UC-NRLF 
 
 B 3 Tib 5DS 
 

 
 WHY SOME MEN KILL 
 
 OR 
 
 Murder Mysteries Revealed 
 
 George A. Thacher 
 
(y%-i/o4? 
 
 WHY SOME MEN KILL 
 
 OR 
 
 Murder Mysteries Revealed 
 
 >»^. 
 
 By 
 
 George A. Thacher, LL.B. 
 
 President Ore}ron Prisoner's Aid Society. Chairman Committee on Juvenile 
 
 Phases of Viee, Portland Vice Commission 1012. Chairman Portland 
 
 Prison Commission 1913. Author "Feeblemindedne.«s and 
 
 Crime in Oregon," and other essays. 
 
 Copyrighted 191P, by GEORGE A. THACHER 
 

 SOCtM. 
 
 I 
 
CONTKXTS 
 
 HV65ltr 
 
 Introduction by Dr. Henry H. (loddard 1 
 
 Chapter 1., The Delinquent Moron 5 
 
 Chapter II., Psychology of Confessions of Crime ir> 
 
 Chapter III.. Tlie Murder of William Booth and the Convic- 
 tion of William Branson and Mrs. Booth 22 
 
 Chapter IV., WilHam Biggin Shows Warden Murphy 
 
 Where He Concealed the Bevolver ',\2 
 
 Chai)ter V., Appeal to the Public for the Belease of Wil- 
 liam Branson and Mrs. Booth 40 
 
 Chapter VI., The Murder of Mrs. Daisy Wehrman and Her 
 
 Child \:y 
 
 Chapter VII., The Crime Indicates the Criminal 'A) 
 
 Chapter VIII., The Hair Found in Mrs. Wehrman's Dead 
 
 Hands ,"(> 
 
 Chapter IX., John Sierks' Letters About the Murder (iO 
 
 Chapter X., Confirmation of John Sierks' Confession of the 
 
 Murder (51 
 
 Chapter XI,, Circumstantial Evidence (58 
 
 Supplement to Chapter XL, Containing Judge Pipes' Brief . 80 
 
 Chapter XII., Characteristics of Sadism 87 
 
 Chapter XIIL, Personal Character of Mr. Pender 01 
 
 Chapter XIV., The Sadistic Murder of the Hill Family 04 
 
 Chapter XV., William Biggins' Confession 101 
 
 Chapter XVL, The Murder of Mary Spina 112 
 
 Chapter XVIL, Conclusion 115 
 
 Press of Pacific Coast Rescue and Protective Society 
 
 599 
 
John Ci. H. SitRKS. :i nicdiuni grade 
 moron, who confessed to killing Mrs. 
 Wehrman and her child in Columbia 
 County, Oregon, in September, 1911, antl 
 then repudiated his eDnl'essiou. Chap- 
 ters f.-i:i. 
 
 John Arthir P);m)i;r, who was wrong- 
 fully convicted of the murder of Mrs. 
 Wehrman and her child. Mr. Pender has 
 been in different jails and the peniten- 
 tiary since September 15, 1911. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Some years ago I spent a Sunday afternoon at the Oregon 
 State Penitentiary in Salem with one of the officers of the insti- 
 tution and a "trusty." The latter was a veiy intelligent man, 
 who had received a college education. The conversation turned 
 to the question of mental defect among the inmates of the insti- 
 tution, who at that time numbered about 340. Neither of my 
 companions was an alienist nor a psychologist but they both 
 knew the men in the institution, and referring to the prison 
 records they named about 70 men who were (in their opinion) 
 defective. The deputy warden, to whom I mentioned the sub- 
 ject of our conversation, said, "Yes, and I could add some to 
 your list." 
 
 I did not feel confident that the list was entirely accurate, 
 but I realized that eveiy day association with the prisoners prob- 
 ably made the designation of defective by these men worthy of 
 thoughtful consideration at least. In jotting down the names of 
 these prisoners I asked what offenses they had committed. In 
 this list approximating 70 defective prisoners 36 were serving 
 sentences for rape and of the 36 there were 13 who had raped 
 their own daughters. One prisoner was serving his third term 
 for this same offense. Seventeen of these prisoners were guilty 
 of the offense which has made ancient Sodom a byword through 
 the centuries. Six of these men had committed murder and all 
 of the six were sex perverts. 
 
 Naturally these defective beings often have a defective moral 
 sense. My observation has often confirmed that fact. Kraft- 
 Ebing remarks that "this psychic degeneration, however, has a 
 more profound pathological foundation, because often it can be 
 referred to distinct cerebro-pathologic conditions, and often 
 enough is associated with anatomic signs of degeneration. 
 
 "The sexual instinct in particular is very frequently 
 abnormal." 
 
 It is my purpose in presenting the facts contained in this short 
 volume to bring the matter before the people of the nation, or, 
 at least, before those interested in criminal problems and in 
 social service work. 
 
 I also wish to point out the vagaries of the average trial jury 
 in the matter of so-called circumstantial evidence in cases where 
 some terrible crime has been committed and where the evidence 
 
iv. Preface 
 
 criminal acts, in spite of their apparently harmless natures, that 
 I submitted the material to Dr. Heniy H. Goddard, who is recog- 
 nized as the foremost authority on feeble-mindedness in the 
 United States. Dr. Goddard was for years director of research 
 at the institution for the feeble-minded at Vineland, New Jersey. 
 At the present time he is director of the Bureau of Juvenile 
 Research under the Ohio Board of Administration at Columbus, 
 Ohio. Dr. Goddard has published several books on the subject: 
 "Feeble-Mindedness, Its Causes and Consequences"; "The Kal- 
 likak Family," an account of feeble-minded and normal heredity 
 for six generations, beginning with a young man in the revolu- 
 tionary army who had a child by a feeble-minded girl and who 
 later married a normal woman and left many distinguished 
 descendants. Their histories are compared with his descendants 
 by the feeble-minded girl. He also published "The Criminal 
 Imbecile" describing three feeble-minded murderers, one of 
 whom, by the way, is serving a life sentence in the Oregon Peni- 
 tentiary at Salem. 
 
 Dr. Goddard writes: 
 "My Dear Mr. Thacher : 
 
 "I have read your manuscript very carefully and have been 
 intensely interested in it. I have prepared the enclosed intro- 
 duction which, if it is of any service to you, you are entirely 
 welcome to use." 
 
 The introduction follows. 
 
 Portland, Oregon, March 15, 1919, 
 
 George A. Thacher 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The subject matter contained in this book constitutes an 
 important human document. Society has had three stages in 
 its attitude toward crime: The earUest stage was that of re- 
 venge, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth — a very primi- 
 tive view seemingly based upon the conception that the crime 
 and injury were atoned for if the perpetrator was made to 
 suffer in an equal degree. While there are still some people 
 who maintain this primitive way of thinking of crime, society 
 has long since passed into the second stage which was the idea 
 of punishment in order to deter others from committing similar 
 crimes. This view is still held by many although it is recognized 
 by the most thoughtful that both in theory and in fact this is 
 a wrong attitude. It has been proved beyond question that very 
 few if any of our crimes are of such character that the fear of 
 punishment, however great, would deter others froin committing 
 them. The third stage which has grown out of a more humani- 
 tarian attitude toward our fellowmen is expressed in the dec- 
 laration that all punishment should be designed to "reform the 
 criminal." And we have been busy, in the most enlightened 
 centers of civiliation, evolving methods for such reform. Even 
 the names of penal institutions have in many instances been 
 changed from prison to reformatory. 
 
 We are now beginning to glimpse a fourth stage which is 
 that of a prevention. In other words, we are awakening to the 
 fact the better plan is not to wait until a person has committed 
 crime and then reform him, but to anticipate the crime and 
 prevent its being committed. The social value of such a pro- 
 cedure can not be questioned. The possibility of success, how- 
 ever, has been questioned and is still denied by many persons. 
 It is still declared to be too ideal for practical purposes. Never- 
 theless it is a proposition that all must admit that if we do not 
 strive for the ideal we will make no progress. The wise pro- 
 cedure is obviously to keep the ideal before us and proceed as 
 fast as we may to ascertain what are the necessary conditions 
 for obtaining the ideal. 
 
 Let us then face the question frankly — Can crime be pre- 
 vented? Logically the answer is clear. It can if we can deter- 
 mine the causes and then remove them. We therefore come 
 at once to the fundamental question — ^What are the causes of 
 Crime? Some will answer vaguely "human frailty," and con- 
 
2 Introduction 
 
 elude at once that human frailty is a thing that we shall always 
 have, and, therefore, we shall always have crime. But the 
 conclusion does not follow. It may just as well be argued that 
 we shall always have physical weakness and all those other con- 
 ditions which result in sickness and disease. Nevertheless, pre- 
 ventive medicine has already accomplished wonders for the 
 comfort and welfare of the human family. The task is no less 
 hopeful on the moral side. We must discover those people who 
 are more than usual subject to these frailties that lead to crime, 
 and if we can not remove the frailties we can at least care for 
 the people that are subject to them so that they will not be likely 
 to fall into crime as the result of their weaknesses. It is now 
 proved beyond question that the one great weakness that leads 
 all the rest put together is weakness of mind. 
 
 Mr. Thacher has collected in this book facts in regard to a 
 number of crimes that were clearly due to weakness of mind. 
 He has thus given us a vast amount of data that are of convinc- 
 ing significance to all those persons who are seeking for the 
 facts in this great problem. The recognition of weakness of 
 mind as a potent cause of crime may be considered an unex- 
 pectedly pleasant surprise. Unexpected certainly, pleasant be- 
 cause we see at once how easy it may become to prevent it. It 
 is now possible to detect weakness of mind, and it is perfectly 
 clear to those who are familiar with the necessary methods, that 
 the mental weakness of every one of the persons whom Mr. 
 Thacher describes as the real criminals in these cases could have 
 been determined when they were still young and they could 
 have been cared for in such a way that their crimes never would 
 have happened. 
 
 The methods of measuring intelligence in children and in 
 adults have now become so perfected that there is no longer any 
 question about them or about the accuracy of the results. The 
 United States Government after most careful and rigid exam- 
 ination and testing has set its stamp of approval upon the meth- 
 ods and given full authority for their use in examining the rela- 
 tive mentality of men in the United States Army. 
 
 We are justly proud of the achievement of our Expeditionary 
 Force in France, and no small factor in the efficiency of that 
 force is to be found in the fact that twelve per cent of the drafted 
 men were kept at home on account of their low intelligence, with 
 the result that those who were sent over seas were men capable 
 
Introduction S 
 
 of carrying forward the purpose of the army with a high degree 
 of efficiency. Not only was the rank and file selected on account 
 of superior intelligence but the officers also were selected on 
 the basis of intelligence as determined by these tests. With this 
 demonstration before us we can not, as intelligent citizens, long 
 delay putting into practice the same or similar tests for deter- 
 mining the mentality of all school children and youth, and then 
 providing the necessarj' care in some form or other which shall 
 prevent those of low mentality from ever having the opportunity 
 to commit crime. This clear setting forth of the facts showing 
 that these atrocious, but all too common, crimes were committed 
 by people of low intelligence is of the highest value, and should 
 lead promptly to putting into operation the necessary machinery 
 for testing out the population and determining those people who 
 are of too low mentality to be trusted to manage their own 
 affairs. 
 
 It is unnecessary to discuss here the methods that may be 
 used to care for these people. Suffice to say that their care 
 does not mean imprisonment but merely providing an environ- 
 ment and an oversight which will at the same time render them 
 harmless and make them happy and contented in their sphere. 
 
 Incidentally the facts set out by Mr. Thacher in these cases 
 involve another question, namely, that innocent persons are suf- 
 fering punishment for crimes that they did not commit. Some 
 way for righting the wrong should of course be found as soon 
 as possible. The fact that some officials entrusted with the 
 administration of justice may have made mistakes should not 
 be allowed to interfere with the righting of the wrong or of 
 introducing better and surer methods. Nor should these offi- 
 cials feel sensitive that their errors have shown up. Undoubtedly 
 similar errors have occurred the world over, but they occurred 
 through lack of knowledge which was not possessed by any 
 one. In other words we did the best we could in view of the 
 facts at hand. Until recently we have known almost nothing 
 about mental defect or its relation to crime. Now that that 
 relation is discovered it is the part of wise intelligence and broad- 
 mindedness to utilize that knowledge to the fullest extent. A 
 way should be found of righting such wrongs as it is still pos- 
 sible to correct and of inaugurating methods looking toward the 
 prevention of such errors in the future. 
 
 The writer of this introduction has no means of verifying Mr. 
 
4 Introduction 
 
 Thacher's statements but apparently he has made his case and 
 it is certainly true from the standpoint of psychology; and in 
 view of what is known today of feeble-mindedness his arguments 
 are sound and his conclusions must be accepted. His methods 
 of formulating a working hypothesis for determining the true 
 criminal on the basis of the character of the crime is entirely 
 sound and has been worked out with remarkable insight, and 
 this method should be of enormous value as a contribution to 
 criminal procedure. The facts and explanations of these crimes 
 as given by the author are not only plausible but agree perfectly 
 with the vast amount of data that has been collected by others 
 in other places in connection with similar crimes. We believe 
 that a perusal of the book will convince any unprejudiced reader 
 that there is a well-founded hope for preventing a great deal of 
 crime and that it is well worth working for. 
 
 Henry H. Goddard. 
 
THE HUMPHREY BROTHERS 
 
 These two brothers were high-grade morons and they lived together on a poor little 
 farm which they cultivated. They were unmarried and passed as somewhat incapable and 
 liarmless citizens, though the family physician knew them to be weak-minded. One day they 
 went to the home of a middle-aged single woman, who lived alone near Philomath, Ore- 
 gon, and they alternately made repeated sexual assaults on her and finally murdered 
 her. They then carried her body to a pond near by to conceal it. On being arrested, they 
 both denied the crime, but made damaging admissions. Later they confessed. They 
 wei-e both convicted and hanged. They exliil)ited a stolid demeanor on the gallows, 
 which the newspaper correspondents described as an indication of hardened depravity. 
 
Chapter I 
 THE DELINQUENT MORON 
 
 Tlic word Moron is a recently coined addition to the English 
 hinguage, and is not to be found in any but the latest and most 
 up to date dictionaries. It lacks one letter of spelling Mormon, 
 for which it is sometimes mistaken by the careless reader. 
 Moron is taken from the Greek word meaning a grown- 
 up person who is a fool — the kind of person who was 
 born a fool and for whom, therefore, there is no hope. 
 The Moron has considerable cunning but no foresight and the 
 delinquent moron has force enough to try to get what he wants 
 but not sense enough to foresee consequences of forbidden acts, 
 and so he becomes a criminal fool, if a born fool can properly 
 be called a criminal. Solomon had something to say on the 
 subject in the book of Proverbs, but his bitter comments ex- 
 pressed more scorn and disgust than anger at the wickedness of 
 fools. 
 
 The conduct of the moron, under stress of temptation, is 
 strikingly illustrated in the case of Giovanni Monaca, and many 
 others. 
 
 Pretty seventeen-year-old Mary Spina was living with her 
 father and mother on a quiet street in East Portland in 1918. 
 Over a j^ear before, a fellow countryman was a boarder in the 
 family for seven months. His name was Giovanni Monaca and 
 he was thirty-two years old and had been a day laborer of the 
 drifting sort. He became infatuated with Mary, and wanted to 
 marry her, but her family refused their consent and Mary would 
 not run away with him so he promptly threatened to kill her. 
 Marj^'s father had Giovanni arrested and he was held in jail one 
 day and then ordered to leave town. In six months Giovanni 
 returned and renewed his plea and his threat of murder as an 
 alternative, and was again arrested and again ordered to leave 
 town. This was in the Spring of 1918. In August Giovanni 
 returned to Portland with an automatic revolver he had pur- 
 chased in Seattle the first time he left Portland and entered the 
 home of the Spinas at night through a window and went to 
 Mary's room and shot her seven times as she lay in her bed. 
 Her dead body looked as if it had been riddled by bullets from 
 every direction. When Giovanni was arrested after running 
 away and brought back and questioned he said, "I was crazy 
 
6 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 that I was put in jail. I been in jail twice and been ordered out 
 twice when I love this girl, and I get sore for this. I wanted to 
 marry her and 1 made up my mind if she going to marry me 
 it is all right. If not, I kill her." 
 
 Q. "Why did you run away?" 
 "I was scared of the police." 
 "You knew what you had done?" 
 "Yes, I knew what I had done." 
 "You knew it was wrong to do that?" 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Don't you feel badly that you killed this girl?" 
 "Yes, but I am satisfied now that I have." 
 
 Very similar was the case of Fred Tronson. Miss Emma 
 Ulrick was an attractive and efficient stenographer in a business 
 office in Portland in 1914. Tronson, aged twenty-four, was ele- 
 vator man in the same building and decided that he wanted to 
 marry Miss Ulrick and gave her a trifling present of some letter 
 paper. Miss Ulrick declined the proposal of marriage, where- 
 upon Tronson threatened to kill her. Tronson was arrested and 
 lectured by the police judge and released upon his promise to go 
 away and go to work and forget his folly. He went away for a 
 few weeks and brooded over the matter and finally bought two 
 revolvers in Vancouver and one evening followed Miss Ulrick 
 home and into the house where he fired all the shots in one of 
 the revolvers at her as she tried to escape, killing her almost in 
 the presence of her family. Then, much as Monaca did, he threw 
 away the revolvers and ran away. Monaca got as far as Canada 
 before he was arrested, but Tronson only succeeded in getting 
 one hundred miles from Portland, before the police caught him. 
 When he was brought back to Portland he said to the District 
 Attorney, "Yes, I am sorry I had to do it; I acted like a gentle- 
 man. I had given her one present already." 
 
 He said he bought two revolvers and loaded them both, so 
 that if one failed he would still have the means of killing Emma 
 Ulrick. Tronson said he felt satisfied, in doing what he did, but 
 he was afraid they would put blood hounds on his trail. At his 
 trial his confession to the District Attorney was read in evidence 
 and he was very obviously proud of the story as a literary pro- 
 duction in which he had the principal part. He leaned over and 
 asked the minister who sat by his side, "Well, what do j^ou 
 think of it?" 
 
The Delinquent Moron 7 
 
 When Tronson was being sentenced to prison for life after 
 his conviction he acted Uke a frightened chiUI who was being 
 scokied for bad conduct. On the direct question being asked 
 him by the District Attorney, he admitted that he had no right 
 to take Emma Llrick's Hfe, which he could not restore to her, but 
 said that lie did not think of that at the time he killed her. 
 
 At Tronson's trial for the murder of Emma Ulrick I secured 
 the consent of District Attorney Walter H. Evans and his first 
 assistant, John A. Collier, to the introduction of expert testi- 
 mony as to Fred Tronson's mental weakness. Mr. Dan Powers, 
 Tronson's lawyer, placed Miss Grace Lyman, a psychologist from 
 Leland Stanford University, on the stand, and she testified that 
 the mental test showed that Tronson had a mental age of about 
 nine years. 
 
 This is the first time in Oregon criminal practice that the 
 testimony of a psychologist on the subject of feeble-mindedness 
 has been admitted in a murder trial. 
 
 A full account of this case wdth Tronson's confession may be 
 found in Dr. Henry H. Goddard's, "The Criminal Imbecile." 
 
 Tlic same year in New^ York state, Jean Gianini assassinated 
 an interesting young woman in the most brutal fashion and 
 dragged her body into the bushes by the side of the lonely road 
 where he had persuaded her to walk wath him. 
 
 Expert testimony of psychologists was admitted at the trial 
 to show the murderer's mental capacity and with the following 
 result : 
 
 "We find the defendant in this case not guilty as charged; we 
 acquit the defendant on the ground of criminal imbecility." 
 
 This was the verdict of the jury in Herkimer County, New 
 York, on March 28, 1914, in the case of Jean Gianini who killed 
 the young woman who had the misfortune to be his school 
 teacher. 
 
 Jean Gianini was a high grade defective who could not make 
 any progress in his studies, and he said that his teacher humili- 
 ated him in school, wliich shows that he had brains enough to 
 realize that he was a failure in his classes. At the same time he 
 was apparently attracted by his teacher because he had fre- 
 quently asked her to go with him to visit his family. She finally 
 consented to go with him and somewhere on the road he 
 attacked her, whether with a sexual motive, or because of his 
 "humiliation" in school, will never be proven. He admitted 
 
8 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 striking her with a wrench three times and then hitting her with 
 a knife several times (24 was the number, one blow finally reach- 
 ing the jugular vein) "to be sure to finish her," Then Jean 
 dragged her body aside so that it would not be readily discovered 
 and went home. The next day after breakfast at the place where 
 he was employed, he went to work for a short time, but soon quit 
 work and went to the village where he was picked up at the rail- 
 road depot. He went back without any objection and on being 
 accused of the murder he readily confessed. 
 
 He had started to leave home the night before but as he 
 missed the train he went back and went to bed. He said he was 
 as happy as usual, adding, "I did not think anything about it as 
 I thought I had revenge." 
 
 This characteristic murder by a feeble-minded man is de- 
 scribed in detail together with the evidence at the trial in Henry 
 H. Goddard's "Criminal Imbecile." The murderer was held to 
 be irresponsible in view of his weak mentality as pointed out by 
 experts on the witness stand, but provision was made for his 
 permanent detention in an institution instead of sending him to 
 the electric chair. 
 
 In both of these last two unprovoked murders of intelligent 
 young women, who had every possibility of useful and honorable 
 careers, the immediate cause of their deaths is a matter deserv- 
 ing consideration. 
 
 There was so much of the "ego" in the cosmos of both of 
 their murderers and so httle abihty to foresee consequences that 
 they were without any sense of their personal responsibility to 
 others. 
 
 Dr. Goddard points out that these young men understood per- 
 fectly the character of their acts as shown by their preparations 
 and the actual killing, but he insists that these feeble-minds did 
 not realize the quahty of their acts or the inevitable consequences 
 to anyone (themselves included) of taking human hfe. That 
 looking ahead and foreseeing results calls for a considerable 
 abihty in abstract reasoning which the feeble-minds do not pos- 
 sess. They never get beyond the childish stage of wanting things 
 and threatening to kill if denied. 
 
 There probably never lived an aggressive small boy who did 
 not fly into a rage and threaten to kill when he was completely 
 obstructed in his desires. His moral sense, which must be sus- 
 tained by his ability to reason, has not been developed. He must 
 
The Delinquent Moron 9 
 
 be controlled by authority, and in practically all cases he is con- 
 trolled by the kind, but decisive, will of his parents until his own 
 reason supports and sustains the moral teaching he has received. 
 
 About 1916 two small boys under twelve years of age, who 
 had been as completely neglected as two little animals, killed a 
 man in Idaho. They knew the nature of the deed and carried 
 it out by shooting a rifle, but they were young children and could 
 not realize the consequences of taking human life. Their horizon 
 was bounded by the impelling force of their impulses and their 
 lack of training and ability to reason about the sanctity of life. 
 These children were not convicted of murder, for the irresponsi- 
 bilitA' of the child was recognized. 
 
 In the grown up feeble-minds this same lack of ability to 
 reason about the consequences of criminal conduct is the most 
 noticeable characteristic. Their reasoning powers are too weak 
 for them ever to learn thoroughlj'^ and as a guide to conduct the 
 value of ethical teaching. They always remain creatures of 
 impulse except in so far as fear controls them. At the same time 
 their powers of perception are often very good and some of them 
 have unusual mechanical ability. 
 
 In 1916 a man over sixty years of age, serving a life sentence 
 for murder in a Michigan prison, was pardoned and drifted to 
 the Pacific Coast. He had been in prison over 30 years. I saw 
 him every day for months, but aside from a vacant eye, a marked 
 pallor, probably due to long confinement, and indications of 
 broken health there was no stigmata of mental weakness. He 
 carried wood for the fires and one day he appeared w^ith a sort 
 of harness which enabled him to stagger along with a huge arm- 
 ful of wood. He showed the same delight in this arrangement 
 that a small boy would manifest in overloading a wheelbarrow 
 and wasting time in doing it. Then he showed a complete inabil- 
 ity to reckon his wages for work done, and would become angry 
 when it was pointed out that there was a debit as well as credit 
 side to an account. He was obviously sincere in claiming that 
 he was being cheated because the amount which he owed was 
 deducted from the amount due him. His capacity for handling 
 an abstraction of the simplest sort was lacking. 
 
 On several occasions he called in a man who had befriended 
 him to secure fair treatment. This friend proved to be an ex- 
 guard from the Michigan prison where this man had been con- 
 fined. He admitted that this ex-prisoner was weak-minded and 
 said that he was very quarrelsome in prison and was often 
 
10 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 engaged in fights with other prisoners. I asked what crime this 
 prisoner had committed and he told me that he had a quarrel 
 with his brother and cut his head off with an axe. 
 
 This ex-prisoner had only a child's sense of humor in spite of 
 his sixty odd years of experience. He finally became so incensed 
 because he thought he was being cheated that he left for Cali- 
 fornia. He could reckon his wages but he rebelled bitterly at 
 the thought of being compelled to pay anything out of his wages, 
 for his room or board. His mental machinery could not enter- 
 tain or adjust the two sides of a problem. At the same time he 
 apparently had moderate inteUigence. He had been known as a 
 bad man, but his old prison guard knew that he was weak- 
 minded and consequently irresponsible. 
 
 In some of these "aments" all the instincts are weak and they 
 drift through life without committing any crimes, but unable to 
 make a comfortable living because they are unable to plan and 
 lack persistence and the will to be industrious. Intellectually 
 they are very much like an unusually intelligent steer or horse. 
 However, in many of these defectives the reproductive instinct is 
 strong enough to keep them in constant trouble and lead them 
 into criminal conduct. They know no law but the desire for 
 immediate gratification. Of course there is no arbitrary line 
 between the feeble-mind and the so-called normal person, and 
 naturally what are known as the border-zone cases develop into 
 the worst criminals, as we call them in popular terms. 
 
 A young man by the name of Kemp illustrates the border- 
 zone type. He assaulted a young married woman whom he acci- 
 dentlj'^ met in a lonely place near Portland and tore every strip 
 of clothing from her body. Becoming enraged at her resistance 
 he shot her through the body and then forced her head into a 
 pool of muddy water. But at the moment her capacity for resist- 
 ance ceased he became remorseful and wrapped her in some 
 sacking and poured some whiskey between her lips and placed 
 her unconscious body in a poor shelter, and then wrote a letter 
 to the sheriff telling him where to go to find this young woman, 
 and took the trouble to go to the central postoffice and put a 
 special delivery stamp on the letter. The sheriff acted promptly 
 and the young woman, after hovering between life and death 
 for days, finally made a complete recovery. 
 
 The penalty for assault with intent to commit rape is from 
 one to ten years' imprisonment in Oregon; but Kemp was carried 
 
The Dclinqncnl Moron 11 
 
 away by fear, and, after wandering in the woods for a few days 
 eluding pursuit, finally shot and killed himself with the revolver 
 he had used to shoot the young woman who had resisted his 
 criminal attempt. Kemj) showed more capacity for reflection 
 and abstract reasoning than did either Jean Gianini or Tronson, 
 but he also showed the same complete yielding to impulse that 
 they did. 
 
 To people, generally, crime is a horrid manifestation of 
 wickedness which calls for sharp and swift vengeance on the 
 offender, both to injure him because he has injured others, and 
 to frighten possible or prospective criminals from doing similar 
 deeds. That is popular criminology and penology reduced to 
 their lowest and simplest terms. From this naturally follows 
 the attempt by the law-making power to measure the amount of 
 punishment or vengeance by the nature of the offense. * 
 
 There is another possible method which would involve con- 
 sidering the intelligence, the character and training of the of- 
 fender in order to determine whether or not he is a fit person 
 (or may become a fit person) to return to society and propagate 
 his kind. 
 
 The philosophy of the latter method is very simple and goes 
 back to first principles. Most animals are gregarious and have 
 certain social impulses which benefit the flock or herd, but man 
 is the only animal who has a conscious moral sense. Man has a 
 hand with a thumb opposing the fingers so that he can grip and 
 handle objects, and he has the faculty of communicating with 
 his fellows by spoken (and written) language, and the two facul- 
 ties have slowly and painfully led him to material achievement 
 and to account to himself (and to others) for his acts. That is 
 to say he has a moral sense or very practical reasons for know- 
 ing that certain acts are right and certain other acts are wrong 
 because of their ultimate consequences. He might be told from 
 infancy to old age that certain things are wrong but unless he 
 could reason it out and know it as a personal, never-to-be-forgot- 
 ten fact he would not be a moral creature, or what we call a 
 responsible creature. 
 
 This is the eternal burden of educating the young. Even 
 where they inherit good bodies and minds and come of families 
 
 * Note: Article 1, Section 16, Constitution of Oregon — 
 "Cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted, 
 but all penalties shall be proportioned to the offense." 
 
12 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 who possess good morals and good habits, it is a commonplace 
 that boys and girls violate laws and morality through ignorance, 
 lack of experience and lack of thought. The tendency has grown 
 very rapidly in recent years to treat minors, not as criminals, 
 but as young and immature persons whose minds have not been 
 developed to the point of foreseeing the ultimate consequences of 
 their acts. 
 
 However there are certain persons who, through bad inheri- 
 tance or disease, have weak and defective minds and who never 
 can learn to reason about their acts so as to foresee the ultimate 
 consequences. That is to say they are not moral, responsible 
 creatures. Experience teaches them no lessons for they can't 
 deal much in abstractions, and while they may have a parrot-like 
 knowledge of right and wrong, it does not control their bad or 
 hurtful tendencies. They can perceive the difference between 
 right and wrong, but they have no foundation for moral char- 
 acter because their minds are defective and weak. In other 
 words they are for all practical purposes as much the creatures 
 of their impulses as the coyote of the plains or the grizzly bear 
 in the mountains. Their morality is much like the ignorant sav- 
 age's abilitj" to count. An abstract number means nothing defi- 
 nite to a savage, and the abstraction cannot be remembered and 
 applied to a new situation. The defective moral sense of the 
 weak-minded is like that lack of mathematical capacity- and 
 consequently cannot be applied to new situations and problems 
 as they arise in the defective's life. 
 
 That is equivalent to saying that the defective person who 
 has impulses or tendencies of any unusual strength is practically 
 certain to be guilty of criminal acts. He know^s the meaning of 
 no law and is capable of knowing none. His outlook is the crim- 
 inal outlook but his responsibility is nil. 
 
 A good illustration of the "aments" criminal outlook appears 
 in Aaron, a young man of 25 years who began his delinquent 
 record in the juvenile court at the age of 14 or less. Since then 
 he has gone through the mills of justice about ten times and at 
 present is in the penitentiar3\ He has been convicted of theft 
 and burglary and is now serving a sentence for receiving stolen 
 goods. He also has been guilty of sex offenses against Httle girls. 
 Physically he is an able-bodied man and does not look imbecile, 
 but the psychological test gives him the rating of a 7-year-old 
 child. 
 
The Delinquent Moron 13 
 
 Aaron never could get beyond the first grade in school and 
 naturally can do nothing with words or numbers. From the police 
 point of view he is a bad young man and could be led into any 
 kind of crime which his intelHgence or cunning is equal to. For 
 ten years punishment has been measured out to him according 
 to the offenses he has committed, though in truth he is not a 
 moral creature. 
 
 Naturally, among women, weak mentality leads to their ex- 
 ploitation as prostitutes — where they are not protected by cir- 
 cumstances. The lack of ability to foresee ultimate consequences, 
 even in a small degree, is obviously the chief explanation for the 
 army of women in the underworld. The extreme youth of many 
 of these novitiates in an unhappy life explains in great part the 
 lack of intellectual development or capacity to reason among 
 those who are not actually feeble-minded. 
 
 There is no sharp line, of course, between the feeble-minded 
 and the so-called "normal" person, and the greater the intelli- 
 gence short of a full capacity to deal in abstractions and foresee 
 consequences, the greater the danger of irresonsible and criminal 
 conduct. Special defects among intelligent persons are often 
 causes of crime. 
 
 There are a great many men and women of the underworld 
 who escape the technical stigma of being feeble-minded who are 
 altogether creatures of impulse and apparently entirely lacking 
 in self-control. Where their impulses or instincts are very strong 
 they are especially dangerous. 
 
 The high-grade feeble-minded, who under favorable circum- 
 stances can earn a living, are very apt to be considered as respon- 
 sible beings and treated as such. For thousands of years they 
 have been regarded as fools whose folly w as wilful. Solomon in 
 his Proverbs has much to say about them. He refers to fools 
 constantly and in the 26th chapter of the Book of Proverbs he 
 sums up his scathing indictment. There are tw^o significant 
 things in Solomon's account of fools. He points out that a fool 
 is a hopeless creature — "As a dog returneth to his vomit; so a 
 fool returneth to his folly." He also differentiates between fools 
 and criminals — "The great God, that formed all things, both re- 
 wardeth the fool, and rewardeth transgressors." 
 
 It would really seem as if the world had suffered enough from 
 feeble-minded delinquents to recognize their characteristic 
 traits. There is one particular kind of weak-minded creature 
 who has considerable facility in the use of language and who 
 
14 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 aspires to be a politician and demands a politician's reward of 
 "office," and failing in that, takes a feeble-minded man's revenge 
 on the highest official he can reach. President Garfield was as- 
 sassinated by Guiteau, who wanted to be appointed an ambassa- 
 dor. It was recognized at the time of Guiteau's trial for murder 
 that he was not fully responsible, but there was no proof of ji 
 insanity (vague as that term is). On the other hand everything 
 in Guiteau's life, from his childish schemes for making a living, 
 his lack of honesty, his complete lack of sense in trying to adjust 
 means to ends, his unrestrained vanity in claiming alliance politi- 
 cally with the Stalwarts who were led by Roscoe Conklin, his 
 request for an ambassadorship, his excuse of compulsion or 
 necessity in killing President Garfield (like Tronson who killed 
 the girl who would not marry him — "Yes, I am sorry I had to 
 do it,") his conduct at his trial for murder, and finally when on 
 the gallows he read his doggerel verse, "I am going to my Goddy 
 in the sky," all indicate with a weight of cumulative evidence 
 not to be denied that Guiteau was a high-grade feeble-mind, or 
 what Solomon called a fool. 
 
