Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1889 — A REMARKABLE CRIME. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A REMARKABLE CRIME.

THE MURDER OF DR. P. H. CRONIN, OF CHICAGO. A Deep-Laid Plot—The Network Weaved The Physician Euretl to His Dooin How the Body Was Found and Identified The Men Engaged in the Conspiracy.

R. CRONIN’S murder, which occurred in the city kof Chicago on the night of ■May 4, 1883, was one of the ■most remarkable crimes on ■record. Although, months elapsed since the horrid tragedy was enacted, it is still a subject of keen interest and heated discussion and recrimination on both sides of the Atlantic. That it will continue to be so for many months to come seems, from present indications, entirely probable. There can be no

doubt that it will have a baneful influence on the Irish cause for a still longer period.

CHAPTER I. A DEEP-LAID PLOT. It was a remarkable crime both in its conception and in its execution. The conception showed great shrewdness and forethought. Every detail was carefully planned and executed with remorseless precision. Still more remarkable was the far-reaching and elaborate machinery set in motion to cover up the crime and to blacken the character of the murdered man. That it was the work of a conspiracy directed by men of brains and having great financial resources- at their back has been made perfectly plain by the evidence so far secured. They had a strong following among the membership of Irish societies, were able to command the services of a portion of the press, and had resolute

and unscrupulous adherents on the Chicago police force. The plot has as yet been scarcely half laid bare, and yet it reveals more intrigue, more clashing of personal interests, more cold, calculating villainy cloaked under the guise of patriotism, more human passion and frailty, except in one particular, than can be found in any romance of modem times. The one thing lacking to make it outdo the wildest conception of the novelist is the presence of a woman. In spite, of very determined efforts on the part of the murderers’ friends the “woman in the case" is missing. The crime was purely political. What was the motive of this most extraordinary murder and what is the inner history of the conspiracy, .which led up to it? The answers to these questions can only be given under oath at the trial of the murderers. At present they are largely a subject of conjecture, or of conflicting partisan opinion. But the facts of the murder and the events which immediately preceded and follow it throw a flood of light upon both.

CHAPTER 11. WEAVING THE NETWORK OF MURDER. Dr. Cronin was an unmaried man, having no relatives in Chicago. He lived with a native American family, named Conklin, in a large flat in the .Windsor Theater Building, on North Clark street. There he had his office and received his patients morning and evening. In the large Opera House Building, corner of South Clark and Washington streets, he had another office on the fifth floor. It consisted of two small rooms, Nos. 501 and 503. ’ These he

used between 12 o’clock and 2 p. m. for patients. The window of room 501 and that of the hallway looked out on a narrow alley running from Clark to La Salle street. At the other side of this alley was a house fronting on Clark street, which was let in offices and apartments. The windows on one floor commanded a view of one of Dr. Cronin’s rooms and of the hall outside. One J. B. Simonds rented the floor of this house, No. 117 Clark street, the window of which gave a view of Dr. Cronin’S office, the blinds on which were seldom drawn down. This was Feb. 19. Simonds is described by Thockmorton, the Teal estate agent's clerk, as a man about 5 feet 7 inches in height, stoutly built, with dark-brown hair, brown mustache, a nose that was almost Boman, blue or gray eyes, pleasant address and a Blightl;* English accent . Two days later Simonds bought some furniture of Revell & Co., and ordered it delivered at the rooms at No. 117 Clark street. He told Hatfield, the salesman, he wanted the cheapest things he had, for temporary use only. He paid other visits to Revell's, buying a large trunk and a leather strap. Simonds' room was found to be vacant March 19, and the occupants of the house could give no information concerning him. After the discovery of Dr. Cronin’s body a Swedish expressman named Martiusen was found w'ho had been hired to take that furniture from No. 117 Clark street to the Carlson cottage in Lake View where the murder was committed. A few days before this a man giving his name as Frank Williams, and having an alleged brother, rented the Carlson cottage in Lake View. The furniture from No. 117 Clark street

was moved in, but the cottage was never occupied and an “invalid sister,” who was to keep house for the “Williams Brothers,” never ap. peared. Mrs. Carlson saw Frank Williams in familiar conversation with P. O'Sullivan, the iceman, whose house was a few yards away, more than once. P. O’Sullivan, the *.ce-

man, who employed only five or six men, was brought to Dr. Cronin in his down-town bflico May 1 by Justice of the Peace Mahony and made a contract with him for SSO a year to attend any of his! men who might be injured. The presentation of Sullivan's card was to be the token that the messenger summoning the Doctor w as all right.

