Warning.

Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence.

It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening now.

Hello everyone, and welcome to Kind of Murdery, a true crime podcast that's mostly about murder and always about the strange and compelling stories that arise when the path less travel twists to darkness and those who walk it shadows surrender to violence and moral corruption.

We have a perilous journey ahead, so thank you for lending me your courage and good company.

I'm your host, Zevan Odelberg, and this is kind of Murdering.

Hey, everybody, I hope you all had a lovely holiday weekend.

I know I did.

On Sunday, I managed to smoke a delicious try tip in my thirty dollars knockoff Weber charcoal grill with the help my friend and Nashville, Tennessee pitmaster Alan Finney.

Shout out to Music City, old school in, the bootleggers, and the lords of the pit.

Now that try tip.

It came out so tender that we ate every last bite of it.

But now break time is over and I am thrilled to be back and spending my time with all of you.

I found today's incredible true story as written by H.

W.

Corley in the March nineteen twenty nine issue of True Detective Magazine.

As always, my sources are in the show notes.

Now we're going to jump in pretty much right away because today's episode is a little longer than usual.

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And of course that applies to more things than me just asking for phone calls and reviews.

So apply it where it feels appropriate to you.

And now I'm ready, and I hope you are too, So please join me as we uncover what truths we can and solve what mysteries we may kind of murderies.

Greencastle guillotine Pearl Brian's mysteriously missing head starts.

Now.

Who was the inhuman fiend who brutally murdered pretty Pearl Brian of Greencastle, Indiana and hacked off her head?

Was it walling Wood or Jackson?

One of these three young men was guilty?

Which one?

Early on the morning of February first, in eighteen ninety three, John Howling, a young black teen, started off to work at a farm which lay a mile from his home down the road to Fort Thomas, Kentucky.

His path lay through a field belonging to John Locke, and because there was no snow, he decided to cross Locke's farm and shorten his journey.

The air was crisp, and he walked along with no sense of impending horror, when suddenly he stopped short and drew back an alarm, gaping at an object that had caught his eye and the grass just off the pathway.

A girl lay there, clad in a thin cotton crape kimono, cheap material, and from its edge her bare legs and feet protruded.

Half hidden in the grass, she lay on her side in an odd position, her arms with hands together, flung in front of her.

He could not see her face or understand, for a brief moment how she'd managed to hide it.

Why had she fallen there?

Was she sleeping or his flesh crept as he wondered, had she died in the bitter cold.

Perhaps she'd walked in her sleep and the cold had overcome her, letting her fall to freeze and perish.

The young man walked gingerly around the body of the girl and laid a red mitten hand gently on her shoulder to awaken her.

As he did so, he drew back sharply, let out a fearful yell, and ran back through the fields, terror stricken, as fast as his stumbling legs could take him.

The body was missing ahead, and even young John Howling, ignorant in the art of decapitation, knew that it had been cut off with a dull knife, and very quickly the ground about was stained dark red.

Even in the moment of horror, he noticed that the bushes nearby, rising to a height of six feet or more, were splashed with blood to their very topmost branches.

Shrieking and sobbing, Howling stumbled along to the the nearest house and tremblingly blurted out his story to the woman who came to the doors.

He begged admittance, a girl with her head cut off lying in a thicket.

The woman repeated, indulgently, Johnny, somebody's trying to play a joke on you.

You are seeing things.

But Johnny insisted, and he was quaking so violently that the woman realized he had received a terrible shock.

She called her husband, who listened to the story.

She lay there like she was dead or sleeping, said Johnny.

Then I saw she wasn't sleeping because she didn't have a head.

Johnny means what he says.

The farmer told his wife, Finally, I'm going to go along and see about this.

You wait here while I call some of the hands to go with me.

By this time a curious head or two had protruded from the barn, and calling these men to accompany him, the farmer set out to the place where the body lay.

Johnny Howling flatly refused to go back to the dreadful spot.

There, as Howling had said, lay a woman headless about twenty, they judged from the condition of her hands, which were very young in appearance and too well kept to belong to any of the farm girls in the neighborhood.

Although her clothing was cheap, it was apparent that it had been hastily placed on her body after decapitation, for while it was hardly stained, the flesh beneath was covered with dry blood.

Her fingers had been stripped of rings, which marks on the flesh indicated she had worn.

For some reason, the men's sensed that the motive behind the deed had not been robbery.

Why then, had the murderers taken off the rings?

Why had they cut the head off?

Was it for the same reason to hinder identification of the girl.

A careful examination of her clothing gave no hint of who the girl might be.

