If Dr. Alice’s confession was the truth, that last sentence is probably at least a close contender for the world championship of understatement.
In all good mystery stories a confession ends the case. In the case of Dr. Alice Wynekoop, the confession was hardly more than a beginning. The coroner’s jury reconvened and recommended that Dr. Alice be held for murder, immediately. The jury did not believe the confession was the truth. The verdict of the coroner’s inquest was that Rheta had died from gunshot wounds, hemorrhage and shock. And Assistant State’s Attorney Charles S. Dougherty stated that he believed most of Dr. Alice’s confession was false and that Earle should be charged as an accessory.
Earle helped out at this point with the statement that “the only part of his mother’s confession that was true was that Rheta used to go downstairs frequently to weigh herself. That all the rest was a pack of lies told by his mother to save him because she thought he might be in danger.”
Dr. Alice then stated that if Earle loved her he should keep his mouth shut. But the damage had been done.
Assistant State’s Attorney Charles S. Dougherty made the statement that he believed Dr. Alice had made up her mind to murder Rheta when she had a secret meeting with Earle the Sunday night before the murder.
No one actually knows what was said at that meeting, nor likely ever will. Yet it must have been highly important and probably highly dramatic. For, after her return home, Dr. Alice wrote Earle a frantic note.
Sunday night—
Precious—
I’m choked — you are gone — you have called me up — and after 10 minutes or so, I called and called — no answer — maybe you are sleeping — you need to be — but I want to hear your voice again tonight — I would give anything I had — to spend an hour — in real talk with you — tonight—
And I cannot — Goodnight.
Dr. Alice never mailed that note. Later (according to the testimony of Police Lieutenant Samuel Peterson) she explained that she wrote it when she was hysterical, and wanted to calm down before she sent it.
State’s Attorney Dougherty, who also wanted to know why Dr. Alice had waited almost five hours after Rheta’s death to call the police, a doctor, or anyone, felt he had a case.
As far as motives were concerned—
First there was the “other girl.” Girl? Judging from Earle’s now famous date book, with fifty girls listed, and his diary, kept in code, in which he listed their qualifications, physical and otherwise, she was only one of many. But Dougherty singled out one and declared that she was the only girl Earle had ever loved. Earle had given her a diamond ring, said to be the one he had previously given to Rheta as a pledge of their engagement. For religious reasons neither his family nor hers believed in divorce.
That was one motive. Dr. Alice had wanted to insure the happiness of her adored son, by ridding him of an unwanted wife. As clinchers, however, the State’s attorney added two other motives. Dr. Alive was deeply in debt, and she had taken out insurance policies on Rheta’s life. Finally, said the State’s attorney, Dr. Alice wanted to get rid of a person she considered unfit to live.
Earle, at this point, made five obviously false confessions, culminating in a wild story of how he had slipped into the Wynekoop home on Tuesday afternoon, lain in waiting for his wife, seized her, thrown her on the operating table, killed her and fled by plane to Kansas City. He tried to re-enact the crime, but made so many mistakes that the entire story was discounted.
Finally it turned out that Earle’s alibi was correct and there was not a doubt that he had been miles away at the time of the crime.
The Wynekoop case stayed very much in the headlines. On November 28th, Dr. Alice was seriously ill, with a bronchial cough and high blood pressure. From her bed in the prison hospital she repudiated her confession and denounced the police, declaring that she had confessed only after sixty hours of questioning, during which time she had no food save for one cup of coffee. Two days later she stated she did not think she would live to stand trial, and that was why she had made the confession.
Earle promptly announced that when he got out of jail, he would take up the investigation and prove his mother’s innocence.
The trial was set for January, but in the meantime the Wynekoops kept in the public eye. On December 2nd, the Wynekoop family hired a private detective to solve the mystery. Apparently nothing ever came of his investigation.
Early in December Rheta’s body was exhumed in Indianapolis, and the doctors announced there was no trace of chloroform.
On December 14th, Earle ran over a nine-year-old boy with his automobile, and his sister, Dr. Catherine, was with him at the time.
Dr. Alice’s brother-in-law, Dr. Gilbert Wynekoop, was adjudged insane by a jury trying him for attacking a nurse, and was sent to St. Luke’s hospital for the insane.
Neither of the last two items had anything to do with the murder of red-haired Rheta, of course, but they did help keep the newspaper readers from forgetting the Wynekoops.
By the time the trial opened, Chicago was in a state of high excitement. Dr. Alice, looking exceedingly frail, was carried into the courtroom. The jury was quickly chosen — good, solid citizens: a sporting-goods sales manager, a bookkeeper, a streetcar motorman, a mechanic, a photo engraver, and so on.
The avid audience which had been waiting all these weeks for the Wynekoop trial was not disappointed. It was a highly dramatic show. Policeman March gave his testimony. During it, while the People’s exhibits were being identified and arranged by the witness in the manner he first saw them on the night of Rheta’s death — the operating table, pillow, blanket, thirty-two calibre, Smith & Wesson revolver, bloodstained sheets and pillow case — Dr. Alice collapsed. Then for a time the public was as interested in “Will Dr. Alice Wynekoop live?” as in “Is Dr. Alice Wynekoop guilty?” When — according to one newspaper — she was so weak that she could not hold up her head, she protested a postponement, declaring that she wanted her name cleared before she died.
However, there was a postponement, and in the latter part of February, Officer March picked up where he had been interrupted. The rest of the People’s exhibits were identified and admitted.
This first scene of the first act of a murder trial is usually fairly routine, standard stuff and Officer March’s testimony does not appear to have been otherwise. But he was followed by a witness who is one of the most fascinating figures in the case, Miss Enid Hennessey. Fascinating, because in spite of the newspaper clippings and the transcript of the trial, she remains a shadowy, undefined figure, although she played one of the principal roles. It is hard even to imagine how she looked, acted, spoke and thought.
At the trial, she told, in considerable detail, her version of what happened in the Wynekoop mansion on the day of Rheta’s murder.
“On November 21, 1933, I probably arose at about a quarter to seven.
“I had breakfast in the house with Dr. Wynekoop. I don’t remember whether Rheta had breakfast with us or not. I don’t remember whether I talked to her that morning. I left the house about eight o’clock and went to the Marshall High School. I completed my teaching duties and signed out about three-fifteen. I went to the Loop. I remained there until a little after five and went home. I got to 3406 West Monroe Street just about six o’clock or a little after. When I came into the house I saw the defendant in the kitchen.
“The defendant and I were very good friends. When I came in Dr. Wynekoop put on pork chops to fry and when they were ready we had dinner. I guess it was a little after six. Rheta was not there. She had gone downtown to get some music.