 The assassin of Carter Harrison, Mayor of Chicago, was an- 
 other high-grade feeble-mind like Guiteau, who felt the imperi- 
 ous necessity of killing the Maj^or because the Mayor had not 
 given him what he wanted. He felt perfectly justified in doing 
 what he did. His childish mind in a man's world could come to 
 no other conclusion. "I am sorry I had to do it." 
 
 This is the nature of the creatures whose crimes are described 
 in the following chapters. They know in feeble-minded fashion 
 the difference between right and wrong but the realization does 
 not "trickle" in until after the event. Their impulses are the only 
 things which control them. 
 
 There is, of course, the further question of psychoses and 
 aberrations among the weak-minded as predisposing causes of 
 criminal conduct. There is no question but what they exist, and 
 in fact very careful observers consider that the mental and nerv- 
 ous weaklings are very apt to be afflicted with degenerative 
 affections which occasionally lead the subject to commit some of 
 the most terrible crimes known to the human race, such as 
 sadistic murder, as well as lesser crimes. This is perfectly logical 
 and observation confirms the conclusion. 
 
Chapter II. 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF CONFESSIONS OF CRIME 
 
 To the more or less morbid creature whom we designate as 
 criminal the desire for gratification of hmiian impulses and for 
 some social recognition is very strong. 
 
 I have listened to the stories of offenders who have commit- 
 ted various crimes ranging from forgery and obtaining money 
 by false pretenses and burglary to perverted sexual offenses and 
 murder, and the burden of the story is almost invariably the 
 same. It seems to be one of the absolute needs of human beings 
 to talk about personal experiences and attempts at achievement. 
 A man who was indicted for an assault on a child had a long 
 story about his unsuccessful career and broken family and his 
 fondness for children. He denied the offense and condemned 
 it in unmeasured terms but went on to explain the circum- 
 stances which he said had deceived the witnesses. His explan- 
 ations and admissions proved his guilt beyond a reasonable 
 doubt, but not content with indirectly damning himself he then 
 began to ask questions about the length of sentence imposed 
 for this particular crime. He did not w^ant to admit that he 
 was a criminal but his point of view was his experience and 
 he could not let it alone. If his experience had not been a 
 guilty one he would have had verj'^ little to say. He would 
 have asserted his innocence and been contemptuous perhaps 
 about the charges, but that would have closed the tale. 
 
 The disposition of men who are guilty of offenses to talk 
 about them and make partial admissions which lead up to the 
 criminal act but deny the culminating or actual performance 
 is verj^ common. A pervert who had made a public nuisance 
 of himself prefaced his statement by saying that he knew that 
 men sometimes did this thing but that he was a virtuous citi- 
 zen, and that he was getting old, and that he had too great a 
 respect for his fellow^s to do anything of the sort. He repeated 
 several times that he knew this thing was done but that he did 
 not do it. He did not know that he was confessing his guilt, 
 but the court knew and sent him to prison. 
 
 It has been said that a liar needs a long memory, but the fact 
 is that his memory is his undoing as soon as he attemj)ts to 
 weave a different story than the true one. He is so fearful of 
 not explaining all the damning facts that he remembers tliat he 
 overdoes it. Self-deception and self-pity help him to distort his 
 story and also to forget some important details. 
 
16 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 There are two classes of criminals who make truthful con- 
 fessions when the pressure of circumstances becomes so cruel 
 as to make it seem possible that a clearing up of the mystery 
 will be of advantage, or when mental distress or remorse leads 
 the offender to unburden his heart. Of course the motive is 
 selfish in either case. In saying that the confession is truthful 
 I do not mean that it is apt to be literally true, but that it is 
 true in its main features. There may be a vital fact omitted 
 but enough will be told so that the balance can be worked out, 
 remembering that the criminal is seeking some means of justi- 
 fying himself. Take the confession of the man in the Green 
 Trunk murder mystery in Portland in 1917. A green trunk had 
 been found floating in the Willamette river and upon investi- 
 gation it was found to contain the murdered body of a middle 
 aged man. It was known that this man had come to Portland 
 a few weeks before with a male companion, but this other man 
 had disappeared. The horse and wagon was found which 
 hauled the trunk from the lodging house to the river but there 
 the clues ended. 
 
 The circumstances indicated, however, that these men were 
 homosexual lovers and a search was instituted in the under- 
 world of the Pacific Coast for the missing man. It was a year 
 before he was found and brought back to Portland for trial. 
 He admitted that he belonged to the tragically unfortunate class 
 who are born into the world with the homosexual temperament 
 and he explained his partnership with the murdered man. He 
 possessed, as all persons of that type do, an inferior nervous 
 system, which accounts for what is described as sexual inver- 
 sion. He did not find it out until he was twenty years old and 
 then he knew why he was "queer." 
 
 The normal ways of living and loving were closed to him 
 and so he drifted into perverted ways and finally while under 
 the influence of an unusual amount of liquor he became a homi- 
 cide in a moment of exasperation. He admitted that he drove 
 that horse and wagon around the city for two or three hours 
 before he put the trunk in the river. He did not tell the whole 
 story to one person but made partial confessions to different 
 ones. His opinion of his situation had a good deal of interest. 
 His own verdict was, "I am the victim of circumstances." In 
 the penitentiary he is a model prisoner and has nothing to 
 distinguish him except the fact that he is the man of the Green 
 Trunk Murder Mystery. 
 
Confessions of Crime 17 
 
 There is another type of the nieiitally and nervously abnor- 
 mal who are possessed or obsessed with an ugly and contrary 
 disposition which impels them to defy all conventions and to 
 despise tlieir fellows. Breaking the law^ is in the nature of a 
 diversion to these individuals which gives satisfaction to a brain 
 and nervous system at war with itself. When the crisis comes 
 such a man rather enjoys telling how cleverly he defied the 
 law though he admits its unwisdom so far as it touched his 
 personal fortunes. These men have good intentions but the 
 world would have to be made over to harmonize with their 
 pathologically crooked habits of thought. These delinquents are 
 recidivists invariably and their performances would read like 
 the story of a huge practical joke perpetrated with the design 
 of making themselves the butt, if it were not for the tragic side. 
 
 Another kind of criminal who almost invariably confesses 
 belongs to w^hat is called the moron type. An adult in years and 
 with the physical needs of a man the moron reasons like a 
 child and has little power of self-control. He is extremely irri- 
 table and has entirely uncontrolled fits of rage and is often 
 outrageously profane and lacking in the sense of modesty. At 
 the same time he has the child's desire for approbation and 
 enjoys the emotional exaltation of being the center of interest. 
 He is very cunning and enjoys telling of his "smart" actions, 
 but he has no foresight. 
 
 This kind of a criminal will almost always confess if treated 
 with tact and he will give details of a personal nature which 
 no member of the class previously mentioned would allude to. 
 
 These personal revelations are so naive and childlike that 
 they stamp the truth upon the confession or its principal fea- 
 tures. At the same time these criminals may have an excessive 
 vanity, and if they do they are certain to lie about details of 
 their crimes in order to make them appear as very remarkable 
 acliievements. The combination of child-like remorse for wrong 
 done for which an innocent person may be suffering, a desire 
 for approbation, and possibly a streak of intense vanity which 
 has never had much to feed upon, leads the criminal of this 
 type to make a confession which is a hodge-podge of fact and 
 fiction. 
 
 In the chapters which follow there is an account of a murder 
 and a confession relating to it which is of this type. Some of 
 the details of the confession are grotesque fabrications but the 
 central facts are undoubtedly true. 
 
18 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 The other murder and confession which is the first of the 
 two accounts as printed in the following chapters does not have 
 these grotesque details but is very matter of fact and has been 
 verified in the majority of details given. This difference in 
 the two confessions indicates of course the difference in per- 
 sonality of the two feeble-minded offenders. 
 
 The account of the murder and confession in the first chap- 
 ters following involves a man of nearly 40 years old. He is 
 physically slight, weighing about 125 pounds, and with very 
 small hands and an asymetrical head and face. All his life 
 he has gone into ungovernable fits of rage on very slight provo- 
 cation and he also nurses his anger until he has an opportunity 
 to gratify it. After the explosion he realizes what he has done 
 and the possible penalty but this does not deter him from doing 
 much the same thing the next time he loses his temper. Expe- 
 rience is altogether wasted on him for while he does not forget, 
 he does not learn from anj'^ experience. He has a certain 
 shrewdness of observation and forms conclusions quickly, but 
 anything like patient thought is outside of his realm of mind. 
 
 The most vivid impression which I shall always retain of 
 him is that he is now at 38 years still in the mental attitude 
 of a boy of ten whose greatest delight is to play Indian and 
 take scalps and trot around in the woods and fish and hunt 
 and shoot at a mark. Instead, however, of using tin knives, a 
 tomahawk made out of a shingle and dipped in red paint and 
 a wooden gun, this boy-man when he is not in some jail or 
 penitentiary, carries a very business-like knife, and a small 
 arsenal of firearms which he can use with skill. He likes noth- 
 ing better than to live in the jungle with some hobo of criminal 
 tendencies and exist by petty stealing varied by an occasional 
 job. It is the serious business of life for him to know all the 
 criminal slang and the ritual of jungle crooks including the 
 significance of various marks made on fences, trees and barns 
 and the signs of a turned up trouser leg or a hat of a particular 
 color or one worn in a certain way. The deadly seriousness 
 with which he will tell of the significance of a certain kind of 
 hat and the signs by which the predatory crooks of the jungle 
 recognize each other would be convulsing if there were not a 
 grim reality behind this child's play which accounts for the 
 brotherhood of criminal tramps who live in the woods and 
 along the highways and in the suburbs of large towns, loafing 
 and stealing and occasionally mistreating women and children. 
 
Confessions of (.rime 19 
 
 Their career of adventure is enlivened by occasional visits to 
 the lowest places of amusement in the cities and by evading 
 and deceiving the police and sheriffs to whom they ap|)car as 
 more or less harmless hoboes. To this brotherhood belongs the 
 man Mho killed William Booth at Willamina, Oregon, on Octo- 
 ber 8, lOin, and who says of Booth, "I told him I would get him 
 and I did get him!" 
 
 There is probably no doubt but that the fact that Booth's 
 widow and a young man who was a neighbor of the Booths in 
 Willamina were found guilty of Booth's murder and are now 
 in the state penitentiary where Booth's actual murderer is doing 
 time for larceny committed after Booth's death, has worked on 
 his mind until he imagined that the authorities knew of his 
 guilt. His mental powers of resistance are not great and so 
 he found it a relief to confess — this sorry boy-Indian-bad man 
 of the jungle. 
 
 Mrs. Wehrman's murderer who is of a slightly different type 
 is the man involved in the second tragedy of murder related 
 in the following chapters. 
 
 John G. H. Sierks is nearly 30 years old and he also belongs 
 to the moron class. He was born in the woods of Columbia 
 County and never went to school in his life, but his father 
 taught him to read and write and he is quite proud of his 
 ability to write a letter. John never has been able to master 
 mathematics. If his father attempted to correct his erratic 
 use of the multiplication table John would fly into a passion 
 
 and ask, "What the difference does it make to you? I am 
 
 doing this!" John preferred children for playmates when he 
 was 18 to 20 years old and was very jealous if not allowed to 
 associate with them. His greatest delight was to wander through 
 the woods with a gun and revolver, for he has a passionate 
 fondness for firearms. He has a good sense of location, and 
 it would be impossible for him to lose himself in the woods. 
 
 He is much attracted by the opposite sex but he is awkward 
 in showing his fondness. The wife of a neighbor tells of his 
 meeting her in a wood road and after passing her of his hur- 
 rj-^ing back through the timber in order to meet and pass her 
 again and of repeating this attention until she was exceedingly 
 frightened. Of course he has been made the victim of all 
 sorts of stupid practical jokes concerning his interest in women, 
 which has made it more difficult for him to approach women 
 and girls in an easy way. His father tells of John's attempts to 
 
20 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 kill him and other members of the family. On one occasion 
 his father was at work on a scaffold and John said to his sister 
 and the folks there that he was going to shoot the old man 
 and every damned thing off of the scaffold to see them fall. 
 
 On another occasion he gave his sister some poisoned wheat 
 to give to his little brother and when she did not do it he told J 
 his father to look out for Lena as she had some poisoned wheat 
 and w^as going to take it to kill herself. The sister, however, 
 had buried the wheat and did not say anything about it until 
 questioned because John had a habit of making life miserable 
 for her when she told of his bad conduct. 
 
 At another time John placed a charge of dynamite in a ] 
 stump near the house with the plan of setting it off when his 
 father was near, but Lena set it off when no one was about, 
 which led John to tell her, "You are always sticking your nose 
 in my business. I'll put a stop to that," etc. One of the neigh- 
 bors said that John told him that he set giant powder under a 
 stump and if it had not been for the girl not keeping her 
 damned mouth shut, he would have gotten the old man all 
 right. 
 
 His father said John often asked him to go hunting with , 
 him, but that he would never go because he was afraid John 1 
 would shoot him in the back. I 
 
 John's father said that a neighbor had three or four young 
 girls and that his children used to go to play with them but , 
 that the neighbors objected to John's coming. John became j 
 very angry and said that his brother and sister should not go 
 either. They did go, however, and while there playing in the , 
 chicken house three shots were fired and one bullet went 
 through the chicken house w^hile the children were there. It 
 was not long until John came along with a rifle and said to the , 
 children, "I want you damned kids to come home." I 
 
 This gives an idea of John's conduct when he was crossed, 
 and of course when he had been drinking (he was now 21) 
 he was more irresponsible than ever. 
 
 John is very vain and broods over schemes to make it appear j 
 that he is smart and clever. '■ 
 
 His confession of how he killed Mrs. Wehrman in Columbia 
 County because she would not respond to his request shows 
 this tendency in describing how he made the trip to Scappoose 
 at night and got the revolver out of Riley and Hassen's cabin 
 and committed the murder and got back to Washington County 
 
Confessions of Crinit' 21 
 
 by the next mornini>. Thai wouhl have been a (hffieult feat, 
 but it has since come to hght through the statement of John's 
 sister that he was at home for nearly two days before they 
 discovered the body of Mrs. Wehrman and her child. The story 
 of all the circumstances in later chapters shows John's cunning 
 and how he came to repudiate the confession after he had made 
 it. John's responsibility is not very great but this brief account 
 shows his capacity for crime and the temptations which he 
 could not resist. At the same time he knows the difference 
 between right and wrong and has been constantly unhappy 
 about what he did and cannot refrain from talking about it. 
 He cannot learn from experience and will always be a menace 
 to society unless he is confined. 
 
Chapter III 
 
 THE MURDER OF WILLIAM BOOTH AND THE CONVICTION 
 OF WILLIAM BRANSON AND MRS. BOOTH 
 
 In the pleasant village of Willamina on the banks of the 
 Willamina river just at the gateway of the crossing of the Coast i 
 mountains to the Pacific ocean, the Booth family was living 
 in October of 1915. The husband and father was William 
 Booth, a laborer and mechanic in Willamina. His wife, Anna 
 Booth, was 32 years old and the mother of two children, Lora, 
 aged twelve years, and Ermel, a boy several years younger. 
 Mrs. Booth's father and mother lived about two miles or more 
 to the west and north of Willamina, and Mrs. Booth was in the 
 habit of walking out frequently to see her mother who was not 
 in good health. 
 
 On October 8th, immediately after the noonday meal, Mrs. 
 Booth left her home to walk to her mother's. Within half an 
 hour later, Mr. Booth left the home and while he started in a 
 different direction at first he took the same road outside of the 
 village that his wife had to follow to go to her mother's. It 
 was rumored in Willamina that Mr. Booth was jealous, at least 
 this was the story given in evidence later, for on this day Wil- 
 liam Booth was shot and killed by someone among the trees 
 and bushes on the bank of the river a mile and a half from 
 Willamina. This spot was near the road which Mrs. Booth had 
 to follow to go to her mother's and which Mr. Booth also fol- 
 lowed. Mr. Booth's murdered body was accidentally discovered 
 about two hours after the killing. 
 
 During the afternoon of October 8, 1915, G. D. Carter, who 
 lived a few miles west of Willamina, Yamhill County, Oregon, 
 was on his way home from the village when he discovered the 
 dead body of William Booth lying by the edge of Willamina 
 river. Booth had been killed by a bullet from a .38 caliber 
 revolver. 
 
 The body lay on its back by the edge of the stream, the 
 feet upstream, and one hand in the water. Apparently Mr. 
 Booth had just got over the fence which came down to the 
 stream at right angles, for his body was above or on the up- 
 stream side with his head near the fence post. He had been 
 seen by Mrs. Yates, a neighbor, at half-past one o'clock, going 
 towards the bushes and trees on the river bank on the lower 
 
Willi <.M Hi(.(.i.\. ;m iiuiiatc of the Ore- 
 gon peiiitciitiiiry, who confessed to the 
 murder ol' William Hooth at Willamina, 
 Oregon, on October S. I'.ll"), and whose 
 story is corroborated in many details — 
 (Chapters :'>-.">. Rij^inln is a liis'i - tirade 
 moron. 
 
The Booth Murdrr 23 
 
 side of the fence just before the shot was fired. Mrs. Yates, 
 however, did not attach any particuhir significance to the sound 
 of the shot which she heard very soon after Mr. liooth disap- 
 peared among the hushes and trees, and it was two hours later 
 or 3:30 P. M. before the body was accidentally discovered by 
 Carter. 
 
 There was no direct evidence whatever as to who did the 
 shooting, though the sheriff's deputy and the coroner and 
 neighbors searched the narrow^ strip of woods along the river 
 bank until dark, and also again the next morning. After the 
 conclusion of the coroner's inquest the next day William Bran- 
 son, a young man of 23 years and a neighbor of Booth's, was 
 arrested for the murder. Mrs. Anna Booth, aged 32 years, the 
 widow of William Booth, was also arrested. It was the assump- 
 tion in the neighborhood that young Branson was improperly 
 intimate with Mrs. Booth, and that Mr. Booth had followed 
 Mrs. Booth, who was on her way to visit her mother, and that 
 Mrs. Booth and young Branson were surprised by the injured 
 husband, whereupon Branson promptly shot and killed Mr. 
 Booth. This theory was adopted by the district attorney at 
 William Branson's trial for murder, but the only evidence of- 
 fered the jury of improper intimacy between Mrs. Booth and her 
 young neighbor was that Branson had been seen on numerous 
 occasions some months before talking to Mrs. Booth as she 
 stood on the front porch of her house in Willamina while he 
 (Branson) was on the sidewalk outside of the yard. 
 
 Judge H. H. Belt, who was the trial judge, said in his charge 
 to the jury, "It is claimed in this case on the part of the prose- 
 cution for the purpose of establishing a motive on the part of 
 the defendants for the killing of William Booth that illicit or 
 improper relations existed between the said defendants, William 
 Branson and Anna Booth. 
 
 "You are instructed as a matter of law, that there is no 
 evidence in this case establishing adulterous relations existing 
 between the defendant Branson and Anna Booth." 
 
 It was admitted by the defendant Branson that he had bor- 
 rowed a .38 caliber revolver from his uncle Milton Carter to 
 take on a fishing trip in August of 1915. Mr. Carter says this 
 revolver was never returned to him, and that he did not ask 
 for its return until the day of the preliminary hearing, though 
 he admitted that Branson told him in hop-picking time to go 
 
24 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 to his house and get the revolver if he wanted it. Branson says? 
 that the revolver had disappeared and it has never been found, i' 
 Some small articles of jev^elry disappeared from the Branson 
 home at the same time. 
 
 There is no doubt but that Mrs. Booth was somewhere in 
 the neighborhood when her husband was killed. The shot was, I 
 heard at about 1:30 P. M. t 
 
 As to Branson, various witnesses testified to seeing him at » 
 the brick plant (which is three-eighths of a mile from the place | 
 of the murder) going towards the localitj'^ on a bicycle at about }. 
 one o'clock on the day the murder was committed. Other wit- 
 nesses testified to seeing Branson in Willamina at the time the 
 murder was committed. Branson wore a red sweater on the 3 
 day of the murder and was a noticeable figure in consequence. 
 There was a discrepancy in the time as to when the different 
 persons involved were seen at the brick plant and bridge ac- 
 cording to the testimony at the preliminary hearing and at the ' 
 trial. There was no direct testimony as to the presence of 
 anyone concerned at or near the place of the murder except 
 Booth, who was seen in a nearby garden just before the shot 
 was heard. Mrs. Booth was seen within half an hour later 
 near the place. That is to say, all the evidence was circum- 
 stantial. At the first trial the jury disagreed. Branson and 
 Mrs. Booth were convicted at the second trial but the verdict 
 was reversed by the supreme court. At the third trial Branson 
 was convicted of murder and sentenced to the penitentian^'^ for 
 life. Mrs. Booth was not tried with Branson at this time, but 
 upon advice of her counsel and wdth the understanding that 
 she would be paroled from the penitentiar^^ at the end of one 
 year, she pleaded guilt}^ to manslaughter and was sentenced 
 to from one to fifteen years. Mrs. Booth has two children to 
 whom she is devoted and the prospect of being able to go back 
 to them at the end of a year decided her to plead guiltj^ as a 
 conviction with a life sentence seemed certain if she insisted 
 on denying her guilt. 
 
 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 
 
 This case illustrates the weight of circumstantial evidence 
 where the suspicions of a community have been aroused, and 
 how a jur3'^ near the time of a murder may disagree as to the 
 weight of the circumstances and how later public feeling crys- 
 talizes into a conviction of guilt. 
 
 One of the best prosecuting attorneys I know, who had no 
 
The Booth Murder 25 
 
 interest in the case, said to me that in view of the evidence he 
 did not sec what tlie jury convicted Branson on. 01" course 
 somebody killed Booth and there were several witnesses who 
 claimed they saw Branson and Mrs. Booth going in the direc- 
 tion of the place separately (not together) before the time of 
 the killing. On the strength of that testimony a boy of 23 was 
 sent to prison for life and the widow of the murdered man 
 would have received the same sentence, if she had not tried to 
 get back to her children in a j^ear by pleading guilty to man- 
 slaughter. 
 
 However, here is another piece of circumstantial evidence 
 quite significant which was brought out at Branson's trial for 
 murder : 
 
 It will be remembered that Branson, according to all wit- 
 nesses, wore a red sweater on the day of the murder. 
 
 At William Branson's trial Harold Lewis and Clarence Car- 
 ter testified that on the day of the murder they were at work 
 with their teams in a field about half a mile or more down the 
 Willamina creek from the place of the murder, and that at 
 about half past one they heard a shot and that shortly after- 
 wards they "saw a man walking pretty fast down the creek in 
 the brush right in the edge of the creek." They stopped their 
 horses to watch this man who was some 250 j^ards distant. 
 After they stopped their horses this man ducked down in the 
 hollow and the witnesses could only see the upper part of liis 
 body. 
 
 The district attorney asked, "How was he dressed?" 
 
 Answer, "He had on either a black or dark blue jersey 
 sweater and a black hat." 
 
 This man was seen by reputable witnesses and he ducked 
 out of sight when they stopped their teams to watch him, and 
 this occurred shortly after the shot at 1 :30 which undoubtedly 
 killed William Booth. No one but Branson was under sus- 
 picion at this trial and it was admitted that he wore a red 
 sweater on the day of the murder. Several witnesses claimed 
 they saw him at the bridge a quarter of a mile from the place 
 of the shooting and several others claimed they saw^ him in 
 Willamina near the time the shooting occurred. 
 
 The story of the man seen hurrying down the creek by 
 Lewds and Carter (which was told at Branson's trial) has a 
 particular interest in view of the confession of William Biggin 
 in May of 1917 that it was he who killed William Booth on 
 October 8, 1915. 
 
26 Why Some Men Kill • 
 
 The circumstances of William Riggin's confession indicate! 
 that he was suffering from remorse for his crime and also 
 because Booth's widow and young Branson were paying the pen- 
 alty for this murder. f 
 
 In making this confession to his father, G. L. Riggin, whom ' 
 he had requested to be present, and to Sheriff Applegate audi 
 Deputy Sheriff McQuillan at Hillsboro, William Riggin began by 
 holding up two fingers and saying, "two are suffering for some- 
 thing they haven't done," and went on and gave the details of 
 his killing William Booth at Willamina. 
 
 In explaining his motive for killing Booth, Riggin said that 1 
 Booth "had it in for him" and had publicly called him a "con" 
 and had warned him to keep away from his (Booth's) wife. 
 Riggin is vindictive and uncontrolled in his passions and has . 
 homicidal tendencies. 
 
 Riggin described in his confession the place where he shot 
 Booth and said that afterwards he walked down through the 
 brush to where he left his horse which he had hired in McMinn- 
 ville. "At the time the shooting took place I wore a blue shirt, 
 corduroy pants and high-top corked shoes," In a latter statement 
 to me he volunteered the information that he wore a black hat. 
 
 There is also some significant circumstantial evidence about 
 Riggin's shoes. At the third trial it came out incidentally that 
 marks of hob-nailed shoes were found in the soft soil by Booth's 
 dead body. On the day of the murder Branson was wearing but- 
 ton shoes with smooth soles, while the shoes that Riggin said he 
 wore had projecting nails. 
 
 Riggin's confession, made many months after Branson's trial, 
 is thus clearly confirmed by testimony given at Branson's trial 
 for the murder of Booth in these particulars which obviously at 
 the time had no possible bearing on Branson's guilt. Harold 
 Lewis and Clarence Carter testified that they "saw a man walk- 
 ing pretty fast down the creek in the brush right in the edge of 
 the creek," shortly after they heard the shot at 1 :30 P. M. When 
 they stopped their teams to watch him he ducked down and 
 soon disappeared. They said this man "had on either a black or 
 dark blue jersey sweater and a black hat." 
 
 Branson wore a red sweater and was riding a bicycle on the 
 public highway. Branson also wore button shoes with smooth 
 soles, while Riggin says he wore "corked shoes" and the testi- 
 mony at the third trial of Branson showed that someone with 
 hob-nailed shoes had stood near Booth's body. 
 
The Booth Murder 27 
 
 Riggin said in his confession that he shot Wilhani Hoolh. 
 Then he went on to say that he went to Willamina on Octoher 
 7th, 1915, on a horse which he hired at a stable in McMinnville. 
 He stayed over night in Wiihiniina and on the 8th he walked up 
 the river and practiced shooting in the timber for a couple of 
 hours. Then he came down the road and saw Billy Branson and 
 Mrs. Booth talking together but he did not know if they saw him. 
 Riggin said he had talked with a man in Willamina who spoke 
 of Branson going with Mrs. Booth and of William Booth "trailing 
 them," (One of the state's witnesses testified that he talked to 
 William Branson about Booth being jealous and that Branson 
 was defiant and threatening. , Branson denied this on the stand, 
 however.) Soon after seeing Branson and Mrs. Booth talking, 
 Riggin saw Mr. Booth coming across a field and he shot at him 
 but missed. He ducked down out of sight and when Booth came 
 on again he waited until he was about thirty j'ards away and 
 then shot him with his revolver, a thirty-eight Smith and Wesson. 
 "After I shot he partly turned around and fell kind of on his left 
 side." 
 
 Apparently after assuring himself that Mr. Booth was dead, 
 Riggin said that he "lit out to the left and went down through the 
 brush." He went to a vacant shed near an old sawmill on the 
 edge of Willamina where he had put his horse. "It was a spotted 
 pony with a roached mane." He rode to McMinnville b}' way of 
 Walker Flat and turned the horse loose in the stable. There was 
 no one in the stable at the time. 
 
 Then Riggin says he walked back to Walker Flat and stayed 
 there three days with a man who was making boards and posts. 
 After this, "I went on over to Tillamook and ditched the revolver 
 and belt at Pinky Stillwell's place. I put the revolver inside the 
 picket fence. At the time the shooting took place I wore a blue 
 shirt, corduroy pants and high-topped corked shoes." 
 
 William Riggin is about 38 years old and has been a "bad 
 man" for these 20 years. He has a vindictive, revengeful nature 
 and suffers from uncontrolled fits of rage. He began his career 
 of crime as a youth by stealing a horse and saddle. For this he 
 was sent to the reform school at Salem. At a later period he 
 went to the penitentiary for larceny, and served various senten- 
 ces in county jails, according to his own account. Within two 
 weeks after the murder of Booth Riggin was arrested for stealing 
 
 * Note: William Riggin's confession is given in full in 
 Appendix A. 
 
28 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 a gun, was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary where he 
 is now. Riggin's reputation as a thief was such that the sheriff 
 of Washington County asked the Governor for permission to 
 take him to Hillsboro to clear up some robberies. Riggin was 
 very much disturbed by being taken to the Hillsboro jail from the 
 penitentiary and he finally blurted out to the sheriff: "I know 
 what you want me for; you want me for the Booth murder." ' 
 
 Riggin's vindictive, uncontrolled rage, which led him to lie 
 in wait for Booth and kill him, had been satisfied and remorse 
 had followed and he told the sheriff if he would send for his 
 (Riggin's) father he would tell the whole story, which he did 
 upon his father's arrival at the Hillsboro jail. 
 
 For the sake of brevity I will give the facts corroborating his 
 confession as I go along. Riggin said he hired a horse in 
 McMinnville to ride to Willamina at the time he killed Booth. 
 Here follows sworn statement of A. R. White, who kept a livery 
 stable in McMinnville : 
 
 "I, A. R. White, being sworn depose and say that I keep a 
 livery and feed stable in McMinnville and have been in that busi- 
 ness for the past five or six years. I remember renting a spotted 
 pony with a roached mane to Bill Riggin about the time that 
 William Booth was killed in Willamina in 1915, I think that 
 Bill said he wanted to ride the pony to Willamina but I cannot 
 speak with absolute certainty. I remember that I told Bill Riggin 
 that I had a bunch grass pony who was mean to ride. Bill said 
 that did not matter, I remember that Bill had the pony about 
 three days and that I found the pony in the stable one morning 
 and did not see Bill Riggin again at all after he hired the pony. 
 I also remember very distinctly that Bill never paid for the use 
 of the pony at the time mentioned in October, 1915." 
 
 (Signed) A. R. White. 
 
 In regard to Riggin being seen in Willamina, Mrs. Lottie 
 Smith, half-sister of Riggin's, says that she knows that Riggin 
 was in Willamina at the time of the murder, though she does 
 not remember seeing him that day. The brother and sister talked 
 it over in my presence and Riggin told his sister of seeing her on 
 a load of ties coming into Willamina. She admitted making such 
 a trip and described the pony Riggin rode but said she did not 
 remember the exact day, but that it was about the time of the 
 killing of Booth. This Mrs. Lottie Smith was living a few miles 
 from Willamina at the time of the murder. 
 
The Booth Murder 29 
 
 At the trial of William Branson Mrs. Yates testified to seeing 
 Booth in her garden just hcfore the shooting and said that he 
 went towards the road and jumped over the fence and turned to 
 the east towards the creek and went right into the brush. About 
 a minute after Booth went into the brush she heard a shot. Some 
 two hours later Booth's body was discovered at this point on the 
 water's edge. 
 
 In a supplementary statement made by Riggin to District At- 
 torney Conners on July 25, 1917, Riggin said, in answer to ques- 
 tions that Booth was in the garden patch (Yates'), that he "went 
 out and came around"; that he "went to the edge of the road and 
 then came back," and that he went to the river bank. 
 
 Riggin's statement, made in July, 1917, of Booth's movements 
 just before he shot him thus corroborates Mrs. Y'^ates' testimony 
 at William Branson's trial in February, 1916. 
 
 There is another point which seems to prove conclusively that 
 Riggin was at the scene of the murder. On July 19, 1917, Warden 
 Murphy, at Governor Withycombe's direction, took Riggin to 
 Willamina with the idea that Riggin would show by his descrip- 
 tion of the killing on the spot and by his location of the place 
 where the body w^as found whether or not he was telling the truth 
 in his confession. Riggin directed the party, of w^hich I was one, 
 to the spot where the shooting occurred. Warden Murphy had 
 never visited the scene of the crime and had to depend on Rig- 
 gin's directions. I will quote from his report to the Governor: 
 
 "I asked him if he was positive that this was the place. He 
 stated that he was, and I also asked him if he was positive where 
 Booth stood and he said he was. I then asked him what he did 
 when he shot him and he said he went down the creek where the 
 body lay and then came back up the creek, crossing in and w^ent 
 along back of the rOck quarry and then he made his way to Wil- 
 lamina where his horse w^as tied. I then asked him to show where 
 the body lay and to describe how it lay. He said that it lay by 
 the fence that ran down to the river with one hand in the water, 
 and the head down stream. At this point I asked the guard to 
 take Riggin away that I might talk freely with the parties as I 
 did not know whether he had stated the location correctly or not. 
 After Riggin was out of hearing, I inquired of the parties, espe- 
 cially Mr. Sherwin, who w^as as I said before a member of the 
 coroner's jury, I believe being the foreman, and who had viewed 
 the body in an official capacity and he said Riggin had stated 
 the condition correctly. At this point Mr. Conner stated that 
 
30 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 Riggin had erred in saying that the body was on the down stream 
 side. In order to be exactly fair about this very important point 
 I requested the party to step back from the scene 25 or 30 paces 
 and had Riggin brought up and asked Mr. Sherwin to take Riggin 
 to the water's edge and have him show him exactly how the body 
 lay and where. This he did and Riggin told him that the body 
 lay on the upper side of the fence and the head down stream, the 
 hand in the water. I then asked Mr. Sherwin if it was the exact 
 position in which he had viewed the body in the first instance 
 and he said it was." 
 