But the first search of the ground toward the road which ran through the thicket on the way to Fort Thomas, caused the men to shout in triumph.

Here, evidently dropped by the fleeing murderers in the darkness, were bits of clothing of a very different type, which proclaimed the wearer a woman of means and refinement.

Here were a pair of gloves of delicate kind, hardly worn twice, a new pair of expensive corsets, and a single shoe of far from cheap material.

And in that shoe was a dealer's name with his address Lewis and Hayes.

Greencastle, a little town in Indiana.

The murderers have had their pains for nothing.

The men remarked, the body can without a doubt be identified in half an hour.

Greencastle is a small place, poor little girl.

Leaving the body covered with a coat.

The men hurried to report their find to the police, who came, looked the body over and examined the articles of clothing found without delay.

The police sent detectives to Greencastle to identify the dead girl.

Yes, said the shoe dealer in Greencastle, after he'd turned the shoe over in his hands thoughtfully for a moment.

I remember selling those shoes to a miss Pearlbrian, not more than three weeks ago.

As you can see, they haven't been worn much.

She was going to visit some friends out of town, and she told me she was getting some pretty clothes.

But then she was always buying shoes.

She was one of our best customers.

Where was she going to visit, asked the detectives.

But the man, after a moment, shook his head.

I didn't ask her, and if she mentioned it, it slipped my memory.

But Pearl was always traveling.

She had a lot of well to do relatives.

Who is Pearl Brian?

The police asked, Well, she is the daughter of one of our most well to do so citizens, A fine pretty girl, moving in the very best social circles in town.

How'd you get the shoe?

I would be sorry to hear that anything had happened to her.

Evading this question, the men asked to be directed to Pearl's parents' home, a fine structure on the best residential street in Greencastle, mister Brian was at home when the detectives reached there.

Yes, he had a daughter named Pearl.

She was not at home just now.

She was visiting friends in Indianapolis.

No, he'd not heard from her in several days, possibly a week.

Why did they ask?

Was anything wrong?

Then they laid the clothes before him, and he identified everything, even a handful of hairpins scooped up by the detectives from the path leading to the Fort Thomas Road by which the girl had evidently come to the spot where, as seemed likely, she had met her terrible fate.

God, that's heartbreaking.

Yes, these belonged to my girl, mister Brian said, what is the trouble?

As gently as they could, and I'd say gently is an impossible adjective in this situation, But as gently as they could, they broke the news of Pearl's death, intimating an accident and refraining from telling the sorrowing men the true facts that she had not only been murdered, but had also been decapitated.

When they told Pearl's father that her body had been found in Kentucky, the broken hearted man was as mystified as they Kentucky.

She knew no one there, What was his girl doing in Kentucky.

This interview occurred on February fourth, less than four days had passed.

This was record speed and filled the local police with pride.

For many a body whose head had remained intact had lain in the morgue, unclaimed and unidentified for more than twice that time.

The Kentuckians were also proud of their efficient police.

But in solving the mystery of why Pearl, who had never reached Indianapolis at all, had changed her plans and gone to Kentucky, or, as seemed more probable, to Cincinnati, just over the river from the Kentucky county in which Fort Thomas is located, the police were completely at sea.

Pearls father, mister Bryan, said that as far as he knew, Pearl knew no one in Cincinnati.

The police began a careful questioning of the girl's father, who they felt might be holding something back, But they soon found out that they knew more of the daughter's past life than the poor man ever dreamed of.

As in similar cases, they sought a man, one in whom Pearl might have placed her trust, a sweetheart, perhaps to whom she was openly or secretly engaged.

But Pearl, though vastly charming and popular, had no such sweetheart.

It seemed.

She went to the little balls and parties of the neighborhood in the safe company of her mother, where, to be sure, her partners flocked about her, but she had no sweetheart.

Her father said, was it possible that Pearl might have developed a secret love for one of those young men at one of those parties and eloped, using the visit to Indianapolis as a blind until it was time to announce the wedding to her father?

Was there any young man who'd paid attention to Pearl and who was now absence from Greencastle?

But no such young man could be discovered who was absent, either then or at any time prior to the discovery of the girl's body.

Mister Bryan flinched at the implication that his daughter might have deceived him, and stoutly denied that it could be true.

He had always been in his daughter's confidence.

He said, she was studious and quiet, and would do nothing of her own initiative.

She had no secret fancy for any young man, of that I am sure, asserted mister Bryan.

HM.

The detectives remarked and kept to themselves certain information which had been given them by the coroner.

For at the time of her death, this delicately reared, carefully nurtured girl was shortly to have become a mother.

