Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 180, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 December 1933 — Page 3

DEC. 7, 1933

ARMY SERGEANT CHARGED WITH WIFE'S MURDER Confession of Slaying Year Ago Is Claimed by City Police. Charged with the murder of hi., wife Helen on Jan. 5. 1933, Sergeant Otis H. Edge. Company E. Eleventh infantry was held in *he Marion county jail today after being bound over to the grand jury by Judge Dewey Meyers in municipal court late yesterday. It was the solitude of the Brown county woods which drove the soldier to cord . s his crime, which officially had been called a suicide by county officials. On detached duty in Nashville with tre reforestation corps. Serceant Edge is alleged to hav- told police lie brooded continually over the slaying of his wife nearly a year ago in their cottage on Thirty-eighth street near Pendleton pike. Blames “Dope Habit’’ “I discovered that my wife used dope. Edge raid in his purported confession. “When she was under the influence of narcotics, she berat the two children, Claude, 12, and Noel, 10.” On the day he killed her. Edge is alleged to have told police. Ills wife insisted on being driven to a cemetery to put flowers on the grave of her former husband. * “It was raining and the day was sloppy’ said the soldier in his alleged confession,” so I told her it was too muddy to drive to the cemetery. She went into a bedroom and began raving. I saw her reach into a drawer aid take out a bottle that contain -d dope, i guess I lost control of mys"lf.

Suicide Pian Fails “Seizin* a revolver. I shot her from a distance of five or six feet. I realized that I would lx- arrested for murder. So I took a napkin that sh" had been wiping her face with and tied it around her forehead to stop the flow cf blood. Then I took a metal pencil and punched a hole in the napkin to make it appear as though it hau been made by a bullet.” Conscience-stricken, Edge told police that he borrowed a pistol from the sheriff of Brown county and and( cidrd to return to the scene of the tragvdy and kill himself. On the way he weakened and called police. IDENTIFY VICTIM IN RIVIERA FOISON CASE Probe Death of Woman Who Posed as Son's Sister. By I nil■ <1 I'rc** MONTE CARLO. Dec. 7.—Police slowly pieced together today the story of an American woman who moved from one gay Riviera resort posing as the sister of her 17-year-old son and met death, apparently] by poison, at a hotel here. The woman apparently was Mary Agnes Doreen Elkington, a British subject by marriage to Frederick P. Elkington, and a daughter of J. Wilson Gibbs of New York City. While police vainly tried to get a connected statement from the son, found cranking the phonograph to play a jazz record while his mother was dead on a bed, Elkington was found at Nice. He said that his wife received money regularly from New York through Lloyd's bank at Nice. Mrs. Elkington and the boy, Fred, arrived here last week. They registered as brother and sister under the names of Marie and Fred Wilson. Aged Woman Breaks Arm Falling at her home late yesterday. Mrs. Mattie Oursler. 70. of .344 South West street, sustained a fracture of the arm. She was taken to city hospital by police.

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Cellophane Used in Jail Inmate’s Effort to Obtain Wendel Fortune

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The two marriage certificates involved in the Morris claim to the Wendel estate photographed together, the estate's certificate blank printed on transparent cellophane being superimposed on the Morris certificate. Note that the upper lines coincide, while the lines below, “Bonds of Matrimony,” are off by about a quarter of an inch. Two courts held that these certificate blanks were identical.

Marriage Certificate Put on Material in Aid of Comparison. BY EARL SPARLING Times Special Writer. NEW YORK, Dec. 7.—New evidence in what he calls the greatest legal mystery of modern times—the claim of Thomas Patrick Morris, Scottish house painter, to the Wendel millions—_s revealed by Bernard H. Sandler, Morris’ attorney. Mr. Sandler believes it will get Morris out of the New York city penitentiary on Welfare Island, where he is serving six months to three years for alleged conspiracy against the estate. Beyond that, it may eventually give the uneducated, ill and povertystricken .house painter another chance at the $30,000,000 Wendel fortune, which he contends is rightfully his as the secret son of John G. Wendel. The new evidence bears on the authenticity of the purported marriage paper certifying that Mr. Wendel married Mary Ellen Devine, an Irish serving girl (whom Morris claims as his mother) at Castle Garden June 11, 1876. How the evidence was obtained is a scientific detective true story, with cellophane appearing in anew role. Cellophane, customarily used to cover things, has been used in the Morris case to uncover things—or so Mr. Sandler and his expert investigators assert. Those who followed the Morris case will remember that Morris’ claim was thrown out of court, and Morris eventually into jail, chiefly because lawyers for the estate were able to make the famous marriage certificate seem a forgery. They made it seem a forgery by producing in court an apparently identical certificate which was not printed until 1900 or afterward. Among those who read a series of newspaper articles last June analyzing the testimony was Aubrey J. Drummond, scientific photographer and court expert. Mr. Drummond did expert scientific work in the Harry Hoffman and Hall-Mills cases, among others. A stout, slow-moving chap with methods of his own, Mr. Drummond