 This checks up Riggin's confession to the time after the mur- 
 der when a man dressed as Riggin said he was went down the 
 creek after the shooting and was seen by two witnesses who tes- 
 tified at Branson's trial. 
 
 Riggin said he returned the horse to McMinnville and "I 
 walked back to Walker Flat and stayed three days with a man 
 who was making boards and posts. I went on over to Tillamook 
 and ditched the revolver and belt at Pinkey Stillwell's place on 
 the road to Tillamook." 
 
 The murder occurred on the 8th of October, 1915. Riggin 
 says he stopped three days at Walkers Flat which would bring 
 it to the 11th or 12th. I saw Mrs. Annie Springer, a half-sister of 
 Riggin's, who was living in Moores Valley at that time, on the 
 route Riggin said he took to Tillamook. Her sworn statement 
 follows : 
 
 "I, Annie Springer, being sworn depose and say that William 
 Riggin is my half-brother. During the month of October, 1915, I 
 was living with my husband, Albert Springer, on the Sunnybrook 
 farm in Moore's Valley, about eight miles west of the town of 
 Yamhill. Will Riggin came to our place on the morning of Oc- 
 tober 12th, 1915. He seemed awful nervous about something. 
 I asked him to come into the house, but he said he was in a hurry 
 and, as a matter of fact, he only remained in the yard some fif- 
 teen minutes. 
 
 "I urged him to come in and he said, 'The sheriff is after me. 
 I asked him what he had done and he said in his short way, ' 
 ain't done nothing.' 
 
 "The reason that I can tell the day of October in 1915 whe 
 Bill came to our place is that we were getting ready to come to 
 Moose Lodge banquet in McMinnville, which was held that day 
 and because the day before, October 11th, is my birthday." 
 
 (Signed) Mrs. Annie Springer 
 
 y 
 
The Booth Murder 31 
 
 In Riggin's verbal statement to me he said that he also 
 stopped at F. L. Smith's, a neighbor of Mrs. Annie Springer's. John 
 Riggin, a half-brother, lived at F. L. Smith's and he has made a 
 sworn statement saying that when he came home, the Smith fam- 
 ily told him that Rill Riggin had stopped there and said he was 
 going to Tillamook. Mrs. Annie Springer had also told him that 
 Rill Riggin was at her home on October 12. 
 
 Rill Riggin's father made an investigation of Rill's move- 
 ments at the time of the murder and his conclusions agree with 
 this account. The Riggin family were unwilling to believe that 
 Rill committed this murder but the facts which they personally 
 knew in connection with Rill's confession finally convinced them 
 that Rill was telling the truth. Riggin's father says that Rill ought 
 to be permanently confined so that he won't do any more harm. 
 
Chapter IV. 
 
 WILLIAM RIGGIN SHOWS WARDEN MURPHY WHERE HE " 
 CONCEALED THE REVOLVER 
 
 William Riggin, in his confession describing how he killed 
 Booth, told what he did with the revolver. He said he took it 
 with him on his trip to Tillamook a few days after the murder 
 and hid it on Pinkey Stillwell's place, some 15 miles east of Tilla- 
 mook. Inasmuch as Riggin was arrested soon after his arrival at 
 Tillamook and has been confined in jail ever since, he has had no 
 opportunity to "plant" the revolver since his trip to Tillamook. 
 We know from the independent testimony of various witnesses 
 that Riggin made this trip to Tillamook almost immediately after 
 Booth was killed, and the revolver plainly shows that it was ex- 
 posed to the weather for a long period. It's a .38 caliber revolver 
 and Booth was killed by a .38 caliber bullet. I 
 
 On May 22, 1917, Warden Murphy took Riggin to Tillamook 
 at Governor Withycombe's direction and out to the place where 
 Riggin said he hid the revolver. Warden Murphy says that Rig- 
 gin "unhesitatingly kicked aside the leaves and released a .38 
 Smith and Wesson revolver with which he claimed he commit- 
 ted the deed." This revolver is now in the possession of the 
 warden. 
 
 In August of 1917 I was in Tillamook and became acquainted,, 
 with Malcolm Easton, whose sworn statement follows: | 
 
 "I, Malcolm Easton, being sworn depose and say that I am a 
 resident of Tillamook, Oregon, and that I have lived there for 
 the past seven years, and that at the present time I am night clerk, 
 in the Tillamook Hotel. In the fall of 1915 I was at work in ai 
 railroad camp at Tillamook and had been in the town of Tilla- 
 mook for a number of days spending my money in the saloons. 
 Norman Myers, marshal in Tillamook, asked me one evening, 
 when I had spent all my money and was f eehng disgusted with 
 myself, where I was going to sleep that night, and offered me a 
 bed in the county jail, which I accepted. Myers put me in a cell 
 with a man by the name of William Riggin who had been ar- ■ 
 rested for steahng a gun. Riggin was a good deal excited and ,, 
 talked to me all night especially about guns of different kindsrj 
 and about criminal things he had done and of crimes he knew ,, 
 about. Among other things Riggin told me that he had shot at a , 
 farmer as he came across a field before he came to Tillamool- 
 
The Booth Murder 33 
 
 and that he had hidden a gun on Pinkey Stillwell's place, east of 
 Tillaniook, as he came across the mountains. 
 
 "Riggin did not tell me that he killed this man, and I did not 
 think of the matter in connection with the murder of William 
 Booth at Willamina until this summer when Riggin was brought 
 to Tillamook by Warden Murphy. Clark Hadley told me that 
 Riggin found the revolver on Pinkey Stillwell's place that he said 
 he had hidden there after he used it to kill Booth. Then I remem- 
 bered the stoiy Riggin told me in the county jail of his shooting 
 at a farmer as he crossed a field and of hiding a gun on Pinkey 
 Stilhveirs place as he came across the mountains. I asked Con- 
 stable Epplett to speak to Warden Murphy about my knowledge 
 of Riggin's story. I talked to Clark Hadle}^ about my experience 
 with Riggin and also to Norman Myers. Later I mentioned it to 
 Mr. Gregory, who, I understand, was on the Oregonian staff, and 
 asked his advice about informing the warden of the penitentiary 
 or the Governor. 
 
 "I felt that I ought to inform the authorities of my knowledge 
 of the matter, and, in fact, I had written a letter to Warden 
 Murphy when I read in the Oregonian Mr. Murphy's report of how 
 Riggin showed where Booth's body lay after he shot him. 
 
 "I spoke to Mr. Myers about it and he said it would not be 
 necessar\' for me to send the letter for nobody could have any 
 doubt of the truth of Riggin's confession after reading the report 
 of Warden Murphy's investigation. 
 
 "1 realize that the truth of my statement of what Riggin told 
 me in the county jail at Tillamook about his shooting at a farmer 
 as he crossed a field and of his hiding a gun on Pinkey Stillwell's 
 place afterwards as he came across the mountains will be re- 
 garded as depending upon my reputation, and that my irregu- 
 larities in the way of drinking may be held to damage my credi- 
 bility, but I have lived in Tillamook for a number of years and 
 quite a number of people know me, and I am willing to leave 
 the question of my honesty and truthfulness with them. 
 
 "I was not intoxicated the night I spent in jail with Riggin in 
 
 Ithc fall of 1915, but I had been drinking and had spent all my 
 money and was disgusted with myself and accepted Marshal 
 . Myers offer of a bed in the jail. I told Myers in the morning 
 ef what kind of a chap he had put me in with, but as I was not 
 anxious to be mixed up with a fellow who told stories of law 
 breaking that Riggin told, I put the matter out of my mind until 
 
34 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 Riggin was brought to Tillamook by Warden Murphy and found 
 the revolver that he said he had hidden." 
 
 (Signed) Malcolm Easton. 
 
 Malcolm Easton is evidently sincere in his desire to tell of 
 Bill Riggin's statement to him in October of 1915 and gave me 
 the names of a number of citizens of Tillamook who would 
 vouch for his honesty. 
 
 I made inquiries in Tillamook about Mr. Easton and the re- 
 sponses from several men of good standing in the community 
 satisfied me that Mr. Easton is thoroughly reliable and that he 
 has given the information concerning Riggin because he believes 
 it is a duty which he owes the public. 
 
 WHO KILLED WILLIAM BOOTH.'* 
 
 The solving of a murder mystery where the only evidence 
 consists of inferences from known or proven facts, and where 
 there is no direct evidence, is very much like solving a Chinese 
 puzzle consisting of many pieces of irregular shapes. When all 
 the pieces are in their proper places, all the pieces are used and 
 the puzzle is complete and perfect in form. Sometimes the puz- 
 zle is apparently solved without using all the pieces, but there 
 are no superfluous parts in a puzzle; they all must be used. 
 
 So in solving the Booth murder it is absurd to say that there 
 were superfluous facts at Branson's trial which meant nothing. 
 And yet it is beyond dispute that the jury which convicted Bran- 
 son did not consider all the facts in the case. 
 
 To be blunt the jury assumed that Branson and Mrs. Booth 
 were together near the Yates place and that Branson and his 
 witnesses were lying. They were so sure Branson was lying that 
 they convicted him of murder though to do that they had to 
 assume a motive of criminal intimacy between Branson and 
 Mrs. Booth, which the judge instructed them was not proven. 
 
 There was evidence given at the trial to show that the day 
 after the murder a woman's hair "rat" was picked up in the 
 brush 60 to 80 feet from where Booth was killed, and certain 
 witnesses who were admittedly not experts, told the jury that 
 this "rat" was similar to hair rats owned by Mrs. Booth. Mrs. 
 Booth's sister testified that Mrs. Booth's "rats" contained human 
 hair and that the "rat" found in the brush did not. This ques- 
 tion was thus left very much in the air and the jury drew their 
 conclusions from the testimony of witnesses who did not qualify 
 as experts. The vagueness of the inference to be drawn even if 
 
The Booth Murder 35 
 
 the "rat" found in the brush was actually similar to Mrs. Booth's 
 rats is evident. It was not compolent to prove that Mrs. Booth 
 was near the scene of the murder at the time it was committed, 
 and no attempt was made to prove that the spot where the rai 
 was found was a rendezvous for Mrs. Booth and William Bran- 
 son, About all that could be said for it was that it tended to 
 give color to suspicion against Mrs. Booth. 
 
 The jury was willing to go counter to the courts instructions 
 that there was no proof of adulterous relations between Mrs, 
 Booth and William Branson, and imagine the motive because 
 they were so certain that Branson was Ij'ing about not being with 
 Mrs. Booth in the neighborhood of Mrs. Yates' place that day. 
 
 This comi)elled the members of the jury to overlook or forget 
 as superfluous certain facts which certainly were part of the 
 mystery of the murder. 
 
 The first of these facts was that when Booth's body was dis- 
 covered there were footprints found beside the body in the soft 
 soil in the edge of the river. These footprints were made by 
 shoes with hob-nails. The law^-^ers for the defendant say that 
 undisputed testimony was given to this fact at Branson's third 
 trial by a witness for the prosecution. Apparently it was given 
 incidentally, but at any rate it was not given at either of the 
 previous trials. The reason that this is an important fact in 
 solving the puzle as to w^ho killed William Booth is the signifi- 
 cant circumstance that William Branson wore button shoes with 
 smooth soles on the day of the murder. That is to say some other 
 man than William Branson stood beside Booth's dead body. 
 
 And yet because the jury believed that Branson lied they were 
 willing to leave out this important evidence. They were willing 
 to admit in effect that some other man who had hob-nailed shoes 
 must have stopped by the spot where Booth's body lay in order 
 to find Branson guilt^^ of murder. 
 
 Another piece of the puzzle which the jury left out of consid- 
 eration was the testimony of Harold Lewis and Clarence Carter 
 at Branson's trial, Lewis and Carter were at work with their 
 teams on disc plows in a field down the river from the scene of 
 the murder on that afternoon. Lewis testified that they heard 
 a shot at about 1 :30 P, M. and that shortly after he "saw a maD 
 walking pretty fast down the creek in the brush, right in the 
 edge of the creek." This man was 250 or 300 yards from Lewis. 
 Lewis stopped his horses and watched him. This man then 
 
36 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 ducked down in the hollow and Lewis could only see him from 
 the waist up and he soon disappeared. 
 
 Question — "How was he dressed?" 
 
 Answer — "He had on either a black or dark blue jersej 
 sweater and a black hat." 
 
 Lewis could not see his face. Clarence Carter's testimony 
 was identical with that of Lewis. 
 
 Here was a man hurrying away from what later proved 
 to be the scene of a murder, and who was apparently anxious to 
 get out of sight when a couple of men stopped their teams to 
 watch him. This man obviously could not have been Branson 
 because Branson, according to all the witnesses wore a red 
 sweater on the day of the murder, and the witnesses who said 
 they saw him down the river from the spot where Booth was 
 killed testified that he was riding a bicycle and was riding on the 
 road without attempt at concealment. 
 
 Certainly this man hurrying down the creek in the brush 
 immediately after the shooting was quite as important a piece of 
 the puzzle as Branson on his wheel on the road. However the 
 • jury left him out of their considerations. 
 
 There is no question but what the jury ignored these two ele- 
 ments of the mystery of the murder, and guessed that Branson 
 was intimate with Mrs. Booth and guessed that Mr. Booth caught 
 them in the brush in a compromising situation and guessed that 
 then Branson killed Booth. 
 
 WILLIAM RIGGIN's CONFESSION 
 
 It is a crucial test of William Biggin's confession to see if all 
 of the circumstances "fit in" and make a solution of the murder 
 which is complete. 
 
 Biggin says he hired a spotted pony with a roached mane and 
 rode to Willamina from McMinnville. Mr. White says he rented 
 such a pony to Biggin in McMinnville at the time Booth was 
 killed. Mrs. Lottie Smith, Biggin's sister, says she saw Biggin in 
 Willamina and described the pony he rode. 
 
 Biggin says, in a statement to the District Attorney, that he 
 was at Mrs. Yates' place when Booth was in her garden and he 
 described Booth's going to the road from the garden and thence 
 back to the brush at the bank of the river where his body was 
 afterwards found. 
 
 At Wilham Branson's trial Mrs. Yates described Mr. Booth's 
 movements in her garden and his going to the road and then into 
 the brush on the river bank where his dead body was found two 
 
The Booth Murder 37 
 
 hours later. The two descriptions of Booth's actions just before 
 he was killed agree. 
 
 Riggin told of leaving the spot thus: "I lit out to the left and 
 went down through the brush. I walked to a vacant shed near 
 Willamina." 
 
 Riggin has said that he wore a blue sweater, corked shoes and 
 a black hat. 
 
 Lewis and Carter testified that this man, hurrying down 
 through the brush, wore a black or blue sweater and a black hat. 
 
 Thus it appears that the testimony of Mrs. Yates, also the wit- 
 ness who said there were footprints made by hob-nailed shoes by 
 Booth's body, and the testimony of Lewis and Carter, all agree 
 with the facts and with William Riggin's confession describing 
 how he killed Booth. 
 
 Curiously enough Riggin says, in his confession, that he saw 
 Mrs. Booth and Branson talking together near Mrs. Yates' place. 
 This seems to fit with the testimony of the prosecution that Bran- 
 son followed Mrs. Booth and was but a few minutes behind her 
 on the road when she crossed the bridge three-eighths of a mile 
 below Mrs. Yates' place. 
 
 Booth was killed on October 8, 1915, and on July 19, 1917, 
 Warden Murphy took Riggin to Willamina to have him point out 
 the spot where Booth was killed and show where and how his 
 body lay. 
 
 The foreman of the coroner's jury that viewed Booth's body 
 where it was found and later held an inquest was present. The 
 warden asked Riggin to show this foreman of the coroner's jury 
 exactly where Booth's body lay and its position. Riggin did this 
 and the foreman of the coroner's jury said that Riggin showed 
 him the exact position in which Booth's body lay as he, the fore- 
 man, had seen it when Booth was killed. 
 
 Riggin says, after taking the pony back to McMinnville, that 
 he went to Walker Flat and stayed with a man there three days 
 and that he then went on to Tillamook. 
 
 Mrs. Annie Springer, Riggin's half-sister, who was very loath 
 to believe that her brother had killed Booth, says that William 
 Riggin came to her home in Moores Valley on October 12, 1915, 
 but was very nervous and would not stop. On being urged to, 
 he said, "The sheriff is after me." 
 
 The murder occurred October 8. Allowing one day for Riggin 
 to take the pony to McMinnville and to go to Walker Flat, where 
 he says he remained three days, it would be the 12th when he 
 
38 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 started for Tillamook, which would take him through Moores 
 Valley where his sister, Mrs. Springer, lived. This fits. Why 
 Riggin should say to his sister, when urged to stop, "The sheriff 
 is after me," unless he had some fear that he might be after him, 
 is inconceivable. 
 
 It seems that when Riggin was crossing the summit of the 
 Coast Range, on the Tillamook trail, that he met four young men 
 who had been fishing in the mountain streams and that he 
 camped with them in a deserted cabin. They said that Riggin 
 acted so strangely and insisted on sleeping with his weapons that 
 two of the four kept watch the first half of the night and that the 
 other two did guard duty the second half of the night. There is 
 no doubt that Riggin frightened them thoroughly. They were too 
 much scared to realize that Riggin was possibly afraid of some- 
 body following him and getting the drop on him. 
 
 Riggin, in his confession, said that he "ditched the revolver" 
 with which he killed Rooth on the Pinkey Stillwell place. On 
 May 22, 1917, Warden Murphy, at the direction of Governor 
 Withycombe, took Riggin to Tillamook and they went from there 
 up the Trask River and on arriving at the spot the warden says 
 Riggin "unhesitatingly kicked aside the leaves and released a 
 .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver with which he claimed he 
 committed the deed." 
 
 While Riggin was in jail in Tillamook he told Malcolm 
 Eastori, as previously related, about shooting at a man east of 
 the mountains and of hiding the gun on Pinkey Stillwell's place. 
 The finding of the revolver, Easton's testimony about Riggin's 
 story to him soon after the murder of Booth, and Riggin's con- 
 fession of the murder and of where he hid the revolver, made in 
 the spring of 1917, thus fit together as component parts of the 
 puzzle. 
 
 Here are two possible solutions to the mystery of who killed 
 William Booth. The solution which points to the guilt of Wil- 
 liam Branson and Mrs. Booth ignores absolutely two important 
 facts brought out at Branson's trial, and imagines a motive for 
 the killing, which the judge cautioned the jury against, and bases 
 inference on inference to reach a conclusion. Branson had al- 
 ways borne a good reputation and is spoken of highly by all 
 his acquaintances and friends. 
 
 The other solution, which points to William Riggin as the 
 murderer, accounts for all the facts testified to by the various 
 witnesses, and Riggin's confession is corroborated in many par- 
 
The Booth Murder 39 
 
 ticulars as I have just pointed out. A year and a half after his 
 confession he still says that he killed Booth. If it is admitted 
 that the correct solution of a criminal mystery must account for 
 and explain all the facts brought out, and must form a complete 
 whole, like the parts of an intricate puzzle, then the solution of 
 the mystery of the killing of William Booth is that William Rig- 
 gin killed him as he has confessed that he did. 
 
Chapter V. 
 
 APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC FOR THE RELEASE OF WILLIAM 
 BRANSON AND MRS. BOOTH 
 
 The various trials of William Branson and Mrs. Anna Booth 
 for the murder of William Booth received the widest publicity. 
 Public sentiment was very deeply aroused, chiefly because the 
 murder was apparently unprovoked and because there was no 
 direct testimony connecting Branson and Mrs. Booth with the 
 crime. It was all circumstantial evidence, which is to say people 
 could only come to a conclusion as to who committed the murder 
 by drawing inferences from the known facts. The known facts 
 were that on October 8 Mrs. Booth started to visit her mother and 
 left her home a little before half past twelve P. M., going north 
 from Willamina. A little time after Mr. Booth started west from 
 Willamina and reached a point about one hour later on the road 
 Mrs. Booth followed to visit her mother. He was seen near this 
 point by several people, and at 1 : 30 P. M. a shot was heard, which 
 presumably killed him. William Branson was seen, according 
 to a number of witnesses, three-eighths of a mile from the scene 
 of the murder going in the same direction that Mrs. Booth had 
 gone. This was about half an hour before the shot was fired. 
 Other witnesses testified that William Branson was in Willamina 
 at the time the murder was committed. 
 
 The only circumstance which was established as certain was 
 that William Booth was seen close to the point of the shooting 
 just before the shot. Mrs. Booth was seen about half an hour 
 later on the road some 10 rods or more from the scene of the 
 murder, according to the testimony at the inquest. At the trial 
 the same witness said she saw Mrs. Booth ten minutes after the 
 shot was heard. 
 
 The jury drew the inference that Mrs. Booth and young Bran- 
 son were together in the brush at the point where Booth was 
 killed. From that inference they draw the second inference that 
 Mrs. Booth, and young Branson, who was 23 years old (Mrs. 
 Booth was 32) were found in a compromising situation by Mr. 
 Booth, and from that inference they drew the third inference 
 that upon being discovered in a compromising situation that 
 young Branson promptly shot William Booth and killed him. If 
 it had been estabhshed as a fact that Branson and Mrs. Booth 
 were guilty of adulterous relations there would have been a 
 
The Booth Murder 41 
 
 motive and these two inferences based upon another inference 
 would have had a semblance of probability, but the court spe- 
 cifically instructed the jury that there was no evidence establish- 
 ing adulterous relations between the two defendants. However, 
 even on that supposition, which the jury accepted in opposition 
 to the judge's charge, it is worth while to remember that while an 
 injured husband has often killed his wife's seducer at the 
 moment of discovery, as many a court trial will witness, and as 
 many a verdict of acquittal on the ground of "the higher law" 
 will confirm, there is no record that I ever saw or heard of where 
 the seducer killed the husband on the instant of the husband dis- 
 covering him in a compromising situation with his wife. It is 
 true that the seducer has often killed the husband, with or with- 
 out the aid of the wife, but not at the instant of discovery by the 
 husband of the criminal relation. 
 
 It is proper to consider this because as part of the assumed 
 circumstantial evidence Branson's motive for kilhng Booth was 
 decided by the jury to be the fact that Booth caught Branson 
 with Mrs, Booth in the brush. The Oregon statute says, "An 
 inference must be founded on a fact legally proved." 
 
 To brand a man as a murderer and take away his liberty for 
 life, especially a young man who had always borne a good repu- 
 tation, on two inferences based on a third inference which "may" 
 have been true but which was at least open to doubt, is simply 
 to call suspicion circumstantial evidence. * The woman in the 
 case has two young children, Lora Booth, a girl of 12 years at 
 the time of the trial, who is being cared for by relatives, and also 
 a httle boy, Ermel, who is younger than his sister. The court did 
 not administer the oath to Ermel, as he was too young to realize 
 what testifying under the oath meant, but he promised to tell 
 the truth. 
 
 Of course it should be remembered that the community was 
 desperately exercised about this murder and Branson had been 
 accused and he could not prove that he was innocent. 
 
 To show the hysterical spirit which prompted this conviction 
 it is onlj^ necessary to give another case of a murder trial where 
 the community was not much interested and where the accused 
 persons were not convicted. In the spring of 1918 two men were 
 * Note : The question of proving a motive for a crime 
 where there is only circumstantial evidence, and the fur- 
 ther question of basing inferences upon inferences is taken 
 up at length in Chapter No. 11 on circumstantial evidence. 
 
42 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 indicted for the murder of a woman found dead on the sidewalk 
 of Washington street, Portland. The two men and the woman 
 were in a room on the third floor of a building on Washington 
 street. All three were more or less drunk and they were quarrel- 
 ing and it is certain that either the woman fell out or jumped out 
 or was thrown out of the window. The facts were fully estab- 
 lished that the three were in the room and were drunk and were 
 quarreling. The inference was very obviously plain that the 
 woman might have fallen out of the window. Because of that 
 possible explanation the jury could not agree, and a second jury 
 also failed to agree, and so the case was dismissed. 
 
 In the Booth case there was no testimony to show that Bran- 
 son and Mrs. Booth were together in the brush. It was inferred 
 that they were because they had been seen going along the road, 
 one behind the other. The inference that Branson and Mrs. Booth 
 were in a compromising position was based on the inference that 
 they were together in the brush, and the inference that Branson 
 killed Booth was based on the inference that they were discov- 
 ered by Mr. Booth in a compromising situation. 
 
 Booth was killed in an open field. He might have been shot 
 from across the river or from a distance up the river. The shot 
 might have been an accidental one or it might have been fired 
 with the intent of killing Booth. From the circumstances there 
 were no legitimate inferences to be drawn either in law or in 
 logic, but evil-minded gossip suggested a motive and the jury 
 found Branson guilty of murder notwithstanding the eminently 
 fair charge of the judge to the jury after the evidence was in. 
 
 THE ACTUAL MURDERER 
 
 Nearly two years after the murder William Biggin confessed 
 to killing William Booth, and the investigation which I have 
 made shows that his confession is corroborated by the facts given 
 in the preceding chapters, but District Attorney Conner refuses 
 to admit his mistake in convicting Branson. Branson is in the 
 penitentiary under a life sentence for murder and Mrs. Booth is 
 also in the penitentiary. 
 
 Oregon has a democratic form of government, and every citi- 
 zen has a personal interest in the proper administration of the 
 criminal law and in procuring justice. 
 
 In a matter where the laws provide no remedy for such a 
 terrible injustice as the continued imprisonment of citizens 
 
The Booth Murder 43 
 
 wrongfully convicted of crime, and where the actual criminal 
 has been discovered, nothing remains but an appeal to public 
 opinion to secure the pardon of these innocent persons by the 
 Governor, who has this judicial power conferred on him by the 
 constitution. 
 
 An appeal to the public opinion must be made by responsible 
 citizens to be successful. For that reason the complete report of 
 the investigation of this case, including a brief of the testimony 
 given at the trial and the sworn statements of all witnesses who 
 have given important evidence, and also accounts by the w^arden 
 of the penitentiary, and others who have been concerned in this 
 matter, have been submitted to many citizens who are prominent 
 in the state. Thej' have read the complete reports and have had 
 the advice of a thoroughly competent lawyer. Afterwards they 
 have signed the following statement in order to get the whole 
 matter before the people of the state of Oregon. 
 
 The committee appeal to the voters of Oregon, irrespective 
 of party, to petition the Chief Executive of the state to pardon 
 William Branson and Anna Booth, who were wrongfully con- 
 victed of the murder of William Booth at Willamina, Yamhill 
 County, on October 8, 1915, and to restore them to the full rights 
 of citizenship. 
 
 The members of this committee have each read and consid- 
 ered carefully the report on this case, which includes a brief of 
 the evidence given at the trial. 
 
 In order to be fully assured of the merits of the report, the 
 committee secured the services of a lawyer of recognized ability 
 who has had experience as a prosecutor. This lawyer is widely 
 known, and he was employed and paid by this committee to 
 study carefully all the evidence given at the trial of William 
 Branson and Anna Booth, and to examine and weigh the report 
 on the case and to advise this committee. 
 
 His statement follows : 
 
 The undersigned was employed by Mr. George A. Thacher, 
 representing the committee, to examine the record of the trial 
 of William Branson, convicted of the murder of William Booth, 
 and to report his opinion as to the guilt or innocence of Branson, 
 based on said record. 
 
 I have examined the record, and the brief of the testimony, 
 as prepared by Mr. Thacher, and also his report. It is my opinion. 
 
44 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 based on the record, and aided by the investigation of Mr. 
 Thacher, also aided by reading and considering the confession 
 of one Wilham Riggin, that neither Wilham Branson nor Mrs. 
 WiUiam Booth are guilty of the murder of William Booth. The 
 report, as prepared by Mr. Thacher, is so complete in detail, and 
 so well analyzes the facts that I suggest that it be made the basis 
 of any future action by the committee in presenting the matter 
 to the Governor. Mr. Thacher has devoted considerable time 
 and study to this case, and, in my judgment, he is correct in his 
 deductions. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 Frank S. Grant. 
 
Chapter VI. 
 THE MURDER OF MRS. DAISY WEHRMAN AND HER CHILD 
 
 There is a little hamlet, five or six miles in a westerly direc- 
 tion from Scappoose, Columbia County, Oregon, which is known 
 as Schnitzcrville. In 1911 there were possibly a dozen families 
 living within a radius of a mile. There was no local postoffice 
 and the neighbors brought the mail for each other from the post- 
 office at Scappoose and placed it in a box at the cross-roads. 
 There was a logging railroad with a siding half a mile away and 
 the neighbors used the track in walking to and from Scappoose. 
 The country is broken and the wagon roads, which are more or 
 less impassable in the rainy season, wind around the hills and 
 through occasional stretches of timber. 
 
 Several families from Portland had undertaken to make 
 homes here and had begun to build small houses and to cultivate 
 little patches of ground. Among the number were two bach- 
 elors, Mr. Riley and Mr. Hassen; Mr. John Arthur Pender and 
 his wife, and Mr. Frank Wehrman and his wife and little boy, 
 Harold, four years old. Mr. Pender and his wife were living in 
 a tent until they could build them a house and were engaged in 
 raising ducks and chickens and geese. Messrs. Riley and Hassen 
 had a cabin close by, but they were at work in Portland and 
 spent only Sundays and holidays at their little place in Schnitzcr- 
 ville. Mr. Frank Wehrman and his wife had purchased a few 
 acres a mile away to the southwest and had built a small house. 
 Mr. Wehrman was a baker and worked in a bakery in Portland 
 but came home Saturday nights to spend Sunday. Mrs. Wehr- 
 man and her little four-year-old boy, Harold, spent all their time 
 in the new home. There were other neighbors, making a small 
 community with more or less common interests. 
 
 This part of Columbia County is an old but rather sparsely 
 settled section and was originally covered with heavy timber. 
 
 Among the old settlers is G. H. Sierks, who lived with his wife 
 and three children about half a mile from the Wehrman's in an 
 opposite direction from Schnitzcrville. The oldest of the chil- 
 dren was a young man named John G. H. Sierks, who was nearly 
 twenty-one years old at this time. John was feeble-minded and 
 vicious in his habits and showed such marked homicidal tenden- 
 cies that all the family lived in fear of what he would attempt 
 next. His father has told the story of his attempts to kill him 
 
46 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 and different members of the family when he was thwarted or 
 angry. Two years later, on his father's complaint, John was com- 
 mitted to the institution for the insane where the records show 
 that he was regarded as a moral imbecile. 
 
 In the summer of 1911, John G. H. Sierks was at work on a 
 farm in Washington County, about twenty miles from his 
 father's home in Columbia County, going home for occasional 
 visits. This was the setting of surrounding circumstances when 
 on September 6, 1911, Mrs. G. H. Sierks and her daughter, Lena, 
 walked to Scappoose and brought word to the authorities that 
 something had happened in the little house where Mrs. Frank 
 Wehrman and her child were living while Mr. Wehrman was 
 at his work in Portland. Mr. Wehrman had been at home the 
 week before but had left for Portland Sunday afternoon. This 
 was Wednesday that Mrs. Sierks brought news of a tragedy, for 
 she had found on Tuesday, she said, that the Wehrman house 
 was padlocked on the outside and that a pool of blood had 
 dripped from the inside of the house to the ground and that she 
 and her daughter had looked through the window and saw Mrs. 
 Wehrman's body, with her limbs bare, and hanging over the side 
 of the bed, her feet (with shoes and rubbers on) touching the 
 floor. This information Mrs. Sierks admitted she had kept to 
 herself twenty-four hours before going to Scappoose to tell her 
 husband, who was at work there as a carpenter. (The Sierks 
 family said that John Sierks was not at home, but in 1916 Lena 
 Sierks, John's sister, said that John was at home a couple of days 
 before they found Mrs. Wehrman's dead body.) Mrs. Wehrman 
 was dead, the sheriff discovered, with her four-year-old child 
 lying dead in her arms. Both mother and child had been most 
 brutally murdered and the cabin locked with a padlock on the 
 outside to conceal the tragedy. The physicians testified that the 
 woman and the child had been dead two or three days when the 
 bodies were discovered. 
 
 There were no clues to the double murder except that three 
 shots had been fired into each body with a thirty-eight caliber 
 Colts revolver, which was held so close that the wounds were 
 badly powder burned, and a hatchet had been used on Mrs. 
 Wehrman's head. 
 
 As the result of a two-year struggle to convict Mr. Pender of 
 this crime, he was finally found guilty of murder in the first 
 degree and sentenced to be hung, though he did not own a Colts 
 revolver and there was no evidence to show that he was nearer 
 
The Wehrman Murder 47 
 
 than a mile from the Wehrman cabin when the murder was com- 
 mitted. The jury could not agree at the first trial, nine months 
 after the murder, but two years after the murder Mr, Pender was 
 convicted. In 1914 his sentence was commuted to life imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 THEORY OF PROSECUTION 
 
 There was a newspaper in its wrapper and a small unopened 
 package containing a curtain made out of a flour sack, which 
 had been taken to the Wehrman cabin by someone from an 
 improvised mail box at Schnitzerville and had not been opened 
 at the time the bodies were found. Mr. Wehrman testified at 
 the preliminary hearing soon after the murder that the package 
 was at the house before he left for Portland on Sunday after- 
 noon, September 3, but no question was asked about the news- 
 paper. It was the theory of the prosecution that Mr. Pender 
 broke into Riley and Hassen's cabin close to his tent house after 
 or about 6 P. M., Monday evening, September 4, and broke open 
 the trunk and took the Colts revolver and visited Mrs. Wehrman, 
 taking her mail from the neighborhood box and the paper from 
 the post office at Scappoose, and made improper proposals to 
 Mrs. Wehrman, and upon her refusal went into an insane rage 
 and fired three shots into her body and three shots into her 
 child's body, holding the revolver so close that the wounds were 
 badlj' powder burned, and then took the hatchet and chopped 
 the woman's head open. Her body was left partially disrobed 
 with the bare limbs hanging over the edge of the bed. The 
 door was then padlocked on the outside and the tragedy awaited 
 discoveiy for several days. 
 
