Poisoning the Pecks of Grand Rapids Read online

  She smiled as she said, “I do.” The man whom every woman wanted now belonged to her.

  “Do you, Arthur Warren Waite, take…”

  The Hotel Pontchartrain in Detroit, where Clara and Arthur spent their first night together. After their stay in Detroit, the newlyweds traveled to New York. They lived in a hotel while their Coliseum Apartment was being prepared. From the Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress.

  Arthur smirked. The Peck family had no idea what he had planned for them. Saying “I do” would set his grand scheme in motion.

  Reverend Wishart paused and looked at Arthur Warren Waite.

  “I do,” he said and grinned.

  2

  “K. ADAMS”

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  Monday Morning, March 13, 1916

  Waite glared at Clara as the Wolverine Express sped toward Grand Rapids, Michigan. She stared out the window, her hands folded in her lap in a pose that reminded him of a contrite schoolgirl. Her mourning dress made her complexion appear even more pale than usual.

  She didn’t suspect a thing.

  When Hannah came to visit the newlyweds at their Coliseum Apartment on January 10 and fell mysteriously ill, Clara had no idea what really caused her sickness. Even after Hannah suddenly and unexpectedly passed away three weeks later from kidney disease, Clara still didn’t question the cause of death scrawled on her mother’s death certificate.

  Kidney failure—Waite couldn’t help but laugh at the thought. He looked away from Clara and giggled.

  He even managed to convince the Pecks that Hannah wanted a cremation, and they didn’t suspect his ulterior motive of destroying evidence when he took the body to a Detroit crematorium. When he brought Hannah’s ashes back to Grand Rapids, where they were interred at Oak Hill Cemetery, the family had no idea that he had just completed the first phase of a malevolent plot.

  Then, six weeks later, John Peck traveled to New York. Grieving his wife’s untimely passing, he decided to take solace by spending some time with his daughter. Like Hannah, he became suddenly ill while at the Waite residence and died, supposedly of heart disease. Clara, however, had no idea what had really killed her father.

  Waite thought about the ghastly secret hiding inside the coffin in the baggage car and how, once again, Clara didn’t bat an eye when he relayed her father’s wish to be cremated. Following the funeral, he planned to take the body to the same Detroit crematory where Hannah’s remains were incinerated. He glanced at the claim check. It was his golden ticket.

  There had been a few tense moments when he almost gave away the game. The maid, Dora Hillier, saw him dumping something into John Peck’s soup. She easily fell for his explanation that he was giving the old man his medicine. He even asked Dora to taste the soup. Dutifully, she sipped the broth and said she didn’t notice a difference, unaware of what it contained. Waite smiled at the thought of the ignorant woman testing his arsenic-laced brew.

  They had all been so easy to fool. Arthur Warren Waite grinned as he reached out to hold his wife’s hand.

  As Arthur and Clara Waite made the train trek west, a young woman rushed to a Western Union telegraph operator in Grand Central Station. She needed to send an urgent note to Percy Peck in Grand Rapids.15

  She hesitated before approaching the clerk and wondered if she should meddle in the Peck’s family business. She had no evidence, just a female’s intuition that something foul had occurred in the Waites’ Coliseum apartment. First, Hannah Peck died while visiting Arthur and Clara Waite. Nothing too shocking there; she was infirm. Then, just six weeks later, John Peck died, also while visiting the Coliseum. A husband following his longtime mate’s footsteps to the grave was also not entirely unexpected.

  Yet John Peck had walked into the Waite apartment healthy and fit and, following the onset of a sudden illness, was carried out feet first. Then, like his wife before him, John’s body was going to be cremated. The world of high society was a small one, and she knew people who knew the Waite couple and told her about some pretty odd things associated with the death of John Peck. She shook her head; something was rotten in the Coliseum.

  The operator, a middle-aged man with round spectacles, handed the young lady a blank form and a pencil. She jotted out a brief message.

  To Mr. and Mrs. Percy Peck:

  Suspicion aroused Demand

  Autopsy Do not reveal telegram

  She paused before adding a name. She wanted to use a pseudonym, but what would be an appropriate nom de plume? She needed something cryptic, something with an allusion that Percy Peck might recognize.

