It is 1902, and the San Francisco police have identified a suspect in the murder of Nora Fuller and dispatched Chief of Detectives John Seymour to locate the man, known by the alias “John Bennett,” believed to be hiding near Portland.
Police Establish Identity of Mysterious John Bennett
The police believe they have finally established the identity of the mysterious man known as John Bennett, who enticed Nora Fuller away from her home and ruthlessly strangled her in the vacant flat on Sutter Street. So well satisfied are they that they are this time on the right scent that Chief Wittman has detailed Captain John Seymour, Chief of Detectives, to go in search of the much-wanted man. Seymour left the city quietly yesterday morning on the northbound Oregon Express.
It is believed that the mysterious Bennett has been located in the vicinity of Portland and will soon be apprehended and brought back to face several strong circumstances which seem to connect him with the murder of Nora Fuller.
The police admit that the man whom Chief of Detectives Seymour is tracking down is beyond the shadow of a doubt the man who dined off and on for the last six years at the Popular Restaurant and the individual who wrote Nora Fuller the postal card and who subsequently waited for her at the Popular Restaurant. He was seen there on the day Nora Fuller disappeared by a prominent business man who knew him well and who at times dined with him at the same table.
The name of the business man who imparted this piece of valuable information is being withheld by the police, as it was only with the assurance that his name would not be brought into the case until he is called upon as a witness that he decided to give the information which has put the detectives on the trail of the supposed assassin.
The man who is known to this witness is the same man who is described by restaurant keeper Krone as the individual who came into the restaurant on the evening of January 11 and told Krone that he had an engagement with a young lady and that she should be sent to his table when he came. On that occasion the mysterious man, who gave his name as Bennett, which is now admitted by the police to be an alias, sat at the same table he usually occupied. The business man was in the restaurant at the time and saw the man known as Bennett sitting there.
He had often dined at the same table with Bennett and had picked from him, little by little, information about his business and other facts that have assisted the police in establishing his identity. On the proposition that he is the right man both restaurant keeper Krone and the business man who tipped off the information to the police are absolutely certain.
The business man first met the mysterious man known to Krone as John Bennett in August, 1901, standing in front of the bulletin boards of one of the morning papers. Bennett was reading a bulletin to the effect that the Police Commissioners were about to close down on Nickel in the slot gambling. The business man was standing behind Bennett and the former recognizing in him a man whom he had seen often at the Popular Restaurant, turned and remarked: “They can’t do that; the liquor dealers are in favor of the slot machines and they’ll fight the proposition.”
The business man and Bennett struck up a conversation, and as it was quite near dinner time they repaired to the Popular Restaurant, where Bennett told the business man that he was a printer and advertising man and that he was getting up a paper for the Liquor Dealers’ Association. He shows the business man the form sheets of the paper and stated that it would be ready for publication in a short time. After that the business man ate at the same table with Bennett a number of times.
Detective Archie Hamill was detailed to run down the important clue and he succeeded admirably well. This line of investigation developed additional bits of positive information as to the identity of that man of mystery. The evidence unearthed by the police was of such a startling nature that Chief Wittman detailed Captain Seymour to conduct personally the search for the man who is known only to them as John Bennett, but about whose identity as an individual much more is known.
The man who gave the information to the police gives a better description of Bennett than any that has been given since the body of his girlish victim was found in the flat on Sutter Street. He says that Bennett did not have a cast in his eye.
It was a sort of a mole growth over the right eyelid and when the eye was turned downward it had the appearance of being a drooping eyelid. Those who had business dealings with Bennett have admitted this detail of the description given the police, and this more than anything else leads the police to believe that they are hunting down the right man.
Source: The San Francisco call. (San Francisco [Calif.]), 06 March 1902.
