Was it cruel fate which led pure, beautiful, innocent and attractive
Pearl Bryan into the toils of such a fiend in human shape? Or was it the
blind Goddess of Justice that led Jackson to meet Miss Pearl and
sacrifice her life that the demon Jackson might be exposed to the
world, his deeds of evil and misdoings brought to light, and he
expatiate the many crimes which he had committed on the gallows or by
serving a life sentence in the penitentiary?
Be that as it may they met through the intimate acquaintance and
friendship of each with Will Wood, who little thought when he brought
this pure spotless virgin in contact with the hypocrite and demon,
Jackson, that he was committing a sin, which he would regret to his
dying day, and which would bring disgrace, dishonor and ruin on two
highly respected families and also upon his own head and that of his
aged respected and christian father, who was at the time the Presiding
Elder of a church for the Greencastle District.
The acquaintance of Jackson and Miss Pearl soon ripened into friendship
and that friendship into trusting confiding love on the Part of Miss
Bryan, and the accomplishment of the deep, villainous designs upon the
part of Jackson. As Will Wood said in a talk afterward, "Pearl was stuck
on Jackson from the first time they met, Jackson would come and get my
horse and buggy and drive over to Pearl's house, when they would often
go out driving together. Pearl was pretty and ambitious, but I never
thought she would do wrong. Now I can see she was perfectly infatuated
with Jackson from the start; so much that I am firmly convinced, she was
completely in his power, and he took advantage of his influence over
her." Through Jackson's cunning to plot and plan as well as to conceal,
the relations of criminal intimacy between him and Pearl, were never
even suspected by anyone. Jackson was not in Greencastle a great deal,
and this fact enabled him to carry on his illicit relations with her
more boldly than he would otherwise have been able to do. The parents of
the erring girl never for a moment suspected anything wrong. Pearl was
their favorite, the daughter of their old age, had been raised with
every care and precaution, had always moved in the very best of society,
and Jackson to them was a gentleman, a member of one of the best
families of the country, well-thought of and respected in the community
in which they moved, and was not looked upon as a lover, although they
were aware of the fact that Pearl was more seriously smitten with his
charms than she ever had been with those of any of the other many
admirers and friends who had visited their home as the company of Pearl.
Without hesitancy they permitted their favorite daughter to accept the
attentions of Jackson, go out with him when he was visiting home, and
remain alone with him in their parlor until late hours in the night.
They had every confidence in Pearl, and no suspicion of the villainous
intentions of Jackson, or the evil influence he possessed over her.
With Pearl Bryan, it was the oft told tale, "She loved not wisely but
too well." Jackson, "a criminal by nature" with his "angelic front",
behind which was hidden a demon, with his low moral character, so well
concealed from the public, and with a set design to ruin the pure and
innocent girl, which had been thrown in his way, was not slow to take
advantage of his opportunities and the influence and power, which he
could easily see he held over the unsuspecting girl.
Loving and trusting Jackson as she had never before loved any man, and
being of a sanguine nervous temperament, with her likes and dislikes of
the strongest possible, with a great deal of animal nature, cheerful and
talkative, yet lacking in force, by nature kind and benevolent to a
fault, and her development of individuality and self-reliance small, she
was one who could be easily persuaded but never driven. Jackson was not
slow to learn this, and with honeyed words and protestations of love, he
won Pearl Bryan's heart. This won, the accomplishment of his devilish
designs, her ruin, was easy. She fell a victim to his lustful desire,
and in a short time discovered that she would soon become a mother.
Almost crazed at this discovery she knew not what to do or which way to
turn. It was the first blot that had ever come on the name of a member
of the proud Bryan family. In her desperation she confided her condition
to her cousin, Will Wood. As Wood claimed, no one else in Greencastle
knew or even suspected anything of the true condition of affairs between
Pearl Bryan and Scott Jackson. They had been keeping company with each
other whenever Jackson was in Greencastle, from the early spring of 1895
until September of the same year, when she discovered her condition, no
one except Will Wood knowing anything wrong about them.