Pearl was pregnant, yet apparently her father had not the slightest idea in the world that this might be.

So Without divulging this side of the case, for no one had the heart to add to the poor father's sorrow, the detectives looked about the neighborhood in hopes of uncovering who Pearl's secret suitor might be.

But no one had ever seen her alone with a young man, so carefully had she been guarded.

No one could aid the detectives in any way.

And then when everything looked hopeless, there came a bit of information which set them on a track that promised to lead directly to the murderers.

The detectives were seated in one of the hotel rooms discussing the futility of remaining any longer in Greencastle.

I'll run up to the station and wire the chief that the case is dead here, said one of the men, rising from his chair as the discussion abated.

Then we can get out of this burg.

In less than fifteen minutes, he returned, his eyes blazing.

Every trace of lethargy had been swept from his countenance.

Boys, he cried, come down and hear what the wire operator has to say.

The men rose, knowing that their companion had found the trail.

Every nerve alert as they clattered down the stairs after him.

Aw Early, the telegraph operator took them into the inner office and closed the door before he told his amazing story.

He is a young friend of mine, the telegraph operator began slowly, and I suspect I'm telling tales out of school.

But the wires you fellows have been sending as made me realize that I have no right to keep my mouth shut.

I will tell you all that I know.

This boy, William Wood is the son of the Methodist minister here in Greencastle, great friend of Pearls.

I don't care what her father says about that they were always meeting when the folks thought that they were at home in their beds now.

He didn't say he was responsible mine, but I put two and two together.

A little while ago Wood came to me with a tale that Pearl had gotten into difficulties.

He was near crazy.

The girl had a fine reputation, and he wanted to help her keep it well.

Last summer and a few other summers back, there was a young man about Bill's age who used to visit his grandmother on his vacations here in Greencastle.

He and Bill were chummy, and so of course he knew Pearl saw her at parties and picnics like the other boys of the neighborhood.

Bill told me that this young fellow, Scott Jackson, was taking a medical course in Cincinnati, and that he knew was someone who would help Pearl.

So the girl got ready to go to Cincinnati.

Her father gave her a lot of money to buy clothes with, thinking she was going to Indianapolis.

And the next thing I knew, I saw her on the platform there being kissed by her dad.

Well, well that's the last time he ever kissed her.

And you know the rest.

Now, that might explain, of course, how Pearl had come to Kentucky, for Cincinnati is just across the bridge from Newport, Kentucky, the city closest to Fort Thomas, but it did not explain many other things.

Still, it was probable that young Jackson could throw light on many phases of the mystery, and the police determined to give him the opportunity to do so.

Hot on the trail.

Now, the detectives wired the authorities at Cincinnati to arrest Jackson at the medical school and hold him for questioning.

Then they took young Bill Wood, the minister's son, into custody, but Wood merely repeated this story that had been told them by aw Early, the telegraph operator, that Pearl had been badly in need of help, and that he'd arranged with his friend Scott Jackson to see that she was cared for in Cincinnati, both young men wishing to help the girl preserve her excellent reputation.

Right, that's very noble, of course, But which one of their babies, is it?

Right?

I mean, I believe what's being implied here is that Pearl is on her way to Cincinnati to get an abortion.

Now, I would never presume to know, but I can imagine that getting an abortion is pretty damn scary anytime.

Now, imagine how utterly terrifying it is when you consider that this happened in eighteen ninety three.

Yikes, that was a point in history when surgery was about as advanced as I don't know, medieval dentistry, something, something extremely unadvanced.

Anyway, these two genteel knights in shining armor, Wood and Jackson, they nobly wanted to help this girl, though apparently neither of them had a personal interest in the matter beyond their friendship with the girl.

Man, this all sounds like boloney to me.

Ah, here we go.

Wood was vague as to who was responsible for Pearl's condition, and the detectives in the moment did not press him.

This they thought could wait, and they went to Cincinnati.

Jackson, the medical student, however, was not so affable as Wood, and far more wary in his answers.

His attitude shifted from indifference to the fast forming suspicion against him to amusement that the detectives would waste valuable time by barking up the wrong tree.

Jackson denied that he'd ever laid eyes on Pearl Brian outside of the little town in which he'd met her casually as a visitor will meet all the prettiest girls in the social set.

Nor had he heard from Wood, he said, on this or any other subject.

Certainly he had not arranged for an illegal, as well as dangerous operation for the girl, whom he claimed he barely knew, and that was that he admitted to being a buddy of Woods in Greencastle, and he admitted too that were Wood to write to him if caught in a difficulty would not be strange, as they had been close friends.

