by Bill Bowers
Up to this time, the well known character of Archibald had repelled and put down all suspicions as to him. Till then, those who were ready to swear that a murder had been committed, were almost as confident that Archibald had had no part in it. But now, he was seized and thrown into jail; and, indeed, his personal security rendered it by no means objectionable to him. And now came the search for the brush thicket, and the search of the mill pond. The thicket was found, and the buggy tracks at the point indicated. At a point within the thicket the signs of a struggle were discovered, and a trail from thence to the buggy track was traced. In attempting to follow the track of the buggy from the thicket, it was found to proceed in the direction of the mill pond, but could not be traced all the way. At the pond, however, it was found that a buggy had been backed down to, and partially into the water’s edge.
Search was now to be made in the pond; and it was made in every imaginable way. Hundreds and hundreds were engaged in raking, fishing, and draining. After much fruitless effort in this way, on Thursday Morning, the mill dam was cut down, and the water of the pond partially drawn off, and the same processes of search again gone through with. About noon of this day, the officer sent for William, returned having him in custody; and a man calling himself Dr. Gilmore, came in company with them. It seems that the officer arrested William at his own house early in the day on Tuesday, and started to Springfield with him; that after dark awhile, they reached Lewiston in Fulton county, where they stopped for the night; that late in the night this Dr. Gilmore arrived, stating that Fisher was alive at his house; and that he had followed on to give the information, so that William might be released without further trouble; that the officer, distrusting Dr. Gilmore, refused to release William, but brought him on to Springfield, and the Dr. accompanied them. On reaching Springfield, the Dr. reasserted that Fisher was alive, and at his house. At this the multitude for a time, were utterly confounded. Gilmore’s story was communicated to Henry Trailor, who, without faltering, reaffirmed his own story about Fisher’s murder. Henry’s adherence to his own story was communicated to the crowd, and at once the idea started, and became nearly, if not quite universal that Gilmore was a confederate of the Trailors, and had invented the tale he was telling, to secure their release and escape. Excitement was again at its zenith.
About 3 o’clock, the same evening, Myers, Archibald’s partner, started with a two horse carriage, for the purpose of ascertaining whether Fisher was alive, as stated by Gilmore, and if so, of bringing him back to Springfield with him. On Friday a legal examination was gone into before two Justices, on the charge of murder against William and Archibald. Henry was introduced as a witness by the prosecution, and on oath, reaffirmed his statements, as heretofore detailed; and, at the end of which, he bore a thorough and rigid cross-examination without faltering or exposure. The prosecution also proved by a respectable lady, that on the Monday evening of Fisher’s disappearance, she saw Archibald whom she well knew, and another man whom she did not then know, but whom she believed at the time of testifying to be William, (then present;) and still another, answering the description of Fisher, all enter the timber at the North West of town, (the point indicated by Henry,) and after one or two hours, saw William and Archibald return without Fisher. Several other witnesses testified, that on Tuesday, at the time William and Henry professedly gave up the search for Fisher’s body and started for home, they did not take the road directly, but did go into the woods as stated by Henry. By others also, it was proved, that since Fisher’s disappearance, William and Archibald had passed rather an unusual number of gold pieces. The statements heretofore made about the thicket, the signs of a struggle, the buggy tracks, &c., were fully proven by numerous witnesses. At this the prosecution rested.
Dr. Gilmore was then introduced by the defendants. He stated that he resided in Warren county about seven miles distant from William’s residence; that on the morning of William’s arrest, he was out from home and heard of the arrest, and of its being on a charge of the murder of Fisher; that on returning to his own house, he found Fisher there; that Fisher was in very feeble health, and could give no rational account as to where he had been during his absence; that he (Gilmore) then started in pursuit of the officer as before stated, and that he should have taken Fisher with him only that the state of his health did not permit. Gilmore also stated that he had known Fisher for several years, and that he had understood he was subject to temporary derangement of mind, owing to an injury about his head received in early life. There was about Dr. Gilmore so much of the air and manner of truth, that his statement prevailed in the minds of the audience and of the court, and the Trailors were discharged; although they attempted no explanation of the circumstances proven by the other witnesses.
