Grant County, Wisconsin - Chapter 10: Some Notorious Criminal Trials, 1900

Chapter 10: Some Notorious Criminal Trials

Most of the crimes deemed of sufficient importance to be noted in this work will be described in the history of the towns in which they occurred, but for various reasons some will be described here.

Rose Zoldoski

Considering that the principal parties in this case were total strangers in the county, the intense interest it awakened and the par¬ tisanship it excited were phenomenal.

All the parties to the affair lived in Richland Center. Rose Zol¬ doski, the accused, was a milliner, who had boarded itl the family of Dr. G. R. Mitchell, and on the death of the Doctor's wife in March, 1890, had remained in the family as a sort of housekeeper. On the 8th of January, 1891, she gave a party at the Doctor's. Among the invited were Ella Maly and her sister Lilly. Aftereating some refresh¬ ments, Rose was taken sick, or claimed to be, and retired to her room. Before leaving, Ella Maly went up to the room to see Rose. It was claimed that at this time Rose gave Ella a piece of candy supposed to be poisoned, but on the trial Lilly Maly testified that Rose gave the candy at the party to both Ella and her, and that Ella put the candy in her pocket and ate some on the way home, saying that it was bit¬ ter. Lilly supposed she referred to the taste of the burnt chocolate. Before reaching home (according to the distance it must have been five minutes after eating the candy), Ella was taken with a convulsion, and after frequent convulsions died the next morning. Dr. Ludwig testified on the trial that at the post mortem he concluded that death was caused bv uraemic convulsion (caused by the urine poisoning the blood), but afterward it was thought that death was caused by strychnine which Ella had eaten in the candy given her by Rose. Sus¬ picion against Rose was increased by her talk. Before Ella's death Rose had talked of so many people dying in convulsions, and after the death she talked in a suspicious manner. An examination of the candy remaining in the dead girl's pocket showed no poison. Suspi¬ cion was strengthened by the fact that Dr. Mitchell's wife had died of convulsions. There was evidence that Rose was infatuated with the Doctor and jealous of his attentions to Ella Maly, who was a beauti¬ ful and attractive young lady. Thus Rose might have been interested in getting rid of both Mrs. Mitchell and Ella. Rose had access to strychnine in the Doctor's office. Examination of the contents of Ella's stomach revealed considerable strychnine. The body of Mrs. Mitchell was taken up and an examination made and a little strych¬ nine found.

Owing to the prejudice against the accused in Richland County, a change of venue to Grant County was taken. The trial took place in June, 1891. The judge had managed to have all accounts of the af¬ fair suppressed in the newspapers of this county, and an unprejudiced jury was obtained. The accused was a very pretty and interesting girl and soon had a large number of friends and strong partisans among the people who attended the trial ; and when the accused was finally convicted of murder in the first degree there were some threat¬ ening demonstrations against the jurymen in the streets of Lancaster.

The interest was not confined to Grant and Richland Counties. An editor'at Wausau, Mark Barnum, espoused Rose's cause with such zeal that he was prosecuted for criminal libel by the friends of Ella Maly, and convicted.

Rose Zoldoski was sentenced to life imprisonment, efforts for a new trial having been unavailing. She was pardoned by Governor Upham in 1896.

Nick Ames

In strong contrast to the deep, sad tragedy of the Zoldoski case, was the criminal career of Nick Ames, which all through strongly re¬ sembled a comic opera.

During the summer and fall of 1881 numerous burglaries and dep¬ redations had been committed in and about Lancaster, and evidences finally pointed to Nick Ames, a boy of fifteen or sixteen, who had come from Dutch Hollow, in the town of Potosi. Armed with a warrant, the City Marshal sought an interview with Nick, who was peacefully husking corn in a field near town. When the warrant was served Nick said he would go with the Marshal just as soon as he could take the team he was using to the bam, and he quietly got into the wagon. But no sooner had he done so than he snatched up the whip and ap¬ plied it to the horses and quickly left the astonished Marshal in the rear. Reaching the opposite side of the field, he jumped the fence, reached a neighboring grove and disappeared. The gigantic stature of the outwitted Marshal, and the diminutive size of the cunning young rascal served to heighten the opera b oufle effect. This was about the last of November, 1881.

