Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1908 — WANTED IN A NOTED CASE. [ARTICLE]

WANTED IN A NOTED CASE.

Everett Merrill, Accused of Kidnapping, Caught After Long Pursuit. A dispatch from Wheatfield April 20, says: Everett Merrill, wanted by the Chicago authorities for complicity in the Lillian Wulff kidnapping case, because of which William Birmingham and his wife are now in prison serving long sentences, came to Wheatfield last evening, and his presence was discovered by Jacob Melxer, special officer, who was instructed by the Chicago police to hold him till requisition papers could be obtained. Merlll admits that he traveled with Jones and wife, as he calls them, and that he was with them at the time the little girl was kidnapped, and that Mrs. Jones told him she had stolen the child. Merrill is accused of attempting to collect ransonfc from the parents of the ctiild. A reward was offered for his arrest, which put detectives and the police on the alert. Merrill says he is twenty-six years old, and that his mother lives at Lebanon. Recently he has been engaged in cutting timber at Mt. Ayr. On Saturday he visited the Mt. Ayr saloon, where he drank to excess, after which he came here, where he had been in trouble before for disorderly conduct. Merrill disclaims having any connection with

the kidnapping, save that Mrs. Jones told him the child had been stolen, but he traveled with Jones and his wife by wagon from Chicago to lowa, and then south into Indiana, where, . he says, he left them. He also disclaims having anything to do with the attempt to collect ranson. While he gives the names of the principals as Jones, they were known to the authorities at Chicago as William and Irene Birmingham, and under that name they were convicted and sentenced.