Poisoning the Pecks of Grand Rapids

by Tobin T. Buhk

  He briefly described his private investigation in the Big Apple before presenting his written report to Deuel. After he finished reading the report, he felt a deep sense of shame. To expose a liar and a deceiver, he had become one himself. “And may God forgive me for the lies I told and the deceit that I practiced then,” he added in a hushed tone.

  “You may safely believe He will,” Deuel said as he browsed through the handwritten pages of Wishart’s investigation notes, the result of what the reverend called “a little detective work.”

  “I have done more lying since I have been here than in all the rest of my life,” Wishart uttered. “I have deceived and I expect I have broken your laws. The Lord forgive me. I did it for what I believe to be the right. I have gone down on my knees and prayed for forgiveness for these sins.”36

  On the afternoon of Sunday, March 19, Kane went to see Waite. Nervous and fidgety, Waite asked Kane to detail the chemicals in his embalming fluid. Puzzled, Kane asked Waite why he wanted to know.

  “The family is making trouble for me on the other end,” Waite said, “and I want to protect myself against them.”

  Waite listened attentively as Kane rattled off the ingredients of his formula. It did not contain arsenic.

  “Could arsenic be put in the embalming fluid?” Waite asked.

  Kane nodded. “It could, but I wouldn’t do it because it’s against the law.”37

  Growing uncomfortable, Kane asked Waite to pay the undertaking bill, but Waite demurred. He said he would send a check later. Kane left the Coliseum empty-handed.

  The next morning—Monday, March 20—Kane phoned Waite to hound him for payment of the undertaker’s bill, but aware of the eyes constantly watching him, Waite didn’t want to speak on the phone. He ripped off a brief note and sent it to Potter. “Don’t telephone me, and don’t let Kane telephone me, for the wires are tapped. Don’t worry about the check.”

  Waite slipped out of the Coliseum and phoned Kane from a nearby store. Since his apartment was being watched, he asked Kane to meet him at Cimiotti’s Garage on Broadway, where Gustave Cimiotti was fixing his automobile.

  A few minutes later, the two men met in a shadowy corner of the garage. Waite handed a check for $9,400 to Kane, who handed it right back.

  The tapping of footsteps caused Waite to flinch. He told Kane to pocket the check. “Where can I meet you in an hour and a half?” he asked.

  Kane suggested a cigar store at the corner of Ninth Avenue and Fifty-Fourth Street. Waite flashed his million-dollar grin. “I can put you on easy street for life if you do as I tell you.” Kane, curious but unsure of what to expect, agreed to the rendezvous and shuffled out of the garage.

  When Kane had gone, Waite scribbled out another check for $9,300, but since cashing such a large check would raise eyebrows, he asked Cimiotti to go to the Corn Exchange Bank for him.

  Puzzled at the request, Cimiotti told Waite that he wouldn’t feel comfortable handling such a large amount.

  “That’s all right,” Waite reassured him, “I just want you to act as my agent and take it around the corner to the Corn Exchange Bank. I am having trouble with my family and am being watched.”

  Assured that he was doing nothing illegal, Cimiotti agreed. A few minutes later, he returned to the garage with William Lickley, a bank manager, who had come along to make sure the transaction was sanctioned. Satisfied that Waite wrote the check, Lickley led Cimiotti back to the bank to cash the check. Cimiotti then returned to the garage and handed Waite a stack of banknotes.38

  With a pocket full of cash, Waite headed to the cigar shop to meet Kane.

  He slipped into a telephone booth and waited. Kane arrived a few minutes later and entered the booth.

  The district attorney, Waite explained, would request a sample of Kane’s embalming fluid. He needed it to contain arsenic. If there was a subsequent trial, Waite also needed Kane to testify that there was arsenic in the chemicals he had used to embalm John Peck’s body.

  Waite shoved a roll of banknotes in Kane’s pocket and darted out of the booth.

  By Monday afternoon, March 20, Waite had become desperate. He knew he was being tailed. Schindler wanted it this way. If Waite knew he was under surveillance, perhaps he would become nervous and slip up, exposing himself.

