The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan Part 8

The cause for Wallings arrest was a chance remark made by Jackson about two o'clock in the morning. Shortly after being locked up Jackson called Turnkey Curren to him and said:

"I want you to get a chair and sit in front of my cell all night," said Jackson, who then exhibited the first sign of appreciating his position.

"Are you afraid of getting lynched?" asked the turnkey.

"Well, never mind that, I prefer to be well guarded whether I'm in danger or not."

After ordering his cell watched, Jackson lay down on the bunk in his cell and tried to go to sleep, but he was exceedingly restless and rolled around on his couch for a long time without getting any rest.

About two o'clock Jackson entered into a conversation with the turnkey in which almost his first question was:

"Hasn't Walling been arrested yet?"

"Why should he be arrested?" was asked.

Jackson refused to answer this question, and his actions showed that he did not care to talk further about his roommate. When Lieutenant Corbin heard of Jackson's actions he at once went to 222 West Ninth Street and arrested Walling, when he was subjected to a rigid examination by the officer.

"Were you in Wallingford's saloon with Jackson and a girl last Friday night?" was asked.

"Yes, I was," replied Walling.

"Who was the girl whom you were with?" was asked.

"I don't know who she was," he replied.

"Well you had better tell all you know about this matter," said the officer. "Now tell me who all were in the party at Wallingford's last Friday night."

"I don't know anything more about it," said Walling.

"Well, you may consider yourself under arrest, then," said Lieutenant Corbin.

Walling was taken to police headquarters and locked up, but Jackson was not informed of his arrest until the next day.

At 6.30 the same morning a telegram was received from the Cincinnati Detectives who had gone to South-Bend, Ind., bringing the startling information that Will Wood was arrested there, and confessed to the responsibility for the death of Pearl Bryan, whose headless body was found in the Kentucky Highlands. He said that he had arranged for Pearl Bryan to come to Cincinnati for the purpose of having a criminal operation performed, and that such an operation was performed, resulting in the death of the girl. Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling were both concerned in it. The body of the woman was taken to the spot where it was found and the head removed to prevent identification.

Investigations were still being made at Greencastle Ind., and the wires between Cincinnati and that staid old Methodist town, were kept hot.

Excitement was at a fever heat at both points.

Evidence was acc.u.mulating at each end and it seemed the nooses were rapidly tightening around the necks of Jackson, Walling and Wood.

The investigation showed that Scott Jackson had met Pearl Bryan at her home in the early spring of 1895. He left shortly afterward to attend the dental college at Indianapolis and his visits to Greencastle, while not frequent, were always to see Miss Bryan. In September he returned to Greencastle and entered the office of a local dentist. It was then the criminal intimacy between the two began.

He became attentive, and with a veneering of the usages of polite society managed to fascinate the farmer's daughter. His power over her seemed almost hypnotic. So great was his control over her that she is said to have kept appointments with him in the dental office where he was serving his apprentices.h.i.+p.

He sought to get rid of her and left the town. Jackson left Greencastle on October 3, and returned to spend the holidays. He seems to have allowed his love to grow cold, for he paid no attention to the girl whom he had robbed of all that a woman holds dear.

In vain did Pearl send for him to come to see her. He answered none of her entreaties, and left the town without seeing her except when by chance he met her on the street.

When it became apparent that she could not much longer conceal her shame, she told her parents she was going to Indianapolis to visit a friend.

NEVER PARALLELED WERE THE SCENES ABOUT POLICE HEADQUARTERS.

The scenes enacted at police headquarters early in the day, following the arrest of Jackson and Walling, were never paralleled in Cincinnati.

Hundreds of persons thronged the corridors in the immediate vicinity of the offices of the department, while a vast crowd was a.s.sembled on the outside of the building.

Upon the arrival of Supt. Deitsch he at once repaired to Mayor Caldwell's office, where a star chamber session of some length was held.

In the meantime the crowd continued to increase, and it became necessary to call for a detail of policemen to drive back the curious people. In the Mayor's office were Detectives Crim and McDermott with the Mayor and Chief of Police, who for nearly two hours held a seance with the accused men in their effort to reach the truth. The examination of Walling by the mayor was severe to a remarkable degree.

WALLING'S DAMAGING STATEMENT.

He told a long story of his acquaintance with Jackson, but the most startling points were when he came down to a conversation held in their room last Christmas day. Then he said: "Jackson took me into a corner of the room and told me that he and Billy Woods had gotten Pearl Bryan into trouble and that he must get rid of her. He suggested two ways in which it might be done. One of the plans he suggested was to take her to a room and kill her there and leave her. Then he spoke up quickly and said: 'No, I have a sudden thought as something often tells me when I am on the wrong idea. It would not do to leave her there, so I will instead cut her to pieces and drop the pieces in different vaults around town.'"

A few days afterward Walling says that he and Jackson were in Wallingford's saloon with a number of medical students, and there Jackson made inquiries as to the poison that would kill the quickest. He was told that hydrocyanic or prussic acid was the quickest, but that cocaine was about the next and most deadly.

JACKSON PURCHASED COCAINE.

Shortly after that Jackson bought cocaine at Koelble's drug store, on Sixth Street, between Plum and Elm.

"Do you know where he was going to take her?"

"Yes; he said he was going to take her to Ft. Thomas.

"About two weeks ago he asked me if I would help the girl out of trouble, and I said I would. He said she was coming here in about a week, and he would take me to where she was shopping. Last Monday night he told me the girl would be here that night. The next day Jackson told me the girl was at the Indiana House, and asked me to go down there. I went with him, and he went to her room while I waited down stairs. The next day he told me he had an engagement with the girl at Fourth and Plum Streets, and for me to go there and tell her he would meet her in the evening.

That is the last I ever saw of the girl."

"When did he kill her?"

"I guess he did it Friday night."

"How did he do it?"

"Well, if you will go to our room you will find a hypodermic syringe, which I think will tell the whole story."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he had a bottle of white stuff in the room, and I asked him what it was. He said it was a.r.s.enic and cocaine. I asked him what he was going to do with it, and he said he was going to give it to the girl."

"Did he give it to her?"

"Well, I guess he used the cocaine. I don't think it killed her at once, and that she tried to fight him off when he went to cut off her head."

"Where do you think he was on the Wednesday night before the murder?"