Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1908 — Representing Alleged Kidnapper. [ARTICLE]

Representing Alleged Kidnapper.

Attorney Abraham Halleck was in Chicago last Thursday to confer with Attorneys Purdy.& Burr, about ; their joint client, Everet Merrill, who is in Jail there charged with complicity in the kidnaping of the little Wulfe girl from her home in Chicago. It will be remembered that Merrill was recently arrested near ML Ayr by officers from Wheatfield, and that he was accused of having been with the Jones alias Birmingham man and girl. When he was taken to Chicago the little girl at once identified him and he confessed that he was with them but for only two days after they stole the little girl. According to his story he met Birmingham and wife over in western Illinois and they told him they were making their way back east, from Kansas where they had misfortune in farming. They said they had a little daughter in Chicago whom they were going to get and then go on to Ohio. When they reached Chicago they got the little Wulfe girl and Merrill says he thought it was their daughter. He came with, them to Indiana, where they camped for a night near Gary, and the next day they came down near the Kankakee river and spent the night and the following day Birmingham and wife and little girl started back to Illinois. Merrill left them and went to Gifford in this county, and he was around here all winter. Birmingham and wife were apprehended and sent to the penitentiary for from 20 to 25 years. Attorney Halleck says that Merrill is an ignorant man and can neither read nor write. He believes he is innocent and the fact that he did not remain with the kidnapers would indicate that he was not implicated or at least that he had no motive. The Cook county jail has something like 700 prisoners and it can not be told how soon Merrill will be tried.