The Crime of the Century; Or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry CroninHunt, Henry M.
History
The Crime of the Century; Or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin
Hunt, Henry M.
Cronin, Patrick Henry, 1846-1889; Trials (Assassination) -- Illinois -- Chicago
The excitement which prevailed in the city when the news of the find
became known almost equaled that of the day on which the body was found,
while the friends of the physician were exultant and congratulated each
other upon the unexpected aid that the prosecution had received. Rumors
of what the day had brought forth had found their way into the court
room a little while prior to the adjournment of the afternoon session,
and created a profound impression; the lawyers for the defense were
astounded, while the agitation of all of the prisoners, excepting Beggs,
was apparent to every observer. Only the ex-Senior Guardian of Camp 20
maintained a cool demeanor.
A PIECE OF CARPET FOUND.
On the following day, acting under instructions of the Chief of Police,
a dozen picked men from the Central detail commenced a thorough search
of the Lake View sewers. They were assisted by several experienced
sewer men. Long pike poles were secured and the hunt began, but the task
was by no means an easy one, many of the sewers being too small for the
smallest man to crawl through.
[Illustration: THE SILVER HYPODERMIC SYRINGE CASE.]
Starting at Evanston avenue the gang worked slowly to the lake, but for
several hours nothing was found to reward their efforts. It was not
until late in the day that a find was made by Officer Lorch. Equipped
with a rubber suit and one of the pike poles, he had been lowered into
the man-hole at the corner of Evanston and Graceland avenues, one block
south of the man-hole in which the clothes and surgical instruments had
been thrown, and two blocks south of the street where the trunk was
found. Worming himself into the twenty inch sewer he went through the
filthy main for a distance of twelve or fifteen feet, pushing the pike
pole ahead of him. His persistence was finally rewarded by the bringing
to light of a muddy, slimy piece of carpet about twenty inches square,
and which looked as if it had been hastily torn from a longer strip.
When brought to the surface and rinsed under a hydrant it was found to
be a cheap quality of an ordinary ingrain of a modest dark pattern,
resembling just such a carpet as that which the man Simonds had
purchased at Revells.
[Illustration]
Its many months of contact with the water and slime of the sewer,
however, had destroyed all traces of the color and pattern, and hence it
was impossible to positively identify it as a portion of the carpet laid
down in the Carlson cottage, but in view of the locality in which it was
found, and its proximity to the place where the clothes and trunk were
secreted, there was but little doubt but that it was a portion of the
blood-stained carpet which the murderers had taken up from the floor of
the cottage. The search was continued in the hope that the boots, hose,
watch and chain, and purse, which were still missing, might be found in
the depths of the sewer, but despite the most energetic efforts it was
not rewarded by success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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