by Joe Kimball
There are servant's quarters on the second floor of the mansion, separated from the main bedrooms by a heavy door. A cook was sleeping there on the night of the murders and was awakened about 2:45 a.m. when her black poodle, “Muffin,” began barking.
The cook took the dog with her when she went to the bathroom. On the way back to her room, the dog leapt from her arms and ran up to the heavy door separating the two sections. The cook did not open the door, but brought the dog back to her room. Muffin kept whining until 5 a.m.
Elisabeth Congdon went to sleep about 10:50 p.m. on Sunday night, June 26, 1977. She had just returned from a weekend outing at the family's Brule River cabin in Wisconsin. She was tired but very happy, according to an attendant.
Her bed that night was just to the left of the door. A davenport, desk, television, chest of drawers and vanity filled the rest of the room.
The killer entered the room long after she'd first fallen asleep. It's likely that she heard the commotion as the killer and her nurse battled on the stairway, not far from her room. But she was immobilized by her stroke and unable to flee.
The killer pulled a satin pillow from beneath her head and held it firmly over her face. She tried to escape, but couldn't.
When she stopped moving, the killer searched through her vanity and chest of drawers, looking for jewelry. He found a small wicker basket in the closet and filled it with the chosen jewelry. Then he took a watch and ring from Miss Congdon's hand and wrist, and added them to the collection in the basket.
He found a gold Byzantine coin in a memorabilia box on the desk and took it, too.
He left the room to wash up in the bathroom across the hall. He found the nurse's keys in the adjoining bedroom, then hurried down the stairs, past the dead nurse's body, and out the front door.
He found the nurse's car parked nearby and drove it to the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.
The next morning, police responding to an emergency call made by the cook and nurse, found the satin pillow with faint bloodstains lying on Miss Congdon's bedroom floor near the fireplace. Empty jewelry boxes were scattered by the vanity, in the corner diagonally opposite the doorway.
Miss Congdon, 83-years-old, was in her bed, dead.
It was a bit of luck and good timing that led me to the Congdon murder case. I was scheduled to write a routine newspaper story about strawberries that June day in 1977 but stumbled instead on what would become Minnesota's Crime of the Century.
Back then I was a rookie reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, writing stories for the Sunday Farm and Home section. I got an early start that Monday morning and headed north on the freeway to interview the strawberry farmers near Askov, Minn., on the way to Duluth.
The car didn't have an FM radio, so I listened to WCCO-AM, and about 45 minutes into the two-hour drive, a news bulletin flashed on the radio saying police in the Duluth had found the bodies of two women, apparent victims of homicide. Details were still very sketchy.
I was an eager young reporter, much more interested in covering crime news than strawberries, so this opportunity was too good to ignore. I pulled off the freeway, found a pay phone and called the newspaper office. The only editor on duty said she hadn't heard about any murders in Duluth.
It's all over the radio and I'm halfway there, so why don't I just keep driving and check it out? I suggested.
Sure. Why not? She radioed ahead to the photographer, who was scheduled to meet me at the strawberry farm and sent her along to Duluth, too. The editor didn't seem hopeful that it would amount to much and later we would joke that if she'd realized what a big story this was going to be, she would have immediately sent a real reporter to cover it.
So I happily drove back onto the freeway and headed north.
Later radio reports said that the murder scene was on London Road, but that meant nothing to me. Two of my uncles and their families lived in Duluth, but I had only been there a handful of times and didn't know many street names. So I drove downtown and found the police station. A sergeant at the front desk explained that London Road was the main road leading up toward the North Shore and pointed me in the right direction. But good luck getting close, he said, because the scene had been secured.
I soon found the address, guarded by a cluster of police cars. It was a mansion. I parked a couple blocks away and walked into a crowd that included several reporters and camera people standing outside an iron fence that defends the huge mansion.
In these situations, bystanders often like to show off their knowledge, and several in the crowd filled me in: the mansion belonged to Elisabeth Congdon, an elderly heiress from one of the citys leading families. She had been paralyzed years earlier by a stroke and needed around-the-clock nursing care; apparently she was now dead. The second victim was Miss Congdon's overnight nurse.
Police officers at the gate refused to answer questions. A press announcement would be released later in the day, they said.
Soon I found the photographer who'd been scheduled to shoot the strawberry farm. She'd been notified about the change of plans and was looking for a way to photograph the murder scene, but the late June growth of trees and bushes completely blocked all views of the mansion from the road.
Several curious youngsters were in the crowd on this summer morning, so I asked a young boy on a bike if he knew anyone with a boat. The boy, about 12, said he lived just a few blocks up the road and had a little fishing boat. We offered him $10 if we could borrow the boat for a few minutes.
We got permission from his mother and he took the photographer out on the lake. Their mission was a great success; she got a great shot of the lakeside of the mansion for the next day's paper.
Meanwhile, I used the family's phone to report in to the office. By now, the editors back in the office had figured out that this was a big story and had assigned some help. Two veteran reporters, Peg Meier and Neal Gendler, began working on the story from Minneapolis, getting lots of background on the Congdon family while I continued to get details from the scene.