CHAPTER 111. THE DOCTOR LURED TO HIS DOOM. Dr. Cronin was engaged with a patient in his •ffice at his residence on Saturday, Jlay 4. A lit.

tie after 7 p. m. a man in a covered buggydrawn by a white horse drove up to the door and rang the' bell violently. Mrs. Conkling opened the door and let him In. She got a good look at him. and, owing to his flurried, nervous manner, took particular notice of him. He was a strongly built man of five feet eight inches, with a sallow face, flushed with excitement, a dark mustache, and a pair of small, furtive eyes. He fumbled nervously at his hat as he sat waiting for the Doctor, and spoke little. Mrs. Conklin summoned Dr. Cronin and saw and heard what took place l>etweeh the two..

The man told Cronin that one of Iceman Sullivan’s men was hurt, that it was a case of life and death, and he wanted him to come with him in the buggy ai once. Sullivan, he said, was away, but he had told him of the contract, and that the card wan to be the token. He handed the Doctor the card and it was left in Cronin’s room. Dr. Cronin, believing it was a case of life and death, abandoned his office patients for the evening, snatched up his case of instruments, put on a soft felt hat and started off with the man. As he took his seat in the buggy his friend, Frank Scanlan, came up. and, while’having a moment’s conversation with him, got a look at *the strange man. Cronin in hie hurry forgot the revolver which he always carried at night. The Doctor was never seen alive again. It is now known that the message about the injured iceman was a decoy, that he was driven to the Carlson cottage and there murdered. The details of that murder have yet to be learned. That there was a short, sharp struggle between one unarmed man, who was probably stunned by a blow on the head as soon as he entered the door, and three or four armed cowards who left the marks of their hideous butchery behind them, is shown by circumstantial evidence alone.

CHAPTER IV. SLANDER COMES TO THE MURDERERS’ AID. For a long time all that could be learned wm that Dr. Cronin had mysteriously disappeared. Cronin's friends telegraphed all o.ver the country their belief that ho had been murdered. They coupled his disappearance with the finding of a blood-stained trunk. Then began a series of the most astounding

journalistic “ fakes ”on record. For a time the whole Chicago press and a portion of that of other cities treated the matter lightly and refused to believe there was anything serious in the case. Then bogus interviews with Cronin here, there and everywhere; stories that he had run away with a woman ; that he had fled from the consequences of disreputable and unprofessional practices ; that he was a British spy and was on his way to London to testify for the Times appeared. One day it was in Canada, the next in some place in the United States. In all cases they were telegraphed all over the country. All bore the ear-marks of the same authorship in Chicago. The story most persistently circulated was that Cronin was a friend of Le Caron. The latter was said to have a list of three or four of his American assistants, which, by some means, had come to the knowledge of certain Irish leaders. These statements were always made anonymously, but were occasionally fortified by pretended interviews with Le Caron himself, cabled to this country by the Associated Press. The responsibility for Le Caron was Anally fixed in the most public manner on Cronin’s bitterest enemies, and it was proved that all these stories were the inventions of the murderers’ friends.

CHAPTER V. CHICAGO’S QUEER DETECTIVE WORK. The most astonishing feature of the case was the action of the Chicago police. Two days after the mysterious disappearance, Patrick Dinan, the livery-stable keeper, whose horse and buggy were used to drive Cronin to the slaughter, and who recognized him from the published description, called on Captain Schaack, at the Chicago avenue police station, and informed him that hie detective, Daniel Coughlin, had hired them. After hearing this the Captain put Coughlin in charge of the case. Coughlin’s efforts were confined to two things. He endeavored to frighten Mrs. Conklin into giving up to him Dr. Cronin’s papers, to enable the police to “find out a motive for murder," and he circulated the report that the Doctor was alive. On the Lake View end of the case Captain Schaack put Detective Whalen, a brother-in-law of Iceman O’Sullivan. Naturally, no progress was made in the search for the body, and the public began to believe that the outcry of Cronin’s friends throughout the country was the result of prejudice or malice. It is a notable fact that all the Irishmen since indicted for the murder, and all those reasonably suspected of complicity, belong to the faction of the Clan-ua-Gael accused

of the crime by Cronin’s friends from the start. The friends of Cronin were growing dioheart-

ened and the public tired of the whole Cronin mystery, when an accident led to the discovery of the body. This in turn stirred up the police.

