Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 143, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1916 — The PARRICIDE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The PARRICIDE

Stories of the Greatest Gases in the Career of Thomas Furlong, the Famous Railroad Detective, Told by Himself Copyright by W. G. Chapman

In the spring of the year 1898, being then in St Louis, where I had opened a private detective agency, I received a telegraphic dispatch from a number of influential citizens of Topeka, Kan., asking me to proceed to that city immediately for the purpose of investigating a sensational murder which had been committed there, discovering the murderer and bringing him to justice. I complied with this request at once, and arrived at Topeka on the third morning after the crime had been committed. I found the entire community discussing the affair, which had greatly shockedlhg-jclty. —, The slain man had been one of the most influential citizens of Topeka. He had killed while sleeping beside his wife, the weapon used being a shotgun, and one or two of the pellets had struck his wife’s shoulder, making slight, though painful, wounds. Mr. Collins had been a prominent Insurance and real estate man of the Kansas capital, where he had lived for many years. He was well known throughout the state. His death occurred in his fifty-sixth year, and he left two children, a daughter, and a son named John. He occupied a comfortable house. John Collins, the only son, was a student at the state university in Lawrence, where he was being prepared for the ministry. He had been there for two or three years at the time of his father’s murder, and his period of study had therefore almost expired. He boarded at the school, and occasionally paid a visit to his father’s home in Topeka, usually on Sundays and holidays. He had just passed his twenty-first birthday, and was about five feet nine inches tall, with a fair complexion and light brown hair, well built, pleasing in manner, and altogether a very prepossessing young fellow.

The daughter "was also above the medium height, nice looking, intelligent and well educated. The Collins home, which stood on a fine residential thoroughfare, was disturbed early one morning by the discharge ofa gun in the sleeping-room occupied by Mr. Collins and his wife, which was situated on the ground floor. The son, who was in the house, and the daughter, as well as the hired girl, rushed into the room in agitation, to find that the father had been killed Instantaneously, while his wife, as stated, had been slightly wounded by some of the shot. John Collins dressed himself as quickly as possible and aroused the nearest neighbors. It was then a little after daybreak. Both John and his sister occupied rooms on the second floor of the house. All the windows were screened with wire, and the doors of were all intact and carefully locked. When the police arrived, however, their examination of the premises disclosed the fact that a window screen in the rear of the house and on the second floor had been cut, leaving a hole large enough for the passage of a human body. This window was situated immediately above a one-stpry addition to the main building in the rear.

The conclusion at which the police arrived was that the murderer must have obtained a key to the house, by means of which he gained admission to the premises, and that, after having shot Mr. Collins, he escaped, going up the main stairs from the lower hall to the second floor, then proceeding along the hall on this story to the window at the end, cutting the wire screen and springing out of the window upon the roof of the one-story addition, and thence to the ground, a distance of ten or twelve feet, thus effecting his escape. On my arrival I proceeded to make a thorough examination of the premises. I interviewed the widow and the son and daughter. Mrs. Collins, who was the second wife of the murdered man, was between thirty-six and forty years of age, of the brunette type, rather above the medium height, and inclined to be slender. She was very attractive' and was considered a goodlooking woman, intelligent and refined. In fact, the atmosphere of the entire household was that met with among the best class of prosperous citizens. ---

After having spent four days In my investigations, I came to the conclusion that the murder had been committed by some member of the household and that the murderer had not entered from without. Various reasons combined to bring me to this decision. The chief among them was the fact hat Mr. Collins had been killed with his own shotgun, and that the murderer had shown familiarity with the manner in which this weapon was kept, and with its place of disposition. This shotgun was a high-priced firearm, and always kept carefully by Mr. Collins in a fine leather case, which was usually placed on the upper shelf of a clothes closet in his bedroom. This closet, which was unusually large, extended from the floor to the ceiling, and formed almost an entire side to the room. The celling of this room was exceptionally high, so that a person of ordinary size could not have reached the shelf on which the gun was kept without the use of a step-ladder, which had certainly not been used by the murderer. It might possibly have been reached, however, by a tall man while standing on a high table in the bedroom. Mr. Collins had not used this gun for several months before his murder. It had always been his custom, after making use of the weapon, to clean it thoroughly, take it apart, and pack it in the leather case. The murderer, therefore, had not only to take down the gun from the shelf, but also to put it together and load it with a shell, which was also to be found among a quantity of ammunition on the high shelf. All of these operations could not have been accomplished by any person entering from the outside of the house, even had he been acquainted with the place where the gun was kept On the other hand, it would have been easy for any of the Inmates of the house to have taken the gun from the shelf on the day preceding the murder, or several days before,

