OCR Text |
Show BLACKHAND IN SALT LAKE Detectives Capture a Young Man Who Had Attempted to Obtain ! $1,000 From Miss Droothy Bamberger Blackmailer Caught at a Telephone Salt Lake, July 19 An ungovernable ungovern-able desire, almost a madness, to sot money for the completion and promo-1 tion of a device for an electric rail road block nlgna!, Is believed to be I the underlying reason for the complicity com-plicity of W. L.. Cummlngs, a 23-year-old boy. In the writing and mailing of three black hand let'er9 last Sunday. Sun-day. Cummings was caught jester-day jester-day by J. Gaylord, a private detective, in a machinery store In West Second South street, where he had attempted to telephone to Miss Dorothy Bamberger Bamber-ger to meet him with the raonty demanded de-manded In his letter. The detective took the youth to the office of the United Sf-ites marshal, where he confessed his part in the black hand plot, claiming, however, that a man named E. A. Purge had conceived the plan and had written the letter to Miss Bamberger, fore Inc him to make the black hand draw I Ing on the bottom of the letter. a iormai complaint was issued 1 I charging him with "devising and in-1 tending ti devise a scheme and arti flee to defraud Dorothy Bamberger and other persons unknown out of the sum of $1000." He was then taken before I'nlted States Commissioner . Charles Baldwin, where upon arraign ment he pleaded not guilty and was ordered held for trial. His bond wa I fixed at $2000, In default of which he j was taken to the county Jail. The preliminary hearing in the case will I be held before Commissioner Baldwin' next Wednesday morning at 1 0 I o'c'ock. Cummings yesterday afternoon freely admitted his part in the prepar- ation of the letterto Miss Bamberger The letter demanded the immediate payment of $1000 under penalty of death Miss Bamberger was told to j go to the White House hotel. Second Sec-ond South and Main street, and there register under the name of Daisy Nelson " No further Instructions were j given, In the letter except an admonition admoni-tion to study the drawing at the bottom bot-tom of the page. The drawing showed what purport ed to be an infernal machine containing contain-ing dynamite, gun cott-n and nitro glycerin The explosives are pictured I as contained in a suitcase, and ?o ar-' ar-' ransed as to explode when the handle I is touched On the reerse of the . letterhead was written In pencil a statement to the effect that th suit case would contain sufficient explo- sive to blow up a city block. I-iat night the police department was Informed of two other black hand letters which had been rereUrl h Miss May Donohue. 273 Seventh avenue, ave-nue, and Mrs. Cnthla Hardy Anderson, Ander-son, 27C Third avenue The wording of the two letters and that received by Miss Bamberger are almost Identl cal. In each case the drawings are alike and the death threat is the same The letters are all written on a typewriter, apparently the same machine, ma-chine, and the paper and envelopes used In all three cases are alike. The I signature in typewriting to each let-' let-' tr is ".Tamoo McCormick." The one received hy Miss Bamborgex, h"ow-i h"ow-i ever, is the only one contalnlne the written statement n the reverse side I C'ummiugs bears every evidence of 1 belnK a drug user, hut yesterday denied de-nied usinK opiates The capture of Cummins was I brought about yesterday after two days' work on the part of detectives from a private agency and the co-' co-' operation of a secret service opera-live opera-live of the government. In the course I of the several traps which were laid for CumminRP a girl bearing a general I resemblance to Miss Bamberger and wearing her clothes and hat. was em plnyed by the detectives. Mips Bamberger, when she received I the letter at the Hotel Utah, where I she registered after returning from New York on Tuesjday, at once turned it over to her father. J R Bamberger who employed the detectives to catch the writer. On Wednesday Miss Bamberger re-i re-i reived a telephone call from a man who said he was the writer of th letter and who wished to specify a place where the money was to be delivered. de-livered. The detectives were notified : and arrangements were made to Intercept In-tercept any further messages which might be received On Thursday the I serond telephone call was made, and i Miss Bamberger was told to go to the twelfth floor of the Walker Bank building to meet In the hallway a man to whom she was to deliver the money. mon-ey. At this point thn girl detective was brought into play. Donning the clothes of Miss Bamberger, for it was feared that the blackhand writer might know his intended victim by sight, the girl went to the Walker UU. Ill all UlU.r UU UT .u.u, floor was stationed W. I. Wlllsle, local lo-cal manager for the detective agency. agen-cy. Down the hall Thomas R. Mc-i Mc-i Manus. the government agent, took his stand The girl detective walked to the office of-fice door behind which Wlllsle was standing ready to reply to a prearranged prear-ranged signal when the black hand writer appeared In a few moments Cummings accompanied by another J man. yesterday Identified as Budd, came up In the elevator and after loitering In the hall for a few moments mo-ments walked