CHARTER VI. the body found in a catch-basin. Late on Wednesday afternoon, May 2-2, a decomposing body, hacked and marred about the head, and tightlv tied about the neck with a towel, was fished out of a sewer catch-basin at the corner of Evanston avenue and North Fiftyninth street. This man-hole, or catch-basin, is about a mile north of where the bloody trunk was,found shortly after the Doctor’s disappearance. 'the same roadway leads directly to the catchbasin, a nd the place where the trunk was found is but a few feet away from it. Ths same road leads almost directly to O’Sullivan's ice-house, whence the Doctor was summoned by the mysterious messenger, who led him away from his home on the pretense that one of O'Sullivan's men had been injured. No trace could be found of the murdered man’s clothing. On the previous day reports were made to the Board of Public Works in Lake View that the sewer at the corner of Evanston avenue and North Fifty-ninth street seemed choked up, and ihat foul air in that neighborhood was beginning to be a nuisance. Nicholas Rosch. the foreman of the sewer gang, with John Finegan and William Michaels, his assistants, repaired to the place indicated and found the ditch at the east side of Evanston avenue partially filled with water, which was constantly escaping from a damaged fire-plug. About twenty feet north of the fire-plug is a catch-basin into which the water from the ditch should flow, just as it flows into them from gutters in sections that are paved. At this point, however, the sand had rolled down from the roadway into the open ditch, damming up the water so that it could not escape into the catchbasin. The men set to work with shovels to throw this moist sand out, wondering, as they dug, what could cause the terrible stench that pervaded the atmosphere. This catch-basin, it should be explained, is circular, built of brick, with a heavy wooden top on a level with the street. About two feet below the top an opening is made in the side of the brick wall to the

southwest, and a barred iron grating is set in, through which the water in the ditch should flow. With the exception of this side, which is open to the bottom of the grating, the circular brick basin is surrounded with dirt almost to the street level. While peering through it Foreman Rosch saw through the iron bars some white substance floating in the water inside the catch-basin, At first he thought it was a dog, and the men wondered how a dog could have gotten into the place.

A closer examination revealed the fact that the white object was the nude body of a man. They removed the heavy plank top and found that a large quantity of cotton batting had been thrown over the corpse, pariially covering it. The head was bent forward upon the breast and was entirely submerged. The feet and legs were also out of sight in the water. The body was floating, only the back and hips appearing above the surface. The basin is some four feet across and the water is nearly four feet deep. There was not a single shied of clothing on the body, but around the neck was a cord from which depended an Agnus Dei, a little religious emblem which the Doctor had worn for years. In the forehead, at the roots of the hair, appeared tnree horrible wounds, each about an inch in length and appearing to have been cut with some sharp instrument. The body was in an excellent state of preservation, the flesh being as white as though only a day had elapsed since death. Even ' around the wounds a slight discoloration was all the decay marked, while the bloating of the body was not •excessive. A THOROUGH IDENTIFICATION. The Lake View police were notified and the

body taken to the Morgue, where it was soon identified by manv persons as that of Dr.

Cronin, but many others insisted it was not that of. the missing physician. Dr. Qronin’s friends in Chicago were at once notified, and a large party of them soon arrived upon the scene. Their identification of the body as that of Dr. Cronin was very positive, but as some other persons since proved to be enemies of the murdered Doctor insisted that the body was not his. a number of other friends were sent for and a minute examination was made.,

The evidence of the teeth was suggested as valuable, and John F. Scanlan pried open the mouth of the corpse with a lead pencil. Cronin had gold-filled teeth, and it was declared by those familiar with his appearance that the teeth in the mouth of the deceased exactly matched with his. “It is unmistakably Dr. Cronin’s body,” said John F. Scanlan. “I knew it the minute I entered the room, and was as certain of it then as l am now, after making a mbre careful examination. If I had nothing else to goby, I could identify him by the teeth. Cronin had two large front teeth remaining on the upper jaw and the left eye-tooth was gone. “His lower teeth were dark in color, placed quite apart, and rounded in shape. I can identify the body also by the shape of the forehead, by the expression of the mouth, and even by the hair w hich remains, and the mustache and goatee. I believe ihat he was the victim of the foulest of murders. I believe that the fact that the Agnus Dei was untouched was most significant.” Dr. Lewis, the dentist who last worked on Cronin’s teeth, reached the station late in the evening and also positively identified the body, as did A. C. O’Keefe, who for many years was Cronin’s tailor. Tl T. Conklin, the Clark street liquor merchant, in whose house Cronin lived, pronounced emphatically that the body was that of his missing friend. Mr. Conklin looked long and earnestly at the bloated corpse. “It is the body of Dr. Cronin,” said Conklin, his eyes filling with tears. “I have known him for twenty years and cannot be mistaken. I have been in swimming with him and know him better than any man living. There is no chance for a mistake." Capt. Villiers, formerly of the Lake View police, who saw the body before the loose hairs

of the mustache had been wiped away, was certain the body was Cronin’s. Mayor Bolder>weck viewed the body and gave a similar opinion. John Sullivan, James Sullivan of the ZWimwe, Dr. Siebert of Lake View, Patrick McGarry. Frank Scanlan, Joseph Byrne, Maurice Morris, and more than twenty other intimates, also positively identified the body as that of Dr. Cronin.