 There was no proof that Pender stole the revolver and later 
 returned it, or that anyone stole it. Riley and Hassen said that 
 their cabin had been broken into and the trunk opened but they 
 were contradictory in their testimony at the different trials as 
 to whether they discovered that the cabin had been broken into 
 "before" or "after" September 10. They worked in Portland and 
 visited the cabin on Sundays. They were also contradictory as 
 to whether the revolver was loaded when placed in the trunk. In 
 fact, there was no testimony about the revolver with any direct 
 bearing on the crime except that the Colts revolver bullets which 
 killed Mrs. Wehrman and her child were scratched, and it was 
 attempted to be shown that the revolver in Riley and Hassen's 
 trunk, which was a Colt, had gas pits in the barrel which would 
 
48 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 scratch a bullet in a similar manner. It was also testified to by 
 some witnesses that Pender's face was scratched though other 
 witnesses had no recollection of this. There was foreign matter 
 found under the finger nails of Mrs. Wehrman's hands and some 
 brown hairs in her fingers. Pender's hair is black. 
 
 It was also testified to that Pender on a certain day had not 
 spoken to Mrs. Wehrman from which the inference was drawn 
 that he had previously insulted her. Finally the stories were 
 circulated outside of court that Pender was a Sadie and had 
 boasted of mistreating Filipino girls and then killing them when 
 he was in the army. 
 
 On this testimony Mr. Pender was convicted two years after 
 the murder and sentenced to be hung. To show how intelligent 
 men may be carried away by their horror of an awful crime I 
 will quote from the opinion of the Supreme Court of Oregon 
 affirming the death sentence. 
 
 Referring to the hopelessly contradictory testimony as to 
 whether Pender got the Wehrman paper in the post office on 
 Monday, September 4, Justice Ramsey, who wrote the opinion, 
 said it "tends to connect the defendant with the Iowa paper," 
 etc. He then offers a theory as to what Mr. Pender did which 
 would have been proper for the prosecuting attorney, but is in- 
 conceivable for a supreme court review and opinion. "He (Pen- 
 der) may have taken the Bates package and have kept it until 
 he obtained the Iowa paper the next day, and he may have taken 
 the package and the paper to the Wehrman cabin on Monday 
 night as an excuse for making a call on Mrs. Wehrman, and the 
 murder may have been committed immediately thereafter." Jus- 
 tice Ramsey even went so far as to carelessly misquote testimony 
 to sustain a preconceived opinion. 
 
 THE STOLEN REVOLVER 
 
 It was the theory of the prosecution that Pender stole a re- 
 volver from a locked trunk in Riley and Hassen's cabin on Labor 
 Day evening after 5:30 or 6 o'clock and used it to commit this 
 murder. Riley and Hassen were at home Sunday and on Mon- 
 day until 5:30 or 6 o'clock when they left for Portland. 
 
 Justice Ramsey says of this matter: "A day or two before 
 the murder Riley and Hassen went away and locked the cabin. 
 This pistol was in the trunk in the cabin, and it was not loaded 
 when they left the cabin, and the trunk was locked. Some weeks 
 before the murder the defendant had this pistol borrowed to 
 
The Wehrman Murder 49 
 
 shooi wild animals that bothered his chickens. He had it two 
 or three weeks, and returned it to Mr. Riley. 
 
 "A short time before the murder the defendant borrowed the 
 key of the cabin and had it for a short time, and a person, vis- 
 iting at his tents, slept in said cabin. He returned the key to 
 the owners of the cabin a short time before the murder." 
 
 Justice Ramsey also says: "The evidence tends to show that 
 when Riley and Hassen locked this trunk and the cabin and 
 went away, the pistol was in the trunk and unloaded. Nothing 
 that had been in the trunk was missing, but the pistol was loaded 
 when the sheriff found it. This fact tends to prove that someone 
 had been using the pistol and had returned it loaded." 
 
 As a matter of fact Riley and Hassen did not go away a day 
 or two before the murder and no one says that they did except 
 Justice Ramsey. They were at home on Sunday and Monday 
 and locked their cabin Monday night about 5:30 and went away. 
 
 As to the revolver being loaned to Pender some weeks before 
 the murder to shoot wild animals there is no evidence to show 
 whether it was some weeks or some months before the murder 
 that Pender had the revolver. This is referred to on pages 332, 
 350, 351, 365 and 366 of the transcript. Justice Ramsey's state- 
 ment is altogether gratuitous. 
 
 His statement that Pender borrowed the key to Riley and 
 Hassen's cabin a short time before the murder is in direct oppo- 
 sition to the testimony. On pages 333 and 365 is the testimony. 
 On page 365 Riley said he loaned the key to Pender once "a 
 long time before the murder." On pages 117-118 of the transcript 
 of the first trial Riley said the key to the cabin was loaned in 
 the spring to Pender. The murder occurred in September. Jus- 
 tice Ramsey has misquoted this testimony changing "a long time 
 before the murder" to a "short time before the murder." 
 
 The opinion of the supreme court affirming Pender's death 
 sentence has a number of entirely inaccurate stateinents like 
 the above, but there is this to be said of the members of the 
 supreme court, and that is that several of them who signed this 
 opinion were bound by ties of personal interest and association 
 to St. Helens and Columbia County. The sentiment in Columbia 
 County in regard to this murder was very bitter, and public opin- 
 ion demanded that somebody should be punished for it. 
 
Chapter VII. 
 THE CRIME INDICATES THE CRIMINAL 
 
 Comparatively little attention is paid by detectives and sher- 
 iffs to the minor details of a murder, though these often reveal 
 the character of the man who committed it. Sheriffs are too 
 apt to be elected to office because they are popular and good 
 "hand-shakers" and are more or less wise politicians. These 
 pleasant qualities are very necessary of course, but they don't 
 include any knowledge of feeble-minded or insane persons who 
 have homicidal tendencies. Very obviously in murder cases 
 where there is no direct evidence but only what is called "cir- 
 cumstantial evidence," persons who make a business of detecting 
 crime should be fully informed of the characteristics of all kinds 
 of criminals. For instance, the ordinary murderer is completely 
 satisfied when he kills his victim. He does not continue to assault 
 the dead body the way a baboon or wild animal would do. We 
 do know, however, that half-witted men sometimes commit mur- 
 der and that they act like wild animals. Dr. Goddard in his 
 "Criminal Imbecile" tells of a weak-minded young man who 
 killed his school teacher. He stabbed her body 24 times in order 
 to make a "good job of it." 
 
 In this Columbia County murder Mrs. Wehrman's body was 
 shot three times, the revolver being held so close that each time 
 the flesh was badly powder burned. The doctor said any one 
 of these shots would have killed her. Then the murderer picked 
 up a hatchet and smashed her skull with it. The body of the 
 child was also shot three times and the wounds were all badly 
 powder burned. Any one of the shots would have killed the 
 child. 
 
 Here is circumstantial evidence of genuine value that a feeble- 
 minded man killed Mrs. Wehrman. Notice how this circum- 
 stantial evidence coincides with the facts. The Wehrmans had 
 nearer neighbors than the Fenders, and in one of them, the G. H. 
 Sierks family, there was a defective and thoroughly vicious 
 young man by the name of John Sierks. This young man accord- 
 ing to his own father had homicidal tendencies when he was 
 opposed and had tried on different occasions to kill different 
 members of his own family. He had a weakness for liquor and 
 guns and his sex habits were vicious. His ambition in life was 
 
 once expressed by him in a desire to kill the old son of , 
 
 his father, and then he could get rid of the rest of the family and 
 
The Wehrman Murder 51 
 
 inherit the property and get married and be somebody. He had 
 failed both in poisoning his brother and in killing his father 
 and was away from home and in Washington County, where he 
 was at work for Louie Schmidt near Helvetia, However, he went 
 home frequently and his sister Lena Sierks, who was removed 
 from her father's home in the spring of 1916 upon the request of 
 citizens and officials in Scappoose, has volunteered the informa- 
 tion, and repeated it, that her brother John Sierks was at home 
 two days before the Sierks family discovered the dead bodies 
 of their neighbors, Mrs. Wehrman and her child. For it was 
 the Sierks family who discovered the murder and who kept it 
 to themselves twenty-four hours, according to Mrs. Sierks' tes- 
 timony at the trials of John Pender for murder. Here are her 
 words: "It was the second (?) of September when I went to 
 the Wehrman's house, and the door was locked with a padlock; 
 I thought she was gone. I wanted to see what time it was, and 
 we looked into the wdndow, my daughter and L We saw Mrs. 
 Wehrman lying on the bed; she was bare, her legs were bare. 
 I went around the house. I saw some blood there, but I did not 
 know where the blood came from, so I went home. I thought 
 she was asleep. In the night I worried. I didn't know how it 
 came the door w^as locked from the outside; I worried all night 
 about the padlock. The next morning my daughter said, "We 
 shall go back again." We went back. We saw the door was 
 locked; we looked into the window again, and we saw her lying 
 the same way that she did on Tuesday. So I went around the 
 house alone, and I saw blood there, and then we went home 
 and notified Scappoose that something had happened there, and 
 notified the sheriff, and Mr. Grant he came out there and looked 
 after it." 
 
 The idea that John's mother could imagine that Mrs. Wehr- 
 man was asleep with her body partially naked hanging over the 
 bed so that the feet touched the floor, with the window blind 
 up so that outsiders could look in and tell the time by the clock, 
 is foolish. Then to say that she saw blood on the ground by the 
 house and that she did not know where it came from, adding, 
 "So I went home; I thought she was asleep," is evidently untrue. 
 Mrs. Sierks practically admits the untruth by saying she went 
 home and worried all night about the padlock which locked the 
 door on the outside, and the next day went back and looked at 
 the body and padlock and the blood and then "notified Scap- 
 poose that something had happened there." 
 
52 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 Such a terrible murder must have made a great impression 
 on all the Sierks family and it is natural that John's childlike 
 mind remembered and repeated what his mother said to his 
 sister when they thought he was asleep — "John did that." They 
 knew from experience that John was quite capable of murder. 
 
 John Sierks was placed in the hospital for the insane by his 
 family before Mr. Pender's second trial in 1913. John explained 
 that he was in the hospital because his family thought he killed 
 Mrs. Wehrman and said he heard his mother say to his sister 
 Lena, "John did that." 
 
 About the first of January, 1915, John made a confession of 
 the murder and it is given in full in Appendix B. After he con- 
 fessed he said to a reporter that after he got back to Louie 
 Schmidt's, near Helvetia, he wrote home that he saw in the pa- 
 pers that his mother committed the crime, and that he would 
 bet that letter was around their home now. As it happened 
 this was printed in a Portland newspaper, and the next day John 
 Sierks' father appeared in Salem with this letter but the father 
 said John meant "discovered" instead of "committed." Mr. Sierks 
 had corrected the letter to read "discovered." 
 
 John told in his confession of going from the neighborhood 
 of Hillsboro to Scappoose on the evening of Labor Day, 1911, 
 getting a revolver from Riley and Hassen's cabin in Schnitzer- 
 ville and killing Mrs. Wehrman and her child and then going 
 back to Hillsboro the same night. This seemed a difficult feat, 
 but two years later John's sister Lena explained that John was 
 at home on a visit for a couple of days just before they found 
 Mrs. Wehrman's dead body. He was at home at the time of 
 the murder but did not go and come as he said he did. 
 
 John said Mrs. Wehrman fired her revolver at him as he 
 went into the cabin. The sheriff testified at Mr. Pender's trial 
 that he found a .32 caliber bullet in the wall to the right of the 
 door. Mrs. Wehrman had a .32 caliber revolver. 
 
 John said he found a hatchet in the wood box and "chopped 
 and split her skull." The testimony of Mr. Wehrman was to 
 the effect that the hatchet was kept in the wood box. 
 
 John said he took off an undergarment from Mrs. Wehrman. 
 This was done by some one. John said he washed his hands in 
 the basin and padlocked the door on the outside. These things 
 were done according to the testimony. 
 
 John said he buried Mrs. Wehrman's revolver. This has not 
 been verified, but the revolver has disappeared. 
 
The Wehrman Murder 53 
 
 After John's confession his father wrote him he had dis- 
 graced the family and that they wouUl go away. John wrote him 
 an answer without anyone's knowledge and said he was sorry 
 they had given him up, hut that he killed Mrs. Wehrman. Then 
 when his father arrived in Salem John repudiated his confession. 
 
 After John Sierks' confession was repudiated it was consid- 
 ered that John had a good alihi, as his employer. Louis Schmidt, 
 thought John was not away at the time of the murder. How- 
 ever, two citizens of Washington County told me that John was 
 in Holhrook and that he came from the direction of Scappoose 
 just at the time of the murder. 
 
 Following is a sworn statement: 
 
 I, L. Nitchman, being duly sworn, depose and say that I live 
 on my farm in Shady Brook School District, where I have Hved 
 about three years, and previous to this time I lived on my farm 
 in Mason Hill School District, in Washington County, and that 
 I was living there during the years of 1910 and 1911. I have 
 known John G. H. Sierks for about six years. He came to my 
 farm in Mason Hill about six years ago and asked for work, 
 and I gave him work slashing timber, and he boarded in my 
 family while working for us, and for several years he came to 
 me at intervals for work, and I gave him work for short periods, 
 and he lived in my family, so that I knew him well. He did fair 
 work by being looked after. John Sierks did some work for 
 me in the spring of 1911, and on leaving me I got him a job with 
 Louie Schmidt, whom I know. It is about six miles in a direct 
 line from my farm on Mason Hill to Louie Schmidt's, and John 
 came to see us twice, I am positive, and perhaps three times 
 while he was at work for Louie Schmidt. 
 
 1 remember that John Sierks came to our farm at just about 
 the time of the murder of Mrs. Wehrman, but whether it was 
 before or after I cannot say, and said that he came from Hol- 
 brook and had been in Scappoose. This was either on a Sunday 
 or a holiday, for I was not at work in the field on the farm at 
 the time. It was late in the afternoon when John came and he 
 sat with his head in his hands and cried and cried until my wife 
 was frightened and called me in from doing my chores. She 
 said John was in trouble and said among other things, "I am 
 so sorn>'." I told my wife that John was drunk. He was telling 
 how harsh his family was to him. John said that his watch was 
 broken, and that he had been in a fight, and I think that his 
 face was scratched. 
 
54 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 In regard to the Wehrman murder, I think that John told us 
 about it before we saw the news in the papers. I remember his 
 saying something about its being lucky that he was not at home 
 or they would have blamed him for it. 
 
 After John left Louie Schmidt in the fall of 1911, he came to 
 my place for a short time and then he went to work for one of 
 my neighbors, a Mr. Dean. 
 
 It is impossible to remember exactly as to the dates of John's 
 visits, but I am positive that he did come to visit us while he 
 was at work for Louie Schmidt, and at about the time of the 
 murder he came and I thought he was drunk because he was 
 crying constantly, which was a thing he had never done before 
 while at my house, and said he came from Holbrook and had 
 been in a fight. It is my recollection that John slept in the barn 
 that night, but of this I cannot be positive. It is also mj'^ recollec- 
 tion that John told us about the murder before we saw it in the 
 papers. L. Nitchman. 
 
 December 2, 1915. 
 
 W. C. Hunt, a blacksmith of Holbrook at the time of the 
 Wehrman murder, had employed John Sierks, and John stopped 
 at his place in going and coming from Washington County. Mr. 
 Hunt says that just about the time of the murder of Mrs. Wehr- 
 man and her little boy, John Sierks came on foot from the direc- 
 tion of Scappoose with the bundle of blankets and stuff that he 
 usually carried when going back and forth, and stopped at Mr. 
 Hunt's for dinner, Mr. Hunt does not remember whether it was 
 Sunday or not, but he does remember that he was not at work 
 in his shop. He noticed that John's face had some fresh scratches 
 as if he had been through some briars, and he asked him, "Who 
 peeled j'^our face?" John replied that he had been in a fight with 
 a man in Dutch Canyon, and that he had his watch broken in 
 the fight." 
 
 Mrs. Hunt also remembered of John coming from Scappoose 
 on Labor Day, as she believes, and stopping for dinner on his 
 way to Mr. Nitchman's, John was scratched up and told of being 
 in a fight and of having his watch broken. 
 
 In May of 1916 three of John's former employers, L. Nitch- 
 man, W. C. Hunt and Walter Dean, visited John in the hospital. 
 John told them of dates he went to work for each one and spoke 
 of stopping at Mr. Hunt's for dinner on Labor Day, September 
 4, 1911, on his way back to Washington County from his home 
 
The Wehrmaii Murder 55 
 
 near Scappoose, and of eating supper the same day at Nitch- 
 man's. 
 
 On the 23rd day of June, 191G, when I took Lena Sierks to 
 see her brother, the matter of John's memory was mentioned 
 and he gave the dates he went to work for his different employ- 
 ers and spoke of being in Scappoose at his father's on Sunday 
 and the following Monday, Labor Day, September 4, 1911, and 
 of stopping at Mr. Hunt's at Holbrook and at Mr. Nitchman's at 
 Mason Hill on September 4. 
 
 I asked Lena Sierks if it was true that John was at home at 
 the time he said he was and she replied that he was at home 
 a couple of days before they found the dead body of Mrs. Wehr- 
 man, and that he was also at home two weeks later. 
 
 John Sierks told us of being in a fight in Dutch Canyon 
 (where the Sierks and Wehrmans lived) and of getting badly 
 scratched up on the occasion of his visit on Sunday and Labor 
 Day, September 3 and 4, 1911. 
 
 I asked Lena Sierks if it was true and she said that John came 
 home with the side of his face badly scratched and also the back 
 of his neck scratched and she showed us where the scratches 
 were. 
 
 I made no allusion to the murder and that subject was not 
 discussed. 
 
 On July 15, 1916, at the Boys' and Girls' Aid Society in Port- 
 land, Mr. John F. Logan, with his stenographer, talked with Lena 
 Sierks, Mrs. Harriet H. Heller and I being present. 
 
 Lena Sierks said to us repeatedly that John was at home a 
 couple of days before they found Mrs. Wehrman's body and 
 also two weeks later. 
 
 This destroys the claim that John never left Louie Schmidt's 
 all summer to go home. It also establishes the 'fact beyond a 
 reasonable doubt that John Sierks was at his father's home about 
 half a mile from the Wehrman cabin on the day when Mrs. 
 Wehrman and her child were killed. The Sierks family con- 
 cealed this fact for several years, but the truth came out in 1916 
 when Lena Sierks left home and went to Portland to live. The 
 reasons for the concealment can be easily imagined. 
 
Chapter VIII 
 THE HAIR FOUND IN MRS. WEHRMAN'S DEAD HANDS 
 
 When Mrs. Wehrman's body was examined by a physician 
 it was found that there was considerable foreign matter under 
 her finger nails. There was no microscopic examination made of 
 this foreign matter but it is assumed, and probably correctly, 
 that Mrs. Weshman endeavored to fight off the man who killed 
 her and that she scratched his face and head. Some brown hair 
 was also found clutched in her dead hands. There was one 
 brown hair found in one hand and a little tuft of brown hair 
 of a hghter color found in the other hand. 
 
 It was assumed, without any proof of course, that Mrs. Wehr- 
 man, after she had scratched the murderer's face and got the for- 
 eign matter under her finger nails, proceeded to pull a hair out 
 of her own head with one hand and then to pull several hairs 
 out of her child's head with the other hand just before she died. 
 
 Arthur Pender had black hair, while the hair found in Mrs. 
 Wehrman's hands was brown. Examination under the micro- 
 scope by Dr. J. Allen Gilbert gave the following results in the 
 matter of the hair: 
 
 The hair found in Mrs. Wehrman's hand looked very much 
 like the hair out of John Sierks' head. However, the hair cut 
 from Mr. Wehrman's head and from Mrs. Wehrman's head did 
 not differ in any noticeable fashion from the hair found in Mrs. 
 Wehrman's left hand, so the results of the examination were 
 entirely negative. They did not prove anything either way. The 
 hair found in Mrs. Wehrman's right hand, which was lighter in 
 color, appeared to be much like the hair of Mrs. Wehrman's 
 little boy. 
 
 Later I had the professor of biology at Reed College look at 
 these slides through his microscope, and he expressed the opinion 
 that the hair cut from Mrs. Wehrman's head was darker than 
 the hair found in her hand. 
 
 I was told that the only way to make a satisfactory test would 
 be to have two microscopes arranged with a reflection of glasses 
 so that one could look through the aperture for the eye and see 
 the two samples in the two microscopes at the same time. This 
 is called, I believe, a comparison microscope, but nothing of the 
 kind is to be found in Portland. It is impossible to look at one 
 sample of hair and change the shde and notice small differences. 
 
The Wehrmon Murder 57 
 
 The net result of this examination of the hair simply proved 
 that the hair found in the dead woman's hands was not Mr. 
 Pender's. Beyond that the results were negative and neither 
 proved nor disproved that the hair was John Sierks'. It looked 
 like John Sierks' hair and that is all that can be said. As for 
 the fine hair of lighter color in Mrs. Wehrman's right hand, I 
 am informed by reliable witnesses that John Sierks allowed his 
 hair to grow long and that he had an unusual growth on his 
 neck. The latter fact I know to be true. When John Sierks 
 lived out of doors his hair bleached to a light color in the sun 
 of the summer, and it is possible that this fine hair of light 
 color was pulled from the neck of the man who shot her to 
 death, for the powder burns proved that the murderer was close 
 to her and held the revolver against her body. 
 
 The following curious information was volunteered by N. E. 
 Persinger, an intelligent young man in Washington County : 
 
 "I, N. E. Persinger, being sworn, depose and say that I live in 
 Shadybrook, Washington County, and that in September, 1911, 
 I lived at my father's place in Mason Hill, Washington County. 
 I knew John G. H. Sierks at the time he worked for L. Nitchman 
 and during the following two years. He used to come to our 
 house occasionally and I went out hunting with him on one occa- 
 sion and I became well acquainted with him. 
 
 Some days after the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her little 
 boy at Scappoose early in September, 1911, John Sierks was 
 talking to me about the murder and said "Pender did it; I know 
 he did," and he cursed Pender and said he would get him for it. 
 About the time of this conversation John Sierks asked me if 
 hair would grow in again and took off his hat and showed me 
 a small spot on the top of his head where the hair had been 
 pulled out by the roots. He was quite anxious to know whether 
 the hair would grow again. 
 
 John Sierks wore his hair long on his neck and it was bleached 
 to a very much lighter color than the hair of his head. 
 
 John said he knew Mrs. Wehrman well. 
 
 N. E. Persinger." 
 
 The sworn statement of Frank Persinger agrees in the main 
 points with his brother's. 
 
 THE RECONSTRUCTED STORY 
 
 A simple way to analyze the various facts which have been 
 slowly discovered about John Sierks is to relate the main inci- 
 
58 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 dents of his confession and examine the details and see if it will 
 be generally corroborated by independent testimony. 
 
 John Sierks, who has the mind of a boy of nine years plus 
 nearly 20 years' experience (Dr. De Busk of the University of 
 Oregon estimates John's mental age as nine), could not get along 
 at home nor could he go away from home and stay without fre- 
 quent visits. That is characteristic of weak-minded persons. He 
 was at work for Louie Schmidt near Helvetia on the United 
 Railways, but he had to visit home often. His sister Lena, now 
 that she is away from her father's influence, has said on two 
 occasions that John was at home a couple of days before they 
 found Mrs. Wehrman's body and also two weeks later. 
 
 John was attracted by Mrs. Wehrman and finding her alone 
 on Sunday (after her husband started for Portland), he made 
 improper proposals to her probably while he was under the in- 
 fluence of liquor, and she attempted to defend herself. She had 
 a .32 caliber revolver and John says she fired at him and the 
 bullet passed to his right as he entered the door. At Mr. Pender's 
 trial Sheriff Thompson testified that he dug a .32 bullet out of 
 the wall at the head of the bed. Examination shows that the 
 head of the bed stood against the wall to the right of the door 
 as you enter, so this detail is corroborated. 
 
 John had a .38 caliber revolver and advanced on Mrs. Wehr- 
 man and fired three shots into her body after a struggle with her 
 and emptied the other chambers into the head of the child, hold- 
 ing the revolver so close that all the wounds were badly powder- 
 burned. 
 
 During the struggle previous to John's shooting, Mrs. Wehr- 
 man scratched his face and neck and pulled his hair out in a 
 vain attempt to fight him off. 
 
 John, feeble-minded fashion, after he had shot the woman 
 to death, took the hatchet and broke in her skull so as to be 
 certain that he had done a good job. Then he took off her 
 drawers and placed them under her and assaulted her. He 
 told of this, and when he repudiated his confession he said he 
 saw about the drawers in the St. Helens Mist. The paper printed 
 no such detail. 
 
 The drawers were found under Mrs. Wehrman's body where 
 John said he placed them. 
 
 Then John washed his hands in the basin at the door, locked 
 the door with the padlock on the outside and threw away the 
 key. 
 
The Wehrman Murder 59 
 
 Later Mrs. Sierks said she was much troubled at seeing Mrs. 
 Wehrman on the bed with her bare legs hanging over the edge 
 and her feet on the floor, while the door was padlocked on the 
 outside and blood had dripped to the ground from the cabin. 
 
 John went home and the family saw the evidence of the 
 struggle and the scratches on his face and neck as his sister 
 Lena has described. The family knew John from bitter experi- 
 ence — his homicidal tendencies when he was opposed and his 
 lustful inclinations. Of course they made inquiries and guessed 
 what had happened. However, they were in no way responsible 
 and they did not absolutely know. At the same time they could 
 not stay away from the cabin where there was blood on the 
 ground and a door locked on the outside and a woman across 
 a bed with legs uncovered, but they professed to believe that 
 the woman was asleep. Finally on Wednesday, as no one else^ 
 had discovered the murder, Mrs. Sierks and Lena went to Scap- 
 poose and told Mr. Sierks that something must be done. They 
 did not tell anj^ of their neighbors though they met at least one 
 on their way to Scappoose. 
 
 Sometime previous to the murder, G. H. Sierks and John A. 
 Pender had a quarrel decidedly bitter on Sierks' part. He wanted 
 Mr. Pender to sign a road petition and Pender declined. On one 
 occasion Mr. Pender had a valuable bull dog belonging to his 
 brother-in-law, and he had the dog fastened near his tent house 
 at Schnitzerville. Sierks attempted to make friends with the 
 bull dog and though Pender warned him to leave the dog alone 
 he would not. The dog broke loose and bit G. H. Sierks, which 
 angered him greatly. 
 
 On a later occasion Mr. Sierks came to Pender's place and 
 had his son John Sierks with him. At that time Sierks threatened 
 to shoot Mr. Pender and actually pointed his gun at him, but 
 Mrs. Pender says she grabbed the gun barrel and threw it up. 
 She thought Mr. Sierks was temporarily insane. Sierks, however, 
 did shoot and kill the bull dog. 
 
Chapter IX 
 JOHN SIERKS' LETTERS ABOUT THE MURDER 
 
 On Wednesday, September 6, the murder was discovered and 
 the indications were that it had been committed on the Sunday 
 previous, September 3, and this was printed in some of the news- 
 papers at the time. 
 
 Nobody knows who first suggested Mr. Pender's name in con- 
 nection with the murder, but the news of the murder came from 
 the Sierks family on Wednesday, September 6, and Mrs. Sierks 
 and Lena admitted their knowledge of the situation for one day 
 before they told of it. This is suggestive in view of what we 
 now know about John Sierks being at home on September 3 and 
 4. He started back to Washington County on Monday, Labor 
 Day, September 4, and stopped at Holbrook and ate dinner with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hunt. He explained his scratched up condition 
 by saying he had been in a fight. He went on to Mason Hill in 
 the afternoon and stopped at Mr. Nitchman's, whom he often 
 worked for. He explained here also his scratches and told of 
 his broken watch and then frightened Mrs. Nitchman by break- 
 ing down and crying bitterly and exclaiming that he was so 
 sorry. Mrs. Nitchman called her husband and he assured her 
 that John was probably drunk. John slept that night in the barn 
 and left early for Schmidt's. This was on September 5, 1911. 
 On September 8, 1911, he writes the following letter to his father: 
 
 "September 8, 1911. 
 "My dear father: 
 
 Your letter to the 23rd (?) of September is received. I was 
 glad to hear from you. I have read a piece in the paper yes- 
 terday, the 7th of September, of Mrs. Wehrman and her little 
 boy Harold, our nearest neighbor got killed by a murderer. 
 They got shot and then hacked up with a hatchet. That was 
 an awful dirty trick whoever done it. I never thought a thing 
 like that would happen in our home. How is mamma and the 
 children getting along? Are they still alive? I will be out of 
 work in a few weeks and then I will pick up my clothes and 
 come home. I would be a damned fool if I would want to do 
 a thing like that to go and murder anyone of my folks; I would 
 rather have a bullet thru my head before I would do a thing 
 like that is, to go and be a murderer, liar and thief. Them things 
 won't go at all; that is lying, stealing and murder business. That 
 
The Wehrman Murder 61 
 
 man who did that will be sure to find his grace, it don't make 
 any difference whoever it may be, he is not sure of his life. He 
 will be punished all of his life for that what he done today. The 
 10th of September, I read about him in another paper that he 
 had fired five shots; three shots were fired in Mrs. Wehrman 
 and two were fired in the little boy, Harold, and that they were 
 all found and mamma, her name was also in both papers that 
 she committed (Mr. Sierks says he ineant to write discovered) 
 the crime. That is too bad about that poor woman anyhow that 
 she had to lose her life on account of a misery. Everybody that 
 read about her say that he will find the way into the pen for 
 that, if the Sheriff finds him they say. If they put blood hounds 
 out he is sure they would soon find him. I hope that nothing 
 like that will happen at our home for I don't want to lose mamma 
 and the children. I have got trouble enough without that that 
 I have to bear that something has happened to mamma and the 
 children, are you? If I should happen to come and not find 
 you there, it will be all off with me. 
 
 Well I must close for this time for news are running short, 
 I remain, 
 
 Your loving and faithful son, 
 
 John G. H. Sierks. 
 
 R. R. 1 box 122, in care of J. S. Schmidtt. 
 
 Write as soon as possible again and will you please tell 
 mamma to write to me also." 
 
 The letter tells its ow^n story. The father preserved it and 
 over three years later when John confessed that he did kill Mrs. 
 Wehrman, G. H. Sierks went to Salem and took this letter to 
 prove that John was innocent. 
 
 However, John, who has unusual memory, got ahead of his 
 father and told a reporter of the Portland News about this letter 
 and what he said in it and the News printed what John said 
 about this letter before G. H. Sierks arrived in Salem. 
 
 The News account follows: 
 
 Portland News, Jan. 5, 1915. 
 (Interview with John Sierks.) 
 "After I went back to the farm, I read about this about four 
 or five days afterwards. Then I wrote my mother. I told her 
 that I had read in the papers that Daisy Wehrman and her boy 
 had been killed and that she had found the bodies. I accused 
 her of doing it. That was only a blind (here you could see a 
 
62 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 look of cunning in his eyes) because I didn't want her to think 
 I did it. I bet that letter is in the house now. 
 
 "After I came home I heard my mother tell my sister that 
 she bet John did that." 
 
 It was at this time within a couple of weeks after the murder 
 that John consulted N. E. Persinger and his brother Frank as 
 to whether his hair would grow in where it had been pulled out. 
 He also talked of the murder and was violent in his denuncia- 
 tions of Pender as the murderer. Mr. Pender was not arrested 
 until the 15th of September. 
 
 We know from Lena Sierks, as well as John, that he visited 
 home again two weeks after the murder. That would be about 
 September 17. This was after John had left Louie Schmidt and 
 had gone to work for W. P. Dean. After the murder, according 
 to Hedinger who worked at Schmidt's, John talked a good deal 
 about the murder and wrote and received letters from home 
 about it, and became of no use on the farm, so Mr. Schmidt 
 let him go about September 11 or 12. On September 14 John 
 went to work for W. P. Dean as John volunteered from his 
 memory, and as W. P. Dean's account book shows. Mr. Dean 
 says that John was nervous about something and always wanted 
 to get the newspapers to read before anyone else in the family 
 saw them. Dean thought it was because the Wehrman's were 
 neighbors. 
 
