OCR Text |
Show w m ARE 01 TRIAL FBHMUHDER PLOT TO DERAIL TRAIN AT GARY, INDIANA, IS ADMITTED BY MEN NOW ON TRIAL Speaker Told Men to Jimmy Track and Make Equipment Appear In Poor Condition. Men Held Former Shop Workeri Chicago. Five men charged with murder Tuesday accused of wrecking ihc "million dollar express" on the Michigan Central near Gary, Ind., August 20, when two of the train crew were killed. Five others were held in connection connec-tion with the wreck investigation and at least two more who are known were sought, acording to the police. Confessions obtained from some of the prisoners not only solved the wreck pf the express, but bared a plot to send the Twentieth Century limited, crack New York-Chicago train into the ditch near Elkhart, Ind., the police said. The five who face murder charges are: Joseph Papourvitch, Charles Uselis, John Petrowski, Albino Alessio and James Prohetsh. All were said to be striking shopmen. Uselis, Petrowski and Papourvitch were said to have confessed the wreck plot. The men were employed in New York Central shops. They named Alessio in their confessions, and he admitted knowledge o the plot, according to police, but maintained main-tained that Uselis, Petrowski and Tapourvitch were responsible for the wreck. Taken to the scene of the wreck, Uselis, the police said, reenacted the work .of the wreckers, in pulling spikes and loosening rails. Uselis in his statement declared that at the union meeting on Saturday, Satur-day, a speaker, whose name he did not give although the police are said to know it, did not instruct him and his three companions to wreck a train, lie said the speaker spoke as follows : "You go out to Gary or somewhere in that neighborhood and jimmy the track to cause trouble and make it appear that equipment is in bum con. dition and that it's dangerous foi train crews to ride trains." On the day after the wreck, Uselis Use-lis aserted, plans were laid for him and Alesso to go to Elkhart, Ind., some time the next week and seek work in the New York Central shops, supposedly as strikebreakers in an attempt at-tempt to derail the Twentieth Century Cen-tury limited. The arrests, the police declared, probably prevented further violence. |