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Show Murder In Prison Cell Is Puzzle; Slayer Willed $500 Handwriting Is Key to Mystery; Lawyer Believes Be-lieves Slain Man Was Writer; Entire Case Is Queer. j CLEVELAND, O., Nov. 20 (NEA) : A murder that took place In the supposedly safe confines of a cell jin the county jail here has given j local police one of the most puzzling puz-zling mysteries of recent years. There isn't any doubt about who committed it. But efforts to find out what lay back of the killing have led investigators into a tangled tan-gled web of obscure motives and emotions that may leave them completely com-pletely befogged. Here are the objective facts: Don Prentiss, held for federal authorities au-thorities on a Mann act charge, was locked in the jail awaiting transfer to Atlanta prison. The jail being overcrowded, another prisoner, also awaiting transfer to Atlanta, was put in the same cell. This prisoner was James T. Nevins. The other night Nevins wrenched loose from the wall of the cell a section of lead pipe and beat Pren-, tiss to death with it. He explained that he had had nothing against Prentiss; he .had been so enraged against the federal fed-eral judge who had sentenced him, however, that his rage had simply boiled over. The unlucky Prentiss had simply been the handiest vehicle. ve-hicle. Had $25,000-a-Year Job i This sounded weird enough. And then the police began to find out things. They found out, first, that Prentiss Pren-tiss was until a few months ago a $25,000-a-year sales executive for a big automobile company at Lansing, Lan-sing, Mich. He was married and had children and seemed a shining example ex-ample of the ambitious, capable young business man. He was a member of country clubs and prominent prom-inent socially. Then something went wrong. He took to drinking, eventually going off on a prolonged spree that carried car-ried him to Chicago, broke up his home and cost him his job. His employers bought his contract for $12,000 cash. He never returned to Lansing. Some weeks ago Prentiss came to Cleveland, accompanied by Virginia Vir-ginia Palmer, a former nursemaid in his household. Cleveland police at that time were searching for a certain holdup man, and Prentiss fell into their net. He easily established es-tablished his innocence, but admit- ted Virginia Palmer was not his wife, and the police turned him , (Continued on Page Three) 1 . CELL MURDER Continued from Page One over to federal authorities. That was fact Number one. The next fact made the case more puzzling. puz-zling. In his cell, after his death, was found a scribbled will. In it Prentiss Pren-tiss set forth that he had $30,000 in life insurance. The will directed that certain shares be paid to his children, to his sister, to his wife and to Miss Palmer and added a bequest of $500 to Nevins. And it is that last item that has the police up a tree. Some of them believe that Prentiss, Pren-tiss, overcome with shame at his disgrace, wanted to die and leave his widow his modest fortune, and that he hired Nevins to kill him, lacking any handy means of committing com-mitting suicide in his cell. That would explain the $500 bequest. be-quest. Handwriting Experts Tackle- Tuzzle Others, however, believe that Nevins saw him write the will and added the $500 bequest himself, hammering Prentiss to death first, and in his ignorance of legal matters, mat-ters, believing that the legacy would hold water. Handwriting experts are now studying the will. Prentiss' lawyer believes it was written in Prentiss' handwriting. Assistant U. S. District Dis-trict Attorney Donald Van Buren, however, believes that the handwriting hand-writing is Nevins'. At all 'events, Nevins soon will stand trial for first degree murder. But whether his trial will definitely clear up the mystery is uncertain. Did Prentiss, overcome by remorse, re-morse, take what he conceived to be the only honorable way out of his difficulty and hire Nevins to kill him? Or did Nevins see a chance to make a little money by clubbing his cellmate to death, and forge the will after the murder to do it? The exact truth may never be known. |
