At Holliday’s Cove, on the Pan Handle Road

TWO DEFENSELESS WOMEN KILLED IN COLD BLOOD.

Their Brains Battered out with an Iron Bolt

After Which They are Clad in Their Night Robes

By the Inhuman Monster who Caused their Death.

Suspicious Circumstances which Surround the Case.

Van B. Baker at one time Super- intendent of East Liver- pool Schools,

And Husband of the Younger Woman, Suspected of the Murder.

(Wheeling Intelligencer, May 11.)

The most shocking double tragedy ever Chronicled in this vicinity occurred at Holiday’s Cove, a station on the Pan-Handle railroad in Brooke county, some- Time between Monday afternoon and yesterday morning. The affair was sur- rounded with a good deal of mystery, and the circumstances pointed to a cold blooded and deliberate murder, inspired by a ?varice. The victims were Mrs. Drusilla McWha, an old lady 70 years of age, and her daughter, Mrs. Van B. Baker, aged 45. Mrs. Baker’s husband, Van B. Baker, left home shortly before Four o’clock on Monday, taking the train For Hanlin’s station, near which his Father resides. He returned yesterday morning about nine o’clock, and at once Made known the tragedy to the neighbors.

Intense excitement was occasioned by the announcement. Squire Lee, the nearest Justice of the Peace, at once took charge of the premises, and the Sheriff and Coroner of Brooke county were summoned from Wellsburg.

THE HUSBAND’S STORY.

Baker says when he reached the house on his return from Hanlin’s station, he found the front gate open, a circumstance so unusual that it attracted his attention. He went around to the rear of the house, and found the door open.

The bodies of both victims were found on the floor of the sitting room, Mrs. Baker’s lying partly across her mother’s. Both their heads were beaten almost to a jelly, and a heavy iron car bold covered with hair and blood, with which the deed was done, was found near by. A bloody axe was also lying near, and Mrs. McWha’s head showed that it had been used with deadly effect, two terrible gashes from its edge marking her skull. The news of the double murder spread rapidly and the whole village turned out and surrounded the house, eager to hear what they could of the terrible crime.

ROBBERY THE SUPPOSED MOTIVE

Mrs. Drusilla McWha, the eldest of the murdered women, was the widow of Robert McWha, who has been some years dead. The younger woman, her daughter, Eliza, has been married some time to Van B. Baker. The elder woman possessed con- siderable money, said to have been invested in Government bonds. Although not wealthy she is thought to have been worth $7,000 or $8,000, but even to her nearest kin and friends was very reticent as to her affairs. However, she was considered by the inhabitants of the Cove to be well off in this world’s goods, and it was always thought kept large sums of money about the house. After the bodies had been found a search of the house revealed the fact that drawers, cupboards, trunks, chests and in fact every place where money or valuables could be concealed had been broken open and the house literally ransacked from top to bottom.

A trunk belonging to Mr. Baker, he claimed had been broken into and robbed of $350. and other sums were taken, but the exact amount he could not state.

The residence of Mrs. McWha, where the murdered mother and daughter were found is located in the village, one door north of the brick school house which stands on a little hill at the corner of the road leading to New Cumberland. The house is of frame and two stories high.

THREE SUSPICIOUS MEN

Baker told of the visit of three strange men to the house the day before. One of them was tall and heavy, another short and chunky, and the third evidently a German. They said they desired to rent a small piece of Mr. McWha’sfarm to erect a shanty on, to be used as a boarding house for the accommodation of the laborers employed on the railroad to New Cumberland now being constructed. They completed the arrangement, the rental of the grounds to be $10 a month, payable in advance. In payment of the first month’s rent they tendered a $50 bill, saying they did not suppose she could change it. To their surprise she declared her ability to change it, and did so, and they left and have not since been seen.

Inquiry of contractors and others who ought to be aware if any arrangement had been made for the erection of a boarding house there developed the fact that none of them had heard of any such project. This naturally directed suspicion to these three men, and parties were at once organized and started in pursuit.

SUSPICION AROUSED

Chief of Police Porter Smith, of this city, received a telegram yesterday asking him to come to the scene of the tragedy. He did so, and began a number of inquiries which seemed to put a new face on the matter. In response to his questions, Baker gave a very thorough description of the three strange men. This Capt. Smith very carefully noted down in a memorandum book. Then putting the book in his pocket, he asked Baker to write out another copy of the description, making it as exact as possible.

This simple request had a surprising effect on Baker. He at once became exceedingly agitated, and declined to write the description, saying he had other matters to attend to and would do this a little later. His manner attracted attention, and he was further questioned, his answers being so evasive and his agitation so noticeable that the suspicion was inevitable that he knew a good deal more of the tragedy than he had told.

OTHER STRANGE FACTS

Baker’s conduct when examined by the coroner was also of a character to confirm the suspicions that had been aroused, besides which there were a number of circumstances about the murder which required explanation. The blind of the window near where the bodies were found was evidently let down after the deed was committed. The old lady had a night cap wrong side out on her head, which was put there after the murder, as it covered the wounds on the head, but still had no holes on it. There was also evidence that the deed was committed in the kitchen and the bodies dragged into the room in which they were found.

The bodies were clothed in their night dresses but the clothing was not blood stained, while in a tub of water in the kitchen was found the ordinary day clothes of both women, literally drenched in gore. A coupling pin was lying near, but had not been used.

