Mysteries of the missingSmith, Edward H. (Edward Henry)
History
Mysteries of the missing
Smith, Edward H. (Edward Henry)
Biography; Kidnapping; Missing persons
The quest for Warner was one of the most exciting in memory. The
first person sought and found was the Mrs. Warner who had given her
name and address to Bernard Myers on the Broadway car and figured in
the subsequent blackmail charges. She was found living quietly at a
boarding house in one of the adjacent New Jersey towns and said that
she had not seen Warner for some weeks, a claim which turned out to
be very near the truth. He had, in fact, visited her just before he
started to Albany, but it is doubtful whether he confided to the girl,
who was not in truth his wife, any of his plans or intentions.
It was then discovered that Attorney Warner was married and had a wife,
from whom he had long been separated, living in a small town in upper
New York. The detectives also visited this woman, but she had not seen
her husband in years and could supply no information.
Then the rumor-starting began. Warner was seen in ten places on the
same day. His presence was reported from every corner of the country.
Clews and reports led weary officers thousands of miles on empty
pursuits. Finally, when no real information as to the man developed,
the public wearied of him, and news of the case dropped out of the
papers.
Meantime Hardy and Blake came up for trial. Blake made an attempt
to mitigate his case by turning State’s evidence, and Hardy pleaded
that he had only been an intermediary, whose motivation was his
brother-in-law’s closeness and reproof. In view of the fact that the
evidence against the two men seemed conclusive, even without the
admissions of either one, the prosecutor decided to reject their
pleas and force them to stand trial. The cases were quickly heard and
verdicts of guilty reached on the spot. The presiding justice at once
sentenced both men to serve fourteen and one half years in the State
prison at Dannemora, and they were shortly removed to that gloomy house
of pain in the Adirondack Mountains.
All this happened before the first of October. The prisoners, having
been sentenced and sent to the penitentiary, and the kidnapped boy
being safely in his parents’ home, the whole affair was quickly
forgotten.
But a little after seven o’clock on the evening of December 12, two men
entered the farm lot of William Goodrich near the little village of
Riley in central Kansas, about two thousand miles from Albany and the
scene of the kidnapping. It was past dusk and the farm hand, one George
Johnson, was milking in the cow stable by lantern light.
As the rustic, clad in overalls, covered with dirt and straw, horny of
hand and tanned by the prairie winds, rose from his stool and started
to leave the stable with his buckets, the two strangers stepped inside
and approached him. One of them laid a rough hand on the farmer’s
shoulder and said soberly:
“Warner, I want you. Come along.”
“Must be some mistake,” said the milker in a curious Western drawl. “My
name is Gawge Johnson.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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