Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 64

ii er ratoe audi me Slam THE STRANGE CASE OF THE nrtoeent Here Is the 1 8th in the Series: Michigan's Famous Murders BY RALPH GOLL' AND DONALD F. SCEAM Free Press Staff Writers JUST 16 YEARS AGO a house painter who had turned politician stood before an audience in a dingy rathskeller and screamed that England, America and the international bankers were responsible for the panic which was just then striking the Berlin bourse. "Germans are being impoverished and enslaved by reparations for a war of which they were guiltless," he vociferated. "We are victims of an outrageous conspiracy. The whole world is against There was little that even ministers could say under the cir cumstances to console the stricken families.

Over and over again they repeated: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of God." Under courageous leadership the community reawerted Its spirit The school board met and appointed Earn as Peacock a treasurer. Kehoe, to prove his honesty, perhaps, had shipped all his official papers to Clyde Smith, a surety bond agent in Lansing, the day before the massacre. The papers were inclosed In a box that had once held dynamite. State Police took charge of the dynamite box and, through a number stamped in the lid, traced it to the county agent at Jackson, who had a legal right to distribute explosives to farmers. The Jackson agent was one of a number of agricultural extension officers from whom Kehoe had purchased dynamite at intervals for mora than five years.

The farmer said he needed the explosives to blow stumps. In all, Kehoe had bought two tons of djTiamite. Half had been used to mine the schoolhouse. What was believed to be Kehoe's body had been removed to St Johns, Mich. For a time it appeared that none of his numerous brothers and sisters would claim the remains.

While services for the dynamiter's victims were in progress, however, Miss Agnes Kehoe, of Battle Creek, appeared at the mortuary where the remains wre being held and with tears streaming down her far arranged for burial. She asked to see her brother's face, but the undertaker refused her request It was evident that she wanted to satisfy herself that the remains were actually those of Andrew Kehoe. As soon as the young woman had left the undertaker ordered the interment ia a local cemetery. There were no funeral services, not even a prayer. When the coroner's jury met the following Monday, Prosecuting Attorney Searl's first move was to establish the death of the school treasurer.

He summoned the few persons who had survived the dvna miting of Kehoe's car and obtained from them statements that" the farmer could not have escaped the blast Searl said his purpose in asking for an identification was to stop at once and for all tha stories that Kehoe still lived. Then began consideration of the school treasurer's motive for tha murders and his activities leading up to them. Newspaper men had been charitable in judging Kehoe. They called him the Madman of etcitctt us and the corrupt German Republic does nothing. But some day your enemies will hear from us.

THE DYNAMITING OF THE SCHOOL AT BATH, HORRIFIED A NATION. No one was paying much attention to Adolf Hitler in the spring of 1927. A ndicuJous figure in a greasy trench coat, he was counted a fool by American correspondents, who gave his rantings only a paragraph or two, and not even his stanchest supporters among the Germans cared hope that he would achieve the ends outlined in Mem Kampf. They did not realize what frightful energy a diseased mind and ex aggerated ego can generate nor understand how delusions of persecution and grandeur might lead to the actual perpetration of enormous crimes. But their inability to perceive the destructive potentialities of the Nazi leader was not peculiar to themselves.

Neither was his the only blighted Detloff, the blacksmith, had been one of the, first to join the troopers, finding his own daughter among the injured, he had carried her to his home and was now running back to the school- house when he collided with Supt. Huyck, who was just emerging from the telephone office. The pair cut across the street toward the shambles, followed by Glenn O. Smith, the postmaster, his wife and father-in-law, Nelson McFarland. Like Detloff, the members of the postmaster's family had carried injured children home and were returning to help others.

Bringing up the rear was Mrs. Anna Perrone, who carried her twenty-months-old baby daughter in her arms. Just as the scattered runners converged in front of the wrecked schoolhouse, an automobile skidded to a stop at the curb. Behind the wheel sat Andrew Kehoe, the school board clerk. He stared at hearses carried the victims of the dynamiter's fury to Lansing, the officers turned to the school treasurer's farm.

