HOW THE CLUES, WHICH LEAD TO THE ARREST OF THE YOUNG MAN FOR HIS
FATHER'S MURDER, WERE OBTAINED--KANSAS' MOST SENSATIONAL MURDER CASE.
No crime committed in the West in recent years was surrounded with more
mystery than was the murder of J. S. Collins, which occurred in Topeka,
Kansas, in the spring of 1898. Mr. Collins was slain while asleep beside
his wife in their home. The weapon used was a shotgun, and one or two of
the shot struck the shoulder of the wife, making slight, though painful
wounds.
The murdered man had been a prominent insurance and real estate man of
the Kansas capitol, where he had lived for many years, and was well and
favorably known to the citizens of that city, as well as throughout the
entire state; in fact, he was considered one of the state's most
prominent citizens. At the time of his murder he was about fifty-five
years of age, had a wife, one daughter and a son, John.
The Collins' occupied a comfortable home in Topeka. John, the only son,
was a student at the State University at Lawrence, Kansas, where he was
being prepared for the ministry. He had been a student at Lawrence for
two or three years before his father's murder. He boarded at the school
and occasionally visited his home in Topeka, usually on Sundays and
holidays. The Collins home, which was one of the best on one of the
capitol's most prominent residential thoroughfares, was disturbed early
one morning by the discharge of a gun in the sleeping room occupied by
Mr. Collins and his wife, which was situated on the ground floor. Mr.
Collins had been shot and died instantly, and his wife, as stated above,
received one or two grains of coarse shot in her shoulder. Other
occupants of the house that morning were Miss Collins, a young lady
about eighteen years of age, and John Collins, Jr. Both of them occupied
rooms on the second floor of the house. There was also a servant girl in
the house. It was in the early part of the summer and the windows were
all screened with wire. John, apparently aroused by the shot which
killed his father, dressed himself hastily and aroused the nearest
neighbors. It was at an early hour in the morning, but after daylight.
The police were sent for, and on their arrival ascertained that the
doors of the house were all intact and carefully locked; but a window
screen in the rear of the house on the second floor was found to have
been cut, leaving a hole large enough for the passage of a human body.
This window was immediately above a one-story addition to the main
building in the rear. After the police authorities had finished their
investigation of the premises they arrived at the conclusion that the
murderer must have entered the house by means of a key, and after having
shot Mr. Collins escaped, going up the main stairs from the lower hall
to the second floor and then gone to the hall at the end of which they
found the window before described, had cut the wire screen and jumped
out of the window onto the roof of the one-story addition, and then to
the ground, a distance of about ten or twelve feet, and in that way made
his escape.
The murder created a great sensation by reason of Mr. Collins' high
standing in the community. A number of the more influential citizens of
Topeka who were friends of his, formed a committee for the purpose of
locating the murderer and causing him, or them, to be brought to
justice. These gentlemen wired me at St. Louis, asking me to come to
Topeka to investigate the case. I went to Topeka at once, arriving
there, if I remember aright, the third day after the murder had been
committed. I reported to the gentleman who was chairman of the
committee, and at once began my investigation, by examining the premises
at which the murder had been committed. I interviewed the widow, who, by
the way, was Mr. Collins' second wife, her step-daughter and step-son,
John Collins. Mrs. Collins was a woman between thirty-six and forty
years of age, of the brunette type, rather above the medium height and
inclined to be slender. She was very attractive and considered a
good-looking woman, intelligent and refined.
Miss Collins was also above the medium height, nice-looking, well
educated and intelligent.
John Collins had just passed his twenty-first birthday, was about five
feet, eight or nine inches tall, light brown hair, fair complexioned,
well built, pleasing in manner and a very fine looking young man.
After I had consumed about four days in my investigation, I became
satisfied in my own mind that the murder had been committed by some
person who belonged in the house, and that the house had not been
entered by an outsider. I had discovered that Mr. Collins had been
killed with his own shotgun, a high priced firearm, which he always kept
in a leather case, and usually placed on the upper shelf of a clothes
closet in his bedroom. This closet was unusually large and extended from
the floor to the ceiling. The ceiling being very high, an ordinary sized
man could not reach the shelf where the gun was kept without the aid of
a step-ladder, or possibly it could have been reached by a tall person
while standing on a high table.
Mr. Collins had not used his gun for months before the murder, and it
had always been his custom after using the weapon to clean it
thoroughly, take it apart and pack it in the case. It was, therefore,
necessary for the murderer to take this gun case from the shelf, put it
together and load it with the ammunition, which was also kept on the
high shelf. All of this could not have been accomplished by any outside
person without having been discovered by some one of the inmates of the
house.
I also learned that John Collins had left his lodgings at Lawrence on
the evening preceding the murder, going to Topeka and directly to his
home, where, he claimed, he retired for the night at an early hour. He
also claimed that he remained there until aroused by the shot that
killed his father. I also learned that the young man had formed the
acquaintance of a very estimable and wealthy young lady at Lawrence,
with whom he had become infatuated. He had paid much attention to her
for months, and finally she had informed him that her mother had
decided to purchase or lease a cottage at Long Branch, in which to
spend the summer months. I surmised that when he learned that she
intended to accompany her mother to Long Branch for the summer, young
Collins decided that his sweetheart was liable to meet some of the many
fortune hunters who frequent the resort during the summer months, thus
endangering his chances of winning her, so he had made up his mind that
he would arrange, if possible, to spend the season at Long Branch too,
so that he might guard the affections of his good-looking, or I might
truthfully say, beautiful young lady friend.
