IALUCAS-L Archives

From: "Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert" <>
Subject: MURDER OF MISS CLARA ROSEN..
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 16:33:54 -0500

The Chariton Leader, Chariton, Iowa
Thursday, February 25, 1909

NO CLUE YET FOUND:

No clue to the murderer of MISS ROSEN in Ottumwa, has yet been found and it
is feared that he never will be apprehended. It seems a strange thing when
young girls are murdered thus on the public thoroughfares of a populous city
Punishments could not be prescribed too severe or drastic for such
ghoulish acts.
-----------------------------------------------------------

OTTUMWA MOB VISITS ALBIA:

Last week JOHN JUNKIN, colored, arrested as a suspect for the murder of
CLARA ROSEN at Ottumwa, was brought to Albia and placed in the county jail
to avoid a mob that might be raised to avenge the murder of MISS ROSEN.

The outrage committed on MRS. JOHNSTON Saturday night by a negro stirred the
Ottumwa people to the quick and a few hot heads organized a mob of fully two
hundred people and came to Albia on a freight train for the purpose of
lynching JOHN JUNKIN.

When the accused man was placed in Sheriff Griffin's care he was suspicious
that an attempt might be made to lynch him and he arranged with the chief of
police at Ottumwa to notify him if any signs were noticeable that a mob was
gathering.

About 12:30 Monday morning Sheriff Griffin was notified by telephone that a
mob of two hundred people headed by Messrs. Kerby and Finney, was on its way
to Albia to Lynch the colored suspect. The sheriff called County Attorney
Bates, Marshal Woofter, Patrolman Roberts, Ed Webb, George Harris and Andy
McCreery to the jail and laid his plans before them. The mob was thwarted.

-- ALBIA UNION.
-----------------------------------------------------------

The Chariton Leader, Chariton, Iowa
Thursday, March 4, 1909

THE ALBIA UNION EXTRA
ALBIA, IOWA; Sunday, Feb. 28, 1909

JOHN JUNKIN, the suspect under arrest for the murder of MISS CLARA ROSEN in
Ottumwa on Friday night, February 5th, made a complete confession in the
Monroe County jail at Albia last night to Sheriff Griffin, Chief of Police
Gallagher, and Ex-Chief of Police, John Gray of Ottumwa, and B.D. Way, a
Pinkerton detective of Chicago.

On Saturday night, February 20, a horrible outrage was committed by a negro
on MRS. CHARLES JOHNSTON, and for fear that a mob would lynch JUNKIN he was
brought to Albia and placed in the county jail. A mob was organized in
Ottumwa Sunday and came to Albia on the night train, the particulars of
which were given in The Union of last Tuesday.

It was the protection Sheriff Griffin gave to JUNKIN from this mob that
first unsealed his lips. He is an ignorant negro, steeped in crime, and he
thought that since Griffin had saved him from being swung up by an angry mob
he could also save him from being legally hung by placing the responsibility
of his awful crime on the shoulders of another negro by the name of Frank
Weaver, who had been boarding at his mother's restaurant.

Friday morning Chief of Police Gallagher, John Gray and Detective Way came
to Albia and put JOHN JUNKIN through the sweat box without obtaining any
results. They returned to Ottumwa on the 1:30 passenger train in the
afternoon. About 2:30 Mrs. Griffin telephoned W.B. at the courtroom that
JUNKIN wanted to see him.

The sheriff responded and JUNKIN told him that Frank Weaver came to his
mother's restaurant about 8:00 on the night of the murder and gave him a
diamond ring and asked him if he would peddle it for him. He dressed and
went to Mrs. Cutters' home and tried to sell her the ring. Weaver was
standing on the outside. Mrs. Cutter said it looked nice after which he
told her he found it in front of Mrs. Cooley's house, and then they returned
to his mother's restaurant and wanted rooms. My mother could not
accommodate them and I took them to the Laclede hotel and then went to Reed
s drug store and purchased a half pint of whiskey, drank it and went to bed.
I told Weaver the next morning that I would sell the diamond for him. In
this confession he told Sheriff Griffin that Weaver had on his person a
pocket book, bracelet, a string of gold beads and other articles that he
could not describe. He said he sold the diamond and signed his name as
Walter Davis. After disposing of the diamond he was placed under arrest by
Chief of Police Gallagher.

After making the confession to the sheriff and informing him that the
missing articles were in an attic of his mother's home Griffin telephoned
Gallagher to arrest Frank Weaver.

The sheriff went to Ottumwa on the 10:40 train Friday night and with the
assistance of Gallagher, Way and Day made a search of the premises. Griffin
went into the attic where he found MISS ROSEN's pocket book, gold bracelet
set with pearl and rubies, a string of gold beads, stick pin, pen knife,
hand mirror with gold back and handle They were wrapped in an old
handkerchief.

