From Saturday, June 11, 1921:
Wife Admits Hired Thugs Slew Kaber
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Charges Midwife She Paid to Have Husband Beaten Got Pair of Assassins to Stab Him Instead
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Woman She Accuses Arrested in Ohio
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Widow Breaks Down in Grilling here; Absolves Her Daughter of Blame
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CLEVELAND, June 10.--Withthe arrival late to-night of Mrs. Eva Katherine Kaber, widow of Daniel B. Kaber, wealthy Lakewood citizen, and Miss Marian McArdle, Mrs. Kaber's daughter, three generations were in the county jail here facing trial fir the first degree murder of Kaber two years ago. Mrs. Mary Brickel, sixty-nine, mother of Mrs. Kaber, has been in jail several days in default of $5,000 bail....
Midwife Seized
One of the women under arrest, a midwife, according to Mrs. Kaber's confession, as related by Prosecutor Stanton, planned the murder of Kaber, who was stabbed twenty-four times. She was taken into custody at Sandusky, Ohio, and is alleged to have concocted a poison, later hiring the assassin. The man figures in Mrs. Kaber's confession, according to Stanton, as one of the agents who hired the two other men to stab Kaber, while the second woman, according to Mrs. Kaber's statements, knew of the plot to commit the murder. The two men at large, Stanton declares, are the actual hired assassins.
In her confession Mrs. Kaber declared the men were hired to "beat up" Kaber "to make him treat her better." The poison was given him, according to the confession, "as medicine to cure his bad habits." She did not know it was poison, Mrs. Kaber insists, declaring it was given to her as medicine.
Although Mrs. Kaber declared she refused to pay the hired foreigners when she learned they had murdered her husband, one of the men being sought is alleged to have left behind in his flight an automobile said to have been given him in payment for his part in the crime. The men were to act as "ghosts," Mrs. Kaber's confession states.
Thinks He Fought
She said Kaber had never believed in ghosts or spirits, and that he probably fought with the men when he awakened and found him by his bedside, the stabbing resulting.
Prosecutor Stanton was prepared to confront the three prisoners with Mrs. Kaber and her daughter to-night in the hope that the prisoners would tell what they knew of the murder.
Mrs. Kaber's aged mother, Mrs. Mary Brickel, who confessed that her daughter knew who had committed the murder, is fretting in her cell here and waiting to be released, seeming to believe that her responsibility is at an end now that the information which she gave has resulted in the clearing up of the murder mystery. She is named in an indictment for murder jointly with hr granddaughter, Miss McArdle, Mrs. Kaber's indictment having been handed up separately....
Quiet on Return Trip
Mrs. Kaber spent the long afternoon on the train gazing out of the car window. She was quiet and apathetic. The wrist into which she jabbed the manicure file in the Harlem prison on Tuesday was bandaged, and a close watch was kept on her to prevent any possible attempt to jump out of the window.
Her daughter seemed to be in good spirits. She passes the time with magazines and in telling Mrs. Christensen's fortune with cards. The cards foretold a happy future for the police chief's wife, which seemed to afford Miss MacArdle some melancholy amusement.
The article mentions the police know the hired men are "Italians," and said the interrogation of Mrs. Kaber went from 2 o'clock PM Thursday through 4 o'clock Friday morning! It also mentions, if you believe it, that Mr. Kaber was a paralytic.
When the time for the train arrived a touring car took the prisoners and police to the Grand Central station. The two women bought books and some candy before boarding the train.
--New-York Tribune, Saturday, June 11, 1921, page 1
There's a summary of the whole (graphic) story at Lakewood History Files. According to that story, he died with 24 stab wounds and a lot of arsenic in his system, and Mrs. Kaber finally was found guilty in July 1921.
On a brighter note, here's a nice ad from Saks & Company. I wish they had a picture of the "Misses' Fairy-like Dance Frocks Of Georgette Crepe"!
Stop back tomorrow. The back of that same issue had a great story on hot dogs (!) that I just couldn't hide away here.
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