  The name “Katherine Adams” immediately came to mind. She had a friend by that name who had recently married.16 And by sheer coincidence, her friend was the namesake of the victim in one of New York City’s most infamous poisoning cases. She remembered reading about the case once.

  On December 28, 1898, New York City landlady Katherine J. Adams died minutes after sipping from a cyanide-laced headache remedy given to her by one of her lodgers, Harry Cornish, who received it in the mail from Roland Molineux. Authorities believed that Molineux, a chemist, spiked the Bromo-Seltzer to murder his bitter rival, Cornish. Ignorant of his enemy’s scheme, Cornish gave the medicine to his landlady when she complained of a migraine headache. A jury found Molineux guilty after a lengthy trial, but following an appeals court reversal and a second trial, he was acquitted.

  She inked the name “K. Adams” and “Coloseum NY” on the form.17

  “K. Adams” hoped Percy Peck would recognize the sinister allusion.

  Percy Peck paced back and forth across the front parlor of Joseph Sprattler’s undertaking establishment on Fulton Street. He slid his hand into his vest pocket, pulled out his timepiece and flicked open its lid. Dr. Schurtz would arrive any minute now to begin the postmortem.

  The “K. Adams” telegram had beat the Wolverine Express to Grand Rapids. His suspicions piqued, Percy decided to take the advice of “K. Adams” and arrange for an autopsy.

  Percy smiled as he remembered the blank expression on Arthur’s face. When the train carrying John Peck’s body arrived at one o’clock in the afternoon, Percy shocked Clara and Arthur by demanding the baggage checks for his father’s corpse. Arthur just stared, dumbfounded, at Percy and Joseph Sprattler, a local undertaker. Percy held out his hand, and Arthur stood, motionless, as the smile melted from his face. Clara didn’t know what to make of it but tugged on Arthur’s sleeve. Reluctantly, Arthur slapped the papers into Percy’s palm.

  It was vital that Arthur didn’t know about the autopsy, so while Clara and Arthur checked into the Pantlind Hotel, Sprattler took Peck’s body to his mortuary. Meanwhile, Percy telephoned the family physician, Dr. Perry Schurtz.

  Union Depot in Grand Rapids, Michigan, circa 1900–1910. From the Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress.

  After listening to Percy read the telegram, Dr. Schurtz agreed to conduct the postmortem. He felt all along that something sinister had happened to John Peck. When he heard that Peck had become sick while lodging at the Waite apartment, he urged Percy to go to New York, but Percy was delayed in Grand Rapids by business. By the time he purchased a train ticket, it was too late.

  An hour after receiving Percy’s call, Dr. Schurtz and Dr. E.P. Billings, a trusted friend who would help him with the autopsy, arrived at the funeral home.

  Percy stopped pacing and walked to the door when he noticed the two physicians approaching. Sprattler and Billings looked on as Percy Peck handed the “K. Adams” telegram to Dr. Schurtz, who held the paper up to the light and examined it. He knew no one by the name “K. Adams” but suspected that Dr. Jacob Cornell—a lifelong friend of John Peck—might know something about the mysterious message.

  Percy spoke in a hushed tone as he described the mysterious illness that had gripped John Peck. Clara told him that Father became very sick after eating a dish of ice cream and, later, deathly ill after quaffing down a mug of eggnog. “Arsenic,” Schur
tz whispered as he listened to Percy’s narrative. Arsenic poisoning, he noted, shared several symptoms with food poisoning: a sudden onset of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

  Dr. Schurtz reassured Percy that if John Peck had died from heart disease and nephritis as the death certificate indicated, he would find evidence of it during the postmortem. If Peck had died from ingesting arsenic, he would find evidence of that, too, in the stomach and intestines. He would remove the organs and personally take them to Ann Arbor, where Dr. Victor Vaughn, dean of the University of Michigan’s medical school, would conduct an examination and confirm the presence of a heavy metal poison.

  Dr. Schurtz assumed a stoic façade for Percy, but in the back room of the funeral parlor, he felt a tinge of uneasiness. Although a veteran of numerous surgeries, Dr. Schurtz didn’t have much experience with postmortems, and now he would conduct one on a man he had known for over thirty-five years.

