A SENSATIONAL MURDER. A Mysterious Death. An Unique Case.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 236, 7 January 1888, Page 3

A SENSATIONAL MURDER. A Mysterious Death. An Unique Case.

: San Fkaxcisco has long been reputed to be a veritable hot-bed of crime. The city's ' unenviable notoriety in this respect is due more to tho sensational character than to the number of crimes of which ifc has been the scene. It is doubtful if even the police -records of Paris, whose criminal classes are proverbially unique in their methods, could iurnish a longer list of such crimes than do the police archives of Sau Francisco. Of late there has been more than the usual number of this class of cases before our • courts, principal among which has been the Benhayan case. Benhayan was a young Hebrew, and a brother to Mrs. Cecilin Bowers, who died about two years ago from the effects of phosphorous poisoning, administered, as was supposed, by her husband, Dr. J. Milton Bowers. The circumstances of the woman's death pointed so strongly to her husband as the murderer that lie was accused of it, convicted, and sentenced to death nearly two years ago, and principally through the efforts of Benhayan, who was a witness in the case for the people, and gave very damaging testimony against tho defendant. Bowers appealed from the Trial Court to the Supreme Court, where the case -has since been pending. The public had almost forgotten the case when the mysteri--oxis and sudden death of Benhayan, on October 23rd last, suddenly revived public interest in the convicted man. On September 15, a book agent or peddler, named Demig, engaged a room at a lodging .house on Geary-street in this city. As the room was then occupied by a tenant, who was expected soon to vacate, Demig paid •the rent for one i»onth,to begin a week later, A3 the room would be occupied in the meantime by the original tenants. On the day following that upon whioh Demig had arranged to go into possession a servant of the house, upon entering the room, discovered the dead body of a fully dressed man lying on the floor upon his back, with his hands resting upon his breast. On the floor near the body was a bottle containing a poisonous mixture, composed of cyanide of potash, and upon a table were writing and several notes in the handwriting of the deceased, and signed by him, or else by a very clever forger. In one of these notes, addressed to the coroner, the writer says : — ll lam the cause of my • sister's, Cecilia Bowers, death. On Nov. 1, 1883, 1 could not keep the horrible secret any longer ; I had to write it in a memorandum book, and I lost it. This is one of my reasons for making my exit from the world's stage. Dr. Bowers knew nothing of my , and had no hand in hsr death. !No one is to blame but myself." In a letter to Bowers the deceased, Benhayan, confessed to having murdered his sister, and also stated that she had been unfaithful to her marriage vows, and gave the names of several persons with whom he charged that she had been intimate. He also said in another letter that he administered the poisons in capsules, which the woman took from him, supposing them to contain the medicines which had been regularly prescribed for her by her physician. As Benhayan was a somewhat simple--minded fellow, and of a most cheerful disposi tion and had been in the best of spirits only a few hours before his death, his friends were loath to believe that he had committed suicide, and gave it as their opinion that he had been murdered, and that the letters found near his dead body were forgeries. TThis theory is borne out by the fact that Benhayan was devotedly attached to his sister, and by the accusations against her, contaiued in the letters, charges which no brother would wantonly make against a dead sieter. The position of the body when found would seem to indicate that it had been carefully placed upon the floor after death. Owing to these circumstances and to the fact that the room had been rented to a man other than Benhayan, the police also held to the theory that the letters were foi'geries, and that Benhayan had been foully dealt with. After a long search, Demig, the man to whom the room had been rented, was found and identified by the landlady. This gave the authorities a clue which has been industriously followed, and tends strongly to show that a conspiracy was formea by Bowers to murder Benhayan and cause the letters to be forged, with a view to making it appear that he, and not Bowers, had murdered Mrs Bowers in tho hope of thereby saving the condemned doctor from the gallons. It has been made to appear that Demig and his wife are old friends of Bowers, and that Demig had been a frequent visitor to the house of a Mrs Zeitung, who nursed Mrs Bowers in her last illness, and has been a devoted friend and frequent visitor to Dr. Bewers since his confinement at the county jail. The theory of the police is that Bowers planned the murder, and communicated his plans to Demig and any other accomplices whom he may have had through his friend Mrs Zeitung. Several druggists testified also at the coroner's inquest that Demig, who was formerly a druggist, hadobtauiedfromfchem at different times small quantities of cyanide of potash. He also purchased a quantity of drugs, and druggist's mortar and graduate, from a wholesale firm here, and subsequently the same articles, or others exactly similar to them, were found in Dr. Bowers's cell. Demig admitted having obtained the cyanide of potash, but claimed that he used it upon his person to remove certain stains upon his akin caused by the use of nitrate of silver. Ho insisted, however, that the drugs purchased from the wholesale house were sold by him to one Dr. Fell— a person, by the way, tor whom the police have sought diligently, but without success. These circumstances and various others, including contradictory statements by Demig, as to his whereabouts on the evening ofßonhayan's death, would seem to almost demonstrate his guilt, were it not for the testimony of experts, the majority of whom, after carefully comparing the written confessions with admittedly genuine writings of Benhayan, are of opinion that they were written by deceased. But the family and friends of Benhayan,and aho one or two professional experts, insist that they are forgeries. Demig is now under arrest on a charge of murder, and although the circumstantial evidence against him is very strong, it is doubtful if he can be convicted unless it can be shown with more poaitiveness than at present, that the Benhayan letters are forgeries. With this "missing link* supplied, the chain of evidence will be sufficient, in all probabii't; , to send him to the gallows.

Miss Nellie Stewart and Mr Alfred Collier returned to Australia from England in the s<inie steamer which,' brought', Mr Musg'rof e back. , ' ' J I Mr W. Hughe/r (Pete) is about to take a tour with ,;Mdme. Schiller,- the great pi&niste, . Their travels will include doing Melbourne," Sydney, . Adelaide- and Tasmania, and perhaps New Zealand. YVhen we said last summer that Christmas was coming , scoffers r .were not wanting • y&, behblc^^ it is aljcaiiy here. 'To him that 'jpits all, mmgn f»me. J J M ' *