1902-09-25-New York Times-Young's Found Place Where Young Bought Trunk

New York Times

25 September 1902, page 16

FOUND PLACE WHERE YOUNG BOUGHT TRUNK.

Dealer and His Son Say Purchaser Was Clean Shaven. SEARCH FOR EILING STILL ON Man Who Attempted Suicide at First Thought to be the Possible Confederate Named by Prisoner.

Although the police were unanimous yesterday in saying that William Hooper Young's story of a man named Eiling was a falsehood, nevertheless they kept up their investigations on that line. During the day there were several reports that men of Eiling's description had been located, but in no case were facts forthcoming to prove the existence of the person whom Young named as the real murderer of Mrs. Anna Pulitzer.

Young had no trouble in sleeping through his first night in the Tombs. "This is the first night's comfort I have had in a week," he exclaimed on waking at 6:45 o'clock. Having been supplied with money by W. F. S. Hart, his counsel, the prisoner sent out for rolls and coffee, which he evidently enjoyed. As on the day of his arrival, he continued to take an unflagging interest in newspaper reports of the murder.

From early in the morning until late at night Capt. Titus was receiving dispatches concerning out-of-town arrests of men who might be Eiling. Young had said that Eiling lived in Bridgeport, Conn. and in each one of the messages the prisoner was some one who admitted having come from that city. By afternoon it began to appear that any person belonging to Bridgeport wasn't safe within the New England or Middle Atlantic States.

Some excitement was caused in Headquarters by the announcement that the mysterious Eiling was a patient in the Harlem Hospital. There was a mysterious man in the hospital, but nobody was able to connect him with the name given by Young. The patient was recorded as Charles Garnett, twenty-five years old. He was taken to the hospital from the Mt. Morris Hotel, one Hundred and Thirtieth Street and Third Avenue, early in the morning. To the hotel clerk he had said:

"Any old name will do. Make it Charles Garnett of Bridgeport, Conn."

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The most important discovery made by the police yesterday was the place where Young or some one else bought the trunk in which Mrs. Pultizer's body was taken to New Jersey, and in which he bloodstained clothing was sent to Chicago. The fact that the son of the trunk dealer described the purchaser as a man without a mustache led some to believe that Young, after all, did have an accomplice. For numerous witnesses had declared that Young still had his mustache after the trunk reached the Clarence apartment house, on West Fifty-eighth Street.

The trunk dealer is William Canning, who has his store at 110 West Forty-second Street. He told his story yesterday to Capt. Titus's detectives.

"At 11 o'clock last Wednesday morning," he said, "a man came here, got a trunk for $4, and said his name was Young. My son, William, took the trunk to 103 West Fifty-eighth Street in a wheelbarrow."

Canning looked at the trunk that came from Chicago and identified it as the one bought in his shop by the man called Young. In the meanwhile the storekeeper's son told his experiences with the buyer of the trunk. He said:

"I wheeled the trunk to Fifty-eighth Street for him. He didn't have a mustache, but he looked like the pictures of Young. When we reached the Clarence I helped him carry the trunk up stairs to the first floor, but he wouldn't let me go into the apartment. As I stood in the hall he handed me a nickel.

" 'You're a cheap skate,' I said to him. 'Take back your nickel, and keep it.'

"Then I left the place. He told me his name was Young. If I saw him again I'd know him in a minute."

Canning was taken to the Clarence apartment house, where the hall boy said he remembered him as the person who had helped Young carry a trunk up stairs at the time of the murder.

The boy will be taken down to the Tombs this morning to identify Young.

The police account for the boy's description of the man simply as a case of defective memory. It was Young, they say, who got the trunk, and the boy is merely mistaken when he asserts positively the buyer had no mustache.

Assistant District Attorney Garvan began his preliminary investigation yesterday by examining several witnesses privately. Dolbey, the Clarence bellboy, and Max Levy, the Brooklyn gymnasium man, were called, as were two of the four Mormon Elders who occupied part of the apartment where the crime was committed.

Ex-Police Commissioner Avery D. Andrews denied yesterday that he knew anything about Young or the murder case.

"I don't know Young nor any of his family," said Mr. Andrews.

It had been stated that the ex-Commissioner was a personal friend of John W. Young, the prisoner's father, and that the latter had cabled to Mr. Andrews all his instructions in regard to the legal defense of the son. W. F. S. Hart, the prisoner's counsel, also denied that Mr. Andrews knew anything about the case.