LOS ANGELES HORROR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20290, 24 December 1927, Page 11

LOS ANGELES HORROR

THE SUSPECT ARRESTED. RANSOM MONEY IN POCKETS. KIDNAPPING OF GIRL ADMITTED. (Pr«u A«»ooUtlon—By Telegraph—Copyright) NEW YORK, December 22. (Received Dec. 23, at 9 p.m.) A message from Pendleton, Oregon, states that the sheriff has announced that he arrested Edward Hickman, who is suspected of the Parker murder. Hickman admitted that he knew Parker, and confessed that he kidnapped the girl, but he denied that he murdered her. He said: “ Some fiend billed her. I know who he is.” He refused to divulge the name, and said that he kidnapped the girl in irder to get money to pay his way through college. Hickman asserted that wire bound round the girl’s throat caused her death, and not chloroform. He declined to discuss the matter further. The officers state that they found 1400dol rapsom money in Hickman’s pocket. The police are questioning him further. A great crowd of officers, reporters, and others is outside the gaol. The youthful kidnapper was near collapse, and showed the effects' of his attempted escape by a long drive in a stolen automobile. The officials are keeping a heavy guard in and outside the gaol at Pendleton pending instructions from Los Angeles. Hickman is showing no wish to escape.

The police have checked the money found in Hickman’s pockets, and state that they identified the gold and certificates as Parker’s. The officers say that there is not the slightest doubt abou* the

prisoner’s identity. When arrested by two officers Hickman had two companions in the automobile. One was armed with a sawed-off shot gun, and the other with a pistol belonging to Hickman. They surrendered quietly.

HICKMAN DENIES THE MURDER. SMILING AND UNNERVED. TWO UNNAMED PERSONS BLAMED. SAN FRANCISCO, December 22 (Received Dec, 23, at 11.30 p.m.) HicKiiian repeatedly denied having committed the murder, and said that anotner man and a woman, whom he refused to name, were responsible for the act. He said: “They wound wire round her neck and choked her to death.” In a recital of the facts of the abduction to the officials Hickman, always smiling and unnerved at the mention of the gruesome details, said that he really did not intend to be crook, because “ you’ll find out soon enough you’ll yet caught, but I wanted to go back to Kansas City ana go to work there to get enough money to go to college. I thought that if I was able to get enough for tuition it did not matter how I got it. I would go straight from then on. This man asked me what I thought of kidnapping someone, and I said I would not mind doing it. I remembered Parker’s daughter. It will probably be the chair for me now.” A special session of the Los Angeles grand jury has been called for to-mor-row to vote on th e murder indictment, in which John and Jane Doe are also likely to be named.

Extradition papers to bring Hickman back to California are being rushed to Oregon by airplane. Hickman's mother, in Kansas City, said she was not familiar with her son’s deoire to attend college. She was glad her son was not guilty of murder. Hickman’s father, a steam shovel en gineer, said: “ I want to see my son punished to the extent that he is guiltv. I will be ready to help him all I can.’ Th e sheriffs officer at Los Angeles identified the alleged murderer as the youth who came to Los Angeles with Hickman from Kansas City.—A. and N.Z. Cable.