Were not quite satisfied with Jackson's answers or his attitude, and they declined to free him.

Then one day, as they'd hoped, he weakened angrily, he declared that while he knew nothing about the case, the authorities would do well to see what was known by his roommate, Alonzo Walling, also a student at the medical school.

Walling was younger than Jackson, twenty one years old to the latter's twenty eight years, and seemed a man of far less initiative.

He was also far more easily handled.

After declaring at first they had never heard of Pearl Brian beyond what the newspapers were saying, he admitted that he had heard Jackson speak of her.

Now, as Walling had not fled when Jackson was taken into custody, it seemed to the police logical to infer that he was not seriously involved or afraid of being questioned, so after a little more questioning, they let him go free.

He left and stated his contempt for what he called a practical joke on the part of Jackson in getting him into the affair, but his triumph was short lived.

His overall calmness had convinced them all of his innocence, except one veteran detective who said little, and who within an hour swore out a warrant for Walling's arrest and brought him back to the station.

Mark my words, said the grizzled detective.

That boy knows what is what in this case.

I don't know whether he's guilty, but I do believe that he knows all that we want to know.

Keep him here a while, he'll tell us what it's about.

Next.

William Wood was brought from Greencastle and lodged in the same jail with the other two, who were loud in their denouncements of him for getting them into this mess, as they called it.

For some time, sulky and silent, all three languished in jail while the police began to wonder if they were on the right track.

After all.

Wood stoutly insisted on his own innocence and said that he knew nothing about the whole affair beyond sending Pearl to Cincinnati to meet Scott, and he was released finally on five thousand dollars bail, which would be about one hundred and seventy thousand dollars today.

Wood's release infuriated the other two, but did not have the for effect of ringing either accusations or confessions of value out of them.

The case rested.

Every clue the police followed led into blind alleys, and the detectives, who had distinguished themselves by a swift identification, now were completely flummixed.

Nothing more developed.

The prisoners turned sarcastic and made cutting remarks regarding the efficiency of those responsible for their incarceration.

Then, just when it looked like the prisoners would go free after all, there occurred a startling development that served to strengthen the frail thread of evidence against them.

An African American waiter in a Cincinnati saloon of ill repute dropped into headquarters.

He recalled that the two men in custody, Walling and Jackson, who identified by their pictures in the newspaper, had been in his saloon the night before Pearl Bryan's body was discovered a young girl closely resembling the published pictures of the dead Pearl had been with them, and the party had been served in a private room.

The owner of the cafe was summoned and he corroboreated, did the waiter's story did anything occur?

Did you overhear anything that served to fix the trio in your mind?

The proprietor was asked.

Beads of perspiration stood out on the man's forehead as he answered, yes.

The girl looked nervous and out of place in her surroundings, but more than that.

Once, when I entered the room myself, I saw her get up and leave the table to go to the retiring room in the back, And just then I overheard one of the men say, gee, I'd like a woman's head to dissect.

Holy Moly.

I saw the girl turn a look of fear on her face, but just then she saw me and kept on going.

I knew the men were medical students, and I put down the remark to youthful enthusiasm and forgot all about it until the next day.

Then, with the newspapers full of stories of a headless body found just across the river, the proprietor speculated that that body might be the girl.

Only after he'd convinced himself that it was his duty to tell all he knew, had he allowed his waiter to talk without hesitation, Both men identified Jackson and Walling as the men in the cafe that evening.

Jackson are argued angrily that anyone could so identify him if they chose to, as his picture had been public property in all the papers, and he scornfully denied ever having set foot in the cafe.

He faced his accusers with an insolent air of boredom and refused to allow their accusations to shake his testimony.

Walling, however, did not quite bear his former roommate out now in all his statements.

Yes, he admitted he'd been to the saloon that particular night.

He placed the date because it had been the night before his first read of the frightful discovery of the girl's headless body.

He had not quite sensed the story in all its horror, he said, because of the morning afterhead meaning the hangover with which he'd read the news.

But he said there was no girl with us.

And as for the remark about dissection, well that's pure fabrication.

Walling, obviously the weaker, was then treated as several hours of relentless questioning.

Finally, he begged his inquisitors to cease, and, breaking down, told the most complete story he'd given so far.

They were right.

Walling sobbed aloud as he spoke.

He had known Pearlbrian, but it was Jackson, with either an injection of cocaine or one of Prussick acid that had caused her death in his rooms that night, while Walling looked on in helpless horror.

But that was all he knew.

How she got to Fort Thomas was as big a mystery to him as it was to his tormentors.

