The Missing Girl and the Tacoma Conspiracy

Another chapter was added to the Katie Hackworth mystery yesterday afternoon when Superior Judge Langley, after hearing habeas corpus proceedings brought by Mr. and Mrs. E. D. Arper against Mrs. Ryther, dismissed the writ because the evidence did not show that the woman had the girl. But he severely scored her for the part she has played in the girl's disappearance. He said her action was not that of a Christian woman and expressed himself as being of the opinion that there had been a conspiracy on the part of Tacoma women to get the girl from her home, and that Mrs. Ryther had apparently had a hand in the work.

Mr. and Mrs. Arper did not make out a strong case against Mrs. Ryther, but the testimony of the witnesses combined to show that she knows considerable about Katie Hackworth's disappearance. Her own testimony showed that she had been pretty well informed about matters relating to Katie by the Tacoma women who were after the girl. She admitted that these women are the same ones who some years ago figured in the prosecution of Judge Wickersham, of Tacoma, for an alleged assault on a young girl, which finally resulted in the defendant's acquittal.

Mrs. L. T. West, who rents rooms at her home on Front Street, testified that on a March afternoon a woman and a young girl who the former claimed was her daughter had rented a room at her place for the night. Mrs. West was not home at the time, and the woman had secured the room from the Japanese servant, stating that they would be in about 10 o'clock at night to occupy it. They came in at night, occupied the room, and at an early hour the following morning the woman knocked on the door of the witness's room and offered to pay for her lodgings. Mrs. West says she went to the door to receive the money, and for the first time saw the woman, who did not have her outer dress on. Mrs. West swore that she believed Mrs. Ryther to be that woman, but would not swear positively that it was she.

Mrs. Ryther went on the stand and said that Tacoma women had written to her to the effect that they had taken legal advice as to whether or not they had a right to take Katie Hackworth from her home, and that the lawyer had advised them that kidnapping was bad business, but that if Katie came to them they could give her shelter. The witness claimed that she did not know where Katie was. She also denied that she was the woman who was at Mrs. West's house on the night in question, and had her husband on the stand to testify that she was at home on that night.

Mr. Arper, who testified, said the Tacoma women denied that they ever wrote to Mrs. Ryther about Katie.