Show THE SAIT LAKE TRIBUNE MAT 17 1838 ' P3 irl SHE SUNDAY MORNING Gills Stayed Horn But They Fell Into the Hands of the Police —a Grim Contrasting Chapter from the Seamier Side of Life in a Big City— hated poverty and she wag unhapffy in the of her home She craved excitement beautiful clothes and — love So on a Springlike in March 1935 Bellmore Marie Woron Iong Island girl ran away from home drifted into New York and was caught Quickly in the dizzy whirlpool of human emotions Just the other day she sat in New York's Homicide Court scorned as the killer of her baby and branded like Hawthorne's Hester with the Scarlet dy Letter Marie like thousands of other girls who run away rom home every year found none of the things she most desired It was a spurious love that "a man named Joe” offered her and the Bowery dive into which he thrust her and where she gave birth to his baby — and hers was in the words of her lawyer Rose Rothenberg "not 6t for a sty to keep pigs in" Yet it was for this that Marie ran away from her home and the “old fashioned” mother and father who tried to keep her in school and away from the bad influences into which Bhe was drifting Today Marie is living under restraint She has been placed under the charge of the Children’s Society but despite the frightful ordeal she underwent when she was on trial for murder ahe has not been disillusioned “1 want to live my own life” she flippantly declared "I don't went to to San Aw I t and Maybe You’ll Say that Destiny Cannot Be Denied the society until she is 21 After that what? "Marie's life is all tangled in a question mark" Miss Rotherberg ND this is the macabre story of Ellen and Margaret Meyers two little girls from the East Side of New York her lawyer confided who stayed at home Ellen "What will be her future was 14 and Margaret 12 after she is freed of the and they were the eldest of restraint the law has put a family of flye children her under? Will she have born in a cold dismal flat in one of the thousands of profited by her experience? Will she seek comtenements which sprawl fort in later years with along Third Avenue those old folks she ran They didn’t want pretty clothes or a gay exciting away from? Hardly "I did not like Marie life They were satisfied I sympathized with her with the bare necessities of I wanted to help her but life Their father Harry somehow she seemed Meyers drank up most of the type of child f iiat $83 the family received ijdthe one no experience can from the Home Relief Bu reau They didn’t complain help “ She has not the capacthat their dresses were of ity to understand sym- cheap cotton and torn or pathy Now a man might because their shoes were not understand But I almost without soles They understood She told me had never known anything that she did not want to better and were happy just kill the child that if she so long as they were not did so she did not know beaten by their father that she' had done so She But the father waa not said she wanted her baby satisfied The $83 was not I believed and I believe enough to satisfy his thirst now that she was insane for liquor So he decided -irresponsible She one day to educate his two didn’t shed a tear She girls to become sneak didn’t even look like a thieves Like the Fagin of human in trouble The fiction he taught them to jurors looked at her with visit the apartments of o puzzlement in their eyes people in the betAnd she looked at the ter neighborhoods drilled jurors She was an enig- into their little heads ma And I did so want to pathetic story to tell each intended victim and trained help her "Today she is to me them how to snealin and just Marie Woron alias steal whatever they found Joan Patterson a child of value within reach born to Russian immiDetectives who took the HER HOAX FAILED grants born to live and baby thieves into custody This Sullsn Young Lady Said die with the fatalism and have checked up their robSha Was "Joan Patterson 21 beries and find that within stolidity of the East deepYears Old” but tha Judge one month they gathered in ly rooted in her soul" Learned She Was Really Maria Woron But what you' ask about Marie’s loot valued at more than $4500 and more 15 Years Old A Manslaughter Charge than $500 in cash parents? Against Her Was Dismissed and She "Out daddy taught us how to steal" Her mother is a sturdy middle-age- d Was Shipped Away to a Children's Ellen told detectives of the East 67th Russian woman Home "if Mane will be contented with what Street Station after their arrest "We Woron I didn't want my mother and didn't think it was wrong because we father disgraced that’s why I said that we give her we will be glad to have her back” she says "If she has not learned brought money borne to kirn and be said J was Joan Patterson "I ran away because my parents were from her experience then it’s better that mamma wouldn't have to work so bard If we bad known it was wrong we too strict too old fashioned I wanted that they send her somewhere" to go out and do things and see things would not have done it" Evidently Marie has not learned from but my parents would not let me No Of Meyers denied that he tuI don’t want to go back 1 don’t care her awful experience — learned that run- tored course his babies in the art of petty thievwhat they do to me” are away girls constantly in peril When3 Justice Bohan was apprised of ery “They learned it from other kids in