Harry Kirby, Part Two: His Other Crimes
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This is Murder, She Told, true crime stories from Maine, New England, and small-town USA. I'm Kristen Sevey. You can connect with me at MurderSheTold.com or on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast. This is part two of the Harry Kirby story. If you haven't listened to part one, I suggest going back and starting with that one first.

This episode contains a description of suicide. If this is a trigger for you, please listen with care. They had it timed perfectly. As soon as the jailer left his post for supper, they sawed through the final threads of steel that were holding them in their cells. They convened in the hallway and began their work on the window bars.

They knew there was no turning back. The damage to their cells was obvious, and nothing that they could do with their rudimentary tools would fix the missing bars back into place. If they were caught, their tools would be taken, they would be separated, and any hope for escape would be extinguished.

They worked with urgency, using bar soap to dampen the noise and lubricate the blades, as the teeth of the saws took bite after bite out of the window bar steel. They had worn blisters on their hands from working with the awkward little blades. Blood from the fingers made them hard to grasp. The minutes wore on, but their progress was swift. And inside of a half an hour, they had breached the window, poking their heads out over the jail yard in the summer sky.

They looked down. The height had seemed much shorter looking up, but they were prepared. Their ringleader of the two, Harry Schroeder, had MacGyvered a rope out of his bed's blanket, and he tied one end to a remaining bar. The other end he cast out the window, and it dangled, limp. The next stop on their way to freedom.

They shimmied down to the yard, dropping the few final feet to the ground, trying to land as quietly as possible. All that remained was to scale the perimeter wall.

It was a sheer concrete face, and there were no handholds. But Schroeder had a plan. He grabbed a long pole from the rec yard, leaned it up in a nook in the foreboding fence, where a column created a 90-degree inside corner, and began to climb the pole. His pal, Joe, helped bear his weight, pushing him as he climbed, sharing the burden.

His knuckles scraped and tore against the rough fence, but he pulled himself up and turned to help his friend. Schroeder laid flat on top of the thick wall and extended his arm. Joe was just able to reach his hand, but once they were clasped, arm to arm, he knew they would top the wall. Schroeder grinned and looked over at his accomplice.

So long, Joe. He hung from the wall, dropped and took off on foot, putting as much distance between him and the jail as possible. He knew they didn't have long before they would be hunted by the warden. Harry Schroeder and Joseph Blunt were both thieves. They had been indicted on charges of grand larceny where they were both held at the Queen's Jail in New York City awaiting trial.

Schroeder, after his daring escape, returned to his home in Brooklyn and was picked up by detectives one block from his house six days later, on September 4th, 1919. In the interviews that he gave detectives after his return, you could almost hear it in his voice. He planned to be caught. He liked the attention and he wanted an incredible story to tell his kids and grandkids. Schroeder said,

This guy Houdini ain't the only one who can pull something snappy when he's on the inside looking out. Guess I might give him a couple of new turns for that act of his. He explained how he and Joe made their break to detectives. I'm not stuck on this queen's jail. It ain't up to date like it ought to be. So I decides to blow. Young Joe Blunt said he'd like to get into a classier jail too, and him and me fixed things up.

I got a little queen that calls on me at the queen's jail, and I tell her just the kind of saws I need if I'm going to get to the Belmont horse race. She brings the proper saws, five of them, and chucks them over the garden wall into the rec yard in the jail. She also throws a couple of cakes of soap. And that night, Joe Blunt and me got to work on the bars.

They was the softest bars I ever leaned on. We used the soap to put the soft pedal on the noise, and it didn't take us long to lacerate the bars in our second-rate cells. I wish you guys had laid off me till tomorrow, cause I had a couple of babies going across at Belmont today. Schroeder didn't get to watch his horses at the famous Long Island track because he was booked again and had to continue his wait in the second-rate jail.

Joe Blunt, on the other hand, slipped away from authorities and was never apprehended. Joe had been in jail for a few months, since early June 1919, for burglarizing a house in Staten Island. After being arrested, he was connected to another crime and further charged with robbing a home in Queens.

Free again, he left New York City, but not before collecting some valuables he had stashed, and soon found his way to Thiel's, New York, a town north of the city on the west bank of the Hudson River, where he found work at the Letchworth Village Sanatorium. Knowing that authorities were looking for a Joseph Blunt, he gave them a new name, James Joseph Crawford, still going casually by Joe, but with a new surname.

Authorities at the sanatorium said that he, quote, appeared from nowhere and seemed mentally so far above such a position that they suspected he was hiding himself away.

