.

"Have they found the girl's head?" the coachman asked Swain.

Swain replied that they had practically given up hope of ever recovering it. He was about to move along when the colored man stepped closer to the fence and dropped his voice. "You know that coachman that they say drove these fellers to Fort Thomas - if they catch him, would they hang him, too?"

Swain explained that unless the driver had been party to the murder or the plans concerning the murder, he would be blameless.

Then the coachman -his name, too, was Jackson - clutched Swain by the sleeve and told him, tremblingly, that he was the long-sought driver who had driven the surrey across the bridge into Kentucky the night of the murder!

He told a straightforward story.

It was the night of the drill for the Caldwell Colored Guards, a military organization of Cincinnati, of which he, Jackson, was drill-master. After the meeting, he had stood at the corner of George and Elm Streets talking with some of the men. A closed surrey had driven up stopped, and the man driving had asked if anyone there on the curb wished to make five dollars before going to bed,

"There is a sick lady in the carriage, who is being taken home by her doctor," the man had explained. "She lives across the bridge. We don't know the exact way from Newport."

Now, that was his business-handling horses-and so Jackson, the coachman, offered to do the driving. Accordingly, he climbed on the box, took the reins and started off, the man who had been driving remaining beside him. He was a tall, dark man, and wore a corduroy cap, the colored man remembered.

"As we drove along, I could hear strange sounds inside the carriage. I thought at first it was just because the lady was sick, and then I thought the doctor was hurting her, she kept moaning so and crying.

"Finally I got scared, I didn't think that everything was right, and I didn't want to be mixed up in things. I was just about to draw up and leave them to do their own driving, when the man beside me pulled out a gun and stuck it into my ribs.

I'll make an end of you right here if you don't do as I tell you!' he said. 'Keep your seat and take those reins!'

"Then he asked me my name and address. I was so scared that I told him the truth, and he said that if I ever breathed a word of what went on that night, if I ever told a soul, they would find me and kill me. He said that if they got into any trouble and were put where they couldn't get at me, they had friends on the outside who would finish the job!"

THE poor man had lived in mortal terror of his life since that evening, for he knew that what he could tell would be fatal to the case of Jackson and Walling, and at every moment he expected to be killed in order to silence his tongue.

He had driven the surrey, with the pistol at his side, across the suspension bridge and through Newport, out on the Fort Thomas road.  Finally the man beside him pointed to a dark patch of thicket at one side of the road and said:

"Stop! The lady's house is down there a way."

They told him to wait there to take them back to Cincinnati, explaining that the carriage could not get through to the house and they would accompany her to the door, coming back in a few moments.

The man in the surrey got out and carefully helped the woman to alight. She was wrapped in a long, dark cloak and was heavily veiled. She seemed weak, as though she could hardly stand without leaning against someone. The man on the box took hold of her other arm, and together the two men walked away with the sick woman between them. It seemed as though she were being carried, her feet dragged so along the path.

But she had not then been dead, the coachman was certain, in telling his story to the police. As the trio disappeared the driver thought he heard a scuffle, then a scream-unquestionably a woman's scream. Something was terribly wrong, he knew, and he decided to get out of it as speedily as possible, five dollars or no five dollars.

"I got off the seat and ran like the devil was after me through the woods, over the bridge and back to Cincinnati! The carriage did not pass me on the way. I got home at four o'clock in the morning and went straight to bed, and never breathed a word to nobody!"

However, when he heard next day that a headless body had been 'discovered on that same road, he thought at once of that poor girl. And when Jackson and \Valling were taken into custody, he knew that these were the two he had driven on that terrible night.

Later, when he was certain that he was not being followed by their friends, the darky determined to tell everything he knew.

The police were at once inclined to believe the coachman's story, for he told it in a straightforward manner and showed no signs of breaking down under questioning. He added a significant remark, when he told it the second time, which practically convinced them.

"I tied the horse to a railway iron I saw on the ground while I was waiting," he said. Now, that tallied perfectly with the findings of the police, for the clothes found in the sewer had been weighted down with a railway iron, which presumably the men had taken along from the spot on the Fort Thomas Road for this very purpose.

The colored man identified Walling immediately as the dark man who had sat beside him and had directed his movements on the hair-raising drive.

He hesitated as to Scott Jackson, who stood in the line-up, for he had not seen him as closely. Finally, he selected with great indecision a man the same height as Jackson, then changed to another, and then admitted that he was not sure.

"But if I hear them all talk, I can pick out the voice of the man in the carriage," he assured his examiners.

Sure enough, when the men repeated severally the threats which the colored man declared had been made, he at once selected Scott Jackson from the group, by his voice, though he could not see them at the time.

His story was supplemented by the Walnut Hill Cab Company, which reluctantly admitted that a closed surrey hired from them that evening by men whose description tallied with that of the men in custody, had not been returned until a hostler next day found it in a side street and drove it back to the stable.