This put another spin on things, and the police encouraged the boy to talk a little further, for although it had not been made public, the coroner's investigation had resulted in the discovery of cocaine in the body, just as Walling had said, the boy could not have guessed this.

He must, therefore, to some extent, be telling the truth.

Jackson refused to add to the story and swore that Walling was lying.

Then he began to add a few accusations of his own.

Walling had killed the girl and was shielding himself by throwing the blame on his friend and roommate Walling, he said had killed Pearl.

Walling had agreed to perform the operation, it had been unsuccessful, and she had died.

To cover his crime, Walling had caused her to be placed in the thicket near Fort Thomas.

Jackson had no idea who'd cut off her head, he said, but he hardly believed that Walling would commit an atrocity like that.

And if you don't believe me, Jackson told the police, just look over Walling's effects back at the school.

The police followed his suggestion promptly with gratifying results.

Wow, this is awful.

If you believe this version of the story, Jackson and Walling were actually well meaning, and Pearl died as the result of a botched abortion, and in eighteen ninety three, tragically.

I imagine that botched abortions were at least as common, if not more common, than successful ones.

But I'm not sure I buy it.

And also, I, like many of you, I'm sure want to know who's the cad who got her pregnant?

All right, back to the story.

Following Jackson's suggestion, the police went to search Walling's room and personal effects.

In a locker belonging to Walling, they found an old pair of trousers caked with MUDs such as might be found out for Thomas Way, and darkly stained with blood.

When he was confronted with them, Walling broke down completely.

He said that if they look in the sewer at the corner of John and Richmond Streets, they would find clothing in similar condition belonging to Jackson.

Moreover, the pockets were filled with the belongings of the dead girl.

Guided by Walling, the police found the bloodstained trousers in the sewer.

The pockets contained a blood covered shirt and six little handkerchiefs marked PB.

Later, the handkerchiefs were identified by Pearl's father.

Now, although it seemed an easy case, there was, and the boys knew it an amazingly delicate situation.

The police believed that they had proof of Jackson and Walling's guilt, but it was practically useless without certain important additions, For it entangled the legal machinery of two states, Kentucky and Ohio.

Where had the girl died in Cincinnati or near Fort Thomas?

Had she been dead when the body was taken to the thicket where it was found, Or had she gone there alive and come to her end at that fateful spot?

And where was her head?

Now?

No one could or would an answer these questions, and at the advice of lawyers, the two young men, now staunch enemies and bitterly accusing each other, maintained a dignified silence, hoping against hope that the mysterious elements of the case would work to set them free.

For a man can only stand once in jeopardy for his life before the law for a particular crime.

Try him in the wrong state and let the defense prove this, and he would go free.

He could not then be brought back to go to trial for the same crime in the other state.

That's double jeopardy for you.

Now, every bit of mystery was to the advantage of the prisoners, and they made the most of it.

Although there was no doubt of their guilt, there were many flaws in the proof of it, and detectives scouring the city for missing links in the chain found it hard sledding.

Nothing they turned up served to draw the net any closer about their catch.

In Vain, the detectives tried to account for the week, which they believed Pearl had spent in Cincinnati, for she left home on January twenty sixth, and thereafter until she was seen that night in the cafe, there was no trace of her.

Then they found that on Thursday morning, the day before she was found dead in Kentucky, she had been in a Cincinnati railway station, apparently about to start for home, but she had not bought a ticket, and a dark young man who later proved to be Walling, had accompanied her out of the station.

Again, why had she changed her mind about leaving?

Why had she changed her mind about leaving?

Was murder at that moment in the mind of the one who dealt the mortal blow?

If Jackson had dealt it, why had Walling prevailed upon her to remain?

And for what purpose had he knowingly taken her back to her subsequent death?

But Walling was weak, It seemed unlikely that he alone had instigated the foul deed.

Yet why should he have taken this terrible risk for Jackson?

Another bit of news, gruesome in its implications, drifted in from the college.

For the few days between the finding of the body and his arrest.

Jackson had carried a suitcase with him everywhere he went to his classrooms or to the dining hall, which was so conspicuous that the boys had joked about it.

He would not let it out of his sight.

Upon investigation, the police found the suitcase.

It was empty, but had bloodstains on the inner lining.

Had it contained Pearl Bryan's head?

If so, where was the head now?

Then the case rested Again.

The authorities dared not risk a trial, even with the evidence they had.

Popular opinion was with them, to be sure.

Nevertheless, controversies centered about the jurisdictional difficulties presented by the two and again I think its three potentially states.

Everything had to be done carefully.

Little by little, additional evidence came to hand.