He was an attendant to the nearly 1,400 psychiatric patients at Letchworth. It was a large institution and quite new, having just opened eight years prior. It was pioneered to offer more humane institutional care for those who couldn't live on their own. It was a sprawling campus, consisting of many buildings connected by walking trails and gardens. Patients grew their own crops and tended to cows, pigs, and chickens.

Not long after arriving there, he started to have feelings for one of the patients, Lillian White. She was about 24 years old and he was 38, 14 years her senior. She was a good patient who had quite a number of privileges on campus, and her job was to work as a waitress. According to other patients, they had a fiery love affair. Lillian would slip love notes under his plate in the cafeteria, and he would do the same with her.

Authorities noticed and confronted Joe about the affair, but he denied everything. They had a hard time enough staffing the facility, and they needed all of the capable help they could get. Though against policy, they were willing to overlook staff-patient dalliances. Joe continued to mingle with Lillian and other patients and lived up to his reputation as a ladies' man.

Other staff at the institution gave him the nickname Bluebeard. The term originated from a macabre fable about a man who killed five wives and kept their bodies in his home, but it was also used to describe a serial romanticizer and heartbreaker. Joe's roommate and friend later told reporters that he would get cards from all over the country from women he'd once dated.

A couple of Ziegfeld showgirls, Jean and Alice, were the authors of many of the cards. When are you coming back to love us again? one read. Another girl named Betty castigated him for his neglect and begged him not to desert her for other women. Thiel's New York was nestled at the foothills of a nearby mountain range, the Hudson Highlands. The nearest mountaintop to Letchworth Village is present-day Cheesecoat Mountain.

Joe went exploring around the peak and had discovered a large slab of rock that had been eroded below it, forming a small cave. He dug it out further and enclosed it, creating a crude shelter. He stole rugs from Letchworth, stones from a nearby homes construction site, and other furnishings to make it a little more hospitable. He would wrap up tightly in blankets to ward off the cold and make fires for warmth.

He would invite patients out to his mountainside home for romantic rendezvous.

In the summer of 1921, a new nurse arrived at Joe's ward named Ruby Howe, and he was smitten with the 23-year-old. He showered her with attention, and Lillian was enraged. One day, in a violent and angry outburst, Lillian bit Joe's hand severely, and the infection that followed threatened his life. Staff recalled that he had kept his hand bandaged for a long time after before recovering, and although the infection had abated,

the grudge that he held against Lillian had not. Lillian continued to write love notes to him, and at the end of the summer, on September 16th, 1921, he invited her out to his mountain retreat for the last time. His cave was about a hundred feet from the precipice of the mountain, and he coaxed her to the top where, using a small stone as a bludgeon, he beat Lillian White to death. He stripped her of her clothes and burnt them, and left her body to rot.

Lillian's absence was noticed right away and she was marked as missing by Letchworth authorities. And although they made a cursory search for her, it didn't cause alarm. With an average of 5-10 patients going missing each month, they simply didn't have the resources to pursue each one of them diligently.

Also, the day before she disappeared, she was scolded by a matron at the institution for writing love letters, and they attributed her sudden disappearance to the reprimand. Other than the institution, the only other people who would go looking for her was her family. Lillian was one of 17 children, 14 of which were still alive at the time of her death. Both of her parents had died, and though she had a huge family, she wasn't close to many of them.

She had two older sisters that she would correspond with in Brooklyn. In the last known letter of Lillian's, dated September 11th, 1921, she wrote to her sister Catherine. She seemed lonely in it, asking for Catherine's help to get some of her other siblings to write her back and asking for some money for things like a pair of shoes for the dance and a pair of brown stockings. She asked Catherine to ask her brother John if he thought anything of her to send her what she was looking for.

She was envious of her nieces and nephews going to school and wished that she could someday return. Although efforts may have been made by her family in her disappearance, there was no news about them.

As Lillian's body was picked clean by the raptors on the mountaintop, Joe's romance with Ruby blossomed. One day that winter, Joe brought Ruby out to Cheesecoat Mountain, under a pine tree not far from where Lillian's body lay, and he proposed to her. She said yes, and on February 16th, 1922, they went to nearby Nyack, New York to get married.

but they kept the marriage a secret. On the marriage certificate, Joe listed his profession as embalmer. He claimed to Ruby that he'd been trained in embalming and had worked in New York as an apprentice to an undertaker. Three weeks after their marriage, Letchworth was investigating several thefts and suspicions were pointing to Joe.