On the next Monday, Myers arrived in Springfield, bringing with him the now famed Fisher, in full life and proper person. Thus ended this strange affair; and while it is readily conceived that a writer of novels could bring a story to a more perfect climax, it may well be doubted, whether a stranger affair ever really occurred. Much of the matter remains in mystery to this day. The going into the woods with Fisher, and returning without him, by the Trailors; their going into the woods at the same place the next day, after they professed to have given up the search; the signs of a struggle in the thicket, the buggy tracks at the edge of it; and the location of the thicket and the signs about it, corresponding precisely with Henry’s story, are circumstances that have never been explained.
William and Archibald have both died since—William in less than a year, and Archibald in about two years after the supposed murder. Henry is still living, but never speaks of the subject.
It is not the object of the writer of this, to enter into the many curious speculations that might be indulged upon the facts of this narrative; yet he can scarcely forbear a remark upon what would, almost certainly have been the fate of William and Archibald, had Fisher not been found alive. It seems he had wandered away in mental derangement, and, had he died in this condition, and his body been found in the vicinity, it is difficult to conceive what could have saved the Trailors from the consequence of having murdered him. Or, if he had died, and his body never found, the case against them, would have been quite as bad, for, although it is a principle of law that a conviction for murder shall not be had, unless the body of the deceased be discovered, it is to be remembered, that Henry testified he saw Fisher’s dead body.
16
Harry T. Hayward, the “Minneapolis Svengali” (1895)
Harry T. Hayward (executed in 1895) was likely a classic sociopath and serial killer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Like the typical serial killers all too well known today, he was said to have been brutal toward others even as a boy, and to have tortured animals. He was renowned for his superficial charm and ability to manipulate people. Convicted in 1895 of the 1894 murder of Catherine Ging, he was hanged in 1895. Aside from the killing of Ging, he is nowadays thought to have been responsible for other murders. In a confession before he was hanged, Hayward confessed to three more killings.
Harry Hayward. Life, Crimes, Dying Confession and Execution of the Celebrated Minneapolis Criminal; other Interesting Chapters on the Greatest Psychological Problem of the Century.
The author has endeavored to treat his interesting subject in a dignified manner. If any justification were needed for the publication of this volume it might be found in the undisputed fact that Harry Hayward is the most interesting psychological study of the age.
The preceding page bears a facsimile of Hayward’s last hand writing. The card was penned exactly two hours before the execution. The condemned man was reminded that the world would scrutinize this specimen of his chirography, with the idea of determining whether he was nervous over his impending fate. After finishing the card Hayward said: “I guess people can tell from that I am not nervous, even if I am so near death.”
Catherine Ging’s Murder.
A woman’s f
ace, lying pale and still in a pool of blood, her inanimate form limp and distorted in the sand—this is what the dim starlight revealed to William Erhart on the night of December 3, as he was wending his lonely way homeward along the old Excelsior road, in the outskirts of Minneapolis. Erhart paused only a moment. She was plainly dead. A moment before he had met a horse and buggy plunging at a reckless rate through the darkness, with no driver visible. It was evident to him that the woman was the victim of a runaway accident. Erhart ran to his home, a few rods away, and summoned his brothers, then hurried to the nearest drug store and telephoned to police headquarters. Half an hour later the body was lying at the county morgue, where the patrol wagon had hastily carried it.