A man from Covington, Kentucky dropped in to say that he'd seen two men haggling with an African American man on the corner of George and Elm Streets in Cincinnati on the night of the murder.

They were arguing over a price concerning a closed carriage, which had later driven off in the direction of a bridge leading to Kentucky.

The men, the man from Covington felt sure, were Walling and Jackson, whom he subsequently identified the Africa an American man he could not describe.

The police offered not only immunity, but a reward if the cab driver would come forward.

News of this was circulated through every black neighborhood and organization, but met with no response.

Remember we're talking eighteen ninety three here.

At this point, a Miss Lulu Hollingsworth stepped into the fray.

She came, she said, all the way from Knox City to help the police in their baffling problem.

She'd been a friend of the dead Brian girl.

She knew Pearl had come to Cincinnati for an illegal operation.

Pearl had in fact asked Lulu to meet her at the train, She said.

It was obvious that Pearl had died instead of returning home to Greencastle.

She had died in Jackson's rooms, said Miss Hollingsworth, and the young man had written to Lulu in great agitation, telling her everything.

Decapitation had taken place in Kentucky after the death of the girl.

A black man hired in Kentucky had driven the body to Cincinnati, cut off the head, and then cast it from the bridge.

On his way back from Newport, the black cab driver decapitated the body.

Why the world would that be except just blaming the black guy for the gross thing.

So Lulu's story made hardly a ripple in official circles.

In the first place, it told nothing save what had been published in the papers, or that could not be proved.

Miss Hollingsworth unfortunately could not produce the letter, saying that in her agitation she had destroyed it immediately.

Also, the police felt that a young man as astute as Jackson, were he to commit murder, would hardly put his guilt in writing, particularly when that writing was to be entrusted to Lulu's hands.

Moreover, the authorities were inclined to believe that she did not even know the trio involved in the affair.

She could give only a hazy description of Pearl or of the young men, and when they hotly declared that they'd never before laid eyes on her, the police believed them, probably for the first time.

On February twelve, twelve days after the discovery of Pearlbrian's body, so rapidly did the case move that the coroner's jury met and found number one that the headless body found on February first, on the road near Fort Thomas was that of Pearl Bryan of Greencastle, Indiana, that cocaine had been administered, and that decapitation had taken place while the girl was still living, and at the place where the body was found.

Okay, then I think that settles jurisdiction number two.

The coroner's jury found that Pearl Brian, Scott Jackson, and Alonzo Walling had been seen entering a cab together at one am on February first, at the corner of Georgian Oak Street, Cincinnati, an intersection not far from George and Elm Streets.

Then they had driven off in the direction that would take them over the bridge leading into Kentucky.

They based the finding that Pearl Brian had been alive when her head was removed on an important and remarkable point.

The blood had spurted at a height of six feet on the surrounding bushes and was found only on the underside of the leaves, which proved that it had not been spattered after death, as only blood from a living body spurts.

Formal charges were brought at once against the two men in Ohio following these revelations, but they were indicted in Kentucky and the governor of Ohio finally released them and sent them across the state line for trial.

While they remained in a jail at Newport, the prosecution went ahead with unusual care.

If the defense could still show that the trial was being held in the wrong state, the young men would go free, and by a fluke of technicalities, the prosecution would be helpless.

Accordingly, the prosecution delayed the trial as long as they could, hoping for more evidence to drop like manna from heaven into their hands.

And then the star witness for the state walked into the police station arm in arm with Patrolman Swain.

Swain's beat lay past the grounds belonging to a Major Whittikind at Mount Auburn, and he had often seen the major's coachman, an old African American man, pottering about the stables and the lawns.

Therefore, he was not surprised when the old fellow hailed him one day.

They discussed a few topics of local interest, and then, as did everyone, touched upon the Pearl Brian case.

Have they found the girl's head?

The coachman asked Swain.

Swain replied that they'd practically given up any hope of recovering it was to move along.

When the man stepped closer to the fence and dropped his voice.

You know that coach when they say drove those fellers to Fort Thomas.

If they catch him, would they hang him to Swain explained that unless the driver had been party to the murder or the plans concerning the murder, he would be blameless.

Then the coachman, his name too was Jackson, clutched Swain by the sleeve and told him, trembling that he was the long sought driver who'd driven the surrey across the bridge into Kentucky the night of the murder.

He told a straightforward story.

It was the night of the drill for the Caldwell Colored Guards, a military organization of Cincinnati that he Jackson was drill master.

After the meeting, he'd stood on the corner of George and Elm Streets talking with some of the men.

A closed carriage had driven up, stopped, and the man driving had asked if anyone there on the curb wished to make five dollars before going to bed.