He told Ruby that he feared that a process of elimination would put the responsibility on him, so he fled. Ruby later said, quote, He didn't send me any word or tell me where he was going, and I had no idea what became of him. The people were saying that he'd probably committed suicide, and I guess that's what I thought too. Ruby was crushed. She was madly in love with Joe, and he deserted her.

After a month with no word from Joe, Ruby decided to return to Maine to be with her mom and stepdad in Saco-Biddeford. Just as Ruby was leaving, a discovery was made at Letchworth. A boy was picking early spring flowers on Cheesecoat Mountain and found Lillian's remains.

The boy was the son of the night watchman at Letchworth, and he ran down the mountain to fetch his father. His father climbed the mountain with a sack and brought the remains down to the sanatorium. This wasn't the first body of a young woman discovered on the mountain. Another had been found three years prior. The coroner studied the remains and estimated that they'd been on the mountaintop for a year. The woman's skull had been crushed in, and the coroner ruled it a homicide.

Letchworth officials were quick to deny that this could have been any of their runaways, and the identity of the body remained a mystery.

This wasn't the first scandal to happen near Letchworth, and some influential men in nearby New York City wanted answers. They contacted the police commissioner of the NYPD, who assigned a special detective to the case, Mary Hamilton, the first female detective in the history of the NYPD. She recalled that one of her colleagues had assisted in a previous case with an identification from skeletal remains, and so she reached out to him for help.

Former police captain Grant Williams took the skull and made a sculpture from it. He described the process in detail to a reporter from The Washington Times.

First, he sterilized the skull with formaldehyde, and then he crafted a crude neck made from a wooden curtain rod. Then he mixed up a batch of plastiline, a non-hardening modeling clay, and coated the entire skull with a half-inch thick coating, carefully following the contours of the bones. From there, using geometry and analytical proportions, he crafted the nose, the lips, and the eyes.

Grant took a few liberties as an artist to try and bring harmony to the whole visage, but he endeavored to be as scientific as possible in his work. As a stroke of good luck, her entire scalp with the hair attached was recovered from the mountaintop because of the unusual way it decomposed, and it was utilized in the recreation. Shoulders and a neck were approximated and tastefully clothed, and in two days, the work was complete.

Mary Hamilton took the entire assembly in a large hat box to Letchworth Village and showed it to Dr. Little, the man in charge. He recognized it right away as a missing female patient, Lillian White.

Mary took the sculpture to the cottage where Lillian had been living eight months prior and showed it to the staff. Two of the attendants recognized the sculpture as Lillian as well. With the three positive identifications from the sanatorium, she then traveled back to New York City to visit with Lillian's family. Mary lived in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, and she asked Lillian's older sisters, Rose and Catherine, to come from Brooklyn to take a look at the sculpture.

They arrived on Thursday, May 4th, 1922, and their recognition was instantaneous. They exclaimed, Catherine, overcome with emotion, fainted on the spot. A reporter who was present wrote,

Her face, gray as death from the shock, bore a striking resemblance to the gruesome clay model. When she revived, she swore vengeance upon whoever had murdered her baby sister.

According to contemporary newspaper journalists, this was the second time in criminal history that a likeness was constructed from a skeleton and used for identification, and newspapers across the country reported on the achievement. Mary, in concert with local law enforcement, began looking into Lillian's past, and Joe Crawford's name emerged right away.

The coroner believed that blows to Lillian's skull were made by a left-handed man, and though Joe was right-handed, staff recalled that the recovery to his right hand would have forced him to use his left. Mary quickly discovered his cave and even found amongst Lillian's personal belongings that were retained by Letchworth a snapshot of Joe, seated at the mouth of the cave looking through a telescope.

Mary was so interested in the case that she devoted all of her time to it for months without compensation. She was convinced that Joe was responsible. They tried to track him down, but he had vanished from Letchworth about two months prior as the investigation into the thefts was looming over him, and he had left little trace. Once again, Joe was on the run and started a new life. He shed his old identity and donned a new one.

But there was one piece of his old life that he could not live without. After several weeks without contact, Joe called on his new bride, Ruby, in Saco, and explained to her that his name wasn't really Joe Crawford at all. With profuse apologies and grand promises for the future, he persuaded her to take on his new name, and in April of 1922, she became Mrs. Harry Kirby.

Despite the interest from the NYPD and from Lillian's family, the district attorney overseeing the judicial system in Thiels opposed the investigation at every turn. He was personal friends with Dr. Little at Letchworth, and though it wasn't confirmed by the DA or the doctor, others in their circle confirmed that there was a general desire to avoid the bad press of a murder investigation that was linked to their institution.