The toll collector at the bridge recalled a closed surrey driven by a colored man early in the morning of February 1st.

But to verify the story beyond doubt, the authorities asked the colored Jackson to point out the spot on the Fort Thomas Road whither he had driven that night.

They set forth, police, detectives, reporters, et al.-while the coachman, not a little pleased with the sensation that he was making, drove with them, stopped the horse not twenty yards away from where the body had been found, and pointed without hesitation in the right direction.

"The two men took the poor lady there that way'" he said.

One more important bit of evidence was added to the already overwhelming pile. A keeper of a house of ill repute came into the police station with a pair of man's over hoes stained with blood and still muddy, which she said had been left under a sofa in her establishment shortly after the murder, by a man whom she believed to be Walling.

The shoes fitted Walling to a nicety. He denied owning them, naturally enough, said they probably would fit half the men in Cincinnati, and insisted that he would rather claim them than admit that he had ever been in her house.

NOW William Wood, the Greencastle minister's son, began to talk, and while they were not admitted into the evidence, he repeated verbatim two letters which he said Jackson had written him about Pearl Bryan. The first letter, according to Wood ran as follows:

Hello, Bill:

I expect you think that I have forgotten you, but I haven't. I have been awfully busy this week. I haven't been over to Kentucky yet, so you may know that I have been awfully busy. I work all day jn the college and then in the dissecting room, so you see I am busy for sure.

Well, for business. Tell Bert [a nickname, Wood explained for Pearl] to come on. I have a very nice room with a nice old lady. A friend of Walling's will do the work, an old hand at the biz.

We go to his house to-night for supper. He is a chemist. I think I will have money enough, but tell Bert to bring all she can, as it may come in handy. Tell her to leave so as to get here Monday night.

Tell her she can go home in four or five days. Push it along. Don't go back on me now, as I am near out of my trouble. Be sure and burn this when you have read it.

"D."

"D," Wood explained, was merely a fictitious initial to prevent discovery in case of loss of the letter.

The other letter was said by Wood to have been written after Pearl's death. It ran: 

Hello, Bill:

Be awfully careful what you say. I am expecting trouble. Oh, Lord, stand by me. Do you think Doc will? Write him. I made a big mistake and it's going to get me in trouble. Don't forsake me now.

Now is when I need you most. Write Doc, he will stand up for us, won't he? Say, Bill, I wish I had never seen that girl and never seen Greencastle-my tough luck, anyway. Be sure and burn this. Don't let anyone see it. Now, Bill, stand by your old chum! - "D"

Was Wood merely trying to fix the blame for Pearl's condition on Jackson? If not to blame, why had Jack on been so eager to assist in the matter? It was all very strange.

But Wood had burned the letters. And the oral renditions of them were worthless.

The two men, Jackson and Walling, were tried separately. Jackson's trial began in Newport, Kentucky, on April 22nd, 1896, and la ted nearly a month. Alonzo Walling was tried in an adjoining county.

Both were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Counsel for the defense had tried to show that Pearl Bryan had met her death in Ohio, and that she had been taken dead to Kentucky. They poohpoohed the story that the colored man had told, said that Negroes were not to be relied upon on the witness -stand, then turned about and brought in another Negro to swear that he had been with the coachman that night until early morning and that Jackson. therefore, could not have driven the surrey!

The defense lawyer for Scott Jackson. Colonel L. J. Crawford, had been able that Mr. Bryan, in alarm lest his daughter's death should go unavenged had thrown all his resources in behalf of the State and himself paid for an eminent lawyer to aid in the prosecution of the case.

The trials over, both prisoners were lodged in the same jail to await execution. Few gave Scott Jackson any sympathy, but the younger man, Alonzo Walling, aroused much pity through the press. The Governor's desk was flooded with appeals for his life on the ground that he had been the tool for the older man.

Nothing moved the Governor, who refused to interfere in the punishing of the perpetrators of what was the most dastardly crime of the decade in that locality. The Law was allowed to take it course.

Up to the last moment, however, nobody thought that the Governor would let Walling die. This belief was shared by the sheriff, who delayed the hanging from the usual hour of seven in the morning until nearly noon, to give a message of commutation time to arrive from the capital. None came. And the two men were led forth to pay the supreme penalty for the murder of Pearl Bryan.

With them died much that might have been interesting to know in connection with the case.

WHO was Pearl's betrayer? Did Jacksson intend murdering her when he lured her to Cincinnati under pretense of helping her? Was she murdered to conceal her condition-or was she murdered for her head? Where was her head now? Large rewards were offered for the recovery of the head, but it was never traced. To this day its disposition remains a mystery. The poor girl's body lies under its stone-minus its head-tragic end of a life meant for happiness.