CARNAGE AT THE FARM FLAMES AND HIGH EXPLOSIVES had swept the farm of all its buildings. Where once the house had stood only a chimney remained, a ghastly monument towering over smoldering timbers. From the embers of the barn rose evidence that all Kehoe's cattle and horses had been locked in their stalls and had perished. At a point where the tool shed had been, only a mass of twisted iron was now visible." The ruins were still too hot to permit closer examination. The onlookers were awed by the thoroughness of the destruction.

House, barns and outbuildings had been wired, the terminals of the many iines connecting with sparkplugs in five-gallon cans which, it brain which a scheme of mass murder had been born. Between Berlin, Germany, and Bath, the miles are many, the physical differences far more, but while der Fuehrer raged in a beer-cellar his exact prototype held forth at a general store in the Clinton County hamlet. He was Andrew Kehoe, a farmer, who had made as much a failure of his life as the man now charged in history with the butchery of millions of helpless men, women and children. earn, ana rusnea into print witn interviews by psychiatrists. I the ruins but did not leave his seat Supt.

Huyck, finding his way blocked by the car, ran around it. Kehoe called to him to come back and he stopped, apparently be appeared, had been partially filled with gasoline or some other explosive fluid. Current from the power line with which the buildings i-ri. ojaic lung, aiieuuiiig jicuxxnogist at jrace xiospuai, uetroit and consultant in mental diseases at Eloise, was quoted as saying that Kehoe must have been suffering from dementia praecox. had been lighted had served to detonate all the incendiary bombs In his community he was not considered dangerous, although a psychiatrist instantly would have classified him as a paranoiac.

He had read much and talked endlessly, whining bitterly about oppressive obligations to the Government and the sorry plight of the rural worker lieving that his enemy of old meant to volunteer the use of his car simultaneously. evacuating tne injured, ine blacksmith, in tne lead, glanced back, but did not stop. In a hog crate that had escaped the flames the officers found the family's silverware, jewelry and mementoes, including a picture of Mrs. Kehoe. None believed the woman would be found alive.

Eyes He saw Kehoe's lips moving. He saw Huyck stiffen with surprise himself particular. His long-winded cross-roads oratory was noi without its effect, and he had achieved a kind of leadership even over those farmers and villagers who did not agree with him. His reputation and horror, but no man will ever know what passed between them went from the photograph to the heaps of smoldering embers nearby, The burly blacksmith joined George Harrington, a plumber, and they The party moved across the barnyard. A number of gasoline picked up a fallen telephone pole, intending to use it as a pry to lift containers, planks and a pair of iron cultivator wheels piled to a section, of the schoolhouse roof under wmcn some children were for integrity never had been openly questioned.

At the last election Kehoe had been a candidate for township clerk and treasurer of the new consolidated school which was the pride of Bath and doubled its population of 300 during class hours. Citizens had gether at a point outside the ruins of the barn attracted attention, trapped. They saw something white on the "ground. It was the body of the farmer invalid wife, Nellie. She lay with one foot tangled in the spokes of one of the cultivator At that moment Kehoe was seen to turn around in his seat and thrust his arms into the tonneau of the car.

Then Bath echoed with its third explosion of the day. Bits of steel, fragments of clothing and shreds of bloody flesh fell among the rescue workers. Detloff, Harrington and Janitor Smith, who had now joined them. wneeis. A bespattered night-gown was her only garment.

The back given him a large majority for both offices, possiDiy Decause iney he could be trusted, perhaps because they were tired of hearing him talk of the grievous cost of the school building and mismanagement of township funds. Certain it was that Kehoe made a better politician and officeholder than farmer. He had a large tract a quarter of a mile from the school as the crow flies. His buildings were better than those of his neighbors, his fields fertile and his implements modern. Michigan of her head had been crushed and she had been dead several hours, Evidently she had been the first of her husband's victims.

Dr. John F. Shepard, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, was represented as saying that Kehoe's acts could be attributed to paranoia, "a form of insanity that has many variants and many manifestations. Persons afflicted with a mild form of paranoia are generally termed 'cranks, he said; "Kehoe was without a doubt a paranoiac in that he suffered from the hallucination that tha school had caused his financial ruin. To this particular farmer tha blowing up of the school was the one logical way in which he could manifest his displeasure at its existence, and by which he could get even with those responsible for it." To the grim-faced farmers sitting the coroner's jury, it was not evident that Kehoe had suffered from delusions.