Drawers and boxes in the house were broken open and ransacked to make it appear as if robbery was the motive, and Mr. Baker claimed that $350 of his money was taken, but whether any of his mother-in-law’s was gone he was unable to say, as her effects had not been examined. He also stated that when he returned home he found all the doors locked, and had to burst one open to gain an entrance. At another time he said the door was standing wide open when he reached the house.

BAKER’S ARREST DETERMINED ON

As stated above Mrs. McWha was quite comfortably provided with this world’s goods, and was understood to have made her will, leaving all her possessions to her daughter. Mrs. Baker, during the latter’s life, and after she died to her husband. Mrs. Baker had no children, her only child having died when but a year old. Baker has two sons by a former marriage, who live in Steubenville. He was several years his wife’s junior, and was a school teacher by profession, having taught in the neighborhood of his home for a time, and also the greater part of the past year somewhere in the West. The family were not socially inclined, but rather reserved in their intercourse with neighbors.

After hearing Baker’s evidence, it was concluded by the Sheriff and Coroner to take Capt. Smith’s advice and arrest Baker. A warrant was sworn out, and he was to have been arrested last evening. There being no telegraphic communication with the station it is not known here whether this plan was carried out. Capt. Smith came home on the evening train. When he left the arrest had not been made.

THEORY OF THE OFFICIALS

Baker said a short time before he left home on Monday somebody knocked at the door, but the family made no response. When asked why they did not answer, he said they were tired and did not want to. Yet after this he went to Hanlin’s Station and walked to his father’s home, in the country some distance. A neighbor did call at the house Monday afternoon, but her knock was not answered.

The theory accepted at the Cove is that Baker committed the awful deed and then robed the two women in their night clothes to make it appear that they had been killed in the night. He was about to wash their clothes when the knock at the door alarmed him, and hastily placing things in a shape that would indicate robbery, he fled.

Of course, so far, this is all theory, and the evidence to point to Baker’s guilt so far as known is circumstantial. No effort will be spared to find the three men on whom Baker cast suspicion.

Last night’s Steubenville Herald says: Mrs. McWha, the eldest victim, is well known in this city. She is a sister-in-law of Mrs. Judge McDonald, of North Third street, and has numerous nephews and nieces, among whom is James McWha, the butcher. Her maiden name was Swearengen, and a large number of her relatives live in this city and vicinity. Her daughter, Eliza, the other victim, has been married to Van B. Baker about two years. She has no children of her own, but Baker’s sons reside in this city.

BAKER’S RECORD

As many of the readers of the Review will remember, Baker was, for a year or two, Superintendent of the public schools of East Liverpool, and left here some ten or eleven years ago, under a cloud, he having been detected in embezzling school funds to the amount of $125, and when confronted with the crime, confessed, and gave his note for the amount, which note, however, the School Board still hold and cherish as a souvenir of their association with Prof. Baker in the past. His record elsewhere, both subsequent and prior to his sojourn here – as since learned, was anything but savory.

UNDER ARREST

Baker was arrested last night, and is held for further developments in the case, with the strong probability that a charge of murder will be preferred against him. The feeling in the neighborhood of the Cove is very bitter, and talk of lynching is freely indulged in.

The arrest was made to-day about noon, as we learn by telephone message from Steubenville, owing to contradictory evidence given before the Coroner’s jury. The inquest had not been concluded, but there seems to be evidence sufficient already adduced to justify the holding of Van B. Baker to answer the charge of the murder of his own wife and mother-in-law.

NEW CUMBERLAND, W. VA., May 12.

Van B. Baker, against whom suspicion of having murdered his wife and mother-in-law points so strongly, was brought to this place last night by the Sheriff and confined in the county jail pending the conclusion of the coroner’s inquest.

The excitement in the vicinity of Holiday’s Cove where the murder was committed is most intense, and threats of lynching were yesterday freely indulged in. Indeed preparations for a summary punishment of the crime had been made, and if the coroner’s jury had returned a verdict implicating Baker, a rope dangling from a tree sufficiently indicated what was the infuriated people’s intention.

The people are waxing very impatient at the prolonged duration of the inquest, which was caused by Coroner Lee not understanding that it was necessary to take down the evidence in writing. He made the discovery near the close of yesterday’s proceedings, and it was then determined to have the witnesses all testify a second time, so that their evidence could be reduced to writing.

The railroaders are much incensed at the statement made by Baker in which he attempted to fasten suspicion on some of their number, and had he fallen into their hands last night, the expenses of a trial would have been spared the county.

The feeling against Baker was much intensified by the levity displayed by him at the inquest, he seeming to consider that jokes were in perfect keeping with an investigation into the horrible crime that had been committed.

In the estimation of the majority of people there is but one missing link in the chain of circumstantial evidence surrounding Baker, and that is the failure to find his ordinary wearing clothes, which it is thought will bear marks of the crime he is believed to have perpetrated.

When told by the Sheriff last night that he had better come to New Cumberland with him as he would find it safer there, Baker manifested the greatest coolness, and held out his hands for the “bracelets” with a laughing remark.

The bodies of the victims have been prepared for burial and the funeral takes place this afternoon. The doctors who examined the bodies testified that the murder must have occurred early on Monday afternoon, and visitors to the house on that day say it was held shut from the inside.