The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer

IN A CHICAGO FAMILY

Terrible Deed Committed by a New Domestic.

She Puts Rat Poison in the Victuals, and Two People Die from the Effects - She is Supposed to be Insane.

CHICAGO, April 6. - Late on Thursday night, a slender girl with a pallid face and brown curly hair, came to the Anchorage Mission on Third avenue, and asked that she might remain there until she could find work. She was accompanied by Charles Wallace, a member of the editorial staff of the Arkansas Traveler, who told Matron Snyder that he had found the girl wandering aimlessly about the streets. The homeless stranger remained at the mission one night. She said her name was Emma Stark, and that her home was in Lafayette, Ind., where her father, mother, brother and uncle had died suddenly of quick consumption. She seemed so intelligent and sincere that Matron Snyder gladly accepted the girl as a charge.

It was evident, however, that the stranger was bewildered or laboring under suppressed excitement. She talked coherently, but queerly about a mysterious woman who had been watching her, and trying to get her to enter one of the disreputable houses in the south division.

A PLACE SECURED FOR HER.

When morning came a nickel was given to the girl for transportation on the cable train, and also a note to Mrs. Geo. Newland, who was the wife of a wealthy retired real estate dealer, and who had applied at the mission for a good servant. Emma reached the home of the Newlands about noon. She did not prepare the dinner. While she was cooking the supper she complained of a terrible toothache, and borrowed some money from Miss Grace Newland to get a bottle of oil of cloves. She threw a shawl over her head, ran across the street to a drug store, and bought a package of rat poison; Then she returned to the kitchen and resumed her cooking. It is probable that the girl dumped the poison into the canned corn which was to be served, for within an hour after the dishes were removed from the table the entire family was seized with excruciating pains.

Dr. Crutcher, who was summoned, said the sufferers had been poisoned. Mr. Newland died in awful agony at 3 o'clock yesterday morning. His wife died a few hours later. Miss Newland and her brother will probably recover.

When Mr. Newland fell upon the floor in his first paroxysm of pain the new servant girl fled in the tennis cap and dingy ulster she had worn to the house. She could not be found until 1 o'clock this afternoon, when Detectives McDonald and Tichorn saw her staring blankly at the stage in the Park Theatre.

One of the officers walked down the center aisle and escorted the girl out of the play house. She made no resistance. She denied that her name was Emma Stark, or that she had ever visited the Anchorage Mission.

THE SAME STRANGE STORY.

Then speaking rapidly, with a musical voice, she rattled off her story about the mysterious woman who had been following her and the sudden death of her relatives. When she reached the steps of the Anchorage Mission she asked the officers why she should enter a strange house. Matron Snyder came to the door and extended her hand, exclaiming as she did so: "Poor Emma, you remember me, don't you?" The girl stared at the woman with blank amazement. Then she extended her hand in a mechanical way, and asked if there was any work for her to do in the house.

Mrs. Snyder and three other women in the mission identified the prisoner as Emma Stark. During this ordeal the girl smiled pleasantly and obeyed all the commands. Four women searched her clothing, but no poison was found. The prisoner is in a cell at the Central station. She is 18 years old. It is believed that she is insane. The most skillful questioning could not refresh her mind as to the events of yesterday. The girl even denies that she ever saw Mr. Newland's house.

THE POLICE PUZZLED

When Chief of Police Marsh and his assistants locked the girl up last night she had positively denied all connection with the poisoning. She denied that she was ever at the Anchorage Mission, the institution from which the Newland family secured her as a servant. A circumstance that greatly strengthens the denials occurred when she was taken before Dr. Rogers, the druggist, who sold the poison. Dr. Rogers looked her over carefully in all possible lights and formed his conclusion most deliberately. Finally he said: "She is not the girl who bought the Rough on Rats. I am just as sure of that fact as I am of the fact that I am alive."

The officers went away puzzled. Early this morning Chief Marsh and Inspector Hunt entered upon a house to house canvass to find if any one in the neighborhood had purchased Rough on Rats at Dr. Rogers' store. A man was found who had seen the girl enter the drug store, and he described Mamie Stark accurately. Finally the Chief and his companion drove into the city, convinced that Druggist Rogers was either intentionally or unintentionally mistaken. The girl was brought up from the cell where she had been confined and taken into the presence of Chief Marsh, Inspector Hunt, Captain Laughlin and other detectives.

"Mamie," commenced the Chief, "why did you tell me you were not in that drug store at all."

"Surely, I never said anything of the kind," said the girl, and her eyes rolled wildly. "Of course I was in the drug store. I went there and bought the box of poison. I paid fifteen cents for it and 10 cents for some gum. I had just a quarter."

"Why, you told us last night that you had never been in Hyde Park in your life, that you had never seen the Newlands, that you were never in the Anchorage Mission and a dozen other things."

"Impossible! You must have misunderstood me. Of course I was in Hyde Park. I'll tell you just how it was. I was very despondent and did not want to live any longer; you know I have often been despondent, and once tried to kill myself in Chicago two years ago. So I went to the store for the poison and thought I would take it while the family were asleep that night. I hid the stuff while I cooked supper. I cooked the corn and am sure there could not have been any poison in it; but it was wrong somehow, for I took a taste of it myself and was dreadfully sick afterwards.

When all the family began to get sick I was scared and thought the best thing I could do would be to get out. I took the box of poison and rolled it up in my apron, then went away. I was very much excited at the time but I remember that I threw both apron and poison away. I wrapped them up tight and threw the package over a fence. I am sure I don't know just where it was, but probably I could find it if I had half a chance."

"This is altogether a different story from the one you told yesterday," remarked Inspector Hunt.

"Oh, no," responded the girl, and the same crazy gleam was in her eyes, "that is just exactly what I said yesterday. By the way, do you know I can't find my umbrella anywhere. I wonder where it is."

It was an open question with the officers after the examination whether the woman's apparent insanity was feigned or real. "I never heard of a case similar to this one," said Chief Marsh. "I never saw a prisoner so self-possessed and cool under arrest for a similar crime."