 After John returned from his visit at Scappoose on or about 
 September 17, he wrote another letter to his father about the 
 murder and about his scratches and broken watch. He got these 
 scratches before September 4 as we know from John, from Lena, 
 from Mr. and Mrs. Hunt and from Mr. and Mrs. Nitchman, and 
 he got them when he was at home, but still after another visit 
 home he wrote home how it happened. Here is the letter: 
 
 "Hillsboro, Oregon, Sept. 24, 1911. 
 "My dear Father: 
 
 I write you a few lines and tell you that I am well yet and 
 hope the same of you. I read in a paper the other day about 
 the crime that happened down there in Scappoose. I read in the 
 paper yesterday that they thought that Mr. J. A. Pender might 
 be the murderer of this woman and her little son. It was an 
 awful dirty trick whoever done it. He ought to be hung up by 
 his ears for doing that. I wish they could find the right man 
 that done that. I would put in a word that they hang him up 
 for that murder business. I was figuring to come home the 30th 
 
 I 
 
 ' 
 
The Wchrinaii Murder 63 
 
 of October but I don't think I will for awhile now that I can get 
 plenty of work yet. I am done at J. L. Schmidt's and now I 
 am at a man named W. P. Dean digging potatoes. I will have 
 two months' work there and from there I will go to Mr. Nitchman 
 and stay over winter. I have tried to save up a little money 
 and buy me a new watch. I broke mine all to pieces. I got in 
 a fight with a couple of drunkards and got my clothes all torn 
 up and besides my face beaten in and all fixed up in good shape 
 for awhile. I had to buy me some new clothes again and also 
 medicine to heal myself up. I am all right now though I have 
 an awful headache about them damned fools that broke my 
 watch up for me, but I will get even on them yet. I will shoot 
 their damned heads off if I ever get a hold of them and I don't 
 care if they put me in the place where Pender is. I don't care 
 a bit for that. I have to have my money to buy a new watch 
 again. I could not be without one. I will try with all my might 
 so that I get something out of them if I can. Well I must close 
 for this time. I remain Your son, 
 
 John G. H. Sierks. 
 R. F. D. No. 1 box 43 in care of L. Nitchman, write soon." 
 
 This letter the father preserved also, and when he came to 
 Salem after John had confessed to the murder about the first 
 of January, 1915, he brought this letter with the previous one 
 to prove that John was innocent and that he merely imagined 
 that he had killed Mrs. Wehrman. This letter is very significant 
 because it explains elaborately the scratches and broken watch 
 which the Sierks family, the Hunt family and the Nitchman 
 family all knew about as early as September 4. 
 
 There is no escape from the conclusion that John and his 
 father were trying to establish an alibi for John by means of 
 these letters in case John should be accused of the murder. 
 
 G. H. Sierks has persistently to this day denied that John was 
 at home at the time of the murder or even soon after, and the 
 truth has come out only through Lena Sierks leaving home in 
 1916, where she was 'so unkindly treated that the neighbors com- 
 plained and had her removed from her father's control. The 
 sworn statements of the Hunt family and the Nitchmans also 
 confirm Lena's statements that John was at home just before 
 Mrs. Wehrman's dead body was discovered. 
 
 These late discovered facts explain why Mrs. Sierks and Lena 
 did not tell their neighbors or the authorities as soon as they 
 
64 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 discovered that Mrs. Wehrman had been murdered. They evi- 
 dently hoped that somebody else would discover the murder. 
 These facts indicate how John Pender, whom G. H. Sierks hated 
 and had threatened to kill, came to be accused of the crime. 
 John Sierks was to be saved from the disgrace of a murder and 
 Sierks' hatred of Pender was to be gratified. Sheriff Thompson 
 and Detective Levings accepted the theory and worked with 
 great industry and expense to convict Pender and finally suc- 
 ceeded though the jury at the first trial refused to convict. There 
 was a doubt of Penders' guilt that hung the first jury but after 
 many months public opinion became crystalized. 
 
 Chapter X 
 CONFIRMATION OF JOHN SIERKS' CONFESSION OF THE 
 
 MURDER 
 
 It has taken five years for the true story of this murder to 
 be discovered, and the two years that have passed since the 
 facts came out have not altered the situation. John Sierks was 
 at home when the inurder was committed, and the Wehrmans 
 and the Sierks were near neighbors. John's letters to his father, 
 which Mr. Sierks, Sr., was so careful to keep for several years 
 and then produce after John confessed, were written on John's 
 return to Louie Schmidt's in Washington County to establish an 
 alibi evidently. These letters were possibly suggested by some 
 friend of John's though that will probably never be known. We 
 only know that there must have been some motive in these letters 
 because John was actually at home according to his sister Lena, 
 and the letters pretend that he was away. The only possible 
 motive was to set up an alibi and throw suspicion on Mr. Pender. 
 
 The reconstructed story as related in the previous chapters 
 is all proven by independent testimony except the act of murder 
 by John Sierks in the Wehrman cabin. For that there was no 
 witness. 
 
 REPUDIATION OF THE CONFESSION 
 
 Some sixty hours after John Sierks had made this confession j 
 and after receiving a letter from his father, G. H. Sierks of Scap- 
 poose, saying that he had disgraced the family and that theyj 
 
The Wehrnuin Murder 65 
 
 would pack up their goods and leave the country and never 
 see him again, John of his own motion wrote the following let- 
 ter and without consulting anyone. In fact, no one knew of it 
 until it came into Dr. Steiner's hands. Dr. Steiner is Superin- 
 tendent of the Salem Hospital. 
 
 "Salem, Oregon, Hospital Station, 
 "My dear Father: 
 
 January 5, 1915. 
 
 I received your letter and also the presents that my uncle and 
 aunts and cousins sent to me. I thank j'^ou very much for sending 
 them to me, I feel awful sorry that you have given me up. My 
 dear Father, but there is no one else to blame but myself. I 
 would rather be in the penitentiary than to stay all my life long 
 in the asylum where I cannot have my liberty. If I am at the 
 penitentiary I would have my liberty no matter how bad I am. 
 I know that when I was a boy of 14 years old what a little Devil 
 I was and the older I got the worse I got until I finally had to 
 be sent to a place where I have to behave whether I want to or 
 not. But I am going to make my life pretty some day when I 
 get a chance for I am tired of living any longer. I would rather 
 be dead than alive for I am convicted of murder in the first 
 degree. I am the murderer of Mrs. Daisy Wehrman and her 
 little son. I am the man that done the dirty trick and lied on 
 Pender. I may be in St. Helens in a few days or so on my trial 
 and I may see you and mother and sister and brother. Otto, for 
 the last time and no more. 
 
 Well, I will close for this time. With love and best regards 
 to you all, I remain, Your loving son, 
 
 John Sierks." 
 
 If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy, 
 Mrs. Sierks and Lena would not have concealed the murder for 
 24 hours as they admit doing (and probably 48 hours) on the 
 pretense that they believed Mrs. Wehrman to be asleep lying 
 across the bed with her bare legs hanging over the side and her 
 feet on the floor, and when the door to the cabin was padlocked 
 on the outside and blood was on the ground which had dripped 
 from the cabin. If they had not been reasonably certain that 
 John did the deed they would have raised a hue and cry at once 
 when they visited her cabin. 
 
 If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy 
 Mr. Sierks and his family would not have denied that John was 
 
66 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 at home when the murder was committed, nor would these two 
 partly cunning and partly simple letters have been written by 
 John to his father and then carefully preserved by G. H. Sierks 
 to prove an alibi for John when the time came that John was 
 suspected. 
 
 If Lena Sierks had not been taken away from her father's 
 control the fact that John was at home at the time of the murder 
 would never, probably, have been established. 
 
 If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy 
 he would not have gone back to work scratched up so that the 
 Hunt family and the Nitchman family noticed it, and John's 
 various explanations of it would not have been made, beginning 
 Labor Day and finally culminating in an elaborate letter to his 
 father on September 24, which was written after he had been at 
 home on or about September 17. 
 
 If John Sierks had not been guilty he would not have had to 
 inquire of the Persingers within two weeks after the murder if 
 his hair would grow in where it had been pulled out. 
 
 If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy 
 he would not voluntarily and without suggestion said to Mr. 
 MacLaren that his family put him in the hospital because they 
 thought he killed Mrs. Wehrman. 
 
 If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy 
 he would not have confessed to the crime to ease his unhappy 
 soul. 
 
 If John Sierks had not killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy 
 he could not have told the details of the murder with the accu- 
 racy he showed. He did not refer to the fact that a .32 caliber bul- 
 let was found in the wall at the head of the bed. He only said that 
 Mrs. Wehrman fired her revolver at him and that the bullet 
 went to his right. The fact that Mrs. Wehrman had a .32 caliber 
 revolver was brought out at the trial and also that a .32 bullet 
 was dug out of the wall at the head of the bed. The fact that 
 the head of the bed was against the wall to the right of the door 
 as you enter the cabin was not brought out directly at all, but 
 the fact was disclosed at the time of the murder by drawings 
 reproduced in the newspapers and by the testimony of witnesses. 
 John in his story of the murder told how he took Mrs. Wehrman's 
 drawers off and for what purpose and where he placed them. 
 In repudiating his confession he said he saw that detail in a 
 newspaper, which is absurd. 
 
 If John Sierks had nqt killed Mrs. Wehrman and her boy the 
 
The Wehrman Murder 67 
 
 people of Columbia County would not have been imposed upon 
 by a clever scheme to saddle a terrible crime on John Pender 
 who was hated by Sierks. 
 
 The detectives employed by the State and also the detectives 
 employed by the Pender family showed a complete ignorance of 
 the nature of the murder and the kind of man who must have 
 committed it, and accepted as final the statements of the Sierks 
 family that John was not at home at the time of the crime. If 
 they had been moved by a desire for scientific accuracy they 
 would have travelled some 15 miles and looked up John Sierks, 
 and then the whole thing would have come out. This would 
 have saved the taxpayers of Columbia County some six thousand 
 dollars, and would have saved them the tragedy of convicting an 
 innocent man. 
 
Chapter XI 
 CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE 
 
 It is claimed to be a rule of law and evidence that an accused 
 person must be regarded innocent until he has been proven 
 guilty. This is the theory, but as a matter of fact we all know 
 that when a man is suspected of murder, arrested and accused, 
 we all begin to wonder how he is going to clear himself of the 
 charge. As a matter of fact no man can clear himself unless he 
 can prove an alibi — that he was somewhere else at the time — or 
 unless it is clearly shown that someone else committed the crime. 
 
 Circumstantial evidence from its very name obviously con- 
 sists of inferences from proved facts. In criminal trials, like that 
 of Arthur Pender, where there is nothing but circumstantial evi- 
 dence, it means that there is no testimony from any person as to 
 any overt act by the accused which tends to show that he com- 
 mitted the crime. It is all a question of circumstances, and those 
 circumstances must be such that the ordinary, every day experi- 
 ences of mankind justify the inferences that the conduct of the 
 accused person in view of the circumstances was criminal, or 
 else the accusation of crime falls to the ground. We frequently 
 hear of a "Scotch verdict," which describes the verdict "Not 
 Proven" in Scotland when the jury thinks there is some founda- 
 tion for the charge but where the evidence does not warrant a 
 verdict of guilty. This peculiar form of verdict does honor to 
 perhaps the most intellectually acute people of the modern world 
 for the words "not proven" may actually describe the conclusions 
 of intelligent men who weigh evidence and who cannot consci- 
 entiously convict or acquit the accused on the inferences to be 
 drawn from the facts or circumstances. 
 
 There are three risks in accepting circumstantial evidence as 
 proving or disproving an accusation of crime. The first is that 
 the chain of circumstances may not be complete and that the 
 inferences in consequence may be false. The second is that the 
 circumstances may not be fully or absolutely estabhshed. This 
 is the greatest danger of all, for it is the most common faihng of 
 men and women to assume offhand that a certain circumstance 
 is absolutely a fact when it may not be so at all. Of course an 
 inference from a false assumption is bound to be false. In the 
 every day affairs of life this is perhaps the most common cause 
 of failure. Men often do not get their facts absolutely, but guess 
 
Circumstantial Evidence 69 
 
 at them in part and so frequently fail in their undertakings. In 
 the case of a jury trying a man for murder the careless readiness 
 to assume that certain circumstances arc proved when they are 
 really hased on an inference or a "maybe" or "might be" has 
 been responsible for many a miscarriage of justice. This is the 
 most vicious defect in the administration of the criminal law in 
 the United States. The trial judges leave it to the juries because 
 the juries are judges of the facts, and superior courts as a rule 
 affirm all convictions where the trial has been formally correct. 
 The third danger from the acceptance of the inferences from 
 the circumstances is that the accused person may have been 
 actuated by some motive known only to himself and not obvi- 
 ously apparent. That motive may have its roots in some per- 
 sonal peculiarity or even aberration which leads the accused to 
 act in a different way from the mass of men. For instance the 
 crime of murder involves wilful malice. In 1917 a man was con- 
 victed of murder in Multnomah County and sentenced to the 
 penitentiary for life. The killing was proved and the inference 
 from the proved circumstances was that the murder was done 
 with malice aforethought. However it developed wuthin 90 days 
 that this so-called wilful murderer was a paranoiac and had 
 "delusions of persecution" which rendered him entirely irrespon- 
 sible. The disease developed so fast after he was confined in 
 the penitentiary that he had to be removed to the criminal insane 
 ward of the state hospital. In this case the man needed to be 
 confined and the only injustice was the destroying of the repu- 
 tation of an unfortunate and wholly irresponsible person. 
 
 ARTHUR Pender's trial 
 
 In Arthur Pender's trial there was no circumstance of any 
 kind which necessarily connected him with the crime. In addi- 
 tion there was no circumstance which stood by itself as firmly 
 established. Even on the theory of District Attorney Tongue and 
 Mr. Lcvings, the detective, the validity of the circumstances all 
 depended upon each other. That is to say, the inference drawn 
 from a disputed fact was needed to help bolster up another fact 
 also of uncertain standing This is not only bad logic but it is 
 condemned in law. Its basing one inference upon another which 
 is forbidden. An inference based upon a fact is legitimate but a 
 double inference is not allowed. 
 
 THE SCRATCHED BULLETS 
 
 On Wednesday, September 6, the Sierks family informed the 
 
70 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 sheriff that Mrs. Wehrman had been killed. It was assumed by 
 the sheriff from indications that the murder was committed on 
 Sunday, the 3rd. Then Monday, September 4, was fixed as the 
 day, and as the detective's theory came to be developed the time 
 was set sometime Monday night after 6 P. M. There was no evi- 
 dence to support this idea but the theory offered was that a 
 Colts revolver had been stolen by Pender from Riley and Has- 
 sen's cabin, as Pender had no Colts revolver, and that the killing 
 was done with this gun. The evidence that this gun was used 
 consisted in the fact that the bullets were scratched by a gas pit 
 in the barrel and that this particular gun had a gas pit which did 
 scratch the bullets fired out of it in a similar manner. Mr. Lev- 
 ings was the expert witness for the prosecution and his testimony 
 was absolutely contradicted by Detective Craddock, a revolver 
 expert on the Portland police force. 
 
 It cannot be claimed Mr. Levings expert testimony to sustain 
 his own theory proved the fact that a gas pit in a revolver barrel 
 would scratch a bullet in face of the opposing testimony of 
 Detective Craddock, a recognized revolver expert of years of 
 experience. It was simply a case of "maybe." Even if Mr. Lev- 
 ings was right it did not prove that this particular Colts revolver 
 was the only one with a gas pit in the barrel. 
 
 Then the theory that the revolver was stolen made it neces- 
 sary to claim that the murder was done sometime Monday night 
 because Riley and Hassen were at home all day Sunday and all 
 day Monday until nearly 6 P. M., when they left for Portland. So 
 the time of the murder was made to depend upon the scratch on 
 the bullets from which the inference was drawn that they were 
 fired from the revolver in Riley's cabin, but that could not have 
 been stolen before Monday night at 6 P. M. because the owner 
 was at home up to that time. In addition there was no direct 
 proof that the revolver had ever been stolen by anybody. That, 
 too, depended on the inference that the bullets could not have 
 been scratched by being fired from any other revolver. If the 
 revolver was stolen it was returned, as admitted by the prosecu- 
 tion. Here was another "maybe." Riley and Hassen's testimony 
 as to whether their cabin was entered depended on the appear- 
 ance of a window blind and the condition of the trunk. The time 
 when it was entered was also disputed by the very owners of the 
 cabin at the different trials. They came home on September 10 
 and on September 17 . If they did not discover the signs of en- 
 trance on September 10 (the murder occurred a week before) 
 
Circumstantial Evidence 71 
 
 then the whole theory that this particuhir revolver was used fails. 
 Here is another "niaybe" for the testimony of the prosecution's 
 witnesses was contradictory. There was also a complete uncer- 
 tainty as to whether the revolver was loaded when placed in the 
 trunk and when found afterwards or whether it was placed in 
 the trunk unloaded and later found loaded. Here is still another 
 "maybe." 
 
 The accusation of murder against Mr. Pender depends on the 
 theory that he stole the revolver Monday night, used it to kill 
 Mrs. Wehrman and returned it loaded, and that theory rests 
 entirely on the fact that the bullets were scratched. That is to 
 say '*maybe" the bullets were scratched by Riley's revolver and 
 "maybe" not. "Maybe" Riley's cabin was entered before the 
 murder and "maybe" not. "Maybe" the revolver was taken from 
 the trunk and "maybe" not. "Maybe" the revolver was loaded 
 when placed in the trunk and "maybe" not. "Maybe" Mrs. Wehr- 
 man and her child were murdered Monday night and "maybe" 
 not. "Maybe" Mrs. Wehrman and her child were killed with 
 Riley's revolver and "maybe" not. It all depends upon the 
 scratches on the bullets found in the Wehrman cabin. There was 
 nothing but "maybes" offered by the prosecution in addition to 
 the bullets. 
 
 WHERE WAS MR. PENDER? 
 
 The theory of the use of the revolver just referred to depends 
 upon Mr. Pender's stealing it sometime in the evening of Septem- 
 ber 4 and then going to the Wehrman cabin. Mr. Pender said he 
 was in his tent house near Riley's (which was a mile from Wehr- 
 man's cabin) the evening of September 4 and that he had a lan- 
 tern lit inside. A neighbor who passed testified that he did not 
 see the light from the lantern shining through the tent fly. It was 
 not claimed that anybody saw Pender. The witness did not see 
 the light in the tent so the inference was offered to the jury that 
 Mr. Pender had stolen the revolver and gone to the Wehrman 
 cabin — "maybe." 
 
 Mr. Pender used to get the mail at Scappoose and put it in a 
 box near his tent house for his neighbors to help themselves. An 
 Iowa paper and a small package were found unopened in the 
 Wehrman cabin, and to support the theory that Mr. Pender took 
 them there was the testimony of a very contradictory nature that 
 Mr. Pender asked for the Wehrman mail on Monday. "Maybe" 
 he did. The Supreme Court of Oregon in its opinion on the 
 Pender case uses the following words : "He (Pender) may have 
 
72 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 taken the Bates package and have kept it until he obtained the 
 Iowa paper the next day, and he may have taken the package 
 and the paper to the Wehrman cabin on Monday night as an 
 excuse for making a call on Mrs. Wehrman, and the murder 
 may have been committed immediately thereafter." The highest 
 court in Oregon thus tells how "maybe" the whole thing hap- 
 pened. The Supreme Court did not know that Mr. Wehrman 
 testified at the preliminary hearing a few^ weeks after the mur- 
 der that the "package" was at his cabin on Sunday before he left 
 for Portland. This eliminates the package, but it's pure guess 
 work as to the paper, as the Supreme Court admits in saying that 
 Pender may have taken the paper to the Wehrman cabin. 
 
 SCRATCHES ON MR. PENDER's FACE 
 
 Foreign matter was found under Mrs. Wehrman's finger nails 
 and some witnesses testified that Pender's face was scratched. 
 Other witnesses as well qualified apparently as the first did not 
 see any scratches. The inference that Mrs. Wehrman scratched 
 Pender's face from the fact that there was foreign matter under 
 the finger nails of Mrs. Wehrman's hands was not sustained by 
 testimony. It's another case of "maybe." This is a doubtful 
 "maybe" because Mrs. Wehrman in her struggles had pulled out 
 some brown hair from someone's head and the hair was found 
 in her dead hands. The hair was brown and Pender's hair is 
 black. 
 
 In the Pender trial there were no circumstances established 
 in connection with the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her child 
 from which any legitimate inferences could be drawn connecting 
 Mr. Pender with the murder. The only facts were that the bullets 
 found in the Wehrman cabin were slightly scratched and that 
 there was foreign matter under the finger nails of Mrs. Wehr- 
 man's hands and some brown hairs in her fingers. It was not a 
 fair inference nor a safe inference that Riley and Hassen's Colts 
 revolver locked in a trunk in a locked house a mile away was the 
 only revolver from which these bullets could have been fired. 
 Neither was it a fair inference nor a safe inference that Mrs. 
 Wehrman scratched Mr. Pender's face. The fact that the hair 
 in her fingers was brown while Mr. Pender's hair is black goes 
 directly against the inference that Mr. Pender was assaulting her 
 and that she fought and scratched him. 
 
 The whole theory of the prosecution of Mr. Pender rested on 
 the bullets and foreign matter under Mrs. Wehrman's finger 
 
Circnmstantiiil Evidence 73 
 
 nails and the brown hairs. The stolen revolver, the mail, Pen- 
 der's presence at the scene of the murder are all inferences or 
 "maybes," and each of these inferences had to depend upon the 
 others for mutual support. 
 
 However the jury convicted Mr. Pender of murder and the 
 court sentenced him to be hung. This sort of thing was accepted 
 as circumstantial evidence under the laws of Oregon and ap- 
 proved by trial judge and accepted by the Supreme Court of 
 the state in this fashion. Mr. Pender "may" have taken the pack- 
 age, he "may" have kept it till he got the Iowa paper, he "may" 
 have taken the paper and package to the Wehrman cabin as an 
 excuse and the murder "may" have been committed immediately 
 thereafter. 
 
 The distressing thing in the Pender trial as well as in the 
 Branson trial where inferences were based on inferences and 
 they in turn on other inferences in order to justify the convic- 
 tions which were obtained in the trial courts, and w^hich were 
 tacitly approved by the Supreme Court of Oregon, is the undeni- 
 able fact that in Sections 783, 784, 785 of Bellingers and Cotton's 
 Code, and Sections 794, 795, 796 of Lord's Oregon Laws, it is ex- 
 plicitly stated as the law of Oregon that "an inference must be 
 founded on a fact legally proved." These laws were adopted in 
 Oregon as long ago as 1862 and there is more than one decision 
 of the Supreme Court resting entirely on this state law concern- 
 ing indirect evidence. 
 
 The most noteworthy case was the Hembree murder trial 
 where a conviction was reversed by the Supreme Court on this 
 particular point. The case is to be found in the 54th Oregon 
 Beports. 
 
 A. J. Hembree lived on a farm in Tillamook County with his 
 wife and daughter, Ora, and two boys. Ora was 18 years old. 
 On December 26, 1905, the two boys went aw^ay from home to 
 visit some relatives. On December 28 at 2:45 A. M., Mr. Hembree 
 appeared at the home of Mr. Hoyt, a neighbor, and inquired if 
 his wife and daughter had arrived. On receiving a negative 
 answer he said his house had burned down and that his wife and 
 daughter were out in the cold. Mr. Hembree had arrived at the 
 Hoyt's onl}^ partly clad and was suffering acutely from hernia, as 
 he had left his truss off on going to bed, and so he asked that 
 James Thompson, a brother-in-law of Mr. Hoyt's go and look 
 for his wife and daughter. 
 
 Thompson found a bed of coals six feet square and three feet 
 
74 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 high on what had been the center of the Hembree house site, but 
 he could find no trace of Mrs. Hembree and Ora. Thompson 
 notified two neighbors and they went to the site of the home and 
 found in the embers two human skeletons, which it was admitted 
 were the remains of Mrs. Hembree and Ora Hembree. 
 
 Hembree's story was that he and his wife occupied a bedroom 
 upstairs and that Ora occupied another room upstairs. They were 
 awakened in the night and found the house on fire and rushed 
 out of doors partially dressed. Ora exclaimed that all her good 
 clothes were in her room and wanted to go back to get them. Mr. 
 Hembree said that he looked at the stairway and saw that it 
 was burning underneath and told Ora not to try to go back to 
 her room as it was dangerous. Mr, Hembree then went into the 
 kitchen and threw a number of things outside, which were after- 
 wards found. When he went out he did not find his wife and 
 daughter and after looking in the barn concluded that they had 
 gone to Mr. Hoyt's and so followed. This was Mr. Hembree's 
 account of the tragedy, but he was arrested for the murder and 
 tried and convicted. There was no direct evidence connecting 
 Hembree with the alleged murder, but it was sought to establish 
 certain circumstances from which a certain inference was of- 
 fered to the jury and on that inference another inference was 
 based to account for Hembree's motive for killing his wife and 
 daughter. 
 
 The motive claimed was Hembree's alleged or inferred im- 
 proper intimacy with his daughter, Ora. This was attempted to 
 be proved by the testimony of a hotel-keeper in Tillamook who 
 said that Hembree brought his daughter to his hotel a number 
 of times when she was attending school. On February 22, 1905, 
 Larsen, the hotel-keeper, said Hembree had been to his daugh- 
 ter's room "because of marks of feet there." 
 
 In June of 1905 Hembree took his daughter to the hotel and 
 late in the night insisted on going to her room to tell her some- 
 thing important. Hembree testified in his own behalf that he had 
 given his daughter money to keep for him to prevent him spend- 
 ing it for drink and that he went to Ora's room to get a few dol- 
 lars to buy some liquor. Three men corroborated this to the 
 extent of saying that he went to the hotel and when he came 
 back exhibited some money and went and bought some liquor 
 with it. 
 
 Hembree's lawyers argued that Hembree in going to his 
 daughter's room at the hotel without any attempt at concealment 
 
Circumstantial Evidence 75 
 
 was not necessarily guilty of misconduct and that the jury was 
 incorrectly permitted to infer that Hembree was on terms of 
 improper intimacy with his daughter. 
 
 The Supreme Court said "Evidence showing that a party 
 charged with crime had a motive for committing it is not requi- 
 site, though such proof is of great importance in cases depend- 
 ing on circumstantial evidence." The court also quotes from 
 "People vs. Stout," a New York case, as bearing directly on this 
 point. In the 4th volume of Parker's Criminal Reports (New 
 York) this matter of inferential evidence from proved facts is 
 discussed at length (pages 71 to 128) on an appeal from the trial 
 court. Ira Stout was tried for the murder of his sister's husband, 
 but the evidence against him was purely circumstantial, or infer- 
 ential as we say in other matters. The prosecution recognized 
 that under the rulings of the New York courts the motive for the 
 murder must be established before Stout could be convicted in 
 view of the fact that there was no direct evidence, but only cir- 
 cumstantial, that he did commit the murder. 
 
 The prosecution established the fact by competent evidence 
 that Stout had been on terms of improper intimacy (incestuous) 
 with his married sister for several months before her husband 
 was killed. The court held on the appeal from the trial court 
 that Stout's motive for killing his brother-in-law was properly 
 deduced from this criminal intimacy with his sister and together 
 with the circumstantial evidence that he, Stout, did kill his 
 brother-in-law was sufficient to sustain the conviction of murder 
 in the trial court. 
 
 ANOTHER CASE 
 
 In Volume 3 of Parker's Criminal Reports (New York) on 
 pages 681-686 is given the decision on appeal in "The People vs. 
 Wood." This also was a murder case where there was nothing 
 but circumstantial or inferential evidence. Wood attempted to 
 kill his brother and sister-in-law and their children by giving 
 them poison. He failed in the case of the children but then got 
 himself appointed guardian of the children's estate and then cre- 
 ated forged claims against the estate. On his trial for murder 
 evidence was offered and admitted over protest tending to prove 
 these other crimes in order to establish a motive for the murder 
 for which he was being tried. 
 
 The case was appealed for a writ of error on the ground that 
 evidence had been admitted tending to prove other crimes 
 
76 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 against the defendant. The court refused to grant a new trial 
 because the evidence offered concerning other crimes of the de- 
 fendant was legitimate in this case because such evidence tended 
 to establish the motive for the murder for which Wood was 
 being tried. 
 
 Justice Johnson said: "The case being one of circumstantial 
 evidence wholly, proof of the existence of a criminal inotive in 
 the mind of the prisoner to commit the act was essential to mak- 
 ing out a case against him which would justify a verdict of 
 guilty." 
 
 The Oregon Supreme Court in reversing the conviction of 
 Hembree for murder and in ordering a new trial also referred to 
 the principles laid down in "The People vs. Bennett," a case 
 passed on by the New York Court of Appeals which is given in 
 Vol. 49 of the New York Reports on pages 137-149. The prin- 
 ciples involved in this decision have such an important bearing 
 on both the Branson case and the Pender case that it is worth 
 while to quote from it more fully than did the Oregon Supreme 
 Court in the Hembree case. 
 
 Bennett had been tried for killing his wife but the evidence 
 was wholly circumstantial. Moreover the manner of the homi- 
 cide was so peculiar that the question of the motive became very 
 important. * The court said: "Motive is an inducement, or that 
 which leads or tempts the mind to indulge the criminal act. It 
 is resorted to as a means of arriving at an ultimate fact, not for 
 the purpose of explaining the reason of a criminal act which has 
 been clearly proved, but from the important aid it may render in 
 completing the proof of the commission of the act when it might 
 otherwise remain in doubt. With motives in any speculative 
 sense, neither the law nor the tribunal which administers it has 
 any concern. 
 
 * Note : In the Bennett case the motive appeared from 
 the evidence to apply to the husband alone. In the Bran- 
 son case in Oregon the court instructed the jury that there 
 was no evidence tending to prove adulterous relations 
 between Branson and Mrs. Booth, or in other words that 
 no motive was established. In the Pender case the Supreme 
 Court said the motive of the murderer was clear; that Mrs. 
 Wehrman died rather than submit to dishonor, but there 
 was nothing to show that Pender had any such motive. It 
 might have been some other man. 
 
(Jrciunstantial Evidence 11 
 
 "It is in cases of proof by circumstantial evidence tliat the 
 motive often becomes not only material, but controlling, and in 
 such cases the facts from which it may be inferred must be 
 proved. It cannot be imagined any more than any other circum- 
 stance in the case." 
 
 The New York Court of Appeals also said in this case, "In de- 
 termining a cpiestion of fact from circumstantial evidence, there 
 are two general rules to be observed : 1. The hypothesis of delin- 
 (juency or guilt should flow naturally from the facts proved, and 
 be consistent with them all. 2. The evidence must be such as to 
 exclude, to a moral certainty, every hypothesis but that of his 
 guilt of the offense imputed to him; or, in other words, the facts 
 proved must all be consistent with and point to his guilt not only, 
 but they must be inconsistent with his innocence." 
 
 The Oregon Supreme Court in the Hembree case clearly up- 
 held the principle established in many cases in other courts of 
 appeal that the motive for a crime is of great importance where 
 the evidence is wholly circumstantial, and also that the infer- 
 ences as to a motive must depend upon facts legally proved. The 
 Hembree decision on which hinged a man's life rested on this 
 point, and the court in discussing the matter of inferences re- 
 ferred to Section 783, 784 and 785 of Bellinger and Cotton's Code 
 and Statutes of Oregon where it is explicitly stated that "An in- 
 ference must be founded on a fact legally proved." 
 
 On the general rule that one inference cannot be based on 
 another and especially in view^ of the Oregon statute the court 
 held as to the testimony concerning Hembree's going to his 
 daughter's room under the known circumstances that it did not 
 justify the inference that he was on terms of improper intimacy 
 with his daughter, and that consequently the further inference 
 that his alleged improper intimacy with his daughter was a 
 motive for killing her and his wife was also a false inference 
 and did not in connection with the circumstances of the death of 
 the wife and daughter justify the verdict of guilty. The case was 
 reversed and a new trial ordered. 
 
 Supposing that in the trial of William Branson for the mur- 
 der of William Booth the case had been appealed to the Supreme 
 Court on the ground that there was no direct evidence whatever 
 of the killing of Booth by Branson and that there was no fact 
 established from which a motive could be properly inferred for 
 such alleged killing. The judge in the trial court charged the 
 jury: "It is claimed in this case on the part of the prosecution 
 
78 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 for the purpose of establishing a motive on the part of the de- 
 fendants for the kiUing of Wilham Booth that ilHcit or improper 
 relations existed between the said defendants, William Branson 
 and Anna Booth. 
 
 "You are instructed as a matter of law, that there is no evi- 
 dence in this case establishing adulterous relations existing be- 
 tween the defendant Branson and Anna Booth." 
 
 Supposing in addition to the absence of any proven fact from 
 which to deduce a motive the appeal to the Supreme Court had 
 shown that the inference was offered to the jury that because 
 Mrs. Booth was seen walking along a certain road and that per- 
 haps Branson was riding a bicycle in the same direction coming 
 along at a distance behind her, that Branson and Mrs. Booth 
 were together in the brush near the spot where Booth was killed, 
 and based on that inference the second inference was offered to 
 the jury that Branson and Mrs. Booth were in a compromising 
 situation, and based on the second inference the third inference 
 was offered to the jury that Booth must have caught his wife 
 and Branson in a compromising position and that then and be- 
 cause of these supposed happenings Branson shot and killed 
 Booth. 
 
 What would the Supreme Court have done in view of the 
 statute that "an inference must be founded on a fact legally 
 proved," and in view of its remarkably clear exposition of the 
 law both as to proving a motive and as to indirect evidence gen- 
 erally in the case of the State vs. Hembree? 
 
 Supposing that in the trial of John Arthur Pender for the 
 murder of Mrs. Wehrman the case had been appealed to the 
 Supreme Court on the grounds that the prosecution had estab- 
 lished no fact whatever from which a motive for the murder 
 could be deduced, and that the only evidence against Pender 
 consisted of inferences based on other inferences. It is true that 
 the prosecution introduced testimony to show that Mrs. Wehr- 
 man did not speak to Arthur Pender on a certain day, but three 
 witnesses for the defense testified that Pender was elsewhere 
 fighting fire on the day in question. It is also true that the 
 Supreme Court offered the inference that Mrs. Wehrman did not 
 speak to Mr. Pender because something might have happened 
 between them which made it impossible for her to recognize 
 him and that she died rather than submit to dishonor. This 
 contains the imphcation of course that Mr. Pender insulted Mrs. 
 Wehrman on some occasion. As a voluntary offering by the 
 
Circumstantial Euideiirr 79 
 
 Supreme Court this lias a very curious sound when compared 
 with the opinion given by the same court in the Hembree case — 
 "evidence showing that a party charged with crime had a motive 
 for committing it is not requisite though such proof is of great 
 importance in cases depending on circumstantial evidence" and 
 the quotation from Reports of New York to the effect that in 
 such cases the motive "often becomes not only material but con- 
 trolling, and in such cases the facts from which it may be in- 
 ferred must be proved. It cannot be imagined any more than 
 any other circumstances in the case." 
 