They had known him for years and had noticed nothing irrational in his behavior. "Kehoe blew up the schoolhouse because he could not control It," said the township supervisor, Ewing, "I don't think he was crazy just murderous. He had a jricious temper. He wanted to rule or ruin." The school janitor said he had never seen Kehoe in the building except when he had legitimate reason for being there. "I don't think Kehoe had a key," he said.

"But one of the rear doors was broken about three weeks ago and could not be locked. It would have been possible for anyone to have entered the school at night without being seen. -The jury returned a verdict after three days, finding that the destruction of the buildings orr the Kehoe farm "and the schoolhouse with their attendant deaths had resulted "from a premeditated and deliberate plan laid by Andrew Kehoe, deceased." The verdict was tantamount to a declaration that Kehoe had full possession of his faculties at the time of the massacre. The Parts of the demolished auto proved it was Kehoe's, but did not were knocked to the ground. Struggling to their feet, they saw that of Kehoe's car nothing remained except the motor and front wheels.

The driver and Supt Huyck had vanished. The postmaster, his wife and father-in-law lay crumpled on the sidewalk. McFarland was al shed any light on the method by which it had been blown asunder Some believed that a box of high explosives in the rear seat had been wired to the battery of the car and set off in that fashion, State College had graduated him with high honors in 1914. Despite such advantages, he had failed to lift any part of the mortgage on the farm since buying it for $12,000 and making a $6,000 rinwn navment eiffht vears before. A foreclosure suit had been ready dead, a piece of the demolished auto having pierced his brain, Lieut.

Lyon, who had found parts of a high-powered rifle and One of Smith legs had been blown to shreds. A few feet away lay several cartridges near the wreckage, put forward the theory that started against him when his wife, a semi-invalid, refused to apply Mrs. Perrone, her skull fractured. The infant, which was still clasped to her breast, had not been hurt f. Ci.

the farmer exploded the bomb in his car by firing a bullet into it. At the same time, those at work in the ruins of the school- Postmaster's Smith wife, regaining 'Iter -senses," trawled to his house had released several imprisoned children whose escape from side. She heard him say, "Don't feel too J5ad -jf -Xthe. Help the instant deat had been little, less miraculous, and had un children." covered further evidence that Kehoe had intended to dynamite the entire building and kill every child of school age in the Bath THE TOWN COMES BACK district. They found a cheap alarm clock had switched on the AS NO AMERICAN TOWN ever had passed through such a suc current when its bell rang, So cleverly had the dynamite been concealed that many of the un- jury's decision did not end the popular discussion of his mental cession of terrifying occurrences as Bath, the courage and self-sacrifice with which it responded should be remembered.

Indeed, the example which it set that day should serve as an inspiration to all exploded pockets escaped immediate detection, although a careful search was made. Indeed, a cache of 244 sticks was to remain hid communities when and if Hitler's bombers come. den in the south wing of the building for more than six months, a So much had happened in so short a time that no one had been constant menace to life. responsibility, however. Interested persons dug into Kehoe's past life, going back to his infancy and boyhood.

Somewhere they expected to find the key to his apparent aberration, some incident in the light of which his later deeds could be explained. But all their delving into the man's history gained them little. Kehoe, it was found had been one of a family of children. None of his progenitors has shown any trace of insanity. Investigators were of the belief that at the time of the explosion able to grasp the significance of the blasts, but now, with the demolition of Kehoe's car and more deaths, it became obvious that all of the explosions had been caused by dynamite or nitro-glycerine.

Word the structure held more than a ton of explosives. About 300 pounds to the debt a $2,000 inheritance tnat naa come io uer. one uuuu-tained that she would need the money for an operation. "I'm being taxed into the poorhouse," he claimed. "My assessments don't leave me enough to live on.

