FULL TEXT: Chicago police, on the
recommendation of a coroner’s jury, arrested Mrs. Julia Shepherd, who was
characterized by Mr. Justice Olsen as the Lady Macbeth of a series of alleged
murders designed to secure for herself and her husband a fortune of £500,000
(telegraphed The London Daily Mail correspondent in New York in early May).
William Darling Shepherd, her
husband, a lawyer and chemist of some note, was arrested two months ago charged
with the diabolical crime of murdering his adopted son, William Nelson
McClintock, popularly known as the millionaire orphan, by administering typhoid
germs in a glass of water.
The millionaire orphan died, and his
fortune came into the possession of the Shepherds, to whom early this year the
coroner's jury, after the examination of the exhumed body, offered an elaborate
apology for suspecting them of having poisoned him.
No poison was found in the body, and
a verdict of death from typhoid fever was returned.
~ Story of £20,000 Deal. ~
Two months ago the head of a bogus
medical establishment made a remarkable statement. In effect it was that in
return for a promise of £20,000 he supplied Shepherd with typhoid germs.
Shepherd, according to this statement, murdered his adopted son. with these
germs in time to prevent him from marrying and leaving his fortune to a young
wife.
Since the arrest of Shepherd his wife
has been living in lonely splendour of the magnificent residence bequeathed to
her' by the young millionaire.
Nine cousins and the bereaved
finances, meanwhile, started an investigation into the deaths of his parents
and of a. brother of Mr. Justice Olsen, whom they accuse the Shepherds of
having successively poisoned.
At the inquest 100 witnesses
testified. Mr. Justice Olsen, in summing up for the prosecution, declared that
lo years ago the Shepherds cultivated the acquaintance of the McClintocks
solely for the purpose of killing them and gaining possession of their fortune.
~ Lured to the Bungalow. ~
After the death of the father, he
alleged, they lured Mrs. McClintock as their remote bungalow in Texas, where
she fell ill and died after taking medicine prescribed for her by Shepherd.
Just before her death Mrs. McClintock made the Shepherds the guardians of her
young son.
Shepherd was described by Mr. Justice
Olsen as a weak-willed, soft man completely dominated by ‘Lady Macbeth,’ a
cold, purposeful, masculine woman who plotted for years to secure the absolute control
of the McClintock fortune.
The millionaire orphan and his
fiancé, Miss Isabelle Pope, the Judge characterized as a second Juliet, whose
marriage was finally frustrated by a dose of typhoid germs.
Mr. Justice Olsen also accuses the
Shepherds of having poisoned his brother, who investigated their affairs, with
prussic acid.
[“Three Murders To Get £500,000.” The
Register (Adelaide, S. Australia), Jun. 20, 1925, p. 3]
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