BODY IN TRUNK.

Gisborne Times, Volume LX, Issue 9723, 5 June 1924, Page 5

BODY IN TRUNK.

MURDER C'F DOCTOR. “HE WAS WORTHLESS,” Mrs Margaret B. Willis, middleaged real estate dealer, formerly Mrs Albert Schultz, of Denver, walked into Central station, according to the police, and told detectives she had shot and killed Dr Benjamin Baldwin, Los Angeles physician, formerly of St. Louis, kept his body ill a.trunk in her home for two days and then hurled it over- an embankment north or the town.

After concluding her confession, police said, tho woman asked for a cup of coffee. It was given her, and, thus refreshed she led officers to a spot on the state highway near San Fernando, a suburb, where it is alleged the doctor’s body was found half way clown the embankment, partly protruding from a wardrobe trunk. Led from her seat in the police automobile to the edge of the road, Mrs Willis identified the corpse, according to detectives with the laconic remark, “Yes, that’s'him.” Two stuiliy fists pounclod against the frosted windows of the detective bureau and a little freckled-nose flattened against the pane until an answering cry to his plea, “Mother, mother” won admission for him into the room where Mrs Margaret Willis was held. “Yes, sonny, it’s true. I killed Dr Baldwin,” admitted Mrs Willis, placing her arm about the shoulders or her 13-year-old son. “You know, sonny,” she hastened to explain, according to police, “we kill worthless sheep, cattle, animals, so I killed Dr Baldwin. - He was worthless.” To the police she added: — “Dr Baldwin came to my apartment early Friday morning as he had an appointment to teach mo to drive an automobile which 1 bought from him the day before. When the doctor came into tho room I know no had been drinking and I asked him to leave. 1 threatened to kill him ii nc •touched me, hut ho threw me down, and I reached for my gun and shot him in the back of the head while he lmd his arms -around me, “Then I didn’t know what to do—lam a little ashamed of myself. 1 didn’t know liow 1 was going to tell sonny—J hadn’t the courage to tell him,'so I thought of my trunk.” •Bert Webster, a friend, . who is alleged to have accompanied Mrs Willis into the country in her car without knowing what was m the trunk, also /gave himself up to the police when he found out what had been in tho trunk.