The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 11, 1902, Page 2

SOME IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGLING CASE GRANT SHOWS , MONEY GALORE TO SALESMAN Purchases Clo—thing While in Company of Girl’s stock-keeper at the n Gate Suit House, sald yesterday he remembered selling the costume Nora Fuller. It was last October, and at particularly im; ssed the sale on his mind was the fact of Lawyer Hugh ant coming into the store when they were just about closing. All the girls had gone home and on that account he waited upon the lawyer, who was somewhat un- Oscar Eilverman, Go der the influence of liquor at the time.. A minute later Mrs. Fuller and her daughter and son entered the and at Grant's request the costu osen and paid There good deal of he purchase, and Grant to be especially pleased-with the jacket and asked young Lewis the brother, how he liked apparently in a happy , and Grant, when about ll, produced a large amount family and the lawyer that time on the very best of nge coincidence in connection with was the mation given out and upon which the police siduously, to the effect that one % { RAaY ZERTONNA -+ « w7 4 Y ot i b 1 oBGriNGr HOVSE AT 203 PosT ST TELLS SR — OF A COUPLE WHO MAY HAVE BEEN BENNETT AND NORA Middle-Aged Man and a Young Girl Answering De- scription of Eleanor Fuller Are Known to Have Rented a Room in a Lodging-House KEEPER OF LODGING-HOUSE WHO RENTED A ROOM TO MIDDLE AGED MAN AX_\'D '.YOL'NG FIRL AN[]; ’;l;l;}: GROCER’'S CLERK WHO DECLARES HE SAW ELEANOR FULLER MEET A MAN ON THE NIGHT SH s APPEARED, 3 eve e —_—— — of the Fuller party at the Golden Gate,ing proof to the contrary, the generally j seen several times in & restaurant at Suit House was & man with a cast in his | accepted theory is that the sffangler took | Third and Mission streets. She was al- The police at first thought this was | his girlish victim to the Sutter-street| ways accompanied by a middle aged Bennett, but it turned out that Lewis Par- | lane has a decided cast in one of his eyes. e [ ] DEEPER GROWS MYSTERY OF MURDER Continued From Page One Potter, his stenographer, but he does not remember giving either of them one of the firm's cards. He also states that he did not know Miss Fuiler, | and is therefore very much mystified over the finding of one of the firm’s cards in the house of mystery. Rader cannot | remember of having had any dealings with any one answering the description of John Bennett or Nora Fuller. The police are puzled over the finding of the card and are diligently seeking some satisfactory explanation of how it got there. Attorney Hugh Grant was taken to Captain Seymour’s office yesterday after- noon and closely questioned again by the Chief of Detectives. Grant claimed to know nothing_about the man who calls Limself Jobn Bennett. He said he never knew the Fuller girl had an acquaintance by that name, Grant made a full state- ment, which was copied by Clerk Levings. Emma Searight, the young lady who met Nora Fuller in Attorney Grant's of- fice, also made a statement to the police, which was substantially the same as the one published by The Call. She dis- claimed all knowledge of any of the mur- dered girl's affairs, saying that she only knew her slightly. Miss Searight said that she went to Grant's office about a week before Christmas on some legal business, and there she met Nora Fuller. She § vited the girl to call on her at the per- fume department in Hale’s, where she was working at the time, and Nora ac- cepted the invitation and visited her sey- eral times. Mrs. Fuller, who cannot be convinced that her murdered daughter knew her slayer before she left home, and Madge Graham, the girl's chum, who says Nora often spoke to her of John Bennett, were brought face to face last night in Cap- tain Seymour’s office. The young lady told her story in a straightforward man- mer, and rigid cross-questioning could not break down her assertion that Nora knew the man who enticed her away from home. Mrs. Fuller also questioned Miss Gra- ham, but went away still' convinced that the man who strangied her daughter only met her by accident through her answer- ing the advertisement in the paper. All sorts of theories are being advanced as to the probable time of the commission of the murder. In the absence of convinc- house on the night of January 1l and | ruthlessly murdered her shortly after | arriving there. The autopsy physician is inclined to be- lieve that the girl has not been dead over twenty days at the outside, but he eays that it Is quite possible that she may have been dead since January 11, although he does not think so. The weather has been exceptionaily cold since the 1st of January, and, as the room in which the body was found was close and almost airtight, the tendency to decom- pose would be much less than under or- dinery circumstances. Physiclans call attention to a peculiar circumstance in connection with the body as it was found which proves conclusiv ly, in view of facts furnished by Mrs. Fuller, that Nora Fuller was murdered on or about January il BENNETT SLEPT AT GRAYSTONE Man Answering Description of