Execution Tales Chapter 47 Revision 2
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47: The Investigation
The investigation into the “College Girl Killers” was intensive & had taken three months involving the police departments of New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Albany, Chicago & the Pinkerton’s.
The Chicago PD had reached out initially to the NYPD to learn from their experience on the Edwards case & as soon as the NYPD learned that one of the accused was Cheryl Barnes they realised that she had been in a perfect position, because of her access to inside information, to change the locations of the murders, thus always staying one step ahead of the authorities. It was at that point that the Philadelphia, Washington DC & Albany forces were brought on board
As the girls had been arrested in Chicago Murdoch & Tierney headed up the investigation. Three months after the arrests Murdoch & Tierney held a meeting with senior officers from all the other forces involved including O’Hanlon & O’Rourke from New York.
Murdoch opened the meeting by saying, “Well gentleman in summary it appears that these three young females may well have killed approximately 83 young women & girls, plus Doctor Harris & the journalist Penny Smithson. The problem is that the only concrete evidence we have got is the dead body found on the boat that initially they denied all knowledge of”.
“They have now changed their story to say that they found the girl hanging in her room having committed suicide, they panicked concerned about the bad publicity this would bring to the College, & knowing that the girl had no family decided that the best solution was just to dump her body in Lake Michigan. They admit that this was the wrong thing to do but that they had done it with the best interests of the College & their students in mind”.
“Their explanation as to why there is no record of former students’ employment or lodgings is that they aren’t very good at administration & these records seem to have been lost. As to why none of the former College girls had replied to the Tribune’s appeals they simply shrugged their shoulders & said that many of their students came from backgrounds that had led them to be very wary of anything that may have resulted in people from the past resurfacing in their lives”.
“They explained the gallows & the garrottes in the basement of the house as things they used when playing out their sexual fantasies fuelled by “True Crime Monthly”, the library books & the “Penny Dreadfuls” we found in the house. While this is thoroughly distasteful to all right thinking folks it is hardly a capital crime”.
“Now everyone in this room knows that these three deserve to hang many times over for what they have done however I just can’t see a Chicago jury of twelve “Good men & true” condemning three young women, all highly attractive I may remind you, to death on what we have got. In fact the likely outcome, if they are believed which I think they may well be, given that the alternative version of events is so on the face of it so horrendous & apparently fantastical, is that they get suspended sentences on the “Obstruction of Justice” charge re the failing to report the “Suicide” of their student”.
O’Hanlon said, “The fact is gentlemen that we need more physical evidence & we simply don’t have it. The only other thing we have got is the body of the prostitute found in the Delaware months ago after the girls time in Philly & we will never be able to tie that to them”.
He went on, “That would also apply to any more corpses we may be able to find in New York Harbour, the Hudson, Potomac or Delaware rivers, assuming there is much left of them. It seems to me if we are going to obtain further presentable evidence it must be here in Chicago, where the most recent murders have taken place”.
Tierney said, “Through my friend in the navy who helped in the arrests I learned that they are testing something called a “Submarine” which apparently is a ship which operates underwater”.
Murdoch said, “What exactly are you proposing Lieutenant?”
Tierney replied, “Well my friend in conversation told me that they were carrying out these trials on Lake Michigan because of its relative shallowness which means that if something goes wrong they have a much better chance of rescuing their people. Apparently the average depth of the lake is about 300 feet, & it is round about 250 feet until you are twenty miles or so out of Chicago. I will ask if they can use this thing to search the bed of the Lake just outside the marina where the girls kept their boat. If we are right about fifteen bodies are down there”
Over the next two weeks the underwater naval vessel searched the bed of the Lake but found nothing. However just when the authorities were thinking about abandoning the search it came across the first body eerily standing on the bed of the lake held in position by the weights attached to the ankles. The submarine released a marker buoy to the surface indicating the location & moved on.
During the next two days ten more corpses were found within an area of approximately one hundred square yards, the location of each being signalled by marker buoys
The next challenge was how to retrieve the dead girls. The navy had been experimenting with lifting equipment which was operated from within the submarine & they now put it to good use.
