Show BIZARRE MURDER MYSTERY TALE OF 1913 IS UNFOLDED dying man confesses paying 2500 to get rid of unwanted wife VISALIA CALIF miles of desert and mountain country between visalia and los angeles are being searched by authorities who hope to find the body of mrs lucinda jane west and the complete solution of a baffling 25 year acar old murder mystery it was in 1913 mrs west and her husband jacob clinton west set out from los angeles for the lonely trip to their tulare county ranch miles to the north their friends and members of their family never saw them again during the intervening quarter century tulare county peace officers made sporadic but unsuccessful efforts to determine what happened to the couple the two daughters of the bests mrs elizabeth antony and mrs mamie higgins of los angeles despaired of learning the fate of their parents and became r reconciled c to a simple theory of disappearance found father changed name then in 1936 they heard that a rancher named jacob clinton had died in a little mountain community south of san francisco they suspected and finally learned definitely that jacob clinton and their father jacob clinton west were the same person from that one fact officials unwound one of the most bizarre stories in the history of crime in california they learned that less than a year after the disappearance west assumed the name of jacob clinton and married his cifes sister mrs hattie downhour they learned that west constantly reassured mrs downhour there was no danger of bigamy because they would never again hear from lucinda the first mrs west west explained his assumed name by saying he was a fugitive from los angeles authorities who wanted him on a forgery charge then mrs Dourn downhour hour told the authorities ties when west was dying two years ago he called her to his bedside hattie he told her 1 I have something to tell you something about lucinda I 1 swear by my god I 1 paid 2500 to a man to get rid of her jealously guarded secret mrs downhour said that was her first inkling she had that her sister had met with foul play at the hands odthe man who then was her husband from that dying statement mrs downhour said she understood why west refused to be given opiates when he suffered violent heart attacks because he feared that in the resulting delirium he might utter self incriminating words with this evidence officials have e established shed that mrs west was murdered d either by her husband or by a hired assassin they now want to learn where the body was hidden they are faced with two possibilities first the body of a woman found in the kings river near visalia the year after the disappearance may have been mrs west second the murdered woman may have been buried somewhere beside the lonely road between visalia and los angeles since there are no records to reveal the identity of the body found in the river they are working on the second theory |