child psychologists "Marie "But" say the facts and shown the record proving the neighborhood” he offered ai an exthat Marie waa born Oct 29 1920 he is adolescent Maybe time will change cuse But the mother of the children promptly declared a mistrial The first her" corroborated them She told the police and second degree murder charges were she had witnessed several sessions that withdrawn and Marie was turned over of her husband’s “crime school” to the Children’s Court as a"juvemle "He used to' tell them not to steal delinquent She will remain a ward of from stores in the neighborhood" she said “He got raffle tickets for them and m?" vs told them to go along fashionable Park Avenue and ring apartment bells He t told Ellen bow to keep the women who answered the bell interested while Margaret sneaked in and stole Ob I knew it was wrong But I was helpless and besides if I said anything be would kill me I knew that no good would come of it" Ellen and Margaret became adept in the matter of entering fashionable houses eluding doormen They’d wait until these were engaged elsewhere and then sneak in They usually robbed only one family in a house But Meyers failed to teach his pupils two things not to get caught and not td squeal On April 9 (Holy Thursday) police were dizzy answering complaints' of sneak thieves along Park Avenue Squad cars were sent out Detectives patroled the neighborhood One of the calls came from Miss Louise O’Toole who lived in a large Park Avenue apartment She said that two children bad called on her and induced her to buy a raffle ticket Soon after they had left she had missed her purse with $26 in it She described the children to detectives The oldest one she said had brown hair wore a blue ski suit and blue beret Within an hour the pair was spotted They were seen entering a moving picTHIS PHOTO DID IT ture theatre When they were taken to When Little Marie Woron’ Relative Sew Thi Newipeper Photo of “Joan Patterson" Stepping from a Police “Black Maria" They Ruhed Forward to Identify the station house the girls frankly adHer and Saved Her from Trial for a Heinous Crime mitted that they had stolen the money a well-to-d- "BRIDGE OF SIGHS” The Little Girl Who Ran Away Waa Caught by the Cameraman Here Walking Acrosa tha Famous “Bridge of Sighs” Which Leads to the Courtrooms "From the Equally Famous Tombs Prison in New York back home There is nothing but work there for me I hate it all" i Marie's experiences as a runaway girl in New York were climaxed with the birth and death of her baby in a roomin a Bowery hotel She was playing cards in the back of a Bowery saloon when the police arrested her for strangling her child She said that her name was Joan Patterson and She gave her age as 21 Afterwards in court she testified that she did not remember anything that happened during the ordeal of birth with no one there to help her Her strangled babe it seems (was found that same day in a hallway not far away "Joe told me that he was going to get the police "But be a doctor” shi-to- ld ran out on me and I had to go through with it alone" Her identity hidden under the name of Joan Patterson Marie sat for days within the shadow of the electric chair1 She amazed everyone by her apparent indifference Her strange story attracted the attention of newspaper reporters One paper printed her picture Then it was that Fate intervened to save Marie from paying the penalty for the crime she was accused of having committed Her cousin Steve Neukowich living in Brooklyn saw in the photograph of Joan Pattersop a striking resemblance He carried the picture to Mr and Mrs Samuel Voron and they too were sure that Joan Patterson was none other than their missing Marie Confronted by her parents in the Women’s House of Detention Marie showed the first sign of emotion She broke down'and wept and then fainted "Yes" she admitted “I am Marie v sjy4 r' Cewmsbi iWi Kiat TRAGIC DAUGHTERS OF THE EAST SIDE Ellen (La ft) and Margaret Meyer T wo Little GirU Who “Stayed at Home”— end Were Arretted a Sneak Thieves Destiny Seems to Wreak Havoc with Some Girl No Matter Whether They Stay at Home or Run Away and then they pointed the accusing finger at their father They told the police that ' if they returned home empty handed he would beat them unmercifully Tenants in the house in which the Meyers family lived corroborated the story of the beatings Even after he had been confronted with his prison record showing convictions for larceny abduction and rape Meyers remained defiant and denied being a ‘‘Fagin’’ type of father "Aw the kids just stole because they learned it irom the other kids” he aaid "They thought it was smart" But the modern Fagin couldn’t explain what he was doing with a lot of tfye stolen jewelry nor could he explain where he got most of the money he spent setting up the boys in the neighborhood BRANDED A “FAGIN FATHER” to drinks at the corner saloon Father of ElHarry Mayer Now “Fagin” Meyers is in jail and his len and Margaret Who Waa Accused of Teaching Hi Little Daughters How to babies are in the cnatody of the ChilRob Apartment He Waa “Mued-Up- ” dren’s Society by the Police at This Photo Shows 'IfilPR If ”NO MORE LADIES” Little Ellen and Margaret Were Caugbt by the Police When They Used Stolen Money to Visit This New York Movie — and Perhaps There Is Some Significance ia the Title of the Picture Being Shown IjMmta iat X7 f i |