A Rockland County grand jury was convened to review the evidence about Lillian's remains and to make a legal determination of their identity. A dentist testified in the hearing that the records of Lillian's teeth didn't match those of the skeleton. What he didn't reveal was that the charts that he was using were out of date and that there were more current charts available in Letchworth's records.

Lillian's family was unhappy with the outcome for several reasons, not least of which that they wouldn't be allowed to take possession of her body and give her a proper burial. They filed a writ of habeas corpus with the New York Supreme Court, asking a judge to give them possession of the body. Justice Tompkins ruled that the body was, in fact, Lillian White, and gave them legal authority to claim her.

Despite the ruling, the DA still refused to investigate the murder and even opposed to releasing the body to the family. Sadly, the DA buried the body in a pauper's field in Mount Repose Cemetery, despite the many requests by her family. Joe had left a swath of destruction in his wake and had managed to escape again and start a new life with his wife Ruby as Harry Kirby.

By the end of the year, they were greeted with a baby, young Maxine Anderson Kirby. They were living in Lewiston at the time, and Harry saw an advertisement in the paper by the Winslow Farm looking for help. He applied and got the job. And by spring of the next year, May of 1923, they had settled in Winthrop. A local merchant later recalled that Harry was in a bad way financially and lived in the poorest part of town.

Harry had a variety of jobs over the next two years. The oilcloth factory, tending and selling their own vegetables to town residents, as a farmhand in Rome and Monmouth, at a woolen mill, as a woodsman, and as a caretaker of summer cottages. The farm owner in Monmouth later recalled that Harry had told him, Don't get mad at me because I'm a bad man. The farm owner, Mr. Mosley, responded, You might kill me, but you don't scare me.

He also remembered that Harry would buy aspirin pills in bottles of 300, raising suspicions about whether Harry was abusing the drugs. One time, Harry left town, saying he was going back to Massachusetts to settle an estate. When he reappeared, he said that he'd gotten an inheritance of $7,000 and wasn't planning to work for a while. For a long stint of time, Maxine would stay with Ruby's family in Saco to be cared for by her grandparents.

In the summer of 1924, Harry met Ruby's good friend from school, Jane Gray, who was a schoolteacher that lived in Waterton, Massachusetts, and had a family camp on Lake Moranakook. She gave Harry and Ruby permission to use their cottage when their family wasn't using it. And it was during this same summer that Harry became acquainted with Ida Hayward.

Over that winter, they lived in the city of Winthrop for one final season. Ruby moved back to Saco to be with her daughter and her family. And in May of 1925, Harry moved into Jane Grey's family cottage. And it was then, two weeks later, that he would hide out in Emma and Aida's cottage and ambush them on their return from town, killing Aida and setting fire to her cottage.

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Harry willingly went with the officers in Newburyport. He knew there was no use of a struggle. They later recalled that he was a perfect gentleman. He quickly denied any involvement with the killing of Aida. He said, I have no blood on my hands. I found the body and took it to the Grey Cottage to protect someone.

there were conflicting accounts of where he found her body. It was reported that he told several officers that he found her body in the woods and other reports that he found her in the cottage. He said, The reason I came away was because I wanted to protect somebody, but I won't tell who that person is yet. I will make a full statement later. He bragged, I invited several people to enter the cottage after the body was brought there, but nobody took the offer.

One of the first things he said to the investigators was that Ruby wasn't involved. He said, She has nothing to do with this. She knows nothing about it. He didn't want her persecuted by authorities. He confessed, I'm a crook, but not a murderer.

As he was being taken into the Newburyport jail, he made a passing comment that he had nothing particular to live for concerning the jailers that he might try and take his own life. There was a guard posted outside of his cell on suicide watch. Harry was searched for evidence and nothing was found showing any connection to the case. They found some photos of Ruby and his daughter Maxine and he was allowed to keep them. He consoled himself in his cell, gazing at the photos and talking to them.

William Coffin, a reporter for the Boston Globe, wrote, Harry ate a breakfast of ham sandwiches, donuts, a piece of pie, and coffee, with a relish and zest which in no way indicated a disturbed conscience was affecting his appetite. The reporter was given access to Harry for an interview, and Harry reiterated what he had told police earlier.

I thought no one would find the body. I realize I'm up against a serious situation. I've got nothing to live for now. All I wanted was two more days. Then he described his journey on the run, throwing some soft jabs at the police.