u and to have had It ready for use, without Mr. Collina having discovered that it was missing from the shelf. My inquiries Into the financial condition of the dead man’s estate, conducted with a view to discovering who was likely to profit by his death, disclosed the fact that he had been considered very much better off than was actually the case. He had met with financial reverses, and was in reality possessed of little more than his home at the time of his murder. He was carrying life insurance policies aggregating thirty thousand dollars, of which sum ten thousand went to his wife and ten thousand to each of his children. I Immediately wired to one of my operatives, Joseph S. Manning, to proceed to Lawrence, Kan., where, as I have said, young John Collins had been a divinity student, with instructions to ascertain quietly all that he could as to the habits of the young fellow and his associates. John Collins had left his lodgings at Lawrence on the evening preceding the murder, going to Topeka and directly to his home, where, he claimed, he retired for the night at an early hour. According to his own story, he had been In bed at the time when he was aroused by the shot that killed his father. I had been making my own investigations concerning him before sending Manning to Lawrence, and I

had learned that he had formed the acquaintance of a very estimable and wealthy young lady of that city, with whom he had become infatuated. He had paid a good deal of attention to her for several months previously. She had informed him that her mother intended to purchase or lease *a cottage at long Branch, N. J., in which to spend the summer months. John Collins, who was thoroughly Infatuated with her, heard this news with dismay. He surmised that she would be sure to encounter some of the many fortune-hunters who frequent that resort in summer time, and that she might readily fall a prey to one of them, thus endangering his own chances of winning her. Accordingly he had made up his mind to spend the season at Long Branch also, so that he might guard the affections of his beautiful young friend. The investigations of Manning confirmed the theory I had formed about Collins. In order to advance his suit,

he had been posing as a wealthy man in his own right, and had been attempting to keep up with the pace at which the young lady’s family and other friends lived. He had been in the habit of spending considerable sums in buying her flowers, in carriage hire and entertainments of all sorts, and had become deeply Involved in debt As his father had only allowed him the sum of twenty-five dollars a month for social purposes, and this amount was not a tithe of what he required, he had been driven to desperation and at his wits’ end to secure the necessary funds. There were a couple of colored hack drivers in Lawrence who, Mr. ) Manning learned,' had been often patronized by young Collins. As soon as I received this Information from Manning I sent an urgent telegram to D. F. Harbaugh, a man in my employment, directing him to proceed to Lawrence at once and find out all that the hack drivers knew about John Collins. Mr. Harbaugh had lived in Lawrence for a number of years before he entered my service. He had been a hack driver in that city, and had afterward entered into the livery business in Lawrence. Many of the hack drivers were, therefore, known to him, and some of them had been in his own service. On this account he did not find it at all difficult to discover everything that was known about the young man. The men told Harbaugh that Collins had approached them and entered into a verbal contract with hoth of them to have his father killed in return for a certain sum of money. Part of this amount he had paid at the time the agreement was made, and he had promised to pay the remainder after the murder was committed. They told Harbaugh that they had never had any intention of attempting to murder Mr. Collins, but had promised John that they would do so in or-

der to work him for what money they could get out of him. “You see, boss,’’ they explained, “it looked like easy money for us, and we knew he wouldn’t dare expose us when we failed to do what he told us. There he was, flinging his money around, and we didn’t see why some of it shouldn’t come to us as well as to anyone else.” They added that a certain date had been named, on or before which the murder was to be committed. When that day had passed and Mr. Collins was still very much alive, John became angry and expostulated with the men.

“You haven’t given us enough money, boss," the hack drivers told him. “Murder’s a pretty big business, you see, and with all them police and detectives about It’s a risky one. How much more will you pay if we bring off the job?” John Collins haggled ih a businesslike manner for some time and finally promised to give them a hundred dollars more, which he did. They also succeeded in extracting from him a gold watch which his father had presented to him on his twenty-first birthday. This money John Collins secured by borrowing from his friends, and also by drafts drawn on his father, as I afterward discovered.