In searching the woman’s clothing the word “Ging” was found sewn in a garment, and the body was thus identified as that of Catherine M. Ging, a well-known dressmaker with large patronage among people of wealth and fashion. Not until 11 o’clock, or two hours and a half after Erhart’s gruesome discovery, did a doctor’s hand grate against a bullet, lodged almost at the surface of the left eye. Soon a bullet hole was found at the base of the brain, and it was at once apparent that what had been supposed an accident was in reality an atrocious murder. The police at once commenced an active investigation, and detectives were sent to the Ozark flats, the home of the murdered woman. About the same time word was received from Goosman’s livery stable that their “buckskin mare” had returned to the stable driverless about 9 o’clock, while the buggy floor and seat were soaked and bespattered with blood. This was evidently the rig which Erhart had met just before finding the body. It was a slender clue, and availed very little, for Erhart had seen no one in the buggy, and Catherine Ging herself had taken the rig for the drive, meeting the driver at the West hotel.
Next morning Minneapolis was electrified at the news. Conjecture was rife, but there was still no one on whom the crime could be fastened. But certain of the police officers had put two and two together, and had fastened suspicion on Harry T. Hayward, the manager of the Ozark flats. Hayward was very much in evidence on the evening of the murder. As soon as he heard of Catherine Ging’s death, and before the doctors discovered the bullet, he exclaimed to a group of friends and newspaper men,
“She has been murdered, and murdered for her money.
It was not her money,” he went on to explain, “but money that I let her have. My $2,000 is gone to h__l!” He told the police officers that he had loaned her $7,000, and taken in return a $10,000 policy on her life. She had been trying with some one else to “do him up,” and now the other man had killed her and defrauded him. The insurance policy aroused suspicion, and at 10 o’clock the morning after the murder Hayward was taken in hand by Mayor Eustis and subjected to a close examination, lasting till 2 o’clock the next morning, when he was permitted to pass the night on a couch in the office of the chief of police.
It was evident that Hayward himself could not have committed the murder, for at the time when Erhart found the body in the road he was at the Grand Opera House witnessing the play, “A Trip to Chinatown.” His station in life tended to avert suspicion. The son of an old and respected family, he had moved in the best society, where his handsome presence and debonnair manner made him to a certain’ extent popular, though there were rumors that he was rather “fast.” But in the excitement following the murder, it quickly developed from a hundred sources that Harry had been for years a “high roller” among the gambling fraternity, and an inveterate faro bank fiend. Letters came to light showing that for some time Miss Ging had been a sort of a partner in Hayward’s gambling transactions, and had furnished him money to play big games at Chicago during the summer previous.
In all this there was nothing to fasten the crime on the suspected man, and the morning after his long term in the “sweat-box” he was released and allowed to go home. That afternoon he attended the funeral of Catherine Ging and that night he slept at home for the last time.
Meanwhile, the authorities had received new light in the case from L. M. Stewart, the Hayward family lawyer, familiarly known as “Elder” Sterwart. He wrote a note to A. H. Hall, assistant county attorney, telling him of a conversation he had a few days previous with Adry Hayward. Adry had often expressed to him misgivings about Harry, but on this occasion he came with fear and trembling and told a horrible story of a plot to kill Miss Ging, devised by Harry, and to be executed by Claus Blixt, a janitor at the Ozark Flats. Mr. Stewart pooh-hoohed the story, and persuaded Adry that his brother would not be fool enough to commit such a deed.
Now, the whole thing came back to him, and he wrote the letter as in duty bound, informing the officers of the law of this important clue. Next day, Thursday, Harry and Adry were placed under arrest; and they spent that night at the Central Police Station, with the charge of murder opposite their names. Adry maintained a firm front and claimed utter ignorance of the whole affair, but the next evening he was taken by the officers to the office of Elder Stewart, and confronted with his old friend; he broke down utterly and confessed the details of the crime, as far as he knew them. That night Blixt was placed under arrest, with one Ole Erickson, who had been in his company and was supposed to have taken care of the bloody clothing. Blixt’s wife was also placed in detention. Blixt and his wife were put through the “sweat-box” process, and on Sunday Blixt broke down and confessed.