John Buck, the barber who has shaved Cronin for nearly a year, was positive that the corpse was that of Dr. Cronin. He carefully examined the shape of the head and the texture of the hair, and declared that they compared exactly. Dr. Brandt, of the Cook County Hospiial. wh > examined the hair found in the trunk, d- cln.r.d that it was the same as that on the head < f the murdered man. Dr. Ruthtord was of ths same opinion. A few days later the brother of the murdered tnau came on from Arkansas and fully identified the body. THE WOUNDS THAT KILLED. Dr. Gray, who made the first examination of the body after its arrival at the station, describes the wounds as follows : “There are five wounds. No. lis on the front parietal suture, just here," and he took lip a

skull which stood upon a shelf in his officeaud used it in th? demonstration. “ Tuat could easily have bem fatal "in itself. “No. 2 is ou the vertex to the right of the sagittal suture , ” an d ht touch'd a point on the skull before him squarely on the top, but a little forward of ~ the crown. “The

skull is not strong there, and a heavy blow wpuld prove fatal. “The third wound is one-inch posterior to No. 2 just here," and he again illustrated by laying his finger almost on the crown of his object lesson.

“The fourth is on the left temple,.and is onlyone inch long. The rest are about a i inch and a half in length. The fifth is a crushing wound immediately below the external angle of the left eye. This one fractured the cheek bone, ami must have been delivered with great force." “The absencs of wounds on the hands.” said Walter V. Hayt, Health Ins]>ector, “would indicate that the first blow, whichever one of these five* it was, was delivered unawares; otherwise there would have been a struggle which would have left its mark on the hands or arms, either in striking or in warding off blows. He musthave been surprised and stunned at the first blow.” Dr. J. R. Brandt. President of the Ccok County Hospital staff, who also examined the wounds, said the blows must have been made by some sharp instrument, perhaps an ice-pick. He said if the instrument had not been sharp the skull would have been fractured, whereas it was only indented or marked by the blows. Dr. Brandt examined the hair found in the trunk on Evanston avenue, and stated that it was Dr. Cronin’s hair. THE FUNERAL. The funeral, which took place on the following Sunday, was, perbags, the most remarkable ever seen in Chicago. An immense crowd thronged the Cathedral of the Holy Name, where the services took place, and ten thousand men marched in procession behind the bier. The streets along the route were packed with people who stood with bared heads as the funeral

cortege passed. Many prominent Irishmen from all parts of the country attended. ARRESTS OF SUSPECTS. The arrest of Woodruff, alias Black, the horsethief, and his numerous and varied “confessions,” and later the arrest of Detective Coughlin and Iceman O'Sullivan, showed at last that the police were on the track of the murderers. Then the finding of the cottage, with its blood-stained floors and blood-bespattered walls, its broken and disordered furniture, and all the other marks of the foul crime, gave the final key to the mystery.

CHAPTER VII. THE CORONER’S INQUEST. The sensational proceedings of the Coroner’s inquest, the sweeping allegations of many witnesses against Alexander Sullivan, his arrest and release on 5‘20,000 by order of Judge Tuley, and the work of the special Grand Jury, are all too fresh in the memory of newspaper readers to need repetition here. The testimony given before the Grand Jury is largely a mattej of speculation. But that there was enough to justify the statement that the actual murderers and their more active accomplices were members of an “inner circle" of the Can-na-Gael, mainly of one North Side Chicago branch, there is scarcely room to doubt. It is equally safe to assume that this “inner circle" has ramifications in other parts of the country, from which it derives considerable help. SEVEN MEN INDICTED. Seven men now stand indicted for the murder —Daniel Coughlin, John F. Beggs, P. O’Sulli-

van, Frank Woodruff, Patrick Cooney, John Kunze, and Frank Burke. AU of these but Woodruff and Kunze are of Irish blood, though nearly all were born in this country. Woodruff is a Canadian and Kunze a German. Burke is waiting extradition in Winnipeg; Cooney is still at large. The remainder are in prison in Chicago. The work of the special Grand Jury was left in

an incomplete state and will be taken up by its successor, or the same jurors may be summoned again. The most sensational developments are probably yet to come.

DR. P. H. CRONIN.

THE CARLSON COTTAGE—SCENE OF THE MURDER.

P. O’SULLIVAN.

WHERE THE BODY WAS FOUND.

BROKEN ROCKER IN WHICH CRONIN LAST SAT.

JOHN F. BEGGS, SENIOR GUARDIAN OF CAMP 20.

PATRICK COONEY,

FRANK WOODRUFF.

THE WOUNDS IN THE SKULL.

MARTIN BURKE.

JOHN KUNZE.