The Kicked Coffin and the Girl With Two Names

SEATTLE, April 21. - A newspaper reporter inadvertently kicked a coffin in Frank Gibb's undertaking shop April 2 and was told not to kick it again, as it contained the body of a girl who had been dead for months. The newspaper man reported it to the authorities, and they looked up the death certificate and found it was made out for Myrtle Cook, cause of death pneumonia, and the attending physician Dr. J. B. Seaman. The undertaker and the doctor endeavored to mislead the officials concerning where the body came from, but Mrs. H. R. Lane, keeper of a private lying-in hospital, was finally dragged into it, and she said the girl had died after childbirth, and she showed a two-months-old infant, which she said was the woman's child. No one could identify the body, which was exhumed. The newspapers kept up the agitation, although there seemed to be no chance of learning anything about it.

A woman came to Prosecutor Fraser last week and told him that she had been an inmate of the Lane house at the time of the death, but did not know any Myrtle Cook. She said the girl that had died was named Emily Hall, that she was from England, and had been sent here by the Rev. Jonathan Bell, a Methodist preacher of Birmingham. Then the prosecutor went to work. Again the body of the dead girl was dug up and identified as that of Emily Hall. Some quick work was done late Saturday, and the Lanes and Dr. Seaman were arrested. The detectives have letters that Jonathan Bell wrote to the girl he wronged. Her clothing and money was seized by the Lane woman, and Dr. Seaman was keeping the minister's letters, which were written on parsonage paper, on which is printed 'Primrose Hill, Station Road, Kings Heath, near Dudley, Birmingham, England.'

Prosecutor Fraser says there is ample evidence to directly connect Bell with the operation that caused the girl's death.