His first story, which made Hayward the actual murderer, and himself only a sort of accessory, was so plainly untrue that his inquisitors turned again to their work, and Blixt made a second and complete confession of the crime. The story which Blixt outlined on that night to Mayor Eustis, A. H. Hall and the detectives, is in all substantial points the same as told by Hayward in his accompanying confession. The Ozark janitor was the tool of Hayward.
By threats and promises of money Hayward brought him to the point of committing the deed, and nerved him to it with whisky. Catherine Ging was decoyed into taking the fatal ride by a story about some “green goods” men, whom they were to meet at the outskirts of the town for a “deal.” She drove out alone from the West Hotel to the corner of Lyndale avenue and Kenwood boulevard, where she was met by Hayward and Blixt. Promising to “bring the others” and meet her at a lonely outof- town spot, Hayward put Blixt in the buggy and left the victim to her fate, hurrying down bye streets to keep his theater appointment. Blixt drove until he reached the lonely place on the Excelsior road. There he fired the fatal shot “where Harry told him to,” and rolled the lifeless body from the wagon. Crouching back in the seat as he met Erhart, he drove till near the street car line, where he turned horse and buggy adrift, and took the car for down town. The course of justice was plain from this point on. The grand jury indicted Harry Hayward and Blixt on Dec. 13; they were arraigned and their trial set for Jan. 21. Erickson was exonerated. Adry was released from jail after a time, but at his own request was accompanied night and day by Deputy Sheriff Maish until after the conclusion of the trial.
A Famous Trial.
However public opinion may vary as to the wisdom of the punishment inflicted on Harry Hayward, there can be no doubt that the judicial inquiry into the murder of Catherine Ging was a most notable and gratifying illustration of the triumph of right over wrong.
When, less than two months after his victim’s death, the prisoner was brought to face an indictment for murder in the first degree, the conditions were almost ideal for a trial that should be of national interest. The prisoner, supplied with large financial resources, had the ablest and most distinguished criminal advocate in the Northwest, W. W. Erwin, to conduct his defense, whileto assist in the search for and preparation of evidence were such well known counsel as John Day Smith, A. T. Sweetser, and Walter Shumaker, together with numerous detectives of experience. The prisoner had the additional advantage that he had submitted without apparent reluctance to a most searching inquisition by the city and county officials and without making any admission of itself incriminating.
The most suspicious saying that was traceable to him was the impulsive exclamation when informed that Miss Ging had been hurt in a runaway: “They’ve done me up. She has been murdered for her money.”
These were but negative, however. The defense had one serious weakness, no basis either of fact or plausibility. The state on the other hand not only had the confession of the actual murderer implicating Hayward, but this, insufficient in itself, was so corroborated by circumstantial and direct evidence that the jury, like the general public, could not refuse to believe in the truthfulness of the trembling wretch who writhed for parts of three days under the merciless inquisition by Attorney Erwin. With the “tall pine” as the defendant’s counsel, and County Attorney Frank Nye, assisted by Albert Hall, as the public prosecutors, the presentation of evidence was in most experienced and thorough practitioners, while the presence on the bench of Judge Seagrave Smith, the senior judge of the court, proved, as the record of the trial submitted to the supreme court shows, a guarantee of a trial, not only true to the ends of justice, but faithful to the principles of modern law.
Ten days elapsed before the jury was filled; the utmost care being taken on both sides, and 13 jurors were sworn, before the trial proper commended, the first juror accepted, Ira Newell, being discharged afterwards because of his conscientious scruples against capital punishment.
Then one by one the state called its five score witnesses, each seeming to bring something of weight to bear on the case until they completed a chain of evidence so convincing that discredit was impossible. Following the preliminary testimony, of the finding of the body of the murdered girl, by witnesses who were most thoroughly cross-examined by the defense with the apparent purpose of finding even one weak point in the state’s case, how ever trivial it might seem, came the surgeons who officiated at the post mortem examination, and here came the first hard fight, the counsel for the defense spending nearly a day in an effort to show that the terrible crushing of the skull could not have been caused by a fall from the buggy, as it was known that Blixt would testify.