There's a sick lady in the carriage who needs to be taken home by her doctor.

The man had explained, she lives across the bridge, and we don't know the exact way from Newport.

Now, that was his business handling horses, I mean, and so Jackson the coach, offered to do the driving.

Accordingly, He climbed up in the box, took the reins, and started off.

The man who had been driving remained beside him.

He was a tall, dark man, and he wore a corduroy cap.

Jackson remembered.

As we drove along, I could hear strange sounds inside the carriage.

I thought at first that it was just the lady being sick, and then I thought one doctor was hurting her.

She kept moaning and crying.

Finally I got scared.

I didn't think that everything was right, and I didn't want to be mixed up in things.

I was just about to drop up and leave and let them do their own driving, when the man beside me pulled out a gun and stuck it into my ribs.

I'll make an interview right here if you don't do as I tell you, he said, keep your seat and take those reins.

When he asked me my name an address, I was so scared that I told him the truth, and he said that if I ever breathed the word of what went on that night.

If I ever told a soul, they would find me and kill me.

He said that if they got in any trouble, and if they were put where they couldn't get at me, they would have friends on the outside who would finish the job.

The poor man had lived in mortal terror of his life since that evening, for he knew that what he could tell would be fatal to the case of Jackson and Walling, and at every moment he expected to be killed.

In order to silence his tongue, he'd driven the carriage, with the pistol at his side, across the suspension bridge and threw Newport out to the Fort Thomas Road.

Finally, the man beside him pointed to a dark patch of thicket at one side of the road and said, stop.

The lady's houses down there.

Away.

They told him to wait there to take them back to Cincinnati, explaining that they would accompany her to the door coming back in a few moments.

The man in the carriage got out and carefully helped the woman to alight.

She was wrapped in a long, dark cloak, and she was heavily veiled.

She seemed weak, as though she could hardly stand without leaning against someone.

The man on the box took hold of her other arm, and together the two men walked away, with the sick woman between them.

It seemed as though she were being carried, her feet dragged along the path, but she had not been dead.

The coachman was certain of that, telling his story to the police.

As the trio disappeared, the driver thought he heard a scuffle, then a screa, unquestionably a woman's scream.

Something was terribly wrong, he knew, and he decided to get out of there as speedily as possible.

Five dollars or no, five dollars.

I got off the seat and ran like the devil was after me.

Threw the woods over the bridge and back to Cincinnati.

The carriage did not pass on the way.

I got home at four o'clock in the morning, went straight to bed, and never breathed a word to anybody.

However, when Jackson Jackson, the coach driver and sergeant in the guard, heard the next day that a headless body had been discovered on the same road, he thought at once of the poor girl, And when Jackson and Walling were taken into custody, he knew that these were the two he'd driven on that terrible night.

Later, when he was certain that he was not being followed by their friends, he determined to tell everything he knew.

The police were at once inclined to believe the coachman's story, for he told it in a straightforward manner and showed no signs of breaking down under questioning.

He added a significant remark when he told it a second time, which practically convinced them.

I tied the horse to a railway iron I saw on the ground while I was waiting, He said.

Now that added up perfectly with the findings of the police, for the clothes found in the sewer had been weighted down with a railway iron, which presumably the men had taken along from the spot on the Fort Thomas Road for this very purpose.

Jackson, the carriage driver, identified Walling immediately as the dark man who'd sat beside him, and directed his movements on the hair raising drive.

He hesitated as to Scott Jackson, who stood in the lineup, for he had not seen him as closely.

Finally, he selected with great indecision a man about the same height as Jackson, and then changed to another and then admitted he was not sure, but if I hear them all talk, I can pick out the voice of the man in the carriage, he assured the examiners.

Sure enough, when the men repeated the threats that he declared had been made at once, carriage driver Jackson selected Scott Jackson from the group by his voice, though he could not see him at the time.

His story was supplemented by the Walnut Hill Cab Company, which reluctantly admitted that a closed carriage hired from that evening by men whose description tallied with those of the men in custody, had not been returned until a hostler the next day found it on a side street and drove it back to the stable.

The toll collector at the bridge recalled a closed carriage driven by a black man early in the morning of February first, but to verify the story beyond a doubt, the authorities asked carriage driver Jackson to point out the spot on the Fort Thomas Road where he had driven that night.

They set forth police, detectives, reporters, everybody more than a little pleased with the sensation he was making.

Carriage driver Jackson drove with them, stopping the horse not twenty yards away from where the body had been found, and he pointed, without hesitation, in the right direction.

The two men took the poor lady there that way, he said.