I then started away and made my journey openly, and made no attempts to hide or keep out of sight. I passed close to many policemen, and not one of them even looked at me. No one interfered with me or even spoke with me, except when I spoke to them. I arrived in Newburyport Saturday night and walked about a thousand feet across to 34 Market Street and asked for lodging over the weekend. I said my name was James Johnson.

It was a comfortable room, and I retired early and slept well. The governor of Maine, Brewster, called the Newburyport police, skeptical that they had apprehended Harry, chastened by the thoughts that, despite their Herculean efforts, Harry had managed to escape the state.

His doubts were extinguished when Newburyport police checked to see if Harry's upper teeth were false, which they were. A Newburyport resident who had a camp on Lake Moranakook who was familiar with Harry also ID'd him, removing any doubt. Harry continued with William indignantly. "'I don't see why they're making all the fuss about me. I am the man they're after. What is the matter with these Maine folks?'

What's wrong with Governor Brewster? I'm his man, all right, and I'm going back. Harry credited the picture of him published in the Boston Globe for bringing his capture. William wrote, He laughed and remarked that it was a good likeness and that a person might easily recognize him after seeing it. Harry was watched closely and a city physician was called to administer lithium bromide, a sedative, when he showed, quote, signs of nervousness.

Harry had more visitors. Other than personal calls from the governor of Maine and a feature reporter from the Boston Globe, the mayor of Newburyport came to see him. Reporters watched their interaction from a hallway outside his cell. At one point, Harry insisted that his hands were clean, and he held them up, showing that there were no bloodstains. The parade of visitors continued. The

The Pons, who were responsible for his capture, came by to bid Harry a tearful farewell. Harry told them, The happiest moments of my life I spent in your house. I am very sorry for the trouble I've caused you. I want you to get the $1,000 reward. I shall always be glad that I went to church with you, and I hold no anger. Frank Pons said, I should have felt it my duty, even if it had been my own son.

Even the reverend who the Pons introduced to Harry came by to see him. He brought him a handwritten letter and a book about the Bible and admonished him to come clean if he were guilty.

Aida's brother, Guy Hayward, and her brother-in-law, Fred Moulton, visited Harry as well. After the chief of police had them searched, they were allowed to see their star prisoner. Fred got close to the bars and raged at Harry. "So this is the dirty rat. I came here to get a good look at you. I'll get you someday." The chief pulled the visitors away from the bars and sent them back to the waiting room.

Reporters wanted a photo of Harry, and he had refused it several times in his cell. Finally, he acquiesced and asked to be allowed to make himself presentable. He changed his clothes, putting on his collar and a tie, and he brushed his hair. He complained that his decorative stick pin had been lost, something that he would wear on his lapel or his tie. He had the photo taken without it, but the police found it after some searching.

After it was returned to him, he presented it to one of the officers as a gift and said, I won't be needing it anymore. He wore it in the corridors of the police station for the rest of the day and was one of the last to go to Harry's cell and shake his hand before he was taken away.

A photo from the Lewiston Sun-Journal captured an image of 160 people waiting outside the jail in Newburyport, hoping for a glimpse of Harry. Harry said he was willing to return to Maine and he waived his legal rights to contest extradition. Around 2 p.m. that afternoon, officers from Maine arrived to take Harry, and he walked with them from the jail, covering his face with his hat.

There were mobs of people in Augusta and Winthrop promising vigilante justice, full of piss and vinegar. Reports of up to 5,000 people, and so authorities decided to hold Harry temporarily in Portland. Reporters said that never in the history of Augusta had there been such a threatening attitude against any individual. Authorities believed there were dozens of concealed weapons carried by the crowd, and there was even talk of bringing the National Guard to ensure peace.

That morning, as Harry was being arrested as a fugitive in Newburyport, Ruby was being transported from Saco to Augusta to be questioned. Ruby told authorities that Harry had told her he'd discovered Aida's body and taken it to his cottage. She also revealed one of his aliases, explaining that she had married Harry as James Joe Crawford of New York. After an interview, she was on the verge of hysteria and was given medical attention and a constant guard.

Harry, meanwhile, expressed concern to his jailers about his wife and feared that she might be at risk of suicide.

As Harry was having dinner in Portland in the county jail, Ruby was giving another interview with authorities in Augusta. She said she never wanted to see Harry again. She was questioned about other crimes that might be Harry's work. One was about a 29-year-old man named Sandy Buchanan who had been discovered in a suburb of Boston, strangled in strange circumstances. There was a noose around his neck and his face was covered with a gas mask. His hands were tied together.

