Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1909 — STILL INVESTIGATING MYSTERY. [ARTICLE]

STILL INVESTIGATING MYSTERY.

Story That Demotte Woman Was Mrs. Gunness a Hoax, Although Resembles Laporte WomanThe auto mystery at Water Valley and Demotte is still furnishing filling for the sensational newspapers, but there are really no new developements in the case of importance. The parts of the wrecked auto unearthed at the Justedt farm south of Demotte last Sunday had been taken to Demotte and stored in Cheever’s blacksmith shop. Sheriff Shirer had hired Jesse Sommers to haul the parts down to Rensselaer, and they were expected here Tuesday afternoon, but Dan Fairchild, who is Justice of the Peace up there, told Cheever not to let them be taken away, so they remain there at present.

As stated in Wednesday’s Demo-; crat, some of the minor parts, including the license tag, which were found Monday, were brought to Rensselaer and left at the garage. This license tag is “2763 Ill.” It ought not to be difficult to trace the machine from this and learn whether it is the Smalley machine or noti which is alleged to have been stolen in Chicago and run down tp the Justedt home and destroyed. Tuesday night Sheriff Shirer got a telephone call from Logansport to go up to Demotte Wednesday morning and arrest Mrs. Jostedt and hold her until officers from Laporte could come on and see If she was the notorious Mrs. Guhness of that county, who is thought by many to have made her escape from there about a year ago, instead of having been burned up in her house with her two children. A report had reached Laporte that this woman was of about the same age and general appearance as the arch-murderess Mrs. Gunness. Accordingly the sheriff went up tqfl Demotte Wednesday morning -and Mrs. Jostedt was there to take the’ train for Shelby, city marshal and a policeman from Laporte came

in on the 3-1 train which Mrs. Jostedt took to Shelby, on her way to Chicago, where she said she was going to have the parties who brought the auto to her house come down and clear up the stories regarding the mystery. The Laporte officers conversed witt her on the train between Demotte »nd Shelby and satisfied themselves that she was not Mrs. Gunness, although bearing some resemblance to her. Mrs. Jostedt went on to Chicago from Shelby and Sheriff Shirer came back home. Yesterday a Chicago paper had the following to say of the mystery: Sheriff Thomas Grant of Crown Point, Ind., and Detective Conick of Chicago have obtained information relative to the mysterious wrecking of an automobile near Demotte, Ind., the night of Oct. 23, which may result in arrests within a few days. The car is said to have belonged to S R. Smalley, manager of a Dearborn street diamond firm, who is quoted as having said, after reporting the disappearance of the machine to an insurance company, that he had received from a stranger a check for $3,000 in payment for it. The new information which Sheriff Grant and the Chicago detective have obtained was contained in statements declared to have been made by Theodore Jostedt, 10617 Stevenson street, West Pullman. He is a brother of Mrs. Lottie Hopkins, who was one of the occupants of the car when it went from Thirty-first street to Indiana on Its last trip and who previously had made statements to the police in which she asserted that all she knew of the affair had been told.

Jostedt, according to the police, asserted that the automobile contained when it left Chicago in October, besides himself, Fred Gage, chauffeur for A. W. Bensinger, an architect, 4508 Calumet avenue; Lottie Hopkins, an intimate acquaintance of Bensinger, and John Woods, head salesman for N. S. McGillivray & Co., 167 Dearborn street. The machine was driven, Jostedt said, to the farm of Mrs. Christina Jostedt, his mother, near Demotte. The party, he is said to have informed the poliefe, returned to Chicago by train. One week later, "Jostedt said, according to the police, McGillvray, Woods and Harry Griffin of the Auto Salvage Parts Company, 513 Michigan avenue, the latter of whom is said to have once rebuilt the machine for Smalley, went again to the Jostedt farni by auto, and at that time accomplished the destruction of the machine. A third trip was made, it was said, at which time the different parts of the machine 'were disposed of, the wheels being thrown into the Kankakee River.