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Show i, If. CHURCH Was Wealth' Vestryman of Fashionable St. George M. E. Church. INSANE MAN JUMPS OVER BODY AND RUNS j Shoots Wildly, But Is at Last j Overcome by Members of Congregation. NEW YORK, April 18. Dr. James Markoe, a well known surgeon, was shot and killed ,today while taking up ihe offering at the morning service In ihe fashionable St. George Protestant' Episcopal church, Fifteenth street and Siuyvesant Place, in the old aristocratic aristocra-tic district of New York. His assaila.nl was captured" after a! short chase by a group. of parishion- ei? headed by William Fellowes Mor-1 f,an, president of the Merchants' asso-1 cinlion of New York; Dr.- G. T. Brewer; and J. Morgan Jones. At the East' Twenty-second street police station I the prisoner gave his name first as Thomas W. Shelley and later as Thomas Tho-mas W. Simpkin. The police said he I tolc them he had escaped Thursday!' from the eastern state hospital for llir inannn it W illin moX,,,. TD, IV.. JUU.WIV Ml II IlllklUlOUUI, Hi. UJlll. j Friend of J. P. Morgan, j Dr. Markoe, a wealthy vestryman of i the church, was a friend and personal I physician to J. P. Morgan, also a parishioner par-ishioner there. He was fifty-six ytara jo.id. I 'Ihe church was crowded with par- irhioners, many of them reyresor ta-J thes of the wealthiest families in New i York, when the shooting took piace. ! I Dr. Markoe was walking down the left ; aisle, taking up the collection while the choir was singing an anthem. Shelley, who was seated next to the aisle, whipped out a revolver and firod at tho physician. The bullet struck him over the left eye and he collapsed in the aisle. I Several women screamed and men 1 rushed from their seats. Shelley, with j tilt revolver in his hand, leaped over I the body of the physician and started J to run out of the church. The choir, 'led, by Charles Safford, continued sing ing in an effort to quiet Ihe congregation. congrega-tion. Insane Man Continues Shooting. Shelley continued shooting. His sec- jond shot, directed at members of the congregation who were pursuing him, went wild. John C. Tiedeman, the S'rxton, dropped to the floor in time to escape the third bullet, which grazed J the cheek of J. Morgan Jones. Shelley then ran lroni the church into Stuyvesant square. Dr. Brewer was the first man to reach him. He I grabbed the man's arm but Shelley j i'jauaged tovriggle himself loose long: ! enough to fire another shot which I grazed Dr. Brewer's thigh. Several other members of the congregation threw Shelley to the ground and were) holding him down when i policeman ! arrived, handcuffed, 'the prisoner and. took him to the police station. Dr. Markoe Rushed to Hospital. Meanwhilo Dr. Markoe had been carried car-ried out of the church and placed in an automobile. As he was being lifted into the car he regained consciousness long enough to say, "I will be all right," and then collapsed. Ho was rushed ii the Lying-in hospital at Eighteenth j 6treet and Second avenue, but was dead when taken into that institution, j In the church at the time were Geo. W. Wickersham, former United States ( attorney general; Herbert L. Satter- i-lee, brother-in-law of J. P. Morgan, and Mrs. Satterlce, and many oher prominent persons. Mr. Morgan, wh ; is a member of the church and whose fulher was a vestryman there, was not present when the shootjng occurred. Admits Shooting Surgeon. Shelley freely admitted that he had : (siot Dr. Markoe, according to the police. po-lice. "There are a lot more who are going to get it, loo," he is reported to huVe said when questioned by police detectives. Search of a suitcase Shelley had checked at the Pennsylvania .erminal, revealed, the police say, several radical radi-cal papers and pamphlets. He also had a draft card showing he had reg istered September 12, 191S, under .hr i-p.me of Thomas W. Simpkin, 203 -illi Rlreet, Sauk City, Wis: There were also several business cards reading, "Thomas W. Simpkin." and in the lower low-er corner "Representing Swift Coi.ntv Printing company" and "Kerhoven Banner." A lc.ter addressed to him and f.-und in the suitcase, had the address of IIS Peabody street, Duluth, Minn. The police po-lice believe it was from hfs wife. The prisoner told detectives he had bc-en g;en the literature by a man named "Miller" whose first name he couldn't remember, "My memory, is very bad," he saiu. Denies Being I. W. W. "Are you an I. W. W.?" he was asked. r1 ."No." he replied. "I am against ; 1. W. W. because they don'f give, crt dit to the brains of the country " He said one of the things he was certain about was that he had never jBeen Dr. Markoe before. He told a Humbling story oi his movoments cov-I cov-I er'ng the seven years he has been in "Canada and the United States. He j came to America from London, Eng land, where he was born. I I 'He enlisted in the Canadian arniyj f.nd was about to sail overseas, ho said, when he learned his wife hao become be-come a mother. He asked for a tians-j for to an organization stationed near his wife's home, but was refused as being "too valuable a man,'1 he said. "I figured,". he explained, "that if f was loo good a man for tiie outfit to i lose, I was too good for my wife to i lese. 1 jumped tne outfit and entered j tho United States and later brought my wife and children over." After relating his escape from the insane in-sane asylum at Fergus Falls, Minn., he said: "They say there is a physlca'l cause fcr every mental reaction. I was tubercular tu-bercular and they cured me. lhcn I got a cancer and I was operated on for that. So I guess those are the j causes." j "The nreach.or in his sermon at the, church," he continued, "told them to be good to strangers, but no one spoke to me and I resented it." Rev. Dr. Karl Reiland, rector of SL George's, in part of his sermon had urged the wealthy congregation to be-lriond be-lriond strangers and show Christian courtesy. "We know very little of how lonely or oppressed some one sitting beside us may be, and a kind. word mlgh carry car-ry cheer," he had said. The clergyman was prostrated after the tragpdy Simpkin Known in Duluth. DULUTH, Minn., April IS. Thomas W. Simpkin came to Duluth with his wife and three children from Calgary. A'berta, in September, 1916. He was employed in several Job printing plants hore. He joined the Duluth Tvpo giaphical union. In April, 1917. he j was adjudged insane and sent to the stato asylum at Fergus Falls. He made his escape from that institution a year later. ' His wife continued to live here until un-til April, 1919, when she was deported to England as a dependent British subject. sub-ject. Shnpkln went under the nliar of Shelley, which was his wife's maiden name. Persons in Duluth who knew Simpkin said he took good care of bin family. He talked continually on religion, re-ligion, and it is said, he claimed to bo In communication with spirits. |
