TRACKING A MURDERER.
The following case, which occurred a few years ago, in a sister city, will show how the detectives track and secure their game:
A terrible murder had been committed. The sods were scarcely heaped upon the coffin of the murdered man when one of his murderers was securely confined in the cells of the central station. The arrest was one of unusual difficulty. When the detectives visited the scene of the murder, the only clue to the perpetrators was a blood stained handkerchief and the gag used in strangling their victim. With these faint traces there was little hope of ferreting out the murderer, but Detective Joshua Taggart assumed the task. Returning to the store, he reconnoitered the premises with new diligence. A new trace was then discovered. A new mortise chisel, wrapped in a piece of brown paper, lay on a shelf in the room. The chisel was not the property of the proprietors of the dental depot. It had plainly been brought there by the burglars. To trace it then became the task of the detective. Upon it depended his only hope of tracing the murder from the dead porter to the burglars who had killed the unoffending warden.
There were none of the usual evidences of crime in the robbery of the store. A skilled detective knows every thief within his jurisdiction, and their operations are to him familiar and easily recognized. The appearance of a forced door will indicate the man who burst it open. An experienced detective will trace a burglar by the manner of opening a door as readily as a bank teller will recognize the hand writing of one of his depositors. The size of the jemmy used, the manner in which it is applied, the place at which a house is entered, whether at the door, the window, the roof, or the cellar grating, are all so many unerring indications to the detectives of the burglars whose operations he traces. But in this case there was no burglary committed. It was simply murder and robbery. The murdered man had either opened the door of the wareroom, or the murderers opened the door with the keys taken from the gagged or insensible porter. The removal of the goods betokened the robbery. Gold, silver and platina to the value of three thousand dollars were taken away, but there were no traces or evidence of the burglars. A murdered man lay dead in the entry, a number of shelves stood empty against the wall, but neither clue nor trace, footprint nor finger mark, existed to aid or direct the detective's sagacity in his search. Detective Taggart knew this. He felt the difficulty of his situation, and he preserved the chisel as the first link of the evidence he was to forge and fasten into a chain of convicting proof. He took the chisel home. The trade mark could not guide him. Hundreds of the firm's chisels were weekly sold in the city, and the clue seemed losing its power, when a few figures on the back of the wrapping paper inclosing the chisel arrested Taggart's attention. These figures were evidently a calculation by a hardware dealer of the price of the tool, the reduction by a slow hand of the business trade mark into the simple value of the digits. To find the man who had made the memorandum on the back of the paper was the first step in detecting the murderer.
Mr. Taggart visited the hardware dealers one by one until he despaired of finding the one who sold the chisel. There was no evidence that the tool had been purchased in Philadelphia. New York, Pittsburg, Baltimore and Boston retail such chisels, and the probability of its purchase in St. Louis was as strong as the idea of its purchase here. But Taggart found the man who sold the chisel. A hardware dealer recognized the calculation on the wrapper, and remembered the man who had bought it. Two men, he said, came to the store. One was slender and tall, the other was short and stout, with a heavy black moustache and black hair. The latter bought the chisel. The pal stood in the background and said nothing.
This was the commencement of the case. Who the stout man was Taggart could not surmise. It might be one of a score of thieves, and for four days he could form no conception of the murderer's identity, until one night, waking from a restless slumber, Huey Donnelly flashed like thought across his mind, and running his memory back for the past few weeks, he remembered that at the time the murder was committed Donnelly was in the city. The great difficulty in tracing the case was passed.
Donnelly was at once watched. Who the second man was Taggart well surmised. He followed Huey to every quarter of the city to see if he communicated with his pal, who was with him when the chisel was purchased—who was with him when the porter was murdered. But the second murderer had fled. Taggart himself followed Donnelly night after night, dogged him into every rum-mill and thieves' brothel, where he tarried briefly or long, watching him at night until he went to bed, but never found his pal, who is the associate criminal in the tragedy. A week after Donnelly was spotted, Taggart found his pal had left the city, and unless Donnelly was arrested he would also leave. Following up the trail, he met Huey in Washington Square. Donnelly was leisurely crossing when a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder. He turned and faced the detective, who simply said:
'I want you, Donnelly.'
'What for?'
'Murder.'
"When at the station, the salesman was sent for. Donnelly's black moustache was gone. His face was shaved clean. He was placed in the rogue's gallery. A number of men of similar build, both moustached and clean face, were placed in the same room. The salesman was conducted to the gallery. 'Point out the man who purchased the chisel,' was the detective's command. Without hesitation or doubt, the salesman placed his hand on Donnelly's shoulder. Then Taggart followed the second murderer. He went to Baltimore, but he could get no further. All clue was lost in that city, and the present lurking place of the confederate of Donnelly is undiscovered. The necessity for keeping the arrest quiet was removed, and now the detective calls to his aid the far reaching influence of the press and the telegraph, that police authorities of other cities may complete the work begun here, and render to justice the other murderer, who is at liberty in spite of her laws."
It would require a volume to narrate all of the exploits of the detectives, and so we shall content ourselves with the incidents already given.
If, as we have said, persons seeking the aid of the police, would tell the truth in their statements, the aid rendered them would be much more efficacious and speedy; and, after all, it is useless to try to deceive these keen students of human nature. The detective can tell from the nature of the loss whether the statement of the circumstances is true or false, for he knows that certain robberies take place only in certain localities.
Persons are often indignant that those who have robbed them are not arrested and held for trial. Undoubtedly this would be a very desirable thing, but it is not always possible. Frequently no evidence can be obtained against the guilty party, whose arrest would be a useless expense to the city, and the detective in such cases is compelled to content himself with the recovery of the property. The stolen goods thus recovered and restored to their owners is stated on good authority at two millions annually. [Footnote: Prison Association Report. 1866.]
In many cases the detective is very loth to arrest the culprit. It may be the first offence of some youth, or the victim may have been forced on by circumstances which an experienced officer can understand and appreciate. In such cases he generally leans to the side of mercy, for the men of the New York force are kind and humane. Their advice to the party against whom the offence has been committed, is not to resort to the law, but to try the offender again. In this way they have saved many a soul from the ruin which an exposure and punishment would have caused, and have brought back many an erring one to the paths of virtue and integrity. There are men of tried honesty in this city to-day, men holding responsible positions, whose lives,
"Could their story but be told,"
would verify this assertion.