Weaver was put though the sweat box in Ottumwa and Saturday morning Sheriff
Griffin brought him to Albia.

Saturday forenoon a representative of the Union went to the jail with
Griffin, and on questioning JUNKIN he told the same story, but his demeanor
was that of a man who wanted to shift the responsibility of his crime to
innocent shoulders. After leaving the jail Sheriff Griffin told us that
JUNKIN was the murderer and he would have a confession out of him before the
close of the week.

The Ottumwa officials came to Albia Saturday evening and after supper put
JUNKIN through an awful sweating process. They almost hammered the life out
of him and before they got him to unseal his lips the entire squad,
including the criminal were exhausted. JUNKIN's lips were parched and
resembled leather that had been burned to a crisp.

THE CONFESSION:

JUNKIN said he left his mother's restaurant at 6:30 Friday evening, February
5th and went north on Jefferson Street to Ducrow's Grocery, and met a woman
on Dora and Gara Streets. He grabbed her hand satchel and she resisted him
telling him to leave her alone as she was a Christian girl. JUNKIN knocked
her down and tore the hand satchel from her, the handle becoming detached
and remaining in her hand where it was when her body was found. He then
dragged her to an old cellar where he left her and went home.

He took the hand bag which contained a pocket book, a string of gold beads,
pocket knife, stick pin and hand mirror; he also took a diamond ring from
her finger, and it was the sale of the stone that led to his arrest by Chief
of Police Gallagher.

About 9:30 he took the ring to Mrs. Cutters' home and tried to sell it to
her, but she was suspicious and would not invest. He told her he bought it
from a Jew for twenty-five cents.
---------------------------------------------------

Chariton Leader, Chariton, Iowa
Thursday, March 4, 1909

A POOR SYSTEM:

The murder of CLARA ROSEN is an illustration of the farce of the recently
adopted parole system in this State. JOHN JUNKIN, who has confessed to
having murdered her, was paroled from the Ft. Madison Penitentiary on the
23d of January. He yet had about a year and a half of a five year sentence
to serve, and the offense committed was that of knocking down and robbing a
woman on the streets of Ottumwa some four years ago. For this crime he was
sentenced by Judge Sloan to five years in the penitentiary. The parole
board without any reason paroled him, as above stated, on January 23d last,
and ten days thereafter he had robbed one woman and killed MISS ROSEN. The
parole system is a farce. If this fellow had remained in the pen this girl
s life would have been saved.

-- ALBIA UNION.
----------------------------------------------------------

Chariton Leader, Chariton, Iowa
Thursday, June 3, 1909

JUNKIN IS SURE TO HANG IN 1910; The Brute is to Pay the Penalty For His
Crime:

Judge Roberts has set the last Friday in July, 1910 as the date on which
Negro JUNKIN is to be hanged for the murder of CLARA ROSEN. On Tuesday
after but a short deliberation the jury brought in the sentence of death.
He will be executed in the Ft. Madison Penitentiary, where he was
immediately taken, the law prescribing that a condemned prisoner cannot be
hanged within a year and not beyond fifteen months. The sentence is
satisfactory to the people of Iowa. A few years since under the sentence of
Judge Roberts another negro murderer by the name of Smith was executed at Ft
Madison, for wife murder in Monroe County.

---------------------------------------------------

The Chariton Leader, Chariton, Iowa
Thursday, July 29, 1909

REFUSES TO HANG JUNKIN:

Des Moines, July 24 -- To the surprise of Iowa sheriffs and the public in
general, JOHN JUNKIN, murderer of CLARA ROSEN of Ottumwa, will not be
executed by Sheriff Jackson of Wapello County, where the crime was committed
but he must be hanged by Sheriff Clark of Appanoose County, where he was
tried and convicted.

The situation was brought to light at a meeting of the sheriffs' association
at the Savery Hotel last night when a discussion arose as to when the negro
would be put to death.

Sheriff Jackson of Ottumwa, who was present informed the crowd that he wasn
t going to hang JUNKIN.

"And why not?" was the universal question.

"Because the law says that the sheriff of the county in which the trial was
held must do the job, declared the official of Wapello County.

Sheriff Clark of Centerville jumped to his feet and declared emphatically
that Mr. Jackson was mistaken. A small wager was made and a lawyer went out
to look it up. Then he informed the audience that Sheriff Jackson was
correct in his statement. Consternation spread over the face of Sheriff
Clark and he declared that he wouldn't hang JUNKIN if there was any way out
of it.

"I'll fight a bunch of wildcats without losing my nerve," said Mr. Clark,
But when it comes to putting the noose around a human being's neck and
releasing a trap that sends him to death, is a harder job than most people
think," he said.
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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
June 6, 2005


*I don't have any articles that go beyond August of 1909 -- so we'll have to
wait to see what exactly happened..

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• MURDER OF MISS CLARA ROSEN.. by "Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert" <>