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.
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