AN AMAZING CRIMINAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1916, Page 2

AN AMAZING CRIMINAL.

MURDER AND CONTRITION. Rarely has a criminal case excited so nv.ich interest in New York as has been shown in the enquiries and confessions which prove that Arthur Warren Waite murdered his wife's father and mother, fi'id plotted to kill his wife also, in. order that a fortune of 500,000 dollars might cowe into his hands (writes a correspondent of the Melbourne Argus). Waite, who is twenty-seven years old, and has been called Dr. Waite, in September last married Clara Louise, the only daughter of John E. Peck, a millionaire manufacturer of drugs, who lived in Grand Rapids, a city of 130,000 people, in' the State of Michigan, across the great lake from Chicago. Himself a native of Grand Rapids, he had returned to the place a year earlier from Capetown, South Africa. There he had been, or had professed to be, a dentist. After the marriage the pair made their home in a fine apartment on Riverside Drive, in New York. Part of the money required for thnr expenses came from th» .young wife's aunt, who had been led to place 40 ; 000 dollars in Dr. Waite's hands for investment. h\ January last Mrs. Peck, a woman of sixty-seven years, in good health, came to visit her daughter. A few days'after her arrival she became ill, and she died suddenly on the 30th. This excited no juspicion in the mind of the attending physician, who certified that death, had been caused by disease of the kidneys. Young Dr. Waite accompanied the body to Grand Rapids, and at his suggestion it was cremated. A few weeks later the bereaved father of Mrs. Waite came to New York, seeking to comfort and encourage his grieving daughter. He was then in good health, but after a short .stay in the Riverside-drive apartment he «as prostrated by illness, and he died on March 12. Dr. Waite took the body to Grand Rapids y and again suggested cremation, but. his wife's brother Percy received a telegram from some person in New York whom he did not know urging him to insist upon an autcpsy. He did so, and Dr. Waite hurried back to New York, where by a payment of 9000 dollars he bribed the man who had embalmed,tlie body to say, if enquiry should be made, that there v. as arsenic in the embalming fluid. The bribed man, whose name is Kane, buried the money under a tree, and it has been recovered by detectives whom he led to the spot. The autopsy brought to light enough arsenic to kill four men. Before hi; left Grand Rapids, Waite induced his wife to make a will in'his favor. She had inherited 500,000 dollars from her father. At that time she was ill, possibly on accbunt of poison given by her husband He had told a friend that probably she would not live more than a year. Undoubtedly he intended to kill her.

w aite was arrested ' eleven days after his father-in-law's death. Knowing that his purchase of arsenic had been traced and proved, he asserted at first (.hat he had bought it at the request of Mr. Peck, who longed to commit suicide. A few days later he made full confession, saying he had murdered, bptlj Mr. and Mrs. Peck. It has been ascertained that he planned at first to use germs of, deadly disease*. To the laboratory of a, medical college here he made six visits after the arrival of Mrs. Peck, and by fraudulent representations obtained culture tubes of diphtheria, lyplioid, tuberculosis, and anthrax bacilli. These tubes were found in his rooms. But he relied upon arsenic. In his confession he says:—"l used in each cf.ip similar methods, experimenting with various poisons, and finding arsenic, the must reliable at the end. I was 'able to do but little with disease cultures, probably because I lacked the experience of a trained bacteriologist. But it was fascinating to experiment with those deadly things." He seeks the punishment of death, he says, because it is tht only atonement lie can make. "If I }hiy the full penalty here, I believe that in the future life I shall be allowed to make a fresh start, with nothing standing against me." He insists that he is perfectly sane. "I knew what I was about, and if I had succeeded I would have been rich and respected. I took my chance, and failed. If people ask why a young man of his education and social position fell so low a« to kill his benefactors," he adds, '•'they can be told that it was simply ami solely for the greed of money. I wanted money, and' a lot of it. I was not likely to wait until it came to me naturally and honorably. I had too easy a time. I made friends too easily. 1 had'got out of the habit of work. I had acquired expensive tastes. I wanted automobiles and luxurious living. I wanted to travel. I wanted to be able to sign cheques for big sums.and to feel the crinkle of bank bills." His wife Ins brought suit for divorce.