It took three days until all eleven bodies were brought to the surface, each dressed in the remains of the distinctive College Girl uniforms, black jackets, white blouses & black & yellow plaid tartan skirts
The investigation into the “College Girl Killers” was intensive & had taken three months involving the police departments of New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Albany, Chicago & the Pinkerton’s.
The Chicago PD had reached out initially to the NYPD to learn from their experience on the Edwards case & as soon as the NYPD learned that one of the accused was Cheryl Barnes they realised that she had been in a perfect position, because of her access to inside information, to change the locations of the murders, thus always staying one step ahead of the authorities. It was at that point that the Philadelphia, Washington DC & Albany forces were brought on board
As the girls had been arrested in Chicago Murdoch & Tierney headed up the investigation. Three months after the arrests Murdoch & Tierney held a meeting with senior officers from all the other forces involved including O’Hanlon & O’Rourke from New York.
Murdoch opened the meeting by saying, “Well gentleman in summary it appears that these three young females may well have killed approximately 83 young women & girls, plus Doctor Harris & the journalist Penny Smithson. The problem is that the only concrete evidence we have got is the dead body found on the boat that initially they denied all knowledge of”.
“They have now changed their story to say that they found the girl hanging in her room having committed suicide, they panicked concerned about the bad publicity this would bring to the College, & knowing that the girl had no family decided that the best solution was just to dump her body in Lake Michigan. They admit that this was the wrong thing to do but that they had done it with the best interests of the College & their students in mind”.
“Their explanation as to why there is no record of former students’ employment or lodgings is that they aren’t very good at administration & these records seem to have been lost. As to why none of the former College girls had replied to the Tribune’s appeals they simply shrugged their shoulders & said that many of their students came from backgrounds that had led them to be very wary of anything that may have resulted in people from the past resurfacing in their lives”.
“They explained the gallows & the garrottes in the basement of the house as things they used when playing out their sexual fantasies fuelled by “True Crime Monthly”, the library books & the “Penny Dreadfuls” we found in the house. While this is thoroughly distasteful to all right thinking folks it is hardly a capital crime”.
“Now everyone in this room knows that these three deserve to hang many times over for what they have done however I just can’t see a Chicago jury of twelve “Good men & true” condemning three young women, all highly attractive I may remind you, to death on what we have got. In fact the likely outcome, if they are believed which I think they may well be, given that the alternative version of events is so on the face of it so horrendous & apparently fantastical, is that they get suspended sentences on the “Obstruction of Justice” charge re the failing to report the “Suicide” of their student”.
O’Hanlon said, “The fact is gentlemen that we need more physical evidence & we simply don’t have it. The only other thing we have got is the body of the prostitute found in the Delaware months ago after the girls time in Philly & we will never be able to tie that to them”.
He went on, “That would also apply to any more corpses we may be able to find in New York Harbour, the Hudson, Potomac or Delaware rivers, assuming there is much left of them. It seems to me if we are going to obtain further presentable evidence it must be here in Chicago, where the most recent murders have taken place”.
Tierney said, “Through my friend in the navy who helped in the arrests I learned that they are testing something called a “Submarine” which apparently is a ship which operates underwater”.
Murdoch said, “What exactly are you proposing Lieutenant?”
Tierney replied, “Well my friend in conversation told me that they were carrying out these trials on Lake Michigan because of its relative shallowness which means that if something goes wrong they have a much better chance of rescuing their people. Apparently the average depth of the lake is about 300 feet, & it is round about 250 feet until you are twenty miles or so out of Chicago. I will ask if they can use this thing to search the bed of the Lake just outside the marina where the girls kept their boat. If we are right about fifteen bodies are down there”
Over the next two weeks the underwater naval vessel searched the bed of the Lake but found nothing. However just when the authorities were thinking about abandoning the search it came across the first body eerily standing on the bed of the lake held in position by the weights attached to the ankles. The submarine released a marker buoy to the surface indicating the location & moved on.
During the next two days ten more corpses were found within an area of approximately one hundred square yards, the location of each being signalled by marker buoys
The next challenge was how to retrieve the dead girls. The navy had been experimenting with lifting equipment which was operated from within the submarine & they now put it to good use.
It took three days until all eleven bodies were brought to the surface, each dressed in the remains of the distinctive College Girl uniforms, black jackets, white blouses & black & yellow plaid tartan skirts
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