WIFE POISONING

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 152, 24 December 1935, Page 14

WIFE POISONING

A COMPLICATED CASE

AMERICA SHOCKED

Following weeks of exhaustive investigation by the county police the United States authorities have laid bare an alleged murder conspiracy which has shocked the whole of America, says the "Daily Express." The first stage in the inquiry was reached when a grand jury at Mineola, Long Island, indicted a man and woman of murder in the first degree. They are: Everett Applegate, 36, a prominent member of the American Legion, and Mrs. Frances Creighton, 36, wife of Mr. John Creighton. The charge against them is of killing Applegate's wife with poison. Mrs. Creighton smiled when the jury delivered their verdict of murder. Applegate, a stocky, rotund man, seemed stunned and nearly collapsed in the courtroom. After the jury had delivered their verdict the public prosecutor, Mr. Martin W.~ Littleton, stated that the couple would be tried almost at once. "I shall demand the electric chair for both," he added dramatically. Detectives who investigated the death of Mrs. Applegate have painted an extraordinary portrait of Mrs. Creighton, They depict the blonde, plump housewife as a coldblooded "Borgia" poisoner and the secret lover of Applegate. Applegate, according to their story, lived with his wife Mary in a fiveroom bungalow at Baldwin, Long Island, about twenty miles from New York. They had a daughter Agnes, now aged twelve. Some years ago John Creighton, a 36-year-old surveyor, with a wife of the same age, also moved to Baldwin from New Jersey. TWICE ACQUITTED. The couple had had an unhappy history, for in 1923 they had been arrested and tried for the murder of Mrs. Creighton's brother Raymond, a cripple, and of her mother-in-law, both of whom died from poison. They were acquitted on both charges. When Mrs. Creighton was arrested on the present charge she was put through an all-night "grilling" by the police. She is then alleged to have told the police she met Applegate two years ago at an American Legion dance, and after too many drinks she confided to him that she had poisoned her brother because he was crippled, and "it was a kindness to put him out of the way." At the time the Creightons had two children, a boy John, now aged eleven, and'a daughter Ruth, now fifteen. Applegate, it is alleged, then told Mrs. Creighton that she had better do what he told her or he would expose her to the authorities and she would "burn in the hot seat for murder." He then, according to the police, forced Mrs. Creighton to persuade her husband, on the grounds of economy, to move into the Applegate bungalow and live there. He told Mrs. Creighton that his wife was too fat to be attractive and started an affair with the comely Mrs. Creighton. Applegate, however, found Mrs. Creighton frigid—according to the evidence of physicians and psychiatrists, who examined her —and he turned his attentions to the daughter Ruth, a pretty, dark-haired girl. ' It is alleged that after his own wife was asleep he was in the habit of going to the room shared by Mrs. Creighton and Ruth. Mrs. Applegate, it is stated, was not long in discovering the illicit relationship between her husband and the girl, and threatened to denounce him to the authorities. The police case is that it was then decided that Mrs. Applegate must die. Mrs. Creighton is alleged to have confessed to buying rat poison from the chemist's and giving it to Mrs. Applegate in small doses in her food. Weakened by the poison, she was taken to hospital, but returned home after a time in better health. Then, on September 27, she died. NEIGHBOURS' GOSSIP. She weighed nearly sixteen stone, and her illness was attributed to excessive obesity, the doctors diagnosing heart disease. After the funeral, however, gossip among the neighbours reached such a pitch that the authorities decided to exhume the body. Arsenic in sufficient quantity to kill three people was found in the organs Under her "grilling" Mrs. Creighton absolved Applegate of all blame, but the police insist he was the master mind behind the crime. They declare that under threat of exposing her alleged previous killings he forced her to give the poison to Mrs. Applegate. Under the law, however, she could not have been tried again for the murder of her brother or mother-in-law after being acquitted. Applegate was first arrested on a charge of seducing the daughter, Ruth, and pending the investigation Ruth and her playmate, Agnes Applegate, were both put in a police home for children. Applegate is said to have pleaded guilty to this charge, declaring: "I have nothing to fear. I love Ruth, and I will make her an honest wo^ man." Ruth, however, told the police matrons she would never marry him. When John Creighton was told by the police that he was the next proposed victim for poisoning, he broke down, sobbing and declaring his disbelief that his wife would dream of such a thing, or that his friend, Applegate, could be so heartless as to interfere with Ruth. The police alleged that Mrs. Creighton, on the other hand, maintained a phlegmatic stoicism as she calmly related the horrible details of the murder plot and the strange complex life of the two families under Applegate's rule. To add mystery to the case, another 15-year-old girl, a classmate of Ruth at Baldwin High School, and a neighbour, disappeared on the night that the arrests were made. The police have been unable to ascertain her whereabouts.