  He stared into the lifeless face of John Peck as he steadied his nerves. An off-white crust at the edges of Peck’s mouth hinted at the agony he had suffered during his final moments. The scene was hard to accept; he knew John Peck as a larger-than-life figure, a man who built an empire from scratch.

  A small, one-inch scar on Peck’s right arm represented the embalmer’s work. The undertaker would have pierced an artery and injected about two quarts of embalming fluid. Then, using a foot-long knife called a trocar, he would have made a second incision that pierced the abdominal cavity, allowing the gas and blood to drain out. Once the cavity was empty, he would have pumped in another two quarts of embalming fluid. This simple procedure provided many a poisoner with a forensic alibi until the states began banning the use of arsenic in embalming fluid.

  Schurtz took a deep breath as he pressed the edge of his scalpel under Peck’s first rib. He drew the blade downward, exposing the deep, red muscle tissue under the pink skin.

  After a few minutes, Dr. Schurtz had managed to remove the heart. A close examination revealed no evidence of lesions. As he suspected, the cause of death on John Peck’s death certificate was wrong; Peck did not die as the result of heart disease. He handed the heart to Dr. Billings, who slid it into one of the jars, and then began to study the kidneys. Like the heart, the kidneys were unmarked by any sign of disease. John Peck evidently didn’t die of nephritis, either.

  Peck’s stomach, Schurtz thought, showed signs of poisoning. It was contracted into the shape of an hourglass and was fiery red in color. He gently turned the end of the stomach inside out. The inside surface was mottled with dark purple patches where something had eaten away the mucus membrane. Leaning forward, Dr. Schurtz noticed a fine, white powder at the center of each darkened spot. It looked like poison.

  Dr. Perry Schurtz, photographed in 1916 during the trial of Arthur Warren Waite. From the Bain News Service, Library of Congress.

  With a few swipes of his scalpel, he removed the stomach and portions of the intestines, which Dr. Billings gently placed in jars for transportation to Dr. Vaughn’s laboratory in Ann Arbor.18

  While Schurtz conducted the autopsy, Percy returned to the Peck mansion, where he dined with Arthur and Clara. After dinner, John Peck’s body still hadn’t been delivered to the house for the at-home funeral. Suspicious, Arthur phoned Sprattler and asked him to come immediately.

  In the front parlor, Arthur questioned Sprattler about the funeral arrangements. “I personally want a postmortem,” Waite remarked, “but my wife will not stand for it.” Sprattler just shook his head and told a white lie. He knew nothing about a postmortem, he said.19

  On his way to the Pantlind a few hours later, Waite stopped by Sprattler’s mortuary. He wanted to place a picture of Clara and a small flower in the casket. It was Clara’s wish, he explained. Sprattler said that the casket was sealed and would under no circumstances be opened.

  Waite suspected what had happened. “What is Percy Peck’s idea?” Waite barked at the shocked undertaker. “Neither my wife nor I will permit an autopsy.”20 He stomped off without seeing the body.

  From the Pantlind, Arthur called Percy and reminded him of John Peck’s deathbed wish for a cremation. Percy explained that he wanted to wait before sending the body to Detroit, so his father’s many friends had time to pay their last respects. Besides, he added, “friends and family would think it odd if it were rushed to a crematorium.”21

  Percy kept a close eye on his father’s body. He arranged to have it escorted to the family crypt at Oak Hill Cemetery and sealed following Tuesday’s funeral. He also arranged for a guard to keep a vigil to make sure no one tried to tamper with or even steal it.22

  That evening, Dr. Schurtz took a night train to Ann Arbor, where he delivered the jars containing John Peck’s internal organs to Victor Vaughn at the University of Michigan. He and Dr. Vaughn had known each other since Dr. Schurtz graduated from the University of Michigan in 1876. If anyone knew about the effects of poison on the body, it was Dr. Vaughn.

  Vaughn picked up the jar containing John Peck’s stomach and eyed it. “There’s plenty of arsenic there,” he remarked.23 He would confirm his suspicions with the usual battery of tests and prepare a formal report. If he was right—and he was sure that he was—he would eventually need to present the results to investigators and probably to a jury.