  Waite went to visit Aunt Catherine at the Park Avenue Hotel. For the past six months, Waite had called on John Peck’s sister every day. The lonely, seventy-year-old widow, who sat atop a considerable nest egg of her own, craved the attention and was even easier to win over than her sister-in-law, Hannah. Before long, Waite had the elderly woman eating out of his hand. She had even entrusted him with some of her assets, which she asked him to invest on her behalf.

  Catherine, aware of the suspicions swirling around her favorite niece’s husband, demanded answers. Waite assured her that it was all much ado about nothing.

  Aunt Catherine suggested that maybe her brother, in the throes of depression following Hannah’s death, took his own life.39 Waite assured her he would sift this thing to the bottom and kissed her on the cheek. He would call her later, he promised.

  Waite had no idea that history was about to repeat itself. Like “K. Adams” before him, he headed straight for the nearest Western Union office to send an urgent telegram to Percy Peck in Grand Rapids. He demanded an autopsy of Father’s remains to prove his innocence of any wrongdoing. But unlike “K. Adams,” Waite’s motive was self-preservation.

  On Tuesday morning, March 21, Catherine Peck answered a summons to appear in Edward Swann’s office. She took a seat in front of Swann’s desk and proceeded to detail her relationship with Arthur Warren Waite. Her favorite niece’s husband had, in the past year, become like a surrogate son to her. He lunched with her every day, humored her by listening to an old woman’s ramblings, entertained her with stories of his adventures and even provided valuable business advice. Swann slowly nodded and whistled when she told him about the $40,000 fortune that she had entrusted to Arthur to invest for her.

  Arthur was a good boy, she insisted. She couldn’t believe he would have any hand in such sordid business as murder. If it was murder—her brother and sister-in-law, she said, were “out of health for some years.” She described Hannah Peck as “a great sufferer all of her life.” And the previous winter, John had become ill when the family vacationed in Florida—a malady serious enough to land him in New York’s Astor Sanatorium.

  Still, there were some things about John’s death that didn’t make sense to Catherine Peck. She described the last time she saw her brother alive: he was wracked by horrific stomach spasms that caused him to wretch and vomit. She recalled that, at the time, the persistent heaving and vomiting puzzled Dr. Moore.40 There was something else that struck her as a bit odd. “Myself I never heard Brother John express any wish to have his body cremated.”

  Her eyebrows arched slightly when Swann mentioned arsenic and Dr. Vaughn’s findings.

  Catherine didn’t know how to explain the arsenic found in her brother’s remains. She thought it might have been the result of embalming. She said that she believed John Peck regularly took arsenic and could have even been addicted to it, but given John’s background as a pharmacist, she couldn’t believe it was an accidental overdose.41

  The discussion with Swann left Catherine Peck conflicted. The DA had raised doubts that began to gnaw away at her confidence in Arthur. She knew of one way Arthur could establish his innocence.

  After she left Swann’s office, she called Arthur and suggested he also talk with Swann.

  Just after noon on Tuesday, Waite stopped by Swann’s office for a brief chat. Swann immediately recognized Waite’s ulterior motive: a voluntary appearance in the DA’s office, when most criminals would run for the hills, might lend some credibility to his innocence.

  Swann got right to the point: doctors had found arsenic in John Peck’s body. Waite shifted his weight in the chair and briefly glanced at his shoes. Then he smiled as he thought about the c
ash he had shoved into Eugene Kane’s pocket. Money had a funny way of making people do things.

  Swann recognized a hint of confidence in Waite’s grin, but it was based on a false hope; the arsenic, he explained, would not have come from embalming. Besides, he noted, his team was headed to Grand Rapids as they spoke and would examine John Peck’s brain. If they found arsenic there, murder would be the only logical conclusion.

  Waite squinted in his best attempt to appear puzzled.

  Swann decided to play along. Who, he asked, might have motive to murder Peck? Did the Peck family have enemies? It was a barbed question that Swann hoped would cut Waite’s confidence. After all, Waite had a more powerful motive than anyone else; Swann knew it, and so did Waite.

  Waite scratched his head, apparently hard at thought. Swann did his best to keep a straight face. Waite was a good actor, but not that good.

