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
Dr. Brandt, who also assisted in the examination of the wounds, said the
blows must have been made by some sharp instrument, perhaps an ice-pick.
He said if the instrument had not been sharp the skull would have been
fractured, whereas it was only indented, or marked by the blows.
To many of the dead man's friends it seemed remarkable that the body had
not sooner been discovered, more especially as the Lake View police had
started out to search the catch basin on the day after the trunk was
found, and continued at the work for nearly a week. This was
satisfactorily explained, however, by Alderman Maxwell, of the city
council, who was one of the searching committee. It appeared that there
were four catch basins at the intersection of Evanston avenue and
Fifty-Ninth street, the body being discovered in the one on the
south-east corner. The committee, aided by fifteen police officers and
six volunteers, had commenced their operations at Evanston avenue and
Sulzer street, where the trunk was found, and went east and west from
that corner. From here they had gone through the basins north and south
along Evanston avenue, but no clues being discovered, they arrived at
the conclusion that the trunk had been left for a blind, and that, in
all probability, the body had been hidden some distance away. They had
consequently gone to Graceland and looked through the basins up and down
the avenue and on the cross streets for a distance of several miles.
This occupied an entire week, until, tired and disgusted, they had
stopped, by sheer bad luck, two blocks north of Fifty-Ninth street.
Hence it was that the catch-basin in which the body had been hidden was
missed.
THE STORY OF THE AUTOPSY.
All that night the body rested on the little table in the morgue, with
an automatic sprinkler pouring water upon the face and breast.
Decomposition advanced with such terrible swiftness, however, that by
morning it was apparent that unless the process of embalming was
resorted to without delay it would soon be unrecognizable. One of the
earliest arrivals was John T. Cronin, of Bradford, Kansas, the only
brother of the dead man. He wept bitterly, and sobbed and moaned when
taken into the morgue, and at once recognized the corpse, not only from
its facial characteristics, but also from a malformation of a portion
of the body that the physician had kept secret from even his most
intimate friends. He was with difficulty persuaded to leave the bier,
and, prostrated with grief, was half carried from the room. The county
authorities now took charge of the case. From the police department the
following proclamation, over the signature of Chief Hubbard, went to
every station in the city and was read to the men at the morning muster:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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