could not make heads or tails of the Morris enigma. He started looking into things himself. Before Mr. Drummond was through he had a dozen other experts working with him, all gratis. Handwriting experts studied the documents in evidence. Chemists got to work on paper and ink specimens. Metallurgists made their investigations. Mr. Drummond made photographs. Some of the photographs he made —of the marriage certificate and the purported will, were four feet tall. Then he got to thinking of cellophane. Among the exhibits placed in evidence by the estate during the surrogate’s hearing of Morris’ claim was a copper plate from which a marriage certificate blank was printed. The estate lawyers proved that the plate was made in 1900. The certificate blank from this plate seemed identical with the Morris certificate, which was dated 1876. Mr. Drummqnd decided to make an imprint of the estate's certificate on cellophane. He carried a portable printing press to the record room of General Sessions and did it. And let him tell the rest of it: “I put the cellophane print of the 1900 certificate over the Morris certificate. It was as plain as your nose that they were not from the same plate. If you made one half coincide the other half was all off. You couldn’t get the upper lines and the lower lines together at the same time to save your life. If you got the rings of each print to coincide everything else was off.” Therewith, Mr. Drummond got busy along other lines. He called in the Lucius Pitkin Company, chemical engineers, to make a me-

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

tallurgical study of the copper plate. The actual analysis was by Professor Sam Tour of Columbia university. Professor Tour's findings were equally interesting, but to understand them it is necessary to know a bit more about the copper plate. The plate belongs to A. J. Holman & Cos., Bible printers of Philadelphia. The company has used it since 1900. In the lower right-hand corner is a metal insert containing the date line, “19 .” The record is not explicit as to when this metal insert was made, but William K. Holman’s testimony indicated it was made around 1910. Concerning this metal insert, Professor Tour reported as follows: “It would appear that this portion of the plate was made since 1920.” He explained that the insert contained* chromium and asserted: “Chromium plating did not become a commercial process until after 1920. Its application to printing plate only was being experimented with at the United States bureau of standards and at the United States bureau of printing and engraving about 1920. Chromium contamination could only be expected then in recent years.” Mr. Sandler announced he would demand anew surrogate’s trial on the basis of this new evidence. He has petitioned the appellate division for permission to perfect an appeal from the criminal conviction without the costly printing of minutes, an expense impossible to the penniless house painter. Thirty makes of motor vehicles will bt displayed at the forthcoming national automobile shows in New York and Chicago.

LEGGE FORTUNE WILL BE USED IN FARMRELIEF Harvester Head Contributes $900,000 to Improve Rural Life. By United Press CHICAGO, Dec. 7.—The fortune of Alexander Legge, who rose from an unskilled farm boy to the presidency of the International Harvester Company, was left largely to a foundation for improvement of farm life. For months prior to his death last Sunday, Legge had been working to perfect a philanthropic organization to be known as the Farm Foundation, Frank O. Lowden, former Governor of Illinois and chairman of the foundation, revealed. Legge already had conributed $400,000 to the foundation prior to his death. The principal bequest of his will is the sum of $500,000 to the foundation, bringing his total contribution to $900,000. Lowden said Legge had interested a group of capitalists, bankers and others to share with him in the work. On the board of trustees were Bernard M. Baruch, New York; Mrs. Mary Harriman Rumsey, New York; Charles C. Teague, Santa Paula, Cal.; Owen D. Young, New York, and Malvin A. Traylor, Chicago.

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