The discovery of Pearl Bryan that she was in a delicate condition, and
Jackson being the cause of her trouble, and as he said in a letter to
Wood wishing to get clear of the scandal, brings us to the third, and
possibly the most important suspect in the dreadful tragedy near Fort
Thomas, Ky.
Alonzo Walling, nineteen years of age, was born on a farm near Mt.
Carmel, Ind. His father died when he was but three years old, leaving
his mother in moderate circumstances with two other boys, Clint and
Charles. When Alonzo was thirteen she moved to Greencastle where she
kept boarders and Alonzo commenced at once to work in a glass factory to
help support his mother. He worked there four years, and was thrown out
of work when the factory was closed. Then his mother, by self-sacrifice,
sent him to the Indianapolis Dental college, paying all his expenses,
and it is learned that he worked hard and was one of the formost in his
class. He returned home every evening, and on Saturdays assisted Dr.
Sparks, at Greenfield, in his dental parlors. His term expired in March,
1895, when his mother moved to Oxford and made her home with her sister,
Mrs. James Faucett. Having very poor health, her only thought was to try
and give him a good education.
It was at the Indianapolis Dental College that he first met Jackson and
became acquainted with him. By some strange and uncontrollable fatallity
Walling was thrown with Jackson again in Cincinnati. Here is his own
statement made Wednesday, Feb. 5., 1896, regarding their acquaintance
and friendship:
"I met Jackson in Indianapolis, a little more than a year ago. We
attended the Indiana Dental College together. I did not know him
intimately there, although we attended the same class. When the school
season was over, I had no idea of meeting him again here in Cincinnati."
"How did you come to room together here?"
"Well, I was standing on the doorstep of our boarding-house, at 222 West
Ninth Street, the second day of our school term here in October, when
Scott came along Ninth Street and recognized me. On the strength of our
being acquainted in Indianapolis we roomed together at 222 Ninth Street
and took our meals out."
Walling had no unsavory record, although he did not stand well at
Greenfield, while living there. That he was directly connected with the
Fort Thomas tragedy there can be no doubt. Sergeant Kiffmeyer, who has
charge of the Bertillion System, and who is quoted regarding Scott
Jackson, said of Alonzo Walling, after taking his measurement.
"Walling's head is that of a commonplace criminal, he is just the
opposite of Scott Jackson, at the same time Walling is utterly void of
any ability or cunning to plot and plan and to conceal. Jackson knew
fully and realized what lay before him in the murder of Pearl Bryan.
Walling had not realized the enormity of the crime, and is supremely
indifferent to the consequences and to the crime committed. No appeal,
not even the fear of punishment, will have any impression on Walling."
The History of the Tragedy.
Never in the history of the crimes committed in this section of the
country has the same interest or the same deep feeling been aroused as
has been in the Ft. Thomas (Ky.) murder.
The fact that the head was removed from the body and secreted or
destroyed, and the developments which followed fast upon each other,
adding day by day new evidence to show the cold-bloodedness of the
crime, the preparations which had been made for its successful carrying
out and the covering up of all traces of the identity of the murderer
and the murdered. The mystery that still surrounds the hiding place of
the dismembered head, have led to this result.
A murder so horrible and revolting as to appear to place it beyond the
civilization of to-day, had been committed within ear shot of one of the
most popular U. S. Military Posts of this country, and within a few
miles of the center of population of this the greatest and most highly
civilized nation on earth. The murderer had hacked the head from the
body of his victim, and carried it away with him. Whether from pure
savagory and demon spirit or to prevent the identification of his victim
was not known.
The body was found in an orchard at Ft. Thomas on Saturday, February 1.,
at 8 o'clock in the morning. The neck, where it had been severed from
the body, lay in a pool of blood, and from evidences on the body and in
the bush under which it lay, a fierce struggle had taken place before
the victim received her death stroke.