Murderer Ate at Popular. A man answering the description of Bennett occupled room 19 at the Gray- stone Hotel, 66 Geary street, about Janu- ary 8 or 9 for a few days. It was _his habit to take his meals at the Popular Restaurant just across the street. It is possible that Bennett was this party and that he occupled this room prior to taking the flat at 2211 Sutter street. The clerk at the hotel stated posi- tively that no woman or any one else ever | entered the room while the stranger oc- cupled it. It is thought that Bennett or Hawkins took this room owing to its close proxim- ity to the restaurant, where it is believed he intended to have his victims call, as then he could meet them with no one be- ing cognizant of the fact. He was not there on the night of the Sth, as room 19 was then occupied by H. Simmons of 25 Geary street; so it would appear on that date, the date on which he received the bedding at the house of crime, he took up his abode at the Sutter-street house or elsewhere. Seen in a Restaurant. Charles T. Kelly of Elmhurst, who is employed by the H. 8. Crocker Com- pany, visited the Morgue last night and identified the body of Eleanor Fuller as that of a young woman whom he had | | HIGHE FENCE ORDINANCE man who was slightly bald and wore & dark brown mustache. His description of the man who accompanied the girl to the restaurant tallles with that given of Bennett, allas Hawkins, who is wanted for the crime. IS DECLARED INVALID Judge Seawell Overrules Demurrer to Suit for Injunction Filed by Bill-Posters. Judge Seawell decided yesterday that the high fence ordinance passed by the" Board of Supervisors recently is invalid and overruled the demurrer to the suit for an injunction restraining Chief Wittman removing a fence twenty feet high erected by Owens, Varney & Green bill-posters, at the corner of Post and Steiner streets. The ordinance limites the helght of fences to ten feet above the sidewalk. In his dcision Judge Seawell says: In many cases the surface of the ground upon which fences are or may be erected In this city and county is more than ten feet above the level of the adjacent sidewalk. Upon such a lot Bo wooden fence whatever could: be crected without violating the ordinance. A fence, one inch high, would be more than ten feet above the level of the sidewalk, Indsmuch, therefore, as the ordinance de- nies to some proerly owners what is per- mitted to others, it is not equal and uniform In its operation’and Is, in my opinion, in- valid, e e 2 Petitions in Insolvency. Guemond & Brunson, a creditor of W, W. Booker, freight-hauler, residing in Tuolumne County, filed & petition yester- | day in the United States District Court asking that he be declared an insolvent debtor. It is alleged that he owes $700 to the petitiohing firm. Edward Morri- son, a machinist, San Francisco, filed a etition in the same court in_ voluntary nsolyency. He owes $3% and has no as- sets. —— Arrested in Los Angeles. Detective O'Dea left by last evening’s train for Los Angeles with the warrant for the arrest of J. A. Tennant, alias Cressley. He Is wanted here for collect- ing money by representing himself as a contector for the Pacific Coast Press Aseo: clation. Piles Cured Without the Knife, Itching, Blind, Bleeding or Protruding Pil No Cure, No Pay. All drugglsts are autheriy by manufacturers of Pazo Ointment to rerund money wheze it fails to cure any case of plies, o matter of how long standins. Cures ordinary cases in six days: woret cases in fourteen days, One application glves case and rest. Relieves itch.ng instantly. This is a new discovery, and is the only pile remedy sold on positive guar- antee, o cure no pay. A free sample will be sent by mall to any one xending name and ad- dress. Price, It your druggist don't keep it in stock send 60c in stamps and” we will for. ward full size box by mail. Manufactured by PARIS MEDICINE CO., 8t. Louls, Mo., who wiso the” celebrated cold” cure, Laxative Bromo-Quinine Tablets. 1 Grocery Clerk Waits on Nora Fuller and Sees Her Hand Small Purchases She Made to the Young Girl Who Accompanied Her, Go Towards the McAliister Street Cars in a Happy Frame of Mind and Then Disappear ANY peculiar circumstances are being developed in the po- lice investigation of the mur- der of little Eleanor Fuller. J. B. Whitney, to whom at pres- ent is intrusted the charge of the daugh- ter of Attorney Grant at his home at 61 Point Lobos avenue, immediately at the base of Lone Mountain, has a strange tale to tell of how he became acquainted With | Nora Fuller, According. to Whitney's statement, the little Grant girl, who had been In the care of Mrs. Fuller, on the afternoon of Sep- tember 22, met Mrs. Whitney at Golden Gate Park, concefved a sudden idea that she wanted a ‘new mamma,”’ and was duly installed;in the Whitney flat, about four blocks away from the Fuller resi- dence. Whitney, carefully medsuring the value of each word he uttered, declined last night to tell how or why it happened that the child’s unexpected utterances re- sulted in her becoming a part of the ‘Whitney household, Asked for an opportunity to meet the child, Whitney