It was bad enough before we built that new schoolhouse. That added $167 to my taxes, making them $350 a year. Do you wonder that I can't meet even the interest on my mortgage Everything is against me, even the weather." Neighbors were inclined to agree that taxes were too high but they looked farther, declaring that the continuance of American democracy depended on bettering educational facilities. Kehoe replied that both democracy and the public school system were failures. "You spend too much time blowing stumps," he was told.

Instead of getting new land ready for cultivation you should be attending to your crops." "I like to work with dynamite," said the village Hitler. The previous fall he had allowed his bean and potato crops to rot In the fields, declaring that the market price of the products made it a waste of time to harvest them. That there was cruelty as well as a mulish streak in Kehoe's nature was known to a few people in the Bath community, but they preferred to overlook his shortcomings. He had no children of his own, and had an aversion for those who attended the village school! But even more he hated dogs. He had killed a fine hound, belonging to David Harte, his nearest neighbor, but the owner had forgiven him.

He had quarreled with Emory E. Huyck, youthful superintendent of the school, on many occasions, speaking with a passion that should have been a tipoff to mental decay. However, Huyck was not much impressed. had let go when the timing device turned on the current causing the first blast, it was said. It appeared that a short circuit had pre spread among the rescuers that other explosions might occur at any moment, but not one of them quitted his work in the ruins.

vented the detonation of the other pockets, the simultaneous explosion of which would have leveled the entire schoolhouse and killed or Born on a farm near Tecumseh, he had been educated there in the public schools and had later gone to college at East Lansing. Ha had displayed a stubborn determination all his life. THE WORLD MOVES ON injured everyone in it Mothers and fathers of school children were rushing into the village from farm homes. Hysterical women flung themselves among the still forms ranged on the lawn outside the litter, looking for loved ones. Wounded and dying tots cried for their mothers.

Still on their feet but stunned, others stumbled around How Kehoe had obtained the dynamite and mined the building without being detected was being asked constantly. Each new bit AS BATH SLOWXY recovered from Its reign of terror and tha of evidence gathered by the officers made it appear more probable with blank minds, staring eyes and blood-stained and grimy faces. that the school treasurer had carried out his horrible plot without the Soon it required all the efforts of which the state police wereJ.aid. or of anyone, his cunning being equaled only by his injured children came home from the hospitals, the name of Andrew Kehoe was no longer spoken. The world had largely forgotten tha slaughter of the innocents in the excitement attending Lindbergh's flight to Paris.

Bath was trying hard to forget. capable to keep the distraught mothers out of the ruins. As they Ldemonma. desire to- sTaugtae? his neighbors' children and efface com had now deermined, the entire schoolhouse was wired and mined and pletely The town found itself divided on the question of permitting the the fall of a single brick might bring doom to every person in the THE HOSPITALS OVERFLOWED vicinity. Tracine a wire, Troopers Bua Haideman and Donald MCNaugnton THE REMOVAL of the dead and injured to Lansing hospital and undamaged parts of the structure to stand.

Many wanted to tear down the shattered edifice and build anew. Frequent discoveries of dynamite in the walls and floors were still being made. In the end the community was persuaded to incorporate the old building in a larger school which would be a memorial to the dead. undertaking rooms had now been completed. Every mortuary in the city held bodies of the little victims.

The hospitals had difficulty in finding beds enough for the wounded. had found and disconnected a vast quantity of dynamite under the wreckage. Later they crawled through a hole to the plant of high explosives, removed the detonating caps and handed out 100 one-pound sticks of dynamite. A year later there had risen from the ruins the Couzens Red Cross workers, ministers and high State officials were flock Help began arriving from iansing and otner cities, a neet or Agricultural School, one of the finest and most modern institutions in the State. Plaques on both sides of the entrance told of the community's gratitude to the Senator and the people of Michigan.

ing to Bath, forerunners of a vast army of sympathetic and curious people already converging upon the village. A coroner jury was impaneled and met mat night in tne town ambulances swept into the hamlet, accompanied by all of the officers which the State Police could send. Dozens of doctors arrived and in hastily-erected dressing stations added their science to the crude means by which the villagers had sought to save lives. On an inner wall is a tablet bearing the names of the children killed to satisfy a man's grudge. In a niche in the foyer appears a bronze figure of a little girl with a kitten in her arms, another memorial to the dead.