  “Percy Peck,” Waite said after a few seconds.42 Waite apparently didn’t know or realize the role Percy Peck had played in the investigation. Swann promised to look into it.

  With a smile and shrug, Arthur Warren Waite waltzed out of Swann’s office like a man without a worry in the world.

  It was just an act.

  From Swann’s office, Waite visited the Berlitz School, where he knew he would find “Mrs. Walters.”

  His appearance shocked her. Arthur didn’t look like his usual, happy-go-lucky self. Dark circles around his eyes suggested he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in days. And he was nervous. Every few seconds, he looked over his shoulder as if he expected someone to slap a pair of handcuffs on him at any minute.

  Like Catherine Peck, she had read the headlines about the mysterious deaths of John and Hannah Peck in the Coliseum. “You didn’t do that, did you?” she asked.

  “You know I didn’t,” Waite replied.43 He explained that detectives were following his every move, but he was certain he had lost them before he went to the Berlitz School.

  “Mrs. Walters’s” eyes widened when Waite asked her to purchase a large quantity of soporific drugs, but without question, she agreed to follow the doctor’s orders. Waite scribbled out a note and handed it to her. She plucked the note from his hand and disappeared around the corner.

  A few minutes later, she returned with packages of trional and sulphonal—the powerful sedatives Waite had requested.

  Waite cupped her cheeks with his hands and leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled away.

  He opened her palm with his left hand while he fished for something in his pocket. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes when he pressed a diamond ring into her palm. The ring was a goodbye gift—a token of Waite’s appreciation for the many afternoons they had spent together. Waite managed a smile and left “Mrs. Walters” standing at the curb with her mouth wide open and her face streaked with mascara.

  As she watched Waite climb into a taxi, “Mrs. A.W. Walters” slid the ring onto her right ring finger and gently rocked her hand. The diamond glittered.

  After Arthur left, “Mrs. Walters” sent a delivery boy to the Plaza to fetch some things—personal items she did not want detectives to find.

  Ray Schindler was standing in the Plaza lobby when the delivery boy arrived. The boy handed the hotel clerk a note, which authorized the hotel to release “Mrs. Walters’s” property to be delivered to the apartment of Dorothy Von Palmenberg. The note was signed “Mrs. A.W. Walters.”44

  The messenger went up to room 1105 to pack up “Mrs. Walters’s” things. Thirty minutes later, he left carrying a large suitcase.

  Ray Schindler shadowed the messenger to 105 West Seventy-Second Street. When the boy emerged from the building a few minutes later, Schindler approached him. Terrified, he squealed out the details of his errand. Mrs. Margaret Horton, who was a guest of Mrs. Von Palmenberg’s, had asked him to pick up some of her things at the Plaza Hotel.

  “Mrs. A.W. Walters” had been made.

  Waite became frantic when he saw the headline “INQUIRY INTO DEATH OF MILLIONAIRE AND HIS WIFE IS BEGUN” in the Tuesday, March 21 edition of the Evening World. The article described the official investigation underway. Desperate, he called upon Dr. Albertus A. Moore.

  Waite asked Moore if he had kept up on the news about the Peck case. Moore said the entire city was reading about it.

  “Do you think they could hold me without an autopsy?” Waite asked.

  Moore suggested that an autopsy would remove all doubts, which made Waite even more nervous.

  “Do you see that I am suspected?”

  Moore, sensing a panic in Waite’s voice, suggested that the one way to clear his name would be to demand an autopsy.

  “That has already been held,” Waite squealed, “and they found enough arsenic in the body to kill two men.” He thought for a moment. “Would an autopsy show whether the arsenic was administered before or after death?”

  Moore nodded slowly.

  “Would it show in the brain? They are going to examine the brain tomorrow.”45

  Once again, Moore nodded and watched, puzzled, as Waite rushed out of the building.