One more important bit of evidence was added to this already overwhelming pile.

A keeper of a house of ill repute came into the police station with a pair of men's overshoes, stained with blood and still muddy, which she said had been left under a sofa in her her establishment shortly after the murder by a man that she believed to be Walling.

The shoes fit Walling perfectly.

He denied owning them naturally enough, and said they probably could fit half the men in Cincinnati.

He also insisted that he would rather claim them than admit that he'd ever been in her house.

Now William Wood, the Greencastle minister's son, begged to talk, and while they were not admitted into the evidence, he repeated verbatim two letters which he said Jackson had written him about Pearl Bryan.

The first letter, according to Wood, ran as follows, Hello, Bill.

I expect you think I've forgotten you, but I haven't.

I've been awfully busy this week.

I haven't been over to Kentucky yet, so you may know that I've been awfully busy.

I work all day in the college and then in the dissecting room, so you see I am busy for sure.

Well to business.

Tell Bert a nickname would explain for Pearl to come on.

I have a very nice room with a nice old lady.

A friend of Walling's will do the work, an old hand at the biz.

We go to his house tonight for supper.

He is a chemist.

I think I will have money enough, But tell Bert to bring all she can, as it may come in handy.

Tell her to leave so as to get here Monday night.

Tell her she can go home for four or five days.

Push it along.

Don't go back on me now, as I am near out of my trouble.

Be sure and burn this when you have read it.

Signed D.

D.

Wood explained was merely a fictitious initial to prevent discovery in case of loss of the letter.

The other letter was said by Wood to have been written after Pearl's death.

It ran, Hello, Bill, be awfully careful what you say.

I'm expecting trouble.

Oh Lord, stand by me.

Do you think the doc will write him?

I made a big mistake and it's going to get me into trouble.

Don't forsake me now.

Now is when I need you most, write Doc, he will stand up for us.

Wony, say Bill, I wish I'd never seen that girl and never seen Greencastle my tough luck.

Anyway, be sure and burn this.

Don't let anyone see it now, Bill, stand by your old chum, signed d.

Was Wood merely trying to fix the blame for Pearl's condition on Jackson.

If not to blame, why had Jackson been so easy eager to assist in the matter.

It was all very strange.

But Wood had burned the letters, and the oral renditions of them were worthless.

The two men, Jackson and Walling, were tried separately.

Jackson's trial began in Newport, Kentucky, on April twenty second, eighteen ninety six, and lasted nearly a month.

Alonzo Walling was tried in an adjoining county.

Both were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.

Counsel for the defense had tried to show that Pearl Brian had met her death in Ohio and that she had been taken dead to Kentucky.

They poo pooed the story that carriage driver Jackson had told and said that black men were not to be relied upon in the witness stand.

They then turned around and brought in another African American to swear that he had been with the coachman that night until early in the morning, and that Jackson therefore could not have driven the carriage.

Yikes.

The defense lawyer for Scott Jackson, Colonel L.

J.

Crawford, had been so able that mister Bryan, in alarm lest his daughter's death should go unavenged, had thrown all his resources in on behalf of the state, and himself paid for an eminent lawyer to aid in the prosecution of the case.

Their trials over and both convicted.

The prisoners were lodged in the same jail to await execution.

Few gave Scott Jackson any sympathy, but the younger man, Alonzo Walling, arounds much pity through the press.

The Governor's desk was flooded with appeals for his life on the grounds that he had been but a tool for the older man, But nothing moved the governor, who refused to interfere in the punishing of the perpetrators of what was considered the most dastardly crime of that decade.

The law was allowed to take its course up to the last moment.

However, nobody thought the governor would let Walling die.

This belief was shared by the sheriff, who delayed the hanging from the unusual hour of seven in the morning until nearly noon to give a message of sentence commutation time to arrive from the Capitol.

No such message came, and the two men were led forth to pay the supreme penalty for the murder of Pearl Bryan.

With them died Much of what might have been interesting to know in connection to the case.

Who was Pearlbrian's betrayer?

Did Jackson intend murdering her when he lured her to Cincinnati under the pretense of helping her.

Was she murdered to conceal her condition, or was she murdered for her head?

Where was her head?

Now?

Large rewards were offered for the recovery of the head, but it was never traced.

To this day, the location of Pearl Brian's missing head remains a mystery.

The poor girl's body lies under stone minus its head.

A tragic end for a life meant for happiness, and we never found out who got Pearl pregnant, although the local Greencastle reverend's son, William Wood, the only local boy involved in this story, seems the likely candidate.

I'm z Evan Oldelberg and this has been kind of murdery

S