Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 124, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1909 — Further Investigation of Auto Mystery Still Being Made. [ARTICLE]

Further Investigation of Auto Mystery Still Being Made.

Sheriff Shirer returned from DeMotte Monday evening, where he had been to investigate the automobile mystery at the Justedt farm. He refused to talk far publication, but stated that he had learned the number of the automobile, and that the evidence he uncovered Monday tended to incriminate certain persons. He returned to the north end Tuesday to make further investigations, and a telephone message to the Republican from Shelby that day stated that the river near there is being dragged for new evidence. The Republican editor went to DeMotte Monday afternoon to investigate the mystery. The following dispatehfrom~HamTncnci Monday to the daily papers, if correct, clears up the mystery, but the officers are evidently not accepting this story as the solution of the matter. The dispatch is asjfollows: The Kankakee automobile—mystery seemingly is ent-rely cleared. Information cam. to’sfiifiriff Thomas Grant today that't machine belonged to a Chicago imui named Smallcy7“He is “a jeweler ami has a store in’the downtown business district. He says that four weeks ago the machine was taken'from' a garage by two of his friends, who went on a “joy ride” unknown to him. They wrecked the machine and to erase ati evidence of their guilt, decided to destroy it. One of the two came back to the farm of William Justedt hear Water Valley for three nights and instead of repairing the machine as he told the farmer lie would do, he took it apart, buried parts Of it in the ground and others in the grain in the granary. The wheels and cylinder he carried to the nearby Kankakee river. When the news of the discovery of the auto wheels went out the two friends of Smalley became frightened and fearing detection went to him and made a clean breast of the affair and offered to settle with him. He will not divulge their names. He said the auto was worth $2,000.