  Dr. Vaughn explained that if John Peck’s organs contained arsenic, it would most certainly not have come from the embalming. New York State, along with Michigan and most other states, had illegalized the use of arsenic in embalming fluids years earlier. That was not to say, he noted, that some old-timer hadn’t used antiquated supplies or ignored the law altogether.

  The presence of arsenic in John Peck’s brain tissue, however, would prove beyond all doubt that he ingested the poison before he died. Therefore, Dr. Vaughn suggested, a second autopsy would be advisable. With a handshake, Vaughn promised to wire the results of his analysis as soon as they became available.

  3

  THE PASTOR-TURNED-PRIVATE-INVESTIGATOR

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  Tuesday, March 14–Friday, March 17, 1916

  The at-home funeral took place on Tuesday. Family and friends, many of whom had known John Peck for over thirty years, flooded into the front parlor of the Peck mansion, where the business tycoon lay in a chestnut coffin. Dressed in a suit, he looked as if he were taking a nap after an important board meeting. Neither Clara nor Arthur attended the funeral; Clara’s nerves had left her bedridden in their Pantlind suite, and Arthur remained by her side.

  Ladies attired in black taffeta dresses dabbed their eyes as Reverend Wishart said a few parting words.

  Percy waited until after the funeral service to approach Wishart. He wanted to tell him about the postmortem and the mysterious telegram. As attendees shuffled past the coffin to say their farewells, Percy Peck caught the reverend’s attention and motioned toward his father’s study—a cue Wishart immediately recognized to mean a behind-closed-doors meeting.

  As soon as Wishart entered the room, Percy slipped the “K. Adams” telegram into his hand. Wishart studied the scrap of paper as he listened to Percy explain that, according to Dr. Schurtz, the coloring of his father’s stomach indicated the presence of arsenic. Wishart didn’t recognize the name “K. Adams,” either, but whoever this man was, he apparently knew something about John Peck’s suspicious death. Wishart vowed to find out as much as he could.

  The reverend was not one to let a wrong go uncorrected.

  Longtime shepherd of the Fountain Street Baptist Church flock, Wishart began his career behind the pulpit in Trenton, New Jersey. Energetic and opinionated, Wishart purchased a local newspaper, the Trenton Daily Times, which he used as a platform to comment on public affairs. The preacher later moved to Grand Rapids, where he continued his personal crusades. He made headlines in 1911 when he attempted to intercede during a strike among furniture workers over wages and length of working shifts.

  Wishart felt his heart pounding and his temperature rise. He had once r
ead about a famous sleuth—he didn’t remember the name now—who said that during murder investigations, he always first looked to the one with the most to gain from the crime. In this case, that would be the handsome groom whose union to Clara Louise Peck essentially united him with the Peck fortune. It was simple; if she inherited, he profited.

  Wishart loosened his collar as he stared out the window at the majestic hardwood trees lining the street. He thought about the New York City he once knew and how it had grown as majestic skyscrapers rose from the streets of Manhattan like iron and concrete trees sprouting through the bedrock underlying the metropolis. He had planned to return one day but never imagined it would be to conduct a murder investigation. So be it. If his longtime friend John Edward Peck had fallen victim to foul play, Wishart would do everything he could to identify the culprit and bring him to justice.

  The next morning—Wednesday, March 15—Reverend Wishart and Dr. Perry Schurtz traveled to New York, where they hoped to discover the identity of “K. Adams” and interview key characters in the mystery. As soon as they stepped off the train in Grand Central Station on Thursday, they began tracking down anyone who came in contact with John Peck during his stay in New York.

  The armchair detectives interviewed both undertakers, Eugene O. Kane and John S. Potter, and both insisted they followed the law and didn’t use arsenic in embalming.24 Potter, a manager at the Plowright Undertaking Establishment, remarked about how quickly Waite wanted the body embalmed and taken to the train station. There was a haste to it that struck him as odd. It was also strange, Potter recalled, when five hours after the embalming, John Peck’s body was still limp. Usually, he explained, rigor mortis would have set in by that time unless the presence of some strong chemical had counteracted the undertaker’s magic.