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Show SLASH Of RAZOR HER ANSWER TO HUSBAND'S PLEA; "HELP ME, HONEY" BY EDWARD A. VANDEVENTER. Agnes Myers is one of the most wonderful persons I have ever met, and she has proved an unsolvable puzzle to men of science, lawyers, detectives and the police from the day she was arrested three years ago for killing her husband. hus-band. She has the eye of a serpent, keenest times, and again glittering and puzzling to look at,. but always fascinating fasci-nating and penetrating. Many times I have talked through the heavy steel bars of the county jail in Kansas City and at other times in the jail at Liberty, MoUo this frail little woman, and always I leit her more puzzled than before. The reporters on the Kansas City papers who were sent to see Mrs. Myers in the jails, have often made wagers on who could look her straight in the eye the longest. But I never found anybody who claimed he could gaze into those wonderful, black eyes long enough to make her turn aside her gaze. They are pretty eyes the eyes of a hypnotist. When Agnes Myers stands in her little cell and talks through the bars she always looks straight into the eyes of her interviewer, and there is constantly a smile on her pretty face. And it was those eyes and that bewitching smile that lured poor, ignorant Frank Hottman from the peaceful little town of Higginsville, Mo., to the Myers home in Kansas City at midnight to do murder, that he might revel in the presence of this woman who had bewitched him. HOTTMAN IS WEAK-WILLED. Hottman was a simple, good-natured, weak-willed country boy, working hard in the coal mines sometimes and other times washing dishes in the town restaurant. He was no "ladies' man" and he had not learned the defense against the wiles of the charmer. Agnes Myers found him easy to mould to her wishes when murder crept into her heart and she needed a brute to do the killing. She had lived in Higginsville when a little girl and though was several vears older than Hottman, she had played the games of childhood with him. Then she moved away. When she returned to the little hamlet for a visit in the spring of 1904, she carried the plot for her husband's death securely locked in ner heart. Slowly she intoxicated the simple mind of Hottman with her charms until his brain reeled with the madness and his blood ran hot through his veins at the touch of this black-eyed woman. Like the bird sits defenseless and dazed as the serpent blinks its dreamy eyes and slowly coils for the spring of death, so Frank Hottman sat beside this woman in many buggy rides in the country around Higginsville, with the perfume of the peach and apple blossoms in the air, and let her weave the tangled web around bim. He forgot all else except ex-cept this new sensation of love that bnrned in his brain. Then Agnes Myers knew she had bagged her game, and slowly, like a purring tigress, happy in her capture, she unwove the cruel plot so skillfully and so soothingly that Hottman only listened and obeyed. SHE'S A LITTLE WOMAN. She is a little woman, slender, willowly and graceful. She does not reach Hottman 's chin and the Bertillon measurements at the Kansas City police station show her weight was only ninety pounds when she was arrested. Her hair is long and flowing and as black as the raven. Pretty, drooping eyebrows shield the piewing orbs, and with that smile always present, Agnes Myers is a woman to charm any man. Hottman is a powerful man, physically. With broad shoulders, a splendid figure and the look of strength and health stamped on his face, he stands five feet ten inches. One eye is erossed and gives him a ghastly, uncanny look. Hottman always smiles, too, but his is a sickly, silly smile, telling in its mute way the story of his weak will and lack of self-control. It was midnight, May 11. 1904, when he tip-toed quietly to the Myers home. He had the heavy end of. a billiard cue in bis right band and he was nervous, as he said afterwards, for thefjob was not to his liking. As he stepped on the porch a dog's bark broke the reepv stillness of the night and sent a quiver to his coward heart. Hottman hurried back into the darkness and felt chills of fear rush over him. DOG HER COMFORTER. It was little Cassie which barked and frightened him away the dog : " T (Continued on Page 6.). . i . (Continued from Page 1.) which was later to be the only comforter and companion of Agnes Myers while tha came of life and death was being played over her head. Clarence Myers, a hardworking, honest pressman, was ill that night and was sleeping with his treacherous wife by bit side. He stirred at the bark of the dog and she went out to quiet Cassie, for she knew her paramour had arrived. The dog was locked in a room and scolded to quietness. When all was still again Hottman walked toward the back door of the kitchen and lightly rapped. He said afterwards that he heard the distant hoot of a screech owl in the woods along the Blue river and it almost drove him back. But the door opened noiselessly and again he heard .that soothing, seductive voice of Mrs. Myers and he was blinded again. . "Be still a few minutes, Frank," she said to him. "Clarence is restless and asked for a drink. I'll bet be will' sleep now," and then, Hottman says, she pnt some powders in the glass of water and took it to ber feverish hus- . band. When she returned to Hottman she said all was well and the time for the assassination had arrived. . ' "My knees shook and my whole body trembled as I waited in that kitchen alone," Hottman told me after he had confessed to the killing. "The minutes seemed like years and every little noise froze my heart with terror. I had a big bottle of whisky in my pocket and three times