His pockets were turned inside out, and it was believed that he had been chloroformed. In the middle of the night, technically the morning of Tuesday, May 26th, authorities took Harry from Portland to Augusta to avoid the crowds of that day. They posted a guard in front of his cell, again out of concern of suicide, and they took his shoes from him for fear that he might make a noose from the laces.

He slept that night just two doors down from where he slept the night at the YMCA as a free man, just a few nights prior. Crowds continued to swarm Augusta on Tuesday, and it was decided that they would wait to arraign Harry until Wednesday in Winthrop.

Ruby continued to talk, implicating Harry in three burglaries, one in East Monmouth of jewelry and gold in 1924, and two separate break-ins at the same home of Mary Nichols of Winthrop, nabbing her jewelry. She said that she despised him and that he was yellow clear through. Harry got word that Ruby had turned against him, and he demanded to see her. Ruby was at the home of Chief Sanborn of the State Highway Police, and she agreed.

They met in a dimly lit corridor of the jail. A reporter for the Lewiston Sun Journal observed them from down the hall. When she appeared, Harry grasped the bars of his cell door tightly and his skin turned pale. "Hello, Ruby," he said. She was calm and cold and replied, "Hello, Harry. I came because you asked it. I felt I had to come." Harry grabbed her hand, drew it between the bars, and showered it with kisses.

Ruby showed no emotion at the demonstration. "You know, Ruby, I'm not yellow. You know I have no yellow streak. Hasn't our love always been a true one?

It appeared as though Harry feared he might not see his wife again. He gripped her hand tightly, and his voice, trembling, cried out, By the sacred memory of that love, I charge you, Ruby, that I did not kill nor attack Miss Hayward, nor any woman. Ruby said, Well, Harry, I'd tell the truth, and all of it.

Harry recoiled. Tears welled in his eyes, and then his shoulders slumped in dejection. Harry held on to his memory of his devoted wife. She had previously professed that she loved him dearly despite the suspicion that was attached to him in New York. She said that he was the perfect lover, and in every way a devoted husband. He suddenly pulled from his pocket a silk handkerchief with a flowered border and gave it to her.

I want you to have this as a memory of our happy days. She rebuffed him, saying, I don't want it. Keep it. He stowed it in her purse over her objection. Ruby later explained to reporters that the handkerchief was a gift to Harry from their courtship. As Ruby left, Harry asked the jailer to turn over to her any valuables that he had with him at the time he was arrested, which amounted to $40.

An advance guard of motorcycle police were sent from Augusta to Winthrop. They readied the way. When Harry stepped back on Winthrop's soil from the safety of his police escort, he placed his cap in front of his face to foil photographers and hustled inside. The town hall building, where dances and meetings were often held, was fashioned into a court.

and Judge Foster read the charges against Harry. He pled not guilty, and he was held without the opportunity for bail until the next grand jury session, which wasn't scheduled until September. Immediately after the hearing, he was returned to Augusta, where he would be held in jail awaiting the next hearing. When he returned to Augusta, he found Captain Grant Williams, the sculptor and police captain, waiting for him. He asked him about Lillian White.

Although the details of their discussion weren't revealed, Harry maintained his innocence and denied knowing anything about her disappearance or death. He was brought back to Winthrop in late afternoon to walk investigators through his movements the night of Aida's death. They went on the same train that carried Emma and Aida from a town stop near the cottage, the Edgewood Cottage, which had not been known to have been previously involved in the incident.

When he arrived with investigators, he went to the icebox on the porch, found a key to the back door, and let them in. In the living room, he pointed out a couch where he said that he'd found Aida's body. He said her clothing was stuffed under a living room table. He walked the route from the Edgewood Cottage to the Gray Cottage where he was living.

He was unflappable. A cigarette dangled carelessly from the left corner of his mouth as he pointed out the route over which he carried the body. He pointed out the place where he threw the revolver in the lake. Men were stationed offshore in boats searching for the weapon. Harry tried to indicate how hard he'd thrown it to help them better position themselves.

A diver was scheduled to arrive from Boston later to assist in the hunt for the gun. When they arrived at the Gray Cottage, he became anxious and refused to enter. The next morning, Harry was examined by two doctors, so-called "alienists," a term for psychologists from the 1920s. They wanted to confirm that Harry was competent to stand trial, to determine if an insanity plea would be appropriate.