hall under festoons arranged for the graduation exercises of the eighth grade. Finding that nearly every important witness was in mourning or at the bedside of an injured child. Prosecuting Attorney William C. Searl obtained an adjournment until the following Monday morning. WHEN TIME WAS FOUND FOR A COUNT OF THE VICTIMS IT SHOWED 37 CHILDREN AND SEVEN ADULTS DEAD, 43 CHILDREN SERIOUSLY WOUNDED AND A HUNDRED OTHERS SUFFERING FROM SHOCK, BURNS AND LACERATIONS.

Meanwhile the name of Andrew Kehoe was being linked with the Gov. Fred w. Green issued a proclamation calling on the people The building was dedicated on Aug. 18, 1928. In an attempt to make the day one of gladness, bands played in the little main street and there were horse races, boxing contests and a ball game.

But the efforts to avoid recalling the tragedy that had occurred 15 months before to the day were only partially successful. Little children went through special exercises in the new building of Michigan to raise funds with which to rebuild the school and provide relief wherever necessary. Within a few hours the Governor's committee had received pledges of more than $5,000. horror. He had dynamited the school, it was said.

The explosion in his car proved his guilt. By killing himself in the third blast he had The Red Cross and the State Fire Marshals office said it would and mothers and fathers applauded proudly, but their eyes were sober, confessed. stealing now and then unconsciously to the walls and floor. Of course take $150,000 to repair the damage to the school and pay for funeral and hospital expenses. Then, from Michigan's millionaire senator in Washington, James Couzens, came a telegram stating he personally But was he dead? No one could say with certainty.

A bushel it could not appen again. So through that day of merriment stalked the phantom of tha would pay the expenses incurred by the people of Bath and finance basket held all the human fragments found after the auto blew up. It wa3 definitely known that among them were parts of Supt. Huyck's body. Wild rumors spread through the ever-increasing crowd.

dynamiter whose shattered remains lie in an unmarked, unhallowed the construction of a new school. grave. And so now does the shadow of tha paranoiac Hitler fall All night long clergymen and nurses labored, seeking to alleviate Kehoe. it was said, had lumped from the car and had been seen on every schoolhouse in the land. the pain and grief of the people of Bath.

By morning plans for the burial of 29 of the victims had been completed and hope was expressed that by the following Sunday nervous tension would lessen. fleeing from Bath on foot In the first frenzied hours after the school-house was blown apart no one had given any thought to the explosion and fire on Kehoe's farm. Now, as long trains of ambulances and NEXT WEEK: ANOTHER MICHIGAN MURDER. HE WATCHED THE CHILDREN ON THE MORNING of May 18 this man who had" so much In common with the monster who was to unloose the Second World War on humanity sat in his automobile in front of the Bath postoffice, apparently watching the children then flocking to the nearby school house. After weeks of chilling rains, nature had assumed her gentlest mood.

The sun was bright, the air balmy. Shouting and laughing, the youngsters trooped along the main street Another two weeks would bring vacation time and the boys would be free to swim and fish, the girls to build playhouses on the lawns. Albert Detloff, the village blacksmith and a member of the school board, noticed Kehoe as he passed the postoffice on his way to work and hailed him, saying that a water pipe in the schoolhouse had sprung a leak. "Let's have a look at it," said Kehoe, joining him. The two men walked across the street to the building.

At the entrance the farmer asked Detloff whether he had the correct time. Each took out his watch. Kehoe had 8:25 Eastern Standard Time. The blacksmith, who observed Central Time, had 7:25. Descending to the basement, they Inspected the leaking pipe and exchanged a few words.

Frank Smith, the janitor, joined them, distracting Detloffs attention from his companion for a moment. When he looked around a little later Kehoe had vanished. The blacksmith, wondering a little at Kehoe's indifference to the cost of repairing the pipe, went on to his shop. The last bell had rung and the children were In their seats when Lieut. L.