 It was imagined, however, in Mr. Pender's case, and it is fair 
 to say that the court endorsed the powers of imagination 
 gratuituously. 
 
 As to the circumstantial evidence against Mr. Pender in the 
 matter of the killing, because the bullets found in the cabin were 
 scratched it did not necessarily follow that they were fired out 
 of the revolver belonging to Riley and Hassen; because some 
 Colts revolver was used it did not follow that Riley and Hassen's 
 revolver w^as stolen and used, or that Mr. Pender stole the re- 
 volver, or that the murder was committed Monday night because 
 Riley and Hassen's revolver could not have been stolen before 6 
 P. M. Monday. No fact was legally established which made 
 these inferences legitimate. Because a neighbor passing Mr. 
 Pender's tent house Monday night did not notice a light in the 
 tent it does not follow that Pender had gone to the Wehrman 
 cabin. That is not a legitimate inference based on a fact. It was 
 not a legitimate inference that Mr. Pender took the mail to the 
 Wehrman cabin, even if he took it to the mail box from Scap- 
 poose, which is uncertain at least. 
 
 The inference that Mrs. Wehrman scratched Pender's face 
 because there was foreign matter under her finger nails and 
 some brown hairs in her dead fingers (Pender's hair is black) 
 was not justified because she might have scratched some other 
 man's face and neck and probably a man who had brown hair. 
 
 What would the Supreme Court have done if the Pender con- 
 viction had been appealed on these points in view of the law on 
 indirect evidence, and in view of the court's decision in the Hem- 
 bree case? 
 
 The Oregon law on indirect evidence is not peculiar to this 
 state, as has been shown, and there are many decisions in other 
 states based on the same principle that basic facts must be 
 established before inferences can be drawn. 
 
80 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 Supplement to Chapter XI. 
 
 (After Chapter XL had been written I had the privilege of 
 reading the following brief in the case of Mr. Pender which had 
 been voluntarily prepared by Judge Martin L. Pipes. Judge 
 Pipes is one of the leading lawyers of Oregon and has taken a 
 great interest in the cases of Mr. Pender and William Branson 
 and Mrs. Booth. I was so fortunate as to secure his consent to 
 printing his brief in this account of these murder cases. — G.A.T.) 
 
 We submit that Pender is innocent and ought to be pardoned. 
 We refer to the record of his cause on trial to show that. 
 
 A murder was committed. The circumstances proved show 
 that probably on Sunday, September 3, or Monda3% September 
 4, 1911, some person entered the cabin of Mistress Wehrman, 
 attempted a criminal assault on her, struck her on the head with 
 a hatchet, shot her three times in the head, kiUing her, and shot 
 her little boy, six years old, three times in the head, kilhng him. 
 
 The evidence relied on to sustain the conviction of Pender 
 for the murder consists of three principal circumstances. 
 
 1st: That some mail consisting of a paper in a wrapper was 
 delivered to Pender by the postoffice at Scappoose on Labor Day. 
 
 2nd: That the pistol, a .38 calibre, with which the shooting 
 was done, belonged to Riley and Hassen, who lived near Pender; 
 that someone entered their cabin and took their pistol out of a 
 trunk and that it was afterwards replaced in the trunk and that 
 Pender knew that Riley and Hassen had a pistoL 
 
 3rd: That several days after the murder persons observed 
 that Pender's face was scratched, as if by finger nails. 
 
 None of these facts were certainly proved, but for the purpose 
 of the point now to be argued it will be assumed that these facts 
 were established. If they were established they fall far short of 
 proving that Pender was the guilty man. Aside from these facts 
 there is no other evidence justifying even a suspicion against 
 Pender. 
 
 Before examining the question we make the preliminary 
 statement that under the law of Oregon contained in the code 
 and construed by the Supreme Court, an inference cannot be 
 based upon another inference to prove any fact in dispute, either 
 in a civil or criminal case, but every conclusion must be founded 
 upon a fact proved. In the case of State vs. Lem Woon (57 Ore- 
 gon, 482 and 504) a pistol was admitted in evidence. The court 
 said: "To admit the weapon under the proof accompanying it is 
 to rely on an inference from an inference and not a deduction 
 
Judge Pipes' Brief 81 
 
 from an established fact," and this character of evidence is ex- 
 pressly excluded by Section 785, B. & C. Conip,, which provides 
 that the inference must be founded (1) on a fact legally proved 
 and (2) on such a deduction from that fact as is warranted by a 
 consideration of the usual propensities or passions of man, the 
 particular propensities or passions of the person whose act is in 
 question, the course of business or the course of nature. The 
 same doctrine is applied in State vs. Hembree, 54 Oregon, 463, 
 and in Lintner vs. Wiles, 70 Oregon, 350. 
 
 But it is not intended to argue a legal question. This rule is 
 not onh' the law of the land but it is the law of the human mind. 
 The question was not raised in this case in the Supreme Court 
 or it must have resulted in a reversal. The consequences of a 
 disregard of this rule are derived from human experience; it is 
 an every-day rule used by all prudent persons in their own 
 affairs and in their judgment of others. No prudent man would 
 make an important decision in his own business upon a conjec- 
 ture, and no just man would condemn another upon an inference 
 that might or might not be true. With this rule of ordinary rea- 
 soning in mind, let us examine the evidence. 
 
 If Pender took the paper out of the postoffice on Labor Day 
 there is a justifiable inference that he intended it should be 
 delivered to Mrs. Wehrman. The evidence is undisputed that 
 Pender lived five or six miles from Scappoose, that the Wehr- 
 mans lived about a mile further on, and that a box was kept at 
 Pender's cabin where the neighbors brought the mail of the 
 neighborhood and placed it for their convenience. Now, the 
 fact relied on to prove Pender's guilt was that he went to the 
 cabin. If he did not go to the cabin he was not the murderer. 
 His presence at the cabin is the fact from which guilt is to be 
 inferred, but that he went to the cabin at all is inferred only from 
 the fact that he got the paper out of the postoffice. It is one 
 inference drawn from another inference but an inference estab- 
 lishing innocence is the more reasonable inference, that is to say, 
 
 that he did what he and his neighbors were accustomed to do 
 
 put the paper in the box at his home, so of the two inferences, to 
 find him guilty, the jury would have to discard the innocent 
 inference and adopt the guilty inference. 
 
 It is not proved, therefore, that Pender went to the cabin and 
 if that is not proved the whole postoffice circumstances is out of 
 the case. 
 
 It will not do to infer that Pender took the paper to the cabin 
 
82 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 a mile beyond his place upon the theory or supposition that he 
 had a criminal intent against Mrs. Wehrman, for that is to 
 assume the fact in issue; it is reasoning in a circle. The crimi- 
 nal intent must be derived from a fact, not the fact inferred 
 from a supposed criminal intent. 
 
 We have assumed that the delivery of the paper to Pender 
 on Labor Day was proved, but it was not. The testimony was too 
 uncertain about that to be the basis of any certain conclusion. 
 To test the question, suppose the question whether Pender took 
 the paper to the cabin were the only question in issue. Suppose 
 a friendly wager about that stripped the question of all those 
 suggestions and prejudices growing out of the crime and say 
 whether it has been proved even in a case of small importance 
 that it was Pender who got the paper or Pender who took the 
 paper to the cabin, or whether in fact it was not delivered to the 
 cabin by an innocent person on some other day before Labor 
 Day. But there is still another inference intervening before the 
 final conclusion. It is inferred that the person who delivered the 
 paper at the cabin did the killing; no fact of time or circum- 
 stance justifies such a conclusion — the probabilities are all the 
 other way. It was a possibility, of course, but it could just as 
 well happen that a neighbor, Pender or another, passing by, left 
 the paper and that the murderer afterwards made the visit and 
 committed the murder. 
 
 The second principal fact relied on is the circumstance of the 
 pistol. It was a 38-calibre; that is a common size and is not 
 sufficient to identify of itself any particular pistol, but a par- 
 ticular pistol — the Riley-Hassen pistol is supposed to be identi- 
 fied as the fatal weapon. For the present, let us suppose the 
 identification is complete; it was kept in a trunk; there is evidence 
 that it was taken out of the trunk by somebody during the ab- 
 sence of the owners after 6 o'clock on Labor Day, but there is not 
 the slightest evidence that Pender took it; there is no fact proved 
 tending to show that he took it. The inference that he took it is 
 based upon the fact that he knew that Riley and Hassen owned 
 such a pistol because he had borrowed it and returned it some- 
 time before. It is no more to be inferred that he took it than 
 that anybody else with the same knowledge took it — no stronger 
 evidence against Pender than against the owners of the pistol 
 themselves. They had the pistol and could have taken it on 
 Sunday or Monday and killed the woman with it, and that is the 
 most that can be said as to Pender, that he could have done it. 
 
Judge Pipes' Brief 83 
 
 It is not meant here that the evidence even looks towards those 
 men and their friends would doubtless be indignant at the sug- 
 gestion, and justifiably so. But is Pender in a different case 
 merely because he is accused and they are not? Let us again 
 suppose that Pender's getting the pistol was the only issue; that 
 the owners had missed the pistol and had charged Pender with 
 stealing it. Would any court or jury sustain a conviction of 
 theft upon the proof that the accused knew where the pistol 
 was and could have taken it? And yet the inference that he did 
 take it is the foundation and the only foundation of the conclu- 
 sion therefrom that Pender murdered the woman with that 
 pistol. If you put the pistol out of the case and the mail circum- 
 stance out of the case you have put Pender out of the case. 
 
 We have assumed that it is completely proved that the Riley- 
 Hassen pistol did the killing, but in our opinion the proof is not 
 worthj^ of serious consideration; it is based mainly upon the 
 testimony of Levings, as an expert, that the bullet was marked 
 by a powder pit in the barrel of the pistol. Levings was the pri- 
 vate detective who worked up the case. Admitting that some 
 sleuths try to be honest and fair, it nevertheless is common 
 knowledge that the strong prejudice they come to have in a case 
 and their professional pride tincture their evidence, to say the 
 least, either consciously or unconsciously. This is so when they 
 testify about tangible and proved facts; it is more so when the 
 evidence is an opinion only. Levings' opinion is offset by that 
 of another expert to the contrarj^ but it is offset by the simplest 
 facts of common knowledge. Here is a bullet that was shot into 
 a woman's head and met with enough resistance in its course to 
 be stopped by the flesh and bones when fired at a few inches 
 distance. To say that a soft leaden bullet would show no marks 
 or abrasion from being so stopped is against experience and to 
 say that any human eye could from these marks distinguish a 
 mark made by a powder pit in the barrel is to task credulity. 
 It is also obvious that the pit would not mark the bullet unless 
 its edges were raised, which is improbable. But it is not neces- 
 sary to dwell on this feature, for as we have shown there is not 
 a fact proved that tends to establish in the slightest degree that 
 Pender got the pistol from the trunk. 
 
 The third circumstance is the marks on Pender's face. Assum- 
 ing the existence of the marks, it is inferred from them, without 
 any proof, that there was a struggle and that the woman 
 scratched him; it is inferred that the marks were made by finger 
 
84 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 nails, and all of this is based upon the previous inference built 
 upon inferences that Pender was at the cabin, which we have 
 shown is not a fact. That the marks were made by finger nails 
 at all is a poor inference and disputed by Pender, who explains 
 them by stating that he had a breaking out. The weakness of 
 this testimony was appreciated because it was sought to be 
 strengthened by evidence that the woman had foreign matter 
 under her nails. It is wonderful that such evidence should be 
 seriously offered; it would be remarkable if a housewife, at the 
 end of a day of work, would not have foreign matter under her 
 nails. The inference again is that the foreign matter was cuticle 
 from Pender's face. It is difficult to be patient with such evi- 
 dence where a man's life at first and now his life-long liberty, is 
 at stake. 
 
 It is stating the case as strongly as it can be stated against 
 Pender to say that Pender might have got the paper from the 
 postoffice on Labor Day, he might have taken it past the box 
 and his own house to the Wehrman cabin, he might have, on his 
 way, stolen the Riley-Hassen pistol, he might have assaulted the 
 woman, and upon her resistance he might have shot and killed 
 her and her boy. But that case is purely conjectured and not 
 proved by any evidence worthy of the name. But if the facts 
 to which the testimony looks as to the mail and the pistol and 
 the face marks were all true and clearly established, there is 
 between these facts and the conclusion of guilt a series of infer- 
 ences and conjecture, no one of which is certain, and a reason- 
 ing resulting in a belief of Pender's guilt is violative not only of 
 the legal rule but of the rule of common sense. We shall be 
 asked how it comes that a jury found the defendant guilty upon 
 such flimsy pretext. A long experience enables this writer to 
 give the reason: In theory of law the defendant must be con- 
 victed beyond a reasonable doubt and the fact of the indict- 
 ment against him is not to be taken as evidence; in actual prac- 
 tice, the contrary is the case. The attitude of mind of juries and 
 of everybody else is that when a person is accused of crime, the 
 burden is on him to show that he is not guilty. The inquiry is to 
 see if the facts in evidence against the accused are consistent 
 with his guilt. If they are, juries, unless carefully instructed, are 
 apt to assume his guilt, especially where no one else is suspected. 
 But that is neither the legal nor the just way to look at the evi- 
 dence; the true, safe and just process is to inquire if the facts 
 in evidence are consistent also with innocence. If they are, the 
 
Judge Pipes' Brief 85 
 
 accused is entitled before the law and before the court of human 
 justice to go free. Pender was convicted because the jury ac- 
 cepted all of the inferences that were against him and rejected 
 all that were in his favor and so finding, since he could have 
 been guilty, they found him guilty. The rational way is to say 
 that any innocent man might have got the paper out of the mail, 
 might have known of the Riley-Hassen pistol, might have had 
 scratches on his face, and still be innocent of this horrible crime, 
 and that is exactly Pender's case. It is urged against this pardon, 
 as we understand, that it is not the province of the executive to 
 review the decision of the jury and of the Supreme Court, but 
 the pardoning power has no limits except the conscience of the 
 Governor; he is the last of the instrumentalities of the state to 
 stand between innocence and unjust punishment; he is as much 
 charged on his conscience with the duty of preventing injustice 
 as the jury courts. It is true that where conflicting evidence 
 has been passed on by juries and questions of law by courts that 
 the executive is justified in refusing to disturb convictions upon 
 mere review of the evidence. But where there has been a plain 
 miscarriage of justice and a conviction upon conjecture and such 
 insufficient proof as in this case, it is within the province and it 
 is the duty of the Governor to say that the terrible injustice of a 
 life-time shall not be suffered by a man who is innocent. We 
 have read the decision of the Supreme Court in this case, where 
 it will be assumed the evidence is recited as strongly as possible 
 against Pender. The principal question before the court was 
 whether there was any evidence of the slightest kind sufficient 
 to be submitted to the jury. The court thought there was, but the 
 court did not occupy the same position as the Governor; it did 
 not and could not consider whether Pender was innocent or 
 guilty but only whether error had been committed in the case. 
 The Governor's province is to make such an examination, not 
 only of the evidence in the case but extraneous evidence as to 
 satisfy him whether justice requires a pardon. If it does, then a 
 legal duty arises and it is his duty; the case is up to him. He is 
 not bound by previous proceedings against his own conscience 
 and judgment. That is what the pardoning power is for; indeed 
 that power exists in all civilized countries because it is recog- 
 nized that judicial procedure sometimes results in mistakes and 
 it is the crowning virtue of the humane age that justice shall 
 never be barred but that every man shall have somewhere and 
 
86 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 all the time a chance for his life and his liberty when he has 
 been unjustly convicted. 
 
 There is another consideration to which Pender is entitled. 
 The crime in this case was unnatural and proves a debased 
 nature. No normal man could commit it. The murderer in this 
 case was a murderer at heart, a man of ungoverned passion and 
 illogical mind. It is inconceivable that a man of thirty-two years 
 who had never evinced the peculiar passions of this murderer 
 could be guilty of the crime unless we suppose the accession of 
 sudden insanity, and it is impossible to believe that this murder 
 would be the only exhibition of his brutal nature. Pender has 
 been under the eye of officers of the law for seven years; in all 
 that time, as we understand the evidence to be, he has behaved 
 himself and has won the confidence and respect of his guardians. 
 It would be just as impossible for the murderer of Mrs. Wehr- 
 man to have successfully stood that test without a break as it 
 would be for a leopard to change his spots. 
 
 We would not recommend a pardon of Pender if there were 
 the least doubt in our minds of his innocence, but a careful 
 examination of his whole case convinces us that the wrong man 
 has been convicted and that the real murderer has escaped 
 punishment. 
 
 Martin L. Pipes. 
 
r 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SADISM 
 
 One of the most shocking perversities of animal hfe is demon- 
 strated when a mother kills her own young soon after birth. 
 This is complete defeat of nature's plan of reproduction, and it 
 is caused by emotional disturbance of the mother. 
 
 In the human family the most terrible perversion is shown 
 when the male under the emotional stress of the sex impulse 
 kills the female. The perversion in its milder forms is very com- 
 mon, and the emotional disturbance caused by the sex impulse 
 includes an intense wish to suffer pain as well as to inflict pain. 
 In the mentally unbalanced, the feeble-minded, the epileptic and 
 in senile dementia this perversion shows the greatest violence 
 and is often the cause of murder. This fact is not generally 
 known, probably because the Anglo Saxon race has been taught 
 for centuries to hide under the veil of silence everything touch- 
 ing reproduction. 
 
 The scientific name of this emotional disturbance, amounting 
 sometimes to an aberration, is algolagnia. This describes a com- 
 plex emotional state which for practical purposes has been 
 divided and called by two different names. The desire to endure 
 suffering is called masochism from the name of Sacher-Masoch, 
 an Austrian novelist, who was a victim of the desire for punish- 
 ment at the hands of his wife. He persuaded her, against her 
 wish, to whip him with a whip having nails attached to it, and 
 took great pleasure in his pain. 
 
 Rousseau was also a victim of this amazing perverted emo- 
 tion (see his "Confessions") and there have been many cases 
 known to physicians and alienists. 
 
 The other perversion is known as Sadism. Here the patient 
 desires to inflict punishment such as whipping or strangling or 
 causing the flowing of blood. This is the perversion which leads 
 to murder in extreme cases. The murder of the Hill family in 
 Portland in 1911, which is described in Chapters 14 and 15, was 
 a case of Sadism. 
 
 The name comes from the Marquis de Sade who lived in 
 France over a hundred years ago and whom Napoleon had con- 
 fined in an asylum for the insane. But the perverse and wicked 
 conduct which made Marquis de Sade infamous was told about 
 three hundred years before de Sade was born in the horridly 
 
88 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 fascinating tale of Bluebeard, who cut off the heads of numerous 
 wives because of their curiosity and disobedience. 
 
 Bluebeard's life of wicked and bloody love must have had a 
 thrilling appeal for men and women, witness its being worked 
 into a clever drama and also made a part of a popular opera. 
 The historic original was Chevalier Raoul, who was made a 
 Marshal of France in 1429. He was a brave soldier, but cruel 
 and wicked, and he delighted in corrupting young persons of 
 both sexes and afterwards murdering them and using their 
 blood in diabolical incantations. 
 
 There is a sure foundation in human nature for these tales, 
 and that is the perverse desire to inflict pain upon a loved 
 object, possibly from a wish to absolutely dominate the object 
 of desire. Where the individual is mentally and nervously ab- 
 normal and unbalanced this desire to inflict pain becomes an 
 aberration or a species of insanity. Such a person under the 
 influence of sexual passion may commit murder by strangling or 
 by stabbing or cutting with any sharp instrument. The effusion 
 of the victim's blood seems to gratify this insane perversity 
 which, since the time of the Marquis de Sade, has been called 
 Sadism. This pathological occurrence either precedes or follows 
 copulation, but occasionally it becomes a substitute for sexual 
 indulgence. Lombroso discusses the case of Verzeni, who said in 
 his last confession, "I had an unspeakable delight in strangling 
 women," and referring to one of his victims by name, said, "I 
 took great delight in drinking Matta's blood." 
 
 A number of years ago the civilized world was intensely 
 aroused by the "Jack the ripper" or Whitechapel murders in 
 London, which were the work of a Sadie. The perverted acts 
 of this insane devil defy description. 
 
 In the last seven years there have been quite a number of 
 sadistic murders in the United States. In the spring of 1911 the 
 people of Portland were horrified by the strangling of little 
 Barbara Holzman in Albina. In June of the same year the Hill 
 family in Ardenwald were chopped to death with an axe by a 
 Sadie. Four persons were killed. 
 
 In August of the same year, 1911, the Goble family of Rainier, 
 Washington, were chopped to death with an axe. Two persons 
 were killed. 
 
 Last August Lynn George J. Kelly confessed to killing a fam- 
 ily of six persons at Valisca, Iowa, with an axe several years 
 ago. The testimony at the trial showed the nature of the Sadie 
 
Nature of Sadism 89 
 
 in unmistakable fashion. Attorney General Havner of Des 
 Moines sent me a copy of Kelly's confession, which, however, he 
 repudiated at the trial. There is a great deal of interest in this 
 confession to a student of sadistic murders, but the man was a 
 minister and the crime was so overwhelmingly terrible that the 
 jury of laymen could not believe that a minister would commit 
 such a wholesale slaughter without an apparent motive. 
 
 In 1913 Dr. Knabe, a woman physician in Indianapolis had 
 her throat cut in her own apartments by a Sadie. 
 
 In 1914 in Sacramento, California, a young girl was strangled 
 by a Sadie. 
 
 In February, 1915, there was a sadistic murder at the county 
 farm in Multnomah County where the victim's throat was cut. 
 
 It was about the same time that there was an attempted 
 sadistic murder of a woman at La Grande, Oregon. The weapon 
 used in this case was an axe, but the victim finally recovered. 
 
 This limited number of cases is enough to indicate the patho- 
 logical character of sadistic murder. It is literally an insane per- 
 version of the sex impulse and in these cases where it proceeds 
 to the point of assassination it is accomplished by strangling, or 
 cutting or chopping or stabbing. Kraft-Ebing, who is perhaps the 
 oldest and best recognized authority on sadism, believes that the 
 Sadie's motor centers are involved to a great degree in his aber- 
 ration and that the unnecessary violence of the assassinations 
 are thus accounted for. All of the authorities on the subject, 
 Kraft-Ebing, Lombroso, Dr. Thoinot, August Forel, Havelock 
 EUis, Iwan Block, Dr. Healey and Dr. Jacoby, agree that the acts 
 of a Sadie in his frenzy are those of an abnormal and perverted 
 being who, like other insane persons, seems to be only partly 
 conscious of what he is doing. Such are the characteristic quali- 
 ties of Sadism, which in feeble-minded and unbalanced men has 
 often led to murder. 
 
 There was no evidence given in the trial of Mr. Pender for 
 the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her child tending to indicate 
 that he was a Sadie, but this trial was unusual both because of 
 the lack of evidence and because of a highly inflamed public 
 sentiment against the accused. Stories were widely circulated in 
 Columbia County, especially, that Arthur Pender was a Sadie 
 and that he boasted of mistreating Filipino girls and then killing 
 them. Like the old tales of pirates and the stories of soldiers 
 returned from foreign conquest these yarns were greedily lis- 
 tened to and swallowed, for Pender had been a soldier and had 
 
90 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 fought in the United States army against the savages and bar- 
 barians in the Phihppine Islands, and now a woman and child 
 had been brutally murdered and Pender lived only a mile away. 
 
 According to the popular notions of circumstantial evidence 
 that was very damaging. Nobody knows who started these stories 
 of Mr. Pender's wild doings in the Philippine Islands but they 
 were put in circulation by somebody who wanted to explain the 
 murder of Mrs. Wehrman. Even the prosecuting attorney, Mr. 
 Tongue, did not hesitate to build on this foundation. He has 
 several times told that Pender's wife in seeking a divorce accused 
 Pender of threatening her with a knife. However, the divorce 
 was obtained by default, and so no evidence was given about the 
 "cruel and inhuman" treatment which is so commonly charged 
 in divorce proceedin£,'s. Without proof of sadistic tendencies in 
 the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her child this theory falls to 
 the ground. Pressing the finger on a revolver trigger and caus- 
 ing an explosion of gunpowder caused Mrs. Wehrman's death, 
 while sadistic murder since the days of Bluebeard has involved 
 strangling or cutting or stabbing or chopping the victim to 
 death as illustrated in the cases referred to in this chapter. 
 
Chapter XIII 
 PERSONAL CHARACTER OF JOHN ARTHUR PENDER 
 
 It's always a matter of great interest to know what kind of 
 a person the man is who has been accused of crime. The general 
 pubhc is curious, and the prosecuting officers and the court and 
 jailers go verj'^ far in coming to a conclusion about the prisoner's 
 guilt or innocence from their personal impressions of the man. 
 This is especially true where there is nothing but circumstan- 
 tial evidence to connect him with the crime, for everyone knows 
 that circumstantial evidence is apt to be a delusion and a snare 
 in the every day affairs of life. Of course it arouses suspicion, 
 and where a terrible crime has been committed it is worth while 
 to test the suspicions out to see if they amount to proof. 
 
 Personal impressions from a close acquaintance give us all 
 our best means of judging character unless there is direct evi- 
 dence to the contrary That is why a prisoner's law^^ers always 
 make up their minds before they finish a case whether the 
 accused person is guilty or innocent. Criminal lawyers say that 
 when they are defending a guilty man he will always give him- 
 self away in some trifling detail even though he protest his inno- 
 cence. Guilt is alwaj^s trying to excuse or explain, or throw 
 dust on the trail, and it reasons from guilty knowledge. That 
 attitude alone is enough to satisfy a prisoner's lawyer. 
 
 On the other hand an innocent person accused of crime does 
 not do the little self-revealing things which the guilty man does. 
 He may be unable to prove his innocence but the most intimate 
 acquaintance with him does not suggest guilt. 
 
 In the case of Arthur Pender all of his acquaintances and 
 friends believe him to be an innocent man. His lawyers have 
 always been satisfied that he is innocent. Arthur Pender's 
 mother and sisters, in the many little indefinable ways that a 
 man's family always indicate their feelings, show beyond a doubt 
 that he has been a good son and a kind-hearted brother. 
 
 Mr. Pender is just 40 years old and has spent nearly eight 
 years in prison. He served in the Spanish-American war, and 
 Mr. H. E. Coolidge, now cashier in the La Grande, Ore., National 
 Bank, says of him : "I knew Pender as a soldier in the Philip- 
 pines in 1898-99. He was a member of the same battery and 
 one of the gun detachment of which I had charge as chief of 
 section. He was a splendid soldier and of such a character and 
 
92 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 disposition that he held the confidence and respect of his com- 
 rades at all times. His unselfish devotion to duty and manly 
 conduct marked him as the best type of American soldier. Dur- 
 ing all my intimate association with this man, I never knew of 
 a single act of his that would reflect in any way upon his record 
 as a soldier or his character as a moral and upright American 
 citizen." 
 
 The Captain of Pender's company also speaks of him in the 
 highest terms both as a man and as a soldier who did not hesi- 
 tate to risk his life again and again in the Philippines. 
 
 A prosecutor in Utah and later in the United States Attor- 
 ney General's office refers to Mr. Pender as a normal man of 
 good instincts whom he had known personally for many years, 
 and he voluntarily pointed out that such men very rarely com- 
 mitted crimes. 
 
 My own impressions of him are that he is an amiable and 
 faithful fellow with a kind heart for the children and women 
 folks of his family. He is not brilliant but is an intelligent man 
 and one who inspires confidence, and he is about as far removed 
 from the criminal type as it is easy to imagine. Even the prose- 
 cuting attorney, who is notorious as a zealous prosecutor, has 
 said of Mr. Pender in my hearing, "I have a doubt of his guilt." 
 
 Governor Withycombe has said to me on different occasions 
 and to others also, that he believed Pender to be innocent, but 
 that he did not feel justified in pardoning him. He said that 
 people in Columbia County feel very bitter about Pender. My 
 own conviction is that they would feel more bitter about Sierks 
 — father and son — if they knew the facts. 
 
 There has always been a grave question in the minds of 
 thoughtful people throughout the state as to Mr. Pender's guilt. 
 To people outside of the community, and to some of the intelli- 
 gent citizens of Columbia County, there did not appear to be 
 any evidence which necessarily connected Pender with the crime. 
 Mrs. Wehrman and her child were most brutally — nay, fiendish- 
 ly — murdered by some being who showed no more restraint than 
 ape. Somebody must have done it, but there was no evidence 
 to show that Pender was even away from his tent house on 
 the night the prosecution claimed that the murder was com- 
 mitted (and as a matter of fact nobody knows whether the mur- 
 der was committed on Sunday or Monday). There was certain 
 negative evidence that Pender did not have a light in his tent 
 Monday evening, September 4, but the witness testified to this 
 
Mr. Pender's Innocence 93 
 
 about the first of June, 1912, and again in 1913. This was all 
 the prosecution had to go on. 
 
 THE FINAL OUTCOME 
 
 Eventually it must be recognized that Mr. Pender is innocent 
 and that he should be released from the penitentiary. My own 
 personal interest in Pender is simply that of the President of 
 the Oregon Prisoners' Aid Society, a body of men and women 
 who have taken a very active part for many years in securing 
 better criminal laws and more humane prison administration. 
 My predecessor in office was Mr. Ben Selling, now one of the 
 directors of the Society. 
 
 It is one of the recognized duties of the Society to bring to 
 public attention miscarriages of justice, not only for the sake 
 of the prisoner, but especially to secure in the future a better 
 administration of the criminal law throughout the state. The 
 cases of John Arthur Pender and of William Branson and Mrs. 
 William Booth are noticeable only because they have aroused 
 interest through the conviction of these persons for wholly un- 
 provoked murders, and because these convictions were secured 
 on circumstantial evidence of a very inconclusive character. It 
 is unnecessary to point out the dangers to the liberties of any 
 citizen if such unjustified convictions should stand after the 
 actual criminals have been discovered. 
 
 In the case of Mr. Pender, many highly intelligent and respon- 
 sible citizens of the state are satisfied of his innocence as the 
 result of this investigation and report, and they have, after 
 studying the report, signed their names to the following state- 
 ment in order that the public may know the facts. 
 
 This appeal to the people of Oregon to petition the chief 
 executive to grant a full pardon to John Arthur Pender is made 
 after mature consideration by each member of the committee 
 of the report of this investigation and after receiving the advice 
 and counsel of former City Attorney Frank S. Grant. 
 
 Mr. Grant says: "I have examined the record of the case of 
 the State of Oregon against John A. Pender, convicted of the 
 murder of Mrs. Frank Wehrman. Based upon the examination 
 of the record, it is my opinion that John A. Pender never should 
 have been convicted of this crime." 
 
Chapter XIV 
 THE SADISTIC MURDER OF THE HILL FAMILY 
 
 On the southern boundary of the City of Portland is a suburb 
 known as Ardenwald, which hes partly in each of two counties, 
 Multnomah and Clackamas. There wdnds through this suburb 
 a stream known as Johnson's Creek, which in its setting of trees 
 and bushes is the delight of small boys and the hoboes who like 
 to have more or less permanent camps in the neighborhood of 
 a city. On the Clackamas side of Ardenwald there is a grove 
 of perhaps 40 acres of first growth timber containing many huge 
 fir trees. The Southern Pacific Railroad running south from 
 Portland marks the w^estern boundary of this grove, which is 
 known as Scott's Woods, while at the north end and on the east 
 side is the town of Ardenwald. There are comparatively few 
 houses on the east of Scott's Woods and here it was, in the 
 spring of 1911, that William Hill built a cottage for his family 
 close to some of the old residences near the south end of the 
 woods. Mr. Hill was a comparatively young man of 32 years. 
 He had been married but a short time to a Mrs. Rintoul, a widow 
 of about his own age. Mrs. Rintoul had two children, Philip 
 Rintoul, aged 8 years, and Dorothy, aged 6 years 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hill with their two children moved into the cot- 
 tage about the first of May, 1911, before it was completed. The 
 Hills had two near neighbors on the south, the Matthews famil}^ 
 and the Harvey family, both within a few hundred feet. The 
 houses all faced the road running along the east side of Scott's 
 Woods, and the neighbors all used this road in walking to the 
 Ardenwald station on the suburban electric line to Portland. 
 
 On June 8, 1911, in the afternoon, Mrs. Hill went to Portland 
 and saw her father and brother in their law office. Mrs. Hill 
 w^as apparently much disturbed about something, but on account 
 of some interruptions neither her father nor brother learned 
 what had happened. 
 
 They never saw her again alive, for some time during that 
 night Mr. and Mrs. Hill and their two children, Philip and Doro- 
 thy, were chopped to death with an axe taken from the porch of 
 Joe Delk's house. Mr. Delk lived with his family one-fourth of 
 a mile to the north of the Hills, and he had sharpened his axe 
 that evening and left it on the step of a side porch of his house. 
 
