Show THE O'GDEN STANDARD EXAMINER— SUNDAY MORNING OCTOBER 7 1934 gun n O If 4f bamrt Yearn Bisfmd '7 i 4 H Ml u M t Par© feiTo Die f i 'fc ' i! i f " 5 riyMmmmmmmMr''' T- - ' " 1 ml if hVv v : - : tms?::wKw:is5 vi vv-v-- - m - rf X-- I 7i ?? m-- Ljf- Beach was placed under bail witness material as a $5000 Anderson letters ImThree days later Beach disappeared mediately Beach's attorney Edison Hedges was indicted on the grounds of having advised Beach to leave the jurisdiction of the court Hedges apologized the indictment was quashed and he was forgiven By Madelin Blitzstein "EITHER Dashieli Hammett nor James M Cin nor any of the other spinners of horror yarns can hope to discover a ploHhat is more fan tastic or tragic than the grim story which lurks behind the release of Mrs Margaret Thompson Lilliendahl who was recently paroled from the State" Reformatory for Women at Clinton N J Known as the "Black Widow of South tall and Vineland" this pale worn dark-eye- d dignified woman of middle age is now in Bridgeport Conn reunited with her son Alfred and her brother J Sherwood Thompson frcm whom she has been separated while serving a f ernf for a crime of which she consistently protested she was entirely innocent But it is not only theiyears behind the bars which have lined Mrs Lilliendahl's face and given her a ghastly pallor It is also the fact that she is suffering from a cancer which physicians assert will lead to her death in the not distant future On June 30 when Gov A Harry Moore 15-year-- -- X garet Lilliendahl The fatal weapon was neyer recovered in all these years Indicted for the doctor's murder were his wife 30 years his junior and her alleged add mirer Willis Beach a little man chicken-raisin- g been had chief interest whose of 57 The state asked for a verdict of first degree but the jury of seven men and five women after debating for 2! hours brought in the unusual verdict-o-f voluntary manslaughter with a penalty of 10 years irnprisonment for each Both vigorously protested their innocence before during and after the trial As the meek- - y -- bald-heade- V''isAfiVi it Beach surren- o the police and was accused as an accessory in the murder The next day Beach and the "Black Widow" were indicted for I first degree murder In jail while awaiting trial Beach said: uct O1INdered V'"' "V The "Black Widow"— Mrs Margaret ThompLilliendahU and her son Alfred photographed at the time of her pial seven years ago son er mannered Beach walked into the state penitentiary he told the world that he would not be! there long He was right fori he quickly withered away and three years later died in jail Now with the release and! illness of the "Black Widow" the final chapter is being writ-- i ten on this eerie case ' ' From the start the police I N were baffled by the mystery They never succeeded in gathering more than 'circumstantial evidence and they relied to a! great extent on the gossip of the neighbors Just who fired! the fatal shots remains a mysDr William A Lilliendahl from a snapshot taen not - long before his murder tery to this day and whether! it will ever be satisfactorily solved no one knows the the order for widow's The police did know that "Old Doc" a signed release an official at the penitentiary said : man of failing health who had moved to South Vineland with his wife and their little son! 'The parole was probably granted on account believe health her We of Mrs Lilliendahl's Alfred had conducted a sanatorium for dope! addicts in New York where he had had some case is incurable although she is still able to work trouble with the federal authorities over dis-work She was at yesterday cutting out pensing too much dope They also knew that garments we make for use of inmates in other the old physician "seemed even' more interested state institutions'' in raising poultry than he did in caring for the And as Mrs Lilliendahl faces her newbrief freedom of sick land that he had been wont to consult his but found span apparently she expects to earn her living by sewing For' neighbor Beach on such matters Besides1 they found out that Mrs Lilliendahl had" been though 'her family was prosperous when she : in the habit of taking her husband oa long! went to prison almost seven years ago they are" slow drives through the New Jersey country' poor today ' side for his health v ' The chief protagonist in this weird story which held -- the attention of the entire nation for' on the afternoon :of ' Sept 15 1927 j many months was the dead man Dr A Wileccentric called the Lilliendahls were' catapulted on to the liam lilliendahl a72-year-o: ' ' front page "Old Doc" by his fellow townsfolk of South Louis Ricci and David Amato of Hammon Vineland N J" ton found Mrs Lilliendahl dazed and diHe was found dead in the early fall of desosheveled wandering on the highway about two 1927 in his car in a lonely lane off the killed hours ride from South Vineland In hysterical n Hammonton-Atsioby Highway late tones she shouted to them that het husband three leaden slugs fired into ius head from a his death been murdered by two negro thugs who had 32 caliber revolver At the time of MarMrs his wife jumped on the running board of the car he had been driving wit!" j j - i ld 4 DUT !d h4 n uiiiniiiiiiGiiiiiifiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiyiiiiiiiiiiiiN 1 o at a m "This will come out all right Mrs Margaret liilliehdahl chief figure in one of the most sensational and mysterious triangle-murdcases on record is free again but doomed to death from cancer : 49-year-o- i the woods