In less than a half hour after making the confession Walling again sent
for the Chief of Police and said:
"I want to see you about another thing that may have a big bearing on
this case," said the prisoner.
"What is it?"
"Well, yesterday afternoon Jackson got some paper and envelopes and told
me he was going to the Palace Hotel to write some letters. I asked him
who he was going to write to and he said to Wood. He said he was going
to inclose a letter purporting to be from Pearl Bryan to her mother and
that he was going to have Wood sent it, I think, to Geneva and have it
mailed from that point to Mrs. Bryan. He said he was going to do this to
throw Mrs. Bryan off the track."
"Do you know that he sent the letter?"
"He told me on the evening he was arrested that he had sent it."
This information was given to Mayor Caldwell, and the following dispatch
was sent:
CINCINNATI, OHIO, February 6, 1896.
POSTMASTER, South Bend, Ind.: Kindly sent all mail addressed to Wm.
Wood from this city to me.
JOHN A. CALDWELL, Mayor.
Young Wood, who was present, said he had got a letter from Jackson
yesterday, which he had torn up. It went on to ask him to stick to him,
and not to say too much. Young Wood was perfectly satisfied to have the
mail sent back here.
Chief Deitsch after sending the information to Mayor Caldwell continued
his investigation with:
"I have just talked with Jackson, and he puts all the blame upon you. He
says you performed the abortion somewhere across the river."
"I don't know a thing about it, except what he told me."
"Well, now, did you do it or did Jackson? He says you did it."
"He's putting it all on me now, is he? Well, he's the one who is guilty.
I know nothing of it."
"What did he tell you had become of the head?"
"I understand that he threw it in the Ohio River."
"Do you know where the operation was performed?"
"No, I don't. If I did, it would make it much easier for me to clear
myself. As it is, I can prove where I was Friday night. It will all come
out in a little while."
"Jackson says that you threw the head into the river, and that the next
day you told him to get rid of anything lying around loose at the
boarding house by throwing it into the river."
"I never saw the head, and he told me that he threw it into a sewer."
"Didn't you throw the girl's stockings, skirt and other things, which
were covered with blood, into the river Saturday morning from the
Suspension Bridge?"
"No, he did this himself."
"Then he says the skull was cut up and thrown over piecemeal by you."
"I don't know about the cutting up part, but deny the other."