The second date made for the murder arrived and passed, and the father was still alive. John Collins grew furious and upbraided the hack drivers bitterly for not having carried out their agreement. “Well, boss, it’s this way,” they told him. “We’ve been thinking over this here proposition and we’ve come to the conclusion that if your father’s got to be killed you had better kill him yourself. We won’t kill him, and that’s all there is to it.” “But I’ve paid- you to do It, twice over,” stormed the young man. “Sorry, boss, but we can’t do it," the hack drivers answered. “And, what’s more, we never meant to kill the old man. We were jufet working you.” John Collins, growing desperate, left Lawrence and went to Topeka, to his father’s house, where he undoubtedly killed him with his own gun while he was asleep, having previously secured it from the shelf. He entered the room softly and shot him dead, escaping before his mother could awaken. With this evidence in hand I reported to the committee of citizens who

had employed me, and they then decided to hand my report over to the prosecuting attorney at Lawrence. At the request of the prosecuting attorney, the county commissioners at Topeka employed me to complete the evidence, so that Collins might be arrested and prosecuted for the murder of his father. John Collins was promptly arrested and placed in jail without bond, and in due time the'Case came up for trial. As mentioned, it had Caused a great deal of interest, in the community, by reason of the standing of the dead man and the mystery surrounding the affair. But when it became known that the son was charged with the murder the interest was duplicated. The entire country was aroused over the trial. AH the leading western newspapers had special reporters present, and these telegraphed back lengthy reporta of the proceedings. The courtroom was crowded, and many noted lawyers came to watch the great legal battle, which at times waxed very warm, as all the counsel on both sides were able men and stood at the top of their profession. Prosecuting Attorney Jetmore was at his best, making one of the greatest fights that I eVer saw to get his evidence before the jury. Among the spectators during almost the entire trial was the late Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme court at Washington, who was visiting his daughter, the wife of the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Jetmore. At the close of the case Mr. Justice Brewer came to me and complimented me very highly for my work in solving the mystery. What clinched the case against the accused man was. the evidence of the two colored hack drivers to whom I have referred. They came to Topeka from Lawrence and took the witness stand on behalf ofthe prosecution. When they showed the, watch that he had given them, and which he In turn

had received from his father when he came of age, it was evident that a conviction was a foregone conclusion. It was this production of the watch, together with the full testimony of the drivers, in which they detailed the contract which they had made with the prisoner, that convicted him; and their evidence was corroborated by circumstances that were not, and could not be, contradicted. The trial lasted more than a week. Collins’ attorneys, two of the most prominent men at the Kansas bar, labored earnestly and to the best of their ability to clear him. He was, however, found guilty of murder, and sent to the state prison to await the governor's action in fixing the date of his execution. However, inasmuch as it has always been the custom in Kansas for the governor lever to fix the date for the execution of a person found guilty of murder, the prisoners are usually kept in the prison for an indefinite period, and thus a sentence of death in Kansas usually amounts to a life term in the state penitentiary.

An effort has been made by friends of the young man and by his family to obtain a pardon for him, but up to the present time I understand that it has been unavailing. During the course of the trial a great many people got the idea that I had been employed by the insurance companies, on" account of the thirty thousand dollars’ worth of insurance that Mr. Collins had carried. It was believed that the companies had hired me to fix the crime upon the son in order to avoid having to make the payment. I need hardly say that there was no truth in this suggestion. The people who employed me in this case were citizens of Topeka and lodge friends of the murdered man, and were in no way connected with the insurance companies interested in the case, but were merely acting as good and law-abiding citizens. Just as soon as I succeeded in satisfying them, by showing them my evidence, that John Collins was the murderer of his father, they turned the evidence over to the proper authorities, and his arrest followed.

THE FATHER HAD BEEN KILLED INSTANTANEOUSLY.

JOHN BECAME ANGRY AND EXPOSTULATED WITH THE MEN.

WHAT CLINCHED THE CASE AGAINST THE ACCUSED WAS THE EVIDENCE OF THE TWO COLORED HACK DRIVERS.