[Illustration: J. S. MANNING.
Superintendent of the St. Louis Office of the Furlong Secret Service
Company who did some clever work on the Collins case.]
The elder Mr. Collins had been considered to be more wealthy than he
really was at the time of his death. He had met with financial reverses,
and really had but little more than his home in Topeka when he was
murdered, but he was carrying thirty thousand dollars insurance on his
life, ten thousand to his wife and ten thousand to each of his children.
Having secured the above information I sent one of my operatives, J. S.
Manning, to Lawrence, Kansas, with instructions to quietly ascertain all
that he could as to the habits of the young man Collins and his
associates. Mr. Manning's investigation there developed that young
Collins had been spending considerable money in buying flowers, carriage
hire and entertainments. He had no means of defraying these expenses
other than twenty-five dollars a month allowed him by his father for
that purpose. Mr. Manning also learned that there were a couple of
colored hack drivers in Lawrence, who had been patronized by the younger
Collins. Upon receipt of this information from Mr. Manning, I sent D. F.
Harbaugh, who was then in my employ, to Lawrence. Mr. Harbaugh had lived
in Lawrence, Kansas, for a number of years before he entered my service.
He had been in the livery business there, and had been a hack driver. He
was personally acquainted with the colored drivers before mentioned, but
these men did not know that he was in the secret service work. For this
reason Mr. Harbaugh found it easy to find out everything that the hack
drivers knew about John Collins. After renewing their acquaintance
Harbaugh learned from them that Collins had approached them and entered
into a verbal contract to kill his father for a certain sum of money,
part of which he had paid at the time the agreement was made, he
agreeing to pay the balance after the murder had been committed.
They told Harbaugh that they had no intention of attempting to murder
Mr. Collins, but had promised John they would do so to work him for what
money they could get out of him, knowing, as they did, that he dare not
expose them when they failed to carry out their agreement. The murder
was to have been committed on or before a certain date. The date passed
and Mr. Collins still lived, whereupon, John became anxious and
expostulated with the colored drivers. They told him that they were
entitled to more money than what he had agreed to pay them, and he gave
them an additional one hundred dollars, as well as a gold watch his
father had presented to him on his twenty-first birthday. This money
young Collins had secured by borrowing from his friends and through
drafts he had drawn on his father, as we afterwards learned. There was
then another date set for the murder to be committed by the hack
drivers. When that day arrived and passed young Collins again
remonstrated with the drivers for not having carried out their
agreement, and they coolly informed him that they had concluded that if
his father had to be killed that he had better do the killing himself,
that they positively would not commit the crime, and that they had never
intended to do so. Learning this, young Collins became desperate and
left Lawrence and went to Topeka, as before stated, and without doubt
killed his father with his own gun.
When this evidence was obtained I reported it to the gentlemen who had
employed me, and they then decided to hand my report over to the
prosecuting attorney at Lawrence. At the request of the prosecuting
attorney the county commissioners at Topeka employed me to complete the
evidence, so that Collins might be arrested and prosecuted for the
murder of his father.
John Collins was immediately arrested, placed in jail without bond, and
in due time the case came to trial. The trial caused a great deal of
interest in the community, by reason of the fact that the elder Mr.
Collins was so well known, and the killing had been done in such a
mysterious manner. The trial attracted great attention throughout the
entire country. All of the leading western papers had special reporters
present, and all the sensational features were "played up" (as newspaper
men call it) as they developed. The court room was crowded, and many
noted lawyers were also in attendance to watch the legal battle, which
at times waxed very warm, as all the counsel on both sides were very
able men. Prosecuting Attorney Jetmore was at his best, making one of
the greatest fights I ever saw to get his evidence before the jury.
Among the spectators during almost the entire trial was the late Justice
Brewer, of the United States Supreme Court at Washington, who was
visiting his daughter, who was the wife of the prosecuting attorney, Mr.
Jetmore, in Topeka at the time the trial was on. At the close of the
case Mr. Justice Brewer complimented me very highly for my work in
solving the mystery.
During the trial a great many people got the idea that I had been
employed by the insurance companies, believing that the companies were
trying to avoid payment of the thirty thousand dollars insurance, by
proving that the son had killed his father. This opinion was erroneous.
The people who employed me in this case were citizens of Topeka and
lodge friends of the murdered man, and were in no way connected with the
insurance companies interested in the case, and were merely acting as
good and law abiding citizens, and just as soon as I had satisfied them
that John Collins was the murderer, they immediately turned the
evidence, as far as had been obtained, over to the proper state
authorities.
The trial lasted more than a week. Collins was defended by two of the
most prominent attorneys at that bar. They labored earnestly and to the
best of their ability to clear him, but he was found guilty of murder
and sent to the state prison to await the governor's action in fixing
the date of his execution; but, in as much as it has always been the
custom in Kansas for the governor to never fix the date for execution of
a person found guilty of murder, the prisoners are usually kept in the
prison, and a sentence of death in Kansas usually means a life term in
the penitentiary.
There has been an effort made by friends of young Collins and the family
to obtain a pardon for him, but up to this writing I understand it has
been unavailing.
I will say here that the colored hack drivers, before mentioned, from
Lawrence, took the witness stand for the state against John Collins, and
produced the watch that he had given them, which had been presented to
him by the elder Mr. Collins upon the anniversary of John's 21st
birthday. This watch, with the testimony of the colored hack drivers, in
which they detailed the contract they had made with the younger Collins,
all of which was corroborated by circumstances that were not, or could
not be, contradicted, led to the conviction of the son for the murder of
his father.