  5

  DUALITY

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK; GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

  Wednesday, March 22–Thursday, March 23, 1916

  Swann’s team of New York investigators arrived in Grand Rapids late Tuesday night and checked into two rooms at the Pantlind Hotel.46

  The man Swann tapped to lead the Grand Rapids end of the investigation, Francis X. Mancuso, headed the homicide department of the New York City prosecutor’s office. A large man with broad shoulders, Mancuso was an imposing figure, a trait that served him well in interrogations.

  Monroe Street in Grand Rapids Michigan, circa 1910–1915. The Pantlind, where four New York investigators stayed under pseudonyms, is in the background. From the Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress.

  By early 1916, Mancuso had helped bring some notorious characters to justice. He played a critical role in exposing Charles Becker, a crooked cop convicted of murder, and Priest Hans Schmidt, a Catholic priest who cut the throat of his lover, Anna Aumüller. Both Becker and Schmidt took the long walk to Sing Sing’s electric chair.

  The group met behind the closed doors of room 431 and drafted a plan of action. Dr. Otto Schultze—an expert pathologist—would conduct a second autopsy on John Peck’s remains and remove portions of the brain, which he and Dr. Schurtz would then take that afternoon to Dr. Vaughn in Ann Arbor. Any trace of arsenic in the brain would eliminate the possibility that it was the result of the embalming process.

  Meanwhile, Mancuso’s men would attempt to unearth the real Arthur Warren Waite.

  The grass of Oak Hill Cemetery was covered with silvery dew as assistant superintendent Thomas Sowerby led a crew to the receiving vault at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, March 22.

  Sowerby stood a few steps away and watched as four men emerged from the crypt carrying John Peck’s chestnut coffin. The silver handles and name plate glittered as the men made their way toward a waiting hearse. As he followed them, Sowerby wondered what secrets the coffin contained. It wasn’t every day that a body was removed from Oak Hill, but it appeared that the death of John Peck wasn’t an open and shut case after all.

  Rumors were circulating, but the investigators from New York—there were four of them—were playing their cards close to their chests. Their trip to Grand Rapids and the disinterment could only mean one thing: they suspected that John Peck died from something other than natural causes.

  Sowerby made sure to keep a safe distance as the four men hobbled past him. He was glad they would take the coffin back to Sprattler’s mortuary before opening it. After a week, the corpse would be a ghastly sight. The skin would have begun to take on a greenish hue, expanding gases would have caused the torso to bloat and the stench would test the stomachs of even the most stoic.

  Medical examiner Dr. Otto Schultze, a slight man with a walrus mustache, turned and followed the casket-bearers to the hearse. Schultze, the bi
g city pathologist who played a key role in exposing some of New York’s most insidious poisoners, would go to work in the back room of the Grand Rapids funeral parlor.

  As stenographer Nathan Birchall finished typing the investigation report, Francis Mancuso stared out the window of his Pantlind suite and watched as strings of light rain pelted the red brick street below. He thought about the Waite case and the revelations they had uncovered in Grand Rapids. While Dr. Otto Schultze conducted the second postmortem and traveled to Ann Arbor to consult with Dr. Vaughn, Mancuso’s men interviewed anyone who knew Waite. In two automobiles Mancuso rented, the New York detectives traveled all over Grand Rapids tracking down leads. Mancuso, who directed the investigation from the Pantlind, also sent cables to Ann Arbor and South Africa. All afternoon, responses flooded into the investigators’ suite.

  Mancuso spotted a few pedestrians and watched them scurrying under one of the awnings across the street as he pondered Waite’s scheme. When it went public, it would become one of the most sensational criminal cases in New York history. Waite’s dastardly plot was more spectacular than the sordid crimes committed by Charles Becker, Father Hans Schmidt and Harry Thaw. It certainly would be one of the most shocking cases in the history of this mid-sized midwestern city. Waite, it appeared, had planned to murder at least five Pecks—Hannah, John, Percy, Clara and Aunt Catherine—in a deviously brilliant, get-rich-quick scheme.

  Mancuso became so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice when the pecking of Birchall’s typewriter stopped. Birchall tapped Mancuso on the shoulder and handed him a sheaf of papers. It contained the statements of over three dozen witnesses that together unveiled the shocking true biography of Arthur Warren Waite.

  Mancuso shook his head as he flipped through the various statements.