AMERICAN LAKE MYSTERY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVIII, Issue 81916, 18 January 1907, Page 4

AMERICAN LAKE MYSTERY.

America's greatest summer sensation for many a long day was the (lis covcry last July of'the'body of Miss | Grace Browne on the shoves of Big -Moose Lake, in the Adirondack -Mountain mud* famous by their literary association with Pip Van Winkle, who awakeno-' there after his legendary sleep, j'ss Brown was a sweetly I'ivi! dlage girl, who worked in a i.iel . U was first thought that the y rl had been disappointed in love and had committed suicide, but later a canoe, floating bottom upwards, was found, and laler still, Mr Chester Gillette, her sometime sweet heart, was discovered wandering suspieiouslv in the woods close by. Mr Gillette is the nephew of a wealthy majiufaci liver, wi-ere (iraee Brown worked, and the evidence, n is claimed, connected him with . the disappearance of the girl. It was ascertained that a voimg couple, said to be Mr Gillette ami Miss Brown, stopped at a count it inn as man and wife the day before, and that they went out together in the

Nothing but circumstantial evidence is forthcoming, apparency, but the prosecution, who have summoned nearly 200 witnesses, allege thatUtil lelte ..who is a morose-lonkinc; fe'low. -truck the girl over tue head with a paddle, and then placed her body in the water, so as to give the idea of accident or suicide. The girl's parents and friends, with whom she was exceeding')- popular, are conlident that Gillette was the murderer, and in l.lerkimev. a little country town in the State of New York, the feeling is so inten-c against him that it has taken three days to get a jury together. Gi Ictte's- parcyits gave- a consider able amount of property to John Alexander Dowie, and ti.is fact, it is believed, will be stated by prisoner's coujiv'l. if necssary. as •■indicating a

streak of insanity in his family." While on a visit home soon after the time when the girl became anxious that Gillette should marry her, she used the telephone in a local hotel. Her conversation was starting enough to make"* the proprietor, -Mr llockwell, remember every word that was uttered, but it is questioned whether Lis evidence will lie admitted, as it is a well established ruling tint conversations overheard shall orJy be ad milled as evidence when carried on in the presence or hearing of the defendant. Whether a tceplioue conversation with the defendant listening on the other end of the wire would be considered as having- been held in tec presence and hearing of the defendant or not is a question which will have to be decided before Mr liockwel.'s tcsti niony can be admitted. One very intcre.ting witness summoned by the prosecution is a well-to-do young lady, in whose behalf it isj suggested Gillette wanted to jilt Miss Brown.