while I was alone I took a drink. Mrs. Myers went back and lay down by her Clarence and rubbed his 4 forehead, telling him to go to sleep, and the powder soon got in its work. As she led me from the kitchen to the sleeping room, the dim rays of light from a street lamp on the corner fell on Myers lace and I heard his heavy breathing breath-ing as be slept. "I raised the heavy club and struckj but mv hand was unsteady from the Whisky and the aim was bad. The club struck Myers a glancing blow on the aide of the head and be jumped from his bed, yelling that burglars were in , Xhe room. He began as desperate a fight aa I ever saw a man make and we ' struggled all over the house. f As we reached the dining-room he called out to his wife, 'Help me honey, help me.',. . ,-It was little help he got from 'her. She came running from the bedroom with a heavy slat and struck him three or four times on the head. 'Ton are kitting the wrong fellow, honey, he called to her and she left us again. v i v"e kad trURR,'d until we were facing each other. I hda dropped the , eiub and I we were holding each other's hands, Myers believing his wife would eome to his rescue, and I knowing ahe would slip up behind him and do the killing. kill-ing. "She carried a pair of scissors when she returned and began stabbing Myers in the neck and back with them. They were not doing the work fast enough and she got the razor from his drawer. "As she slipped up behind him again, Myers was struggling to free himself him-self from my grasp. Beaching around In front,-she drew the cold blade of the rasor across his neck and the streams of blood gushed forth in torrents, covering: cov-ering: me from head to foot. The blood got In my eyes and ran down my coat hr J1 M 1 h?ld rtnifKUng man. Again she slashed with the rasor and I felt his struggle grow weaker. His knees began to bend under him. Slowly he sank forward and I let him fall on his face as his wife kept cutting and elaahing with the rasor until his body was hacked in a dozen places." Hottman 's clothes were so soaked with blood that he left his hat, cuffs and coat behind and wore Myers' clothes away. The woman put the bloody garments in a closet and burned her own night gown. When the detectives searched the house they found them and that gave the key to the mystery. Mrs. Myers remained in the honse with the dead all night. She told the neighbors neigh-bors and police that two negro burglars had killed her husband. After a chase across the continent Hottman was caught in Walla Walla. Wash. . "We know air about it. Hottman," said Detective Kinney of Kansas City as he met the murderer. "Mrs. Myers has confessed and tola everything, but lays the blame on you. Now come through like a sensible man and tell the story pust right and it will be better for you." The simple-minded Hottman believed them and was so angry at the woman wo-man for betraying him that he told every detail of the crime and signed several sev-eral statements. Lvery investigation proved his story trues But he was told on reaching Kansas City that Mrs. Myers had not told a word of the plot and ( stoutly maintained her innocence. Hottman learned that she had cared no more for him than a dog, but loved a railroad man and used him to get her husband out of the wit. He has told me several times that be was ready to die any time the law . decreed it, but be wanted the woman to die with him so be can see ber soul tortured in the after world, for Hottman believes he is doomed to everlasting torment for bis deed, and, weak-willed as be is, he has given up all hope ana quietly waits for his doom-Mrs. doom-Mrs. Myers is different. Every time I talked with her she has expressed firm belief that the yawning noosd and the gallows will not claim her as a victim. vic-tim. And had not all the evidence been so convincing against her she would have made me believe her innocence many times, for she talks so earnestly . about it and looks you in the eye so straight as she vows before the God above that she never killed her husband or knew of any plot to kill him. ' Mrs: Myers has shed but two tears since the murder. Those came when the long trial for her life was closing. Her leading counsel painted a word picture of her hanging so graphic ana gruesome that three jurors cried and Mrs. Myers' mother sprang to ner feet screaming, "My God, thev can't hang . , my baby. Oh, my darling little girl, you are all I have. I will not let them tear you from me." It was a dramatic scene. We reporters who were "covering" the trial for the Kansas City papers had been instructed by our city editors to watch for Agnes to break down and cry, for that would be the feature of the trial. We knew the tricks of the lawyer and watched the woman closely. One tiny" tear started from each eye and quickly disappeared. It was the best she could do though her lawyers had pleaded with her to break down and sob as if her heart were breaking. She had no heart. She had no emotion. It was impossible to cry and 'she quickly gave up the attempt. "Tears are too often shed over the wrong grate," were the first words of the clever prosecutor as he faced the Jury, and that sentence ruined all the effect of the mother's screams and brought the three weeping jurors back to their senses. . T In the cell where Agnes Myers awaits her fate, a man was hanged early one morning several years ago. The rope was fastened to the ceiling of the cell and he was pushed off a chair and strangled to death. It was the Job of a butcher, and his blood spattered over the Iron bars, the walla of the room and on the floor. Every time Mrs. Myers opens her eyes she sees these blood stains and they picture to her the death she may have to pay for that murder three years ago. |