Reporters observed that any intimation that Harry was crazy stung him out of his calm and collected pose. He would angrily declare that he was not insane and never was feeble-minded.

This same day, authorities discovered that he was the same Joseph Blunt who had escaped from the Queen's jail six years prior, in 1919. Officials asked him to accompany them again to Winthrop to walk through the events. They hoped that through the pressure of their repeated questioning, he would slip up. Ruby was interrogated again for four hours and was exhausted.

She had no energy left to be angry with Harry. When she went to visit him again, they focused their conversation on care for their daughter, Maxine, and they were affectionate with one another. Back in Winthrop, one of Jane Grey's relatives came up to board up the camp. No one from their family wanted to stay in it that season, considering the atrocity that had just happened there.

Loots from Harry's many heists were being assembled. Ruby told investigators everything she could remember about the various pawn shops that Harry frequented.

Divers pulled some valuables out of Lake Moranakook, Aida's father's watch, some jewelry that belonged to a Winthrop resident, and a pedometer that belonged to Aida's brother. Many pawn shops had to cough up the stolen goods. From lists of valuables produced by Harry's many victims, thousands of dollars' worth of jewelry and goods were collected as evidence.

A Portland press reporter was sleuthing around the Gray Cottage and discovered under the steps a revolver that matched exactly the description of the gun that Harry had given, the one that was supposedly at the bottom of Lake Moranakook. The gun was presented to Harry, and he said that he doubted it was the one that he'd purchased. Its history was tracked to the store, and according to the store logs, it was bought by a man who called himself Frank Gilman of Kent's Hill, Maine.

Could it be another of Harry's aliases? On the tenth day of his detention, after repeated interrogations, Harry's condition had deteriorated. There was some speculation that he was suffering from withdrawal from recreational drug use and was particularly vulnerable.

Harry called county attorney Frank Souther to his cell and with a deep breath said, "'I am guilty of all the crimes you charged me with.'" He told Frank that he had shot Emma, murdered Aida, and set fire to their cottage.

He said that he was drunk from a pint of liquor that he'd bought from an Augusta bootlegger and shot Emma in a drunken frenzy. He marched Aida down the train tracks back to his cottage and bound her, after which he returned to her cottage and torched it. When he returned, he went straight upstairs and choked Aida to death. He said he covered her body with a feather tick because he couldn't stand the glare of her eyes.

He considered how to get rid of the body. His first idea was to dump it in the lake, but then he heard about the men dragging it with a grappling hook. His second idea was to bury it in the woods, but then he heard that Dika, the scent dog, would be searching the woods. As the body decomposed and the smell intensified, he decided to flee.

There was speculation that the motivation for Harry's confession was to avoid the possibility of facing the murder charges for Lillian White in New York, where it was possible to be put to death by the electric chair. Maine's maximum sentence was life in prison.

In speaking to Motive, Harry said that he knew Aida was worth about $30,000, and he knew that she had access to safes of certain businesses in town, and he planned to force her to open the safes. He said that he prowled at night and stole what he could from cottages on the lake, and he made plans to kidnap Aida and extort her for her family's wealth.

After his confession, Harry spent eight hours with a Boston reporter and told him the story of his life from his earliest recollection. They paid him $500 for it. A Boston Globe writer who witnessed the telling said, Harry is egocentric. He gloried in the yarn he told, and his cunning little eyes glittered as he gave the details one by one. At times he laughed and joked,

He knew he was going to get into the newspapers as he eagerly sought since his arrest. The fact that he practically dropped out of the newspapers for days spurred him on. He believed that his real name was Louis Blunt and that he was born in Bangor, Maine. Up to this point, Harry had refused legal counsel, content to speak for himself.

On the same day, Wednesday, June 3rd, a forensic ballistics test revealed that the bullets fired into Emma came from the revolver that was discovered under the steps of the Grey Cottage. In Newburyport, the officer who had proudly sported the stick pin that Harry had given him was ordered to return it to the main authorities. As it turned out, it was yet another of Harry's stolen goods.

The next day, Bert Fowler, the same officer who went up in the Jenny plane, discovered 16 .32 caliber bullets in a paper bag under the walk that connected Harry's cottage to the outhouse. Along with bullets, he found a wristwatch, a small diamond ring, a string of pearls, a locket, and a broken chain, all of which were identified by Aida's brother-in-law, Fred Moulton, as having belonged to Aida.