 Some sexual perverts of the type known as Sadies had either 
 
I.i). Hamsky. alias Frctlerick Alexander, alias Alexander Raiiili)rd, alias William 
 l-lyiiii, and known to many small boys as "Nutty Ed.," who was accusod by William 
 Higgin of being his companion in killing the Hill I'amily in Ardenwald on .Uiiie 8, 
 1911. Ramsey is a high-grade moron, and has lived in the jungles I'oi- years. It is 
 knoNxn that lUggin and Ramsey were living together in the .jungle in lilll when this 
 sadistie nnirder nl' the Hill family was eommittcd. 
 
The Hill Murder 95 
 
 taken the axe, or had it brought to tliem by a companion, and 
 they had then used it in wiping out a whole family as a prelim- 
 inary to a pathological sexual orgy. 
 
 The members ol" the Hill lamily were murdered in their beds 
 and the bloody axe was left standing at the foot of the cot on 
 which lay the body of little Dorothy Rintoul. The axe was posi- 
 tively identified by the owner who lived about one-fourth of a 
 mile towards the city from the Hill home. Mrs. Matthews dis- 
 covered the murder at about 8 o'clock A, M. on the 9lh of June. 
 The windows had been covered with garments and pieces of 
 cloth which indicated that the murderers had spent some time 
 in the house and that they had a light. 
 
 The surgeon at the coroner's inquest testified in part as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 Question. "What wounds did j'ou find on Mr. Hill?" 
 
 A. "His face and head were completely chopped to pieces 
 on the right side; especially on the right side above the eye, 
 deforming whole face." 
 
 Q. "What wounds did you find on Mrs. Hill?" 
 
 A. "There was a wound starting in the middle of the eye- 
 brow above the right eye, extending clear across; the wliole skull 
 was fractured. There was a cut on left side of nose down into 
 the bone, breaking out front upper teeth. Her lower jaw was 
 broken on left side." 
 
 Q. "What wounds did you find on Dorothy Hintoul?" 
 
 A. "There was cut on angle of right eye, extending up for 
 three inches, fracturing skull, going through it. Cuts were done 
 with sharp edge of axe. There was a cut two inches above left 
 eye extending three inches, went through skull; done with sharp 
 edge of axe, a blow on the back of the head completely smashed 
 skull." 
 
 Q. "What wounds did you find on Philip Rintoul?" 
 
 A. "Whole skull battered in; several bruises along side of 
 right eye and forehead. Occipital bone in skull only bone not 
 broken. Right arm bloody; shows bloody finger prints on arm. 
 Head all mashed over to left side. Looks like wound was caused 
 by side of axe." 
 
 Q. "Was there evidence that someone had washed U]) before 
 leaving house?" 
 
 A. "Yes." 
 
 Q. "Could you tell how long the bodies had been dead?" 
 
 A. "No; it's hard to say." 
 
96 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 Q. "Any bloody finger prints on bodies?" 
 
 A. "Yes." 
 
 Q. "Other than on the boy's arm?" 
 
 A. "Yes, several." 
 
 The testimony of the surgeon also showed that the bodies of 
 Mrs. Hill and her -6year-old daughter, Dorothy, had been assault- 
 ed in outrageous fashion. The murderers left conclusive proof 
 that they were not only Sadies, or insane sexual perverts, who, 
 like the Whitechapel murderers in London years ago, delighted 
 in the effusion of the blood of their victims, but were the lineal 
 degenerate descendants of the vicious inhabitants of ancient 
 Sodom. 
 
 However, there was no clue whatever as to the Sadies who 
 had destroyed this whole family and who so shockingly muti- 
 lated their bodies. Several thousand dollars in rewards were 
 offered by the State and by private individuals for the detection 
 of the murderers, but aside from the arrest of a neighbor of the 
 Hills, whom the grand jury refused to indict for the murder, 
 very little progress was made. At the same time public interest 
 was intense and has continued in great measure through the 
 years that have elapsed since the murder. All the elements of 
 the crime combined to stir the community. Public sympathy in 
 a murder of this sort reflects the personal element of fear of 
 meeting a similar fate, which in this case combined the horror 
 of butchery with that of indecent assault. To aggravate the ter- 
 ror and resentment caused by this ignominous destruction of a 
 family was added the element of mystery which was as complete 
 as if some unknown and invisible animals had suddenly demon- 
 strated their presence by the mysterious destruction of the lives 
 of a whole family of reputable citizens. 
 
 Usually in cases of mysterious murder the motive is not ap- 
 parent and remains more or less a matter of speculation, but in 
 the murder of the Hill family the motive was established abso- 
 lutely by circumstantial evidence. There remains then the prob- 
 lem of discovering who were the perverted and abnormal men 
 who entered the Hill home that night in June. This is another 
 point to be remembered, for abnormality of such a marked 
 character is exceedingly rare. The verdict of students of sexual 
 pathology is unanimous in declaring that Sadies of this extreme 
 type are afflicted with defective nervous systems or defective 
 brains or both.* 
 
 Note. Dr. Jatoby in his recent volume, "The Unsound 
 
The Hill Murder 97 
 
 That is not only the conclusion from numerous investigations 
 by specialists, but it is also the verdict of common sense, be- 
 cause only an abnormal being could be guilty of such out- 
 rageously abnormal conduct. This narrows the field of investi- 
 gation to a search for the abnormal men who were in the imme- 
 diate vicinity of the home of the Hills on the night of the mur- 
 der. It is possible of course that the perverted murderers were 
 birds of passage and were in the vicinity only a few hours, but 
 the probabilities are very strong that they were thoroughly fa- 
 miliar with the neighborhood and were at least transient resi- 
 dents. 
 
 Quite a number of defective men were picked up by sheriffs 
 and questioned as to their whereabouts at the time of the mur- 
 der and then were released. One of the number was a man of 
 55 years of age by the name of Ed Ramsey. He claimed that 
 his true name was Frederick Alexander. He was what is known 
 as a "jungle" man, and while he worked at intervals, his favorite 
 occupation was loafing in the woods in the suburbs of Portland 
 and inducing young children to go to his camp. He was gen- 
 erally regarded as a thief and people were afraid of him as his 
 actions were peculiar. Ramsey w^as picked up on June 18, ten 
 days after the murder, as he was crossing the Willamette River 
 on a raft. It was well known to the authorities that he had been 
 living in the strip of hea\'y timber between the home of the Hill 
 family and the Southern Pacific Railroad. Upon his arrest he 
 said that he was a San Francisco earthquake refugee and that 
 his memory was poor and that he could not tell where he was 
 the night of the murder of the Hills. 
 
 When Ramsey was picked up, ten days after the murder, 
 he was barefoot and unkempt and had injured one leg by burn- 
 ing it, so he claimed. 
 
 On June 19, 1911, an insanity complaint was filed against 
 Ramsey and he w^as committed to the asylum at Salem. Com- 
 mitment says he was morose and had hallucinations and illu- 
 sions of sight. His description says he was 5 feet 7 inches tall, 
 weighed 145 pounds, had blue eyes and gray hair and was some- 
 
 Mind and the Law,' says: "As a psychopathological man- 
 ifestation Sadism is dependent pre-eminently, at any rate 
 in its most pronounced form, upon congenital or acquired 
 feeble mindedness, upon alcoholism, hysteria, epileptic 
 psychoses or senile dementia." 
 
98 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 what bald. He gave his age as 55 years and said he was born 
 in Canada, 
 
 The State Hospital notes say of Ramsey that he "does not 
 appear to be insane, no delusions or hallucinations discoverable, 
 is coherent, reasons sanely and appears normal, works well and 
 is a quiet, nice patient." On this hospital record Ramsey was 
 discharged on July 25, 1911, about a month after he was com- 
 mitted. 
 
 Ramsey has continued to live on the outskirts of Portland 
 with occasional visits elsewhere. 
 
 1 have talked with a number of boys, at least half a dozen 
 whom Ramsey has mistreated sexually, and several of them 
 signed sworn statements as to details. These statements I turned 
 over to the district attorney of Clackamas County in the fall of 
 1915 when Ramsey was arrested on a vagrancy complaint signed 
 by L. G. McKenny, who first brought the matter of Ramsey's 
 assaults on children to my attention and also the further fact 
 that Ramsey was living in the neighborhood of the Hills at the 
 time of the murder. Ramsey's reputation in the matter of his 
 mistreatment of children was notorious and also his habits as 
 a jungle man and suspected thief. 
 
 Deputy Sheriff August Scholtz, of Multnomah County, gave 
 me* his sworn statement about his knowledge of Ramsey's bad 
 habits where children were concerned, and of his various at- 
 tempts to get evidence to convict Ramsey as a thief. 
 
 Mr. L. G. McKenny suspected Ramsey of being implicated 
 in the murder of the Hill family because of his presence in the 
 community and because of his peculiar and vicious sexual as- 
 saults on small boys, which corresponded with the assaults made 
 on the bodies of Mrs. Hill and her little daughter the night of 
 the murder. 
 
 This attracted my interest and attention because of the well- 
 recognized connection between sexual assaults on children and 
 the perversion known as Sadism. The murder of the Hills was 
 one of the most clearly demonstrated cases of sadistic murder 
 ever recorded. Dr. Albert Moll, the great Euorpean authority, 
 in his book, "The Sexual Life of the Child," says on page 234, 
 "Sexual inclinations towards children are especially apt to be 
 associated with sadistic acts." 
 
 Conclusive evidence of Ramsey's presence in the neighbor- 
 hood of the Hill home on the evening of the murder was dis- 
 covered by L. G. McKenny, the detective whom I have men- 
 
The Hill Murder 99 
 
 tioned. A Mr. and Mrs. Tliomas 1^. Vale, a reputable couple 
 who lived at Berkely, a short distance from Ardenwald station, 
 took a walk after supper on the evening of June 8, the night 
 of the murder, in the general direction of Ardenwald, and they 
 met a jungle man with his gunny sack and tomato can who was 
 muttering threats against some woman or girl. Here is Mrs. 
 Vale's statement: 
 
 "State of Oregon, County of Yamhill — ss. 
 
 I, Nancy Vale, being first duly sworn, depose and say that I 
 am the wife of Thomas B. Vale, and that at present I am a 
 resident of McMinnville, Yamhill County, Oregon, and that in 
 June of 1911, I was living with my husband in Berkely, Mult- 
 nomah County, Oregon; that on the evening of the murder of 
 the Hill family in Ardenwald, immediately after supper, I walked 
 with my husband towards the picnic grounds on Johnson Creek 
 at some time between G and 7 o'clock P. M., and that before 
 we reached the creek we met and passed a crazy looking man 
 carrying a small paper sack and a tomato can. He was horribly 
 dirty and tough looking and was hanging his head forward and 
 muttering to himself as he passed on. After he had got by us 
 I heard him say, 'Damn her, I'll her yet." I told my hus- 
 band what the man said and I felt so horrified at his appear- 
 ance and his threat against some woman that I said I wanted 
 to go back home and we did go home. This man was about 50 
 years old and medium height and fairly heavy set and looked 
 as if he had not been shaved for a month. I think I should 
 know this man, though it is four years since this happened, 
 because he made such a strong impression upon me because of 
 his filthy and wild appearance and his threat against some 
 woman, unless of course he has changed very much in appear- 
 ance. (Signed) Nancy Vale." 
 
 Mr. Vale's statement corresponds with his wife's. Mr. Vale 
 was so much impressed by this occurrence when he learned tlie 
 next morning that the Hills had been murdered and Mrs. Hill 
 and her little daughter assaulted that he reported it to a police 
 officer, but probably it never got any farther than the officer 
 whom Mr. Vale talked to. 
 
 It seems that on the afternoon before her death Mrs. Hill 
 called on her father and brother in their office in Portland and 
 that she was disturbed and excited by something that had hap- 
 pened. Mr. Tom Cowing, a brother of Mrs. Hill's, will testify 
 
100 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 that this is true. The place where the Vales met Ramsey is not 
 far from the road Mrs. Hill went and came on the afternoon 
 of her trip to Portland, and it is possible, though not certain, 
 that Ramsey accosted her that afternoon or evening. 
 
 After Ramsey was arrested in 1915 on a vagrancy charge, 
 I took Mr. and Mrs. Vale to the Clackamas jail to see if they 
 could identify Ramsey. They both identified him positively as 
 the man they saw near Johnson Creek the evening of the Hill 
 murder and who uttered threats against some woman. 
 
 These facts concerning Ed Ramsey, including his presence 
 in the neighborhood of the Hill home the evening of the murder, 
 and his character in the matter of his treatment of children, 
 were presented to the grand jury of Clackamas County in the 
 fall of 1915, but were evidently regarded as absurd by the dis- 
 trict attorney and the grand jury. 
 
 In a private conversation with the district attorney a short 
 time before the grand jury met he assured me that "there would 
 be something doing if I were trying to railroad a harmless old 
 man to the penitentiary." He said that he knew where I had 
 been, and named the office of the lawyer who was attorney for 
 the man suspected of this murder, the intimation being that 1 
 had been hired to divert suspicion from this man to a poor, 
 harmless half-wit. 
 
 The district attorney had previously hired a private detective 
 for the sum of $2000 to get the evidence in this murder case, 
 and this same summer this detective had collected his $2000 by 
 a suit in court, as the county had refused to pay the amount 
 because no conclusive evidence had been secured. The detective 
 believed that this neighbor of Hills who had been arrested, but 
 whom the grand jury refused to indict, was the guilty man. 
 
 The district attorney intimated that the boys who had made 
 detailed statements under oath of Ramsey's assaulting them 
 sexually were irresponsible, and asked if one of them had not 
 been in the reform school. 
 
 Ed Ramsey was released after this grand jury hearing and 
 the matter seemed closed. 
 
William Ru.ciiN ( Iroiit view), who, ;it 
 the time he confessed to the murder of 
 William Booth on October 8, 1915, also 
 confessed to his part in the sadistic mur- 
 der of the Hill family on June 8, 1911. 
 and who said that Charles Brown and 
 William Flynn were his accomplices. 
 
Chapter XV 
 
 WILLIAM RIGGIN'S CONFESSION 
 
 In May of 1917, when Bill Riggin confessed to shooting and 
 killing William Booth at Willamina on October 8, 1915, he made 
 a statement about taking part in the Hill murder on June 8, 
 1911. The statement follows: 
 
 Office of Sheriff of Washington 
 
 J. C. Applegate 
 
 Hillsboro, Ore. 
 
 State of Oregon, County of Washington — ss. 
 
 Under oath, I, William Riggin, do make this my free and vol- 
 untary statement, to-wit: 
 
 In 1911 I was standing on the street, right by the bridge at 
 Oregon City, when this Mexican named Brown and William 
 Flynn came up to me and said : "Will, we know where we can 
 get some money." I said, "All right, we'll go get it." This was 
 about half-past-four in the afternoon when they came to me. 
 Brown gave me a .38 automatic revolver. We went across the 
 Willamette River, across the bridge, and set down near where 
 an old store stood, and talked. We talked there, I guess for 
 about twenty minutes. Brown said, "You stay out. Bill, and be 
 a spotter in case anything turns up, and give a signal by firing 
 a shot, and we'll do the rest." Brown said: "After we go in 
 and come out again, you beat it, and we will meet again tomor- 
 row night." The meeting place was to be down below the Glad- 
 stone Park. We then walked over to where the Hill family 
 lived and got there about half-past-nine at night. The lights 
 were still burning in the house. They had not gone to bed. The 
 front door of the house stood out. They went to bed at about 
 half-past-nine. Brown told me to get back quite a ways so that 
 I could see good, and if anyone came, to fire the shot. I went 
 back from the house, and stayed about forty yards from the 
 house. I was to shoot with a gun down close to the ground, 
 so that it would not pop loud. They waited until about 11 o'clock 
 before they went into the house. Then one went in through the 
 window, and the other one went in through the door. Brown 
 took the axe from the woodshed. Flynn went in the window 
 and Brown went in the door. They were in the house for about 
 half-hour. I heard the children scream. I heard a noise that 
 
102 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 sounded like chopping, and heard the screams. They came out 
 through the back door, and went one way, and I went the other. 
 I went down to Gladstone Park and laid around until they came. 
 They came in about daylight. They had $1400, part in gold and 
 part in silver. I don't remember whether there was any paper 
 money or not. I got $100.00 for my part. They divided the 
 money. They went one way and I went the other. I haven't 
 seen them since. 
 
 (Signed) William Riggin. 
 
 State of Oregon, County of Washington — ss. 
 
 I, William Riggin, being first duly sworn, depose and say that 
 the foregoing statement is true, as I verily believe, so help me 
 God. 
 
 (Signed) William Riggin. 
 
 Subscribed and sworn to before me this 18th day of May, 
 1917. 
 
 (Signed) H. A. Kurath, 
 County Clerk, Washington County, Oregon. 
 
 Late in July, 1917, I saw William Riggin at Willamina, where 
 he located the spot where Rooth's body was found and described 
 the position of the body with absolute accuracy, according to 
 Mr. Sherwin, foreman of the coroner's jury. 
 
 In conversation with Riggin, I referred to Ed Ramsey with- 
 out mentioning the Hill murder. Riggin was surprised that I 
 knew anything of Ramsey, and when I told him some of Ram- 
 sey's peculiarities, he was evidently very much surprised that 
 I should know anything about him. 
 
 At this time I had not seen Riggin's statement about the Hill 
 murder but had heard of it. Riggin exclaimed with an oath 
 that he might as well tell the whole story of the murder of the 
 Hills and the next day he gave a statement which follows: 
 
 State of Oregon, County of Marion — ss. 
 
 I, William Riggin, first being duly sworn, depose and say in 
 regard to the Hill murder, that I had been living around with 
 Ed Ramsey about six or eight months before the Hill family 
 was killed. I had been at work for the Fitzgerald Brothers at 
 the Blue Ridge farm and Ramsey came there and saw me. I 
 had seen him several times before this, but it was after I left 
 the farm that I lived with him in different places in the woods 
 and around the country to the south of Portland and in Yamhill 
 County. On the afternoon before the murder I was in Oregon 
 
The Hill Murder 103 
 
 City and sal on the bridge for about an hour, and 1 went to Mil- 
 waukie in a rig that evening. 
 
 lianisey and 1 made a plan about 9 o'clock to go to the Hill 
 house. I met Ramsey down close to Ardenwald. I went and 
 got an axe from a fellow's house on the road to Ardenwald. I 
 think 1 could go and pick out the place. I know that I went up 
 some steps to get the axe, but I don't remember how many 
 steps there were. It was a sharp axe. We went together to 
 the house about midnight. I saw Ramsey go in. I was on the 
 lookout on the outside and had my orders to shoot close to the 
 ground if anything happened. I never seen her. I didn't go 
 into the house. I do not remember what time Ramsey came 
 out but think it was about 3:30 A. M. No, I was not in there 
 with him. That is one reason I didn't hang around Oregon City 
 afterwards. I saw him afterwards. He said: "I got the best of 
 the people." He didn't tell me what he did to the woman or 
 the little girl. He gave me i}>100.00. I do not know where he 
 got the money. His plans were to get money — and hate. I know 
 of many things Ed did but the police were not smooth enough 
 to get him. After this was over that night we went down by 
 Gladstone Park and stayed around the shack in Scott's Woods. 
 The next morning Ramsey told me about his meeting Mrs. Hill 
 on the road to Ardenwald the afternoon before, and about his 
 asking her for and about her running away from him. 
 
 After this affair I lived with Ramsey off and on for several 
 years, though I did not see him for some time after the killing 
 of the Hill family. My father asked me several times who this 
 strange man was that I was monkeying around with and wanted 
 me to leave him. 
 
 I thought about the Hill family a good deal and it troubled 
 me so that I did not go to that neighborhood. My brother John 
 asked me at one time what it was that troubled me, and at 
 another time my father wanted to know what it was that made 
 me so troubled. I told him it wasn't worth while for him to 
 know everything. In May of this year when I was at Hillsboro 
 I told my father for the first time about my connection with 
 the Hill matter. 
 
 (Signed) Wuxiam Riggin. 
 
 Subscribed and sworn to before me this 21st day of July, 1917. 
 
 (Signed) Frank Davey, 
 
 Notary Public for Oregon. 
 
 The discrepancies in the two statements are very interesting, 
 
104 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 especially as they are the wholly voluntary statements of a high- 
 grade defective, no attempt being made to lead him. 
 
 In the confession of May, 1917, Riggin told of two men, Brown 
 and Flynn, proposing to rob the Hill family and of their asking 
 him to be outside guard. The men met in Oregon City, and 
 Riggin said they walked to the site of the Hill home and got 
 there about 9:30 P. M. In Riggin's statement in July, 1917, he 
 said he rode from Oregon City in a rig. In his statement to 
 Attorney General Brown in August, 1918, Riggin said the other 
 men had a team and he had a saddle horse. 
 
 In the May, 1917, statement Riggin said the front door of the 
 Hill cabin "stood out." It was typed "open" and changed after- 
 wards. It is fair to assume that he meant that the door would 
 not open, judging from the change of wording and his statement 
 in August and later that they went in at the back door. It is 
 true that the front door was fastened shut and could not be 
 opened and that the murderers did use the back door. 
 
 In his first statement Riggin said Brown took the axe from 
 the woodshed. In his second statement Riggin said he got the 
 axe himself and thought he could take me to the house where 
 he got it. He did this a year later and showed where the axe 
 was taken, and curiously, in view of the previous account, he 
 was entirely accurate in showing where the axe was secured, 
 and during this year he was in the penitentiary and without any 
 opportunity of getting the information. 
 
 In his first statement Riggin said Brown and Flynn were 
 his accomplices in the murder. At the time I first talked to 
 Riggin in July, 1917, I had not seen his confession of May, 1917, 
 and did not know the names. I asked some questions about 
 Ramsey and he was very much surprised that I knew him, and 
 he finally admitted that he knew Ramsey and was living with 
 him in the early summer of 1911, and said that his father and 
 brothers knew who Ramsey was. In telling me the story of 
 the murder he placed all the blame on Ramsey and did not 
 mention Brown. In August, 1918, Riggin told Attorney General 
 Brown, Warden Murphy, the stenographer and I being present, 
 that Ramsey sometimes went by the name of William Flynn. 
 He also said that Brown was the name that Charlie Daniels went 
 by and that Daniels was an old friend of his and that they were 
 in the reform school together. He said he kept Daniels out of 
 it as much as he could because of their friendship. Upon making 
 inquiries I found that Charlie Daniels was in the reform school 
 
The Hill Murder 105 
 
 froir. the time he was 11 years old until he was 21 and that 
 Riggin was in the reform school several years during this period. 
 Riggin's father and two brothers knew of the friendship between 
 Riggin and Daniels. Daniels had a very bad record in the 
 reform school and the school records showed that his mentality 
 was poor and his habits depraved. One of Riggin's brothers said 
 that Daniels, alias Brown, hkc Ramsey, was known as a "kid" 
 man, or one with a sexual preference for children. 
 
 After Riggin's statement to me in July, 1917, I asked him 
 where Ramsey was and he told me that some weeks previous 
 he saw Ramsey in Tillamook when Warden Murphy took him 
 to find the revolver he said he killed Booth with, and that Ram- 
 sey came to the restaurant where they were eating supper and 
 attempted to talk to him. Warden Murphy told me that a man 
 did come into the restaurant and attempt to talk to Riggin but 
 that he sent him away. Later Riggin said that this was Daniels 
 and not Ramsey. 
 
 In August of 1918 Ramsey was arrested on the charge of 
 vagrancy and was sentenced to three months in the county 
 jail. I took Riggin's father and brother on one occasion, and 
 another brother later to the jail, and all three unhesitatingly 
 picked Ramsey out of a group of prisoners as William Riggin's 
 friend and associate at the time the Hill murder w-as committed. 
 They were absolutely' positive in their identification of Ramsey, 
 and two of them had given me a fairly good description of 
 Ramsey the year before, so this question w^as settled that Ram- 
 sey (by whatever name) and Riggin were living in the jungle 
 as hoboes at the time the Hill murder was committed. 
 
 A few days before this I arranged with Governor Withycombe 
 to have Warden Murphy bring Riggin to the Multnomah county 
 jail in order that he and Ramsey might be questioned about the 
 Hill murder. Attorney General Brown and First Assistant Dis- 
 trict Attorney John Collier of Multnomah County were present. 
 Riggin told the story of the murder substantially as he had told 
 it before, but when Ramsey was brought into the room he said, 
 "This was not Ramsey"; that Ramsey was a tall man wdth black 
 hair. Ramsey denied ever having seen Riggin, but he added his 
 comment about the tall man who was in the vicinity of the Hill 
 home at the time of the murder. Ramsey said there was such 
 a man in the neighborhood of the Hills at the time of the mur- 
 der and that he ought to be looked up. Riggin was much dis- 
 turbed at Ramsey's presence and trembled so noticeably as to 
 
106 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 attract attention. John Riggin, Bill's brother, said that Bill told 
 him Ramsey had threatened to kill him if he did not do as he 
 said. 
 
 On this same day Attorney General Brown, Mr, Collier, Wil- 
 liam Riggin and I went to the neighborhood of the murder and 
 Riggin gave directions as to stopping at the different points. 
 Near Ardenwald station Riggin pointed out the spot where he 
 and Ramsey met. Then he showed us just where he got the axe 
 from a neighbor's house. This was accurate. Then he showed 
 the former site of the Hill home and was entirely accurate in 
 this, though the house was torn down within a year or two of 
 the murder and no sign remains of its location. There is now 
 a plowed field where the house stood. Riggin described vividly 
 what happened the night of the murder and pointed out where 
 he and Ramsey crossed the road afterwards and followed a 
 cow trail back to near the spot where he got the axe, and where 
 their team was hitched. A number of days after the murder 
 bloodhounds followed a trail from the Hill house along this cow 
 path and lost it at the spot where a bloody cloth was found. 
 This was about where Riggin said the team was standing. 
 
 Then Riggin directed us to where he and Ramsey had a camp 
 and where he said Ramsey buried his trousers, which were 
 bloody. 
 
 Within a couple of weeks I took Riggin's father to Salem, 
 and we had a lengthy interview with Riggin in Attorney General 
 Brown's office. Warden Murphy, William Riggin, Riggin's fa- 
 ther, the Attorney General and I being present. Riggin admitted 
 to his father and then to all of us that he recognized Ramsey 
 when he saw him in Portland but was afraid of him and so said 
 he was not Ramsey, He also admitted that Charlie Daniels, 
 alias Brown, was with them on the night of the murder, and 
 said that Daniels had been a good friend of his and that he 
 did not like to tell about his part in the murder. 
 
 Later Riggin saw Ramsey in the Multnomah jail and said 
 that Ramsey was the man. Ramsey denied ever having seen 
 Riggin but the look in his eyes when Riggin came into the room 
 together with the positive identification of Ramsey by Riggin's 
 father and Riggin's two brothers was conclusive that Ramsey 
 and Riggin knew each other. 
 
 At this time Riggin admitted for the first time that he was 
 inside the Hill house the night of the murder. 
 
 Riggin insisted in his story to Attorney General Brown that 
 he was paid -$100 for watching outside and the motive of the 
 
The Hill Murder 107 
 
 murder was robbery. This is palpably unlriie. Kig^in said lie had 
 a saddle horse and that the Fitzgerald laniily at IMue Lake farm 
 would corroborate this. 1 learned that Higgin worked lor the 
 Fitzgeralds at intervals lor a number of years as he said he 
 did, but they knew nothing of his saddle horse. Uiggin told the 
 Attorney General that it was a light night when the murder was 
 committed. This is true as there was a brilliant moon. Biggin 
 was badly confused in telling of the time the men spent inside 
 the house, but in common with defectives generally he has no 
 idea of estimating time. He shows this clearly, and his father 
 says he never could tell about the passage of time. 
 
 Riggin told of his association with Daniels after the murder 
 and of some of their illegal operations together. Daniels had a 
 rendezvous in the coast mountains and Higgin admitted that 
 Daniels was the man who tried to talk to him when he was in 
 Tillamook with Warden Murphy. This confusing Daniels with 
 Ramsey, which Riggin said he did to protect Daniels, together 
 with the aliases of the two men, has made the story hard to 
 unravel. However, we know that Riggin and Daniels had been 
 friends for years, and Riggin and Ramsey lived together in the 
 jungle at the time of the murder, and that Riggin has described 
 the murder and given details which are true. 
 
 Before analyzing the confession there are two points to be 
 remembered and held in mind constantly: 
 
 First, it makes no difference whether Riggin is weak-minded 
 or crazy or normal if his story is corroborated by the facts. A 
 fact does not cease to be a fact, if corroborated, because a crazy 
 man or a weak-minded man relates it, though there is apt to be 
 confusion and exaggerations and false statements about details 
 if a weak-minded man tells a story of crime. 
 
 Second, the question of Riggin's confession being an inven- 
 tion must be weighed carefully. If it was invented, was it in- 
 vented six and seven years after the murder, or was it invented 
 at the time and concealed six years and then partially told and 
 fully told a year later? Could it have been invented six years 
 after? 
 
 ANALYSIS 01" TlIK CONFESSION 
 
 In William Riggin's confession of the Hill murder, if we 
 eliminate his statements which are obviously untrue and then 
 consider the facts which have been corroborated, we shall be in 
 a position to decide whether the confession is an invention to 
 obtain notoriety, or whether it is the truth as to the central facts 
 
108 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 but colored by the vanity of a defective man. There is no middle 
 ground. Either Riggin was implicated in this murder or the 
 story is palpably absurd. Riggin has been in prison since Octo- 
 ber, 1915, and since he confessed he has stood by his story, 
 though some of the details are false. Nobody had suspected him 
 of the crime and there is nobody in the prison who would derive 
 any advantage from Riggin making this confession. 
 
 Riggin says that the motive for this murder was robbery. 
 This is untrue and absurd as well. The treatment of the bodies 
 settles that as well as the known poverty of the Hills. 
 
 Riggin made conflicting statements about the time the mur- 
 derers were in the house, but he cannot estimate the passage of 
 time. Few defectives can, and some normal people are lacking 
 in that capacity. 
 
 Riggin told different stories about walking, riding in a rig 
 and riding horseback to the scene of the murder. This detail 
 is not vital either way, but it tends to discredit him generally. 
 Riggin's imagination ran away with him here as a defective's 
 is apt to do in giving details. 
 
 Riggin placed all the blame on Ramsey when he found that 
 I knew Ramsey, though after he talked with his father he cleared 
 up this and other misstatements. Riggin told Attorney General 
 Brown in August, 1918, that Ramsey went by the name of Flynn. 
 In Riggin's confession to the sheriff of Washington County in 
 May of 1917, he said Flynn was one of the murderers. He also 
 said Brown was one. Later it developed that Brown was an 
 alias of Charlie Daniels, a reform school chum of Riggin's. 
 
 Riggin told me that Ramsey tried to talk to him in Tillamook 
 when he was there with Warden Murphy. Warden Murphy 
 said that some man tried to talk to Riggin but that he sent him 
 away. Later Riggin admitted that this man was Daniels, alias 
 Brown, and not Ramsey. Riggin explained that he was trying 
 to protect Daniels as Daniels had been good to him. 
 
 Riggin when he first met Ramsey in Portland in August, 1918, 
 denied that it was Ramsey, but the meeting was absolutely unex- 
 pected to Riggin and he trembled very much on meeting Ram- 
 sey. However, there is no doubt of Ramsey's identity. That's 
 absolutely settled, and Riggin's father and two brothers posi- 
 tively identified him in the jail as the man Bill Riggin was 
 living with in 1911. Riggin admitted that it was Ramsey the 
 next time he saw him, so while Riggin did not tell the truth at 
 
The Hill Murder 109 
 
 first, he admitted it later and explained that his fear of Ramsey 
 induced him to deny that Ramsey was the man. 
 
 These are the statements in the confessions which tend to 
 discredit Riggin's story of the murder. 
 
 STATEMENTS CORROBORATED 
 
 Riggin says that the night of the murder was a light night. 
 This is true as there was a brilliant moon. 
 
 Riggin has said on every occasion that the murderers did not 
 go in at the front door of the Hill house but went in at the back 
 door. This is true, though the only Portland newspaper which 
 referred in any way to the doors said that the front door was 
 found open the next morning. This is untrue. Riggin's story 
 is correct about this detail and it was impossible that he should 
 have got it from a Portland newspaper. He had some other 
 source of information. He said one man got in a window, but 
 this is unreasonable. 
 
 Riggin showed Attorney General Brown, Mr. Collier and me 
 just where the Hill cabin stood. This was accurate and showed 
 that Riggin had personal knowledge of where the Hill cabin 
 stood. However, it is absolutely established that Ramsey lived 
 in the vicinity and that Riggin was living with him at about the 
 time of the murder. Riggin could have learned of the location 
 of the house even if he had no connection with the murder. 
 
 Riggin showed Attorney General Brown, Mr. Collier and me 
 just where he got the axe. This was exactly accurate. At the 
 time of the murder there were five different newspaper stories 
 as to where the axe was and only one of the five was accurate. 
 If Riggin got this detail from the newspapers he picked the 
 right story out of five different stories. Then too he showed 
 us the spot in August, 1918. The murder occurred June 8, 1911, 
 and the newspaper stories were printed in three days following. 
 
 R. A. Delk said at the inquest, June 9, 1911, that the axe was 
 "on our rear step porch — south side." 
 
 The Portland News said that the axe was left leaning against 
 front step of his (Delk's) home. 
 
 The Journal of June 9 said the axe was standing in front of 
 his (Delk's) house and that probably the moon shone on it and 
 attracted the murderer, but the next day the Journal said that 
 "he (the murderer) picked the axe from the side steps of J. T. 
 Delk's house." (This is correct.) 
 
 The Oregonian said that the axe "leaned against a side porch." 
 
110 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 The Telegram said that the axe was "taken from rear of 
 house." 
 
 So if Riggin learned where the axe was from the papers, 
 taking pains to pick the right story out of five, he must have 
 remembered it most tenaciously for over seven years to enable 
 him to go to the spot and put his hand on the step where the 
 axe was taken. 
 
