Volume 17 , Issue 23

One Hundred Years Ago, 14 July 1915, Wednesday

One hundred years ago today, Wednesday, 14 July (1915), The Oklahoma City Times had this front page headlines: "Eads Framed A Scandal Story." A detective is one who fixed up tale for Rose Kirkpatrick is what a girl said. It was a planned ruin of Nichols. Bieber returned from Enid ready to appear in his numerous hearings.

William Eads was the mysterious man, it was alleged, who tried to induce Rose Kirkpatrick to testify that Chief of Police William B. Nichols had acted improperly with her, and he did not go to California, as the girl stated in her deposition Tuesday in Justice Beall's court. Instead he was under arrest charged with conspiracy to procure witnesses to give untrue testimony regarding the moral conduct of the chief of police.

Two others were under arrest on the same charge and more evidence against them was being found. It was stated. Rose Kirkpatrick became ill Tuesday in the crowded court room of Justice Beall after her deposition was taken. She was removed to her home and Eads was taken there so that she might see him. He was identified by her as the man who had asked her to testify untruthfully about chief Nichols.

About that time Fred Ward and Mabel Carlisle appeared at the county attorney's office and voluntarily made the statement that G. W. Ratliff had offered Mrs. Carlisle $50 to swear to a scandalous statement against the chief of police. Mrs. Carlisle would not consent to give evidence when first seen by Ratliff, she stated, and Ward was asked to assist in inducing her to do so, according to the sworn statement made by Ward and now in the hands of the county attorney.

Girl's Mother Warns Her

Ads and Ratliff are private detectives, Eads in the employ of the Dyer-Casey agency and Ratliff in the Security building. C. W. Gould is charged in the information with having had a part in the effort to procure Mabel Carlisle, "Babe" Hobbs and Rose Kirkpatrick to testify against Chief Nichols.

Although sick and weak from he nervous strain to which she had been subjected, Rose Kirkpatrick has told the county attorney and police department officials the whole story of how she was induced to make the statements she made regarding the visits of the chief of police to the rooming house where she is employed at 219 1-2 North Broadway. If there was any financial inducement the girl has not made that part of it known.

After the Kirkpatrick girl had consented to testify, her name was given to Biewer's attorneys and they had a subpoena issued for her, so that she might give her deposition. Before it was taken, however, the girl had told her mother about it and her mother warned her to tell nothing but the truth.

The girl then went back to the office of Giddings & Lillard and told them she had lied when she made the statements about Chief Nichols the day before. She was put on the stand and both statements were taken as evidence.

It was suspected even then that Eads was the man known as the mysterious person who met the girl at the Lyric and talked to her about giving evidence. When Eads was taken to where the sick girl lay she looked at him and said, "That's the man."

If there was a mysterious woman in the case, as the Fitzpatrick girl testified when her deposition was taken, she had not yet been found.

The effort that was alleged to have been made to get Mabel Carlisle to testify to practically the same set of circumstances involving Chief Nichols was not revealed until Ward and Mrs. Carlisle made it known voluntarily. Bieber had returned from Enid, where he was a witness before the federal grand jury in a case involving others, and would be present hereafter in the various cases that are pending against him. The motion to dismiss the charge of living with Babe Hobbs under the name of Wallace was called in the county court this afternoon. The case against him for receiving stolen property, pending now in Justice Maudlin's court, was to be reset when both the state and defendant can appear at the preliminary.

Other depositions were to be taken in Justice Beall's court the next day and a number of witnesses had been called to testify about their knowledge of Chief of Police Nichols conduct.
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