Dilworth Family Tagged By Murder

1916

NEW YORK LAWYER FIFTH IN LINE TO BE SLAIN.

Mother of Man Murdered in East Tells of the Series of Violent Deaths.

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The murder of Dwight P. Dilworth, a New York lawyer, formerly of this city, while driving his motor car thru Van Cortlandt Park in New York City, is the last of a series of five murders in the Dilworth family that began in Civil War times. All of the deaths have been caused by assassins. Three of the murdered men were uncles of Dilworth and the other his father.

Mrs. William P. Dilworth, mother of the man murdered in New York told about the hand of fate that has pursued her husband's family and that has almost wiped out the masculine line of the family. Mrs. Dilworth has been visiting her sister, Mrs. Chas. Clark of this city.

"It began during the Civil War," Mrs. Dilworth said, "when George Dilworth, a lieutenant in the Federal Army, was shot by a 'sniper' while he was delivering a message. He had never been injured in battle, and the war was then about over. He was killed while on a mission of peace. We never learned who killed him. That was the first of the series of fatalities that nearly wiped out my husband's family.

"James Dilworth, a ranchman in Montana, was the next to die. He had upbraided one of his cowboys for failing to cut some hay, and that night the cowboy half crazed with liquor, waited for James and killed him. Thomas Dilworth walked into a hotel at Fort Scott, Kan., one afternoon to attend a meeting.

"Two men were quarreling and one drew a revolver and fired at the other. The bullet missed the man shot at and struck my brother-in-law. He died immediately.

William Slain by a Robber.

"My husband, William P. Dilworth, was next. On Thanksgiving morning, ten years ago, he went to his store to open it. We were living in Oklahoma City then. He was counting his cash when a man walked in the store and commanded him to throw up his hands. There never was a Dilworth living that could ever raise his hands above his shoulders, and my husband was killed as a result. The man who killed him is now serving a life term in the penitentiary.

"The only one of my husband's family now living is Richard Dilworth, a minister in Pennsylvania. He escaped death by a miracle. He was a missionary in Alaska years ago, and was a very bitter enemy of the whisky element. He always talked prohibition. After an extremely bitter attack on liquor in a small mining town one night he was waylaid and assaulted. He was left for dead. He was found by friends and recovered."

Mrs. Dilworth has always feared the fate that seemed to follow the family.

"We often talked about it," she said, "and often wondered who would he next. I would laugh at the boys and tell them it was only a string of coincidences, because I didn't want them to worry.

"But down in my heart I was always sure that it would follow us, and it has."

Mrs. Dilworth, the wife of Dwight P. Dilworth, was visiting in this city when her husband was slain in New York. She was accompanied here by her 3-year-old son, Dwight P. Dilworth, Jr.

Mrs. Dilworth has no idea who killed her husband. She said he didn't have any enemies that she knew of and had never received any threats. She said the young woman who accompanied him probably was either one of his clients or a friend of some of their friends. Dilworth's funeral and burial was at Fort Scott, Kan., Friday.

Mrs. Dilworth left immediately afterward for the East to settle Dilworth's business affairs and help the police in the puzzle of the Golf Links road tragedy.

Like Cliff Drive Slaying.

The murder of Dwight P. Dilworth while motoring with a young woman in a lonely by-path in Van Cortlandt Park in New York City, according to accounts in New York papers, has many of the aspects of the shooting of motorists on Cliff Drive in Kansas City a year or two ago. The circumstances leading up to the attack on Dilworth were identical with those of the Cliff Drive cases.

For weeks a band of young men have been haunting the road which was the scene of the New York crime, terrorizing motorists, but, despite this, the road has not been properly policed, according to the New York papers.

Within 400 feet of the road is the Mosholu Parkway, a much traveled highway, and locally known as "Lovers' Lane," yet no one heard the shots that killed Dilworth. A railroad watchman near the scene heard no shots and was informed of the crime by Miss Mary McNiff, Dilworth's companion, who came to his shanty to seek aid. The road is a secluded one and has been the scene of a number of robberies recently, the last one occurring a week before the murder.

The story of Miss McNiff has been substantiated by police investigation and they are positive that she knows nothing more of the murder than given in her first statement.

Two theories are being advanced by the police as an explanation of the mystery of the murder — one that the two men were highwaymen, and the second that Dilworth was murdered by enemies who were responsible for the large number of similar casualties in his family.

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Three Arrested as Suspects.

NEW YORK. — Police engaged in solving the Dilworth murder case arrested Bernard Decio, 21 years old, near the scene of the shooting. Tony Gadina was arrested in Mount Vernon following a hold-up there, and George Teyden, who was with Gadina at the time of his arrest, also is held.

Stories have come to light of Dilworth's life. The police were told he had a wide acquaintance in theatrical circles. They were also told of Dilworth's fondness for women, which ended in his forced withdrawal from a firm here.

That Dilworth was well known along Broadway and in its resorts became known when "Dolly" Rogers, an actress, said she had introduced Dilworth to Mary McNiff, who was his companion on the night of the crime.

Jealousy of some of Broadway's women is being put forward as a possible cause for the murder.

"Dolly" Rogers, however, expressed the opinion to detectives that "Dear old Dwight" might have been murdered by private detectives frightened out of their caution while trying to "get something on him."

A new witness is a woman who claims to have seen "a woman in a large hat" running from the scene of the crime just after the shots were fired.

Miss McNiff was in the district attorney's office three hours in the afternoon retelling the story of the crime. She could identify none of the three men now under arrest.

The autopsy showed it was possible that only one pistol was used, instead of the two Miss McNiff said she believed she saw. The body had three wounds. The first was a mere chin-scrape.

Miss McNiff said Dilworth phoned the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Corwin, where she lived, asking that the Corwins and Miss McNiff go for an automobile ride, the girl said. Mrs. Corwin was out of town, she said, and as Corwin was ill she consented to go with Dilworth alone.

Wife Denies Reports.

Mrs. Dwight P. Dilworth still has absolute confidence in her husband. Statements that Dilworth was fond of other women and bohemian companions were indignantly denied by his widow. She declared it absurd that Dilworth ever returned to his home in Montclair, N. J., in an intoxicated condition, or that he ever associated with women other than relatives and friends of the family outside of business hours.

"It is absolutely ridiculous," Mrs. Dilworth declared. "My husband never came home intoxicated and I knew all his women friends. But even if it were true, do you think I would tell it? Do you think I am such a fool as to try to blacken my husband's name after he is dead? I do not believe a woman killed my husband. and I know nothing on which to base such a belief."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 4.