said: “Unless Grant comes himself, or you produce a written order, I will not bring out the child. She has made a statement to us and that is all,” sald Whitney. The latter measured his words care- fully. His story is as follows: “When I read the accounts in the Sun- day papers I saw there was a tefidency to cast suspicion upon Hugh Grant on the ground that he should have been able to give a more positive identification of the girl's body. The intimation was that as he had known Nora Fuller so long, he could have stated positively whether or not it Was her body that was lying at the Morgue. “I did not think that this was just, for I did not believe he knew any more of the mystery than you or I. As I had known Nora Fuller just as well as he did, I thought I would go to the Morgue and look at the body myself. This I de- cided to do without having heard any- thing from Grant. On my way to the Morgue it occurred to me that I might have some trouble in gaining admission, 80 I stopped at Grant’s house and asked him to go with me, so as to make sure of my being admitted. Before we started a detective came in with a request that Grant call on Captain Seymour during the day. “When we reached the Morgue I saw the body. Though I had known Nora Ful- ler for years, I could not be any more positive in identifying the body than Grant had been. The hair and the upper part of the face were like hers, but the lower part of the face was so much changed by decomposition that no one could be positive in identifying her. Her own mother could not have been certain as to the girl's identity, in the absence of some {dentifying marks on the body.” ‘Whitney was positive that on the even- ing of January 11 Nora Fuller, accompa- nied by Eva Grant, went to the grocery store of F.-Menke, 2101 Golden Gate ave- nue, which is the southwest corner of Central and Golden Gate avenues. Menke has an employe, Ray Zertonna, a lad about 1§ years of age, who says that on the night of January 11, as near as he can remember the date, Nora Fuller and a girl smaller than she came to the store about 5 or 5:3) o'clock and had a few minutes’ conversation. Zertonna said: “The two girls came in the place and the older one made a purchase of a few arti- cles. Outside a man was standing. I did not particularly notice how he was dressed. I think he had a long coat of the latest style and a black derby hat. Nora seemed glad to meet him and she gave her small purchases to the other girl and went down the street to the McAllister-street cars. She got on and went down town. I watched her and saw the other girl go in an opposite direction. I do not know which way the man went, but Nora Fuller seemed happy. That is the last I saw of them until I saw her plcture in the paper.” Whitney disclalms all knowledge of Grant until that eventful Sunday after- noon when Grant's daughter embraced his wife in Golden Gate Park near the music stand and asked to be taken home to the Whitney fold. Whitney fixes the date by the fact that he returned from some mines in the northern part of the Btate that evening and found the new visitor at home. He disclaims all per- sonal knowledge of the man Grant. “It was just an accident,” says,Whit- ney, “that Eva Grant met my wife.. She just ciung to her and was installed In my house. That is all I care to say about the matter.” <Whituey was not willing to speak of his knowledge of Grant's antecedents. How he became acquainted with him, further than the alleged spontaneous effusion of childish love on the afternoon of Septem- ber 22 by Grant's daughter directed to- ward his\\wife, Whitney refused to say anything. SRS L T ELEANOR FULLER NEVER LEFT CITY Chief of Sacramento’s Police Says She Was Not There. SACRAMENTO, Feb. 10.—After a eearching investigation into the case Chief of Police Sullivan expressed the positive opinfon to The Call correspondent to- night that Nora Fhiler was never in Sac. ramento from the hour of her disappear- ance from home. “The facts of the matter, so far as Sac- ramento is concerned, are simply these, sald Chief Sullivan. “Qn January 18 I re- ceived from Chief Wittman of San Fran- cisco typewritten descriptidhs of Nora Fuller 4nd Bennett, with an excellent por- trait of Nora Fuiler attached, asking me to look out for them and communicate to Chief Wittman. I make it a point to give carefyl attention to all such requests, so i I handed the descriptions and photograph to Detectives Fisher and Fitzgerald, in- structing them to visit every hotel and lodging-house in town and every spot in the tenderloin. They did this, keeping up the search for several days, but they dis. covered absolutely no trace either of Ben- nett or the girl. . “Last Thursday afternoon, February 6, I réceived a telephone message from the Chief of Police of Stockton saying a con. ductor, whose name he did not give, had informed him that he saw a girl who seemed to him to look like the picture of Nora Fuller published in a San Francisco paper on the train which would reach Sacramento via Stockton that afternoon. My understanding of the messdge was that the conductor was not coming on the | train to