near the murder spot Several passing motorists had seen a similar piece of cloth hanging" on a tree at the entrance to the lonely the shooting but if was lane before the time-onot there any longer when Mrs Lilliendahl ' gave the alarm The crime began to take "on the appearance of premeditation wpen the investigators considered that possibly the cloth had been put up as a marker for the spot where the murder Fresh tire marks of a was to be committed second car were found near the murder scene and a motorist told of having seen a blue sedan emerge from the woods at a tejrific speed On Sept 1 9 Mrs Lilliendahl was held in $25000? bail as a material witness Three days later &he returned to her home Ashe son detectives swarmed about her his he heard often disclosed had that Alfred father and mother quarreling over Mr Beach "My mother often came to my bedside at f attacked and robbed her and then killed her husband Mrs Lilliendahl then collapsed and when she revived from a deep faint at the Hammon-to- n Emergency Hospital she told the authorities similar tale of how the men had ordered her a to drive into a lonely sand lane had then beaten her severely had killed the doctor while he attempted to defend her and had robbed them She said that she had collapsed and then' revived sufficiently to rur to the road for help The fire bell of Hammon-to- n few- rang out that afternoon and a posse under the leader ship of Capt William J v y v x Carter-wa- s sentout to search f the woods and guard all I 9 ' find roads f They could ' neither men nor guns At the state police bar- racks Mrs Lilliendahl was I examined but no signs of bruises or injuries were found on her body nor was her clothing badly torn:! At the scene of the murder police found a ruby ring a wrist watch and a pocketbook with $20 in it The poultryman Willis Beach who had a wife and two grown ' children of his own came to see Mrs Lilliendahl and offer her his Willis Beach assistance- - in her distress The robbery motive liow-- i ' V ever seemed to break down ? rapidly as new developments followed" The postmaster at Vineland stated that Mrs Lilliendahl had been receiving letters under the name of Peggy Anderson every day He said that that Beach? had written the letters he knew " Beach later admitted this at the trial The town florist declared that Beach had been in Lilliendahl -- the habit of buying flowers for Mrs discovered in white cloth of was A piece (Copyright 193 by EveryWeek Magazine) 2 ' f I: s 7 " -- f v I ani not the I just wish I was out of here least bit afraid however to talk to these people who have been telling lies about me'' And Mr Lilliendahl clad in widow's! weeds calm and yawning spoke to the press of her innocence and the hosts of friends uponwhom she could depend for help and sympathy The state opened its trial at Mays Landing with a surprise witness Samuel Bark a trick roper md circus man from Oklahoma" who said that Beach had confessed the murder to him Oct 1 in Baltimore when Beach had been a fugitive According to Bark Beach said: "I had to do it When I came up to him in the woods he started raising hell and I shot him I had been ordered off his place and was in bad because I had taken some dope to New York for him and blew the money" The prosecution produced 67 witnesses in all It produced evidence of blood on the widow's handbag and showed that the murder scene had been marked on the maps in the au- tomobile As the state closed its -- case Mrs Lilliendahl's lawyer Robert H McCarter asked for the dismissal of his client on the ground that nothing had been proved against her He lost and the trial proceeded On the stand Mrs Lilliendahl repeated her utter innocence and retold the story ot the thugs who assaulted her and her husband and killed him beach s detense was an alibi to prove that he had not been anywhere near the fatal spot when the murder had He denied been committed been there had thtt anything more than an innocent friendship between him and Mrs Lilliendahl The jury 4' i 4 I 1 iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiioiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiih- - o after casting ballots came in with a eight verdict o voluntary manslaughter and 1 0 years' prison for each V When Jess than one-thir- d of his sentence had been served the wispy little poulA tryman fell ill and died in the State Prison at- Trenton on OcL 13 1930 Mrs Lilliendahl kept on repeating" that she was innocent but showed no resentment against her confinements She became 7 a "student ofii- - -- in court with (right) the luckless poultryman photographed ' his lawyer t Edison Hedges night and when she knelt down beside me could see she had been crying" "Alfred said "I would ask her what was the matter and she would say that she and daddy had been quarreling over Mr Beach" On Sept 24 it was disclosed that Beach and Mrs Lilliendahl had been in the habit oi using a hollow oak1 tree as a clandestine post -- i office for- - the exchange of additional Peggy cer" an honorary title ia and attended the prison "mental stimulus" classes in which books playt She proved herself a and ideas are discussed capable and willing housekeeper and seamstress Today this sole survivor of a triangle murder case which is one of the most sensational in the crime history of New Jersey and one of the most mysterious in the country is back with But she is broken in health and her family she keeps on repeating that she is innocent -- 1 'iiilllIIIIIIIIIIilllllilllllilllilllllllllllllllllillllllllllllillllllllUCIH |