Fred told reporters, I'd give $100,000 to have 15 minutes with that man. The case against Harry was airtight. Several weeks later, the sheriff of Kennebec County petitioned the governor's office to transfer him to Thomaston Prison because he believed that he would be safer there. Governor Brewster responded and claimed that there was no legal mechanism to do so, so he must remain in Augusta until trial.

On September 3rd, 1925, an Augusta grand jury indicted Harry on three charges, and the next day, he was assigned a pinch-hitter public defender, Ransford Shaw of Holton, Maine, the former attorney general of the entire state. A few days later, Harry was arraigned again in Superior Court, and he pled guilty to arson, but not guilty to the charges of murder and attempted murder.

A week later, on September 14th, 1925, Harry carefully positioned a blanket on the floor of his cell and laid on the cot in such a way that only his back was visible to the casual observer. He had cleverly hidden a razor blade in his cell and he used it to slash his wrists. Sheriff Cummings discovered what he'd done perhaps 20 minutes after the cut was made and found that Harry was nearly unconscious.

Only a trickle of blood flowed. On-call doctors responded immediately and moved him to the hospital. Despite their efforts, Harry Kirby died at 1.30 p.m. that afternoon in his hospital bed. He was set to appear at court the next day for his trial. And according to his lawyer, he was expected to reverse his plea on the two serious counts to avoid the need for a full trial. He left a note.

Dear Sir, I have thought the matter over and decided that it would be far better to sacrifice my life to the state of Maine rather than plead guilty to a brutal and vicious crime that I am not wholly guilty for. If my wife doesn't claim my remains, I'd like to have you surrender them to the Bowdoin College Medical School for purposes of study, if they care to claim them. Bowdoin Medical School ceased to exist several years prior, unbeknownst to Harry.

The sheriff couldn't account for the presence of the razor. There was some speculation that a visitor might have brought it in for him, but he hadn't had any visitors lately, not even Ruby. Perhaps he had it hidden away for months. Ruby was contacted, and she declined to collect his remains. She was off somewhere in Aroostook County, and her mother and stepfather were caring for her daughter.

There were no other known relatives of Harry's, and so it was left to the state to dispose of his remains. The next day, an announcement in the newspaper was made that Harry's funeral would be held in Augusta. Winthrop refused to bury his body. At 1 p.m. in Augusta on September 17th, a few cemetery workmen laid Harry to rest in a pauper's grave at a local cemetery. No one, not even Ruby, was present.

After Harry's death, the governor issued an order authorizing the payment of the $1,000 reward to the pawns for Harry's apprehension.

What finally had caught up to Harry was his notoriety. His face appeared in the papers, and he couldn't hide from his own photograph. When he fled Winthrop, he hoped to become someone new again. He had tried to save his relationship with Ruby, meeting with her in Old Orchard the day of the murder, feeling her out, and hoping that she would flee with him.

The name he gave the ponds in Newburyport when he was on the lam was James Johnson. Perhaps this would become his new identity. The names he used were common, familiar names. Joe Blunt James Joe Crawford Harry Kirby

According to his wife, Harry was born on October 14th, 1883, making him 41 years old at the time of his death. He had been a drifter for his entire adult life, charming people with his supposed education, his polite manners, and his way with words. He won people's confidence and then abused them, and after 20 or more years of adult life, the chickens had come home to roost.

Emma Towns was scheduled to go into surgery the next day. She sat nervously on the bed, wondering whether she would awaken from the general anesthesia that would render her unconscious. She had made a miraculous recovery in the months since she was at death's door. She reflected on the tragedy that had stolen her best friend and her home when she had a tickle in her throat.

She coughed a few times and the tickle became worse. She coughed more vigorously, hurling something from her throat into her mouth. She spit it out and looked in her hand. The surgery the next day was no longer necessary. Her body had miraculously cast out the poisonous intruder. She looked at the lead lump with awe and disgust. It was the bullet that had nearly killed her.

I want to thank you so much for listening. I'm so grateful that you chose to tune in and I couldn't be here without you. Thank you. This coming Saturday is the live event for Reeves Johnson and I would love to see you there. You can find details and RSVP in the show notes. Anything sent to support the show through June 18th will go towards the events. Check out the link in the show notes for more details.

A detailed source listing can be found on the website at MurderSheTold.com. Special thanks to Byron Willis for his writing and his research support. Also to Bridget Rowley for her research support. If you have a story suggestion or a correction, feel free to reach out at HelloAtMurderSheTold.com. My only hope is that I've honored your stories by keeping the names of your family and friends alive. I'm Kristen Sevey, and this is Murder She Told. Thank you for listening.