A New York Sensation.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 139, 20 April 1901, Page 4

A New York Sensation.

" ; .; r ; lte;Yoßs, ; April 170 ~ Patriot, an attorney, haa bean oomf oiittcd for trial for thi raurder oi Bioe, W : Jfew Yotfi iailijonaifei- • • •; . Mr Ricej a tioinioriaire, dle^ l> iai New Yor'k : U : Bivy^. : '' :, Hia v i^^'''' 1 Jones, "recently made a Confession, which states that Btco'a attorney, Patiick, n instigated Jbrieg to hold a towel satii«' y rated with ohlorofqrm co Rice's face forhalf an hour. Both Jones and Pa'riclK 3 were arrested and charged with murder. .8 The ,16116 wing particulars of the cod were supplied by tne New York co»re « pondent or the Melbourne Argu;, writing on February Ist : We are soon to have a full account •{ the remarkable crimes—murder and. . forgery—by which two men now in gaol here sought to obtain posisession ol old? William Rice's fortune of 8,000,000dt ' The surrogate will take testimony ne> 0 week concerning Rice's will, and the' trial of the imprisoned men is near at hand. Rice was an eccentric and stingy old man, who lived here in a meanly ' furnished apartment, attended by a .valet named -Jones. He had brother* and sisters and nephews in distant States, but he had given all his relative good cause to hate him, and at (he age of eighty-three he was living here alone, cooking his own meals- and finding pleasure only in sewing. To this diver, sionhe gave soveral hours erery day. The profits-of a grog store in Texas were the beginnings of his fortune. Adding to thum the gains of a gamble* and a smuggler, he had finally ri«en tor dealings in real estate and raihoads. He : ■ had quarrelled with his wfie and driven? „ htsr away. She died some years ago, after attempting to dispose of 1,500,000' dollars of his property by will. As refused to honour her bequests, lit gation over the question harassed hiß last years. One of the lawyers who came up from the south to get, something from ■ the old man for his wife's heirs w.» Albert T. Patrick, an unscrupulous fellow, who had been engaged- in.severaldisreputable transactions; This adventurer conspired with Jonei r the valet, to rob Rioe of both hid.fprtuue and his life. One Monday morning: he appeared at the bank where theold aan kept his funds and presented a series of j cheques purporting to have been drawn by Kice to' his order. These cheques r with others which he presented elsewhere, called for 250,000a01. The bank sought to oommuniuafce. wish Rice by telephone. The valet responded, saj ing; that the cheques were all and that Rice himself was too duaf bo use the/ wire. Patrick succeeded in getting cheques for 160,000.i01. certified in hia . favour, but fuither iuq.iiry by the bank- 1 " disclosed the fact Uiat Kice was dead. He had died during the preceding, night. - Patrick and Jones took charge of the body, and with .-uspicums haste caused/ h to be embalmed. Foitunately xh~ detectives intercepted it as it was being carried to the er- mation furnace, and thus saved it for the-cheniistd. Th<* cheques were submitted to experts, who declared that Kice's signatures on them , were forgeries. Then the two conspirators were locked up in the city prison. Patrick had al eady produced an assignment from Rice of all the securities obtained in a safe deposit vault, but had not been permitted to take tbi3 property. When the vault was opened by officers of the, law a fjew d.ys later sttoks and bonds to thevalue of 2,000,C00.t01. were found in it. The chemists discovered mercury in the old man's stomach, and this poison . had net been an' ingredient of tha undertaker's embalming fluid, which had however, contained arsenic. Whoa this d'scovery became known, Jones, the valet, confessed, Patrick, he said, had induced the old man to take some grey tablets which he had brought to - the apartment Rice had been found dead in hia bed that Monday morning, and the night hefore Jones had seen Patrick leaning over the old mo, holding a sponge aad a bottle in 01,9 hand, and with the other pressing down over Rice's face a towel in the shape of a cone. Following this confession, the valet cut hie throat with a t enknife, bub he is still living; This young man, ifrappears, had taken a course of lessons at a "School of Hypno*iV' the manager .of which now testified that he was an ppfc pupil, and became eo proficient that he must have been able at times tjj control a feeble octogenarian, The lawyers will revel io the fight over Rice's* will. Otis that was made four years ago, undoubtedly genuine, shows that this hard old man had become a philanthropist, tor the will give* 5,000,000d01. to create and support in Texas as institute bearing his name. A second will, dated a few days before hia death, is dearly the work, of Patrick and thevaleif. In it all the. first will's numerous bequests to relatives are increased, but the remainder oftha fortune: not less than r 6;000,000Joi. fa left t > Patricfc, who pretends that he had secret instructions from Rice as to the use of it. To secure the punishment of Patrick may not hp-an easy taskr and the wiJk invite long litigation of the kind that e&ts up even a large estate. :!