Things went on this way until the morning of February 21, 1906. Then something happened, the climax occurred and Guerin was shot.
Provides for the Defense.
After the arrest of his wife, "Mike" McDonald announced that he believed in her integrity and declared he would spend every cent of his fortune to save her. The former gambling dictator was almost 70 years old and his health was failing rapidly. Four months after the event he was taken to the St. Anthony de Padua Hospital, where he remained until his death, August 9, 1907.
McDonald was still passing to his death when there crept into his room a little, white-haired woman who had come from Newark, N. J. There she was known as Mrs. Grashoff and a great charity worker, especially in the interest of fallen girls in the Crittenden homes. Years before Mike McDonald had called her his first wife.
Dramatic Meeting of McDonald and First Wife.
By the laws of the church she was still his wife, no matter what the years had brought forth. So Mike took her hand and held it and spoke softly to her in a breath of full forgiveness and passed away. Without the door sat the woman whom he had called his wife—Dora, whom he had won from a husband and to whom he had been faithful until he stepped to the brink of his grave.
This was the last straw that crushed the spirit of Dora McDonald.
The body of Webster Guerin was removed to McNally & Duffy's undertaking rooms at 516 Wabash avenue.
Detective Wooldridge took up the work of gathering the evidence and prepared the case for the Coroner and Grand Jury.
The Grand Jury indictment placed Dora McDonald seemingly beyond the pale of bail, but Mike worked assiduously and finally secured her release from prison on $50,000 bonds. Then Mike became ill and died in St. Anthony's Hospital.