up to the girl and asked if she was waiting for someone She I replied in the affirmative and Cum-' Cum-' mlngs then a6ked if she vas waiting j for McCormick. The girl did not answer an-swer at once and then said, you mean Mr Bamberger." CumrnlngR Is said to have turned hurriedly away and to have passed McManus on his way to the elevator eleva-tor The latter got a good look at Tummlngs, but did not arrest him, as the signal had not been given Yesterdav morning Cummings was recognized on the street by J. Gay-lord, Gay-lord, one of the private detectives on the case, and was followed to the F C. Richmond Machinery company, 117 West Second South street. Cummings went In. Gaylord following, and asked ask-ed to use the telephone. He gave the telephone operator the number of the Hotel Utah and when answered asked for Miss Bamberger Gaylord at once took Cummings In charge and hurried him to the office of United Stales marshal, where after a few moments of questioning Cummings admitted that he was connected with the black hand plot He was shown the letter and Indicated In-dicated to the officers the part he had played According to his story, however, how-ever, he was acting for the man Burge. who Cummings said, was waiting wait-ing at a convenient dmg store for the result of the telephone message Text of the Letter The letter written to Miss Bamberger Bamber-ger follows "Salt Lake City, UUh. 7-14-13, "Miss Dorothy Bamberger, for your own benefit and safety we demand that you give us one thousand dol-I dol-I lars vou co to the Whltehouse Hotel on main & 2nd south and register under un-der the name of Daisy. Nelson If you done we will get yout It may take B year more but just the same we'll get you we do nothing in a hurry as this tis the greatest Organizations In the world yet we never had to destroy any lives still we have compelled com-pelled the Royalty, of Europe to com across for us Because they were sensible sen-sible and reallazed the were Powerless Power-less we are only part of a gange operating op-erating now In Europe Possibly you have read of the disappearance o! the Jewels of Royalty right recently you are being watched from your arrival ar-rival here the Police will be unable I To sae vou Just look over the en I closed drawing and study it and you will realize how Helpless you are In our hands so the only thing to do Is to pa one thousand dollars you must be at the above address with the money on the 17th, of July 1913 to disobev will mean vour death at 3.30 PM, "Yours repct "JameB McCormick." On the reverse side the writer had penned the following: "This suit case Dynamite Boomb will Destroy a whole city Block It contains 8 quarts ot nitroglycerine, besides Dynamite & gun cotton It la exploded with electricity." According to Wlllsle, the reason for not arresting Cummings when he appeared ap-peared on the twelfth floor of the Walker Wal-ker bank building Thursday afternoon after-noon was that no demand was made for the money and Cummings did not even ask the young woman detective who impersonated Miss Bamberger whether she was Miss Bamberger. He said . "We had three men planted In the building one on the eleventh one hidden on the twelfth and another on the third floor About 4 45 o'clock two men appeared on me iwemn floor. One was Cummings and the other was Budd After hesitating for a few minutes as If In doubt, Cummings Cum-mings stepped up to the supposed Miss Bamberger and Inquired If she was waiting for some one. "'I am waiting for Mr McCormick, ' was the reply. " 'Well, he Is downstairs in an automobile. auto-mobile. I'll tell him that you are waiting and ho will come up." "Cummings and Budd then wont down on the elevator. They did not come back During the conversation of Cummings and the woman detective detec-tive Budd stood to one side, and, although al-though he did not hear the conversation, conversa-tion, he will be an important witness in proving that Cummings actually talked to the young woman "The reason we did not make the arrest Thursday was because no demand de-mand had been made for the money. The chances are ten to one that Cum-mlnga Cum-mlnga would have stood pat and denied any connection with tho aifalr. Then a smart lawyer would have picked what case we had to pleees. "The letter demanding the $1,000 In gold was received by Miss Bamberger Bam-berger on the night of July 14 On the morning of July 16 Mr. Bam berger came to our office and turned over the letter. We Ifnmedlatelj started work on the case. The writer had demanded thai Miss Bamberger register under an assumed nani- t the White House hotel We laid plans for this move by putting two men 'n the hotel, making an investigation of the persons staying at the hotel and arranging for a young woman detective detec-tive to Impersonate Miss Bamberger "At 11 o'clock Thursday morning some one called up Miss Bamberger at tho Hotel Utah. Assistant Super Intendent J Gaylord of the agenO) was on an excursion of the room phone and heard the entire conversa tion. A man who have his name as Mc Cormlck asked for Miss Bamberger Gaylord paid rinse attention to the voice and Is prepared to swear th;it It was Cummings' votre He told Miss Bamberger that he had decided to change his plans that she was to meet him at 6.30 o'clock In front of the Empress theater. "But how will I know who you are?" she asked. 