A. Lyons, commanding officer of the local post of the Michigan State Police, received a telephone call from someone who said that there had been an explosion on Kehoe's farm and that his house and barn were in flames. Lieut. Lyons ordered three troopers, who had just reported for motorcycle patrol duty, to investigate the report. As the uniformed trio raced toward Kehoe's farm, marked now by a cloud of black smoke, a tremendous blast inside the village almost knocked them from their saddles.

Turning, they saw dust and debris mushrooming into the sky from the new schoolhouse. One of its wings had vanished. Since Hitler and his Luftwaffe terrorists conceived the Idea of bombing schoolhouses, Americans have come to understand through newspaper pictures and movies the terrible effect of high explosives. In these days the three troopers would have scanned the sky for an enemy plane. But America was as complacent then as Bath had been a few moments before.

Indeed, the dailies of that tragic morning had carried a message from President Coolidge to a medical convention in which he declared that the rule of reason was supplanting the rule of fore and that life-saving science would soon conquer man's Instinct to kill. Recovering from their shock, the troopers turned back toward Bath. They had no idea of what had happened but realized that there was greater need for them at the schoolhouse than at Kehoe's farm. They reached the scene of the second blast just as Lieut. Lyons appeared from the opposite direction.

Although intimate contacts with violent death had hardened them, By W. E. Hill CoprnfM Utt bf Krm Syndic b. Why can't those boys in Washington make up their First, the radio newscaster says oil is to be rationed next Winter. Next day comes the news it won't be rationed.

Plenty of oil." Later, there's hardly any oiL and it's to be rationed. K'-i I zre touchy these days 1 1 and, when housewives demand TCC fl to know what's in the ham- fL' 7 burger, they're hurt. "Lady," if" Ja. Mr. Cromer is saying, "I got no 7 more information on Jl wnat's this ham- vSi irk burger than you have.

I iK)! lucky to get 11 JC Aft vNW The wartime farmers from the city. They have that desperate look, and no wonder. They've been rushing madly from one feed A the officers were momentarily rooted in their tracks by the scene revealed by the lifting fumes and dust. The entire north wing of the school building had been razed by the blast, the walls torn brick from brick. To the cries of the injured and dying children were added the screams 'of the survivors, who were fleeing from that portion of the structure which still stood.

The acrid odor of high explosives permeated the air, but no one realized its significance at the time, there being a general impression that the boiler had blown up. A moment's thought would have shown the fallacy of such a theory, for the day was so warm that the firing of the furnace would have made the heat inside the building insufferable. HALF OF THEM WERE DEAD THERE WAS NO TIME for logical reasoning, however. Aided by a few villagers, the state officers began carrying little bodies out of the ruins and administering first aid to those most seriously injured. Half of the bodies which the rescue party found were lifeless.

Supt. Huyck, in office in the top floor of the south wing at the time of the explosion, made his way down the wrecked stairs and over the jumble of rafters and masonry. He took in the situation at a glance and rushed across the street to telephone Lansing for doctors, nurses and ambulances. "Send all the medical aid you can from the city," he pleaded over the wire. "We'll need it oh, my God, how we need it." In Bath there were no hospitals, no cars equipped for transporting injured persons, not even a practicing physician.

But Lansing was only 12 miles away and Huyck did not doubt that his plea would soon be answered. Every man and woman in the village had now joined the troopers in their work. Janitor Smith, who had been in the basement, emerged from the rubble, miraculously unhurt. He joined the rescuers, although ha was still dazed. store to another, and Uliw Ult, lid uno stores, trying to find a churn, but no success.

And what good is the cow if they White collar worker reading about the rise in the cost of living. One of those government specialists says it's risen can't make butter This is going to upset the little Armchair strategists have terrible tempers in these wartimes. When one of them who thinks we should concentrate on MacArthur and the Pacific meets a guy who is all out. for a third front in Europe, there's trouble brewing. wife's nervous system, because she is positive the H.

of L. has gone up 70, and maybe she wouldn't like to give Washington a piece of her mind PART. EOUR THE. DETROIT, FREE PREJS SUNDAY, WAY 16, 1943.