 Riggin showed where the murderers went after the murder. 
 This corresponded to the trail followed by the bloodhounds to 
 the point where the bloody rag was discovered. The story of 
 the bloodhounds was printed in June, 1911. Riggin told his 
 story on the ground in August, 1918. 
 
 CAN THE CONFESSION BE AN INVENTION? 
 
 In view of all the confusion of Riggin's confession and his 
 contradictions and his obviously untruthful statement of the 
 motive, can it be said fairly that the confession is an invention 
 of a weak-minded man? If it was an invention, when was it 
 invented? Was it invented in 1917 and 1918 or was it invented 
 in June of 1911? Riggin had been in prison nearly two years 
 when he told the story of this murder and he told it at the same 
 time he told of the murder of William Rooth, which he undoubt- 
 edly committed. 
 
 Ramsey denies all knowledge of the Hill murder but he ad- 
 mits that he was living in the neighborhood when it occurred. 
 
 Ramsey also says that the tall man described by Riggin was 
 in the neighborhood at the time of the murder and that he 
 should be looked up. Charlie Daniels is a tall man. 
 
 To go back to Riggin's wholly voluntary and surprising con- 
 fession to Sheriff Applegatc of Washington County in May of 
 1917 we find that Riggin said his accomplices in the Hill murder 
 were Flynn and Rrown. That confession was received with 
 incredulity and ridicule, but a year and a half later Attorney 
 General Rrown, whom nobody would accuse of leading a wit- 
 ness, brought out the fact that Flynn was one of the names that 
 Ed Ramsey went by. Ramsey was Riggin's partner or com- 
 panion at the time of the murder, as we know from independent 
 testimony, and was in the vicinity of the Hill house the night 
 of the murder. It also appeared at this conference in Attorney 
 General Rrown's office in 1918 that Rrown, whom Riggin told 
 Sheriff Applegate about in 1917, was Charlie Daniels, also known 
 to be a companion of Riggin and a friend of his in the reform 
 school. I called up the reform school by telephone from Attor- 
 
The Hill Murder 111 
 
 noy (icncral Brown's oflicc and got tlu' record of Daniels' 
 detention and the story of liis low mentality and depraved habits. 
 
 So we have a clear thread of facts rinining Ihrongh the con- 
 fessions given by Higgin in his apparently contradictory and 
 confusing statements. This was secured by patiently following 
 Riggin's story, verifying every feature and asking for explana- 
 tion of the discrepancies. 
 
 Riggin's father, who has been an industrious and respectable 
 citizen of Oregon for many years, was especially helpful in get- 
 ting explanations of contradictions and misstatements from his 
 son. 
 
 Nothing is known of Daniels in connection with the murder 
 except that a man answering his description was in the vicinity 
 at the time and it is known that Daniels and Riggin were old 
 chums. 
 
 Applying the sound principle that Riggin's confession is either 
 palpably absurd or else that Riggin was implicated in the mur- 
 der, it seems reasonable to believe that Riggin was guilty as he 
 says he was. If he was guilty, the fact that he was living with 
 Ramsey does not prove that Ramsey was guilty too, though 
 Ramsey is a weak-minded man but shrewder and stronger both 
 mentally and physically than Riggin. 
 
 However, the condition of the bodies of the murdered family 
 indicates strongly that one man could not have been guilty of 
 the sexual atrocities practiced. Ramsey's character in the matter 
 of the abuse of children is known to be vicious, and Moll, whom 
 I ha^ve quoted, points out the sadistic tendencies of men of this 
 kind. 
 
 However, in Oregon, no man may be convicted of murder 
 on the testimony of an accomplice unless there is corroborative 
 evidence. Ramsey's presence near the scene of the murder early 
 in the evening, and his threats against some woman or girl as 
 testified to by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Vale, might be construed 
 as corroboration in view of Riggin's confession, especially in 
 view of Ramsey's character and his known sexual perversion. 
 If the facts could have been presented to a trial jury at the time 
 of the murder, there is little doubt but that such a jury would 
 have convicted both Riggin and Ramsey whatever it might have 
 done about Daniels. Here were three defective men and one 
 was known to be sexually abnormal, and another one confessed, 
 and thej-^ were at the scene of the murder or near by. 
 
 However, at a distance of over seven years there is little 
 
112 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 interest in any murder so far as securing a conviction goes. And 
 yet as a study of the criminal capacities of weak-minded and 
 abnormal men this account of the Hill murder is a contribution 
 of considerable value to the subject. The time has passed when 
 any innocent man could be convicted of this murder on so-called 
 circumstantial evidence, but suspicions and doubts must remain 
 while the theory of the detective is not shown to be unreasonable 
 and improbable. 
 
 Chapter XVI 
 
 THE MURDER OF MARY SPINA 
 
 In August of 1918 Giovanni Monaco, aged 32 years, shot and 
 killed Mary Spina, aged 17 years, in her father's home in Port- 
 land, Ore., because she would not marry him. He went to the 
 room of the girl he loved, at night, and shot her seven times 
 with an automatic revolver. He said on the stand that the 
 reason he did not shoot her more times was because while he 
 kept pulhng the trigger there were no more shots in the revolver. 
 The girl was asleep when he entered the room. She had refused 
 to marry Monaco, and so he killed his love because he loved 
 her so. Poor Mary Spina's body was riddled with bullets as 
 she lay asleep in her father's house, and then Monaco started 
 for Canada. He was brought back and tried for murder in 
 October, 1918. With all the naivete of a child he testified on 
 the stand that he was insane when he killed his love, and he 
 gave as the chief symptom of his mental disease the fact that 
 he had cried every day for months because his love for this 
 girl whom he wanted to marry. When asked by the district 
 attorney what made him crazy he replied, "Love." This com- 
 pletes the circle and incidentally illustrates the type of mind 
 possessed by Monaco. 
 
 Monaco's attorney bolstered up the defense of insanity by 
 evidence tending to show that crazy people always know when 
 they are crazy, which will doubtless be of interest to alienists. 
 He also brought out the statement from Monaco that he forgot 
 about killing Mary Spina until he saw the fact mentioned in a 
 newspaper. On cross-examination by the district attorney Mon- 
 
 I 
 
Giovanni Monac.a. a high-j^radc inoinii, who kilh'd M:ii\ Sjiiiia, ujivd 17 ycais. in 
 Allfilist. 1!I1S, because slie would not niariv him. Moiiaca has {^oiie to the peiiiteiitiarx 
 lor life. 
 
The Spin a Murder 1 1 3 
 
 aco said in answer to a question as to why he did not talk about 
 killing Mary Spina while he was on his way to Canada imme- 
 diately after the killing, that he had forgotten all about it. Then 
 he was asked by the district attorney what he thought when he 
 saw the account of the murder in the papers. His response, 
 accompanied by an eloquent shrug, was that it was in the papers 
 and so it was of no use to deny it. 
 
 All this story demonstrates is the childish lack of ability to 
 reason about the effect of this silly story on the court and the 
 jury. 
 
 The murder was a peculiarly cold-blooded and brutal one 
 and the explanation is so silly — if it was intended seriously — 
 that it raises a question about Monaco's mental condition. 
 
 I had a long talk with Monaco just after he was brought back 
 from Canada and finally I asked him why he did not kill him- 
 self too. He said, "I did think about jumping off Broadway 
 bridge that night." This is like Tronson's statement in his con- 
 fession of murdering the girl who would not marry him in South 
 Portland in 1914. Tronson got as far as Castle Rock, Wash., 
 immediately after the murder of his loved one, but said he was 
 planning to come back and kill himself. 
 
 Monaco shot his love seven times and snapped the revolver 
 alter that. His story and his cross-examination showed beyond 
 any possibility of doubt that he is weak-minded or in other 
 words that he is a child in mind. He was denied what he wanted 
 and so he killed. 
 
 The members of the trial jury eyed Monaco in intent and 
 puzzled curiosity, for he showed no signs of distress aside from 
 being rather pale, and he was apparently perfectly sincere in 
 his defense and told his story as though he were a disinterested 
 witness. The jury did not know that Monaco was a moron, or 
 high-grade feeble-mind, and consequently an irresponsible per- 
 son. The ^ury convicted Monaco of murder and he was sen- 
 tenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary. 
 
 In his statement to the district attorney Monaco answered all 
 questions readily. Q. Her father wouldn't let her go with you? 
 A. Yes. Q. When was that? A. That was last June. Q, June of 
 this year? A. No, June of last year. Q. After that did you 
 stay here in Portland? A. No; not when I was going to jail the 
 first time. Q. How long were you in jail? A. Nineteen hours. 
 Q. Then where did you go? A. I go in British Columbia. Q, You 
 go in British Columbia? A. Yes, for six months. Q. You were 
 
114 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 in jail for threatening to kill her, weren't you? You said you 
 were going to kill her, or something like that? A. No, she had 
 a letter from me. I wrote her a letter to go away, she with me. 
 Q. As I understand it, you have been ordered out of town twice 
 for threatening to kill this girl? A. Yes. Q. That is right, is it? 
 A. Yes. Q. When did you come back to Portland the last time 
 after you were ordered out? When did you come back? A. The 
 3rd of this month; August. Q. What did you come back for? 
 A. I was crazy. Q. Did you kill this girl? A. Yes. Q. Where 
 did you get the gun? A. I get the gun in Seattle. Q. What kind 
 of a gun was it? A. A little pistol. Q. An automatic? Inspector 
 Morak: Do you want to show it to him? Mr. Collier: Yes. 
 (Inspector Morak produces gun). Q, Examine the gun I hand 
 you and state if that is the gun you used. (Hands gun to pris- 
 oner.) A. I guess it is, yes. Yes. (The gun so handed to pris- 
 oner is identified as a ,25 Colt's automatic. No. 168199). Q. Is 
 that the gun you got in Seattle? A. Yes. Q. When did you get 
 the gun? A. When I was going to Vancouver last year. Q. When 
 they sent you to jail in the month of May, you made up your 
 mind if you got out you would kill her? A. Yes. If she married 
 me, all right. If she didn't, I going to kill her. Q. And you 
 made up your mind to do that last May? A. Yes. Q. That was 
 why you came back? A. Yes, that is all, for that cause, I was 
 crazy, I never can get in the city and all the time will be cry- 
 ing and sore of that thing. Q. So you didn't have any other 
 business in Portland, but came back here for the express pur- 
 pose of killing her? A. Yes, that is all. Just for this deed. That 
 is true. I don't care if they send me to jail all my life. I want 
 to tell the truth. Q. You knew it was wrong to kill her, didn't 
 you? A. She done me wrong and sent me to jail twice. Q. You 
 knew it was wrong to take life, didn't you? (Talks in Italian to 
 Morak.) Inspector Morak: I didn't have no more brains then. 
 Q. As a matter of fact, you know you shot her while she was 
 asleep. She didn't wake up at all when you shot her? A. No, 
 she was waked up a little bit. Q. Did she say anything to you? 
 A. No. Q. Did she say anything to anybody? A, Just "Oh, Ma." 
 Q. Started to call for her mother? A. Yes. Q. And then you 
 shot her? A. Yes. Q. Where did you shoot her first? A. I don't 
 know. Q. How many times did you shoot her? A. Oh, I think 
 all seven times. Q, Why did you run away? A, I was scared 
 of the police. Q. Why? Did you think they would kill you? 
 A. No. Q. Why were you scared of the police then? A. Afraid 
 
115 
 
 of arresting. Q. Afraid of bcinif arrested? A. Yes. Q. You 
 wanted to get away? A. Yes. Q. You knew what you had done? 
 A. Yes, I knew what I had done. Q. You knew that it was wrong 
 to do that? A. Yes. Q. And you were running and trying to get 
 away from that? A. Yes. Q. You didn't want to be caught? 
 A. No. Q. You knew that if they caught you you wouUl be pun- 
 ished? A. Yes. Q. You knew you would be punished for doing 
 wrong, and you knew you had done something that was wrong? 
 A. Oh, yes, sure. Q. And that was the reason you were running 
 away? A. Yes. Q. Don't you feel badly that you killed this 
 girl? A. Yes, but 1 am satisfied now that I have. 
 
 There has been no psychological test made of Monaco, and 
 so I shall have to let the story of his crime and his confession 
 (as compared with confessions of feeble-minded delinquents) 
 indicate his mental status. 
 
 Chapter XVII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 There can be no doubt but that sooner or later society must 
 take an intelligent interest in defective and delinquent children 
 not only because the defective and delinquent child is practically 
 certain to grow into a criminal, but because defective stock re- 
 produces its own kind. Of course the union of defective and 
 normal individuals will produce some normal offspring as well 
 as defective offspring, but even here succeeding generations will 
 show defective beings born of apparently normal parents. 
 Among individuals blessed with more sentiment than hard sense 
 the theory that good environment will radically improve a de- 
 fective strain is still very common, but it is inconceivable that 
 anyone who professes to believe that human beings can breed 
 in haphazard fashion with good results would for an instant 
 contemplate breeding a thoroughbred horse with a scrub, or a 
 greyhound with a mongrel, with any hope of protecting the 
 progeny from deterioration. 
 
 Of course the conditions of civilized society have made the 
 ideas of personal freedom and the sanctity of life the most im- 
 portant subjects for human thought, but personal freedom in 
 
116 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 society involves a degree of responsibility and self-discipline 
 which a defective being cannot comprehend, much less exercise. 
 
 The idea of the sanctity of human life does not even require 
 defense or discussion if we are wilUng to apply its first prin- 
 ciples to the question of reproduction. To grant whelesale li- 
 cense to defective men and women to propagate defectives who 
 are certain in many instances to destroy human life as the weak- 
 minded beings whose life stories have been told in the preceding 
 chapters have done, is to disregard the sanctity of human life 
 instead of striving to protect it. The sanctity of human life is 
 a mutual affair if there is anything in the idea at all. We can- 
 not guard the defectives alone from destruction and allow them 
 the liberty to kill normal people, and in view of that truth we 
 are bound to segregate the dangerous defectives and to prevent 
 all of them so far as possible from reproducing their kind. Of 
 course there will always be a certain number of the defectives 
 due to inherited syphilis, alcoholism in the parents at the time 
 of conception, injuries at the time of birth and acute diseases 
 in infancy, not to mention the family strains where there is an 
 inheritance from some defective ancestor which occasionally 
 produces a defective child. This burden society must always 
 carry just as it must provide for the crippled, the diseased and 
 the insane, but it is quite unnecessary to encourage or tolerate 
 the certain reproduction of any defective stock. The kindest 
 regard and support of those defectives who are here does not 
 include encouraging them to become parents. That is as foolish 
 as to propose wholesale euthanasia. 
 
 There will be difficulties in the way, of course, in limiting 
 the reproduction of defectives, but the colonization of females 
 of the child bearing age will undoubtedly be the principal meth- 
 od, for the simple reason that a normal woman will very rarely 
 mate with a feeble-minded man, while there are unlimited num- 
 bers of men who will cohabit with feeble-minded women. Then, 
 too, sterilization of the feeble-minded male is a very simple 
 operation. A number of states have sterilization laws for indi- 
 viduals in prisons and other state institutions, but while some 
 of these laws have been decided to be unconstitutional for the 
 obvious reason that such a law is class legislation, still if such 
 a law were made generally applicable to males at least it would 
 not be open to that objection. 
 
 As I have said in a previous chapter, not all the defectives 
 have strong criminal tendencies, but many of them do have 
 
117 
 
 such inclination and they usually appear in the adolescent years, 
 not perhaps as criminal acts but as tendencies which are bound 
 to grow. Very little can be done to check them because a weak- 
 mind offers no foundation on which to build character, though 
 such a mind may and often does know the difference between 
 right and wrong. 
 
 This knowledge of right and wrong combined as it is in the 
 weak-minded with lack of ability to deal in abstractions and the 
 consequent inability to foresee consequences together with an 
 almost utter lack of power of inhibition or self-control forms 
 the great stumbling block for the public in understanding and 
 dealing with the feeble-minded criminal. It has been the iron- 
 clad custom for hundreds of generations to hold the individual 
 responsible for his conduct when he knows the difference be- 
 tween right and wrong, and this custom may be said to be the 
 foundation principle of the criminal law in all countries. The 
 principle is perfectly sound of course for all normal persons, 
 but it has been recognized by the courts that it does not apply to 
 insane persons for obvious reasons. In the case of Jean Gianini, 
 reported by Dr. Goddard in his "Criminal Imbecile," it was 
 recognized by the court that Jean was a high-grade defective 
 and that his rudimentary knowledge of right and wrong did not 
 make him morally responsible for his acts, though the necessity 
 of permanently confining him was recognized and acted upon. 
 
 At the trial of Guiteau for the assassination of President Gar- 
 field insanity was made the defense. The experts differed wide- 
 ly, as usual, and Judge Cox in his charge to the jury laid down 
 the principle that if it was apparent in view of all the testimony, 
 including of course that of the alienists, that Guiteau knew the 
 difference between right and wrong that the jury should hold 
 him responsible for his criminal act and should find him guilty 
 of murder in the first degree. The jury did so find, and in view 
 of public opinion it could not have done anything else. Indeed, 
 so deeply is this idea of moral responsibility held to apply to 
 any human being who has any intelligence at all, and by that 
 I mean the average intelligence of a child of say seven years, 
 that it is a matter of policy to convict paranoiacs or imbeciles, 
 as the legal term has it, who present no violent or obtrusive symp- 
 toms for the jury to witness, where the evidence shows that the 
 individual has committed a crime. So far as the individual is 
 concerned it may not make much difference to society, but the 
 alternative logical application of the principle to other defective 
 
118 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 persons is tragic in its consequences, for they ar€ allowed to go 
 their ways and given opportunities to commit terrible crimes, 
 and to reproduce their own kind. 
 
 This system also fosters general ignorance of the criminal 
 capacities of the weak-minded and encourages the belief that 
 such persons are harmless. It is true that some of them are 
 harmless, but the preceding chapters show what terrible crimes 
 are committed by the high-grade defectives and how because of 
 their reputation as harmless beings innocent persons may be 
 convicted of murder and their lives practically destroyed. 
 
 This is the direct outcome of popular ignorance on the sub- 
 ject, which is fostered and maintained by the courts and prose- 
 cuting attorneys partly through ignorance and partly through 
 slavish obedience to custom. One of the worst consequences of 
 this attitude of the courts and prosecuting officers is the effect 
 on sheriffs, police officers and detectives whose business it is to 
 discover the perpetrators of crime. They are selected somewhat 
 at random and given the power of the state to pursue and arrest 
 criminals, but it is beyond the bounds of reason to expect un- 
 trained minds to understand the criminal capabilities of such 
 delinquent defectives as John Sierks, William Riggin and others 
 described in this volume. Unless there is direct evidence of 
 such a feeble-mind committing a crime, the detectives in cases 
 where there is only circumstantial evidence, would be the first 
 to eliminate the weak-minded persons as beyond suspicion. The 
 more horrible and apparently unprovoked the crime the less 
 they would be disposed to suspect a member of an unfortunate 
 class Avho have been known as "innocents," "half-wits," "natu- 
 rals," "simple-minded," "fools" and other names indicating their 
 weakness of mind. At the same time the officers argue that as 
 a crime has been committed somebody must have committed it, 
 and in the absence of any legitimate clue suspicion is certain to 
 be raised against some person within reach by soine ill-natured 
 gossip or by some interested person, as in the case of the Wehr- 
 man murder. 
 
 Our system of detection and punishment of crime is not only 
 based on very incomplete knowledge of the subject but through 
 t)ur system of election and appointment of officers of the law 
 it becomes in part a matter of politics, which means that if a 
 terrible crime is committed our politically selected officers must 
 find somebody to punish for it or they will go out of office at 
 the next election. In cases where there is no direct evidence the 
 
Conclusion llO 
 
 only thing to do is after a man is lonnd who was mar onough 
 to the scene of the crime to have made it ])hysically possible for 
 him to have done it, and who cannot establish an alibi, to raise 
 the hue and cry, as was done in the case of Arthur Pender, by 
 saying that as a soldier in the Philippines he killed Filipino 
 girls. This was justified on the ground that somebody killed 
 Mrs. Wehrman, and Mr. Pender lived only a mile away, and as 
 there was no evidence that anybody else did it he must have been 
 the murderer. The weight and influence of official proceedings 
 convinces the public through the newspapers that probably the 
 man who has been arrested by the sheriff is the guilty one. 
 
 In the case of Arthur Pender by means of an industrious 
 propaganda he was made out a perverted brute, and the detective 
 who secured his conviction was paid by the county where the 
 murder was committed, though he was not paid as much as 
 the sheriff wished to have him paid. The sheriff was in serious 
 trouble himself on account of charges affecting his honesty as 
 an official, and he needed some sort of vindication badly, while 
 the public wanted somebody punished for this terrible double 
 murder. 
 
 If district attorneys had the power to direct criminal investi- 
 gations there would probably have been a different sort of an 
 investigation of the Wehrman murder, but the district attorney 
 had to take what the sheriff furnished him. He also was in a 
 difficult situation, for the Wehrman murder was committed only 
 three months after the sadistic murder of the four members of 
 the Hill family, and that murder occurred in his district and 
 he had resolutely stood against the prosecution of an innocent 
 man who happened to be a neighbor of the Hills. To the disin- 
 terested observer it was apparent that the district attorney must 
 take the sherifrs evidence and fight to convict Arthur Pender 
 or retire from public life. 
 
 The district attorney did not retire from public life. He 
 did accept the evidence furnished by the sheriff and the detec- 
 tive hired by the sheriff and he succeeded in convicting Mr. 
 Pender of murder in the first degree two years after the crime 
 was committed on the extremely flimsy circumstantial evidence 
 which was offered and the court imposed the death sentence by 
 hanging. 
 
 THE governor's ATTITUDE 
 
 John Arthur Pender was taken to the state penitentiary to 
 be hanged in the latter part of Governor Oswald West's admin- 
 
120 Why Some Men Kill 
 
 istration. Upon application made to Governor West for pardon 
 for Mr. Pender he commuted the sentence of hanging to hfe im- 
 prisonment. Just in the last days of Governor West's adminis- 
 tration John G. H. Sierks confessed to the murder of Mrs. Wehr- 
 man and her child, but within three days he repudiated his con- 
 fession after hearing from his father that the family would go 
 away and never see him again as he had disgraced them. That 
 was doubtless the strongest appeal which could have been made 
 to a childish intellect, and the man with the child's mind after 
 writing a frank letter to his father (unknown to anyone) in which 
 he admitted his guilt, decided the next day to back out of his 
 confession and say it was a "black lie." In this situation Gov- 
 ernor West decided to pass the problem on to his successor, 
 Governor Withycombe. 
 
 Governor Withycombe never believed that John Arthur Pen- 
 der was guilty of the murder of Mrs. Wehrman and her child 
 and he was greatly interested in the investigation which I had 
 begun before he went into office. In fact, he furnished about 
 $200 for expense money for the investigation of clues which 
 were furnished by John Sierks in his confession. In the Spring 
 of 1916 the facts were all verified apparently to Governor Withy- 
 combe's satisfaction, but to further satisfy himself he appointed 
 Mr. Richard C. Lee, a former newspaper man of high standing 
 and intelligence, to make an independent investigation. Mr. Lee 
 went over the ground and interviewed all the witnesses whom 
 he could find and talked to the judges who presided at the trials. 
 He also read all the evidence from that at the coroner's inquest 
 and the preliminary hearing to the second trial. His conclusion 
 in his report to Governor Withycombe was that it was absurd 
 to claim that Mr. Pender had any connection with the murder 
 except that he lived about a mile from where it happened. Mr. 
 Lee says that his report contains some curious facts. One was 
 that Judge Campbell, who tried the case the first time (when 
 the jury disagreed) said to him that he decided if the jury 
 brought in a verdict of guilty to set aside the verdict. 
 
 In the matter of the murder of William Booth in 1915 and 
 the confession of the crime by William Riggin in the spring of 
 1917, Governor Withycombe, upon my pointing out to him the 
 possibility that the confession was true in view of the fact that 
 the evidence against William Branson and Mrs. Anna Booth was 
 purely circumstantial, gave the warden of the penitentiary in- 
 structions to make an investigation of all the facts of Biggin's 
 
Conclusion 121 
 
 confession. Warden Murphy invited me to join with him in 
 this investigation and I was ghid lo do so. A detailed report 
 was presented to Governor Withycombe on December 1, 1917, 
 by me, and the report of Warden Murphy was presented to the 
 Governor four months earher. 
 
 District Attorney Conner, who convicted Wilham Branson, 
 and who agreed to consent to a pardon for Mrs. Booth in a 
 year's time if she would plead guilty to manslaughter, made a 
 most positive protest against a pardon for William Branson and 
 Anna Booth. Mr. Conner was elected in a three-cornered fight 
 by a narrow majority, and this murder trial was the big event 
 of his term of office and incidentally it cost the county $11,000. 
 
 Governor Withycombe made a rule not to grant pardons 
 without the consent of the prosecuting attorneys. The Governor 
 is required by law before granting pardons to inquire of the 
 judge or district attorney concerning the case, but of course he 
 is under no obligation to follow the suggestion of either. He 
 has absolute power under the constitution to pardon any person 
 convicted of crime, and in fact this is the only method provided 
 by which a person unjustly convicted of crime may be saved 
 from an unjust fate. 
 
 In the matter of the pardons of John Arthur Pender and of 
 William Branson and Anna Booth the Federation of Women's 
 Clubs in Portland appointed a committee in December, 1918, 
 to intercede with the Governor for these persons unjustly con- 
 victed of murder, but the Governor wrote the committee that he 
 could do nothing in these cases as the district attorneys who 
 had convicted these persons objected to his taking any action. 
 
 This brings into strong relief the political power of the dis- 
 trict attorneys of Oregon and indicates the truth of the remarks 
 of students from other nations "that the American people do 
 not govern themselves, but are ruled by a class of men who are 
 known as politicians." However at the last election less than 
 50 per cent of the voters went to the polls in Oregon, so perhaps 
 the voters prefer that the politicians should rule. 
 
 In the matter of the Hill murder, the district attorney of 
 Clackamas County, who by the way is a very different person 
 from the district attorney who refused to prosecute (in effect) 
 a neighbor of the Hills, has treated the information which I have 
 furnished him with the most profound contempt and has abso- 
 lutely refused to investigate for himself. It is true that he made 
 a contract with a consideration of $2000 with the private de- 
 
Why Some Men Kill 
 
 tective who was hired by the sheriff who collected the evidence 
 against Mr. Pender in the Wehrman murder, to secure the evi- 
 dence in the Hill murder. However, Clackamas County refused 
 to pay the $2000, and the detective had to enforce collection 
 by a suit in court which he won. It is also true that the district 
 attorney has never attempted to use this evidence, which cost so 
 much, in any prosecution. 
 
 In the Hill murder case, William Riggin, who confessed, is 
 in the penitentiary but is eligible for release, and one of his 
 alleged accomplices was living in the woods in a suburb of Port- 
 land in February of 1919. Riggin's term will expire in a year or 
 two and he will be free to "get" one other man whom he has 
 threatened. 
 
 The practical thing for consideration in these three murder 
 cases involving the destruction of the lives of seven people, is 
 that out of all the warring influences and bitter personalities 
 sufficient interest has been aroused to actually secure careful 
 investigations of the murders, and it undoubtedly now rests with 
 the general public to say whether the three innocent persons 
 in the penitentiary who were wrongfullj'^ convicted shall be re- 
 leased in the name of common justice, and whether the defective 
 and criminal beings who killed the Hill family shall be permitted 
 to go at large. 
 
 This volume was prepared for this purpose, and for the in- 
 finitely larger purpose of bringing the question of the criminal 
 tendencies of high-grade feeble-minded men before the public 
 in order that sensible measures may be considered for limiting 
 the procreation of feeble-minded stock. 
 
 The End. 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 CONFESSION OF WILLIAM RIGGIN 
 
 "I, WilHam Riggin, under oath, do make this my true and 
 voluntary statement, to-wit: Rranson and Mrs. Rooth are not 
 guilty of kilHng Rooth. I shot William Rooth; Rooth always 
 had it in for me, and one time called me out of the poolhall in 
 
Willainina aiui told mo thai I had a bad nanu-; said lor mc to 
 leave his wife alone. 1 told him, "To hell with him." He slapi)ed 
 me one the side of the head. Another lime I was standing on 
 a street in Willamina and Booth eame along and said to the 
 other fellow he was with, "There is a con." 
 
 "He always had it in for me. I said to myself that 1 was 
 going to get him. I think he tipped me off to the (lame Warden. 
 He always kept j)icking at me. On October 7, in the forenoon, 
 I went down past Dud Lee's place and got to talking with him 
 about Booth. He knew that Mrs. Booth and Branson wer(> going 
 together and that Booth was jealous. He told me that Booth 
 was going up in there all the time, trailing Billy Branson. Booth 
 watched me like a hawk and was jealous of me. 
 
 THREE SHOTS FIRED 
 
 "On October 8, in the morning, I took a .32-20 rifle and a .38 
 Smith and Wesson hammerless revolver, blue steel, and went 
 up to the timber to practice shooting and wait for Booth. 1 had 
 a lot of mixed sheHs for the .38; some hand-loaded and some 
 were not. I practiced shooting for about two hours; 1 did not 
 expect to find Booth; I came down the road and saw Billy 
 Branson and Mrs. Booth talking together; when I passed them 
 they were off at the edge of the road just a few feet from the 
 edge of the road; they did not see me, or did not let on that 
 they saw me. 
 
 "I don't know that they saw me. I passed them and went 
 down the road for about 200 yards and circled around and came 
 back. I circled around to the left. I was about 40 yards from 
 them. There was some brush and timber between me and them, 
 I stood there and watched them. I saw Booth coming across the 
 field to the left of me, and when he was about 100 yards off I 
 shot at him with the rifle. He stopped and looked around and 
 i ducked down on the ground. He came on across and I waited 
 until he got to about 30 yards from me and I shot him with the 
 revolver. After I shot he partly turned around and fell kind of 
 on his left side. He said 'Oh, my God.' I shot at him again 
 and when he was on the ground, but I think I missed him. 
 
 ESCAPE IS EXPLAINED 
 
 "I would have shot all the shells at him, but I was afraid 
 someone would see me. I lit out to the left and went down 
 through the brush. I walked to a vacant shed near Willamina 
 where I had a horse that 1 hired from a stable in McMinnville, 
 got on the horse and beat it. The shed is near an old sawmill 
 at the edge of Willamina. It was a spotted pony with roached 
 mane. I rode out through (iopher Valley and past Baker Creek 
 Falls and passed Jerry Funk's place to Walker Flat. I took the 
 horse into McMinnville and turned him loose in the stable, but 
 not the stable tliat I hired him from. I got the horse out of the 
 Red Front barn and turned him loose in the barn below the 
 Commercial Hotel. There was no one in the barn. I rode right 
 in the barn and jerked the bridle off him and loosened the saddle 
 and put him in the stall and left. I walked back to Walker Flat 
 
and stayed for three days with a man who was making boards 
 and posts. I went on over to Tillamook and ditched the revolver 
 and belt at Pinkey Stillwell's place on the road to Tillamook. 
 I put the revolver inside the picket fence. At the time the shoot- 
 ing took place I wore a blue shirt, corduroy pants and high-top 
 corked shoes. William Riggin." 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 CONFESSION OF JOHN G. H. SIERKS 
 
 "I, John G. H. Sierks, say that on Labor Day, September 4, 
 1911, I had been drinking with some men on the farm of J. L. 
 Smith, about five miles from Hillsboro, and went to bed about 
 seven o'clock; then got up about seven thirty and walked over 
 to Allavatch, a station on the United Railways, and took the 
 Electric car for Burlington. There I got off and stole a speeder 
 from the Burlington car shop section boss and went down to 
 Scappoose on the Northern Pacific line, there crossed over and 
 went on the logging road which crossed over to this woman's 
 place — crossed at Parson's Station. There I ditched it and went 
 over and stole a revolver out of a trunk in Hasson and Riley's 
 cabin, broke it open with a claw hammer in Hasson and Riley's 
 cabin. This claw hammer had only one claw. 1 took this claw 
 hammer and threw it in Pender's tent, then went up to this 
 woman's cabin. I found Mrs. Wehrman coming from the house 
 with a lantern — this was about ten o'clock. I saw her go in the 
 
 house and asked her for and she objected and spoke to 
 
 me harshly. She went into the house and got a gun and shot 
 at me. The bullet went into the cabin at the right hand of me 
 as I went in. I pulled out my revolver from my hip pocket and 
 fired three shots at her. I fired one shot at her from a distance 
 and she fell and then I placed the gun close to her forehead and 
 fired; I then placed it on her chest and fired again. The boy 
 was lying in bed with his clothes on. I thought he would wake 
 up and squeal on me so I fired at him. I placed the gun close 
 to his head and fired two shots. I found a hatchet in the wood 
 box and chopped and split her skull. I went over and took her 
 drawers off, then I ravished her. 1 was afraid someone would 
 catch me. I ran out and washed my hands in a basin on the 
 porch; the towel was hanging by the door and I wiped my hands 
 on it. Then I padlocked the door. I took the key and throwed 
 it away, then I took the gun back to Riley and Hasson's cabin 
 and put it in the trunk. The gun I took from Mrs. Wehrman I 
 buried in the edge of the garden. Then I went down where my 
 car was, put it on the track and rode to Burlington; then I took 
 the midnight out from Burlington to Allavatch Station. 1 got 
 home about four o'clock in the morning. I went to bed. 1 got 
 up about six o'clock that morning and went to work shocking 
 grain. My mother and I talked this over but I refused to say 
 anything about it. She believed that I did it. 
 
 John G. H. Sierks." 
 

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