Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1901 — Boston Murder Mystery. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Boston Murder Mystery.

Though the woman whose headless body was some time ago found in the Chelmsford woods of Massachusetts has been positively identified, by a set of false teeth, as Mrs. Margaret Reilly Blondin, only one little part of the great murder mystery is solved. Even the time of the murder is uncertain; the place where it was done is unknown. An unbroken chain of facts point to Joseph Wilfred Blondin, the victim’s husband, as the murderer, but he is at large. All the tell-tale exhibits in this remarkable case have now been got together by the state and city police in Boston in the hopes of throwing some new light on the time, place and circumstances of the murder, which may lead to the solution of the mystery and the capture of the criminal. Obe Motive Found, The motive for the Blondin crime is still a matter of speculation. It may have been a desire on the part of the miserly husband to get hold of the S4OO which his wife had saved before her marriage and then be rid of her. He had another wife at St. Polycarpe, Canada, a much handsomer woman than Margaret Reilly. He wanted to go back to Canada to get a position on a St. Lawrence river steamboat, which his father had lately found for him. He would hardly have dared to take back a second wife, as he would quickly have been prosecuted for bigamy.

By a strange mischance the discovery that the body found in the Chelmsford woods was that of Mrs. Blondin was not communicated to the Boston police until after it had been printed in the morning papers. So Blondin read of how his secret was out hours before the same papers-came to the eyes of the police. He at once left Boston and took a train to New York. This is evident from the fact that next day the baggage master at Fall River received a letter from “James Marrou,” New York, which read: Dear Sir: Would you please send my bicycle and my trunk to New York station; you find the check in this letter and send me check to this address. New York. JAMES MARROU. Chief Watts, head of the Boston Detective bureau, and Chief Wade of the State police had already found the trunk at Fall River to be Blondjn’s without a doubt. It was sent on to New York in the hopes of catching the owner when he should call to claim it. By June 13, when the trunk and letter containing checks should have arrived in New York, such a sensation had been aroused about the murder that Blondin, alias Marrou, was too wily to apply for either letter or trunk. K.ni'de.r Are bloodstained. This trunk is now in Boston at police station No. 3. When opened it was found to contain four butcher knives, stained with what is apparently human blood, though an effort had been made to wash them clean. The trunk also contains Blondin’s marriage certificate to Margaret Reilly. The most careful examination of the room where the Blondins lived failed to show any trace of blood on the floor walls or on any article in the room’ There was no evidence of any struggle,, such as broken furniture. There is a theory that Blondin may have choked his wife to death and let her body lie till the blood had almost ceased to flow, then cut off the head, put the body in the trunk and so disposed of it In the Chelmsford woods. The grips in which Mrs. Blondin’s head and

shoes are thought to have been carried have already been found and are held as a part of the state’s evidence. Description of Dondin. Blondin has such a singular looking face that he should be easy to recognize anywhere. He has a strong, protruding jaw, a slight cast in the right eye; his face is slightly pockmarked and he is very bow-legged. This latter is perhaps his most marked characteristic. Were it not for these peculiarities of face and limbs he would be hard to pick out, for he is of slightly less than medium size—five feet six inches—weighs 150 pounds and usually wears only the conventional moustache. He is 33 years of age. He has a tattoo mark of a schooner on his left forearm. He speaks with a slight French accent. The Massachusetts police announce that they are upon the trail of Blondin. After the police lost the clue to Blondin in New York city they took it up again in Canada, from where

Blondin originally came. The police now announce that their man has been tracked to the wild regions in the extreme northern part of the Province of Quebec. No effort will be spared to catch him. The objective point of the fugutive is said to be the tow,n of Perce, near Cape Gaspe. From that point he easily can make his way to the French settlement of Miquelon, where he absolutely will be safe among his old associates, the outlaws and smugglers of St. Pierre.

supply of cultivable government lands was exhausted the tide of emigration might set their way. But while this country has no longer free lands to offer, it has work to offer, usually at good wages. There' are so many more opportunities to earn money here than in the Dominion that there were living in this country in 1890 nearly 1,000,000 men and Women who were born in Canada. The census returns of nativities for 1900 have not been made public yet. When they are it will become apparent, no doubt, that the emigration from the Dominion to the United States has not been checked.

BLONDIN’S METHOD OF DISPOSING OF WIFE’S BODY.