According to the official police version, the women were killed when an intruder broke into the mansion, killed Miss Congdon and the nurse, then stole some items from the bedroom and fled in the nurse's car.
The car was found later in the day at the Twin Cities International Airport. In retrospect, the car at the airport was a major clue that this case was more complicated that a simply burglary gone awry. But we didn't pick up on it right away.
Late that night, when we finished the story for the Tuesday morning paper, the editors told me to get a hotel room so I could follow up the next day. They told me to buy some new clothes and a toothbrush.
The next morning I returned to the police station to see if anything new had arisen overnight. It hadn't. But the editors wanted something new, so I wracked my brain.
Miss Congdon's daytime nurse, Mildred Garvue, had found the bodies when she reported to work at 7 a.m. Police officers had said she didn't want to talk to the media, but it seemed worth a chance. Her phone was busy for over an hour, so I drove to her house in a quiet, wooded area of Duluth. Her husband was out front, cutting the grass.
I introduced myself, but he said his wife wasn't home. Besides, she had already turned down interview requests from the Duluth newspaper and television stations, he said. Disappointed, I started to leave. But then we started to chat. It turned he was a high school athletic director and my uncle had been the school's choir director. His Duluth basketball team had been in the state tournament a few years back; so had my team. We'd been talking for several minutes when a car pulled up. It was Nurse Garvue, home from the grocery store. Her husband called to her: “Honey, this is Joe Kimball from the Minneapolis paper. His uncle is the choir guy.”
She smiled. I helped carry in the groceries and we spent the afternoon in her kitchen, talking about Miss Congdon and the murders. She offered me cake and introduced me to her daughter as we discussed the case. Until then, I knew very little about Miss Cong
don, the person. Our sources had talked the day before about her philanthropy and her role as the youngest daughter of Chester Congdon, the lawyer who made a fortune in the Minnesota mining business, but not about her private life.
But Mildred talked about the real Elisabeth, saying she was a short but regal dowager who loved to listen to Chopin records as she moved slowly around the giant house. She told how Miss Congdon loved to play cards, even though her right side had been paralyzed by the stroke. A special wooden board had been made to hold the cards, so she could shuffle and play one-handed. Even the stroke didn't slow her down when it came to cards. She played a mean gin rummy.
Mildred told me about Miss Congdon's daily routine: She'd groom and exercise each morning, and lunch was always a big deal, served in the bedroom overlooking the lake. Afternoons, the staff would take her around the estate in a wheelchair.
Miss Congdon was a diabetic who needed daily insulin shots. She took a sedative most nights to help her sleep, but Mildred said none had been given on the night of the murder. She had checked the next morning.
This was all great information and I jotted everything down in my notebook. It was the first real glimpse into everyday life at the Congdon Mansion and I knew it would make a great story.
Then talk turned to the murders. Quietly and slowly, Mildred described the scene, how she'd gone first to the kitchen to get Miss Congdon's insulin, then started up the main stairs. She saw the body of her friend and fellow nurse, Velma Pietila, in the stairwell. She took her friend's pulse, then realized that Miss Congdon was upstairs, alone.
“I ran to her room. Right away I saw the pillow on her face. I didn't want to look but I had to. I could tell she was dead. I went back to Velma and then I saw two pools of blood.”
This was hard for her to remember and to put into words, but I gently continued and asked about Miss Congdon's room. Mildred closed her eyes, remembering the scene, and described it to me. She talked about a bloodstained pillow tossed on the floor by the television; an empty jewelry box lay by the vanity. I was frantically taking notes, but I had trouble visualizing the room, so she took my notebook and drew a detailed map of the room, complete with bed, sofa, desk and closet.
Finally I left the house and called the editors from a pay phone. They were as excited as I was about the nurse's revelations and told me to start writing. Two problems remained. They wanted the sketch of Miss Congdon's bedroom for the next day's paper, but it was too late to drive it back to Minneapolis. They also wanted a photo of Nurse Garvue, but our photographer had returned the day before. It appeared the best bet to fulfill both requests was the Duluth newspaper.
I drove to the newspaper office and introduced myself to the local editors. I asked to use their transmitting machine, an early version of today's fax machine. Not wanting to let on what I had, I said there were some notes I needed to send back to Minneapolis. They agreed. I hovered over the machine during the transmission, so no one could see the pages. Then I told them that my editors were looking for a picture of Nurse Garvue, and wondered if they would send a photographer to shoot it. They said they'd already tried and been turned down. Without being specific, I said I'd had a chat with her and that she'd agreed to a picture. Besides, I told them, she'd likely be a witness at a trial someday and they'd be glad they had such a photo in their files. They were reluctant, but finally agreed that if a photographer were free later in the day, they'd do it.
I wrote my story and called it in, then waited two hours for the photographer. Finally one was cleared for the assignment and we went together to the Garvue home. It just took a minute or two, then we returned to the newspaper office where the photographer transmitted the photograph to the Associated Press, which in tum sent it to our Minneapolis office. The story was complete.