It was supposed that he had been scared out of the neighborhood, but soon the depradations were renewed, and it was noticeable that groceries and provisions were the chief object of the burglar's quest. However, he broke intoa milliner shopand got afewdollars in money, and finally made his way into the office of the County Treasurer, but found only a gold dollar loose.

Soon after this one of the county officials noticed a trail of candle grease drops leading up the stairs into the attic of the court house. His suspicions were aroused and summoning the Sheriff, the two, well armed, went up into the garret with a light, and there in a far corner under the eaves, they found the lately lost and much vearned-for Nick under some quilts. The corners of the attic were full of vegetable and meat cans, full and empty, hams, sausage, crackers, etc. There was something irresistibly comic in having a bold burglar thus make his lair directh' over judge and court and right under the Sheriff's nose, figuratively speaking, and the county took it as a huge joke. But there were 3ret other scenes in the comic opera. The capture was about the middle of December.

About daylight Christmas morning, Nick, who had contrived to get locked into the corridor instead of a cell, slipped out at the outside door as the Deputy Sheriff entered and left it unlocked.

Soon after his escape the burglaries began again. Nick's favorite method of entry was to take a bit and bore a series of holes about the lock and thus rendered it easy to cut it out. Thus he operated on the doors of dwellings, stores, shops, and freight cars. After he had gone through the doors they were useful as kindling wood. But his beloved bit was the means of his undoing. Amateur detectives, who had been numerous before Nick's first capture, now fairty swarmed. Someone discovered a bit and brace hid in the lumber yard, and thinking that it was Nick's and that he would not long be parted from his faithful weapon, quite as important to him as the trusty Toledo blade tQ the ancient knightly (not nightly) marauder, the Deputy Sheriff with a posse watched the hiding-place. It was a cold winter night, and the watchers could hardly keep their chattering teeth from Warning the game away. But at last Nick came gliding up and the Deputy Sheriff pounced upon him.

The boy again escaped, as narrated on page 79, was again cap¬ tured and was sentenced to a term in prison, but when he got out he returned to his old career. He was repeatedly captured and escaped by cajoling the officers. In March, 1891, the Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff captured him in a little cave, which he had fitted up for a resi¬ dence, near Dutch Hollow. He had several books there, among them a physical geography and a Wisconsin Blue Book. He was brought to Lancaster in a buggy, but on reaching the jail he glided out of the buggy like an eel and was soon out of sight. He was recaptured in about six weeks and got another term in the penitentiary. And thus the curtain went down on the manv-act comic opera, for Nick declined /mother engagement in the same role.

The Sisley Case

On the 11th of June, 1882, John Louis Sisley, living in the town of Lima, in a portion known as the " Bad Lands," on account of sev¬ eral crimes committed there, was married. During the night of the 13th some of the young men of the neighborhood inflicted a charivari on the young couple, which greatly disturbed the bride Early the next morning she was found lying dead about eighty yards from the house, with a 22-caliber revolver in her hand, with four of its cham¬ bers discharged, and there were four bullet-wounds in the woman's breast.

The husband stated that he had loaded the revolver with the in¬ tention of "helping the boys with the charivari," and then lelt it in his pocket; that he did not know when his wife got up and went out, and did not discover her absence till he got up in the morning.

The coroner's jury seemed to think it a case of suicide, and this theory was held by the defense when the husband and others were ar¬ rested for murder. The prosecution denied that the woman could have fired four shots into herself. The preliminary examination before Justice Keene, of Lancaster, was of prodigious length and cost the county more than $3,000. Louis Sisley and his mother, Mrs. Stout, and Hamilton were bound over pending action bv the circuit court.

At the next term of court the prosecution was not ready for trial and the accused were released on their own recognizance. Action against them was afterward nolle prosequied. The question whether the kill¬ ing was suicide or murder was hotly argued in the newspapers and awakened great interest in all parts of the county.