1 That's right." he hurriedly re plied "Instend of that, you meet me at 4:20 o clock on the twelfth floor of the Walker Bank building.' " Miss Bamberger's Story Describing the recipt of the letter and tho arrest of Cummings, Miss Baml-erger said last night The letter was awaiting us when we arrhed on Tuesday from New York. When 1 opened it In the Hotel Utah, I was very much surprised at first and I showed It to mother My father and brothers and Simon Bamberger Bam-berger were all told of the letter and It was decided that the entire affair be placed n the hands of detectives "M father notified the detective agencj and li took entire charge of the matter. The next day and Thursday, Thurs-day, the man who sent the letter called call-ed me over tho phone several times I had been told to meet him at 3:30 o'clock Thursday afternoon at the White rooming house, but at 1 o clock he called me over the phone and told me ho had changed said plans He telephoned to me and said to go to the twelfth floor of the Walker building build-ing to meet him While he was talking talk-ing to me cner the phone the dote" thes went to find whence the call was coming They told me to keep mm on trie im as long as possible. "An automobile was In waiting In front of the hotel and they tried to catch the man then, but In some way got the wrong address from the tele j phone company There were detec tlves on a branch line who heard my conversations with the black hand man They tried to catch him in the Walker building and the lady detective detec-tive wore mv hat when she went to keep the appointment at 3 30 o'clock "This morning at a few minutes after 9 o'clock the man called me over the phone. A detective was at the telephone exchange and got the number which was calling me That Is all I know about It, as fhe.v went there and caught the man. ' During ihe time that we were waiting for the black hand men to be captured, the detectives were about ! the hotel all the time They were in our rooms much of the time wait Ing for the telephone calls to eomc In They did not tell me much about what I should do. only that I must ' keep the man on the phone as long as possible. The (Arsons who called me by phone seemed to be well educated The olces were different. I thlnk two persons spoke to me." Mis- Donahue, who also received one of the black hand letters, Is 22 years old Is the daughter of P J Donahue, a well known mining man In L tab For some time she has been I living with her brother R, H Blele. and his wife. The family moved from 1011 East Thirteenth South street on Friday Julj 11 The letter let-ter was received the following Monday. Mon-day. When the contents were read Miss Iionahuo and her sister were very much Inclined to take the matter mat-ter as a Joke, rather than to look at It seriously, thinUne that In all probability prob-ability it had been sent by some practical prac-tical Joker Mr Blele, as well as Mr. Donahue, wanted to take the matter mat-ter up with the police, but were persuaded per-suaded by the recipient to let the entire en-tire affair drop. MlSS Donahue is of the opinion that the address was galne, through the society columns of the Sunday papers pa-pers of Inly 13, at which time the notice no-tice of the change of address appeared, appear-ed, both as to her and Mr and Mr-niele. Mr-niele. The telephone wiw not installed install-ed at the Plele h'me on Seemh avenue av-enue unilUtThursday, .lul 17. and as a consei-jusrice no word of an nature was heara from the alleged blan-hander. blan-hander. Mr- Anderson said last night that she received the black hand letter addressed ad-dressed to her list Monday and that she thought the whole affair was a joke as she h,H just been married on July 8. The letter, she thought, had been written b Joking friend for the purpose of frightening her and her husband. ' Why. the whole thing Is funny to me, 9ho said "When I read the let ter I gave it to my husband and he read it and also thought it to be a Joke. We just tore the letter up yesterday yes-terday and threw It into the waste basket I-ast night, when we read of the black hand man s l-elng caught I at once thought of the letter I had received because the one Miss Bam- i berger got sounded so much like mine. 1 gathered up the pieces and pasted them together again.' W. M. McCrea. assistant United States district attorney. Is f the be lief that Cummings may also havo been implicated In the black hand letter let-ter sent to the home of W. J. Hallor-an Hallor-an the latter part of last month. In that case the writer did not appear to take the money which had been 1 left for him at the designated spot. It is also thought that he may have some knowledge of the letters re- I reived In the last few months by residents res-idents of Ogden The Ogden case resulted re-sulted In the loss of $1,000 by Mrs. , Thomas Dee Officers from the Junction city came to Salt 1-akc last night and saw , Cummings In the county jail, but both said that they were convinced that he was not the man wanted In Ogden and that he In no way answered the I description secured of the man who made way with the $1,000 in gold I there after holding up the detectives who were guarding It " |