The story, complete with bedroom sketch and photo of the nurse, ran on the front page of our paper the next day and it was a big scoop. Even the Duluth paper, which had a dozen reporters working on the story, had nowhere near the details we had of the murder scene and Miss Congdon's personal life. The details from Nurse Garvue helped readers understand that she wasn't some haughty heiress who'd been tragically killed, but a real person; a grandmother who was a gracious lady.
I check in at the police station, but Ernie Grams, the chief of detectives, said there was nothing new on the case. But then I got disturbing news from the newspaper office. Someone had called to say that Nurse Garvue, who had been so helpful in preparing the story about Miss Congdon and the crime scene, was illegally working in the mansion that day.
The report, which turned out to be true, said that Garvue's nursing license had been suspended six months earlier when she'd been caught signing out narcotics for her hospital patients, then taking them herself.
I was shocked and saddened to hear this. During our lengthy interview I hadn't asked about her nursing history and she hadn't volunteered anything about her past. Now the editors insisted that because we had based a major story on her eyewitness account, we must now tell the readers about her past. They planned another story about her drug problems and asked if I wanted to help write it.
At first I said no, arguing that we shouldn't even run such a story. Her situation was unfortunate, but she was not a suspect and therefore her previous problems had no bearing on the case. We didn't publish stories about other nurses who lost their licenses, I said.
But the editor was clear. There would be a story. And if I didn't want to call Mildred Garvue and get her side of the story, someone else would. So I did it. Mildred listened quietly as I nervously outlined the situation. Then she admitted the allegations, saying she'd been having trouble with arthritis and used the drugs to help ease the pain. She was not addicted, nor was she currently taking them, she said.
The Congdon family doctor knew about her drug problem and about the suspended license, but hired her anyway, she said. I said I was very sorry that her problems would be made so public, and warned her that after our paper ran the story, the Duluth newspaper and television stations likely would, too. I suggested that she find a place, out of town, to stay for a few days.
It was the low point of all my coverage of the story. Eight years later, when I published the first edition of this book, I appeared at a Duluth bookstore for a well- advertised book signing. The phone was ringing as I walked in. It was Mildred. She said she was mad at me. I was mortified and apologized anew for that old story about her drug problem.
“No, no. Not that,” she said. “I'm mad that you didn't call me while you were writing your book. I have lots more information, and pictures, too, of Miss Congdon and all the nurses. You should have called.”
As I signed books in Duluth that night, my heart was lighter, knowing Mildred had forgiven me.
Those first few days in Duluth were heady and exciting, but much of the time I wasn't sure who to interview or where to look for new information. After the Mildred scoop/fiasco I settled into a routine that largely consisted of waiting in the police station for new leads.
Fortunately, I found a friend.
Ernie Grams, Duluth's chief of detectives, was in charge of the investigation. He had a team of officers working the case, led by Sgt. Gary Waller, but Ernie ran the show. In the waiting room, just outside his office, I set up an unofficial newspaper bureau. Each morning I'd check in with him, then go to the courthouse clerk to see if any search warrants or other documents had been filed. Then I'd use the nearby pay phone to call Congdon family members or business associates, and to check in with the main newsroom.
But I'd always return to Ernie's office, to chat with him as he'd come and go. He was always friendly, although not particularly forthcoming with new information. Early on he mentioned that before he became a police officer, he'd been a reporter for the Duluth newspaper.
“So, you feel sorry for me,” I said.
“No, I just understand what it's like,” he said.
Day by day, bits of information were revealed. The killer had stolen jewe
lry from Miss Congdon's room. (We already knew that, thanks to Mildred.) A search of the freeway between Duluth and the Minneapolis airport turned up nothing. (Police had hoped to find bloody clothing or other evidence that the killer might have thrown out while fleeing the mansion.) Police found blood in a mansion bathroom. (The killer tried to clean up after the bloody battle with Nurse Pietila.)
Six days after the murders, though, there was a breakthrough. While sitting in the police waiting room, I overheard two cops on the case talking about Denver, Colorado. It sounded like one officer was making arrangements to fly there. I wondered why he would be planning a vacation in the midst of this big murder case. But the more I heard the more I wondered if this trip was related to the murder. If so, it was quite a departure from the official version of the murders, which, police still publicly maintained, had been committed during a robbery.
Not sure what to do with the information, I called the Minneapolis editors and told them of my suspicions. Then I decided to bluff. That afternoon, I went into Ernie's office, closed the door and said: “I heard about Colorado.”
“Where'd you hear that?” he asked.
“I hear things,” I said.
He thought a minute, then said: “Okay. I'11 make you a deal.” He said he'd fill me in on the latest developments, if I promised not to print any of it until they'd made an arrest, and he gave me the go-ahead. They were still putting all the pieces together and he worried that the suspects might destroy evidence if they knew police were on to them.
I agreed to his arrangement and sat back to hear the story.