Sacramento, but while at Stock- ton had seen the girl get on the Sacra- mento train, or had seen her after she was on the train. “I immediately dispatched Detectives Fisher and Fitzgerald to the depot. They were there on the arrival of the train and watched every person who alighted. There were several young girls, but %ot one who tallled with the picture and description of the girl, for whom they had already been searching the city. It stands to rea- son that these two detectives, with the picture of the girl in their possession and with . their experience in hunting up peo- ple on descriptions, would be more likely to know Nora Fuller if they saw her than would a conductor who had only casually glanced at the portrait in a newspaper. “I take exceptions to one thing, and that'is the statement in a San Francisco paper to-day that I caused an investiga- tion to be made on the strength of an anonymous letter from Sacramento to that paper. I never saw that letter until I read of it to-day. I Investigated this case of Chief Wittman's letter and the telephone message from Stockton, and not because of an anonymous letter to a newspaper. My officers also looked over the town for Bennett. We knew if we could find the girl we could find him. But I believe neither was here, and I say this after having made a most thorough in- vestigation.” ] Detectives Fisher and Fitzgerald were subsequently seen and expressed their positive belief that Nora Fuller had not come in on a train from Stockton, and that she had never been in the city from the hour of her disappearance. Fitzgerald ‘said he regarded the anonymous letter re- ferred to as merely the freak of some crank and as having no significance wrat- ever Fiend and His Victim Sup- posed to Have Occu- pied Post-Street Room RS. W. J. KENNEDY, keeps a lodging-house at Post street, said yesterday that about two weeks ago a middle aged man called at her house and rented a room. He came three times during the week—on a Monday, Wednes- day and Thursday—each time having a ! young girl with him. She stated further that this girl answered the descriptions that were published. She had on a golf cape and a hat about which Mrs. Kennedy is mot positive, but thinks it was of straw, trimmed with velvet. This story would tend to prove, as has heretofore been asserted, that the girl was in the habit of meeting this man at a lodging-house. It is more than probable that these two were the dead girl and her slayer, and it may have been that the girl was strangled to death here and her body removed in the dead of night to the house on Sutter street, although it might seem impossible to commit such a crime without detection in a crowded lodging-house. Mrs. Ken- nedy nor any one else heard anything un- usual in the room. CORONER SELECTS AN INQUEST JURY {Business Men Will Legally Fix Cause of Young Gir[s Death. The inquest on the body of Eleanor Ful- ler will be held at 10 o'clock this morne ing. Following are the jurors: Willlam Ring, manager of Cook’s Spring Mineral Water Company; Frank Triest of the firm of Triest & Co., hatters, 116 San- some street; Archibald Roos, Roos Bros., 31 Kearny street; Lewis Roesch, Roesch & Co., printers, 325 Sansome street; Ed- ward Schlueter of Schlueter & Volberg. | carpet dealers, 215 Sutter street; Willlam J. O'Leary, cashier Stein, Stmon & Co., Market and Second streets; Daniel M. Braerton, manager of O'Connor, Moffatt & Co.; John B. Davitt of Daly & Davitt, New England Bakery, 120 Sixth street: BEdward H. Mitchell, art stationer and engraver, 225 Post street; Ferdinand Reis, cashier of the Pacific States Loan So- clety, 410 Pine street; Gustave Sautro, grain, bond and stock broker, California and Montgomery streets. who REPRESENTATIVES SEND ENCOURAGING REPORIS Manufacturers’ and Producers’ Asso- ciation Receives Favorable News From California Delegates. President Sbarboro of the Manufactur- ers’ and Producers’ Association received a communication yesterday from Senator Perkins and Congressmen Kahn, Loud and Metcalf that the entire war revenue tax, including that on wines, will be repealed. The Representatives al3o state that they will use every effort to secure the in- creased use of California prunes, dried fruits and beans by the Indian agencies. This is in line with the effort being made by the association to secure recognition of these California products in particular aside from the former work to obtain a better opportunity for the general bid- ders to furnish Indian supplies. The association has just issued a very interesting descriptive catalogue of the commercial products, both natural and manufactured, of the State. ——————— Found the Bullet. « Dr. Morton of the City and County Hospital yesterday examined | Woods, alias “St. Louis Frank,” one of the murderers of Police Officer Robin- son, and discovered that one of the bul- | lets frem the brave officer’s revolver was imbedded in the fifth vertebrao. The bullet will be removed to-day. To Cure a Cold in One Day Take Laxative Bromo-Quinine Tablets. druggists refund the money if It falls to E. W. Grove's signature is each Al Sure, it - box, 28a. - -